They couldn’t stop her … but they could charge her with disobeying orders once she landed, and that wouldn’t help anyone. So she circled around and returned to formation. Litviak was probably getting to shoot someone today. Raisa frowned at her washed-out reflection in the canopy glass.
Dear Davidya:
I promised to write you every day, so I continue to do so.
How are you this time? I hope you’re well. Not sick, not hungry. We’ve taken to talking about eating the rats that swarm the dugouts here, but we haven’t gotten to the point of actually trying it. Mostly because I think it would be far too much work for too little reward. The horrid beasts are as skinny as the rest of us. I’m not complaining, though. We’ve gotten some crates of canned goods—fruits, meat, milk—from an American supply drop and are savoring the windfall. It’s like a taste of what we’re fighting for, and what we can look forward to when this mess is all over. It was Inna who said that. Beautiful thought, yes? She keeps the whole battalion in good spirits all by herself.
I ought to warn you, I’ve written a letter to be sent to you in case I die. It’s quite grotesque, and now you’ll be terrified that every letter you get from me will be that one. Have you done that, written me a letter that I’ll only read if you die? I haven’t gotten one, which gives me hope.
I’m very grateful Nina isn’t old enough to be on the front with us, or I’d be writing double the grotesque letters. I got a letter from her talking about what she’ll do when she’s old enough to come to the front, and she wants to fly like me and if she can’t be a pilot she’ll be a mechanic—my mechanic, even. She was very excited. I wrote her back the same day telling her the war will be over before she’s old enough. I hope I’m right.
Love and kisses, Raisa
Another week passed with no news of David. Most likely he was dead. Officially, he had deserted, and Raisa supposed she had to consider that he actually had, except that that made no sense. Where would he go? Or maybe he was simply lost and hadn’t made his way back to his regiment yet. She wanted to believe that.
Gridnev called her to the operations dugout, and she presented herself at his desk. A man, a stranger in a starched army uniform, stood with him.
The air commander was grim and stone-faced as he announced, “Stepanova, this is Captain Sofin.” Then Gridnev left the room.
Raisa knew what was coming. Sofin put a file folder on the desk and sat behind it. He didn’t invite her to sit.
She wasn’t nervous, speaking to him. But she had to tamp down on a slow, tight anger.
“Your brother is David Ivanovich Stepanov?”
“Yes.”
“Are you aware that he has been declared missing in action?”
She shouldn’t have known, officially, but it was no good hiding it. “Yes, I am.”
“Do you have any information regarding his whereabouts?”
Don’t you have a war you ought to be fighting? she thought. “I assume he was killed. So many are, after all.”
“You have received no communication from him?”
And what if he found all those letters she’d been writing him and thought them real? “None at all.”
“I must tell you that if you receive any news of him at all, it’s your duty to inform command.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We will be watching closely, Raisa Stepanova.”
She wanted to leap across the table in the operations dugout and strangle the little man with the thin moustache. Barring that, she wanted to cry, but didn’t. Her brother was dead, and they’d convicted him without evidence or trial.
What was she fighting for, again? Nina and her parents, and even Davidya. Certainly not this man.
He dismissed her without ever raising his gaze from the file folder he studied, and she left the dugout.
Gridnev stood right outside the door, lurking like a schoolboy, though a serious one who worried too much. No doubt he had heard everything. She wilted, blushing, face to the ground, like a kicked dog.
“You have a place here at the 586th, Stepanova. You always will.”
She smiled a thanks but didn’t trust her voice to say anything. Like observing that Gridnev would have little to say in the matter, in the end.
No, she had to earn her innocence. If she gathered enough kills, if she became an ace, they couldn’t touch her, any more than they could tarnish the reputation of Liliia Litviak. If she became enough of a hero, she could even redeem David.
Winter ended, but that only meant the insects came out in force, mosquitoes and biting flies that left them all miserable and snappish. Rumors abounded that the Allied forces in Britain and America were planning a massive invasion, that the Germans had a secret weapon they’d use to level Moscow and London. Living in a camp on the front, news was scarce. They got orders, not news, and could only follow those orders.
