The lead aircraft peeled out of the circle and dived on to the forest. At the end of the dive, the rockets under its wings flashed out with long black-gray trails that ended inside the wood. As the Il-10 pulled out of its dive, it released a shower of small 10-kilo fragmentation bombs that exploded with flat, vicious cracks inside the cluster of pine trees. The second Il-10 was already diving on the position below.
“Infantry move up to within 100 yards of the woods, then debus. Diamond, have we still got the artillery?”
“That we have Coronet. As soon as the Il-10s have finished, they’ll do a rolling barrage right through the woods.”
Brody nodded. Overhead, the Russian sturmoviks had finished their first cycle of attacks and were now diving on the Finns. This time, they used the 37mm guns in their wings at whatever they could see. As soon as the last aircraft was clear, the express train roar of inbounds resumed. “Infantry, rolling barrage. Follow it in. Keep it nice and tight.” That was another advantage of the 25 pounder; its smaller shells meant the infantry could follow the rolling barrage that much more closely. There was a belief, never said but real, that the best way of judging whether the infantry were following the barrage tightly enough was whether they took casualties from their own fire. It was one of the grim equations of war. A few dead from one’s own artillery fire meant a lot more saved by the suppressive effects of the barrage.
Brody sat back in his turret as the infantry platoon followed the barrage into the heart of the Finnish defense. It would be time for the tanks to move in soon enough. At the moment they were better placed here on overwatch.
It had all gone wrong. Lieutenant Martti Ihrasaari knew it and he suspected the top brass knew it although they wouldn’t admit to the fact. They’d be telling everybody how chopping up this Canadian division had been a great victory that showed the great fighting spirit and skills of the Finns. The problem was that Ihrasaari knew the truth, the ‘great victory’ had achieved nothing. Oh, they’d split the division up into a series of motti all right but that was as far as it had gone. The Canadians had just dug themselves in and proceeded to shoot at everybody around them with artillery and air power. It had been days since Ihrasaari had slept and his eyes felt as if they were full of sand. He was sick as well, his arms and hands had been burned by white phosphorus. The medic had dug the wicked fragments out of his flesh but the ill-effects hadn’t ended. His skin was yellowing and it hurt to urinate. The phosphorus was still there, still working.
No, the Canadians hadn’t exhausted themselves trying to break out. They’d just waited for the outside relief forces to break through to them. Ihrasaari had a disturbing mental picture, of drops of water on a glass plate. At first the drops of water would be well separated, just as the Canadians had been in their motti. But, as more water was added, the droplets spread out and joined together. Soon, they had the dry bits of glass surrounded and were squeezing them out of existence. Ihrasaari had a bad feeling that he was in the shrinking dry bits. The besieger who had become the besieged.
The very fact he was here proved that. This morning, he and what was left of his platoon had been pulled out of the line facing the Canadian motti and sent to reinforce a sector of the front that was crumbling under a Canadian armored attack. What his dozen or so riflemen could do against tanks was an interesting question. They had a Molotov cocktail each. They would have to do, if they could get close enough. Otherwise, they had their rifles, an average of 15 rounds and a single hand grenade each.
Up ahead, there was the sound of an approaching battle; the constant staccato cracks of rifle fire, the ripping noise of submachine guns and the longer, deeper rasp of machine guns. And, the trademark of the Canadian infantry; the crash of grenades as the Canadians threw them at everything that moved. By the rate the noise was approaching, the infantry up front, the ones Ihrasaari was supposed to be supporting, were falling back fast. Behind the noise of the gunfire, he could hear another noise, the roaring of engines. That would be heavy vehicles pushed their way through the open pine forest. In the movies, they’d be shown pushing the trees down but that was just the film maker’s idea of what might happen.
