Last Citadel wwi-3

by David L. Robbins

  ‘Yes. And what do you think I’ll do when it’s you dead on the ground because you’d rather cry than adapt? Do you think I’ll sit on your bed and go through your trunk? Or do you think I’ll get back into my Yak and shoot down some more Germans? What do you think, Katya? Which is it for you? Do you want to fight or do you need a fresh handkerchief? Do you want to learn something? Because if you do, you need to do it right now. You have another mission tonight, and there’s going to be another night fighter waiting for you.’

  Katya clamped her teeth. Leonid had not even wiped off the dirt she’d heaved on him, the dark bits salted his folded lap.

  ‘Show me,’ Leonid said.

  Katya made her hand into a plane, spreading thumb and pinky for wings. It was simple. She approached the target at three thousand feet. One mile out, she cut her engine and glided in, bleeding off altitude to twelve hundred feet. Here she lowered her hand over the dirt circle. She dropped her bombs, hit the magnetos and throttle, and got away as fast as she could from the lights and guns. She banked her hand away from the circle and raised it, heading for home. Three minutes behind, approaching the target right about now, was the next bomber, coming from the same direction at the same altitude. Simple, she thought, again watching her hand sail safely away, not a scratch on it. Then she asked herself the question before Leonid could: What if there is another night fighter waiting for us tonight? Will we fly right into his sights again?

  Katya made another plane out of her free hand. This was the German Me-109, stalking high above the target for the Night Witches who floated in straight and on time.

  Will we do anything different tonight? No. Leonid is right. Who will it be, then, in flames next?

  ‘Do you have an idea?’ she asked.

  Leonid sat cross-legged with her. ‘Do you?’

  Katya looked at the two hands she hovered above the circle in the dirt. One was a defenseless bomber, the other was the black German fighter. The German hand licked its chops. He had the speed and gunnery to make a joke of her regiment’s standard attack plan. He already had. Then it struck her.

  What if both hands were Night Witches?

  ‘Leonya. What if we take in two planes instead of one?’

  Leonid nodded. He looked down at the dirt circle with her, picturing the altitude, the light beams searching, flak exploding. She could see the plan hatching in his head even as it took shape in her own. The scheme was just as simple as what their squadron had been doing for the past year. Perhaps that’s why it had been overlooked. This new adversary, the night fighter, called for a new tactic. Katya allowed herself an inward smile, even on this sad day.

  Two planes will fly in together. The first ignores the target, but instead draws the attention of the searchlights and the artillery batteries. Meanwhile, the other Night Witch glides straight for the target. Once she drops her load, both planes hit the gas, climb, and circle back. But next time they switch roles. If all the dodging plane has to worry about is staying away from the lights, the guns and night fighters, she can do a better job of staying alive. And if all the bomber has to do is bear down on the target without avoiding the lights, she can be more accurate. When the first pair’s sortie is over, the next two in line do the same. Yes?

  ‘Yes,’ said Leonid, snapping his fingers. ‘And make sure you stagger the times between pairs, and vary the direction you fly in from. No night fighter can hit what he can’t find.’

  Katya worked her two hands over the target, practicing the maneuver over the dirt circle, determining altitudes and patterns so the two U-2s wouldn’t collide in the dark and confusion. The strategy made sense. It could work.

  Leonid said nothing while Katya worked out the plan. Then he reached above the dirt circle and took one of her hands in his own, as though his hand was flying beside hers over the make-believe target.

  ‘Hey.’

  Katya’s hand hovered in his. Their eyes locked high above, among the pretend stars.

  Leonid said, ‘I know you lost four friends. I am trying to help. It’s just my clumsy way of doing it.’

  Katya gazed at their elevated and linked arms. We’re both better up here, she thought, more graceful in the air than we are on the ground. She set Leonid’s hand loose.

  ‘It’s alright,’ she said. She wanted to say more but could not figure what it would be. The firmness of his hand in hers and the concern in his warning, the gentleness of his apology, these were all opposites of the grief and fear rummaging in her heart. Katya felt guilty and tugged at. She sensed risk and vulnerability and so banked hard away from it.

