The Huntress

by Kate Quinn

  Sebastian looked back at his bloodied leg. “Well, there goes my dream of being ushered to a Soviet hospital tent and receiving a liter of vodka.”

  “Be glad,” Nina said. “Soviet doctors would give you the vodka, then cut that leg off.” Her voice was hoarse, partly from screaming as she threw herself at the German, partly because she hadn’t spoken to a soul for weeks. She’d had no idea how hungry she was for someone to talk to until this oddly bilingual English boy dropped out of nowhere. “How’s that leg?” She peered closer, but Bill gave her a glare and a shooing motion, squatting over Sebastian’s foot himself. “Your friend doesn’t like me,” Nina observed. The man had spent a while squatting beside his dead friend, only rising after a hissed argument that they did not have time to dig a grave. Nina suspected she was being blamed for not springing out of the bushes with her razor a few heartbeats sooner. I helped save you two, she thought, returning Bill’s stare. I could have kept walking and let all three of you be shot.

  “Don’t blame him too much,” Sebastian was saying. “Our compound was split down the middle between those of us hoping to see Uncle Joe coming over the hill to liberate the camp, and those who thought Uncle Joe and all his troops were barbarians.”

  “We are barbarians.” Nina smiled in genuine amusement. “That’s why we’re beating the Fritzes.”

  Sebastian smiled back. He looked no more than sixteen or seventeen to Nina, scrawny and big-eyed with the barest scruff of stubble. So even the English were sending babies to the front by now. His Russian was slow, peppered with odd English slang she didn’t understand, but his accent was surprisingly good. “Where did you learn Russian?”

  “Before I came to the stalag in Posen, they bounced me through another camp, and there were Soviet prisoners in the compound next to ours. I was there a good long while, and there isn’t much to do in the lockup besides play cards and listen to your stomach growl, so why not pay Piotr Ivanovich from Kiev a few cigarettes if he’ll teach you his lingo? I always had a good ear for languages.”

  “What happened to Piotr Ivanovich?”

  “Hanged for stealing.” Sebastian grimaced, not from the water Bill was sluicing over his wound. “They left his body to rot. They always do that, with the Soviets.” He gulped a breath. “It’s no picnic being a Limey in German hands, believe me, but we have it better than you Russkies. Poor devils.”

  “In the Forty-Sixth, we all swore we’d put bullets in our heads before we’d be taken prisoner.” Nina peered at Sebastian’s wound. The shot had clipped straight through the calf. Not much to do with a wound like that but clean it, bandage it, and hope infection didn’t spread. The flaxen-haired Bill was already ripping an undershirt from one of the Germans into strips; he began strapping it around Sebastian’s leg, and the boy went gray. Nina reached in to help, but Bill swatted her away again, muttering something. “What?” Nina demanded.

  “He doesn’t believe you’re a pilot. Says even the Reds aren’t idiot enough to put women in bombers.”

  Nina raised her eyebrows. Stripping off her right boot, she reached into the heel and brought out her identification cards and insignia. “Tell him if he doubts me, I can take my red star and cram it down his throat till he’s shitting red enamel.”

  Sebastian didn’t translate that. Bill fingered Nina’s identification, grudging, then tossed it down. Sebastian picked it up and handed it back more formally. “My friend isn’t inclined to offer an apology, as he doesn’t like being proved wrong, but I’ll offer one on his behalf. We owe our lives to your intervention, Lieutenant Markova, and I offer our sincere gratitude.”

  Nina nearly laughed. Englishmen really were a different breed. How had any of them managed to survive this war, tripping over all those good manners? “I’d have slit that German’s throat whether you were there to save, or not. But you’re welcome.”

  Sebastian looked startled, but he turned and had another discussion in English with his companion. “Bill and I will make camp here for the night,” the rejoinder came eventually. “Would you care to join us, or are you looking to continue east as quickly as possible?”

  He thought she was aiming to rejoin her regiment, of course. “I’ll stay tonight,” she temporized, reluctant to leave the only person in this wilderness with whom she could hold a conversation.

