The Witch of Stalingrad

by Justine Saracen

  “Outside.” Katia jabbed her thumb over her shoulder.

  “I see. Um…is this the bunker where you stay?” Alex asked, trying to engage the gruff woman in conversation.

  “No,” she answered, and stepped out of the bunker.

  As if to make up for her comrade’s cold manner, Lilya explained. “The pilots and navigators are just off the air base, in a cowshed. We’ve got a little more light, so we can read our maps, but the place stinks like cows.”

  “It’s time to report.” Someone stood in the doorway, holding back the tarp. “The major wants a briefing, and by then, your planes will be armed.”

  Lilya turned back toward Alex. “All right then. I’ll see you at breakfast,” she said, and disappeared.

  Alex warmed her hands over the stove, noting that the bunker had no floor. “What do you do when it rains?”

  “We get wet,” Inna answered.

  Alex lifted a foot and noted the mud caked on her boot sole. “I see.”

  “You’ll get used to the smell after a while, too,” Inna said, as if reading her mind. “No running water, so we wash with a rag in canteen water. They promised us a bathing truck once a month, but we’ll see how that works out.”

  “Can we go outside and watch the planes take off? I can’t photograph them, but I’d like to see them.”

  “Sure. They’ll be starting in about fifteen minutes. The target area isn’t far, so they should return in less than an hour.”

  Leaving behind cameras and rucksack, Alex filed out behind Inna onto the field. A cluster of women, the armorers and mechanics, Alex supposed, already stood at the end of the runway, and they joined them at the periphery. “Do you have any men here? For the heavy work?” she asked.

  “No, not a single one,” Inna said with evident pride. “We shoveled our own dugouts and built our own bunkers. We cut our own wood for the stoves, too. You should see us swing an ax.”

  After some fifteen minutes, Alex stood amid the ground crew watching the sortie begin. It was a curious, otherworldly experience, seeing them rumble along in single file, great awkward insects in the darkness, each one guided only by the form in front of it. They lifted off, like condemned souls, yearning upward and disappearing.

  When the last one had taken off, Inna began to pace and Alex paced with her, to keep warm. “If you’re real quiet, you can hear the sounds of the bombs. They’re about ten kilometers in that direction. You can see the enemy’s searchlights, too.”

  Alex squinted in the direction she pointed and could just make out a whitish flickering on the horizon. That glimmer and a soft, dull thudding announced the battle going on. “How do they do it without being shot down?”

  “I’ll tell you, but you can’t write about it in your magazine.”

  “No, of course not. I never write anything tactical.”

  “Well, the first plane has the hardest job because everything’s dark. She has to drop flares to see the target, and when she does that, the enemy searchlights come on. But while the lights target her, the second plane bombs from a dark position. When the light columns move to search for the second plane, the first plane swings back to drop her explosives.”

  “Assuming she hasn’t been shot down.”

  “Yes. And assuming they survive, they have to return by compass in the dark. The whole airfield is in blackout, and we uncover the kerosene lanterns only when we hear the first plane.”

  “It sounds nightmarish.”

  “You could say so.”

  “Listen, I hear something,” someone said. Alex peered into the night sky and saw nothing, but could make out the familiar clattering of the U-2 engine. Then a shadow appeared overhead, black against the cobalt sky.

  “It’s mine,” another woman said. “I’d recognize that noise anywhere.” In a few moments, the craft had landed and taxied to the new start position. The armorers ran toward her dragging their carts.

  Number-two plane came in, then three and four. Number five, Alex remembered, was Lilya, and Inna seemed nervous. They waited the scheduled three minutes, then four, then five. “I hear another one coming in,” Inna said. “But I don’t recognize the motor. It’s not Lilya.”

  A plane rumbled to a halt on the field and swung around to the takeoff runway, where it was surrounded by its service team. The figure that climbed out and lumbered toward them was Katia, her face smeared with soot.