  ‘I’ll go and tell the others. See what they think.’

  Leonid rose first, taking the cue from her voice. He looked down at her from his height. He said, ‘Good luck tonight,’ and walked off to his own hangar.

  She watched him stride away, his name on her lips. ‘Good luck to you,’ she mumbled instead to his back.

  Katya rose, glum over how she’d left things with Leonid. He’d spoken sharply to her and she’d returned fire, then they’d both retreated before anything could be damaged badly. She shook her head. No, their friendship was too strong, nothing would have been damaged. Gazing into the immense blue sky, where God lived and she herself galloped, Katya wondered, Was it harm Leonid and I averted just now, or was it something else, something secret revealing itself on this mournful day? What would I have said to Leonid if I’d let myself speak? Would it have been…? The sky had no answers for her, only endless room for asking. No, she thought. Comrades have died, and comrades can be saved with this new tactic. There’s a mission to be flown, and a major battle looming. I have my answer.

  She entered the command tent and found the captain of her squadron, Nina Vasi Pyevna Smirnova. She told the captain the new strategy. Smirnova was impressed and asked Katya to write it up. Katya would address the pilots and navigators at their briefing in a few hours.

  Tonight’s mission would be above a rail station deep inside enemy lines. The partisan network had identified a trainload of German heavy tanks being transported to Belgorod. Efforts were being made to stop this train. One partisan cell was planning to attack the train itself. The partisans needed the Night Witches to take out the station, its water tower, maintenance shed, and tracks to slow the train’s progress.

  Tonight, she and Vera were assigned to fly one of the two lead planes.

  July 1

  2130 hours

  Katya lay inside the tent and did not see dusk settle over the steppe, but she knew it had come when she heard the first Yak-9 fighters tear away from the field. The pages of her report jostled and mingled on her cot when she jumped off it to run outside.

  She was too late. Leonid’s plane was the third to take off. His climb was beautiful to watch, his sleek fighter rose and Katya thrilled to the engine’s power. She saw the top of Leonid’s helmet through the clear bell of his cockpit and felt a palpable rising in her chest, as though part of her heart were flying off with him, banking hard in line with the others on night patrol. The rising went into her hand and she hoisted it in a wave he would not see. The last of the Yaks bounded off the grass field. The pilots closed ranks over the airstrip, then flew beyond sight and sound. Once they were gone, Katya listened to the wide silence return under the vast and bruising steppe sky, serrated only by crickets and some mechanic hammering at something stubborn.

  Katya trod back to the tent. She completed the report and closed her eyes. Other girls filtered in, squeaking their cots for some rest before the night’s mission. No one spoke, a few snored, and Katya drifted away. She awoke a little while later when the other girls stirred. There was a change in her when she sat up. She recollected a vague sense from a dream she must have had while napping. The dream was of her and Leonid. She remembered a closed door between them. She did not recall if the door ever opened in the dream. She felt bereft of him; he’d taken off before she could see him and explore again what she’d wanted to say, perhaps even what she wanted to hear. T
he door in the dream was closed, she knew that now. Sitting upright on the cot, she rubbed her eyes awake and made a decision, to leave the door open. Vera walked past on her way to the briefing. She stopped in front of Katya’s cot.

  ‘What?’ Vera asked.

  Katya looked up at her navigator. The girl wore a kind and silly grin. She leaned down to Katya, to read something in her eyes as though on one of her maps.

  ‘Hmm?’

  Vera leaned down farther. ‘What’s with you? You’ve got a look on your face.’

  Katya made no response. She stood from the cot and grabbed her report. Vera blocked her way. She called to the other girls, ‘Did you see the look?’

  ‘Yes,’ a few answered. ‘A definite look.’

  Katya snorted and spun away from Vera. Laughing Night Witches hooted behind her, ‘A look, yes, yes. I saw it.’

  Vera caught up with her outside the tent.

  ‘So, Katyusha. Did you and Leonid…’

  ‘No!’ Katya held up the pages she’d prepared. ‘We’ve got a mission tonight. Do you think you could get your crazy brain to focus on that right now?’

