Dimitri spanked his knees with his hands, relishing the old General’s reply every time he told the story. Pasha and Sasha clapped and Valentin rocked back in his seat on the tank. The slanting lantern light made all their faces merry.
‘So, you see,’ Dimitri said. ‘The whole world fears the Cossack. Including Napoleon and Pasha’s mother. And the Germans.’
He leaned into the lantern, to light his face better for this next chapter of the rite. ‘My old father. Your sergeant’s grandfather. He would be here right now if he were alive. Cossack families go to war together. Did you know that?’
The two lads shook their heads.
‘Well, they do. Every Cossack family knows the history of its warriors. The family heroes are remembered with praise, the villains are the cowards or the disloyal ones. When I was your age, I went to war with my father. We wore red-topped caps and black burka cloaks with red hoods. We rode in pigskin boots and kept a tea kettle and sacks of biscuits tied to our belts. I had a curved saber, a carbine with a bayonet, and a goathorn full of powder. We rode first against the Romanovs, those inbred European shits. And when we’d won enough battles against their white cavalry all across western Russia, even on these steppe lands around us right now, the Tsar himself gave in. The Cossacks were rewarded with free land, the right to govern ourselves, and respect! Then, after a few years of royal bribes, when it was clear the Bolsheviks would win, we traded in our white flag for a red one. We turned on the bastard Tsar for the new bastard Lenin. Because the Cossack fights for the Cossack. It doesn’t matter who invades us. Germans or Russians, Tsars or commissars. Napoleon called us the disgrace of the human race. And he was right, if you look at how most humans live!’
The two boys were rapt. Dimitri understood the rotten training these two had been given before they were shipped to the Kursk bulge for their first battle. They’d been bullied and frightened and given no pay and less than a month’s lesson on how to fight in these tanks. Commissars had shouted slogans at them, they’d taken oaths, but no one had talked with them, told them tales of bravery and deeds and mentioned they might have what it takes to do the same, valiant things – podvigs. Valentin and his sour ilk were all they’d seen of the Red Army. These lads were considered nothing more than numbers to be thrown at the Germans.
Dimitri knew he could not make them into more. But if he and Valya were going to fight alongside these boys, they were going to think they were more. Or they would all die, because few die alone in a tank.
‘My father Konstantin was the best swordsman in the Kuban. Did you know a real Cossack sword has no hilt to protect the hand? Do you know why?’
No, they shrugged.
Dimitri cut his eyes to Valentin on the tank. ‘Tell us, Sergeant. About the Cossack sword.’
Valentin ran fingers over his pate. The stubble of his short hair made a fizzing noise. Dimitri held up an open hand, to say please.
Valentin cleared his throat. So needless, Dimitri thought, to be uncomfortable talking to men who may well save your life in the next week. Embrace them, Valya, he urged silently, these are spirits, children like you. Valentin gave the answer, continuing to scratch his head.
‘It… um… it’s not made for dueling. It’s made for striking from horseback.’
‘Exactly. And Pasha, Sasha, I will tell you right now with the pride of a father that your sergeant Berko there was the finest swordsman in all the Kuban when he was your age. Just eighteen, and a champion dzhigitovka! In our village, the streets are wide and there’s a great central square. That is where we hold our war games. On Sundays and holidays, the streets are lined with saplings, set thirty feet apart. On top of the trees are clay pots. The test, you see, is to gallop full bore between the trees and cut the pots with your sword. And Valentin there… well, your sergeant there, he was the best. Slashing back and forth, boys, he was a sight! A champion!’
Pasha looked up at Valentin. ‘Did you cut them off, like cutting off heads?’
Valentin appeared impatient, not with the query so much as his own past, before he became a sergeant for the Soviets. Watching his son fidget, Dimitri recalled the day when young Valya came to him and said he was going to join the army. ‘Wonderful,’ he had said, ‘we’ll go together. Yes! We’ll be in the cavalry’ And Valentin answered him, ‘No, I want to join the tanks.’ The tanks! The metal horses, slow and stupid beasts, with a cannon and armor and dials where there ought to be a pounding heart and lungs and a life under your rear, not a hard seat and a stubborn clutch. A tank instead of a horse. A Soviet instead of a champion son. Dimitri listened to Valentin’s response to the boy Pasha, and thought, He sounds like a stinking Romanov up there high on his tank.
