Daughters of the Night Sky, page 17
“What was the matter with Chernov?” Oksana asked as Sofia approached and the general was safely out of earshot.
“He was aggravated we haven’t been flying according to regulations,” she said, her smile not wavering from her crimson lips.
“Did we do anything wrong?” I asked, feeling the tension creep into my shoulders. Would Chernov punish us for breaking the rules, despite our results?
“Quite the contrary. Word of our increased productivity has already gone around the brass. Chernov came to see what sorcery we ‘night witches’ had concocted.”
“What did he think of my plans—our plans, Major?” Polina asked timidly, emerging from behind our plane.
“He would prefer we flew by the book.”
“So we’re abandoning the modifications?” Polina asked.
“No, I simply told him ‘the book’ was fine, but we decided to write a better one. I expect many of your modifications will become regulation soon enough, Junior Lieutenant Vasilyeva.”
“I’m a senior sergeant, Major,” Polina corrected. Few of the women who served as ground crews had earned the rank of commissioned officer, nor did they expect to.
“Not any longer,” Sofia said, extending her hand. “The general passes on his congratulations. Or else he would, if he weren’t such a pompous ass.”
CHAPTER 17
July 1943, Sorties: 449
Chernov may have wished us to the deepest pit in the middle of Siberia, but he had become a minority. Because we had come to fly so many missions, we had strengthened the Russian foothold in the Crimea. We were no longer the 588th Night Bomber Regiment; we were the Forty-Sixth Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. The title Guards was an honor bestowed on few regiments, and ours was the first all-female regiment to earn it. An unfortunate truth is that those who earn these sorts of honors rarely have time to savor them. When they promoted the regiment, we had as nice a dinner as could be mustered on a battlefield and then went back to our aircrafts.
As it was now again summer and there were no better lodgings to be had, we slept in eight-man tents that barely protected us from the constant clouds of mosquitos that followed us like starving dogs. The advantage was sleeping close to the planes and being able to move our camp with a few hours’ notice.
Though Polina oversaw the maintenance on our Polikarpov, we took it upon ourselves to give her a good wipe-down and checkup each week. We redrew the chalk lines on the wings we used for targeting. Any holes that needed repatching, any splotches in need of painting, were tended to by our own hands. Polina handed over these duties once a week with good-enough grace, though we knew to leave anything to do with the engine itself to her attention.
“She’s like a dutiful old mare,” Taisiya announced one day as she applied with delicate strokes a coat of butyrate dope to a patch. She’d already laid the coat of nitrate dope on the patch, and once this second coat dried, it would be ready to accept paint to match the rest of the linen canvas. The stink of the dope was powerful, like concentrated turpentine, so I was careful to stand upwind to avoid the headache that would be the inevitable result from inhaling the fumes.
“More like a sturdy milk cow,” I tutted, patting the fuselage as I might the rump of a faithful Guernsey who had just been given a good milking.
“That’s it. We’re calling her Daisy,” Taisiya said, her chuckle nostalgic. “We’ll call her for Matvei’s best dairy cow.”
We shook hands on the agreement, even painting chains of daisies around the cockpits with the moniker Daisy spelled out in loopy script in addition to our own names under the lip of each cockpit.
After the long winter the short summer nights didn’t exactly feel like we were lounging on the beach in Sochi, but it was far less intense most evenings. The breezes were warmer, and we had longer stretches on the ground during the day. We needed pills the doctors gave us to stay awake. We called them “Coca-Cola” as our own little joke—mostly so we didn’t think about what the prolonged use of the medication might be doing to our bodies. Nothing good, that was certain.
That afternoon in late July was glorious. One of the days so drenched with sunlight that the world itself seemed to vibrate with joy. It seemed perverse to be fighting a war under the splendor of such a summer sun. I wanted nothing more than to bask under it in one of the two-piece bathing suits the American actresses wore in magazines. Hand in hand on a white-sand beach with Vanya, sipping a frothy drink made with raspberries or some such thing.
But he was hundreds of kilometers away. I wasn’t sure precisely where—his postcards would have been censored if he’d been careless enough to divulge his location—but he seemed no better or worse with each missive than he had for months. He was suffering, I knew. He did not wax on about how he missed me, how he missed home, but that absence itself was telling. I would have given a week’s rations to see him, to comfort him, but leave was about as easy to procure as pixie dust and unicorn hair. I would have to tend to mending his spirit once the fighting was over, and I sensed it would be a task as large as the one we now faced in the air.
Sofia briefed us as she did before each night’s mission. We would be flying three minutes behind Sofia and Oksana, as we often did. They would bomb the searchlights the Germans had been so fond of using to aid their antiaircraft gunners and blind our pilots, and then Taisiya and I would swoop in, along with Elsa and Mariya and their navigators, and take out a target of our choice, or else drop bombs willy-nilly just to keep the soldiers awake. Those nights were the most fun. Less precision needed, and the knowledge we were being a proper nuisance to a lot of people who definitely deserved the treatment.
We took off toward the end of twilight, which was odd for us. The nights were so short, we couldn’t wait to make our first sorties until after full dark, as we usually did. If we’d waited for pitch black, we might only get in five or six runs, which wasn’t even close to our standard. It was getting darker, though, and we’d be well enough protected by the shroud of night once we arrived at the German outpost.
