To Slip the Surly Bonds

by Chris Kennedy

  “Not my fault the steering wheel is on the wrong side,” Olga shouted back as the Jeep’s engine sighed to a stop. The younger Tokranova climbed over the seat into the back. A tool bag landed with a thud beside the Jeep. It was followed by another. Then a third.

  Vera circled the Polikarpov, eyes going wide at the number of holes. She patted the propeller’s nose gently, like one would a wounded puppy.

  “What did Eva do to this poor thing?” Vera asked as Natalya walked over to assess the damage with her. Vera’s face soured as they circled the plane. The mechanic also counted bullet holes, although for different reasons. The more holes, the more things she had to check and make sure were working properly.

  “Forty-two?” Vera asked.

  “A new record,” Natalya said bitterly.

  Vera patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. They may try, but the fascists can’t put enough bullet holes in any U-2 to bring her down. Not as long as either a pilot or a navigator can still fly her.”

  Natalya nodded and gave her an appreciative smile. Technically, Vera was right. As long as the bullets weren’t tracers. They’d had a good night. Hadn’t lost anyone to tracers. No one had lost height in the darkness or the clouds and crashed.

  “Go. Get some sleep,” Vera said. “We’ve got her.”

  Natalya gave Vera a hug. The mechanic smelled of fuel, motor oil, and sweat. Vera pushed her away and aimed Natalya towards the barracks.

  By sunset, their Polikarpov, affectionately called Malyshka, would be ready to fly once again.

  * * *

  Natalya and a dozen or so of her fellow pilots and navigators took their dinner—what most sane people called breakfast—in a converted hangar filled with rows and rows of tables. A mix of chairs, some ancient, some rescued from closed schools, surrounded the tables in a disorderly, un-military manner that bothered no one.

  On good days, they had blinis with jam and hot milk mixed with cocoa and honey. Today it was a slice of cold bread and kolbasa, with a thick layer of butter between the two. Instead of tea, Natalya took hot water with lemon and honey. She wanted to get some sleep. Unlike Zoya and Raisa, who drank black tea all night and could still sleep like the dead.

  Natalya looked around for Eva but couldn’t find her among the women in the dining hall. For two weeks, she’d been trying to get Eva to talk to her as if she were something other than just her navigator. Professionalism was one thing. This was something else, and Natalya wanted to make it—whatever it was—right.

  She scarfed down her sandwich, hardly tasting it at all. Being constantly hungry wasn’t the best thing when you were flying all night. She blamed it on being sixteen and couldn’t wait to outgrow it, so she could sit down at a table like a lady, all manners and poise, instead of a demon possessed who might forget herself and elbow-shove the women in the food line out of her way.

  She finished off the hot water, fished out the slice of lemon and munched on it as she crossed the yard to the barracks. Closing her eyes, she stopped to turn her face up to the sun and enjoy its touch. She missed the sun. When the war was over, she was going to go to the shores of the Black Sea and spend a whole summer doing nothing but lying on the warm sands until she was as bronzed as a Greek goddess. When the war was over, she’d fill a swimsuit like a woman should, and men would court her and bring her flowers and try to steal a kiss. When the war was over, she was going to let them.

  A yawn reminded her that soon she’d be up in the night sky again. No more daydreaming.

  She opened the barracks door, slipped in, hung up her flight gear and stepped out of her boots.

  Two rows of beds lined the walls, separated by lines of rope weighed down with drying laundry. Strictly non-regulation, the arrangement afforded at least some semblance of privacy and meant their clothes wouldn’t come back frozen stiff only to have to be de-thawed.

  They’d even commandeered a few damaged tarps, patched them, and hung them like curtains. Being one of seven children, Natalya didn’t mind the bustle and energy of being packed into a small space with unruly siblings, but not everyone had grown up that way.

  In one corner, five women relaxed by listening to music played on a hand-cranked phonograph player. They drew lots for turns at picking the songs. If they weren’t too tired, they danced. Today, they were tired. Half-dressed, they just sat back and soaked in the music, occasionally humming or singing along.