  “What happened?” Inna asked. “Where’s Lilya?”

  “I don’t know. They caught us in the searchlights and I couldn’t see anything. We were choking on the gunpowder, from the anti-aircraft shells exploding all around us. We had to scatter.”

  Long minutes went by while Inna stood hunched and grimacing into the night breeze, her arms across her chest.

  Finally she lifted her head. “Ah, there it is, thank God.” She turned up the flame in her lantern and held it out in front of her.

  Lilya’s U-2 swooped down out of the darkness onto the runway. She swung around behind her predecessor and Inna ran to meet her. Alex exhaled relief.

  Lilya joined the other pilots waiting to be refueled, and someone handed her a tin mug of tea. She took a long drink and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “The flak was heavy, and by the time I got there, the searchlights were everywhere. So I went off course and came from the other side. I had to drop my load a little off target, but close enough, I think.”

  “So that’s it, then? The job’s done?” Alex spoke to the figure in the dark.

  “Not at all. We have to go back and bomb them again from a different direction. And then again after that. And after that.” Lilya handed back her mug.

  “My God,” Alex murmured. She watched the pilots and ground crews as they came and went in an order that obviously made sense to them. But to Alex, they were shades in the underworld, condemned, like Sisyphus, to repeat the same labor over and over again, in the darkness, for eternity.

  Inna appeared again. “You’re oiled and armed. Ready to go.”

  Lilya took a deep breath and blew on her hands. “All right. Keep me in your thoughts.”

  “I will,” Inna and Alex replied simultaneously. Ah, that was meant for Inna. Alex felt her face warm and was glad it wasn’t visible. Inna said nothing.

  They stood together for the next round, like family members, while their common hero went forth into the night. And forty minutes later, she returned, only to take off again twenty minutes after that. Alex stayed by Inna, proving her mettle, but by daybreak, when the planes returned from the last circuit, she could hardly stand up.

  The sky was orange when Lilya’s plane touched the ground and clattered to the end of the runway. As she clambered out of the cockpit, finally visible in the morning light, Lilya took off her gloves and flight helmet. Her blond hair was matted with perspiration, and she squinted with fatigue as she embraced Inna. “It was a good night.”

  She laid her arm across Alex’s shoulder as well. “Thank you for waiting for me. It’s good to have someone to come back to.” Then she followed Katia and the other pilots and navigators off the field toward the officers’ quarters, which they’d nicknamed the Flying Cowshed.

  “Bedtime,” Inna announced, taking hold of Alex’s arm. “Better enjoy it while you can. We have to be up by eight.”

  “Eight?” Alex looked at her watch. “That’s only two hours from now.”

  “You can sleep longer if you want. The pilots and navigators are allowed to sleep longer. Only the mechanics have to report.”

  “I…I’ll try to get up with the others. It’s only fair.”

  Inna chuckled as they entered the bunker and dropped onto her bunk. “Thanks for your loyalty. Let’s see how tough American women are.” She chuckled again, then tugged off her boots and struggled out of her overalls.

  Alex tried to be discreet but couldn’t help but notice that Inna and some of the other women were wearing men’s boxer drawers far too large for them and held together at the waist by string.


  Inna caught her glance. “They look ridiculous, don’t they?” She held the material out at the sides. “This is all we were issued. Three of them to each of us. I cut two of them down to fit, but when you run out of clean ones, you have to fall back on the originals.”

  “At least no one sees them when you’re dressed.”

  “No, but they do see these.” A woman feeding wood into the oil-drum stove held up one of her boots. “Also men’s issue. We can walk in them only when we wrap double footcloths around our feet. And they expect us to work wearing these.”

  “How awful,” Alex said, undressing near the stove for the warmth, slightly self-conscious in her perfectly tailored uniform. Her sleepwear, at least, was basic flannel and looked much like that worn by the other women.

  She fell wearily onto her bunk, the hardest bed she’d ever lain on in her life, and her rucksack the worst pillow. I’m never going to fall asleep on this, she thought, as she dropped off into unconsciousness.

