A searchlight beam drove straight into her face. Katya slammed her eyes shut and whipped the stick to the left, ramming hard on the left rudder to swing the U-2’s nose around in a snap turn. Behind her eyelids the blackness was alive with a starburst of electric swirls and hues.
‘Level out, level out!’ Vera shouted in the intercom.
‘I can’t see!’
Katya felt Vera’s hands on the stick, but the girl was not a pilot, the stick waggled directionless and panicky.
‘We’re in the lights! Katya, come on!’
Katya tried to open her eyes but the world was a morass. She shut them again.
‘Vera, let go!’
‘What! We have to…’
‘Let go!’
Katya felt Vera release the U-2. She laid her own hand on the stick and sensed her plane, the speed and gravity of her flight. A thousand times she’d ridden in the saddle with eyes closed, wearing blindfolds to do tricks, as a child she could do a handstand and canter in the ring with Papa at the center, her horse on his long lead. She lifted her chin, tilted her head, and knew she was rolling left. She twitched the stick back and to the right and the nose came up, the starboard wings dropped and trimmed out. She ducked her head into the well of the open cockpit, out of the searchlights, and opened her eyes. Her vision was stained but the gauges reappeared. She was flying level, at nineteen hundred feet.
Without hesitating, Katya whipped the plane into a steep corkscrew left, diving and twisting away from the powerful beams. In that instant, scorching red tracers flashed in her wake. The roar of the black Me-109 blasted behind her tail, the German’s engine screaming to pull the fighter out of its dive. Katya followed the sound in a swooping power arch behind, then beneath, then in front and above her, cleaving through the air like a scythe. The noise was wicked and mesmerizing, fusing every bit of Katya to it so that she didn’t notice she’d slipped out of the searchlights. She turned to look back at the station and every search beam was trained in her direction, away from the two Olgas. Katya blew out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Her strategy was working, even though the night fighter had missed her and Vera by inches!
Katya’s altitude was down to twelve hundred feet. Her vision cleared. She glided into a slow wide turn in time to see the bombs hit the station. The little building erupted and even sailing a half mile past the target Katya saw brick and tile shards and burning timbers flung in the air, lit by the explosions. She flicked the magnetos and the propeller caught. She throttled power to gain more height for her bombing run. High above, the deadly night fighter skulked in circles. Behind her, the Olgas switched on their motor and together the planes gained altitude in a tight spiral. At three thousand feet the two Olgas cut power and glided away. Katya held back until she saw the searchlights sweep the night, watched them miss the dancing Night Witch, glance her, then lose their dazzling grip. The night fighter was too fast for its own good; it couldn’t spot the slow and mobile U-2s as long as they stayed out of the light. The German would have no prey. The two Olgas swung left and right, riding the creases of darkness between the swaying beams. Katya followed them in. She put her nose dead on the burning train station, cut power, and one minute later blew the Oktabrskaya tracks into scrap.
July 2
0055 hours
‘Vera.’
The navigator did not answer right away. Moments later, Katya said again, ‘Vera.’
‘Just a second.’
Katya turned to look in the cockpit behind her. Vera’s flashlight swept over her lap, across a flapping topographical map. Vera made notes on a pad strapped to her leg. She leaned her head out over the fuselage and took some mental snapshot of a landmark below, then entered it on her notepad. She trained the flashlight on her stopwatch.
Off the tail, three miles behind Vera’s bent head, the second flight of night bombers was over the target. The searchlights sliced back and forth, a good sign, they could not find the Witches working in tandem. The burning station made an easy bull’s-eye.
Katya pivoted to face forward. Off the port wing flew the Olgas, their U-2’s signature blue flames a halo around their engine.
‘Any time, Vera.’ Katya noticed her own tone was impatient.
‘Now’
Katya drew out the fuel mixture knob slowly to lean out the gasoline and increase the air flowing to the engine. She teased the motor just to the point of choking, then goosed the mixture. The plane coughed and sputtered, dipping in altitude. Katya rode the control to make the plane spit as loudly as it could.
