December 6th. Finland's Independence Day. But this year, the date of celebration was drenched in irony. There were no flowers, no parades; there was only the tide of Soviet troops surging toward the base of Suvanto Heights and the rhythmic shriek of shells overhead.
Pekka's body had been hastily buried beneath an old pine tree. He didn't even have a proper headstone, only a snapped ski thrust into the earth to mark the spot. Walter didn't even have time for a final glance at the small mound of dirt before Simo hauled him into a new fighting position.
"Stop dazing! They're coming up!"
"These lunatics... do they never sleep?" Juha muttered, leaning his machine gun against the trench lip. His voice was thick with exhaustion and dread; his eyes were a roadmap of broken red veins.
Walter looked around. Suvanto Heights, deemed the final fortress, currently resembled a derelict ship on the verge of foundering in a hurricane. Roughly a thousand Finnish soldiers were gathered here, most of them the battered remnants of the retreat from the Taipale River line.
The chain of command was shattered. Companies that were once orderly now looked as if they had been put through a meat grinder. Some squads consisted of only two or three soot-covered survivors huddling together for warmth. Platoon leaders wandered about searching for their men, only to stare blankly at rosters where nearly every name was a casualty. One soldier, clad in a scorched white camouflage suit, sat staring vacantly at the snow. He was the sole survivor of his entire squad.
Despair spread across the crowded, chaotic heights like a plague.
"We... we're definitely going to die here..."
Eero cringed in the corner of the trench. The blood-soaked bandage on his head hadn't been changed, and the throbbing pain from his missing ear kept his entire body trembling. His eyes were unfocused as he muttered neurotically, "Yesterday it was Pekka, today it's us... look around, so many dead... we can't hold, we just can't hold..."
"Shut it!"
Simo Häyhä spun around and kicked Eero hard in the shin. "If you dare spread that defeatist rot one more time, I'll throw you out there to feed the Russians myself!"
Eero flinched from the kick and curled up tighter, but his despairing whimpers continued to buzz through the trench like a persistent fly.
Walter leaned against the trench wall, silently pressing the last round into his magazine. He glanced at Simo and noticed that while the old squad leader's tongue was sharp as ever, the fingers gripping his rifle were white from the strain. Walter knew that while Eero was a coward, he wasn't wrong.
This was a hopeless stand. On one side was a Soviet army with inexhaustible manpower and tanks; on the other was a rabble of exhausted, freezing, starving stragglers without even a unified command.
In this moment of mounting panic, a familiar figure appeared atop a massive boulder in the center of the heights.
It was the company commander, Captain Aarne Juutilainen.
He no longer possessed the polished air of a career officer. His dark grey greatcoat was shredded by shrapnel, revealing a black wool sweater beneath, and a blood-stained bandage was wrapped around his left arm. His face was masked in grease and soot; he looked like a beggar who had just crawled out of a coal pile.
Yet, he still gripped his Finnish military saber, and his spine remained as straight as an arrow.
"All of you, heads up!"
Juutilainen's voice was hoarse, yet it possessed a power that cut through the wind and snow. "Look at yourselves! What do you see? A pack of rabbits with nowhere left to hide from the wolves?!"
No one spoke. Only the winter wind howled.
"I know what you're thinking," Juutilainen said, his gaze sweeping across eyes filled with terror and exhaustion. "You're thinking: Why defend this godforsaken hill? Why die here? Why couldn't we just keep running a little further?"
"I'll tell you why."
He jabbed a finger behind him, toward the direction of Vyborg, toward the heart of Finland.
"It's not because this pile of rock is worth a damn. On a map, Suvanto Heights is the size of a thumbnail. Losing it wouldn't matter." Juutilainen's voice carried a streak of cold honesty. "But if we run now, the Russian tanks will catch our retreating columns in half a day. They'll roll right into our villages!"
"We need time!"
Juutilainen raised his saber, the blade reflecting a cold, glinting light.
"The Mannerheim Line to our rear is still being fortified. Our families are still evacuating. Every minute we hold, every drop of blood spilled on this hill, buys them a chance to escape!"
"I know we're outnumbered. I know our gear is trash. But if the Russians want to cross these heights, they'll have to step over our corpses! Even if we only hold for one more hour, that's one more truckload of people saved!"
The Captain suddenly laughed, a jagged, manic sound. "If the Russians want this hill, they'll have to pay in lives! We're going to show them that Finns aren't made of glass!"
A stir went through the crowd. Though the clouds of despair remained, Juutilainen's words acted like a spark, igniting the final embers of defiance in these broken men.
"Hell of a speech," Walter muttered, a puff of white vapor escaping his lips. He had to admit, there was no choice left but to fight. He knew the Captain was telling the truth. War wasn't a game; there was no save file to reload. Trading a thousand lives for the safety of civilians in the rear was a cruel but necessary piece of arithmetic. And they were the weights being placed on the scales.
"Goddammit..." Juha cursed softly beside him, his voice carrying the grim resolve of a man who had accepted his fate. He pulled a crumpled photograph from his pocket—his wife and daughter.
"Walter, you're right." Juha carefully tucked the photo into an inner pocket and patted his rifle. "I don't want to die. But I want those Russian bastards messing with my girls even less."
"So?" Walter looked at him.
"So, we kill," Juha grinned, revealing two rows of tobacco-stained teeth. It was a smile more painful to look at than a sob. "Kill one to break even, kill two to make a profit. My axe hasn't had its fill of blood yet anyway."
The brothers, Matti and Toivo, remained silent as usual. They were busy threading a fresh canvas belt into the Maxim. For them, reasons weren't necessary; as long as the squad leader was there and the gun still roared, they would keep firing.
"Walter." Simo was using a rag to tie his bayonet more securely to his rifle when he suddenly spoke.
Walter, mid-reload, turned his head. "Yeah, Squad Leader?"
Simo paused, his usually stoic eyes fixed on the distant, snowy woods. "...Could you do me a favor?"
"What is it?"
"I've got an old hound back home," Simo said softly. "If I don't make it back, he'll probably just sit by the door and starve. If you get the chance, go check on him. Give him something to eat."
Walter blinked. He hadn't expected the "God of Death" to be worrying about a dog.
"Alright," Walter nodded.
Simo cycled his bolt with a crisp metallic snap, his gaze instantly returning to that of the chilling veteran.
Boom!
A heavy shell detonated at the edge of the heights. The resulting pillar of soil and black smoke signaled the start of a new assault. Walter took a deep breath and rested his rifle, sans scope, on the frozen trench lip.
"Come on then," he whispered, his finger slowly finding the trigger.
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