Enough philosophizing and time to think about Jill. Maybe he would go home and screw his “wife” while thinking of Jill. That could work for a while anyway. Come to think of it she did look similar if she had light brown hair. Maybe if he had her dye it from the blond she pretended to be. They were about the same size and if he could just have her not talk during sex. She had a very slight accent that distracted from his Jill fantasy. How do you tell your wife to shut up and screw?
They could hear footsteps above their heads. Somehow Sasha was keeping her baby quiet. The soldiers of the NKVD were searching the village and surrounding countryside for this group of people. We don’t exactly know why or what they were searching for but we knew what the results would be as they had demonstrated in the village 5 miles south of us. The villagers were found, shot and buried in a mass grave. No explanation was given. The theory was that one of them was a relative of Lavrentiy Beria and he was convinced that somehow, something this person knew would harm him and that all the others who he or she knew might have been told as well. Beria was not one to sort out the wheat from the chaff. His preferred method was to burn the whole field, then salt the soil so nothing could ever grow there again. Now he was searching for the wheat field that he thought required such treatment and this brought the boots above their heads to this exact location.
Just as they closed the trap door to their hiding place Sasha’s newborn daughter started to whimper. No doubt her feelings of discomfort were caused by sensing her mother’s growing terror at the situation that was unfolding over their heads. In addition the soldiers were smashing and breaking things in their haste to find this group now hiding beneath their feet. Yet somehow the baby was being kept quiet. From past experience with this particular child Victor was prepare to smother the baby if need be to save the rest of the group from slaughter. One sickly baby, compared to a dozen others, was not a hard choice for him to make.
It was completely dark as the hiding place was well insulated from light and prying eyes. They had been very careful in both designing and building the space and had actually been through this type of search before and had not been caught. It would seem that the village to the South was constantly renouncing them and slandering them to whatever authority happened to be “investigating” this or that. One easy way to save your life in this day and age was to deflect the insanity that had gripped the world onto someone else. Show the NKVD a shiny object and they left you along. Today they were that shiny object and they had no idea why; all they knew was that they had to hide. Before they let Sasha and the baby into the hiding place they had all agreed that if the baby started to cry it would be killed to save them all. Even Sasha agreed. She might have agreed as an attempt to save herself and daughter but it wouldn’t have mattered. If the baby even started to cry is would be smothered.
Everything was proceeding well. Then just as the soldiers were making the most noise the baby made a fussing noise. One little utterance but you knew what was coming and nothing could stop it. But it had stopped immediately and was not heard by the troops over their heads. It was utterly dark so most did not know what had happened to make the child be quiet. Had it been smothered? Had it stopped on its own? A couple of the women were struggling to hold back tears for they knew that you cannot stop a baby from crying once they started fussing in that manner. Sasha or someone, had done something drastic and immediate, to quiet the child and they feared the worst. There was no groping sounds for a nipple no cooing or sucking sounds, just complete silence; utter and devastating silence.
It seemed like hours before the soldiers left. No one made a sound and they stayed still for another hour after the soldiers had left. As the leader raised the opening a little the others were amazed at what they saw. Sasha had her mouth over her child’s face. It covered both nose and mouth and she was breathing for them both. You could tell the baby was fit to be tide but her mother had matched her exhales with her own and no sound was forthcoming. She then sent a small puff of air from her lungs into the baby’s mouth and nose thus providing the needed oxygen. Then she would suck it out again and in essence exhale for the child as well. You could tell she was exhausted but would not stop until everyone had exited the space.
It seems that Sasha was a member of the Young Pioneers and before the first war a British delegation from the Royal Humane Society Campaign Group for first aid and resuscitation had put on a demonstration of a technique they had been using and advocating since the turn of the century. It was used in many of the swimming beaches and pools of Great Britain. Sasha had been fascinated by the demonstration and had even become an instructor in this life saving technique. She had even saved a boy’s life at Young Pioneer Camp who, had for all intents and purposes, died of drowning. Yet to the amazement of all involved she brought him back to life.
No one knew what this technique was called and no one mentioned it again. Some kind of witchcraft was obviously performed. But the days of witches was over. Was that why the soldiers came? No one really thought so but one never knew. Sasha disappeared in the night with her baby so nothing had to be done anyway.
Vasily had finally got the right parts for the captured Amerikosi radar set. He could see through the subterfuge of the Russian labels and such. It was American alright. Fine workmanship to be sure, but the newest Soviet sets he had worked on were not far behind in quality. Quality mattered at this stage of the war. Previously it was quantity but now the emphasis had been on excellence, at least in aviation and electronics. He had no idea of where all these obviously Western made electronic components were coming from but they were coming now at a faster and faster pace. He couldn’t believe that they had captured so many useful things. It was like someone went to the US and went on a shopping spree.
Crystal diodes, resistors, capacitors, vacuum tubes and relays were showing up by the thousands and when combined with the Russian knack for ingenuity born of scarcity, they were accomplishing some amazing things. The radar set he was tinkering with here in the forward base was just such a unit. It was a threefold improvement over the original Amerikosi unit he had started with. The range was remarkable and his scope was rapidly filling up with very fast moving blips. Yes they were blips and not blobs. Another vast improvement over the earlier models, he was forced to use. These new diodes were a wonder compared to what he had to work with before. We might not be able to make them yet but we most certainly knew how to use them to their greatest advantage.
The raid was not as big as yesterdays. “This is Vasily here. We have multiple and large formations of planes coming from the Southeast and they are being joined by others rising at a fast rate from near Yuksekova, Turkey. He had started to pick up something near Duhok, Turkey and the formation just kept on getting larger and larger as more planes were added. He was picking them up at nearly 400 km, really astounding progress with the new components that he was given to use.