Daughters of the Night Sky, page 21
“I suppose,” he muttered, removing his socks and trousers.
I perched on the edge of the bed to remove my own soiled garments but felt my muscles seize in protest after the slog. My hands shook involuntarily, and the room grew fuzzy about the edges like a newsreel.
“Can you move to the side, dearest? I—I need to lie down.”
“Of course. You’re run ragged. Let me help you with your coat, and you can rest before we find food.”
I stood on wobbly legs, allowing him to remove the thin coat. I felt an uncomfortable tearing sensation at my right side as he pulled the garment loose.
“Sweet Jesus, Katya.”
I looked down to see the right side of my dress soaked red.
“My—my stitches,” I mumbled, and fell into his waiting arms.
“Look at me, my love,” I heard his rich baritone croon in soft tones. “Open your eyes.”
For the second time in as many months, I peeled open my reluctant eyes to the cruel glare of hospital lights.
“Vanya?”
“Thank God,” he breathed, kissing my knuckles. “The accident—you lost a lot of blood. The doctors are convinced you’ll make a full recovery.”
“Good,” I managed to rasp.
“Ah, Captain Soloneva. Good to have you back with us.” A buoyant man in a white lab coat appeared by my side. “Too anxious to return to your post, I understand. Well, not to worry. You’re patched up and healing fine. You should be back to the front within a few weeks.”
I looked over to Vanya, who blanched visibly at the doctor’s pronouncement.
“Very good, Doctor,” I whispered.
“That’s the way. Now get all the rest you can. I’ll be back in the morning to check your dressing.”
When the doctor’s footsteps faded into silence, Vanya reclaimed my hand. “The only place I could get help was a military hospital. They wouldn’t treat you if you weren’t enlisted. I had to show them your real papers.”
The drab-green uniform jacket and slacks he wore said all I needed to hear. There would be no second attempt at an escape. My heart ached for him, but I felt a sort of relief. Now I would go where I was needed. But then in rushed the fear, which was just as quickly overwhelmed by my disgust with myself for aching to flee my duty. Round and round I went, the morphine spinning me into a blur.
Seeing me stare at his uniform, Vanya nodded. “They wouldn’t have let me anywhere near here without showing my rank.”
“When?”
“In the morning. It was all I could manage—I don’t think they fully believed my cover, but they’re in no hurry to execute an officer at the moment.”
I closed my eyes against the words. How much he’d risked to bring me here.
“I told them I was taking you home,” he whispered. He didn’t add the words that I knew were waiting so eagerly at his lips: Make it true. Please go back to Miass as soon as you’re able.
I stroked the too-prominent ridge of his cheekbone. Thank you for not asking me.
“I’m so sorry, Katyushka,” he whispered in my ear. “All I ever wanted was to keep you safe.”
“I know, my love. Perhaps this is all as it should be.”
“No, darling. None of it is. But we have to see it out to the end now.”
“We will,” I said, summoning all the confidence I felt, and more than a little I manufactured. “Fly smart, my love. You once gave me that advice—keep up your end of the bargain.”
CHAPTER 20
October 1943, Sorties: 456
Vanya took the news of my return to the front with his usual stoicism. His letter said that he understood my decision, that he was proud of my dedication and of my promotion. Captain Soloneva. I’d been back only a few days, and while my return was greeted with cheer, there was a darkness in the eyes of my sisters in arms that hadn’t been there before. They had seen some horrific battles in my absence. I kept my own betrayal to myself. They didn’t need the burden of knowing how close I’d come to deserting them.
We stood today as General Chernov awarded our regiment a new honor: we were now the Forty-Sixth Taman Guards for our work protecting the Taman Peninsula. We smiled for the cameras, and a few of us gave words, but the mood was subdued. Sofia and Taisiya’s absence, and that of our other fallen comrades, was acutely obvious in everyone’s faces.
The women sat and enjoyed their meal, the conversation pleasant but not lively.
