Daughters of the Night Sky, page 15
All I could do to support Taisiya was to throw grenades over the side when she released her payload. It wasn’t enough to cause damage most of the time, but it added to the chaos, which was the chief point of the exercise.
The whoosh of the descending bomb and the sickening rumble as the bomb made contact were audible even through our muffled ears. Taisiya pulled up as the bomb exploded, narrowly escaping the flying daggers created by the wreckage in the road. The tanks were now stranded in the rubble of the destroyed roadway. Once we were out of range, I took a calming breath and looked back to observe the destruction below. When I turned back around, Taisiya gave me a wave to let me know we were unscathed and that she’d seen our success.
Shards of metal and glass. Nothing more. I couldn’t allow myself to think that there were men inside those machines Hitler sent to flatten us. No more, I hoped, than they thought about the women protected by rickety wood and linen frames when they opened fire on us.
Our encampment, now farther west than where we’d trained and taken our first missions, was always buzzing with activity after dark. Summer nights in Russia were short, and we had to make each minute count. We had to coordinate our takeoffs and landings carefully, spacing them out by no more than ten minutes. Barely enough time to maneuver around one another.
As soon as we landed, Renata and Polina rushed to us. Using a code of their own invention, Taisiya updated Polina on the aircraft’s status while Polina assessed any damage Taisiya couldn’t have seen in flight.
After asking me about the quantity of my flares and grenades, Renata set to work replacing the bombs and ammunition. She lifted hundreds of kilos a night. The largest bombs weighed fifty kilos and required the help of two other armorers to load. In turn she helped load them for the other teams. She never stopped. Strong before the war, hardened by work on her family’s farm, now her arms were chiseled like the arms on a statue of a Greek god. I knew she ached—her efforts were inhuman—but I also knew she was proud, so didn’t attempt to coddle her.
When Polina gave us the all clear, we took our place in the rotation. It would be our fourth sortie of the night, and we hoped for seven. Oksana insisted that we make scrupulous records of every single sortie. The reporters were watching. The Kremlin was watching. Most importantly the men were watching. We had to show them what dedication looked like.
We slept on wooden folding beds in an abandoned school. There was little privacy, no decent shower facilities, and as we had to sleep during the day, no real quiet. We couldn’t expect the villagers around us to stop going on with their lives because we needed sleep.
Oksana still kept to herself, but her dour expression had softened somewhat. Either that, or it had simply become the neutral expression we all wore and was therefore just less noticeable. We bunked in our four-woman teams, and Oksana’s crew had claimed the four bunks next to ours, which might have given us the chance to become better acquainted if Oksana had been more open to conversation.
Oksana pinned her hair up to curl like the rest of us but was less skilled, perhaps not having the practice the rest of us did.
“Would you like some help?” I asked one morning. The dawn was still weak, and we all rushed to fall asleep before the sun shone in earnest.
“I suppose,” she said, tossing the comb at me with a fatigued sigh. “I don’t usually fuss about this sort of thing, but it seems smart to follow your lead in this.” She gave me a martyred look, but I smiled upon seeing it was mostly insincere.
“It’s good for the spirit,” I said, taking the comb in my hand and smoothing her thick locks of fine, silver-blond hair. I took a section of hair, just long enough to reach her collar, between my thumb and forefinger, and twisted it up with a pin and affixed it to the top of her head. Her tresses were soft, and I found the monotony of the task soothing.
“You’re right,” she answered as I worked. “They like to look like women, even if we do a man’s job.”
“It reminds us of who we were,” I said, painfully aware of the past tense. Would we be those young girls again—perhaps not carefree and giddy, but at least living our lives in relative calm and safety? The unasked question hung in the air like Polina’s overly sweet perfume that she’d refused to leave behind, and of which she seemed to have an inexhaustible supply.
“Maybe,” she said noncommittally. “My best friend, Yana, was far more fond of curls, dresses, and shoes than I. I was the tomboy. I let her dress me and do my hair when there was an occasion, but I spent most of my time in boy’s trousers and plain shirts with my hair pulled back with a leather string. It horrified my mother and amused my father.”
