Come Fly With Me

by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

  “Plane?” Mr. Patel asked.

  “Aye.” Brodie tore his eyes away from Kat. “She’s found a genuine World War Two Soviet night raid biplane and brought it home. Her plan is to give tourists rides over the loch.”

  Katya appeared shocked that he knew what she was doing, but she quickly recovered. Part of him wanted to tell her he’d listened to every word of her plans all those years ago. Her dreams were embedded in his soul: a stain of regret for all time.

  She visibly swallowed. “I’m hoping to open a little museum to showcase my family history.” Her shoulders going back, she stood a little taller. “My great-grandmother was part of an all-female combat squadron run by the Soviet Union.”

  Mr. Patel’s jaw dropped before he composed himself. “Your great-grandmother was a Night Witch?”

  Katya sucked in a breath. “Yes, she was. She flew with them for three years, right up until they were on the cusp of invading Berlin.”

  With clear awe on his face, Mr. Patel took a step toward Katya. “My grandfather was an officer in the Indian Air Force. He mainly flew missions in the Middle East and North Africa, but even he’d heard about the Night Witches. They were legendary among their fellow airmen for being relentless and fearless. We owe them much.” He took another hesitant step forward and offered Katya his hand. “This is a good thing you’re doing. It’s important we remember the sacrifices that allowed us to live freely.”

  “Thank you,” Katya whispered.

  Mr. Patel beamed at Brodie. “You must be so proud.”

  Brodie cleared his throat, keeping his gaze from Katya. He was proud of Kat. He’d always been proud of her and always would be. No matter how much he might disagree with her or struggle to understand her choices, he’d never stopped being proud of her. “Yes,” he said a little hoarsely, “I am.”

  Mrs. Patel rested her hand on her husband’s back. “You know, dear, Mrs. MacGregor is probably looking for sponsors. What’s a museum without patron support?”

  Enthusiastically nodding, Kat beamed at them. “I’d love to talk to you about sponsorship, but no pressure, honestly. I’m still at the beginning stage of setting everything up.”

  “We’ll call you.” Mrs. Patel wove her arm through her husband’s. “Now, let’s discuss these house plans, shall we?”

  “Absolutely,” Darach said. “We’re eager to help you build the house you want. Brodie, why don’t you go with Katya to get the plane?”

  “I think she’s fine on her own.” Brodie took a step away from her.

  “No.” Darach narrowed his eyes at Brodie. “We can do this without you, and we all know how much you want to help her pick up that plane.”

  “Especially seeing as you were the one to ‘help’ store it at Kitty Baxter’s in the first place,” Denise said sweetly.

  “Aye,” Conall added. “And it might be best if you’re the one talking to Catherine Baxter anyway.” Left unsaid was the fact the old woman wouldn’t help a Savage even if her life depended on it.

  “I don’t need his help,” Katya said. “I can get the plane on my own. Denise and Stephen will help.” She waved a hand at them.

  Denise was already shaking her head. “Nuh-uh, Stevo and I have a thing we need to do.” She flung an arm around Stephen’s shoulders, and for a second, Katya’s brother looked like he might pass out. “Don’t we have that thing?”

  He nodded furiously.

  “In fact,” Denise said, walking Stephen to the door, “we’d better get going, or we’ll be late. Have fun picking up the plane.”

  “But—” Brodie and Katya said at the same time.

  “No buts,” Conall said with a feral smile. “There’s nothing urgent you have to do here at the office, and Katya obviously needs help. You’re fine to go.”

  “In fact,” Darach said darkly, “we insist.”

  Brodie had no option but to acquiesce.

  Dragging their feet, Katya and Brodie followed Denise and Stephen out of the office. As soon as they were out on the high street, and the door shut behind them, Katya whooped and pulled her friend into a tight hug.

  “Did you hear, Denise? They were talking about sponsorship!” She swung her equally excited friend around before releasing her just as quickly and yanking her brother into a fierce hug. “Sponsorship! Even if it’s ten lousy pounds, it will still be more than anyone else has ever invested in my dream.”