‘No, Private… no. A Cossack does not cut off heads.’
‘But…’ Pasha seemed to want to be scared, to hear of heads rolling by the dozens on the Cossack battlefield.
‘Only poor Cossacks cut off heads, Pashinka,’ Dimitri said. ‘Not your sergeant. He practiced hard and became a master of the many different saber cuts from horseback.’
‘You mean there’s more than…?’ Pasha drew a finger under his neck.
‘Yes, yes.’ Dimitri got to his knees and made a blade of his open hand. ‘There’s the one straight down on the shoulder to take off an arm.’ He hacked at Pasha, who laughed. Sasha beside him giggled. ‘There’s this one, to cut open his guts. One across the hip…’ With each description Dimitri sliced at the two boys to make them laugh and understand they were more than numbers now, they were clan with him and, yes, the sergeant.
Dimitri sat back and glanced again up to Valentin. His son smiled thinly at his father’s antics. Alright, the smile said, enough. We are who we are, Father. So, enough. Dimitri sighed, and held up a hand for more of their attention.
‘The life of every Cossack relies on two things. First, his fellow Cossacks. He must be willing to die and kill for them, to never betray their trust. The second is his horse. The bond between rider and horse goes deeper than words. It is instinct and devotion. And do you know who was the best rider in my village?’
It was Valentin who gave the answer. ‘Katerina.’
Dimitri turned to beam at Valentin.
‘My daughter Katya. She was a champion, too. There was nothing she couldn’t do on the back of a horse. She could leap across a stream and lean down from the saddle to take a drink.’
‘No,’ whispered red Sasha.
‘Yes,’ Dimitri breathed back.
‘Where is Katya now?’ Sasha asked.
‘She’s a Night Witch. You’ve heard of the Night Witches?’
‘Yes!’ Pasha blurted. ‘My mother used to tell us the Night Witches would come if we…’
‘Pasha.’
‘Yes?’
‘Your mother used to frighten you a lot, didn’t she?’
‘Yes. Well… urn…’
‘Were you as bad a child as all that?’
Sasha laughed first, then Valentin and Dimitri. Pasha took a jabbing elbow from the quiet hull gunner and chuckled, too.
‘Katya’s a pilot,’ Valentin explained, ‘my sister is a night bomber.’
‘Oh.’ Pasha blushed enough to be orange in the lantern shine.
Dimitri asked, ‘Now, do you boys want to become Cossacks?’
Sasha’s eyes went wide. ‘Is that something you can do? Can you do that?’ He turned to his mate Pasha, but the thick boy shook his head, skeptical. ‘No,’ he said, ‘Dima’s playing with us again. We won’t be real Cossacks. It’s a game.’
Dimitri kept still, embedding his gaze into Pasha’s eyes.
‘It’s no game.’
Skinny Sasha jutted his nose at Dimitri. ‘Yes. Make me a Cossack.’
Dimitri waited for Pasha’s face to change. The loader looked up at his sergeant. Valentin nodded to him.
Pasha said, ‘Me, too.’
‘Listen,’ Dimitri said. ‘You’ve got to know the history first. This is the story of the Cossacks. Centuries ago, Russia wa
s different than it is today. Before the Soviets. In the long time of the Tsars. Russia was a collection of little kingdoms, ruled by boyars and landlords. The people were either rich aristocrats or poor peasants and serfs. But there was one place where the gentry didn’t run things. My homeland, Ukraine. Even its name tells you how free it was: ‘Borderland.’ During this time, Ukraine was a giant and unsettled country, a wild land. There was room to roam, there were fish and grainlands, grasses for cattle and sheep and horses. The first Cossacks were criminals. These were men who wanted their freedom enough to risk their lives to get it. They were running from the law. Or they were sentries from some landlord’s army, who got tired of manning a post and fighting someone else’s battles and ran away. The first Cossack was an escaped serf. Or he might have been some highborn who screwed the wrong peasant girl or stole another lord’s land and came to avoid scandal or being hung. He might have been a Greek or a Turk looking for adventure. Whoever he was, boys, whatever he was running from, his trouble was not going to follow him into Ukraine. He got a clean slate. And while the Russian state to the north and east was getting more and more civilized and tamed, Ukraine stayed without masters. It was a place for the common man, for bandits and fugitives, vagabonds and slaves to remake their lives. These men who skulked into Ukraine became farmers and trappers. They settled the land and raised their families. Everyone was equal.’
