My plane dove to where the two Il-2s weaved back and forth in an effort to dodge the 109’s aim. Between their maneuvers and their rear gunners sending a lot of gunfire up into the air, the German pilot attacking them appeared to be having a lot of trouble lining up a good shot. Maybe we’d somehow all come home after all.
I caught up to them after a few seconds. When the Messer filled the ring on my gun sight, I sent a stream of death toward him. Not a single round found its mark, but the German jinked a hard right. His sharp maneuver bled speed, and I easily made the high-G yoyo to compensate and fired again.
A portion of his right wing sheared off along with his aileron on that side. The plane rolled right and barely pulled out of a dive into the ground. The Messer shuddered back and forth. I’m certain the pilot was doing all he could to keep the fighter aloft. I saddled up behind him and fired off another long burst. The plane went down in a flaming heap.
Instead of a rise of elation at the kill, I felt a rise of bile and my soul wither. I’d executed someone who was no longer a threat. I could have let him go. I should have. Then I wondered what was wrong with me. Plenty of people had gotten over their issues about killing others, especially when it was the enemy. Then again, I wondered if that was something to even strive for. Maybe it was good for the soul, in a strange way, to always be revolted by such a thing.
“You’re clear,” I said, turning back to the Il-2s and clearing my eyes.
“Good kill,” Sparrow Leader said. “We’ll take it from here. Go send that other one straight to Hell.”
I snapped my head around and saw Klara and Rademacher locked in rolling scissors a few kilometers away. Both planes were streaming at this point, which meant Rademacher had managed to score some hits on her. Hopefully, I could enter the fray before it was too late and the two of us could bring him down.
“Nadya,” Klara said as I raced toward her. “He’s on me tight.”
My hands shook, but I tried to sound strong for her sake. “You’re doing great. Keep moving.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”
“As long as you need to.”
“You’re supposed to bring me home.”
I cringed at the desperation in her voice. “I will. Few more seconds. I promise.”
My hands tightened on the stick. Pain laced my arm and fueled my determination. But they were still a thousand meters from my position, and I could do nothing but watch their duel. God, why couldn’t this plane go any faster?
Rademacher won their contest before I got in range. He hammered Klara’s fighter, and her plane flipped upside down and went into a steep dive, streaming fuel, coolant and bits of metal. Rademacher didn’t follow. Instead, he hooked left, keeping me from getting a shot.
“Klara, what’s your status?” I asked as I followed my adversary. Despite the damage to his plane, it was all I could do to keep from overshooting as he threw my aim.
“Little shaken,” she said. “I’m not sure how long this plane will last.”
“Return to base. That’s an order.”
“A wingman does not leave her wing leader.”
I hit the side of the cockpit with my fist, knowing arguing was useless. The only way we were both going home was to bring Rademacher down before her plane gave out or he blew us out of the sky.
Sweat built on my forehead and neck as Rademacher and I jockeyed for position. I took potshots here and there, but he seemed to slip away from my sights at the last moment every time. My burning hand made it difficult to compensate for his sudden movements.
I eased off the trigger as we went into a rolling dive. I knew my guns were running low on ammo, and I couldn’t afford to miss anymore. When we pulled out of it, Rademacher was back on Klara’s tail.
The fight wore on for what felt like hours. More than once I thought Klara had cleared Rademacher from her tail, only to realize he’d not only thwarted my aim, but he’d put himself into a better position to shoot her down.
“You’ve got to end this, Nadya,” she said, her voice cracking. “My engine is overheating.”
White mist no longer poured from her plane. Her coolant was gone, and the life of her engine could be measured in seconds. With no time, no options, and a thread of hope to cling to, I gave the one order I could think of. “Klara, lose some altitude and hammerhead. I can come around up top when you two stall.”
It was a deadly choice that would kill her if it went sour, but what options did I have? I had to get Rademacher to stop moving to get the shot, and the only way I could do that was to use Klara as bait.
“You better not miss,” she said.
Her plane rolled into a tight downward spiral with Rademacher following. As they went around, I pulled up and banked, setting myself up for a high attack where I hoped they’d be.
“Here goes,” Klara said.
Her plane rocketed up and stood on its tail. Rademacher followed. Perhaps his fighter was more damaged than I’d thought and he needed a kill fast to even the odds. Whatever the reason, right as he was about to get a perfect sight picture on Klara’s plane and blast it out of the sky, he lined up perfectly with my guns.
I was a lot of things that day: a daughter, a Cossack, a Christian, a thief, and a failure to two of the best female pilots I’d ever met. But one thing I wasn’t going to be was the one responsible for not bringing Klara home.
I grinned with a devilish delight and hammered my triggers. My guns stayed silent.
Chapter Thirty
I wanted to die a hundred deaths rather than see Klara get torn apart. I cursed myself a thousand times over for running out of ammo, and with equal parts instinct and hate, I drove my plane into Rademacher’s. He opened fire as my left wing struck his fuselage. Despite the violent collision, I managed to pop the latches to both the canopy and seat belt as my fighter tumbled in flames. I was immediately thrown clear.
Almost two thousand meters over the earth, I fell through the sky. Wind blasted my face and roared by my ears. I arched as hard as I could and pulled the ring to my rip cord. My parachute opened, snatching me upward and swinging my legs out in front of me. Sitting in the harness, I twisted in both directions to see what had become of Klara and Rademacher.
I found Klara’s fighter above and behind me, making a wide circle around my position. I could hear her engine making a grinding, clanking sound. There was a loud bang, and a black cloud erupted from the nose of her plane. My gut tightened, fearing for her life.
“Land over there!” I yelled, waving my hands toward a level clearing a few kilometers away. Though the ground below me had few trees, it looked like it had enough small hills in it to be a dangerous place to ditch a plane. She must have had the same idea—I know she didn’t hear me—and after half circle, she lined her plane up to make an emergency landing where I’d pointed.
I watched her plane glide overhead and remembered to bring my feet and knees together a moment before I hit the ground. Unlike the end of my first dogfight with Rademacher, this landing was softer thanks to the thick layer of snow.
My parachute fell on top of me, and it took me a few moments to get out from under it and untangle myself from the lines. Once I was clear, I undid my harness and drew my revolver. Off in the distant north, I could hear the constant booms of a large battle—one I knew stretched for hundreds of kilometers. I needed to get past it and back into friendly territory. As much as I feared the investigation into Petrov’s death, it was still true that everything would be ten times worse if I were captured.
Rademacher was probably thinking how bad things would be for him if the Red Army broke through and caught him. The thought of him spurred me to scan the sky. I saw him coming down in his white parachute, about a half a kilometer away, wobbling like a slow-spinning top. I wondered if something was wrong with his parachute and if he’d survive hitting the ground.