“Moscow speaking,” came out of the radio at the appointed hour. The pilots and bomb-aimers gathered in the officers’ quarters all leaned toward the set. What new disasters would it announce? Which ones would it try to sugarcoat? The only thing Sergei was sure of was that there would be some.
“First, a report on the fighting in Poland,” the newsreader said. Unfortunately, several of the towns he mentioned weren’t in Poland, but in Byelorussia or the Ukraine. The average Soviet citizen-especially the average citizen who didn’t live near the USSR’s western border-probably wouldn’t know that. Such was bound to be the official hope.
As always, Radio Moscow made things sound as good as they possibly could, or else a little better than that. Again, only someone expert at reading between the lines-or someone in the middle of the Soviet retreat-was likely to notice. How many people did that include? It was hard to gauge, not least because admitting you noticed anything out of kilter about the broadcasts would win you a quick one-way trip to the gulag.
Lately, though, the fighting hadn’t been the only thing Sergei was worrying about, even if it was going worse than Moscow cared to admit. He waited till the announcer got done listing the Polish (and, sadly, Soviet) towns that had changed hands lately. After that… After that, the man switched to a report on the desultory fighting that went on in the Far East. Vladivostok was lost. The USSR wouldn’t get it back any time soon. What else needed saying?
Something, evidently. “Through reliable sources, the Soviet Union has learned that the Japanese are barbarously mistreating our prisoners of war,” the newsreader announced. “The peace-loving and humane government of the USSR has warned the Japanese Empire through neutral channels to cease and desist from this practice at once. All regimes are liable to punishment for violating the laws of war.”
That sounded good. The only trouble with it was, Japan hadn’t signed the Geneva Convention. She wasn’t obligated to treat POWs according to its rules. And, for that matter, neither had the USSR. Sergei wouldn’t have wanted to be a German or Pole who had to surrender to the Red Army. He wouldn’t have wanted to yield to a German or Pole, either. Since the USSR hadn’t signed the convention, her enemies in the west didn’t have to follow it with Soviet prisoners, either.
But all that was swept away when the newsreader got to what Yaroslavsky and the rest of the Red Air Force officers were really waiting to hear. The man’s voice deepened and saddened as he said, “The ominous lull on Fascist Germany’s western front continues. The reactionary capitalist states will regret throwing their troops against the peasants and workers of the Soviet Union alongside and under the orders of the Hitlerite hyenas if they make that fatal mistake. General Secretary Stalin has stated, ‘We shall resist any and all aggression with the courage and iron determination suited to the workers’ revolutionary vanguard. We shall resist, and we shall triumph.’ Stormy applause greeted his remarks to the Supreme Soviet.”
Nobody in the officers’ lounge seemed to want to meet anyone else’s eye. The USSR was having all it could do to hold off Germany and Poland. Poland was… not much. However reactionary England and France might be, they were great powers. If they came after the Soviet Union with the Nazis, what would happen next? Nothing good, not so far as Sergei could see.
The newsreader went on in somewhat brighter tones: “In England, Winston Churchill continues to speak out strongly against the proposed misalliance with the Nazis. While a reactionary himself-he tried to strangle the glorious Red Revolution in its cradle-Churchill is not blind to the dangers of Hitlerism. ‘The lamb may lie down with the lion,’ he said, ‘but only the lion will get up again-full.’ ”
That sounded good even after being translated into Russian. Most foreign gibes lost their flavor once they left their native tongue. Churchill must have seemed uncommonly witty in English.
“Although Churchill is a member of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s Conservative Party, Chamberlain has gone out of his way to assure the English Parliament that Churchill does not speak for him or his government,” the newsreader said portentously.
“Chamberlain is playing with his dick again,” one of the pilots said in disgust. The Chimp couldn’t have put it any more plainly-and probably would have put it about the same way. The news didn’t sound good. If Chamberlain was criticizing Churchill, and Churchill was criticizing cutting a deal with the Nazis… What was the likely result? Trouble for the Rodina, that was what.
More trouble for the Rodina, Sergei mentally corrected. The Soviet Union already had as much country as any self-respecting country needed.
After music replaced the news, Major Konstantin Ponamarenko-Colonel Borisov’s replacement as squadron leader-said, “You men will know-not everything that happens comes on the radio right away.”
Heads bobbed up and down, Yaroslavsky’s among them. The main purpose of Radio Moscow news was to hold up morale on the home front. Sergei had thought as much himself not long before. He hadn’t looked for the new squadron commander to acknowledge it so openly.
Ponamarenko went on, “You will also know that the situation in the field is developing in a way that might possibly be better.”
He waited for more nods. He got them. Sergei admired him. The pilot had rarely heard a more graceful way of admitting the USSR was getting the snot knocked out of it.
“Don’t waste time worrying about those French and English whores,” Ponamarenko said earnestly. “They can’t get at us yet, and we can’t get at them, either. Worry about the German cocksuckers, and about their Polish lap dogs yapping along behind them. We can hit back at them, and we damn well will.”
Sergei nodded one more time. You had to show you agreed. Somebody was always watching you. No: somebody always might be watching you. You always needed to stay on your guard. It was all right to remember that Stalin had started the fight with Poland the winter before, looking to pick up Wilno on the cheap. If the General Secretary hadn’t, the Soviet Union would still be at war with Germany, but only in a formal sense, since neither side could have struck at the other without violating some buffer state’s neutrality. Well, now the USSR had done just that, and this was what the Soviet workers and peasants got for it.
Yes, it was all right to remember Stalin might well have outsmarted himself. But it wasn’t all right to show you remembered such things. You never could tell who might notice, and report. You never could tell when you might disappear.
“What I’m saying is, we are going to be flying missions inside what was Soviet territory before the war,” Ponamarenko continued. “We will try to drop our bombs only on the heads of the Fascist jackals, of course. Of course.” He bore down on the repeated phrase. “But accidents happen in war. I don’t have many virgins here. You know that. And I need to tell every one of you-don’t worry about them. Some of our explosives may do a little harm to Soviet citizens. If the rest of our loads help drive the invaders out of the Motherland, though, that’s a price worth paying. Do you hear what I’m telling you, Comrades?”
By the way the flyers’ heads moved, they might have been on springs. This also was nothing that hadn’t occurred to Sergei before. He didn’t want to hurt his own people. He’d never dreamt such a dreadful thing might be possible when he first put on the uniform he wore.
However dreadful the possibility might be, it was here. And Ponamarenko had it right. If the bombers hurt the invaders worse than the locals, their strikes were bound to be worthwhile in the long run. A surgeon cut you up to make you healthier in the long run.
But you still had a scar after the operation. And it still hurt while you recovered from it. Sergei wished he hadn’t thought of any of that.