I chuckled at the admission but didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself. It was the first time I’d heard her say more than one sentence that had nothing to do with aircraft, orders, or a mission.
“I’m sure Yana enjoyed it,” I said after a moment. “No doubt she’ll want to dress you like a girl for months after all this time in uniform.”
“There will be more important things to do after the war,” she said, her voice mirroring her cold tone. “Rebuilding our country, for one.”
I thought of the burning fields of wheat. Who knew what damage was done to the soil by the fires, the shrapnel, the land mines? The land might not grow proper crops for years. This was to say nothing of the decimated roads and bombed-out buildings. Even with manpower and supplies in abundance, rebuilding Russia would be the task of generations, and the war showed no signs of slowing.
“But it will be a country free from tyranny,” I said, thinking of the rumors of Hitler’s cruelty. “Better to rebuild than to have left the motherland intact and hand it over to the likes of Hitler.”
“Do you think Stalin is so very different?” Oksana asked quietly.
“How can you ask such a thing?” I whispered.
“Very easily. He claims to be a man of the people but has no problem sending hordes of his people to die for him. That’s not the act of a benevolent leader.”
I scanned the room for listening ears and hoped the gentle snores I heard on the nearest bunks were genuine. I pinned the last curl atop her head. She turned to look at me.
“Then why do you fight in his army?” I couldn’t help but ask. “You’re no draftee.”
“Just because I fight against Hitler does not mean I fight for Stalin. I fly to protect my people and my country. I fly for Russia as she could be, if given the chance.”
In her gray-blue eyes there was a wisdom born of suffering. I didn’t know what she’d seen in her twenty-three years, nor could I bring myself to ask.
“I think we all do, Oksana. We fly for the promise of better times.”
“Of course,” she said in a tone that indicated the conversation had come to its conclusion.
Part of me longed to press her, to learn more about Yana and her past, but I knew her well enough to know I’d only succeed in brokering more silence, or worse, resentment. So I went on about my daily ritual of lying in my bed, closing my eyes against the sun, and willing each muscle to relax. I started from bottom to top, focusing on each minuscule part of me. Toes, go to sleep. Feet, you’re next. Legs, hips, waist, and so on. I didn’t achieve real sleep, but I found the profound state of relaxation was better than tossing in bed counting sheep for hours on end.
Rest was no luxury. We needed to be alert up in the air. The slightest error in judgment cost lives. Try as I did to relax on this morning, my mind wandered back to Oksana. She appeared hostile so often, but today I saw more sadness than anything. I found myself torn between wanting to soothe her and wanting to unearth the mystery behind a demeanor so clearly designed to keep everyone at a distance. But, as my papa often said, it was no use hoping a wall would become a door.
CHAPTER 15
November 7, 1942, North Caucasus Front, Sorties: 164
The short, warm nights of summer had given way to the interminable dark and relentless ice of winter. Where we had been flying anywhere from five or six sorties, now we aimed for eight to ten. The Germans had attempted a few raids on our camps the previous day, trying to torch our planes. Anything to keep us from interrupting their sleep. But the raids were always poorly planned, and the foot soldiers encamped nearby warded them off without too much trouble. But they had succeeded in being as big a nuisance to us as we were to them. I understood why they hated us.
Of the twenty-five crews, Taisiya and I had gained the reputation of being among the most fearless teams in the air—each earning the rank of senior lieutenant for our efforts—and Renata and Polina had grown into the regiment’s most respected ground crew, serving as our eyes and ears on the ground, nursing our plane when she suffered broken bones and keeping us supplied with the bombs and ammunition that kept us alive and the enemy at bay. But today was a day of rest, a holiday in honor of the October Revolution.
