by C. S. Taylor
“Because Nadya is Little Boar.”
“No, I mean, it’s a boar,” Alexandra said. Disdain dripped from her words, and her face soured. “They’re ugly, stupid animals. Why would you ever call her that?”
“They’re fast and dangerous,” Klara said, tripping over her own reply. “It’s nothing bad. I’ve called Nadya ‘Little Boar’ since I’ve known her.”
Alexandra looked at me incredulously. “You let her? Surely not. It’s the stupidest nickname I’ve ever heard. You’re not a beast meant for slaughter. You’re majestic and deadly, a bird of prey who has found her talons.”
I liked the sound of that, a bird of prey, and the imagery was a thousand times more graceful and meaningful than a dirty pig. It was fitting for a Cossack, as such birds were free to roam where they saw fit, something we as a people had always done. More important, it gave me a way to attack the words around it without branding myself as a traitor. One does not request to strike out such things and live.
“You don’t like it,” Klara said, eyes glistening.
“I have asked you not to call me that,” I said. With every word I spoke, I could see the proverbial dagger twisting in her gut, and I hated what I was doing, but I had to. I couldn’t live with myself if everything I did was being dedicated to him. “And the colors are bright. I don’t want to be easily spotted.”
Klara’s face and shoulders fell. “I understand,” she said. “I’ll have it painted over before you go up tomorrow.”
“Good,” Alexandra said, wrapping her arm around my shoulder and leading me away. “Glad to see that disaster was avoided.”
I looked over my shoulder at Klara to say goodbye and assure her we’d catch up later, but the pained look in her eyes froze my tongue. She mouthed four little words. “Come back to me.”
Chapter Eleven
A week and a half blew by. Petrov had taken residence in one of the nearby homes. Tamara had said he was temporarily assigned to the unit for an undetermined amount of time. She wouldn’t say more than that, even when I’d pressed the matter on why our own regiment commissar wasn’t enough (Olga Kulikova was her name, and what little dealings I had with her were pleasant enough). While I was thankful Petrov and I hadn’t had any more face-to-face encounters, he seemed to always be nearby, watching me.
Alexandra and I had been on twenty-something sorties together at that point. I wish I could’ve said they were exciting, but they weren’t. They all entailed flying lazy circles around a handful of rail stations and the only bridge at Saratov to keep them safe from enemy bombers, but not a single Luftwaffe came. I became frustrated at our lack of engagements and wondered if I’d ever see them again since our assignments kept us far from the front. How was I supposed to shoot down Rademacher if we weren’t going to be anywhere near him?
To pass the time during guard duty, Alexandra would talk about her fiancé, Yuri, or her father’s work as a surgeon back home and how he only had eyes for her mother. In the lulls of conversation, she’d occasionally sing to herself off key, but for the sake of my ears, I’d snap her attention back on our mission. I didn’t have the heart to tell her how bad she was.
On the twenty-fourth of September, I was lying on my back on my bed in my dugout, trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself for the next hour before I was slated for night watch. The straw mattress was lumpy and cold, but far more comfortable than the damp dirt floor beneath. The evening sun cast a warm glow through the entrance but did little to affect the chill in the air.
We didn’t have the luxury of sleeping in buildings since they were more susceptible to explosions during an air raid. Our earthen homes could survive a near miss by a five-hundred-kilogram bomb, whereas a typical wood dwelling would be turned into splinters by similar blasts. Some nights, however, when water stood on the floor and the mice took home in our covers, I would’ve been willing to risk being turned into a crater for a proper room and a clean bed.
Alexandra slept on the bunk next to mine, something I wished I was doing but couldn’t. My arms hurt from the cold, making rest elusive. Worse, when I shut my eyes, I saw Klara’s face and heard her last words to me over and over, haunting my soul. Sure, we’d spoken some over the last week and a half, but she spoke at me—giving at best factual, short statements. She no longer spoke to me as a friend or confidant. Our friendship had become threadbare at best, and I didn’t know what to do.
“God help me,” I muttered. I was so weary from it all I didn’t even care when Alexandra stirred at my comment.