“I’m glad you decided to come back,” Oksana said to me, pulling me aside. “How’s the side?”
“Fair enough,” I said. “It aches in the rain, but I expect it always will. Nothing that will cause any real troubles.”
“Glad to hear it,” she said. “I was worried you’d scurry back to safety once you got a taste of life away from the front.”
“I nearly did. My husband asked me to. Invoked my mother’s wishes, even.”
“Then why did you come back?”
“Your telegram, not to put too fine a point on it,” I said, taking a sip of the warm tea as a restorative against the chilly winds of early winter that licked at our cheeks.
“I hope I didn’t incite you to do something against your will,” she said, her piercing gray-blue eyes probing mine.
“No. I don’t think I really could have gone home, no matter how happy it might have made Vanya or Mama. Taisiya and I worked too hard to get here to leave before the end.”
“Brava,” Oksana said without a trace of irony. “And you accept my offer? You’ll serve as my second in command?”
“Yes, though I’m surprised. You have more-experienced navigators, not to mention pilots, at your disposal.”
“But they aren’t you,” she said. “I have all the tactical skills Sofia imparted to me, I can confer with others, but I need you to help me with the women. I can manage battles and strategy, but I can do nothing for morale. Sofia had the gift—she could manage both—but I know I don’t have her way with people. Can you help me with that?”
I nodded and lifted my tea, clinking cups with Oksana. “Whatever you need, Major. One condition, though.”
“And what might that be?”
“I assume you’re flying your own plane. You have to take me on as your navigator.”
“I’ll give you your own plane,” Oksana said without a moment’s hesitation. “You’ve earned it a dozen times over. Though most of the women here have as well.”
“No. If I’m to help you out on the ground, we have to learn to work together. I don’t think there’s any better way for you and me to get to know one another than in the air.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I do better in the air.”
“You know, I don’t think we’re very different. I’ve always felt better in my own skin up in the air.”
“I miss her, Katya,” Oksana said, her eyes scanning the room, as though searching for listening ears.
“And I miss Taisiya. I always will. She was my dearest friend.”
“Tomorrow night,” she said. “We’ll head up together. I don’t expect that I’ll be able to teach you much, and that’s a relief.” She looked at the women around us, now chewing their celebratory meal in silence, then leaned in close to me. “Now do your job. What can we do to make this seem more like a celebration and less like a funeral? We’ve had plenty of those.”
I handed her my empty cup and took the battered violin case from the corner of the mess hall where I’d stowed it. Though I hadn’t played in months, the chin rest molded to my face like a lover’s caress, and the bow felt as familiar in my fingers as taking Vanya’s hand in mine. After three notes the eyes of the room were all on me. Cheerful, choppy notes made for dancing. A few girls recognized the tune and began to sing. One pulled out a harmonica to accompany me, but there was no piano. No Sofia to play it for us.
The tunes were happy, the party enlivened as Oksana had commanded, but for the voices silenced, our music would never be quite as rich.
Oksana had dubbed our new craft Snowdrop for the sweet little white wildflowers with deep-blue stripes in the center. We painted a chain of the flowers about the cockpits just as Taisiya and I had done. We’d added a slogan on each side: Revenge for Taisiya on one and Revenge for Sofia on the other. Daisy now belonged to someone else, and I thought it was just as well. I didn’t want to fly her with another pilot.
The October air had fangs like January as Oksana aimed the plane to the west. Most of my flying hours had been spent in a state of semiwakefulness, eyes opening and closing like a camera that never quite focused properly. After weeks with better sleep than I had known in two years, I felt as though the scenery soaring past was almost in too-sharp detail.
“Five minutes out,” Oksana called over the interphone. I looked around in the weak light to locate a landmark and found my bearings. Oksana deftly maneuvered the plane as though this were her hundredth sortie as pilot and not one of her first.
The first mark that night was a munitions tent, which I spotted with ease, despite the shadow of night. I took my flare in hand.