The Canadian appearance was unexpected. One moment the woods up ahead were empty, the next figures had appeared. The first group ran towards him, then went to ground to lay down covering fire for the next. They were white-and-gray camouflaged. Not that that meant much, nearly everybody’s uniform was either light gray, white or a mixture of both on Kola. What betrayed them as Canadians was their machine gun, the slower thumping noise of a Bren Gun. Spray erupted around a group of branches and rocks. An obvious strongpoint, one far too obvious to be used by the battle-hardened Finns. Ihrasaari’s men held their fire. With ammunition in as short supply as it was, there was little point in wasting it until there were better targets.
Those targets came quickly, more Canadians, moving through the snow. Swiftly, probably on snow shoes, but not as swiftly as Ihrasaari’s ski-troops could manage. He took aim at one of the figures and fired a shot. His target crumpled into the ground. All the others went down. The covering group switching their fire to where the shots had come from. Spurts of snow jumped up a few feet short of his position. Off to his left there was a crash and a scream. It might have been a mortar but was more likely to be an EY rifle, that odd contraption that used a blank round fired from a worn-out rifle fitted with a cup discharger to throw a grenade much further than a man could manage. The Canadians had experts with that thing that could make a grenade explode a meter above a man’s head. Even as he thought the words, Ihrasaari heard another crash and felt the sting in his back as a fragment found its home.
He reached into a pouch for another clip. His fingers told him this was his last, just five rounds left. The Canadians were moving up fast. Each group covered the others, keeping a constant stream of bullets and grenades on the Finnish position. Ihrasaari pulled the pin out of his grenade and threw it. He ducked down so that he wouldn’t see the results. The problem with grenades was that their blast could throw fragments further than a man could throw the grenade. Still here, the snow tended to tamp their exuberance a little. He looked up as the blast faded. The Canadians were still approaching. Then he remembered his Molotov cocktail. He pulled the bottle out of its pouch, turned it upside down quickly to soak the fuse, lit it and threw. He heard the whoomph as it shattered and heard a scream. Another quick look showed him the Canadians were very close now. More shots from his rifle and a final despairing click as it ran dry. They were almost on top of him. That only left one thing to do. He stood up and raised his hands in surrender.
The Canadian soldier looked at him with loathing. “Too late, chum.” They were his only words and his submachine gun crackled. Ihrasaari felt the impacts and fell back against the snow. His last sight was of the Canadian taking careful aim and his finger closing for a short, vicious burst that Ihrasaari neither heard nor saw.
“Sir. Message from Brigade. Coronet has broken through the Finnish lines. They’re on their way to us now. We’re to exercise full caution, Sir. The first troops will be infantry and they’ve had a hard fight. They’ve got M27s from the Sherbrookes backing them up.”
Lieutenant Colonel Haversham read the message flimsy. People getting killed by their own side was a serious danger. The infantry and tanks coming in would be ready to shoot at anything that moved. The troops out on the defenses could easily make a mistake and assume this was another Finnish attack. “Major Gillespie, spread the word fast, to everybody and I mean everybody. Even the cooks and bakers. Friendly forces coming in, the colors of the day are… blue to green with response green to white. Nobody to shoot unless fired upon and then only if they are absolutely sure the shooters are Finns or Huns. Better to take a few shots than start a blue-on-blue here.”
Gillespie nodded and started his rapid circuit of the perimeter, passing the urgent orders along the line. Especially to the Vickers gun crews. One mistake with those murderous water-cooled guns could turn the relief into a massacre. Then, he took up his position and watched. He could see the trees moving slightly as the vehicles passed between them. He guessed that the incoming infantry already had seized positions along the treeline. Now was the time. He took his flare gun and a flare from the recognition pouch, religiously checking that it was indeed blue turning to green. Then he fired it upwards and followed it with his eyes. A blue train of smoke that arched upwards and turned to green as it descended. A second or so later, another flare arched upwards from the treeline. A flare that started green and turned to white.
Cautiously, some white-and-gray figures detached from the treeline and started to move down towards the hedgehog. Gillespie focused his binoculars on them and checked details. The top-mounted curved magazine of the Bren gun, the sideways mounted magazine of the Capsten. They were Canadians. He stood up and raised a Bren gun over his head. The figures broke into a run and closed on the defensive hedgehog. About 30 yards out they