Our residence was currently a factory that had been abandoned for a safer location to the east—a wise move, given the amount of bomb damage it had sustained. We lay about our makeshift barracks, unable to make friends with the calm. After a year in service, we were too used to constant activity to sit idle. Though our minds yearned for it on the long nights, our bodies betrayed us now that we had the chance for a few hours of rest and leisure. Some of the girls read; others mended uniforms. A few snores sounded from the corner of the room from the lucky few able to sleep.
Sofia’s voice called out, echoing off the bare walls: “Ladies, put aside your diversions, and make yourselves presentable. We’re having a proper celebration tonight. Katya, you’ll want your violin, and Renata, your flute.”
The sluggishness of pilots too long denied proper sleep transformed at once into the bustle of schoolgirls moments before a big dance. Overlarge flight suits were discarded in favor of our daily uniforms, thrown on hastily and in no way ready to stand inspection.
Smells of roasting meat wafted from the dank warehouse designated as our mess hall, and our stomachs rumbled in appreciation. So often we ate what we could between sorties—Polina and Renata always ready with a plate of something, anticipating when we would need it. We never had the time to taste our food, let alone enjoy it. There were other times we were simply too tired, too overwhelmed, to eat much at all.
It was clear the cooks had gone to special effort. This was, after all, in honor of the October Revolution, and the commanders would have seen to it that the best food possible was sent to us to mark the occasion. Roasted beef and pork, piles of white potatoes whipped into clouds, green beans, beets, cakes, and pies. On each table was a large flagon of wine, the first any of us had been offered since training. The male regiments had daily rations of vodka and wine, but our commanders had forbidden it for us. None of us complained at the deprivation—we had more to prove—but we didn’t refuse alcohol, either. The burgundy liquid, lush and warm like velvet, with the taste of warm earth and blue skies infused in the grapes, brought color to all our cheeks.
“Let us hope this means our advances are getting noticed,” Taisiya said, lifting her glass. We raised ours in unison to toast our achievements.
“I assure you, they are, comrades,” Sofia chimed in. “Stalin himself has made it known that he’s proud to see how well Russian women have risen to the cause, especially our regiment. You’re to be congratulated.”
Applause sounded and more toasts were made. The wine flowed freely, more than I had seen even in the days before the war. I found myself eating with more vigor than I had felt except perhaps in the hungriest days of my adolescence, when meals never seemed to sate my hunger. I reveled in the rich meats and sweet pies, giggling with my sisters in arms as though we were not in the clutches of war in a world gone mad.
As the meal waned, the conversation grew still livelier. I removed my violin from the case and kept my tunes light and carefree. Renata accompanied on the flute and Svetlana on a discarded balalaika she’d found in the factory. Sofia’s voice sounded clear and true, singing words of happy songs that belonged to bygone days:
Under the pine, under the green pine,
Lay me down to sleep.
Little pine, little green one,
Don’t rustle above me.
The wine and song gave warmth to the cold cement room with its high ceilings. The world outside was chilled November frost, but we were wrapped in blankets of mirth for one evening.
“I’m proud of all of you,” Sofia declared after a song had ended. “The Russian people will recognize what we have done here as extraordinary. The papers will tell your stories, not just to boost morale for the other troops, but because you are fine aviators—fine soldiers—in your own right. In fact, I have some fan mail for all of you.”
She read:
My dear comrades,
I have been following your progress in the ladies’ journals for many months now and wish to offer you my profound thanks for your service to the motherland. You have shown the women of this great country that we are equal to taking up the mantle of equality that Comrade Stalin has granted to our female citizens. Do not listen to the jibes of the forces that have brought evil to our doorstep. You are not witches, casting hexes down upon innocent men. You are heavenly creatures. Daughters of the night sky who are bringing justice to your people and keeping Mother Russia safe for all her children. I would give anything to serve alongside you, but alas, my age dictates I must find a way to do my part closer to home, but please know that my blessings are with you.
Sincerely,
~Your faithful countrywoman
As if to highlight her words, the sirens sounded overhead.
Polina, having excused herself from most of the festivities, was the only one in the regiment who had seen the impending invasion. She burst into the hall, face flushed and panting.
