“I loved her like a sister,” Oksana said. “Don’t think for a minute that I didn’t.”
“I want my own plane. Or at least a new pilot, if you want to keep me in my place,” I said, knowing my tongue-lashing was enough to see me downgraded to an armorer. I just hoped Oksana was the judicious sort who wanted her second to speak her mind, not simper and follow.
“If that’s what you want,” she said, standing with her plate. “I need you to come into the village with me today. I have a few errands there, and I’ll need an extra pair of hands.”
“Very well,” I said, biting my tongue against a refusal.
“Meet me in fifteen minutes.” She turned on the ball of her foot without another word, passing Renata and Polina as they entered with their meals.
“It’s good to have you back,” Renata said, placing her tray next to mine. Polina sat across from Renata, eyeing the food with stoic acceptance.
“Thank you,” I said, still watching Oksana’s form shrink in the distance. I wanted to tell them I was happy to be back among them, but couldn’t voice the untruth. “How have you been managing since—”
“As well as we can,” Polina said, cutting short any bumbling euphemism I might have manufactured.
“Oksana got everyone up and flying in two days, even though she couldn’t go herself,” Renata interjected. “I think it was the best thing she could have done. To see another unit come in and support our missions would have been the worst thing for morale.”
“Too much time to think,” I said. “I had weeks of it in the convalescent hospital.”
“Too right,” Polina said. “We’ve been too busy for too long to take kindly to sitting idle.”
“We’re none of us built for it,” I said. “Do you think Oksana is doing well?”
“She’s not Sofia,” Polina said. “She doesn’t have the… I don’t know what you might call it. The confidence? The way she made us all pay attention without trying?”
“Poise,” I supplied. “Self-assurance. Sofia had those in spades.”
“That’s it,” Polina agreed. “I’m not sure Oksana needs it, though. She knows her stuff, and people respect her, even if she isn’t friendly.”
I drew my lips into a line, wondering if that was for the best. Should they be willing to follow her when she was capable of risking so much for so little?
“She knows her aircraft, and she’s a good pilot,” Renata said. “She wouldn’t put anyone in unnecessary danger. She’s worth following. It won’t be the same, though.”
“No, nothing ever is,” I said, wiping the corners of my mouth and standing to make my departure.
With two minutes to spare, I joined Oksana, who was loading a box of supplies into the back of a truck whose paint was so badly singed, it could only have been in too-close proximity to the blast of a German bomb.
I slid into the passenger side, Oksana taking her place behind the wheel. We drove into a village just outside Taman. The few remaining buildings almost seemed to quake in anticipation of the next air raid. The residents wore the gaunt, haunted look of those who had lived too long in fear. Even the lucky ones who had managed to eat well enough still bore the appearance of a people who could never rest in earnest.
Oksana pulled up to one of the largest buildings, a school by the look of it. She looked around cautiously before exiting the truck and motioning for me to join her.
Oksana whistled, and at once several children scampered from the building and threw their arms around her midsection.
A cherubic little boy missing his front teeth grinned up at her. “Have you brought us any sweets?”
“No, my darling boy. You have new teeth coming in. The sugar wouldn’t be good for them. How about some good bread and some soup?”
The children nodded enthusiastically, and she pulled the box from the back of the truck. A little girl took my hand as we entered the building that smelled strongly of gunpowder and coal. She had no idea who I was, but the uniform told her all she needed to know—I could be trusted. I was on her side.
Their teacher, a wizened old man who must have been deemed too old for service, smiled at the sight of Oksana and guided us into the school cafeteria.
“We’re glad to see you, my dear,” he said. “And you brought one of your comrades. How nice to meet you.”
“Excuse me. Captain Soloneva, meet Comrade Mishin. He looks after the children here at the school.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said, offering the stooped man a smile and sticking out my right hand. He took it in a firm handshake, his chest puffing with pride, as though Oksana were presenting him to Stalin himself.
“Can the regiment spare all this?” he asked, his eyes widening at the box, which contained a large jug of soup and two loaves of black bread along with a handful of bandages and a few odd first-aid supplies. The food looked like just enough to give each child a few mouthfuls, though they all danced in anticipation of their warm meal. “I cannot accept your help if it will land you in trouble, my dear. I couldn’t live with myself.”
“The cook himself gave me permission to bring this to you and the children, Comrade. It’s my honor to do so.”
“You’re an angel, Major Tymoshenko,” he said, breaking the bread into portions for each child as Oksana dished up the soup into the bowls the children produced from the nearby kitchen. I looked around for an occupation and ensured each child had both clean spoons and napkins for their meal.
The children smiled up at me with dirt-streaked faces that all looked far too thin and far too wise for their years. The oldest child was not yet thirteen, the youngest still toddled, clutching the sides of benches as he learned how to navigate the expansive room. He climbed up into the lap of one of the older girls, gumming his bread in between dimpled smiles.
“The wee one looks a bit young for school,” I commented to Oksana, who had served Comrade Mishin a larger portion of soup and bread with an admonishment to eat it all so that he would be better able to keep an eye on the children. “Is he tagging along with an older sibling to stay out of his mother’s hair?”
“Not exactly,” Oksana said, pulling me a bit farther from the table. “He’s here with his sister, but their parents were killed in a raid a few months ago. They’re all orphans. They’d be fending for themselves if it weren’t for Mishin.”
“He’s a good man,” I said, watching the man who tried, and failed, to siphon off some of his soup into the children’s bowls without being observed.
“There aren’t enough of them,” Oksana replied. “And as soon as we move on, he’ll be back to scraping together enough food to keep them alive. Most of them won’t make it through the winter. Fewer, if Mishin won’t eat his portion and keep himself alive, though there’s no reasoning with him.”
I looked at the faces, alight with happiness at the prospect of bellies that weren’t exactly full, but not rumbling for the first time in several days.
The sun began to hang lower in the sky, and we’d be needed in the air in a few hours. We made our farewells and loaded the empty crate back in the truck.
“It’s kind of you to help them,” I said after a few minutes on the road. “Not many would think to do it.”
“I’ve tried to do what I can whenever we’re near a village. They’re all the same. The people need help, especially the orphans.” It occurred to me then that over the past two years, much of what I’d considered to be her silence might very well have been her absence as she’d quietly tended to those who couldn’t tend to themselves. Knowing that her aid was a small mercy that was likely only to delay the inevitable.