At the train station Mousya Nikonova kissed me and putting a silver rouble into the left breast pocket of my blouse said quietly, “It’s a talisman. You’ll give it back to me when the Fascists are smashed.” This talisman… It would be with me through the whole war. By some miracle I saved it but managed to return it to Mousya only many years later. She considered me dead and only through one item in a newspaper got to know my approximate address and found me. I remember standing near the house gate and seeing a woman with a vaguely familiar face coming towards me from the bus stop. She came up and began asking if I knew where to find… and then she fell silent and began to cry, having recognised me…
But all this was a long way off and at the moment I was on my way to Moscow to the OSOAVIAHIM Central Council. I found my way with difficulty to Three Stations Square63, I noticed the camouflage on the buildings: they were covered with something like theatrical scenery. I was also astounded by the white paper crosses on the windows. The absence of the customary train station hustle and bustle was depressing. Men in military uniform walked about the station halls and words of command rang out loudly. When I was running across the square I nearly ran face first into a silvery gondola — soldiers were cautiously leading a balloon… I was also astonished by the flak guns in Krasnosel’skaya Street, these stood on the roofs of the many-storied buildings like cranes on long legs. And this was the atmosphere all along my way to Toushino: flak guns in parks, columns of troops, recruitment posters on the walls, a stern reserve in the behaviour of people in the streets. Not only the outskirts but the central thoroughfares of the capital were cluttered with lines of anti-tank hedgehogs64 and barred with barricades. Moscow — now a frontline city — was becoming more and more austere day by day. Every day Levitan’s65 voice gave the Moscovites more and more alarming reports on the radio: “After stubborn and fierce fighting in the course of which…” The Sovinformbureau66 communiqués reached people everywhere: at home, at work, in the street. It was impossible not to get sick of them…
I am slowly riding a frequently-stopping bus and, pressing my face to the window-glass, look at a girl in military uniform standing at an intersection with an energetically raised red signal flag. She’s a traffic controller letting a troop column through. It was an ordinary tense day of war… I get to the building I need, a Colonel has a brief glance at the document I hold out to him and says in a hoarse and tired voice: “Egorova? And what do you, Egorova, want from me? What has happened back at your Kalinin? No petrol? Not enough planes? Please report quickly. You can see how many people are waiting.”
Indeed the room, stained black with tobacco smoke, was crammed with airmen: old and young, in civilian clothes and in field uniform. All of them were talking, exchanging the latest news, awaiting here — in one of the offices of the Central Aeroclub — resolution of their issues and their fate. I had no intention of wasting their time.
“Actually, I have only one question. A personal one”, I said loudly trying to talk over the noise.
The Colonel threw out his arms, “Is this the time to deal with personal issues?”
“Sorry, I’ve didn’t express myself properly”, I was embarrassed. “I’m only asking you to send me to the front.”
“Oh, come on, ‘only’”! The owner of the office unbuttoned the collar of his blouse. “You all repeat over and over again — to the front, to the front. If I do it your way OSOAVIAHIM’s work will have to be wound down completely. And who, I ask you…”, by the way the Colonel angrily looked around the whole office one could guess he was responding not only to me. “Who, I ask you, will train personnel for the front? No, sweetheart, go back to Kalinin and do what you’re supposed to do! Who’s next?”
But I was not going to back off. On the contrary I moved even closer to the desk.
“Our aeroclub is to be evacuated to the rear. I’m not going to the rear. I request a transfer to the front. You have to understand, I have a lot of flying experience. At the moment it is more important up there, over the battlefields…”
“You know what, Egorova? Allow us to be the judge of what and where is more important now…” The Colonel growled. However, he obviously understood it wouldn’t be that easy to get rid of me. Becoming thoughtful for a minute, he turned over some piece of paper in his hands and, looking at me askance, said “Alright, whatever, we’ll send you a bit closer to the fire, to the Stalino aeroclub” — that was the name of Donetsk back then.