  ‘Yes, Katyusha.’ Vera feigned shame. ‘Of course, my pilot.’ She stabbed a finger into Katya’s face. ‘But you’ll tell me everything when we get back, or I’ll ask Leonid. We’ll see what he says.’

  The briefing took an hour. The pilots and navigators discussed Katya’s proposal, refined it, then accepted it. Katya received a round of applause. Captain Smirnova sent them out to get ready. Take-off would be in fifteen minutes, at 2200 hours. The sun’s long goodbye over the steppe was still in progress when Katya strode outside the command tent. In the remaining glimmer, she spotted the fuselage lights of the first Yak-9 returning to the field. In moments the sound of the plane came within range. The engine sputtered. Something was wrong.

  Men ran past Katya to the edge of the grass landing strip. Many carried fire extinguishers, a few hauled medic boxes. Katya kept her eyes in the dimming sky, on the flashes from the oncoming plane. Then the Yak came into view. Smoke trailed behind it, blacker than the congealing night. The engine coughed and the plane pitched, dipping and unsure. Katya crept closer to the field, some of the other girls in her squadron came with her. The fighter came in too steep. Katya’s lips formed the words Pull up, pull up, and at the last moment the nose of the Yak-9 lifted, the wheels hit the ground but bounced the fighter back into the air. Then the engine cut. The Yak touched down and stayed, running fast over the grass, but the dulled propeller slowed and the fighter turned off the runway in a sharp pivot. The engine was throttled back. The Yak did not taxi to its assigned station but halted where it was off the runway and quit. An acrid haze billowed from the engine until runners doused it with white chemicals. Others climbed the wing, shoved back the cockpit bell, and clotted around the pilot. Fingers touched the back of Katya’s fist. Vera stood beside her. Katya opened her balled hand and took Vera’s in hers.

  More planes landed, none as badly as the first wounded plane; that pilot was hauled away on a stretcher and his plane was pushed by a ground crew to its hardstand. Three more in Leonid’s squadron of a dozen trailed smoke when they touched down. The eleventh plane landed and Katya scanned the maroon sky for his green and red running lights. Vera’s hand tightened around hers.

  ‘He’s coming,’ Katya said.

  The eleventh and last plane was the squadron commander. Katya watched this pilot park his fighter, climb off, and speak to his mechanic. The sky did not issue another plane for Katya, the only lights were the first winking stars. The commander headed away to make his report. Katya felt her dread swell with every passing second, each step the squadron leader took was another thing that would make Leonid’s failure to appear final. Without thinking, she released Vera’s hand and ran across the field through the warm smells of exhaust and burned oil. Weaving through the wings she saw the bullet holes ripped into the planes.

  ‘Captain,’ she called, ‘Captain, please. A moment, sir.’

  The grimness of the officer’s face was plain when he turned to her. Katya ran up beside him but he did not stop. She stepped into his path.

  ‘Captain, please. Lieutenant Lumanov. I didn’t see him land.’

  ‘No.’

  This single word tore through Katya like one of the bullets through the Yaks.

  She fought for her composure. ‘Can you tell me, sir, what happened? Where is he?’

  ‘Who are you, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Katerina Berkovna, sir. I’m with…’

  ‘Yes, you’re one of the Night Witches. I know. Leonid tells me about you.’

  ‘Captain, please.’

  ‘There was a dogfight over Tomarovka. He was shot down, Lieutenant.’

  Katya seized up, her lungs seemed to bite at her from inside her ribs.

  Before she could speak, the Captain laid a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘I flew over his crash site. He sent up a white flare. He’s alive. But he’s pretty deep inside German territory. I don’t have any way to know if he’s injured or how badly. He’s a clever lad, Lieutenant. I suppose you know that.’

  Katya muttered, ‘Yes.’ The word was a relief, better than another wounding No, but the comfort was cold. Tomarovka was six miles south of the front line. Leonid might have been badly hurt in the crash. Yes, he survived, but for how long? Until he bleeds to death, or a German patrol captures him? The Captain studied her face. She did not know or care how much she showed him.