It made her tired.
“Stepanova, you all right?”
She’d parked her plane after flying a patrol, tracing a route along the front, searching for imminent attacks and troops on the move—perfectly routine, no Germans spotted. The motor had grumbled to stillness and the propeller had stopped turning long ago, but she remained in her cockpit, just sitting. The thought of pulling herself, her bulky gear, her parachute, logbook, helmet, all the rest of it, out of the cockpit and onto the wing left her feeling exhausted. She’d done this for months, and now, finally, she wasn’t sure she had anything left. She couldn’t read any numbers on the dials, no matter how much she blinked at the instrument panel.
“Stepanova!” Martya, her mechanic, called to her again, and Raisa shook herself awake.
“Yes, I’m fine, I’m coming.” She slid open the canopy, gathered her things, and hauled herself over the edge.
Martya was waiting for her on the wing in shirt and overalls, sleeves rolled up, kerchief over her head. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but her hands were rough from years of working on engines.
“You look terrible,” Martya said.
“Nothing a shot of vodka and a month in a feather bed won’t fix,” Raisa said, and the mechanic laughed.
“How’s your fuel?”
“Low. You think she’s burning more than she should?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. She’s been working hard. I’ll look her over.”
“You’re the best, Martya.” The mechanic gave her a hand off the wing, and Raisa pulled her into a hug.
Martya said, “Are you sure you’re all right?” Raisa didn’t answer.
“Raisa!” That was Inna, walking over from her own plane, dragging her parachute with one arm, her helmet tucked under her other. “You all right?”
She wished people would stop asking that.
“Tired, I think,” Martya answered for her. “You know what we need? A party or a dance or something. There are enough handsome boys around here to flirt with.” She was right: the base was filled with male pilots, mechanics, and soldiers, and they were all dashing and handsome. The odds were certainly in the women’s favor. Raisa hadn’t really thought of it before.
Inna sighed. “Hard to think of flirting when you’re getting bombed and shot at.”
Martya leaned on the wing and looked wistful. “After the war, we’ll be able to get dressed up. Wash our hair with real soap and go dancing.”
“After the war. Yes,” Inna said.
“After we win the war,” Raisa said. “We won’t be dancing much if the Fascists win.”
They went quiet, and Raisa regretted saying anything. It was the unspoken assumption when people talked about “after the war”: of course they’d win. If they lost, there wouldn’t be an “after” at all.
Not that Raisa expected to make it that far.
Davidya:
I’ve decided that I’d give up being a fighter ace if it meant we could both get through the war alive. Don’t tell anyone I said that; I’d lose my reputation for being fierce, and for being hideously jealous of Liliia Litviak. I
f there’s a God, maybe he’ll hear me, and you’ll come walking out of the wilderness, alive and well. Not dead and not a traitor. We’ll go home, and Mama and Da and Nina will be well, and we can forget that any of this ever happened. That’s my dream now.
I’ve still got that letter, the hideous one I wrote for you in case I die. I ought to burn it, since Inna doesn’t have anyone to send it to now.
Your sister, Raisa
An alarm came at dawn.
By reflex, she tumbled out of her cot, into trousers and shirt, coat and boots, grabbing gloves and helmet on the way out of the dugout. Inna was at her side, running toward the airstrip. Planes were already rumbling overhead—scouts returning from patrol.
Mechanics and armorers were at the planes—all of them. Refueling, running chains of ammunition into cannon and machine guns. This was big. Not just a sortie, but a battle.
There was Commander Gridnev addressing them right on the field. The mission: German heavy bombers had crossed the front. Fighters were being scrambled to intercept. He’d be flying this one himself, leading the first squadron. First squadron launched in ten minutes and would engage any fighters sent with the attack. Second squadron—the women’s squadron—would launch in fifteen and stop the bombers.