  *

  The sound of the other women moving around dragged her up from deepest sleep. Aching in every muscle, she forced herself to stand. The women were preparing for the morning duty, and out of solidarity she dressed as well. At least she’d get some good photos, she reminded herself as she laid her camera strap over her shoulder.

  The mess hall was another dugout, though in place of an oil-drum heater, it had a rolling field-kitchen stove with openings at the top that could hold wide steel pots. To the side, an industrial-size samovar held boiling water for the tea. The same sort of planks that had been used to make up the bunks were carpentered into a narrow table and benches.

  Having had no dinner, she was ravenous and was sure the other women who’d been doing hard physical labor were even more so. But breakfast, she learned, was a slice of hard black bread and sugarless tea. The bread was covered with a slice of meat of undeterminable origin. She studied it.

  “Spam,” her neighbor said. “A gift from your government. How do you like it?”

  Alex took a cautious bite. “It’s not bad. Considering.”

  “We love it and don’t get it every day. It’s better than the horsemeat they’re eating in Moscow.”

  “Or the sawdust they’re eating in Leningrad,” one of the others added.

  The conversation broke off suddenly, and all heads turned toward the entrance as Major Bershanskaya strode in.

  “All right, ladies, finish up. The planes are waiting to be serviced and wood needs cutting. I’m sure someone has noticed that we had runway damage last night, and a team has to repair it before tonight. We don’t want to shame ourselves in front of our journalist, do we? So fall in.”

  Alex glanced at her watch. The women had spent scarcely half an hour at breakfast before returning to duty. Was it the war, or was Bershanskaya a sadist?

  “Miss Preston, would you care to join me on my inspection? You may bring your camera.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” Alex caught up with the major, who’d started off toward the incoming runway. She could see now the section that had broken and sunk into the mud. Two of the mechanics were examining it, and two others were arriving with more fence posts. She marveled at their speed, all the more since she knew, by the pain in her own back, how dog-tired they were.

  “The mechanics seem to work night and day. I have to say I’m in awe of them.” She reflected for a moment. “What about the pilots and navigators?”

  “They’re allowed to sleep an hour longer simply because their lives depend on their being alert. Ah, but here some of them come now.”

  Alex glanced to the side where eight women were approaching the mess bunker. In their midst, though she could have spotted her anywhere, Lilya was in lively conversation with Katia and her navigator. Embarrassed by the inexplicable joy she felt, she turned away and photographed the women repairing the damage.

  The major led her farther along the corduroy runway. “Do you have family, Miss Preston?”

  “No. I’m on my own. Having a family would make doing what I do impossible. And you?”

  “I have a son. Some of the other women have children, too. But all of them volunteered freely and competed for the right to serve.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a moment. Last night on the field, I heard no complaints at all, except about the men’s clothing that makes them look clownish.”

  “I can imagine. They’re at the age when they care a lot about appearance. And they should. These women are in the flower of their lives, and many of them will perish. It would cheer them to think the world is watching them. As long as you don’t interfere with their work or photograph anything strategic, you may take their personal pictures as much as you—and they—wish.”

  “I’ll be happy to do that. They’re all so photogenic anyhow.”

  Alex glanced back at the group of late sleepers who were arriving at the mess bunker. Lilya had fallen back to the rear of the group. At the last moment, before entering, she turned around and waved.

  Alex’s heart leapt.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  June 1942

  The spring rains had finally stopped, and the ground had hardened enough to support heavy vehicles. Alex stood by one of the empty trucks as the armorers began rolling bombs and oil barrels from the storage depot.

  “An advance-aerodrome? What’s that?”

  Inna lowered the panel of the truck bed and leaned a wooden ramp against it. “Since the range of our planes is limited, we need to take off from a spot as close to the target as possible, but the target keeps shifting. So, as the troops advance, we scout out fields near the front line and truck in bombs and fuel. Then, just before nightfall, we fly the planes there, arm and refuel, and make the attacks. That way, we increase our range.”