  Tamara, one of the older pilots, sat cross-legged atop her cot, surrounded by three other women, showing them the intricacies of a complicated stitch. Tamara was adamant that sewing pretty things allowed her to forget about the war for awhile. As the war went on, her circle of sewing enthusiasts had grown. Needle and thread had become the most requested care-package items.

  Others read. Half of the pilots and navigators were already propped up in bed, reading books that were falling apart. Anything was game. Even children’s picture books and folklore. Anything that didn’t have to do with war.

  Natalya found Eva at the far end of the barracks, behind one of the tarp-curtains, sitting in the only rocking chair, eyes closed in sleep. She’d shed her flight gear and was cradling the commander of the Mouser Regiment in her arms. The bluish-grey cat, referred to as Her Imperial Highness, was purring loudly in Eva’s lap. Very pregnant, the small Russian Blue had grown huge. Someone had tacked a calendar to the wall and was dutifully counting down to kitten-day. On a small table, a jar held strips of paper with names. It was already full, waiting on the big day.

  Everyone came off the flight line, off the mission, and dealt with the constant back and forth between tedium and terror in their own way. Some sang and danced. Others read books and wrote letters or poetry or sewed. Eva dealt by nurturing new life in the only way the war had left open to her.

  Natalya sighed. She’d catch Eva another night. Carefully, she drew the curtain closed and flopped down on her own cot.

  She felt underneath its narrow mattress and pulled out the comic book an American pilot had given her. They’d spent two days together on the train that had delivered her to Tsaritsyn. It had been his parting present to her. She lost herself in the color of the pictures and barely decipherable words. Unlike the novels and magazines circulating around the barracks, the comic book allowed her to make up a new story for the pictures every night.

  * * *

  The early twilight of winter descended, cutting sleep short. The Tsaritsyn airdrome had been blasted with high winds the whole day while Natalya and the rest of her unit had slept. Eventually, she’d get used to the noise and really rest. So everyone said. Cold air seeped through the barracks’ thin walls and chilled them despite the heaters. Most everyone settled for a splash of cold water on their faces before donning their flight gear and heading for roll call.

  Major Maria Mikhailovna Sutreva was wrapping up her debriefing in the dining hall as Natalya and her sisters ate breakfast. Their commander was a tall woman, her face lined by the ravages of wind and sun, her dark hair showing touches of grey. She moved with a quiet elegance marred by touches of wear and tear, speaking with vigor, without wasting a single word, always making clear the difference between those things they knew for certain and those they merely suspected.

  Between sips of hot, bitter tea Natalya made marks on the map she’d learned by heart, noting the location where the Germans advancing on Tsaritsyn had dug in. Between sunset and sunrise, they’d get at least ten sorties in, if the weather cooperated.

  “All right sisters,” Major Sutreva said, her voice rising. “It’s time for our nightly dance. Time to go cheek-to-cheek with Father Frost.”

  Laughter rippled through the squadron as chairs scraped away from tables. While no one had yet lost a cheek to frostbite, the unusually cold winter made them feel like they were dancing with the wizard-king of winter every time they took to the sky.

  Natalya shrugged into her jacket, patted her flight suit’s pockets to verify that she had all the tools of her trade: ruler, stopwatch, flashl
ight, pencil, compass, sidearm. She tucked her too-short hair into the sealskin flight cap and pulled it down tight until the flaps dangled down to her collarbones. The goggles went snugly over the cap. She buttoned the jacket and hung the clipboard with the map off her belt.

  Eva was already pulling her cap’s flaps tight and shoving her hands into gloves as she headed out the door. Natalya followed, and they did their pre-flight checks as the wind shuddered around them.

  Even tied down, Malyshka grabbed at the wind with her wings as though she were eager to be in flight. They had been made for each other. These airplanes. These women. They all lived to soar.

  The armorers had loaded two fifty-kilo bombs, one under each wing. Natalya ducked under the lower wings to double-check the release mechanism. With the wind howling, she only caught snatches of Vera’s report to Eva, but her pilot signed off on the repairs, and they exchanged salutes.