We couldn’t see the outline of Sofia’s plane ahead once we got closer to our target, but we could hear the unmistakable guttural whirr of its propeller.
It was far too quiet at the base. No spotlights to blind us.
I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, much like I had when I once sat for a mathematics examination and had forgotten one, rather essential, formula. Something was missing.
I felt the hairs pricking at my neck, the metallic taste of fear heightening my hearing and drawing the shadows of twilight into sharp relief.
Sofia and Oksana’s plane coasted in over the site like a ghost, marked the target with a flare, dropped their payload, and roared back to life—but still no antiaircraft shells were fired, though the German gunners would’ve had time to take aim several times over. Nor was anyone frantically trying to find Taisiya and me—and they had to know another plane would be behind the first.
Either these German troops hadn’t been briefed about us, which seemed like the type of oversight the meticulously organized Germans wouldn’t make, or something was terribly wrong.
I didn’t see the German night flyer until the pilot was practically sitting in my cockpit.
“Go!” I screamed to Taisiya over the interphone. “They’re following us!” To see a German plane in the sky with us seemed as unnatural as a green sunrise. They flew during the day and hadn’t had enough intel to anticipate our attacks before now.
“I see that. Get out your grenades,” she snarled into her mouthpiece, her hands steady on the stick.
My own hands shook as I pulled a pin from the grenade and lobbed it over in the direction of the German aircraft. They maneuvered much faster than we did, and I could barely see the flash of metal as they made another pass, whooshing by and riddling Daisy with bullets. The grenade fell uselessly to the earth below with a pathetic pop as it exploded.
I wanted to run. My legs burned for it. My hands ached to grip the stick. But Taisiya was the one selected to fly—it was my duty to fight. I freed a few more grenades from my ammunition pouch and aimed my revolver. I might as well have been throwing rocks for the good my bullets and grenades were doing against the far more advanced airplane, but it gave me an occupation other than shaking in fear.
Taisiya changed course and took the plane to a lower elevation, where she slowed down to below the fighter’s stall speed. She weaved away from the German plane with the grace of a dancer, and we were headed east again in moments. I looked up at our top wing and down at the other. There were more holes than I could count, but we were still—miraculously—airborne.
A second plane came from the south, the metallic whirr of its dual propellers bearing down on us, charging like an enraged dog. Taisiya slowed the plane to a crawl, hoping the pilot would be forced to pull up. It looked as though the German craft was going to slam right into the side of us, so Taisiya dove lower still, knowing there was no way the heavier aircraft could hope to match the maneuver without risking a death spiral. They opened up their machine guns, and it became apparent they didn’t have to catch us. They simply had to get close enough before we dove out of range. The engine smoked ominously—the plane shuddered, making screeching, metallic hisses as it labored to stay aloft, and Taisiya hadn’t corrected for her dive. The Germans would be thrilled to have two bodies to trade in for their Iron Crosses.
“Pull up!” I called to Taisiya. I didn’t bother with grenades this time. I gripped the metal bar on either side of me, fighting the urge to grab the stick and scream for Taisiya to turn over the controls.
I could hear her cough over the interphone. She was trying to tell me something but was unable to speak—the smoke from the engine smothering her words, I guessed. Then she slumped forward. I saw the splotch of red on the back of her jacket and watched for a few seconds, paralyzed, as the red pooled larger and larger on her drab-green uniform.
My controls were unresponsive, rendered useless because Taisiya’s unconscious form weighed down on the stick. I stood up in my cockpit, leaning over my low windshield, and moved her backward so I could regain control. She was still breathing, shallowly. A German plane flew perilously close, so I didn’t bother to sit and maneuver from my own controls. I heard the roar of machine-gun fire but paid no heed to it. I had to choose between lobbing a grenade at it—next to useless, unless my aim was perfect—and keeping the plane from crashing a few meters away from the enemy’s base camp.
I flew the plane, leaning over Taisiya’s slumped form, painfully aware that I was exposed to any more attacks the Germans might think to throw at us. I opened the throttle as far as I could, muttering a senseless jumble of prayers that I would be able to get the plane back to base.
I expected to find the base a flurry of activity, but the planes were grounded and the crews still. All eyes scanned the sky, and it wasn’t until I touched down, landing as gently as I could on the bumpy grass we used for a runway, that any movement began. Medics rushed to the plane, but no one was readying more aircraft.
“Taisiya,” I gasped as Polina took me in her arms. My body, now that I was aware I was on the ground and aware that there was no German machine gun aimed at me, began shaking as though I had been doused in icy water. “She’s been hurt badly. She’s not conscious.”
Medics unstrapped her from her seat and lifted her from her cockpit as gingerly as they could, laying her on the bare ground to assess her. Her face was white as moonlight and streaked with crimson. I watched for those keen eyes to flicker with life, her chest to rise and fall, but there was nothing but stillness. I released Polina and knelt by Taisiya’s side. Taking her hand, I pressed my lips against her too-cold flesh.
Don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you.