  ‘We’ll alert the partisans in the area. They’ll try to get to him first. That’s all we can do, Lieutenant. You understand?’

  Katya nodded. Leonid had been shot down. She’d imagined this fate for herself with every mission over the past year, she’d suffered with her mates when this fate fell on others in her regiment, she’d seen it happen in the sky more than she cared to remember. But never once had she prepared herself for this to happen to Leonid.

  But the worst had not happened. He was still alive.

  The Captain cleared his throat. ‘I’ve got to make my report. Good luck. Lieutenant?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’d like to tell you something. Leonid has made me appreciate you Night Witches. I… wanted to be sure you knew that.’

  The praise was spoiled. Katya wanted to beat the man’s chest: Why didn’t you bring him back?

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The Captain sidestepped her. Impulsively, Katya reached for his arm.

  ‘Captain? West of Tomarovka? East?’

  ‘East, Lieutenant. Two miles due east. In a small field beside a dry creek.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain. Thank you.’

  Katya turned to hurry away, but this time the Captain stopped her.

  ‘I hear those broomsticks of yours can set down almost anywhere. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes, Captain. Anywhere.’

  July 1

  2340 hours

  over no-man’s-land

  Voronezh Front

  Leonid was on the ground. This notion wrapped Katya as tightly as did the flying night. She tried to keep her mind on the mission, on the train station far inside enemy lines, but like a disobedient horse her thoughts shied from her instruments, away from the wind in her wings. She tightened her mental reins and brought her own head around to attention on the raid.

  Only a wedge of moon glowed behind soupy clouds. She and Vera cruised southward at four thousand feet. Far to port, the other U-2 belched little exhaust fires from its engine. The plan was for that crew, Olga Sanfirova and navigator Olga Kluyeva, to attack the station first while Katya and Vera diverted the defenses, then they would switch roles. The darkness tonight was dense enough for them to hide in its folds. Katya kept one eye on the popping blue fires from the Olgas to avoid drifting too close to them. Vera remained quieter than usual in Katya’s earphones. Something was unsaid between the two of them. This added to Katya’s sense of burden in the cockpit. Leonid was on the ground. Katya chugged through the air, dis
tracted and scared, and Vera, never a mystery, was silent.

  The air currents were smooth and the flight was even. Vera’s direction brought them in range of the target only forty minutes after take-off. The rail station lay fifteen miles south of Belgorod in the village of Oktabrskaya. The tracks ran alongside the Lopan River, and Vera brought Katya and their bombs down the slim waterway to the lights of the village. They were deeper tonight behind German lines than they had yet flown. Katya checked the two Olgas. They were dead even to port.

  ‘Cut engine,’ Vera said.

  Katya pushed in the throttle and switched off the magnetos. The plane began to sail, and under her gaze the two Olgas disappeared, their motor shut down, too. Katya began to drop altitude, gliding and accelerating to the target. The Olgas would hold up here at four thousand for a count of ten, then begin their muffled dive. Katya looked out through the flipping propeller, the whoosh of wind mounted, and she thought, Leonid, I must leave you for a few moments, please hang on.

  ‘Steady,’ Vera intoned. Katya grabbed a flare and readied it. No searchlights lashed out yet, their approach was fast and unspoiled. The air she slid down was silken and beneath the rushing wind everything was hushed. The ground below slipped by, wary and dangerous.

  Then, high over her head, she heard a snarling deep and unseen in the dark.

  The night fighter circled. The Germans had success with this countermove once, so they tried it again. There would be no artillery tonight, just lights and the game of hunter and quarry.

  Katya licked dry lips. It was time to find out if the quarry’s new tactic would work.

  Her altimeter read twenty-five hundred feet. Vera whispered -she’d heard the howl of the night fighter, too – ‘Drop it.’

  Katya struck the flare and tossed it out of the cockpit. For a second, the bottom of her upper wing jittered white from the bursting flare, then she banked away. The train station of Oktabrskaya was made garish by the sparks floating down under the tiny parachute. The flare glittered against the roof tiles and the vacant steel rails. In the next instant, everything was punched out of Katya’s sight by a hard white fist of light.