  Eva climbed into the front cockpit, reached into her jacket and pulled out a small picture. She stuck the fading image of her baby daughter under the magnet kept on the instrument panel just for that purpose and strapped in.

  The engine came to life, sounding like an angry sewing machine. As the propellers picked up speed they looked like scythes cutting through the frigid air.

  Natalya climbed into the rear cockpit, strapped in, and clipped her map to the control panel. Tie-downs were released and stops pulled away from the wheels, and Malyshka lined up behind the first and second planes of their trio. She tucked the interphone’s earpiece under her cap, pulled the flaps tight and fastened the mouthpiece on. A piece of rubber connected her end of it to Eva’s. The system’s saving grace was that it kept the wind off part of her face, and it was better than shouting. But not by much.

  Moments later they were in the air, flying in formation with the other two U-2s leading them.

  Natalya took her red-tipped flashlight and turned it on. She checked her compass and map and double-checked their position against the wooded terrain below and the winding tributaries that fed the Volga.

  “Were you ever afraid of Baba Yaga?” Eva asked out of the blue.

  “What?” Natalya turned off the flashlight.

  “We’re third in line,” Eva explained. “The third sister. Baba Yaga.”

  Oh. Natalya frowned at the strange question. “No! I was not afraid.”

  “Never? Not even when you were little?”

  Natalya smiled. “Never! Baba Yaga was afraid of me.”

  Eva’s laughter carried through interphone.

  A flare dropped from the lead plane, dangling on its silken parachute, lighting up the German fortifications below.

  Natalya blew out a long breath. The flare lit only a small patch of a larger darkness as it fell. The pit of her stomach went hard around her breakfast as the searchlights came up, caught the flare and swept the sky.

  The first two airplanes fell into the beams. Anti-aircraft guns responded with jets of projectiles streaming into the night sky, reaching, grasping, for the U-2s leading Malyshka.

  “Steady on course and altitude!” Natalya shouted into the interphone, confirming that they were in range for their first drop.

  Wrapped in darkness, Eva idled the engine and they went into a dive, aiming for the source of the nearest column of light.

  “Three…two…one…” Natalya pulled on the bomb-release lever and released 100 kilos of explosives right atop the target.

  Eva pulled up.

  Behind them an angry flower bloomed, extinguishing the searchlight.

  Natalya whooped as Malyshka soared.

  Another searchlight caught them and would not let them go. Eva was flying blind, banking, drawing the light with her so the other planes could take their turn at catching the dark.

  Another explosion and one of the anti-aircraft guns went silent.

  Malyshka swept the sky, dragging the remaining columns of light with them, pulling up and away. Then only darkness. As Eva circled, light burst as more guns fired. One caught them, peppering Malyshka with bullets to her wings.

  They dove back into the lights, catching a beam. It flickered—but didn’t go out—as one of the other U-2s dropped her bombs.

  Eva threaded Malyshka through the lights, the streams of bullets, waiting for a third explosion.

  “Tvoyu mat!” rang out over the interphone.

  Against the velvet darkness of the sky, one of the other U-2s fell like a flaming torch. A tracer round had hit one of Malyshka’s sisters, lighting her up like a box of matches. There was nothing they could do but watch their sisters burn.

  Eva dove into the darkness, going so low that it must have looked like they were floating a meter above the treetops.

  Natalya ran her calculations and gave her pilot the heading back to the airdrome. Once they were on the correct heading, she took the stick, giving Eva time to rest.

  “Who do you think it was?” Natalya asked, voice cracking.

  “We’ll find out soon enough.” Eva’s voice was ice-cold. It seemed to reach through the interphone and snake through Natalya. She could not shake off its chill.

  It was still there when the airdrome came into view and Eva reclaimed the stick.

  * * *

  Natalya was stooped under the right wing as she helped Olga hoist the fifty-kilo bomb into its cradle.

  Eva busied herself by checking Malyshka. She’d already circled the U-2 three times, climbed atop the wings, tugged on all the control wires. But she’d not said a word. She never did. There was too much to do.