I didn’t mutter this aloud, knowing the only ears that mattered wouldn’t hear me. I remembered my horror in Moscow when Taisiya made me realize that we could have been separated into different regiments. I’d not contemplated that fate before she mentioned it, nor could I resign myself to this one. How could I fly without my pilot?
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” a medic said, his fingers on her wrist, seeking a pulse that I already knew wasn’t there.
I could hear Polina’s muffled sobs behind me. I could comfort her later.
The medic pronounced Taisiya had passed. He gave orders to have her placed on a stretcher and carried off, motioning for me to move aside so they could carry out their duty.
“Wait!” I snapped.
Taisiya’s sage brown eyes still looked blankly heavenward, like they sometimes did when she was contemplating a passage in one of her favorite books or a particularly complicated formula. I closed her eyes with a gentle motion of my fingers, softly kissed her forehead, then took her cool hand in mine once more. I pressed my lips to her bloodied knuckles, wishing her lungs would take a breath of their own accord.
“You promised Matvei, Taisiya. You promised him you would stay safe. You can’t—” I spoke in a rasp I barely recognized.
Renata and Polina took me in their arms so the medics could take her away.
“You have to let her go,” Renata said, rocking me gently.
My eyes followed the medics until I couldn’t make out their shapes in the dark any longer. My breath caught in my chest, and I hadn’t the first idea how to expel it.
“Oksana told us about the German counterattack,” Renata whispered, stroking my hair. “We thought you’d both gone down . . .”
“You were half-right. Oksana and Sofia made it back?”
“Oksana did. She’s bad off, but the medics seemed to think she’d be all right. They’re sending her to the hospital to be sure. Sofia . . .”
“They shot the pilots,” I said, blinking in realization. “They figured it was enough to take down the plane.” I felt ice permeate the marrow of my spine. We’d lost our leader. She and Taisiya were two of the most experienced in the regiment. Who would command us now?
“Effective enough,” Polina replied humorlessly. “We’re still missing Elsa’s and Mariya’s planes, and I’m not optimistic. Their mechanics have a bad feeling, and that never bodes well.”
“Oh God,” I said. “Six of us in one night.”
“Seven if we don’t get you to the hospital unit,” a medic said, racing to my side.
“What are you talking about?” I said, brushing his hand aside. I needed to assess morale and see what I could do for the rest of the regiment. With Sofia gone, they would need some direction. Oksana was on her way to a hospital, far from the front. And Taisiya . . .
No. I needed to organize the women to do something useful. They needed some warm tea and an occupation until they were calm enough to get some rest.
“Oh, Katya.” Renata looked down at my right side, and my eyes followed. The side of my flight jacket was drenched in warm blood.
“It must be . . . hers,” I said, unable to speak her name.
The medic unceremoniously removed my coat and knelt to inspect my flank. I looked down at my blouse, equally soaked in blood, and noticed he fingered a few small holes in the fabric. Two or three large shards of wood had lacerated my side, but I felt nothing but the night air on my skin. Not even the medic’s hands registered as he examined me.
“Get some bandages and a stretcher,” the medic called to the rest of his staff. “She’s been wounded.”
“Oh, I have not,” I argued, the cold air lapping at my cold flesh, making my entire body shiver painfully.
I pulled up the side of my blouse and saw that my right side looked more like a side of beef in a butcher’s window than my own flesh. The medic quickly assessed that it was just two shallow punctures, but I was bleeding profusely.
“Katya, do as he says,” Polina ordered.
I nodded, squeezing her hand as I allowed the medics to assist me onto the stretcher.
“Take care of everyone,” I commanded her. “They will need someone.”
“You have my word,” Polina whispered, brushing her lips against the back of my hand.
I patted her cheek and waved encouragingly as they loaded me onto the ambulance. It was only when the doors shut me off from their concerned eyes that I let the darkness have me.
CHAPTER 18
The lights overhead were harsh, and the gray concrete and steel contrasted sharply with the blinding white of the linens. I moved to sit up and take stock of my surroundings, but the sharp pain at my side and a pair of strong hands kept me down.
“Ah, you’re coming around. Excellent.” A doctor, his long white surgical gown billowing around him like the perfect negative of a nun’s black habit, peered down at me with a measuring gaze.
The strong hands belonged to a nurse with tight brown curls and kind eyes. When she sensed I wasn’t going to strain, she loosened her hold and brushed a lock of hair off my forehead.
“You need to stay still, my dear. The doctor is a busy man and doesn’t need to be stitching you up a second time.” She smoothed my sheets as she spoke, her hands being the sort that could never rest idle. She was perhaps a few years older than my mother, but fewer lines of hardship framed her eyes.
“Of course,” I acquiesced, not wanting to repeat the process while conscious. I could feel the tape and gauze that protected a large section of my side. More than a few stitches, I could tell without visual confirmation.
She rewarded my compliance with a cool glass of water and an extra pillow so I wasn’t lying completely prone. Until the water hit my lips, I had no idea how parched I had been.
The doctor removed the dressing to examine the sutures that ran the length of my right flank, and I found myself averting my eyes. With each stroke of his fingers, I felt each stitch burn into my skin like a hot ember.