  Good thing you did stay, she thought a few hours later. These two are useless. They’d have used up every match they had trying to start a campfire if Nina hadn’t showed them how to nurture the flicker of smoke into flame. They looked bemused when she brought out birchbark peelings and explained how they could be chewed for sustenance. And when Nina went out to hunt with the German’s pistol and came back dragging a skinny young doe, Seb looked downright nauseated as Nina slit open the deer’s belly and reached inside to pull out the innards. “You clean out the cavity and bury the guts,” she explained, hauling out the slimy blue and red ropes. “Then butcher the usable meat. You’ve never hunted game?”

  “Bill’s from Cheapside,” Sebastian said, “and I went to Harrow.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Never mind.” The boy looked at the slick pile of viscera. “All I’ve been able to think about for four years is food and suddenly I’m not hungry.”

  “Wait till you smell it cooking.” Nina sat back on her heels, cleaning the razor. “Four years you’ve been a prisoner? How old were you when you enlisted, twelve?”

  “Seventeen,” he protested. “A few months later my unit got nabbed outside Doullens.”

  “You surrendered?” Nina couldn’t help saying, remembering Comrade Stalin’s Not one step back and the whispers about men shot by their own officers if they so much as edged backward, much less surrendered.

  Sebastian’s face showed a flash of shame, even four years after the fact. “It was hardly my decision.” Stiffly. “I was just a gunner. We’re supposed to be fighting a rearguard action, keeping the Fritzes off the Doullens–Arras road, and we’ve got one rifle and fifty rounds per man, and only eighteen Bren guns. Not much to do once the ammunition’s gone and the tanks are rolling in.” He looked around the tall dark woods, which were just starting to darken in twilight. “Four years behind barbed wire . . . and now I’m out.”

  His bony face was full of soft, dazed wonder, and Nina’s heart squeezed despite herself. Four years locked in the flat stasis of fear and restlessness and hunger, and he was still capable of wonder. Nina couldn’t decide if that was foolish or admirable.

  Night fell, and the two Englishmen jumped at every noise from the woods as Nina cooked their dinner. Bill was still inclined to bristle whenever she gave him an order—English soldiers clearly weren’t used to female lieutenants, Nina saw in amusement—but he stared at her when he thought she wasn’t looking, and so did Sebastian. “I’m sorry,” the younger boy apologized when Nina caught him watching her with that air of slight disbelief. “We don’t mean to be rude. You can’t imagine how strange it is, seeing a woman’s face after forty-eight months of nothing but chaps.”

  Nina paused, rotating venison strips over the flames. “Am I going to have trouble with either of you?” she asked bluntly.

  Sebastian’s shoulders began to vibrate. Nina tensed, then realized he was shaking with laughter. “Lieutenant Markova,” he said between gusts of mirth, “I was raised a gentleman. Now, my father’s version of a gentleman pulls out chairs for ladies and otherwise doesn’t think they’re good for much, but my older brother’s version pulls out chairs, asks a lady her opinion rather than assuming it, and never puts a hand where it isn’t invited. But even if I weren’t a gentleman, I’m not an utter idiot. And only the greatest idiot on earth would force anything on a woman he first met erupting from a bush to slash an armed man to ribbons with a razor.”

  His laughter was infectious, and Nina couldn’t help smiling.

  The three of them gorged on chunks of venison, charred on the outside and half raw inside, wolfing it till grease ran down their chins. “I don’t car
e if I get nabbed and sent back,” Sebastian said thickly, chewing through deer gristle. “This beats any kriegie meal I’ve had in four years. Is it true Warsaw is up in full rebellion?”

  “Last I heard. Is it true Paris was liberated?”

  They traded war news eagerly in two languages. After the food was gone, Sebastian tried to limp around the fire, but only managed a few lurching steps. “That tickles,” he joked, lips thinned in pain, and Bill gave him a long look. Sebastian returned it, and the two men began a quiet discussion. Nina had a feeling she knew what they were deciding. She rose to check if her overalls were dry, hung over a nearby branch after being rinsed of as much of the German’s blood as possible, and when she tugged them on over her unbloodied trousers and shirt and came back to the fire, Bill was going through the spoils from the dead soldiers.

  “He’s leaving you.” Nina sat down by Sebastian. “Isn’t he?”

