by a quite different life, which took command of everything, of me and
Katya, of all our thoughts, feelings and impressions. This different life
was the war, and I would probably not have written about it merely
because it was different, had it not been for the fact that what happened
to me in the war was interwoven in such a surprising way with the affair
of Captain Tatarinov and the St. Maria.
I see a large, dark room in a peasant cottage, a table dimly lit by a
candle-end, and windows curtained off with ground-sheets. The door
opens, and a man comes in, his tunic undone. He rummages about in
the stove and eats hungrily. He is Grisha Trofimov. Another man gets up
from the bunk and joins him at the table. He is Luri. I hear their quiet
talk, which makes my heart beat slow and strong.
"Been over to Ladoga?"
Grisha nods and goes on eating.
"Well?"
"Nothing new."
"Been at Zvanka?"
He goes on eating. Says nothing. He's been over to Zvanka too.
The two Leningraders look into each other's faces. It is the first night
of the Leningrad blockade.
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I see the message-bag dropping over the side of my plane-that's the
way we saved men who mistakenly believed that they were surrounded.
I see the first grave, which we decorated with dud shells laid out to
look like iron flowers. We flew over them as low as we could when
returning from missions.
The lake, too, appears before me-that same lake, in whose sleepy
morning frame I had seen the last vision of the old life. Now it is sombre
and sullen. The water, filled to the brim of its shores, glints dully, and
grey-blue smoke creeps across the misted mirror of its surface. The
forest is burning, set alight by the Germans.
In the evenings we come out of the dugout built into the hillside.
Patrol boats lay hidden among the bushes. We race across the dark
water amid spray and foam. Planes come out of the forest like huge sea
birds. This is Lake L., our third and fourth base.
I see lots of things. But everything I see passes before me, as it were,
against the backcloth of the map which unfolds every day beneath the
wings of my plane-a map with the breaking lines in the front and the
widening black wave of the German offensive.
Every day new pilots arrived, most of them from the Civil Air Fleet.
With some of them I had worked together in the North, with others in
the Far East. They were experienced. First and Second Class pilots, and
three of them even "millionaires", that is, men who had notched up over
a million kilometres, and it was amusing to watch the comical blunders
these civilians made in the process of becoming fighting flyers. We
talked about this very often, both in the canteen and at home, in the
dugout, where the three of us lived together -I, Luri and mechanic.
Perhaps the reason we talked about it so often was because we had
tacitly agreed not to talk about "other things". The newspapers did that
for us.
In September my crew and I were ordered to report for duty to the Air
Force Command of the Southern Front.
It was just an ordinary fight as air fights go, and I do not intend to
describe it, the more so as it was very soon over. We succeeded right
away in bringing down one of the Messers—he crashed in the very act of
making a stall-turn. The two others hoicked and got in each other's way
as they tried to settle on our tail. It was smart of them but not smart
enough; we were not the kind to let someone get in behind us. They
tried it once, but it didn't work. Then they came in again and very nearly
got caught in our gun sights. To cut a long story short, we kept them at
bay until they gave up and I headed straight for the front-line, which
was not far off.
This was easier said than done, what with a quarter of my port wing
shot away and the tanks being holed. I was wounded in the leg and in
the face, and the blood was running into my eyes.
I suddenly felt strangely weak. It was at that moment, I believe, that I
recalled the fearful dreams of childhood in which I was being killed or
drowned-and the joyous sense of relief when you wake up to find
yourself alive.
"But now"—the thought was a very calm one—"now I won't wake up."
I must have lost consciousness, but not for long, because I came to at
the sound of my own voice. It was as though I had started to speak
before I had regained consciousness. I ordered the crew to bale out. The
radio operator-gunner complied immediately, but Luri grumbled:
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"Oh, all right!", as though I were suggesting some tiresome jaunt to
which he reluctantly agreed in deference to me.
The hardest thing was to fight this mist which made my eyes close and
my arms go limp and helpless. Only once in a thousand years, it seemed,
did I manage to fight it off and become aware that something,
something most important, had to be put right immediately. A thousand
years—and only a moment in which to regain control of my machine,
struggling only with my left hand. Another thousand—and far below me
I saw the Junkers, two Junkers, lumbering towards me like large, heavy
bulls. This was the end, of course. And they took their time about it—1
saw that at a glance.
Luri baled out, and they started shooting at him. Killed, I suppose.
Then they came back and drew alongside me.
What did that German look like? Was he handsome or ugly, old or
young? Who cares. This was no soldier flying alongside me, but a
murderer.
I don't know how to explain it, but it seemed to me that I saw both
him and myself as from a distance. Myself, clutching at the controls with
feeble hands, the blood streaming down my face, in a plane that was
falling to pieces. And he, goggles raised, studying me with cold curiosity
and a sense of his complete power over me. I may have said something
to Luri, forgetting that he had baled out and they had probably killed
him. The German passed under me, and the wing with the yellow cross
on it appeared on my left. I pulled the stick over, trod on the pedal and
hurled myself at that wing.
I don't know where the blow struck-probably on the cockpit, because
the German didn't even open his parachute. I had killed him outright.
Was I happy!
I found myself in the grip of an overwhelming, glorious feeling. To
live! To live! I was wounded, I knew that they had got me, but no, my
one thought was—to live! I saw the earth—it was quite close now— the
plough field and the white dusty road.
Some part of me was burning-my jacket and my boots, but I felt no
heat. Incredibly, I somehow managed to flatten out just above ground-
level. I undid the straps-it was the last thing I managed to do that day,
that week, that month, those four months... But let us not forestall
events.
CHAPTER TWO
ALL WE COULD
I was very thirsty, and all the way to the village I kept asking for a drink
and about Luri. When we got to the village I was given a bucket of water,
and I couldn't understand what made the women cry when I put my
head into the bucket and began to drink, seeing and hearing nothing