“What, to Stalino? in 1938 that’s where my brother…” I gulped but managed to say firmly: “Write the order!”
On the way to the train station I dropped in to my kinfolk’s place on the Arbat. Katya was somewhere on defensive works, and the sixth-grader Yurka, having come home from school, was happy to see me and fussed about wanting to treat me to something. But in the sideboard there was nothing left but bread and a lump of sugar. He began to tell me that in his school the geography teacher had volunteered for the front but the director couldn’t get permission to go.
“If I were him I would have run away to hit the Fascists long ago but he’s still waiting for permission, a strange man…”
“Have you heard anything from your dad?” I interrupted my nephew.
He drooped a bit straightaway, then stood up, took some sheets of paper from a desk and handed them to me.
“Read this. Yesterday a Colonel came and said that he’d worked recently with dad somewhere far away in the North. It’s night all day long up there in winter and in summer the sun doesn’t set. Dad is building a beautiful city up there, like Leningrad, and a big mining and processing operation”, Yurka said without pausing for breath. “The Colonel and many other former military men had been sent to the front. He’d managed to drop in to his home and also to our place and was very sorry not to find mum in.”
I was reading the sheets of paper covered with my brother’s writing. On one of them there was a letter to his wife and son, on another — his request to be sent to the front to defend his motherland from the Fascist invaders.
“Soon dad will go to the front”, Yurka said confidently. — And I will ask to join him. If he doesn’t take me I will go on my own. After all Vit’ka Timokhin and I decided long ago to go to the front. Vit’ka is not tall enough but they will let me do that for sure because I’m the tallest in my class! It’s a pity you, Aunty Anya, aren’t going to the front, otherwise I would be heading off there with you. It is never too late to study. Once we smash the Fascists you can study as much as you want…”
That night there was an air-raid warning in the city but we decided not to go to an air raid shelter — so we talked all night long. In the morning, sending Yurka to school and getting ready to go to the train station myself, I asked him to pledge his word not to make a step towards the front without my knowledge. Yurka promised but on one condition: if I managed to get to the front I would not fail to make arrangements for him to join me but in the meantime he would be studying at school and would do his best to master the rifle and the machine-gun. With that we parted.
Yuri waited in vain for my call to the front and his father’s visit. He would see his father many years after the war when my brother received banishment after ten years of imprisonment. Vasya as well as many other ‘political’ prisoners survived thanks to the kindness of Zavenyagin, the director of construction and then director of the Norilsk mining and processing operation. To provide the construction works with high-level professionals, he recruited specialists from amongst the political prisoners, softening their regime. My brother was brought to Moscow under escort by plane more than once to get some plans approved. Of course, he wasn’t allowed to visit his family on the Arbat or even ring them. He would stay in a NKVD hotel in the Mayakovskiy Square… I often called Katya, my brother’s wife, a dekabristka67. When her husband received banishment, at her own risk she took Yurka with her and headed to faraway Norilsk by water: it was cheaper that way. It took them three months to get there — they barely survived. But the jo
y of the meeting instilled faith and hope into the family… In 1953 Vasya was fully rehabilitated but he stayed in Norilsk with his family. Now he worked as a deputy director of the Zavenyagin Mining and Processing Operation in Norilsk, and Katya in a tailoring shop. At the age of 75 my brother retired, but nowadays the third generation of the Egorovs works in Norilsk — my brother’s grandchildren, Victor and Andrey. Life goes on…
11. Closer to the front
It was extremely sultry in the carriage. People sat pressed against each other. You don’t stay silent long in such ‘close unity’ and I got into talking with my middle-aged neighbour, a military cadre all over. Of course, the conversation was about what was going on at the front — there was no other topic then. I was mostly asking questions — I was keen to find out everything from someone in the know — and the officer was answering. He asked only one question: “What are you, young lady, riding towards the front line for?” I showed him my orders.
“Strange people”, the commander marveled, “what aeroclub could there be in Stalino now? The city’s been evacuated…”
“It can’t be!” I exclaimed.