The air filled with Yak fighters, the drone of their engines like the buzz of bees made large.
No time to think, only to do, as they’d done hundreds of times before. Martya helped Raisa into her cockpit, slapped the canopy twice after closing it over her, then jumped off the wing to yank the chocks out from under the tires. A dozen Yaks lined up, taxiing from the flight line to wait their turn on the runway. One after another after another …
Finally, Raisa’s turn came, and she was airborne. It was a relief, being in the air again, where she could do something. Up here, when someone attacked, she could dodge. Not like being on the ground when the bombs fell. She’d rather have a stick in her hand, a trigger under her finger. It felt right.
Glancing back through the canopy, Raisa found Inna on her wing, right where she should be. Her friend gave her a broad salute, and Raisa waved back. Once the squadron was airborne, they settled into an echelon formation, following Gridnev’s squadron up ahead. They’d all flown with Gridnev’s men; they’d all had months to get used to each other. Men or women, didn’t make a difference, and most men realized that sooner or later. Which was something of a revelation if she stopped to think about it. But no one had time to stop and think about it. All she needed to know was that Aleksei Borisov liked diving to the left and would loop above if he got into trouble; Sofia Mironova was a careful pilot and tended to hang back; Valentina Gushina was fast, very good in combat; Fedor Baurin had the keenest eyesight. He’d spot their target before anyone else.
The Yaks flew on in loose formation, ready to break and engage as soon as the target was sighted. Raisa scanned the skies in all directions, peering above and over her shoulders. The commander had the coordinates; he’d estimated twenty minutes until contact. They should be in sight of them any minute now …
“There!” Baurin called over the radio. “One o’clock!”
Gridnev came on the channel. “Steady. Remain in formation.”
She saw the enemy, sunlight flashing off canopies, airplanes suspended in the air. Hard to judge scale and distance; her own group was traveling fast enough that the enemy planes seemed to be standing still. But they were approaching, rapidly and inexorably.
While the heavy bombers continued on, straight and level, a handful of smaller planes broke off from the main group—a squadron of fighters as escort.
Well, this was going to be interesting.
On the commander’s orders, they spread out and prepared to engage. Raisa opened the throttle and sped ahead, planning to overshoot the fighters entirely: Their goal was preventing those bombers from reaching their target. Her Yak dipped down, yawed to the left, roared onward.
A flight of Messerschmitts rocketed overhead. Gunfire sounded. Then they were gone.
Inna had followed her, and the bombers lay ahead of them, waiting. They had a short time to be as disruptive as they could before those Messers came back around, no matter how much the others were able to keep them occupied.
As soon as she was within range, she opened fire. The rattle from the cannon shook her fuselage. Nearby, another cannon fired; Raisa traced the smoke of the shells from behind her toward the Junkers: Inna had fired as well.
The bombers dropped back. And the fighters caught up with her and Inna. Then chaos.
She watched for stars and crosses painted on the fuselages, marking friend or foe. They chased each other in three dimensions, until it was impossible to track them all, and she began to focus on avoiding collision. The Messers were torpedo shaped, sleek and nimble. Formidable. Both sets of pilots had had two years of war to gain experience. The fight would end only when one side or the other ran out of ammunition.
They had to bring down those bombers, if nothing else.
The others had the same idea, and the commander ordered them to their primary target, until the bombers scattered, just to get out of the way of the dogfights. Now the Messers had to worry about hitting their charges by accident. That made them more careful; it might give the Yaks an edge.
The grumble of engines, of props beating the air, filled the sky around her. She’d never seen so many planes in the air at once, not even in her early days of training at the club.
She looped around to the outside and found a target. The pilot of the fighter had targeted a Yak—Katya’s, she thought—and was so focused on catching her that he was flying straight and steady. First and worst mistake. She found him in her sights and held there a second, enough to get shots off before tipping and diving out of the way before someone else targeted her.
