The Way to a Man's Heart

Anton was hungry, but everyone was hungry. They were winning the war ever since the big fight at Poltava, but that did not make the roads any less mud and the rations few and far between. Sometimes Anton wondered how he ever became so desperate that he joined the army. The secret was that army life was mostly marching and waiting for aristocrats to make up their minds about what to do.

Anton had only fired his musket in practice a handful of days and had carried the same powder charges and lead shot for many months, and Anton had burned through a lot of long fuses keeping this matchlock ready to fire. But drill orders were always strict and routine even if no one had any money for shots. Anton adjusted his pack as the troop trudged on down the muddy road.

The men Anton traveled with were not his friends, he simply happened to meet them on the road when he was traveling to the front looking for his company. Anton had now given up on finding his friends in his own company now, and hopefully these strangers he marched with would be his friends. Twelve men marched at one-and-a-half time, a pace that seems easy to an outside observer but when carrying over 40lb of gear apiece in an all-day march with limited rations the experience was pure pain. These men were only slightly lost as they were supposed to receive communication from their commander but had not, and now could only hope they would be at the rendezvous point near a small port town deep in enemy territory. Their job was to simply get there and make sure no enemies were there.

They had one man that spoke Swedish as a translator, but they soon found that none of the people in this forest spoke Swedish despite all being subjects of that country, which the men in Anton’s troop loved to hate. The trees were tall, the farms were few, and the roads were just as terrible as they were back home in the Urals where Anton was from. They had no way of being absolutely sure they were on the right path, and like a ship at sea they relied more in the northwesterly direction rather than road markers.

There honestly was not much to be proud of this far north, and Anton hoped they’d find someplace nice to spend the winter which was bitter cold this far north. So cold, they said, that during the near-perpetual night you could throw boiling water in the air and watch it fall as snow. Those tales came from good times, but these times were very bad and it seemed like summer would never come again to this forsaken world. Anton looked over his shoulder at the rear of the troop to check if they had lost anyone. It was getting later in the day and they were all very tired and their heads drooped down, but they were only a few miles from their final destination.

The sergeant turned them up a side path and Anton saw they were heading towards a scattered collection of houses presumably to stay the night. They stopped at one outlaying house and the sergeant and translator pounded on the door. Anton and the other men were not idle as they let their eyes meander about the town as this was enemy territory and there may be storehouses to plunder.

A young man opened the door, saw who they were, then slammed it closed. The translator started yelling in Swedish to open the door or they would break it down, and a confused young woman opened the door only to find she did not speak Russian or Swedish. Anton noted the sergeant and translator seemed hungrier than before when they tried to communicate they needed lodgings to what seemed a fine young lady, and Anton realized he did not actually trust these men.

That distraction was almost their undoing as the man they saw open the door emerged from behind the house brandishing a hatchet and musket. He shouted something in the local dialect and appeared to be running to get help from the village. Each of the men moved on him, but Anton simply took one long aim. Fuse touched powder and smoke and noise filled his vision, and he ran through the smoke without looking to see if he hit anything.

Two minutes later, they had caught up to the man it became an open question he had been fixing to do. The residents down the street were tending to a fatal gunshot wound and seemed to care nothing for the soldier’s presence.

They went back to the house and this time simply walked in only to find the place empty. They started to set up their camp of what turned out to be a two-room house and took the liberty of using their fireplace to make dinner.

An hour later the lady of the house came back very distraught and didn’t seem to want to be anywhere near them even when they offered to share their rations. They could not get any information out of her besides her name, Aino, and she simply hid behind the covers of her bed.

The next day, they found an old man in town that spoke Swedish and it was only then they found out this was their rendezvous point. He also told them the village only had 9 residents left as they all went to war or abandoned their homes looking for work. He also said the man they had killed was Aino’s husband.

They began searching the homes for supplies despite what the old man said and found even the few that still had residents were quite devoid of anything worth stealing. The troop was now left with no idea where their company was nor any definite orders for the future, but the sergeant said they would stay and forage for supplies and keep the place secure and hope they were simply ahead of their company. The day finished off with the men setting traps to catch small game outside of town, and that evening they went over their rations to see how they would last. They had plenty of hardtack but were completely out of any kind of fresh vegetable, but they simply pressed Aino into supplying that who was now forced to take her meals with the lot of them.

A brief argument started over whether they should all stay in this small house or all take what lodgings suited them in the abandoned buildings in town. The sergeant seemed no inclination to leave and simply said it was more secure if they stayed together and would hear nothing of it. Other men pressed, but ultimately the matter was settled because no one wanted to fetch firewood for a dozen houses instead of just one.

