The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna [46]
An order came through that camp had to be struck by six o’clock.
No one made the slightest move to carry out the order. In the dark outside, some night assault was evidently under way. The contribution of the men in the tent to the war game outside was to yell assault cries at the tops of their voices. The war was still going on: vehicles started to rumble and roar; tired shouts came from somewhere.
Around nine o’clock, Vatanen emerged from the tent. It was still more or less dark, but the war games had now livened up somewhat—enough, at any rate, to put a stop to the tent life. Nevertheless, the tent had still not been struck.
That was perhaps as well, for the Vittumainen Ghyll guesthouse was up in flames. It had evidently caught fire quite a bit earlier, and the flames were now out of control. The sleepers had woken up, and the windows were being blown out by the flames. Military men in underclothes, and their wives, were crowding out of the log building; shouting was getting vociferous. Flares were shooting up in the air; the conscripts’ war had taken second place.
Vatanen parked his knapsack, with the hare inside, on the branch of a tree and dashed over to the building. The forecourt was crowded with people wrapped in blankets, bemoaning the crisis in a babble of different languages. The fire had probably started in the kitchen, for the center of the kitchen roof had caved in, but it had now spread to the whole building. The major general had taken charge: he was standing in stockinged feet in the middle of the chaos, bellowing out orders. He kept picking up one foot after the other: the snow was melting under his socks. He was wearing army trousers, but he had no tunic. In spite of that, everyone knew he was a general.
People were still jumping out of the narrow end of the house, including women, panicking and screaming. Vatanen recognized many of them, one especially: someone was leading the Swedish lady out of the smoke into the forecourt. She was naked in the frozen snow, weeping bitterly. The blazing flames threw her figure into silhouette, and she looked extremely beautiful picking her way through the snow, supported by two soldiers; then a blanket was thrown around her. The whole building was now a mass of flames; soldiers were shoveling snow in through the windows, but someone swore it was going to melt the helmets on their heads.
The helicopter was standing at the verge of the forecourt and looked in danger of bursting into flames. The general bellowed for it to be taken away. Where was the pilot? A naked man ran to the helicopter, burned his hand as he touched the metal side, but managed to squeeze in, lower a window, and shout: “Too cold! Can’t take off yet!” His naked body was visible in the window, and sparks from the shell of burning logs were flying against the chopper’s hot metal sides like pinecones in a storm.
The window shut as the general yelled: “Take off! Come on! Get a move on!”
The private secretary ran into the forecourt, also half dressed. He asked the soldiers for jackets and shoes. Soon his arms were piled with clothes and boots, which he spread on the melting snow and distributed to the naked women covered in nothing but blankets. One woman received a pair of boots, another socks; tunics and great-coats were thrown over the women’s shoulders, till they were as fat as queen bees; white camouflage hoods came down to their white shoulders.
The battalion’s Sixth Company came up, on the double. Exhausted, they stopped at the edge of the melting snow. An officer hollered, but it was a very ragged semicircle the men formed around the burning building. Their stained white snowsuits flickered red in the blaze of the fire. The men’s faces, black and frostbitten, looked improbable, hardly human;