My neighbour sighed heavily, “Nevertheless it can, my girl…”
Indeed, I found no one at the aeroclub: everyone had been evacuated. The officer was right. The wilful air of the steppe played through the empty premises of the aeroclub, resonantly banging the doors and windows. I was taken aback: what should I do, who should I turn to? I didn’t have the fare back, or travel documents, or anything! I went outside, got my bearings and rushed downtown hoping to find there some office that would be useful, or simply to meet people capable of giving me sensible advice.
I didn’t have the road to myself long. I hadn’t walked even a block when someone grabbed me by a sleeve of my blouse. “What a fast walker you are!” A young sprightly voice said above my ear. “I barely managed to catch up with you…”
“Was it worth it?” I answered roughly, quickly turning on the stranger. I hated the street molesters, who were especially out of place in a frontline city.
“Now don’t you take it the wrong way”, the voice of the man, who turned out to be quite young, placated me. “I saw you go into the aeroclub. I thought it was no coincidence, some business must have brought you there. Let me introduce myself”, the guy stretched out his hand, “local trainee pilot Petr Nechiporenko.”
Not very willing, I returned his greeting all the same. But my caution had not passed yet and that didn’t go unnoticed.
“You don’t believe me, do you? Here are my papers. I am heading to the voencomat68 and then to the front…”
“To the front?” I asked again, now with respect.
“Where else? But it’s none of your concern — it’s men’s business. But I was trying to catch up with you because I noticed the ‘birds’ on your collar patches69. I wanted to say that I’d heard tomorrow some of the commanders would come. So don’t miss out…”
“Tomorrow… And what am I supposed to do today?”
The guy smiled, “To the theatre, for example. An opera. The last show is on — Carmen — and then the theatre will be evacuated. It’s here in the centre, just nearby.”
I accompanied the guy to the city voencomat, wished him a victorious homecoming and felt some envy that he was already going to the war to defend the motherland. And I indeed went to the theatre then, but I remember that I was seeing the stage as if through frosted glass. Everything seemed vague and misty but after all I was sitting in the fifth row of a half-full auditorium. I didn’t care much about the show: my thoughts were far, far away. Spain, toreadors, passion and love… It wasn’t touching and stirring me. I watched indifferently as the beautiful Carmen began her famous habanera but at the highest note the orchestra suddenly broke off and an unexpected silence fell onto the hall. The singer froze with her mouth open in bewilderment. A small scrawny man walked across the stage, stopped just before the orchestra pit and rumbled into the silence, “Comrades, it’s an air-raid warning! All of you are requested to go down into the air raid shelter. But please maintain order.”
Such was the finale of that performance… From the air raid shelter I returned to the aeroclub premises and settled in for the night in one of the offices on a cushion upholstered with black leatherette.
In the morning someone knocked on the door and a broad-shouldered well-built man in Air Force uniform immediately appeared in the door. There were three cubes on his collar patches: hence he was a senior lieutenant. He didn’t notice me straightaway for I was lying on a cushion behind a barricade of desks.
“What are you doing here?” He asked sternly.
“I am from Moscow, I have orders to report to the local aeroclub. And here I am, waiting for someone in charge.”
The military man’s face cleared: “Consider us here on the same business. I’m looking for someone in charge too. I’ve come to pick up pilots…” here the senior lieutenant made an expressive gesture with his hand — it was clear that our hosts had long left the palace of aviation…
“What shall we do then?” I asked him anxiously, and at that moment a sudden idea came to my mind. “So you’ve come to find pilots? Take me! Here are my papers. They are in complete order!”
The senior lieutenant read my orders from the Central Aeroclub attentively. “Well, your references are suitable. I’ll take you, Egorova. But we have to make all the arrangements legally! Let’s go to the voencomat.”
A battered pickup drove us to the spot. Making our way through the dense crowd of mobilised men we presented ourselves to the commissar. But he, finding out what the matter was, just shook his head: “What’s she got to do with us? She’s come from Moscow — let her get back there”.
