The air raid sirens woke Kristianna Kantokari before her mother pounded on the door. The wailing sound wasn’t quite unheard-of. There had been air raids on Helsinki in the Winter War and in the early days of the Continuation War, but the Russians had only used a few aircraft and the damage they had done was little indeed. So, there was no great sense of urgency as the family gathered itself and started to make their way down to the bomb shelter they had prepared in their basement. As they trooped downstairs, solemnly carrying water and food for the stay, their house began to shake. A curious rhythmic buzzing roar drowned out the sirens. Ignoring her mother’s warnings, Kristianna ran to a window and peered out.
There was a great silver beast in the sky. It seemed to be skimming over the rooftops and filled the whole window with its glow. Kristianna recognized it immediately from the German newsreels that were shown in the cinema when she went there with her boyfriend. It was a B-29, a ‘Grosse Viermotoren’ as the Germans called it. Only they were supposed to operate high up. This one was so low it seemed like it would crash into the street at any moment. There was a red ripple under its nose that sent red flashes streaking into the darkness. There were others as well; dozens of them. The great B-29 was trapped in searchlights; perhaps six or more coning in on it. The light made its silver fuselage and wings glow. Then, one of the searchlights abruptly went out. She realized the orange flashes were the gunners on the bomber trying to shoot out the lights. Then, another aircraft swept out of the darkness, a dark gray one with twin tails. Its nose and fuselage lighting up with gun-flashes and fire swept from under its wings. She heard the thunder of rockets as they devastated the searchlight battery.
Kristianna would have looked longer but her father dragged her away, swearing at her for her foolhardiness. His words were partially drowned out by four great crashes that made their whole house shudder. Suddenly, getting to the bomb shelter was very urgent. They barely settled in to their shelter. At first they were cowed by the explosions that seemed to never end. Then they were terrified by the smell of burning, faint at first but growing steadily stronger. Then their stay was ended by a hammering on the front door of their house.
“Air Raid Police. Open up and evacuate. The city is burning.”
“Where, where is the fire?” Kristianna’s father had opened the door and was asked questions of the harassed-looking men
“Shut up. Get your family out of here and don’t argue.” The answer was curt and reinforced by a hand dropping to a pistol holster.
Antti Kantokari gathered his wife and three children and led them into the street. Out here the burning smell was so strong it was choking and the night was bright enough to read by. Kantokari glanced to the east, where the bomber had come from. There he could see the glow of the fires already spreading across the roof-line.
“Go west Antti; go west.” It was a local policeman, one who was trying to be more helpful and comforting to the people who he worked with every day. “The Americans dropped incendiaries and the Skatudden is burning. The fires are spreading this way. If you don’t get away from them soon, you never will. Stay in the wide roads, in the middle. The snow and slush will stop the fires from getting to you. Now go, quickly. And be careful. The American aircraft are still overhead.”
All around them, people were scurrying from their homes, some empty-handed; some carrying pots and pans or their household treasures. Some had bags of food. One was even carrying a flowering plant in an ornamental pot. All around them, bright little flakes were beginning to drop, strange fireflies in the cold of the night. Kristianna reached out for one. She yelped as it burned her hand.
“Embers from the fire.” Her father sounded genuinely frightened. “The fires are spreading fast. The police are right; we must run for our lives.”
“But our things.” His wife wailed, thinking of the home she had carefully built over the years.
“Are already gone. We have only our lives. If we stay we will lose those as well.”
Already, the crowd was beginning to run for the west. Now, the reason why those who abandoned everything would live while those who paused to try and recover their treasured possessions or encumbered themselves with their goods would die became obvious. As the crowd moved, a strange filtering mechanism started to work. Those who could move fastest and had least to carry moved to the front. Those who hesitated or had their arms full fell to the rear. And the fires were closing in all the time.
Overhead, a late-arriving B-29 swept past, heading for its target. Normally such a straggler would be easy prey for the antiaircraft guns but the Black Widows were watching and waiting. Streams of tracer arched up from the ground. Before they could contact the bomber, two Black Widows dived in on the source. They hosed it with gunfire, then released four objects that wobbled as they fell on the gun battery. Kristianna saw great orange balls rising into the sky and the anti-aircraft fire ceased as suddenly as it had started.
“Jellygas.” Kristianna’s father muttered, “They are dropping jellygas on the city.” His stomach squirmed with fear at the ugly orange balls and what he knew they represented. And all the time the embers descending on them were getting thicker and hotter.
There was another thunder from behind them. At first Kristianna thought it was another bomber releasing its load, but it was a house collapsing. Helsinki was made of stone and stone doesn’t burn but the wood and the paint and the fabric inside stone buildings do. The bombs had blown windows in. That let the fire inside to gut the houses. Deprived of support, the stone shells were collapsing. She risked a glance behind and realized that the house that had just collapsed was in the street she had lived in. Her own home would follow, as surely as if it were already ablaze. If that was not already the case.
Nobody said anything. She and her family broke into a run, pushing anybody who got in their way to one side. They had to head west, as fast as they could. Ahead of them was the Mannerheiminte, a wide street that would act as a firebreak. Helsinki was lucky. The snow of the great storm turned the streets into rivers. They would stop the fires wouldn’t they? Only when the family saw the Mannerheiminte, it was already crowded with people, running south.
“Go back, go back! The Ilmala is burning. The fires are coming.”
Above the yelling of the crowds, Kristianna could see the glow of fires to the north as well as the east. There was no choice and Antti Kantokari knew it. He grabbed his daughter’s hand and the five of them plunged into the stream of people fleeing the fires started by the air raid. Already, the street was littered with discarded possessions as people threw away everything in the desperate urge to flee faster, to run further. Already, the old and the young started to collapse as the run for safety exhausted them. Over the sound of the fires, the cries of the crowd, yelling, weeping and sobbing, hammered at the ears. Over on the left, the great San Nicolas cathedral was already a mass of flames. That told Kantokari the truth. The Mannerheiminte lead east. It was taking the crowds on it back into the mouths of the fires. In running down it, people were simply heading back to their deaths. He grabbed his wife and daughter’s arms and angled his family across the road. They took the first westward-leading street he could find.
“They told us to stay on the wide streets.” His wife was sobbing with exhaustion.
“Not the ones that lead east. The fires are north and east. We must go south and west.” He looked around, this street was quieter. Perhaps all the people had already run to the west. “Come, we must go.”
Head of them was a small park with people already crowded into it for shelter. Kantokari lead his family into it in the hope it would give at least a temporary respite. The snowy slush made sitting down impossible but at least they weren’t running. Overhead, the Black Widows were prowling; goading the anti-aircraft funs into opening fire. One passed directly over the little park. For a moment Kantokari thought it was going to drop its jellygas onto the crowded spot of green but it ignored them and vanished again into the darkness.
“Father, look.” Kristianna’s voice was quiet. She pointed at the buildings to the west. They were highlighted by an evil glow of red. There were fires to the west as well. They were spreading towards the park that had seemed such a refuge.
Kantokari cursed to himself but thought quickly.
“I cannot.” His wife was crying. “We must wait.”
“If we do we die. The fires are coming from the west as well. As soon as people realize it, they will try and escape and there is only one narrow street out of here. If we wait, we will not get to it in time.”
They set off. They moved as fast as they could towards the one street that promised a hope of safety. By the time they got there, the danger had become obvious. People were converging on it, driven by the reflections of fire in the windows and the steadily-increasing rain of embers. There was a crowd of people, fighting to get on to the one road out. Antti Kantokari waded into them, kicking and punching. He threw others out of his way, dragging his