Pasha and Sasha watched him, spellbound; with his hands, Dimitri carved for them Ukraine out of the air, made pistols out of his fingers for the bandits, whips across the backs of the serfs, and open, clear fields with sweeps of his palm.
Sasha raised a hand like a schoolboy to ask a question.
‘How did the Cossacks learn to fight?’
‘A good question, Pashinka. The plains of Ukraine were not empty when the first Cossacks came. Hordes of Mohammedan tribesman roamed there. So the Cossacks were forced to band together. They learned from their battles with the Mohammedans, who were wonderful horsemen. The Cossacks borrowed the best of what they saw and soon became even better riders and warriors. But even when the Cossacks found themselves coming together for survival, they maintained their love for kazak, their freedom. They asked little from those who wished to join them. Only three things does a Cossack have in common with all other Cossacks. Three questions, and you have to answer yes to each. Are you ready?’
The two boys hesitated. Dimitri was tickled at the gravity he’d created in them.
‘Yes,’ both uttered.
Dimitri’s legs were tired, his knees griped. But this part of the rite had to be done standing.
‘Alright, get up.’
Valentin stayed in his place on the tank.
When Pasha and Sasha were on their feet, Dimitri asked, ‘Do you want to become Cossacks?’
Both nodded.
‘Say so,’ Dimitri prodded.
‘Yes!’ they said, a bit too loud. Dimitri kept a serious demeanor though he wanted to grin.
‘Good, good. Hold it down, lads. Next question. Will you die if you must for another member of your clan, and for your freedom?’
‘Yes.’ The two boys stood shoulder to shoulder. Dimitri watched them press closer to each other.
And last. Do you believe in God?’
The two boys Pasha and Sasha answered well. ‘Yes. I do. Yes.’
‘Good. Bend your knees. Let’s pray’
Dimitri dropped to his knees on the tank-crushed grass. Pasha and Sasha knelt with him. Dimitri did not glance up at his son. He didn’t want to know if Valentin was praying or simply watching with his Soviet disdain. Dimitri said a silent prayer for the lives of these two youths he’d been given. He asked God to only take them if they were greatly needed to win the battle. Let them stay Cossacks as long as they can, God, let them be free on the earth. But if You cannot, let them be free in heaven. He asked also for God to protect Valya and Katya. He did not ask for himself.
One of the boys said Amen,’ finished with his prayer. Dimitri ended his and lifted his head before he realized the Amen’ was Valentin’s. He stood, Pasha and Sasha scrambled to their feet. Dimitri stepped to his son’s perch on the General and patted Valya’s knee. Valya was maddening this way. Dimitri could never be comfortable with his frustration or his pride in the boy. He did not know Valya at all.
‘This,’ he said to the loader and the hull gunner, newly minted Cossacks, ‘is your hetman. He is your sergeant and your tank commander, but he is your Cossack leader, too. You’ll do everything he orders. Is this understood?’
Valentin slid down from the tank.
‘Are we done?’
Dimitri itched to backhand the boy for the sudden swings he caused in Dimitri’s chest.
At that moment – because, thought Dimitri, there is a God and He listens and once in a while even if you don’t ask He answers – a convoy of panel trucks rumbled up through the dark, headlamps jouncing over the ruts in the field cut by the company of heavy tanks. In the beds of the trucks, lit by the lights of the vehicles in line behind, jostled crowds of old men holding up bottles, and women. Dimitri saw fiddles, an accordion, and even a clarinet.