The next day they were scouting the surrounding terrain only to find what they expected: Endless forest and a few abandoned farmhouses. Even the birds seemed to have moved on from this dying land, and Anton found nothing in the traps they had set. They all set about talking about sending a messenger to get orders about what to do, but no one even knew what direction he should go in. The sergeant and translator went off again to find the Swedish-speaking old man, while Anton went back to the house. He managed to introduce himself as Anton and tried to get her to say which way it was to the port city that was their brigade’s main objective. All Anton succeeded in was teaching Aino a handful of Russian words and making himself look like a fool with his gestures which she found amusing.

The next day they were lacking for anything to do so they started the day with drill. Twelve men in a perfect row synchronizing their movements of loading and dry firing muskets and readying a charge seemed pointless given their small numbers, but hypothetically this would be done as part of a much larger company. That day of fighting together as one huge patriot mass seemed farther away than it ever did, as now they were occupying foreign lands and Anton was still yet to be part of a troop of more than a few dozen men in his whole career. However, that day Anton found the trap had worked and he had caught a lynx which Anton killed with his dirk.

In good times, the meat of this animal was considered good for nothing, but these days any fresh meat was considered precious. Anton took it outside the house and drained the blood and skinned it. Aino came by and looked on at his work and he got her to understand he thought she could cook it up better than any of the men could. That night twelve men and one woman ate the most delicious lynx any of them ever had.

The day after it was drill again, then the whole troop spilt in two with one group including the sergeant guarding their baggage and the other going a few miles up the road to see what lay in the direction of the city. They saw nothing of consequence, except Anton reflected that they seemed to be settling into regular garrison duties with the bosses lingering at camp and leaving the manual work to those who could not avoid doing so. When they got back Anton found the sergeant pestering Aino with questions she was only beginning to understand but did not seem to want to answer. The sergeant caught Anton’s look of suspicion and did not like it.

The day after it was drill again, and they saw a small party of persons enter the village. Apparently, they were refugees fleeing the war farther south, only to find their enemies already inside their intended refuge. They searched them and found they carried nothing of consequence, so they let these refugees settle into an abandoned house. They would leave for their home the next day, having given up on winning the war.

That night the sergeant started more explicitly flirting with Aino. She clearly was not into it, but he kept at it for what seemed like forever. The eleven other men including Anton were laying apathetically around the fire, all hearing the drama but lacking the energy or will to do anything. The sergeant was getting progressively angrier, and Anton was not sure what eventually made him stand up and face him.

Anton grabbed his musket, tapped his boss’ shoulder so he would turn, and immediately rammed the butt of the thing into his face. All anger turned to pain as the sergeant fell to the floor with his bent nose leaking blood. He rose in absolute rage, but Anton was armed and immediately broke the sergeant’s collar bone too. That did not stop the sergeant, who reached out and locked arms with Anton. But Anton was taller and pushed the sergeant into the table and as the mess of two men struggled Anton managed to brace the sergeant’s upper arm against the table and leaned into the sergeant’s forearm. Anton’s full weight made the sergeant’s arm bend backward at the elbow by 45 degrees, and he screamed in pain. Anton yanked the sergeant away, opened the front door, and pushed his former boss out into the cold, slamming and baring the door behind him.

Anton turned at the men who were looking on surprised but still loafing about. Anton said “Anyone else?” He would take silence as their answer and glanced at Aino who was staring with a mix of horror and morbid fascination. Anton grabbed the sergeant’s gear, dragged the heavy weight of it to the door, and threw the whole pack on after the sergeant. They would all go to bed as if nothing happened.

In the morning they had drill outside again, but the sergeant was a no-show. No one had either the rank or respect in the unit to take charge, but it was resolved they would do what they usually do and check the traps and check the surroundings for threats. They were now also leaderless as well as having no orders and no backup, but now they were all starting to wonder if there even still was a war going on.

The next day a messenger on horseback passed through town. He was carrying communication between brigade commanders and had no idea what Anton’s troop needed to be doing, but he told their troop they actually could have walked right into any city in the country and found them devoid of enemies as the Swedes the few Swedish garrisons had been evacuated ahead of their advance. They technically told the messenger the truth when they said no one had seen their sergeant since last night, and the messenger agreed that he would find out where the rest of their company was.

With that matter resolved, the troop was now officially a garrison and over the course of the next week they would find there was really nothing within miles that was remotely a threat. The men started spreading out to lodgings across town since they felt no less safe apart than together. Winter was approaching and they were soon too busy gathering supplies to do any real scouting. Anton set about trying to learn the local dialect from Aino, but again felt he was doing nothing but making a fool of himself.

One afternoon after a brief snow Anton took to packing the snow against the side of the house that was proving more permanent lodging than anyone had intended. After that he went inside and found Aino had cleaned up the disorder the other men had left behind, moving Anton’s gear out of the way behind the bed. Anton asked what they were doing for dinner, but Aino said “Later.”

Anton would never return home to the Urals even after his discharge from military service.