wife and daughter with him. His two young sons tried to help him through. It was primeval survival. Everybody was fighting to escape from the death-trap that had so recently been a place of refuge. Antti Kantokari broke through, dragging his daughter with him. He turned to reach for his wife and sons but they were swept away and beaten down by others, equally desperate to escape the fires. He tried to get back to them. The sheer force of the torrent of people forcing through the narrow gap gave the crowd irresistible momentum. It drove him and his daughter down the street.
Kristianna realized how desperately late their escape had been. Already, the buildings down one side of the street were burning. Flames tried to reach over to the fresh fuel on the other side. She saw people who got in the way of the hungry reach of the fires just burst into flames themselves. They fell to the ground in miniature copies of the great fireballs made by the jellygas. She knew nothing, except the need to run, to get away from the fires, to escape.
The road split. One part led west back towards the dockyard. Kristianna avoided it. She looked for her father as she did so. He had gone; swept away in the crowds or caught by the fire. Saint John’s Church was already burning. The sight dissuaded many from taking that road but Kristianna ignored the fire and took the southern path. She skirted the inferno and headed away from the great fire to the north. She was exhausted. Her legs felt dead but they continued driving her south, past the fires that closed in from the Helsinkihafen on the east and the Aker Shipyard to the west. They carried her south, through the narrowing bottleneck between the three great fires that were gutting Helsinki and into the Kaivopuisto Park. Her legs only stopped when they took her all the way to the sea. There she collapsed. She lay on the beach as the waves washed over her. The long run had left her unable to move as she watched the fires converge on the city center.
Later, much later, she managed to half-drag, half-walk, half-crawl her way over to Harrakka Island, just a few hundred feet offshore. There with the rest of the refugees who had made it, she was safe. In her heart, she knew the truth. She was the only one of her family who had survived.
“Bratischka, the army calls for the assistance of our gallant comrades in the partisans!” Lieutenant Stanislav Knyaginichev looked around at the men and women who had answered his call. His words had been carried on the winds, to the units hidden in the villages and in the forests. The men and women had recovered their carefully- hidden weapons and come to aid the Army in its moment of need. Knyaz looked at them with pride. To do so took more courage than could easily be measured. The Army would fight its battle and be gone. The partisans would still be here when the fighting was over and the Hitlerites came to take their revenge. When the people had bravery such as this, the Rodina was safe. Embattled, hungry, besieged but safe. In his look at the Partisans around him, he had noted something else. They were better-armed than his men were. Every Partisan carried a German banana- rifle and were supplied with large numbers of grenades. Even those who had rocket launchers, either the German Panzerfaust or the Russian RPG-1 copy, still had a rifle and grenades as well. That was the measure of these men and women. Every banana rifle they carried meant a Germans soldier lying dead in the night.
“And how may the Partisans assist the Army, Tovarish Lieutenant?” The speaker was the leader of the largest of the partisan bands. It was rumored he had a brigade of no less than fifty men and women answering to him.
“There is a great gun on the railway; a gun that belongs to the American Navy. The fascists want to capture that gun very badly but it has escaped them. Every trap the Hitlerites have laid, the gun has escaped. American sailors, Russian engineers, my own Ski-troops; all of us are fighting together to get the gun to safety so that it can once again fire on the fascist beasts.”
“Why do they not give the gun to us? We could use some artillery!” There was a murmur of agreement that swept around the meeting.
Knyaz grinned. “Bratischka, this is a forty centimeter gun!”
The partisan leader lifted his hands up, about 20 centimeters apart at first and then spread them apart so they were about the diameter of the railway gun. There was a few muffled cheers and some gasps of admiration. This was certainly a great gun.
“It needs much preparation and special railway tracks to fire. When it does, it hurls a shell fifty kilometers and the shell makes the very ground turn to jelly under it. Truly, bratischka, this is a great gun and of much value. The Americans have fought hard and sent many aircraft to help it escape. Now it is we who must make a great effort. The Hitlerites have set an ambush just short of the river bridge. The survivors of a mechanized battalion, about a reinforced company in strength. With artillery and anti-tank guns. They have torn up the railway tracks so the train must stop. The engineers cannot repair the tracks until the fascists are killed.
“Bratischka, I will be honest with you. The men on the train have done well but they are sailors and railway engineers. Even so, they have beaten the fascists like a drum, inflicting great loss on them. But they are sailors and railway engineers, not real soldiers. This task is beyond them. My men are the only real infantry on the train and there are but twenty of us left. Can I count on you to join us, to kill the fascists and show the American sailors what the partisans can do?”
There was a moment’s silence. Then the leader of the largest of the groups stepped forward and hugged Knyaz in a bear-like embrace. “Tovarish Lieutenant, we will be there at your side. Now, how are we to go about this task?”
Knyaz got out his map. “The train is coming along the line here. It will stop behind the ridge where it is safe and as many men as can be spared will come forward to a position on that ridge, facing the fascists. We will move in on the fascist’s flanks and rear while they are watching the ridge and attack them. Then we can drive….”
“My apologies Tovarish Lieutenant. I have news we all should hear. The Americans have just bombed the lair of the Finnish Hitlerites. They have set the whole city on fire. The radio in Petrograd says they can see the glow of the fires from streets of Petrograd itself. The fascists are calling fire brigades from all over southern Finland to try and stop the fires spreading further but they struggle in vain. The fires have created a great wind storm and nothing can stop the spread of the flames.”
The meeting erupted in cheers. Knyaz felt his back being pounded by the Partisans. The Americans weren’t around to get the praise, but he was with them and that was near enough.
“Yes, Tovarish Lieutenant, we must indeed help the Americans save their gun. The whole city on fire? Good, that is very good.”
“You might at least have given me a cushion to sit on.” Igrat’s voice was indignant. Half her mind was in a screaming panic but she had locked that part away. Instead she concentrated on the task in hand. That was buying time so Henry and Achillea could catch up with her.
She was sitting in an old-fashioned wooden chair. Her wrists had been tied to the rails at the back, her ankles to the chair legs. It was a good, old-fashioned interrogation set-up that had her facing a desk with several lamps on it. The brilliant bulbs had been angled so they shone right in her eyes. She could see very little of the rest of the room; just the vague shadows of two men. One of them had a very heavy German accent. The other never spoke at all. He had opened her blouse and was pawing her, like a schoolboy, roughly and crudely. Igrat had noticed his hands had been shaking when he had unfastened the buttons. She looked at his shadow and put as much sympathy into her voice as she could. “You don’t have much experience with women do you?”
Silent-One whinnied with outrage. His fist came out of the darkness, hitting her in the face. She ran her tongue around her mouth noting the salty taste of blood.
“Where did you get the papers from? Talk to us.” It was German-Voice speaking.
“You want me to talk to you? Fine.” Igrat looked at the shadow of Silent-One. “You hit like a girl. OK? And by the look of your pants, you have to pee like one as well.”
The fist that hit her that time meant business. Igrat’s vision exploded into brilliant flashes and pinwheels. When they cleared, her sight was distorted and she could feel the eye on that side swelling shut. German-Voice was speaking again. “Tell us what we ask or by the time we finish with your face, your own mother will not recognize you.”
