I looked around and couldn’t believe my eyes. Only smashed pieces of metal were left of the fighter plane. The anti-nose-over frame, seat and dash board from the cockpit, which I had just left. The rest was thrown all over the place, the tail, pieces of wings, the engine, a pile of broken trees. The cannon was bent into a question mark, the machine-guns as well. The first shock had hit on a huge pear tree, with a trunk it would take two men to embrace. It was hit by the side of the propeller cock and was cut down a metre above ground. The propeller and the reducer had gone into the ground next to it. Only one blade stuck out from the ground, as though it was fixed above a flyer’s grave. So there was a ready-made monument. It only remained to engrave a name and dates.
“Well, flyer, with all my heart, congratulations on your second birth into this world!” The artillery Major was joking. He hugged me tightly and kissed me. After him, all the other guys, whose number had grown greatly, began to hug me. Some were walking around the plane wreck and shaking their heads mournfully, as if they couldn’t believe how a flyer had managed to survive and remain uninjured in that disaster. The others were helping to dress my head and hand or pestering me with questions.
A grey-haired Colonel came up and asked everybody to go away.
“How do you feel?” He asked me.
“Good.”
“I saw your dogfight against the Germans! Well done! You’re a real hero! I have already reported it to the Army commander.”
“Comrade Colonel”, I asked him, “What time is it now?”
He smiled and glanced at his watch.
“Still early. Six thirty.”
“I urgently need to return to my mates, help me out…”
Despite the pain from my wounds, I had decided to get back to the Regiment as soon as possible. But the Colonel interrupted me.
“Stay with us today. You’ve earned a rest, and tomorrow we’ll give you a lift to Beltsy. Udotov!” He yelled to somebody. “Come to me!”
The familiar Major ran up to us, smiled to me as to an old acquaintance and saluted dashingly.
“Feed the flyer”, the Colonel said, “give him good conditions for a rest, and send him to his unit to-morrow! Is that clear?”
“Absolutely, Comrade Colonel!”
The room the artillery guys led me to was light and cosy. Most likely it was the headquarters of an artillery regiment, as battery and division disposition plans were all over the walls. A large table stood in the corner, and an officer with quartermaster badges was bustling around it. He was skilfully setting the table, putting snacks and glasses on it. A kettle mounted in the middle, and alongside of it, my beloved bright red pickled tomatoes and dark-green cucumbers.
Hunger reared its head. Only now I recalled that I had had no breakfast before the sortie. “Well done, boys,” I thought with gratitude, taking a seat at the table. Major Udotov, who turned out to be the Chief of Staff of the regiment, was to the right of me, Party leader of the Regiment Captain Kibirev, to the left. Altogether seven people filled the space around the table. Udotov led the feast. He grabbed the kettle, half-filled our glasses with transparent liquid and proposed a toast to the “Guard’s landing”. “They thought I was landing, not crashing”, I guessed. “Well, let it be so!”
I wasn’t keen on drinking ‘home brew’, that was my definition of the transparent liquid, but I couldn’t afford to decline hospitality. When we clinked I guessed that everybody was looking at me, but paid no attention and drank up. Only when my mouth was burned and my breath was squeezed I understood what kind of liquid it was. “Pure spirits, devil take it! But you, folks, are watching me in vain. We flyers can do something too.” I finished off my glass with no rush, put it on the table and slowly took a tomato to the accompaniment of delighted cheers. The rest of the guys exchanged glances, diluted the spirits with water from a mess-pot obligingly provided by an aide-de-camp.
Time was passing unnoticed in conversation. We talked about everything but mostly about the situation at the front. After breakfast, I was led to a mud hut provided for me.
Left alone I tried to fall asleep but couldn’t. Even a significant dose of alcohol failed to make my mind relaxed. The recent dogfight kept flashing in front of my eyes. Having tossed and turned for a half an hour I got up and lit up a cigarette. But the fight was interesting. Arkhipenko was right saying that if you’re alone against several enemy planes, keep attacking them, look for a head-on if you don’t want to be shot down. As a rule the Germans don’t endure a head-on attack. Of course a well-known risk goes with it, but as people say ‘the play is worth the candle!’ Well, he’s been fighting from the beginning of the war and has never been shot down yet!