“You’re on course. Five . . . three . . . marked!”
Oksana whistled into the German camp on the stalled engine, deployed the bomb squarely on the marked target, and pulled up to a higher elevation as the engine roared back to life and we maneuvered to return. The rat-a-tat of antiaircraft guns sounded seconds after we made our target, the searchlights now running, hunting frantically for the offending invaders.
Oksana circled back over the camp instead of taking an evasive course back to base.
“What are you doing?” I asked over the interphone. I would have called a course correction to her, but she knew she was well off course. There was nothing inadvertent about her actions.
“We have another bomb. I’m going to use it.”
“Got it,” I said. “There’s a convoy of trucks to the north of the camp. Good a target as any.”
She headed northwest, narrowly evading the searchlights’ blinding ribbons of death. She banked left, dove low, on course to drop her payload on a row of German trucks.
“Pull up,” I called over the interphone. “You’re at least twenty meters below the threshold.”
Ignoring my warning, she deployed the second bomb before she climbed to a safe altitude. I could feel the heat of the blast bounce the plane upward as the bomb made contact with the ground below. The trucks lay in ruins, their fuel tanks making smaller explosions as they ignited. Oksana deftly pulled us up and whipped back onto course for our own camp.
The craft shuddered as we flew, and I scanned all the instruments—such as they were—for any signs of imminent engine failure. I sniffed as intently as a dog waiting for his table scraps, seeking out the first whiff of smoke. Though it would do little good. If the craft was going to catch fire, it would go up quickly and we likely wouldn’t have a chance to land before it became engulfed in flames. In the best case we’d be forced to land in German territory. I doubted my little army-issue pistol would do much good against well-armed German sentries and had little desire to test that theory.
I wanted to growl over the interphone at Oksana for her carelessness. That same mistake had nearly cost Taisiya and me our places in the regiment, and for good reason. I stilled my tongue, knowing she’d respond better to cool logic on the ground, but it cost me every ounce of restraint I had not to hurl insults about her stupidity and that of all her relations—living and dead—over the tinny contraption.
We landed forty minutes later, my knees wobbling as I hopped onto the ground from the wing. We didn’t usually exit the aircraft between sorties these days, but it was clear we needed a mechanic’s assessment. I motioned needlessly to Polina, who was already approaching as I ran my hands over the linen. The scorch marks on the underbelly showed we had possibly been within mere centimeters of disaster, but there didn’t seem to be much damage beyond the cosmetic. I pulled Oksana by the crook of her arm away from the bustle of the ground crews.
“What was that, Oksana?” I asked in a low growl.
“War, Katya. In case you haven’t noticed.”
“You completely disregarded the safe limits of our aircraft. Not to mention my own warning.”
“I saw an opportunity, Katya, and I took it.”
“And you nearly took our plane down,” I said, thinking of where I might be if I had accepted Vanya’s offer. Someplace safer than the cockpit of a plane with a masochist as pilot. “Do you think a dozen trucks are worth an aircraft and two crew?”
“We need to get back in the air,” Oksana said, turning away. “Polina finished her check.”
“Do you want me to find another regiment?” I asked. “Because I will tolerate many things, but never recklessness. And I sure as hell won’t fly with a pilot who is too stupid to listen to her navigator.”
“You will fly the rest of our mission tonight.” Oksana’s tone brokered no refusal. “We can talk more tomorrow.”
We flew seven more sorties that night, and, as though sensing the anger shooting from my eyes through the back of her helmet, she didn’t deviate from the safe limits prescribed for the aircraft.
On our way back to the barracks by the early-morning light, I pulled her aside once I’d regained enough sensation in my face to be able to speak.
“We have to talk about what happened on that first sortie.”
“It’s simple, Katya. I had an extra bomb. I wasn’t going to waste it.”
“So drop it, but not when we’re under the safe ceiling. That was nothing short of stupid, Oksana.”