  Her words sliced right through Brodie.

  “PDA,” Stephen squeezed out. “You’re killing my rep with the PDA.”

  Katya set him free with a grin. “What rep?” She ruffled his hair before spinning toward Brodie.

  And stopping cold.

  He watched as the joy drained from her, like a balloon rapidly deflating. They both knew there would be no congratulations from him. Even if he’d wanted to give it, he wouldn’t be a hypocrite. Suddenly, he became brutally aware of the chasm that had started opening between them the moment Katya discovered her great-grandmother was a war hero. Back then, it had been a crack. Now it was the Grand Canyon of separation.

  Brodie cleared his throat. “Let’s go get the plane then.”

  “Yeah,” Katya said. “And you two don’t have a thing, so you’re coming too.”

  Denise shook her head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but after witnessing that wrestling match in there, I really don’t want to be stuck in a car with you both. One disagreement, and we’ll end up wrapped around a tree.”

  “Aye,” Stephen said. “You can get the plane without us.” He held up his phone. “Text me if you crash.”

  “Wimps,” Katya grumped. She straightened her shoulders before turning her attention to Brodie, and he could almost feel the tension emanating from her as she girded herself for spending time alone with him.

  That ache inside of him expanded. Once upon a time, he’d been the last person Katya needed to defend herself against.

  “We’ll take your car,” she said. “I’ll drive the truck back anyway.” She tossed the keys to Denise. “If you manage to total Dad’s car without getting hurt, I’ll buy you cake. You’ll be doing us all a favor.”

  Denise caught the keys with one hand. “Ten-four. Get rid of the tiny toy car. Gotcha.”

  “Okay,” Katya said to him. “Where are you parked?”

  “Up the street.”

  Without uttering another word, she started walking up the high street, and all Brodie could do was follow. Memories of the countless other times they’d walked up that street together filled his mind: images of them laughing, holding hands, stealing kisses. Now he walked behind Katya staring at her tight posture, aware his would look identical to anyone who noticed them. How far their relationship had sunk.

  And all because a dead woman had come between them years earlier.

  6

  May 6th 1945

  Two days before the end of World War Two in Europe.

  Germany, close to the Polish border.

  It seemed strange to describe flying in an open cockpit as claustrophobic, but that’s how Natasha Klimova felt. The blackness of the night, broken only by moonlight peeking between the low-lying clouds, was oppressive. With the lack of visual markers, it was all too easy to become disoriented, and the loud chugging of the plane’s engine didn’t help with staying focused. The noise was almost hypnotic, and Natasha had been surviving on very little sleep for months. The four hours she’d managed that day, lying on the rough ground under the wing of her plane, hadn’t even made a dent in her exhaustion.

  There wasn’t a lot of space to move in the cockpit, and what there was had been taken up by her heavy coat and oversized boots. Both were designed for men, with their much larger frames. The bulky clothing hampered her movements, making her feel trapped, but she was still grateful for every piece of it, especially her well-worn leather gloves. The thick layers had saved her from frostbite and hypothermia during more than one long winter of flying into enemy territory.

  The sliver of material she’d used to
pad her goggles, to keep them from rubbing, was long gone, and they now pinched her skin, leaving marks that would bleed if they weren’t dealt with as soon as she landed. But the hunger pains that made her stomach spasm were the irritation she found hardest to ignore. Rations had been scarce these past few weeks, and she found herself daydreaming of the apricots gifted to them by some grateful Polish villagers months earlier. Oh, how she would have loved to have even one juicy piece of fruit right then. Just one…

  “Ten minutes to target.” The navigator’s voice sounded in her ear, and a pang of embarrassment washed over her that she couldn’t remember the woman’s name. She was new. Although younger and less experienced than the rest of their squadron, most of whom felt like they’d been fighting decades instead of a few short years, the navigator still knew what she was doing. This was their ninth sortie of the night, and using only a map and compass, she’d found their target without fault each time.