Calling to mind all that had happened, I still couldn’t understand why the transmitter didn’t work. It worked very well yesterday, but failed today. The Devil knew what was wrong with it! Had they heard me, I would have flown along with Lusto in one pair, and it would have changed the whole alignment of forces completely. My thoughts shifted to my comrades, Arkhipenko, Lusto, Volkov. “They must think I’m dead.” A terrible thought struck me. I needed to get to my Regiment, as they may have sent home notification of my death. Maybe, Victor had already returned.
In a quarter of an hour I was already far from the gunners’ position having passed over a hill and come down to the village of Contari which stood on a road. On the third day of my peregrinations over mountain passes, and unfamiliar roads, around midnight I had reached my Regiment, hungry and dead-tired. I spent two nights on the way, hitch-hiking, and eating whatever was at hand, until I found a road which led to the aerodrome. I got off the vehicle, several kilometres from the village, and had to walk over the hills, and nearly blindly, look for the hut the flyers lived in.
I went up to the front step and pulled the door. It was locked from inside, which meant they were sleeping. I walked around the hut hoping that at least one window was open. No way, everything was shut and I thought. “Why the hell did they lock themselves up like herrings in a drum?” I got on the front step again and tried to force it open. The door didn’t yield to me. “A pity to wake them up but there is no choice. It’s no fun sleeping outside.”
I knocked on the door. It was quiet inside. “Maybe they slept over on the aerodrome? Then I’ll have to walk another six kilometres.” In despair, I began to bang on the door as hard as I could. I heard some bustling from inside, then the shuffling of shoes and some coughing.
“Who the hell’s come round in the night?”
“It’s me, Zhen’ka!”
“Zhen’ka who? You’ve gotta be joking.”
“It’s me, open up! Don’t you recognise me? It’s Mariinskiy!”
I heard as the inside door opened, then whispering in the corridor. What they were talking about was impossible to make out. I knocked again.
“Open up! How long do I have to stand here?”
“Who’s there?” Bourgonov’s voice asked me.
“Gipsy, don’t you recognise me? Are you all deaf?”
Silence. And again I heard a muted whisper behind the door and inaudible talk from the room.
“Open up or I’ll smash the window!”
“Alright, alright! Why are you making a noise?”
My threat worked. Bourgonov rumbled with the door bolt, I heard the familiar click of the hook being taken off, but nobody opened the door. I pushed it with my foot and came in. The corridor was empty. I went through to the room touching the walls and lit up a ‘Katyusha’. The door behind me closed by itself, squealing. I sat at the table, took off my helmet, pulled off my jackboots and looked around. All the flyers were sleeping, peacefully snoring with blankets over their heads. “Why did they cover themselves this way? It’s hot, isn’t it?” Bourgonov who had opened the door a minute ago was snoring somewhere amongst them. How had he managed to fall asleep again?
“You’re fast asleep, are you? Is there any tucker here?”
No reply. Only snoring sounded, somewhat louder. “The
y don’t want to talk. Why?”
“Alright, carry on, I’ll find something myself.”
I came up to Batya’s bench. He always had something cached away. Batya himself was not there, his bed was empty. But his cache had to be somewhere! I bent over, rummaged in the dark under the bench and pulled it up. The oxygen container rolled heavily out from under the bench. “It’s full! They haven’t drunk it up!” Just in case I touched the canister. If miracles happened they would have to go on. It was full as well!
“Well, they probably had a drink and no sin if I do the same!” I put the container on the table, then the canister next to it, took half a loaf of bread, lard, onion out of the sack, poured myself some home brew. Where did Batya get it? I had a drink and began to eat. I didn’t want home brew anymore and had two or three glasses of wine. Some rustling sounded from the plank-bed. A bed creaked from aside. Misha Lusto’s head stuck out from under the blanket and disappeared again. “Is that Pupok sleeping over there? And Vit’ka is most likely not back yet.”