  “I told him he’ll have a better crack at getting free if he’s not dragging me and my gimpy pin. If he takes the Kraut uniform—the one not sopped in blood—he can head for the nearest train station, try to bluff on with the German’s identification, aim for free France.” Sebastian tossed a stick into the campfire. “I’d do the same if it were me.”

  “Would you?” Nina couldn’t conceive of leaving a wounded sestra behind.

  “It’s what everybody does, planning escapes. You split up once you’re outside the gates, to even the odds one of you gets clear.” The English boy was trying to sound matter-of-fact, but he wasn’t as good at hiding his emotions in Russian as he was hiding his accent. They watched Bill try on the German’s uniform. It hung off his bony shoulders but wasn’t a bad fit. Bill smiled for the first time and began tugging on the German’s still-shiny boots.

  “He’ll be caught in a day,” Nina said.

  “Probably. Most of us are, when we blitz out—get noticed, get snatched, get thrown back in within a day or two. But some make it. Fellow named Wolfe in my unit, Allan Wolfe—he made it out on his third try, hasn’t been seen since.”

  “Because he’s probably lying in a ditch.”

  “Or he’s back in England, free as a bird. Somebody has to get lucky.” Sebastian turned a stick over in his bony hands. “If Allan Wolfe, why not Bill Digby?”

  “He shouldn’t leave you,” Nina stated, watching the man going through the German’s identity cards.

  Silence from Sebastian. “I wasn’t even supposed to be part of this blitz-out,” he said after a while, softly. A curious conversation to be having in front of the oblivious Bill, but with the barrier of language, they might have been talking alone. “It was Bill and Sam, they were in it together, chums from Dunkirk. The Jerries threw me in with them at the last minute, doing roadwork in threes, and it was yank me along or scrap the plan. They thought I was a bit useless, and”—a shrug—“well, I got myself wounded while Bill killed one Kraut and you killed the other, so they weren’t wrong, were they? Either way, I’m not Bill’s responsibility.”

  Not now that Bill met me, Nina thought sourly. Westerners—show them an armed woman with a chestful of medals and six hundred sixteen bombing runs to her name, and what did they think? Wonderful, a nurse! Dump the wounded man on the woman and be on your way with a clear conscience, because naturally she’d take care of him.

  Well, Lieutenant N. B. Markova wasn’t taking care of anyone but herself. She was going west, no time to play nursemaid.

  “Get some sleep,” she told Sebastian Graham and retired to her own side of the fire. She heard an uneven hitching breath or two across the camp, but turned off her ears. West.

  Bill took off at first light. Seb shook his hand and Nina gave him directions, tucking her compass back inside her shirt when she saw his eyes linger on it. They watched Bill tramp off through the trees, doubtless already dreaming of England, and Sebastian turned to Nina with an air of getting everything over with.

  “I imagine you’ll want to rejoin your regiment as soon as possible, Lieutenant,” he said formally. “I shan’t hinder you from making for Warsaw. I’ll be picked up quite soon, I would guess. Back in time for a proper dinner of ersatz coffee and dehydrated-turnip soup.” He tried to smile. “Frankly, all this was worth it just to get a belly full of venison and a night’s sleep under the stars.”

  He stood there listing to one side, trying to hide the fact that his wound was hurting him. Fuck your mother, Nina thought. Fuck—your—mother. “Nina Borisovna,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I’m not your lieutenant, call me Nina Borisovna. I’ll stay with you awhile.” She glared, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “Only until your leg’s better. After that I head west.”

  “West?” He looked puzzled. “Why aren’t you rejoining—”

  “I can’t rejoin my regiment, because I’ll be arrested. I’m no deserter,” she flared, seeing the flick of his eyes, “and I’m no coward either. My father spoke against Comrade Stalin, and my entire family was denounced.”

  She could see him doubting her. Anyone would. She hoped he’d do the cautious thing, tell her to leave him. Then she wouldn’t be stuck nursing a green boy with a bad leg when all she wanted to do was run.

  “I believe you,” he said.

  Nina almost groaned. “Why?”

  “You killed that German and saved my life,” he said simply. “You’re no coward. And if you can’t bring yourself to desert a stranger like me, you wouldn’t desert your regiment unless you had to.”

