Dark Full of Enemies(13)

“A pleasure, Captain,” Graves said, and shook McKay’s hand. He smiled warmly, a smile belied by wolfish eyes. He looked mischievous, but not sinister. McKay imagined him toying with explosives, and believed it.

“I’ve heard tell of you,” Graves said. “Damned proud to be on this job.”

“Thank you, Colour Sergeant.”

“And you’ve seen Sergeant Ollila’s file as well,” the Major said.

The Finn stepped up and saluted. The file photo had done the man no justice—he looked boyish even among the young men who fought this war, apple-cheeked and bright-eyed with a cheery smile. He had reddish-brown hair that was over regulation length and had begun to curl. McKay tried to imagine him prone, hidden in the primeval Finnish holt, awaiting a chance to shoot Russians in the head.

McKay returned Ollila’s salute and held out his hand. “Sergeant.”

Ollila shook his hand and nodded. McKay waited a moment but Ollila said nothing. The Major spoke up.

“This is Private Stallings. McKay has brought him along to handle the radio equipment.”

More nods and handshakes. Graves sensed kindred mischief in Stallings and pumped his hand hard. “Just come up from the infantry, eh?”

“Yep.”

“Bloody marvelous,” Graves said.

“The plane arrives in half an hour,” the Major said, “and departs ten minutes later. Captain?”

McKay looked at the assembled team. “Go through your gear one more time. If you’ve forgotten anything, we’ll get it. If you don’t need something, leave it. I’ll be checking, too.”

The men hauled out their gear and spread it across a row of tables in the middle of the hangar. In addition to the weapons, ammunition, and explosives, there were ropes and climbing gear, grenades, commando knives—McKay also carried his Marine ka-bar on his belt—cleaning kits, entrenching tools, an assortment of hardtack and jerky for emergency rations, bandages, alcohol, sulfa powder, and a syrette of morphine for each man. There was also the winter gear, heavy white coats and overall pants and thick gloves, plus sweaters, knit caps—what McKay knew as a toboggan—balaclavas, and wool scarves. They were already wearing long underwear under their utilities.

McKay checked his own gear and went through the team’s, one by one. Each man had his own special gear. Stallings was already fiddling with the radio, probing, experimenting with it before he even looked at a manual. Graves had a seabag with explosive ordnance hands off you buggers stenciled across the canvas in red. The contents of Graves’s seabag took up most of his table. McKay looked over it.

“You’ve got surplus explosives,” he said.

“Aye, sir,” Graves said. “This lot, explosive 808. We were each of us issued forty pounds of it. I took the liberty of requesting another twenty pounds for myself, sir. I have the back for it.”

McKay nodded. He looked through Graves’s grenades and picked up a cylindrical one, one of four, each with the pins and spoons taped in place.

“Thermite?”

Graves nodded. “Comes in bally handy, especially on sabotage jobs like this.” He held up a small metal can, like a snuffbox, taped around the edges. “I’m rather fond of thermite, sir. Carry a tinned bit like this for smaller jobs. Again, sir, comes in handy.”

“Good. They tell me you’ve got medical experience.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Good. Carry on.”

Ollila, now—McKay appraised him. Ollila carried the bare minimum. His only special gear was a ragged looking white bundle and a case for his rifle and telescopic sight. Somehow he even made the sixty or seventy pounds of standard gear look as though it had been carefully winnowed to the essentials. It had, of course, but there would still be things they would discard or leave unused. McKay could foresee no use for the thick gloves packed with their winter gear. Not when they had reached the dam, anyway.

“Sergeant Oll—” he faltered on the name. He had still not heard the man say it himself and did not trust the Colonel’s version.

“Ollila, Captain,” the man said. The accent fell on the first syllable, McKay noted. The Finn’s voice surprised him—light and reedy, his speech clipped and lilting.

McKay nodded to the equipment on the table. “Mind telling me about some of this gear?”

Ollila touched the rifle first. He brushed his fingertips across it like an archivist with some precious vellum codex. “My rifle, I like the Mauser. The Germans, I hate them, but they make a fine weapon.” He touched the sight. “I use for long shots, but within two hundred meters I use these.” He touched the rear iron sight. “With the telescope sight, you raise the head up. You become easy to spot.”

McKay had known one sniper, a Marine, but had never seen him work. They had spoken about sharpshooting only once on Guadalcanal, squatting by a jungle road eating a half-ration of chow. The man had impressed him—softspoken, plainspoken, refusing to talk about his job in any detail, much less exaggerate his war stories. Ollila reminded McKay of that man.

McKay pointed at the bundle of rags. “And that?”

Ollila struggled with the word, but McKay understood—“Ghillie suit. Burlap and rags. Camouflage. White for the snow.”

“Good.”

He inspected the equipment quickly. When he had finished the men repacked their gear and the Major took McKay aside.