“The Germans are maneuvering. If we don’t act fast, they’ll take out the aerodrome.”
The idea of losing our planes sent us all into motion. We raced to throw on our padded flight suits and heavy boots. I was plodding and clumsy, lacing my boots, slowed by so much food and wine. I gritted my teeth and forced my fingers to cooperate. Are you a soldier, or a fat housewife enjoying a Christmas feast?
I continued cursing myself as we waded through the muddy field to the aerodrome. No one moved with more grace than I, and I felt compelled to turn back. If I were so clumsy on the ground, I shuddered to think of the mistakes we could make in the air.
“Taisiya, are you all right to fly?” I asked as we hoisted our muddy feet into the cockpit.
“I have to be,” she said matter-of-factly.
I nodded. She wasn’t one to overindulge in her drink, regardless of the occasion, and I’d had less than most, having taken up my violin while many others kept drinking.
Renata and Polina, along with their teams of mechanics and armorers, had us ready to fly in five minutes. Others still staggered to their planes, giggling as they fell into their cockpits. I didn’t blame them for folly; I was just disappointed they couldn’t enjoy one well-earned evening of pleasure. Even in the midst of war, we deserved that. I looked at the glassy-eyed pilots and their flushed mechanics. It would be a miracle if our little feast didn’t cost lives.
We were the first to take off, though we saw others following close behind. It was difficult to tell, but they seemed to be flying true. I hoped their hands would remain steady. We were perhaps ten minutes from our target, a German airfield that had been positioned far too close to our front line for comfort, when the clouds came rolling in.
“Go lower!” I called to Taisiya through the interphone. “We won’t be able to see a thing.”
“I’m already flying at five hundred meters. If I go any lower, I won’t be able to drop the bombs.”
“Then let’s retreat,” I said. There were no longer planes behind me, the others noticing the clouds had pushed us below safe limits. There was no shame in turning back on a mission when it would put the crew and plane in unnecessary danger. We hadn’t enough of either to treat the loss casually.
Taisiya had begun to speak over the interphone, likely to acknowledge that we’d do better to head back to the camp, when a German spotlight plucked us out of the sky.
“Fuck,” she muttered. She attempted an evasive maneuver, banking right and swerving lower, but the spotlight operator never lost sight of her. She dove to four hundred and fifty meters—lower, even—and we were meters away from our target.
“We’re too low!” I bellowed, unnecessarily loud, given the interphone.
“Mark it anyway!” she called back, matching my volume.
I could see a munitions tent in good range, and given what I could see—not very much—it was the best target we could hope to hit.
“Three . . . two . . . one . . . mark!” The cold metal of the flare felt caustic, like acid, against my warm skin as I removed the cap and tossed it over the side of the plane to illuminate the target for Taisiya. I ripped the little white parachute from the flare, caring more about the speed of its descent than pinpoint accuracy.
Taisiya dropped the bomb over the munitions tent, hitting her mark without a centimeter of error. I swallowed my congratulations for the excellent run when the plane bounced upward with the force of the blast. We’d never bombed from such a low elevation, and it seemed like the regulations were in place for a good reason.
“I think we’re going to be fine,” Taisiya said, anticipating my question. “We’re climbing fine, and she seems to be responding as well as she ever does.”
“Let’s get back as fast as she’ll haul us, then,” I said, wondering what damage might have been done that we couldn’t tell from our rudimentary equipment.
Taisiya gave me a wave. “Have some grenades at the ready in case we get company.”
She needn’t have reminded me. Retreat was often the most dangerous part of the mission. Most times we arrived unnoticed, and it wasn’t until we were on our way back to base that the Germans were in the air and able to return fire. The best they could do until then was shoot at us from the ground, which was plenty dangerous. They would only have a short window to chase us before they got close enough to Russian airspace that their mission would become suicide. The Germans weren’t ones for taking needless risks without benefit, and one of our little planes wasn’t worth losing one of theirs.