  Nina did groan then. “I can’t believe someone as trusting as you has managed to live this long, Englishman!”

  He smiled. “My friends call me Seb.”

  Chapter 42

  Jordan

  August 1950

  Boston

  Well, Jordan thought, this is awkward. In fact, you could take a snap of this group standing here on the airfield and caption it Ex-Fiancés: A Study in Awkwardness.

  “Hello,” she said as cordially as possible, considering she hadn’t seen Garrett Byrne since she’d handed his diamond back and he’d told her to take her advice and shove it. And now they’d bumped into each other at the tiny airfield outside Boston where Garrett had first taken her flying, which wouldn’t have been so bad had Jordan been alone, but she had Tony at her side, standing there with eyes that danced hilarity at all the things that weren’t being said. For a man who had spent years interpreting the spoken word, Tony was remarkably good at interpreting the unspoken ones. “I didn’t know you’d be here, Garrett.”

  Her former fiancé wore oil-stained coveralls, very different from the summer-weight suit he wore to work beside his father. “I work here full-time now, helping in the hangar and piloting the joyrides. I bought a part share,” he emphasized. “I’m looking to make something of the place, eventually buy out Mr. Hatterson. Dad wasn’t too happy at first, but he’s come around some.”

  So you took my advice, after all, Jordan thought. Garrett looked far more natural in coveralls than in a suit. She managed not to say I told you so! but he could probably tell she was thinking it.

  “What are you doing here?” Garrett folded his arms across his chest, eyes drifting to Tony, who had slung an arm around Jordan’s waist. “We’ve met, haven’t we? Timmy?”

  “Tony. Rodomovsky. Nice to meet you again, Gary.”

  “Garrett. Byrne.”

  “Right.”

  Jordan shook Tony’s arm off. Really, men. “I wanted to take some shots of the mechanics, if they’re willing.” A Mechanic at Work—her shots of the local boys at the Clancy family garage hadn’t come out, there just wasn’t much visual grandeur in car engines. “Would anyone mind if I went into the hangar and snapped a roll?”

  Another man, she thought, might have been spiteful and said no. Garrett just gave a stiff nod, eyes drifting past Tony to the person hovering impatiently behind. “Are you going to introduce me to your other friend?”

  Jordan opened her mouth, but Nina Graham ran right over her. “You have planes?
” she asked in her strange accent, coming forward in a clack of boots. “Let’s see.”

  Jordan had been rather startled to see a blond head in the backseat of Tony’s Ford when he came by the house to pick Jordan up. “I’m sorry to say we have a third wheel,” Tony said with a glare at his passenger. “Jordan McBride, may I introduce Nina Graham, Ian’s wife. The moment she heard me mention this morning that I was driving you to an airfield, she invited herself along.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Graham—” Jordan began, but an impatient flap of the hand cut her off.

  “Nina. So you’re the girl Antochka likes.” She looked Jordan over, speculative, and Jordan murmured pleasantries even as she was thinking, Rats. A third wheel in the backseat—there was definitely not going to be any pulling over on the way to the airfield for kissing. With Anneliese still in Concord, Ruth gone every afternoon to a neighbor’s house to play, the shop safe in the capable Mrs. Weir’s hands, and with Ian Graham and his wife absent on some sort of driving tour for the past few weeks, Jordan and Tony had had the freedom for quite a lot of kissing. Jordan had been looking forward to more today, because Tony kissed like a man who actually enjoyed it, not a man who hurried through five minutes of it as a prelude to unbuttoning a girl’s blouse. Only now there was this woman in the backseat who Jordan hadn’t met before, though what she’d heard had certainly been interesting.

  “Ian’s Red war bride,” Tony had said. “Don’t ask.”

  Jordan had envisioned an exotic beauty in sables, not this compact bullet of a woman in shabby boots. Now, Nina Graham was shaking Garrett’s hand in business-like fashion, firing off questions. “You have what, Travel Air 4000 there? What else? Stearman, Aeronca, Waco—”

  “Mostly American craft.” Garrett straightened, listing aircraft, and Jordan was amused to see his most charming smile wink on like a searchlight. “You’re an enthusiast, Mrs. Graham?”