“Who is burning the midnight oil here?” The deputy squadron commander asked severely, trying to distinguish in the ‘Katyusha’s weak light who was sitting at the table.
“Me!”
“Who’s Me?”
“Zhenya.”
“Zhenya who?
“You bastards! I’ve been away two days and you’ve written me off, haven’t you?”
And then I yelled at the top of my voice, “Have you all gone crazy here, you sons of bitches? Don’t you recognise your mate?”
The flyers threw their blankets aside, glanced at the table and jumped up as if by command.
“Eh, Zhen’ka, you devil! You’re back! You’re drinking and not offering us any! Let’s celebrate your homecoming from the world beyond! Let us touch you!”
“Well, please, wait”, I begged. “My hand… it’s painful.”
“Wait, guys. Let him go!” Lusto intervened. “Is it a serious wound?”
“Not really, a mere trifle, just a scratch… What about you over here? Is Victor back?”
“No, Zhenya, not found yet.” Nikolay Glotov answered for all of them.
Silence set in the room for a few seconds. I broke it.
“Open the windows, it’s stuffy in here. How can you sleep in this heat?”
“It’s Figichev’s order, no way round it”, Lusto said. “Lots of things have happened here while you were out. But we’ll talk about it later. Tell us about yourself, how did you manage to stay alive? We all saw you hit the ground. Several guys from the Division headquarters went over there, and the death notification letter has been already issued.”
“You want to know how I survived? Then listen up.” I told them in every detail about my last sortie, about my fight against two Messerschmitts, then with six Fockers, about the way I had been shot down and saved by the artillery troops, and, at last, about my long and hard march back to the Regiment. When I mentioned the silent transmitter Lusto suddenly interrupted me.
“We have to tell you about it separately. Fedor and I didn’t know anything was wrong with your two-way, but then began to guess it. Then Utin and Goreglyad came over and gave us a blast. Fedor was accused of having let the fight slide, and you, of having left the order and your leader. But today our radio-man, Sergeant Shirokikh, came with a confession. It turned out, the night before the sortie he had checked up all the two-ways, except for yours. You escorted a Pe-2 during your second last sortie, didn’t you? Your transmitter was tuned to its frequency. Shirokikh wanted to change it beforehand, but when he came up to it he was mobbed by mechanics. Volkov told him to sit down and wait for ten minutes, before they finished the job. He sat down and then a mechanic from the next squadron came over, and called him to the village for a drink of good home brew. He decided that he would re-tune it next morning and went away. But in the morning he slept in with a hangover. That was it. Currently he is under arrest in the guardhouse. Figichev has ordered an investigation into the case and handed it over for court martial.”
“Well, I guess, he’s gone overboard with the court martial. The guy is a good specialist. What’s the point in losing the guy? Let him spend some time under arrest and think it over. What about yourself?”
“There was a lot of work to do. We shot down nineteen planes and lost two including you, but now you’ve come back, only one. Thus there are no losses in the squadron apart from Korolev, but an extraordinary incident happened in the Regiment yesterday.”
“What happened?”
“Believe it or not, but a large group of Germans had concentrated straight in front of our squadron, parking in the woods near the aerodrome. Apparently they wanted to break through the frontline, and came across the aerodrome. Judging from the prisoners’ stories they were going to attack the guards and destroy the planes, but were spotted. And you know who by?”
“Who?”
“Our arms fitter, Bourmakova.”
“What? Galya? How come?”
“She went away in the night and stumbled across their patrol. They began to shoot. We raised everyone who had firearms and by morning the Germans were mostly dead, and luckily our infantry helped as well. Galya was found.”
“How is she?” I interrupted him. “Alive?”