  “Copy that,” Natasha shouted through the rubber hose that connected their masks.

  Like everything else about their Polikarpov Po-2 biplane, their mode of communication was about as basic as you could get. The plane itself was little more than canvas stretched over wood and easily set alight by the tracer bullets of their enemies. And the aircraft was slow; so much so that its lack of speed had become an advantage over their enemy. When German planes slowed to follow them, the Germans stalled and fell out of the sky. Their biplanes were also quiet and easily maneuverable—advantages the so-called “Night Witches” used to their fullest.

  Up ahead, a flare fell from one of their squadron’s planes. It illuminated the target area below long enough for them to get their bearings. A German stronghold this time. One of the few left between the wave of Soviet forces and Berlin.

  At the sight of the flare, Natasha dropped altitude to a dangerously low thirteen hundred feet and cut her engine, ready to glide in and drop their two bombs on the designated target. This close to the ground, anyone with a gun could take down the plane.

  For a split second, she was flying a mission several months earlier.

  A plane in front of her catching alight. Fire burning through it as if it were made of paper. Debris falling from the sky…followed by people…

  “Get ready,” her navigator shouted, dragging her back to the present. Marina! That was her name.

  A familiar stillness washed over Natasha as she kept the plane steady. A stillness that had become second nature after three years spent piloting bombers for her all-female squadron. One that had kept her alive more than once, enabling her to react calmly when things went wrong.

  As they so often did.

  “Bombs ready,” the navigator said.

  The other women were right on schedule. With no communication between the planes and no way to see the bombs fall in the blackness of the night sky, they had only the confidence that everyone would do their job when the time came.

  “Bombs away,” Marina shouted as she released the mechanism. “No, wait. One’s stuck. I’m going out.”

  It wasn’t the first time, and probably wouldn’t be the last, that they’d had to shove a bomb from its rigging. Natasha fought to hold the plane steady while Marina climbed out onto the wing. Lying flat on her stomach, she thumped at the jammed mechanism, and the bomb fell. As she scrambled back inside, Natasha wished, yet again, they had the space to carry parachutes.

  Resounding booms shook the earth, one after the other, and sent shock waves through the air. Natasha’s plane danced around like a puppet on strings. Orange, gold, and red bloomed up from each target site, painting the black night in streaks of bright light. For a few short seconds, the deadly sight was breathtaking in its ominous beauty, luminous color bleeding into the black, before being swallowed by billowing clouds of smoke.

  It always took Natasha a moment to shake off the sight and its deadly implications. A moment too long when her aircraft had become a silhouette in the suddenly bright sky. The whole squadron were black targets for the searchlights to follow and weapons to find.

  As the blast wave rocked Natasha’s plane, she switched the engine back on and kept her eyes glued to the ground. Holding her breath tight to her, she scanned for the first flash from a searchlight. A beam of light piercing the smoke and aimed at the sky. At her comrades. Her friends. Her family.

  There!

  “Guns to the ready,” she ordered into the tube connecting her to her navigator.

  Natasha banked left and swooped down toward the light. She took care to stay out of its swinging beam, not wanting to make herself a target too.

  “Fire!” she shouted.

  As the plane headed toward the light, the rat-a-tat-tat of their machine gun sounded, and the light blinked out. Knocked out by Marina’s expert aim.

  “Coming up on another one,” she called, taking the plane into a sharp downward turn.

  The cool spring air was a slap to her face. Still, it was nothing like the winters they’d endured on their way to Germany. No one was in danger of losing a finger or toe at this temperature. And for that, she was grateful.

  “Get ready.” She fought with the controls, aware that several more searchlights had replaced the ones they’d knocked out. “Fire!”

  Without waiting to see if they’d taken out the light, Natasha moved on to the next one. Cutting through clouds of smoke, she darted out of the path of stray gunfire while making sure she didn’t hinder her sisters’ return to base.

  “Last one,” she said.

  The other women had managed to take out the rest of the lights and were heading back to base to refuel and reload their bombs and ammunitions, ready for their tenth sortie.