The two Olgas swung alongside. Vera waved her flashlight at them to signal distress. When the other plane was close enough, Katya pushed in the control to smooth the engine. Her little U-2 caught and rose. Vera lowered the flashlight, and Katya slid out the knob once more. The engine hacked. Katya let the plane stumble in the air. The Olgas stayed by her side, matching her rise and fall. She reached for the flashlight. She shined it on herself, to make a signal to the Olgas that she was having engine trouble but she would be okay. At that moment, she pulled out the throttle all the way to shut off the fuel, flicked off the magnetos, and let the engine quit. She cut off the flashlight, banked hard beneath the two Olgas, and vanished from their sight.
Vera guided her. ‘Come to port a little more.’ Katya tweaked the gliding plane to the northwest. She felt a twinge that her fellow Night Witches were surely flying mad circles behind them, looking for a struggling plane or a crash landing. After a minute of silent running, having spent only a thousand feet of altitude, she struck up the propeller and powered the U-2 back to four thousand feet.
‘We should cross the Udy River in about eight minutes,’ Vera said. At this speed, we’ll be over Tomarovka twelve minutes after that. Two miles east, right?’
‘Yes.’ Katya put fingertips on the stick. The U-2 was marvelously stable.
‘Verushka?’
‘What.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me.’
‘Yes, thank you. Leonid will thank you.’
Vera did not reply. Katya kept the plane on a straight heading. Leonid had been on the ground now for just under two hours. Enough time for German patrols or the partisans to get to him, enough time to bleed to death. Katya’s plan was simple, because it was the only move she could make. She hoped to fly close enough to Leonid in the dark for him to recognize the popping Russian engine. If he was still alive, he would send up another flare to tell her so. She and Vera would set down in the nearest clearing, scoop him up, and lift him to safety. She’d brought along an emergency medical kit in case Leonid had wounds. She carried a pistol strapped to her belt; Vera did not, the girl knew nothing about firearms. They would have to locate him somewhere east of Tomarovka, set down in an unknown pasture in the dark, then gather him up and take off across this same field, missing ruts and irrigation ditches, creeks and stumps. If he could not walk they must carry him somehow to the plane. They had to reach him before the Germans, who may have seen the white flare Leonid fired for his squadron commander, and they must get out ahead of their guns. They had to fly low and very slow to find him, above an untold number of enemies. There was not a single step of the plan that was not dangerous. Katya wanted to talk some more about what they were facing but Vera stayed stony. This was a reversal of their natures.
It occurred to Katya that Vera was scared.
‘Vera, we have to do this.’
The navigator did not reply.
Katya kept talking. ‘We’ll be alright. He’s alive. I know he is.’
‘So are we.’ She noted Vera’s heavy sigh in her earphones.
‘There’s no one else who can do this! It’s up to us.’
‘The partisans. You said the partisans were in the area.’ Vera took the same harsh tone, the intercom made both their voices thorny.
‘Yes, they are. But they’re going after the train tonight, who knows if they’ll send help after a downed pilot? The Germans will defin
itely go after him.’
More silence. Katya tried to fix her mind on the black flying and the rescue ahead but she required more, she needed forgiveness for bringing Vera into this extra peril.
‘You’re being very brave.’
In response, Vera almost barked. ‘Don’t we do enough? We risk our lives in these shitty little airplanes they give us. Leonid risked his, too. He knew this could happen. We do enough, Katya.’
Katya wondered, How can I answer her? How can I say, No, we don’t, we never do enough so long as a friend is in trouble. How do I tell this girl, my good friend, that I would die to find him? I can’t do otherwise. She knows this. She agreed to come. She’s just frightened.
‘If he’s not there, we’ll go on. I promise, we’ll only look for a few minutes.’
‘And if we find him?’
‘Then, Verushka, you have to trust that I’m the best pilot you know and I can land this plane on a ruble.’
Vera made no response. Behind Katya the flashlight came on. Vera was checking her maps.
‘There’s the Udy River. Straight now, twelve miles. Damn it. Let’s get him and go home, wing-walker.’