“Still alive, but the doctors are doubtful. She has two bullets in the chest and one in a leg. She is in the field hospital, delirious, doesn’t recognise anybody. You know, Zhenya, in her ravings she called your name a few times.”
In the morning I got up with all the guys. Lusto who had already managed to go and come back, told me, “You can sleep. Arkhipenko told us not to disturb you, have a rest. He himself has not come around so as not to wake you up.”
“Hang the rest. I have to report to Figichev that I’m back, have to see the guys, Volkov.”
“Figichev already knows about your return, the guys too. The regiment is celebrating.”
“Well, you say ‘celebration’ and I’ll keep sleeping and resting? No, I have to go…”
I came to the parking bay but didn’t find any of the flyers. The squadron had just been away on a sortie, but the atmosphere was quite lively. Volkov was the first to run up to me.
“Good morning, comrade Commander, congratulations on your return!”
“Cheers, Kolya! We have no plane again.”
“Rubbish. The main thing is you’re alive and another machine will arrive. They say that aircraft from a neighbouring division will be transferred to us today. They’ll get new ones and give us their own. Commander, have you heard about Galya?”
“I have, Kolya. I’m sorry to hear about her, she’s a good girl.”
“She suffered so much down here after she’d heard they thought you had died. You know, she loves you, comrade Lieutenant.”
“How do you know that, Starshina Corporal?”
“It showed. Even though she’s been hiding it, I noticed.”
“Pack it in! There’s no place for love here. We’re at war!”
All the mechanics, and flyers from other squadrons, free from work, gathered around. I rushed to change the topic, but decided to call in at the field hospital to find out how Bourmakova was. All day long I had not one free minute. I kept accepting congratulations, answering questions, telling about the recent events ten times over. But most of my time was wasted in arguments with the Squadron Commander. Arkhipenko had just flown back and I went to the command post to ask for permission to fly. But he was implacable.
“No, Zhenya. Have a rest hyar for today. We’ll see then.” Arkhipenko had never taken on a sortie a flyer who had just returned home, and always gave him a day of rest.
“Well, you want to fly?” Figichev asked.
“Of course!”
“And how’s your hand?”
“A trifle!” I moved my hand. “Not even any pain.”
“Well then you’ll fly planes down here. It’s not far away. About ten kilometres. By car there, by plane back here. Happy with that?”
> “Yes,” I said, not hiding my disappointment. At least this stuff…
“You may as well choose an aircraft for yourself.”
“Choose!” That day I flew down three planes. One of them was given to Volkov. Rubbish of a plane. In the worn out engine there was just enough power to take off the strip. But there was no choice. The other ones were no better.
Only late that night did I find time to call in at the hospital to see Bourmakova. I felt that it was necessary, as she was my subordinate. Besides, I couldn’t forget Volkov’s words. “You know she loves you, comrade Lieutenant.” Strange that I had not noticed. I came up to the hospital barracks and stopped, feeling a bit timid. How should I behave when I see Galya? What to talk about? What to ask about? Somehow several days ago these were not issues, but now… With a sigh I crossed the threshold and found myself in a small lit-up premises. Three young nurses were talking about something, gaily and animatedly. One of them noticed the intruder, got flustered and severely raised her voice to her girlfriends, putting her hand to her mouth. They fell silent and stared with wide eyes at the Lieutenant who had entered the room. “Apparently the rumours about my return have reached this place as well,” I thought. So I paid no attention to the curious glances.
“Girls, how can I see Bourmakova?”
“Oh, girls!” The one who was the first to notice my arrival said coquettishly, “This is that very flyer, I swear to God! Say, is your surname Mariinskiy?”
“That’s me, and so what?” “Nothing much.” She was embarrassed. “It’s just that we’ve heard a lot about you. Everybody is talking, mostly about the way you landed your burning plane on the Germans’ heads.” I burst out laughing.
“Who told you that rubbish? Don’t tell me, it’s the female telegraph. What kind of stuff won’t people make up? Well, show me where Bourmakova is.”
Red Star Airacobra Page 21