“Now don’t drag your feet, major! We need flyers badly”, the senior lieutenant pressed.
“I can’t, I have no right to spread anarchy”, the military commissar persisted.
The argument went nowhere. We had to back down. Listarevich (the senior lieutenant had managed to introduce himself) calmed me down: “Forget about these bureaucrats. Let’s go to our unit straightaway, we’ll sort everything out on the spot.”
We visited a military hospital on our way and it came out that the Senior Lieutenant Listarevich had picked up two pilots recovered from wounds, a mechanic who had lost his unit and a pilot from the OSOAVIAHIM. Now he cheered up, for he was not coming back to his unit empty-handed! We were rushing in our pickup to some of the 130th Detached Aviation Signals Squadron of the Southern Front. The senior lieutenant had bee a pilot himself and was doing his best to prove it driving his pickup. He sped as if in a U-2, almost 100 kilometres an hour, without thinking much about the men sitting in back…
At last, the aerodrome — or rather a landing area near Chaplino station in the village of Tikhiy. Covered with dust and pretty well exhausted from the bumpy ride we presented ourselves before the commanders’ eyes straightaway.
“Not a lot of troops…”
“The aeroclub was evacuated, Comrade Major”, the senior lieutenant defended himself, “but I brought you some eagles.”
“Eagles?” The Major asked again and gave me a somewhat suspicious and sidelong look.
Only now I did notice an Order of the Red Banner on the commanding officer’s chest and rejoiced: it meant he was a combatant, so I couldn’t afford to miss my chance. That was why I boldly reported “Former Kalinin aeroclub pilot instructor Anna Egorova reporting for duty.”
“But there’s been no order yet to draft women to the front.”
“Do I really need an order to fight for the motherland?”
“That’s true…” The major looked at me narrowly.
“Have you got your papers, Egorova?” The Major’s voice now sounded encouraging.
“Absolutely!”
I quickly put on the desk my pilots’ certificate, passport, Comsomol membership card and the orders to the Stalino aeroclub. Having thoroughly examined the papers the Major turned to a captain
nearby: “Grishchenko! You’ll fly off to Simferopol tomorrow. You have to fly anyway, and while you’re at it you’ll check Egorova’s flying technique.”
I intercepted Lisarevich’s glance. My pleased ‘recruiter’ gave me a wink, “you see, everything is alright — you may consider yourself a pilot of the Southern Front’s 130th Detached Aviation Signals Squadron”.
The squadron commander was Major Boulkin and all the pilots were veterans who had flown the Polikarpov I-16 in Spain70. My eyes grew wide when I saw them all in brand-new uniforms and all with decorations. I thought — where am I? They fought in Spain — they are all heroes’ heroes! And for some reason they’d been transferred to the Signals Squadron… Grishchenko was deputy commander of the 130th Squadron and head of the flying service. For some reason he’d taken a great dislike to me (I didn’t know why) but our flight from Tikhiy Village to Simferopol went safely and my position was approved. Later, when I had already settled down well in the Signals Squadron I was told that Petr Ivanovich Grishchenko used to be a fighter pilot who had been discharged from flying after an accident but after the war had broken out he’d obtained permission to become a pilot in the 130th Squadron. The deputy squadron commander flew courageously and he was entrusted with the most crucial tasks. Once in 1942 near Lisichansk Grishchenko’s plane was intercepted by four Messerschmitts but Petr manoeuvred his defenceless koukourouzniki71 so skilfully and deftly that the Fascists couldn’t do anything to it and went home. Actually, in his riddled plane the lieutenant didn’t make it to the aerodrome — he landed in a bog and nosed over. Our soldiers helped to drag the machine out, the pilot repaired it himself, completed his mission and returned to the squadron. When reporting what had happened the former fighter pilot acknowledged: “It appears the U-2 is a plane too — nothing to shoot with but it’s alright for ramming…”
Over Fields of Fire Page 7