He recognized her voice. Just Sonya called out for him.
He moved to his son and lapped his arm across the boy’s shoulder.
‘Yes, Sergeant. We’re done. Excuse me.’
Dimitri grabbed his two new charges by their lapels and tugged them away from the lantern, telling them they had an additional duty as Cossacks to perform. They must each take a girl.
‘Dima, is this another game?’ Pasha asked, lagging at the end of Dimitri’s arm.
‘Yes,’ Dimitri told him, ‘and Cossacks play it well. Come.’
CHAPTER 7
July 1
1430 hours
Kalinovka aerodrome
Katya stood beside a dozen other girls from her regiment watching the truck roll closer to the aerodrome. The others hoped longer than she did, asking, ‘Is it them? Can you see?’ But Katya noted from far away how the four women in the back of the approaching truck held on with both hands to the side rails, how they did not wave their white silk underhelmets in the afternoon. They were not the four Night Witches come back from the dead, but replacements. Zoya and Galina, Marina and Lily were gone. They were not in this afternoon’s truck the way they were not in the truck yesterday or the day before. The four dead friends would stay Night Witches forever now, they would never be. anything else. That is not such a bad way to die, Katya thought, to remain for all time someone brave. She was the first to turn from the road.
Leonid said nothing. He put his arm around her shoulders and walked with Katya to the big tent her squadron shared. Minutes behind her the other girls did come in from the road, some even saying, Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow. Katya and Leonid opened the four girls’ steamer trunks. Diaries and personal items would be sent home to their parents. Unmailed letters would be posted. The four beds would be remade for the replacement pilots and navigators. Katya was moved by the disparity of things she and Leonid pulled from the trunks: stuffed animals and extra signal flares, dried flowers and flight logs.
The other girls milled around the four beds, littered now with items from the trunks. They joined Katya in sifting through the objects, arranging piles, recognizing and weeping over mementos, sitting on the beds remembering many talks. This was not the first time there had been deaths in their squadron, but it was the only instance when two crews had been lost on a single mission. The doubled blow seemed almost too great.
Katya watched Leonid withdraw from the tent; Katya had the others around her now. She rose from Lily’s cot. The springs squeaked, a sign of life but not of Lily’s, and Katya had to hold back tears over such a small thing.
She went outside. Leonid stood staring into the midday sky.
‘Today’s the first day of July,’ he said.
Katya nodded.
‘How much longer can they wait?’ she asked, gazing up with him. The battle would take place undernea
th and in this sky; the blue that fell all the way to the horizon gave Katya the sense the battle would be fought in tight quarters, two titanic fighters in a bout, under this ringing blue sky.
‘I don’t know. It should have started by now’
Katya was jarred, this seemed insensitive. She wanted to point back into the tent, to the sobbing girls, and tell Leonid it has started. But she knew what he meant. It’s going to be worse, far worse, than anything before. So she let the comment alone.
‘Walk with me, Leonya, will you?’
She turned and headed for the hardstands where the eighteen U-2S of her squadron sat chocked and waiting. She did not speak along the way.
When they reached her plane, Leonid ran his hands over the patched wings. He patted the engine housing and plucked the wire struts. He chewed his lips in thought. Katya watched him and again felt the sting of resentment. Was Leonid being condescending, the way he looked over her intrepid little plane? He tapped on the U-2 as though he’d never seen one. Then he squatted on his heels. With a finger he drew a circle in the dust.
‘This is your target tonight. Show me how you’ll attack.’
Katya walked over to sit cross-legged beside the little circle. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Show me your flight and attack plan.’
She was in no mood to have her squadron criticized, especially not by a free-ranging, fast-flying fighter pilot. Four dead comrades bought her this day free from tongue clucking.
‘I want to go back to the tent.’
‘And do what? Mourn some more?’
Katya gripped a fist of dirt and flung it at Leonid.
‘Yes. Mourn some more. Maybe there can’t be enough mourning.’
‘That’s selfish.’
Katya cocked her head and repeated the word with shocked silence. Selfish?
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