Her shells sliced across the cockpit—right through the pilot. The canopy shattered, and there was blood. She thought she saw his face, under goggles and flight cap, just for a moment—a look of shock, then nothing. Out of control now, the Me-109 tipped nose down and fell into a spiraling descent. The sight, black smoke trailing, the plane falling, was compelling. But her own trajectory carried her past in an instant, showing blue sky ahead.
“Four!” Raisa gave a shout. Four kills. And surely with all these targets around she could get her fifth. Both of them for David.
Other planes were falling from the sky. One of the bombers had been hit and still flew, with one engine pouring billows of smoke. Another fighter sputtered, fell back, then dropped, trailing fire and debris—Aleksei, that was Aleksei. Could he win back control of his injured plane? If not, did he have time to bail out? She saw no life in the cockpit; it was all moot. Rather than mourn, she set her jaw and found another target. So many of them, she hardly knew where to look first.
Over the radio, Gridnev was ordering a retreat. They’d done damage; time to get out while they could. But surely they’d only been engaged a few minutes. The motor of her Yak seemed tired; the spinning props in front of her seemed to sputter.
A Messerschmitt came out of the sun overhead like a dragon.
A rain of bullets struck the fuselage of her Yak, sounding like hail. Pain stabbed through her thigh, but that was less worrisome than the bang and grind screeching from the engine. And black smoke suddenly pouring from the nose in a thick stream. The engine coughed; the propeller stopped turning. Suddenly her beautiful streamlined Yak was a dead rock waiting to fall.
She held the nose up by brute force, choked the throttle again and again, but the engine was dead. She pumped the pedals, but the rudder was stuck. The nose tipped forward, ruining any chance she had of gliding toward earth.
“Raisa, get out! Get out!” Inna screamed over the radio.
Abandoning her post, no, never. Better to die in a ball of fire than go missing.
The nose tipped further forward, her left wing tipped up—the start of a dive and spin. Now or never. Dammit.
Her whole right leg throbbed with pain, and
there was blood on her sleeve, blood spattered on the inside of the canopy, and she didn’t know where it had come from. Maybe from that pilot whose face she’d seen, the one looking back at her with dead eyes behind his goggles. Instinct and training won over. Reaching up, she slammed open the canopy. Wind struck her like a fist. She unbuckled her harness, worked herself out of her seat; her leg didn’t want to move. She didn’t jump so much as let the Yak fall away from her, and she was floating. No—she was falling. She pulled the rip cord, and the parachute billowed above her, a cream-colored flower spreading its petals. It caught air and jerked her to a halt. She hung in the harness like so much deadweight. Deadweight, ha.
Her plane was on fire now, a flaming comet spinning to earth, trailing a corkscrew length of black smoke. Her poor plane. She wanted to weep, and she hadn’t wept at all, this whole war, despite everything.
The battle had moved on. She’s lost sight of Inna’s plane but heard gunfire in the tangle of explosions and engine growls. Inna had covered her escape, protecting her from being shot in midair. Not that that would have been a tragedy—she’d die in combat, at least. Now she didn’t know which side of the line the barren field below her was on. Who would find her, Russians or Nazis? No prisoners of war, only traitors …
The worst part was not being able to do anything about it. Blood dripped from her leg and spattered in the wind. She’d been shot. The dizziness that struck her could have been the shock of realization or blood loss. She might not even reach the ground. Would her body ever be found?
The sky had suddenly gotten very quiet, and the fighters and bombers swarmed like crows in the distance. She squinted, trying to see them better.
Then Raisa blacked out.
Much later, opening her eyes, Raisa saw a low ceiling striped with rows of wooden roof beams. She was in a cot, part of a row of cots, in what must have been a makeshift field hospital bustling with people going back and forth, crossing rows and aisles on obviously important business. They were speaking Russian, and relief rushed through her. She’d been found. She was home.
She couldn’t move, and decided she didn’t much want to. Lying mindlessly on the cot and blankets, some distance from the pain she was sure she ought to be feeling, seemed the best way to exist, for at least the next few minutes.
Dangerous Women Page 20