  “Get ready to fire.” She took the plane into a sharp dive. “Fi—”

  Something struck their left wing. The plane careened to the side, losing altitude fast.

  Heart racing but hands steady, Natasha gripped the controls and fought to keep them aloft. Through the communications unit, Marina repeated a rosary—an action that would have seen her arrested under different circumstances. Religion of any kind was strictly forbidden in Stalin’s Soviet Union.

  Black soot covered her goggles, obscuring her view. Natasha wrenched a hand off the controls long enough to wipe an area clear. And what she saw made bile rise in her throat.

  Their wing was on fire. Pieces floating away into the night. The flames rushed toward them. Eating up the canvas and wood as though it were dry, brittle kindling.

  “I’m taking her down!” They had no other choice.

  It was either land in enemy territory or burn in the sky above it.

  Natasha came to in a haze of confusion and pain.

  “Marina?” The word came out as a croak.

  No reply.

  Feeling hard earth beneath her and the prickle of bushes against her exposed skin, Natasha tried to make sense of her surroundings. Her vision was obstructed, and she rubbed at her eyes—only to encounter her forgotten goggles. She tugged them off and threw them away, all the while groaning from the pain in her side.

  The surrounding darkness was aglow with flickering flames, and shadows danced in a macabre performance that made little sense. Above her head, treetops obscured her view, but in the distance, beams of white light cut through the smoke as they aimed at the clouds.

  Searchlights.

  Her heart stuttered as the memories flooded back.

  Gunfire. Burning. Falling.

  “Marina?” Her voice was stronger this time. Was that a whine in reply? Hard to be sure.

  The noise surrounding her was overwhelming—gunfire, bomb blasts, screams, and the roar of the fire. Struggling to shake off a feeling of disorientation, she dragged herself into a sitting position and leaned back against the tree behind her. Their plane was nothing more than a black outline within the flames in front of her—what was left of it anyway.

  The fire had set the vegetation around it ablaze, reminding Natasha that she’d aimed for a small copse of trees in an attempt
to break their descent.

  “Marina?” she called louder now.

  A pain-filled moan emerged from the bushes a few feet in front of the blazing plane, and Natasha caught sight of a boot-clad foot.

  Marina!

  Don’t be burned. Don’t be burned.

  Memories of another time, another friend, made her head spin and her stomach lurch. Burned flesh. The smell. Oh, dear God, the smell. Not here. Not Marina. That was another time. Another place.

  Not here.

  Mustering what little strength she could and gritting her teeth at the pain radiating throughout her body, she crawled toward her navigator. Her right side felt as though it had been ripped open, and she had to fight the urge to scream. A scream would let the Nazis know she was still alive. Instead, she cautiously touched the painful area. No blood.

  Broken ribs then.

  She could cope with that.

  Her head spun violently as she started to crawl again. Nausea assaulted her, and she retched. Everything around her zoomed in and out of focus. A detached, rational voice in the back of her mind told her she had a head injury. Most likely a concussion.

  Fighting through the pain and nausea, she finished her crawl to the navigator and knelt by her side. Overgrowth covered the top half of Marina’s body. No, not her body. Just Marina. She had to be alive. She just had to.

  Natasha shoved foliage out of the way until she could see her navigator. Each movement sent blinding pain coursing through her body. With a shaky breath, she wiped the leaves and dirt from Marina’s face and ran her fingers down her throat to check for a pulse.

  A faint beat had relief sweeping through her, swiftly followed by the hopeless horror of their situation. Marina was unconscious, and Natasha was in no condition to carry her to safety. There was no way to radio their squadron for help or to signal for aid—even if their plane had been equipped with such things, the rest of the women would be long gone by now. They were on their own, behind enemy lines and very far from home.

  Slowly, she moved her hands down Marina’s still form, checking her for injuries. And it didn’t take her long to find one—Marina was impaled on a branch. A deadly chill swept through Natasha as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Blood bubbled up and overflowed from the wound in Marina’s stomach, despite the branch still being embedded in her body.