“What was that?” she said. “You’re not turning religious on me, are you?”
I let out half of a chuckle. “Yep. And I’m taking you with me.”
“I’d rather stick my head in a prop.”
“Well if you do, don’t do it to mine. I don’t want the mess all over my plane,” I said, trying to keep things light even though her remark stung.
Over the past week and a half, I’d learned a few things about Alexandra, most of them good. First, she loved Russian art and literature. Alexei Savrasov’s Winter was her favorite painting, and she could rattle on for hours on anything written by Tolstoy. Second, she was incredibly sensual. She loved chocolate, pleasing aromas, beautiful sunrises, heart-felt songs, and exceptional rubs on the shoulders and neck. I couldn’t provide the first three, but I could sing, and after some instruction, could give “decent enough” massages to help her work out the kinks in her neck from time to time.
The last thing I learned was Alexandra was a life-long communist who had no room in her heart for religion, but at least she wasn’t violent about her opposition like some. Even so, I kept my beliefs to myself. When she’d asked me about them, I dodged answering, much to my shame. I suppose I wanted acceptance, and I didn’t want her looking down on me for any reason.
I sat up at the sound of a dog barking and welcomed the distraction. “Oh damn. He’s back.”
Alexandra groaned. “Already?”
“Unfortunately,” I said. “I don’t think he’s stopping anytime soon.”
A mutt weighing five kilos soaking wet had taken to begging for scraps at the mess hall. This wouldn’t have been an issue if the little fur ball hadn’t also started chasing away Zhenia’s cat named Bri. The cat was a lean, black and grey tabby that was cuddly when the mood suited her, and otherwise was a meowing, clawing, need machine that had no problems drawing blood when petted the wrong way or ignored when she didn’t want to be. Basically, she was a typical feline.
Zhenia had taken in Bri from the nearby streets to be a mouser on account of her phobia of all things rodent. Zhenia had chased the dog off the other day, swearing if she ever saw it again, she’d shoot it dead. The dog’s barks drew closer, and I tensed in anticipation of an ear-shattering, dog-silencing shot.
“Make it stop, Nadya,” Alexandra whined. She rolled over and pulled her jacket over her head.
Bri rocketed into the dugout. Fresh on its heels was the mutt. The two darted around the room, under and over bunks, knocking over boots, books, tin cups and anything else in their way, before leaping onto Alexandra’s bed.
“For the love of all!” Alexandra shouted, flying out of bed. She grabbed a boot from the floor and readied it for a throw, but before she could launch it at either animal, they both took their chase back outside. For a moment, she stared at the door, ready to cream whatever four-legged monster dared to come back.
“Rise and shine, beautiful,” I said. Alexandra shot me a disapproving look, and I shrugged. “What? Could have been worse, right?”
“Only if I was thrown into a dungeon with the two of them.”
Valeriia charged into the room, panting and face flushed. “Get to your damn planes, now!”
Before either of us could reply, she was gone. Alexandra and I exchanged looks of confusion and dread before snapping into action. I grabbed my leather jacket, cap, and goggles from the foot of my bed and raced out of the dugout. Alexandra followed, cursing about how she ha
ted night flights as she tried to put her gear on.
Only a faint golden glow crested the horizon, but even in the low-light conditions, I could see the airstrip was a beehive of activity. We raced to our planes, and once I reached my Yak-1, Klara thrust my rig into my chest. “No time to lose,” she said. “Your plane is warmed up.”
I fumbled with the parachute as I slid it on my back and fastened the straps. “What’s going on?”
“They spotted bombers and your fighters are the only ones ready.”
“Good God.” I jumped onto the wing and into the cockpit. Klara’s hands were in there a split second later, making sure I was well situated inside. I craned my head around her. “Where’s Alexandra?”
Klara growled and pushed me into my seat. “Damn it, Nadya, could you not think about her for a few seconds and get in the air? Zhenia’s already taxiing.”