  Vera came running up to them. “That’s it,” Vera said. “That’s all of them.”

  U-2s had been landing every few minutes and lining up to be refueled and rearmed.

  “How many?” Eva asked as she checked the fuel pump. She’d done her best to hide her tears, but they coated her lashes in a fine layer of betraying crystals.

  “Two,” Vera said. “Tamara and Nina. Zoya and Raisa.”

  Natalya crossed herself and said a silent prayer for them and their families.

  Eva took a deep breath and looked away, absently patting her sidearm as if she was making sure it was still there.

  “Tracer rounds,” Vera added. “Both of them.”

  Silent nods of understanding passed between them. Tamara, Nina, Zoya and Raisa had gone up in flames, a better fate than what awaited them had they crashed. Burning was better than crashing. Burning was better because while they all carried guns so they would not be taken alive, there were rumors of being captured, of being gang raped. To crash, lose consciousness, and wake up to that fate…

  Olga swiped at her nose with her sleeve and busied herself with disconnecting the fuel line.

  “Here’s the new flight order,” Vera said, handing Eva a piece of paper.

  “Same target?” Eva asked.

  Vera gave her a grim nod.

  Eva hopped up on the wing and climbed in. Natalya followed.

  Later, there would be time for tears, for mourning. They would sing for their fallen sisters, pack their things with reverence to be sent back home, and set a place at the table for them one last time. And in her office, Major Sutreva would write a personal letter by hand, praising each woman’s accomplishment’s and call them heroines, all in the hope that it would provide their families with some bit of comfort.

  She would not write of how they had burned, of how painfully they had died, of how fortunate they had been.

  She would not write of the future they would not have, of the love they would never know, of the children they would never bear.

  She would not write of the Iron Crosses that would decorate the chests of the men who had shot them down.

  * * *

  On the second sortie, Eva led. Polina’s plane, called Pobeda, flew alongside them. They didn’t need a flare to find their target. The Germans were waiting, stabbing the dark with three searchlights.

  Pobeda and Malyshka raced into their beams. They deliberately attracted the Germans’ attention, co
urting them, inviting the streams of anti-aircraft fire to dance. When all three searchlights were pointed at them they maneuvered wildly, avoiding the tracers.

  Natalya was thrown about the rear cockpit, the harness digging into her shoulders. Gravity pushed her back as Malyshka looped and rolled, racing the cloud of deadly fireflies swarming after them.

  Irina’s U-2, the third airplane of their sortie, must have scored a hit. A searchlight went out. Eva brought Malyshka back around and they dove in an eerie silence.

  “Three…two…one…” Natalya hit the release.

  Eva revved up the engine as their wing caught a stream of bullets. Natalya held her breath, waiting for the canvas to start burning, but either the tracers had missed them, or they’d been lucky.

  Maybe those prayers hadn’t been wasted after all. Still, the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up in warning.

  “Something’s not right,” Natalya said as she turned in her seat. Behind them, the explosion was too small. She leaned out the side of her cockpit.

  “Left-wing is still heavy!” The fifty-kilo bomb was still in its cradle.

  Natalya’s stomach did a flip as Eva banked. Light and fire followed them, greedily closing the distance.

  “Drop it now!” Eva ordered.

  Natalya pulled on the lever. Nothing. “Tvoyu mat.”

  “I’m getting us out of here!” Eva said and took them down.

  Natalya gaped at the altimeter as its needle floated almost to zero. They needed the folds of the terrain to stay out of the lights, out of the fire. Eva was taking them away from the target.

  “Course and heading,” Eva demanded.

  “You’re taking us back?”

  “Unless you have a better idea.”

  Instinct and trepidation mixed together. “I don’t want to blow up on landing,” Natalya said. If the mechanism was jammed, the bomb could drop at any time. They’d have no control over when and if it did. They might land safely. Or leave a crater on the flight line. Or worse, the bomb would release on its own over one of the airdrome’s buildings as they made their approach.