Last Citadel

by David L. Robbins

  ‘A good question, Pashinka. The plains of Ukraine were not empty when the first Cossacks came. Hordes of Mohammedan tribesman roamed there. So the Cossacks were forced to band together. They learned from their battles with the Mohammedans, who were wonderful horsemen. The Cossacks borrowed the best of what they saw and soon became even better riders and warriors. But even when the Cossacks found themselves coming together for survival, they maintained their love for kazak, their freedom. They asked little from those who wished to join them. Only three things does a Cossack have in common with all other Cossacks. Three questions, and you have to answer yes to each. Are you ready?’

  The two boys hesitated. Dimitri was tickled at the gravity he’d created in them.

  ‘Yes,’ both uttered.

  Dimitri’s legs were tired, his knees griped. But this part of the rite had to be done standing.

  ‘Alright, get up.’

  Valentin stayed in his place on the tank.

  When Pasha and Sasha were on their feet, Dimitri asked, ‘Do you want to become Cossacks?’

  Both nodded.

  ‘Say so,’ Dimitri prodded.

  ‘Yes!’ they said, a bit too loud. Dimitri kept a serious demeanor though he wanted to grin.

  ‘Good, good. Hold it down, lads. Next question. Will you die if you must for another member of your clan, and for your freedom?’

  ‘Yes.’ The two boys stood shoulder to shoulder. Dimitri watched them press closer to each other.

  And last. Do you believe in God?’

  The two boys Pasha and Sasha answered well. ‘Yes. I do. Yes.’

  ‘Good. Bend your knees. Let’s pray’

  Dimitri dropped to his knees on the tank-crushed grass. Pasha and Sasha knelt with him. Dimitri did not glance up at his son. He didn’t want to know if Valentin was praying or simply watching with his Soviet disdain. Dimitri said a silent prayer for the lives of these two youths he’d been given. He asked God to only take them if they were greatly needed to win the battle. Let them stay Cossacks as long as they can, God, let them be free on the earth. But if You cannot, let them be free in heaven. He asked also for God to protect Valya and Katya. He did not ask for himself.

  One of the boys said Amen,’ finished with his prayer. Dimitri ended his and lifted his head before he realized the Amen’ was Valentin’s. He stood, Pasha and Sasha scrambled to their feet. Dimitri stepped to his son’s perch on the General and patted Valya’s knee. Valya was maddening this way. Dimitri could never be comfortable with his frustration or his pride in the boy. He did not know Valya at all.

  ‘This,’ he said to the loader and the hull gunner, newly minted Cossacks, ‘is your hetman. He is your sergeant and your tank commander, but he is your Cossack leader, too. You’ll do everything he orders. Is this understood?’

  Valentin slid down from the tank.

  ‘Are we done?’

  Dimitri itched to backhand the boy for the sudden swings he caused in Dimitri’s chest.

  At that moment - because, thought Dimitri, there is a God and He listens and once in a while even if you don’t ask He answers - a convoy of panel trucks rumbled up through the dark, headlamps jouncing over the ruts in the field cut by the company of heavy tanks. In the beds of the trucks, lit by the lights of the vehicles in line behind, jostled crowds of old men holding up bottles, and women. Dimitri saw fiddles, an accordion, and even a clarinet.

  He recognized her voice. Just Sonya called out for him.

  He moved to his son and lapped his arm across the boy’s shoulder.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. We’re done. Excuse me.’

  Dimitri grabbed his two new charges by their lapels and tugged them away from the lantern, telling them they had an additional duty as Cossacks to perform. They must each take a girl.

  ‘Dima, is this another game?’ Pasha asked, lagging at the end of Dimitri’s arm.

  ‘Yes,’ Dimitri told him, ‘and Cossacks play it well. Come.’

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 7

  July 1

  1430 hours

  Kalinovka aerodrome

  Katya stood beside a dozen other girls from her regiment watching the truck roll closer to the aerodrome. The others hoped longer than she did, asking, ‘Is it them? Can you see?’ But Katya noted from far away how the four women in the back of the approaching truck held on with both hands to the side rails, how they did not wave their white silk underhelmets in the afternoon. They were not the four Night Witches come back from the dead, but replacements. Zoya and Galina, Marina and Lily were gone. They were not in this afternoon’s truck the way they were not in the truck yesterday or the day before. The four dead friends would stay Night Witches forever now, they would never be. anything else. That is not such a bad way to die, Katya thought, to remain for all time someone brave. She was the first to turn from the road.

  Leonid said nothing. He put his arm around her shoulders and walked with Katya to the big tent her squadron shared. Minutes behind her the other girls did come in from the road, some even saying, Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow. Katya and Leonid opened the four girls’ steamer trunks. Diaries and personal items would be sent home to their parents. Unmailed letters would be posted. The four beds would be remade for the replacement pilots and navigators. Katya was moved by the disparity of things she and Leonid pulled from the trunks: stuffed animals and extra signal flares, dried flowers and flight logs.

  The other girls milled around the four beds, littered now with items from the trunks. They joined Katya in sifting through the objects, arranging piles, recognizing and weeping over mementos, sitting on the beds remembering many talks. This was not the first time there had been deaths in their squadron, but it was the only instance when two crews had been lost on a single mission. The doubled blow seemed almost too great.

  Katya watched Leonid withdraw from the tent; Katya had the others around her now. She rose from Lily’s cot. The springs squeaked, a sign of life but not of Lily’s, and Katya had to hold back tears over such a small thing.

  She went outside. Leonid stood staring into the midday sky.

  ‘Today’s the first day of July,’ he said.

  Katya nodded.

  ‘How much longer can they wait?’ she asked, gazing up with him. The battle would take place underneath and in this sky; the blue that fell all the way to the horizon gave Katya the sense the battle would be fought in tight quarters, two titanic fighters in a bout, under this ringing blue sky.

  ‘I don’t know. It should have started by now’

  Katya was jarred, this seemed insensitive. She wanted to point back into the tent, to the sobbing girls, and tell Leonid it has started. But she knew what he meant. It’s going to be worse, far worse, than anything before. So she let the comment alone.

  ‘Walk with me, Leonya, will you?’

  She turned and headed for the hardstands where the eighteen U-2S of her squadron sat chocked and waiting. She did not speak along the way.

  When they reached her plane, Leonid ran his hands over the patched wings. He patted the engine housing and plucked the wire struts. He chewed his lips in thought. Katya watched him and again felt the sting of resentment. Was Leonid being condescending, the way he looked over her intrepid little plane? He tapped on the U-2 as though he’d never seen one. Then he squatted on his heels. With a finger he drew a circle in the dust.

  ‘This is your target tonight. Show me how you’ll attack.’

  Katya walked over to sit cross-legged beside the little circle. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Show me your flight and attack plan.’

  She was in no mood to have her squadron criticized, especially not by a free-ranging, fast-flying fighter pilot. Four dead comrades bought her this day free from tongue clucking.

  ‘I want to go back to the tent.’

  ‘And do what? Mourn some more?’

  Katya gripped a fist of dirt and flung it at Leonid.

  ‘Yes. Mourn some more. Maybe there can’t be enough mourning.’
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br />   ‘That’s selfish.’

  Katya cocked her head and repeated the word with shocked silence. Selfish?

  ‘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. The 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?’