The sharpness of her words left me speechless. I stared at her dumbfounded as she hopped off the wing and looked back at me expectantly. Only when she gestured at me with both hands did I kick into gear. I started the engine, motioned for her to pull the chalks, and taxied on to the runway.
“Red Eight, you’re clear for takeoff,” the tower called to me.
“Copy,” I replied, easing the throttle forward at the same time as I tried to ease my nerves. I didn’t like flying at night, especially under combat conditions. There were no lights on the runway to keep it from being easily bombed from the air. We only had the stars to use as reference points. My plane picked up speed, and I prayed it was headed in the right direction. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark yet either, and so I was effectively flying blind and on feeling alone.
My plane shuddered, jarring me in my seat. I punched the right rudder, realizing I’d drifted off the runway. The correction was too much, however. My plane tipped left as it slid. With a death grip on the stick and working the pedals with my feet as furiously as I could, I somehow kept the plane from flipping over.
I bit down on my lip hard enough to draw blood. When I guessed I was around a hundred and seventy kilometers per hour, I pulled hard on the stick, knowing I was about to run out of runway. The plane launched into the air. It wobbled and started to roll on its side. Immediately, I dropped the nose and used a side lever to extend the flaps. Once I had the plane stabilized and was no longer convinced I was about to die, I raised the landing gear and offered a silent prayer of thanks.
“Wow, that was close,” I said over the radio, leaning back in my seat with a heavy sigh. “I think I almost carved a path through the maintenance shed.”
Zhenia responded first. “Cut the chatter. Stagger altitudes and head to Saratov. Alexandra, fifteen hundred meters. Nadya, two thousand. Valeriia, you’ve got twenty-five. I’ll be at three.”
I leveled off at the prescribed height. Despite the five hundred meters of separation, I was still nervous about a collision. One plane colliding with another never ended well.
“We’re looking for Ju-88s, ladies,” Zhenia said. “ETA is under two minutes, and we’ll probably only get one shot at them. Call your targets before you engage.”
My eyes strained trying to pierce the night sky in search of the bombers. Unless the search lights below found them, we didn’t have a prayer to make the intercept. Also, unlike the He-111s we’d caught before, the Junkers Ju-88s were built for speed. They could drop thousands of kilos’ worth of explosives and be gone before anyone made the spot. If that happened, dawn would usher in slews of new orphans and widows.
I clenched a fist and hit the side of my canopy. I hated the pressure I faced. Though it was never said, everyone on the ground expected us to stop a raid in the dead of night. Correction, they demanded we girls fly blind and save countless lives. The truth was we had no control of what was about to happen, and this night would shape who I was and what I was worth. The whole thing made me want to vomit.
I rolled my shoulders a few times to try and loosen up and relax, but my body didn’t cooperate. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my breath hung in the air, reminding me the ache in my arms would soon become throbbing. Nothing about this flight was good.
My stomach knotted as the Volga River passed below us and we flew over the city of Saratov. Klara’s words about finding the beauty in a moment came to me, and I looked for something to latch on. Inside the cockpit everything looked worn and shrouded in shadow. Outside wasn’t any better. The night hid our enemy, and the cold air wracked my body. The moon illuminated my olive wings in a soft glow I found pleasing, but I couldn’t stay focused on it as the fascists were closing in.
Then I found it. My brain tied combat with my paint job, and I thought about how Klara had taken it upon herself to give my plane custom nose art. Yes, she’d made my skin crawl with what she encircled it with, but now, slicing through the night air at nearly half the speed of sound, about to engage in mortal combat, my objections seemed so trivial. Moreover, her actions seemed so beautiful, made her so beautiful. I swore I’d mend the damage I’d caused between us the instant I could.
“Spotlights are up! Look for targets!”
Zhenia’s voice ripped me out of the moment. Beams of light coming from the ground crews cut through the darkness. For a half-minute we circled, waiting for one of the enemy planes to be caught in the lights. All I could do was gnaw on the bottom of my lip and pray for His guidance.
One of the lights jumped and caught a Ju-88 dead in its beam. Zhenia was the first to call it. “On him,” she said. “Mind your distance. Find his friends.”
