Taisiya had a letter from Matvei, her beau, who had taken over the running of his family’s farm near the little village of Serbishino. Matvei’s letters were one of Taisiya’s few sources of unmitigated joy, but her face turned ashen as she read his words.
“He’s been called up.” She looked down at the paper, incredulous.
“It sounds like things are worse in Poland,” I said, not knowing what reassurances might help. “But it may all come to nothing. They need troops at the ready in case the worst happens, but there’s no reason to believe he’ll see action. And if he does, at least he’s enlisted and training now.”
“He’s a farmer, Katya. He’s not built for this. He hasn’t been trained like you and I have.” She set the letter aside and buried her face in her hands.
I sat next to her on the thin mattress of her bunk and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “They’ll train him, Taisiya. It makes no sense for them not to.”
“Logic has never been the strong suit of the Red Army,” Taisiya snapped, picking up the letter and placing it in her bedside table with the rest of his correspondence. “Stalin needs warm bodies, and I don’t think he cares how long they stay that way.”
The other women had taken notice but said nothing. Their sympathy was evident, but their words remained lodged in their throats as they thought of their own sweethearts, brothers, and fathers. I didn’t blame them. I held Taisiya close but offered her no hollow words. Either Matvei would survive the war, or he wouldn’t, but Taisiya would suffer until the last bullet flew.
Hours later, when the lights were out and the soft breathing of the other cadets wafted through the chill night air, I could hear Taisiya’s ragged breathing and sniffles, despite her efforts to muffle the sounds of her sobs with her pillow. I slipped out from my bunk and knelt next to hers, placing my hand on her back.
“Taisiya,” I whispered, “what can I do?”
She wiped away a few of the tears and rolled toward me. “Be a lamb and keep Hitler in his own damn country? Could you manage that?”
“Would that I could, Taisiyushka,” I said, adopting her pet name as I climbed into her bed and cradled her close to my chest, tucking her head under my chin. “I’d keep Matvei from the front for your sake if nothing else.”
“I know you would, Katinka. But it doesn’t change anything.” She embraced me closer and forced herself to take even breaths to quell the raking sobs. “I don’t know what I’d do without him. He was the only one who didn’t think me half-cracked for wanting a life that didn’t revolve around farming and babies. He was always so understanding.” Her body began to shake with sobs once more, and I felt the tears spill over onto my chest.
“Taisiyushka. Enough with the past tense.” She was the last woman I expected to let her life revolve around a man. I knew she loved Matvei dearly, but I had expected a well-reasoned anger or worry—not this despair. “And even if… the worst should happen, you won’t be lost. You have me,” I said, tightening my embrace. “Don’t cry. Matvei wouldn’t want it.”
“I have you until the war claims you or you run off with a husband and have a gaggle of babies. Who else would want to marry a woman like me? Men don’t want to marry pilots.”
“Well then, there’s no worry about me running off with a husband to make babies. I’m a pilot, too, in case that slipped your notice.”
A quiet laugh shattered Taisiya’s gloom, just for a moment. “I don’t know how women have done this since the dawn of time. Waiting for men to come home from war. He hasn’t even gone yet, and it’s killing me.”
“Just be grateful. You’ll be able to help him more than most girlfriends would be able to. And not just by knitting socks. It will be different for us.”
“God, I hope you’re right, Katinka. I hope you’re right.”
CHAPTER 3
“Where is Tokarev, Ivanova?” Karlov barked as he noticed the cadet’s absence.
“I wouldn’t know, Captain,” I answered, staring straight ahead into the airfield rather than making eye contact. Unless Tokarev was at death’s door, he would face weeks on the ground for missing his training. “He was in class this morning and in the mess hall at lunch. I can’t say what happened to him in the quarter hour since.”
“A good navigator keeps tabs on his pilot, Ivanova. And vice versa,” Karlov pontificated for the assembled cadets as we awaited our rotation. “There is no excuse for your carelessness.”
“Only lack of access to the men’s barracks, Captain.” I wanted to regret saying those words, but they tasted sweeter on my tongue than raspberry jam.
“He twisted his ankle, Captain,” Solonev called from the back of the crowd, clearly having jogged to join the group. “I helped him to the infirmary just now.”
Karlov rolled his eyes but nodded at Solonev. “Very well,” he said, looking over his roster. “Ivanova can observe this afternoon.”
“Begging your pardon, Captain,” Solonev said. “I can make a second run. Ivanova could use the hours, and so can I.”
The group of pilots and navigators turned their eyes to Solonev, then back to Karlov.
“Very well, Solonev,” Karlov said after a pause. He had sought an excuse and found none. He ordered us to go first in rotation. Presumably he didn’t want me to have the advantage of watching any of the others fly the pattern first, and he wanted my nerves raw. He assumed I would be rattled at the prospect of going up with a new pilot on a moment’s notice. He wasn’t as misguided in this as I would have hoped, but I was happy to get up in the air and have my turn rather than stand about and stew over it.
We trained on Yak UT-2 trainers. A low-winged, open-cockpit aircraft with basic controls and a low cruising speed. Designed so that even rookies like Tokarev could learn on them without disaster, though he had tried often enough to test that. Though modern, it was simple and small compared to the monsters needed for the long-distance, record-setting missions Stalin loved so much.
Solonev took his place first, stepping onto a reinforced section of wing and swinging himself into the front cockpit. I followed into the rear. When given the signal, Solonev fired up the engine and ascended as high as he dared, not descending until we were within a few hundred meters of the target. This would keep us out of sight of ground troops for as long as possible, giving us a few seconds’ advantage. It was all we would need.
He had to bank fairly hard to the right or left to be able to see the target below, so we had to circle our target like a vulture long enough for me to mark the target with a flare and for Solonev to make a direct pass to drop his dummy bomb.
“Five seconds to target,” I called over the radio as the hand ticked away on my chronometer.
“Banking,” he replied, tipping the plane hard left so I could get a clear view of the painted grass below.
“Steady,” I replied. I opened the flare and aimed. The flare was outfitted with a small white parachute that, when winds were calm, helped it to stay the course as it fell. It would be invaluable in a combat situation where he had to distinguish a strategic building from an unimportant one. When I released this one, it fell true, landing right in the center of the target, leaving a bright-red flame for Solonev. “Marked!”