  “Logical.” Alex snapped a single shot of Inna rolling one of the 100 kilo bombs up the ramp, then joined the woman behind her in hauling up the second one. “Don’t you have to lay a runway first?”

  “Not in this weather. As long as the ground is dry, the U-2 can land and take off almost anywhere, even a city street.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Alex grunted as they reached the top of the ramp and nudged the bomb into its place. Behind them, a line of women rolled another twenty bomb cartridges along a wooden track.

  “We’ll ready the planes just before sundown, do the sorties for the next seven hours, and then return here to the main airfield. Then, in a couple of days, the strategists pick a new target, and we look for another new field.”

  “And this is ongoing?” Alex asked breathlessly as she dragged a can of machine-gun cartridges up the ramp.

  “More or less. But we do have days when we don’t fly. On Tuesday, for example, Red Army Rear is sending the bath truck along with the post and the food requisitions.”

  “Bath truck, oh, thank God.” Alex’s uniform had never been intended for battlefront use, so Major Bershanskaya had provided her with Russian overalls. After a week in the mud, she looked like all the others. And smelled like them, too.

  The thought of a bath put a spring in her muscles as she hoisted the ammunition can onto the truck bed.

  *

  By peacetime standards the bath left much to be desired. The curtained-off tin tub on the back of the truck, fed by a coal-burning boiler on the side, was warm enough, and she didn’t even mind that she had to bathe along with three other women. But the water wasn’t drained, only recycled through the burner to refill the basin after each contingent passed through.

  As a lieutenant and a foreign guest, Alex was allowed to bathe with the officers, so her group of four was the second to occupy the tub. After them came the pilots and navigators and, last of all, the ground crews, who needed it most.

  Each woman had been issued a small disk of gritty military soap for the month, not nearly enough for a thorough scrub. Consequently she and most of the other women had scraped off the worst of their grime in buckets of water in their quarters before marching out in blankets to the common tub. Each
group enjoyed only ten minutes submersed in the hot water, but those ten minutes were exquisite.

  Then they had to climb out, retrieve the blanket they’d adapted as a towel, and descend from the truck to make way for the next bathers. Wrapped in a real towel pilfered from the Hotel Metropole, Alex rushed with the other freshly washed women back to the bunker to dress. For convenience, the pilots, too, used the mechanics’ bunker as a changing station.

  Alex rubbed herself dry, drew on fresh underwear and not-too-fresh trousers, and finished toweling her hair. At that moment, the next group of bathers arrived, of pilots and navigators. And Lilya.

  With their widely separated quarters and conflicting schedules, Alex had caught sight of Lilya only at meal times, usually with Katia. They always smiled at each other and exchanged pleasantries, but nothing more. Now, here she was, dripping wet.

  She stepped to the back of the bunker to make room for the others behind her and stood directly across from Alex, clutching an old blanket around her.

  Alex smiled weakly, looked away, and drew on her shirt. She began to button it slowly, looking everywhere but at Lilya. Yet something drew her glance back.

  The other women chatted among themselves, and as if they were in a sort of private, silent space, Lilya let the blanket drop to her waist. For what seemed an eternity, though it was probably only a few seconds, her blue eyes burned into Alex, and she exposed her pale, youthful breasts like a gift. Was it girlish innocence or deliberate provocation? No way to know. But, oh how lovely they were. Small and full with hard pink nipples that pointed upward.

  Aroused and confused, Alex fled the bunker hoping the sun on her face concealed her blush. Had anyone seen the highly charged moment between them? Or had there even been one?

  She paced for a moment, wondering what to do with herself while the others finished dressing. It was ridiculous, the whole thing. The other women didn’t mind undressing together. What kind of idiot was she, behaving like a fourteen-year-old boy in front of Lilya’s breasts?