A couple seconds later, two more enemy bombers were hit with the lights. They were farther west than the first and moving fast, but well within range to intercept.
“Alexandra, take the bomber on the left,” Valeriia said. “Nadya, shadow the right and engage after I’ve made a run.”
“Copy, lining up now,” I said, setting myself up for an attack on the bomber’s rear. It flew a little lower than I did, so once I made my final turn, I also ended up in a shallow dive. Rademacher might have been willing to let his enemies go from time to time, but I wasn’t.
Using small corrections with aileron and rudder, I kept the plane dead in my sights. At three hundred meters from the target, I cut my speed to keep from closing any farther as I didn’t want Valeriia to accidentally shoot or ram me. She knew I was trailing the bomber, but at the speeds we flew, half blind in the dark, there wasn’t a lot of room for error.
Valeriia made her attack from above. Her tracers danced through the sky. Some found their mark, but most flew wide. “Damn it, I overshot,” she said over the radio. “Nadya, don’t let him get away.”
I pushed my throttle forward, eager for the kill. “Engaging. Five o’clock high.”
My hands tightened around the controls. I forced myself to be patient as I closed the distance. I didn’t want to shoot early like I had with the 109, only to miss and have the plane take evasive maneuvers. When it looked massive in my gun sight, I closed one eye to preserve my night vision in it and pushed both triggers.
The muzzle flash lit up my cockpit, blinding me to all that was happening. I had to trust my aim was true, and I kept firing. The enemy tail gunner returned fire with his twin, rear-facing machineguns in the back of its cockpit. The flames from his barrel filled my view, and only then did I realize I was about to plow through the bomber.
I yanked the stick for all I was worth to avoid the collision.
“Fantastic!” Valeriia called out.
I twisted, pressed back in my seat from the steep climb, and looked over my shoulder. Even with one eye ruined for flying at night, the small fire erupting from the bomber’s starboard engine was easy to spot. It turned the plane into a comet. No, an easy kill.
“Coming around now from his eleven,” Valeriia said. “Get clear.”
“Already done,” I said, positioning myself high for a follow up to Valeriia’s second attack, but it wasn’t needed. She raked the poor bomber from nose to tip. It turned on its sid
e and fell from the sky like a falling star. When it hit the ground, the explosion lit up the sky.
“One down,” Valeriia said with pride.
“Stay focused. It’s not over,” Zhenia said. “Find the others and call your targets.”
I scanned the area. The darkness was disorienting. Even with the searchlights shining, at times it was hard to tell where my plane was going since I was half blind, and I worried I might fly straight into the ground. Sadly, the night vision in my right eye wouldn’t return for another twenty or thirty minutes.
I’d like to say we downed more, but our luck ran out. Each of us tried to make attacks on other bombers caught in the lights, but they would drop their bombs and peel off into the darkness before any of us caught up to them. I could only hope they were jettisoning their ordnance to get away and weren’t hitting their targets.
A few minutes came and went in silence, other than the occasional request by Zhenia to report our location to avoid collision. My hands ached, and the cold made it worse, despite the fleece-lined coat, wool sweater, and leather gloves I wore.
I wanted to land, to find a fire and warm my arm and stop the pain, but I knew I couldn’t. To distract myself, I pulled out a penlight and checked the gauges on my instrument panel. Everything was where it should be, except the engine temperature was climbing. I tapped the glass in front of the needle, but nothing changed.
“I’m running hot,” I said. I looked over my shoulder, but saw only dark. “I can’t see anything, but I must be leaking coolant.”
“Head home, Nadya,” Zhenia replied. “We can take it from here.”
I kept a nervous eye on the temperature gauge as I flew back to the airfield. The needle continued to climb, but I was confident I had enough time to land before heat seized the engine. I stuffed the penlight back in my jacket and concentrated on flying.
Pain intensified in my right arm, and my eyes watered. Basic flying became a monumental task as every move on the flight stick shot fire from my wrist to my elbow. My vision wobbled, and my stomach threatened to empty itself.