Katya chuckled. This was her absolution from Vera, the bond and honor between them was stronger than the danger. The U-2 bumped over an air current, and this was a signal to focus on their task. Leonid was on the ground, and the Night Witches were coming for him.
They flew over the heads of a hundred thousand enemy soldiers. The Germans drew back a hundred thousand bolts, stuffed themselves deeper into their helmets or holes, winced, and eyed the night sky for a glimpse of the Russian plane droning past in the dark. They knew the sound of the U-2’s puttering engine. But none would know it better than Leonid, and none would be happy to hear it but him.
The village of Tomarovka lay where the Vorskla River crossed an east-west rail line running to Belgorod. Vera located the tracks and kept Katya over them, headed west. The area where the fighter captain had said Leonid was down should be within two or three miles of these tracks. When Vera whispered they were five miles east of the village, Katya began her descent. She had to fly in low enough to be certain Leonid would hear her. And if he did send up a flare, Katya and Vera would need to get on and off the ground fast.
At two thousand feet, the potshots began. Katya did not hear the reports from the rifles and machine pistols, but muzzle flashes like a carpet of orange sparks blinked in her path. She could not glide over these men and guns, the motor had to keep running, that was her signal to Leonid. One ragged hole appeared in the port wing. She kept the U-2 flying straight; it made no sense to dodge, these were blind shots. She settled lower, to fifteen hundred feet, and leveled.
Tomarovka sat three miles to the west, dead and invisible. So close to the front lines, the occupying Germans hunkered without lights. Vera found a bend in the rail tracks that matched her map. ‘Start circling,’ she said. Her voice was firm and this gladdened Katya. She took the plane into a soft bank, dipping the port wings to look down at a velvet black earth. She prayed for Leonid to hear her. She asked that he be in a smooth field, that he not be hurt, that the Germans not know he was there until she had taken him away. She felt that God heard her better when she was in the air. She was closer to Him, to His domain, mimicking His angels. Katya muttered, ‘Amen.’ Vera said, ‘I don’t know what you were asking for, but Amen, too.’
Katya swept in a wide arc, staring at miles of nothing, as though down an eternal well, the earth was so featureless. Her engine pop-pop-ed. She flicked her eyes once at the gauges to make certain of her attitude and height, then did not pull her gaze from the deep, horizonless ground. She drifted lower, to make her engine louder. The propeller and pistons shouted: Leonid, Leonid! It’s me!
For long minutes, Katya flew and scanned. The red winks from the ground grew fewer, the Germans got tired of shooting at a noisy but fleeting shadow. She banked right, to change her pattern to a figure eight and fly closer to the fortified village. She leaned so far out of the cockpit the wind almost whipped the goggles from her face.
She began to hear her own heartbeat louder than the engine. One more minute churned past. Vera’s voice came from far away, behind the motor and wind, the pounding of her heart, and the silence of Leonid.
‘Katya.’
A white sparkle punctured the even darkness on the ground. Her first thought was someone was lighting a fuse, as if to fire an old-fashioned cannon up at them. She turned the plane broadside to the light and banked to circle it just as it vanished. She kept her eyes on the spot; seconds later, the sparking flash came back, disappeared again, then returned.
Was this Leonid?
Katya whipped the plane directly at the light and it flicked on and off once more. It must be Leonid! Of course! He couldn’t send up a flare, a German patrol would spot that, too, and home in on him. He was flashing a flare on the ground, covering it with a bucket or something. Katya checked her altitude: one thousand feet. She pushed in the throttle and flicked off the magnetos. The engine coughed and quit.
‘What are you doing?’ Vera asked.
Katya did not answer. She let the U-2 glide for ten seconds. This was the hallmark – the broomstick – of the Night Witches. Leonid, if it was him, would know and answer.
He did. The flare appeared, then blinked out.
Katya fired up the propeller, the plane had fallen to eight hundred feet. The flare glimmered from a mile away to the west. Leonid must have left his wrecked plane, to hide in the fields. He’d known she would come.
She tried to keep her vision glued to the spot in the dark canvas where she believed he was, but taking her eyes from the ground for a moment to check her dials, Katya lost the location. Vera, the steady navigator, did not lose the bearing.