“Katya, we have to take risks to end this war.”
“A calculated risk is fine. I don’t mind aggressive flying, either. What I do mind is recklessness. It wasn’t even a particularly stellar target. To waste lives and resources like that isn’t just reckless; it’s dishonorable.”
Oksana paused and turned her head to look at the crews who were stumbling into the barracks to catch some sleep. “You were lucky out east,” she said. “Kiev was one of the first cities they came to. Do you know what it was like?”
“No.”
“They rounded up people—Jews mostly, and handicapped people, and anyone who spoke out against the Reich or fought back. They slaughtered them. By the thousands, Katya. Families. Children. I promise you, no matter how bad things might get in Miass, they will never be like those days when the Germans steamrolled through Kiev unchecked. Stalin did nothing to protect his own people. Probably thought Hitler had done him a favor until the fighting got too close to Red Square. Don’t talk to me about recklessness and dishonor. I’ve seen what they can do, and I make no apologies for what I did.”
“You will not settle a vendetta with me as your navigator, Oksana. I won’t do it. I am prepared to give my life for my country, but I’m not going to throw it away if I don’t have to.”
“They would cut every last one of us down, Katya. Don’t think they wouldn’t.”
“I know. But you have to be responsible for this unit. Did Sofia ever pull such tactics?”
“No, but as commander and as pilot, I can do as I please. I don’t answer to her anymore. Nor to you.”
“You said yourself that you need me. And now, more than ever, I think you do. But if you want to try leading without my help, keep on doing as you are.”
Back in the barracks I threw off my flight suit and threw myself under the covers of my bunk in my long undergarments. I knew sleep wouldn’t come, and I didn’t seek it out. I thought of the best way to return to Chelyabinsk and the flight school. How I could get word to Vanya of where I’d gone and to Mama to know to expect me. I cursed my folly for not taking my leave of service when I’d had the chance.
“I’m sorry,” Oksana said by way of greeting at the midday meal.
She sat apart from the others, as was her custom, and had gestured for me to sit across from her. I placed my tray on the table with more force than I intended but joined her all the same. She was my commanding officer, and though I was her second in command—for now—she was still my superior. I wouldn’t let my anger give anyone cause to criticize my discipline.
“I’m willing to forgive a moment of foolishness on your first sortie as my pilot,” I said. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Fly smart,” I said, picking at the grayish chicken on my plate and feeling what little appetite I had shrink further still. “It was the only promise I made my husband, and I intend to keep it.”
“Do you think the Germans are flying cautiously?” Oksana asked. “That their commanders are letting their pilots avoid risks?”
“No,” I said, looking up from the nauseating mess on my plate. “I know this is a war, Oksana. I don’t need you to patronize me. But there are lines we don’t cross. I won’t be a martyr. Don’t destroy what Sofia worked so hard to build. If you cared for her, don’t treat her memory so lightly.”
“I loved her like a sister,” Oksana said. “Don’t think for a minute that I didn’t.”
“I want my own plane. Or at least a new pilot, if you want to keep me in my place,” I said, knowing my tongue-lashing was enough to see me downgraded to an armorer. I just hoped Oksana was the judicious sort who wanted her second to speak her mind, not simper and follow.
“If that’s what you want,” she said, standing with her plate. “I need you to come into the village with me today. I have a few errands there, and I’ll need an extra pair of hands.”
“Very well,” I said, biting my tongue against a refusal.
“Meet me in fifteen minutes.” She turned on the ball of her foot without another word, passing Renata and Polina as they entered with their meals.
“It’s good to have you back,” Renata said, placing her tray next to mine. Polina sat across from Renata, eyeing the food with stoic acceptance.
“Thank you,” I said, still watching Oksana’s form shrink in the distance. I wanted to tell them I was happy to be back among them, but couldn’t voice the untruth. “How have you been managing since—”
“As well as we can,” Polina said, cutting short any bumbling euphemism I might have manufactured.