‘Left. More. More. There! Straight ahead. Go get him, Katya.’
Katya’s mind raced with the plane. Leonid would have moved to a field he knew would be suitable for her to land in. She had faith in this; he was a pilot himself, and like his captain said, a clever lad. The U-2 needed very little runway, less than four hundred feet. She could swoop in, stop, bring him onboard, then turn and roar out for safety. Yes! They would do it! There, a half-mile ahead, was another flare. This one did not blink but glowed fiercely, a landing light!
Katya swung the U-2’s nose right at the beacon. She dropped altitude for a fast and abrupt landing. There was no time to do a fly-by and check out the conditions of the field; she had to trust Leonid for that. Her heart climbed into her throat with the approaching ground, five hundred feet below and closing. One hand juggled the stick, the other adjusted the throttle; she put out her senses to determine the direction of the wind, it seemed light and at her back. Her feet stayed ready at the rudders.
The flare gleamed straight ahead. This close to the ground, she could discern the shapes of trees to her left and right, and behind the flare spread a flat dark swath of ground. Leonid had done his job. Now she did hers.
At three hundred feet off the field, she was still coming in hot. She had time to bleed off the last of her speed in the thousand feet before she lifted the nose and laid down the wheels. She pointed at the white flare, aiming to touch down just past it, Leonid would have set it at the leading edge of the runway. She felt a thrill, not just for the return of Leonid but for the heroic feat of all this, the podvig. Her hands and toes kept the plane reined tight, she leaned forward in these last seconds, into the mane of the airplane.
In that moment another, smaller flash lured her eyes away from the flare to her extreme right. Blinks of crimson glittered from a stand of trees silhouetted against the night. In that one swift glance, Katya knew. A German patrol had followed the sparking flare and the pops of her engine. Enemy soldiers were running at her, firing.
She sped past the flashes; there was still time to get on the ground, collect Leonid, and get away. The flare was ten seconds ahead. She slipped in the throttle, easing her airspeed, then pulled on the stick to lift the nose
and slow her approach, but instead of responding the stick surged on its own to the left. The plane dipped and banked. She lost a moment in surprise, then hauled back too late and not enough, now the plane’s descent was sideways and too steep.
‘Vera, let go!’ she screamed into the intercom. ‘You’ll make us crash! Let go!’
The stick did not free into Katya’s struggling hands. She shouted at Vera but no answer came into her ears or her straining grip.
Katya was afraid to take her eyes off the expanding ground but she had to see why Vera was gripping the stick. There were only a few seconds remaining in which to right the plane. She whirled at her navigator. The girl was slumped. Her head lolled against her chest. Vera’s body was crumpled in her harness and her leg lay across the stick, shoving it to the left. In the right wall of the fuselage, lit by the little green light of the dials, a diagonal line of holes was punched through the fuselage. Each was matched by a black rip in Vera’s flight suit.
Katya screamed again, ‘Vera!’ The feat that had lain only seconds away became a panic. She could not reach Vera’s body, could not take her hand off the stick even for a moment, the ground was too close, her speed still too great. Frantic, she shoved against Vera’s bent head. The dead girl would not lay back. She had no time to mourn; battling the stick and Vera’s weight against it, Katya fought her shock and the dread rising in her fast with the ground.
If she could level out and pull up, Vera would fall backward off the stick. Leonid would hear her fly off, he’d run from the Germans to another field. She could circle and come back.
If.
Katya looked at the rising dark earth. She yanked a final time on the dead stick. No, she thought. No. She went rigid in the cockpit against this fate.
The port wings grazed the ground first, cartwheeling the fuselage. The left wheel touched down, then bounded into the air. The tail leaped behind her, the propeller and engine smacked the earth, drilling into the soft loam and snapping to a halt. Her goggles went blank with dirt, her brain curtained black with concussion. One last thought streaked through the collapse of her life: Vera is dead, Leonid is lost, and I am dead; goodbye to Papa and Valentin. She felt dismay that it all could be summed up and done so quickly.
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