Dangerous Women Part 18

This was outside their mission parameters, and they were so far outnumbered as to be ridiculous. On the other hand, what else were they supposed to do? The Germans would have dropped their bombs before the 586th could scramble more fighters.

"What do you think?" Raisa answered. "We stop them!"

"With you!"

Raisa throttled up and pushed forward on the stick. The engine rumbled and shook the canopy around her. The Yak streaked forward, the sky a blur above her. A glance over her shoulder, and she saw Inna's fighter right behind her.

She aimed at the middle of the German swarm. Individual bombers became very large very quickly, filling the sky in front of her. She kept on, like an arrow, until she and Inna came within range.

The bombers scattered, as if they'd been blown apart by a wind. Planes at the edges of the formation peeled off, and ones in the middle climbed and dived at random. Clearly, they hadn't expected a couple of Russian fighters to shoot at them from nowhere.

She picked one that had the misfortune to evade right into her path, and focused her sights on it. She fired a series of rounds from the 20mm cannon, missed when the bomber juked out of range. She cursed.

Rounds blazed above her canopy; a gunner, shooting back. She banked hard, right and up, keeping a watch out for collisions. Dicey, maneuvering with all this traffic. The Yak was fast-she could fly circles around the Junkers and wasn't terribly worried about getting shot. But she could easily crash into one of them by not paying close enough attention. All she and Inna really had to do was stop the group from reaching its target, but if she could bring down one or two of them in the meantime ... One second at a time, that was the only way to handle the situation. Stay alive so she could do some good.

The enemy gunner fired at her again, then Raisa recognized the sound of another cannon firing. A fireball expanded and burned out at the corner of her vision-a Junker, one of its engines breaking apart. The plane lurched, off balance until it fell in an arc, trailing smoke. It waggled once or twice, the pilot trying to regain control, but then the bomber started spinning and it was all over.

Inna cried over the radio, "Raisa! I got him, I got him!" It was her first kill in battle.

"Excellent! Only fifteen more to go!"

"Raisa Ivanovna, you're terrible."

The battle seemed to drag, but surely only seconds had pa.s.sed since they scattered the formation. They couldn't engage for much longer before they'd run out of ammunition, not to mention fuel. The last few shots had to count, then she and Inna ought to run. After those last few shots, of course.

Raisa caught another target and banked hard to follow it. The bomber climbed, but it was slow, and she was right on it. By now her nerves were singing and instinct guided her more than reason. She squeezed hard on the trigger before the enemy was fully in her crosshairs, but it worked, because the Junker slid into the line of fire just as her shots reached it. She put holes across its wings and across its engine, which sparked and began pouring smoke. The plane could not survive, and sure enough, the nose tipped forward, the whole thing falling out of control.

Inna cheered for her over the radio, but Raisa was already hunting her next target. So many to choose from. The two fighters were surrounded, and Raisa should have been frightened, but she could only think about shooting the next bomber. And the next.

The Junkers struggled to return to formation. The loose, straggling collection had dropped five hundred meters from its original alt.i.tude. If the fighters could force down the entire squadron, what a prize that would be! But no, they were running, veering hard from the fighters, struggling to escape.

Bombs fell from the lead plane's belly, and the others followed suit. The bombs detonated on empty forest, their balloons of smoke rising harmlessly. They'd scared the bombers into dropping their loads early.

Raisa smiled at the image.

With nothing left in their bomb bays and no reason to continue, the Junkers peeled off and circled back to the west. Lighter and faster now, they'd be more difficult for the fighters to catch. But they wouldn't be killing any Russians today, either.

Raisa radioed, "Inna, let's get out of here."

"Got it."

With Inna back on her wing, she turned her Yak to the east, and home.

"That makes three confirmed kills total, Stepanova. Two more, and you'll be an ace."

Raisa was grinning so hard, she squinted. "We could hardly miss, with so many targets to pick from," she said. Inna rolled her eyes a little, but was also beaming. She'd bagged her first kill, and though she was doing a very good job of trying to act humble and dignified now, right after they'd landed and parked she'd run screaming up to Raisa and knocked her over with a big hug. Lots of dead Germans and they'd both walked away from the battle. They couldn't have been much more successful than that.

Commander Gridnev, a serious young man with a face like a bear, was reviewing a typed piece of paper at his desk in the largest dugout at the 101st Division's airfield. "The squadron's target was a rail station. A battalion of infantry was there, waiting for transport. They'd have been killed. You saved a lot of lives."

Even better. Tremendous. Maybe Davidya had been there and she'd saved him. She could brag about it in her next letter.

"Thank you, sir."

"Good work, girls. Dismissed."

Out of the commander's office, they ran back home, stumbling in their oversized men's flight suits and jackets and laughing.

A dozen women shared the dugout, which if you squinted in dim light seemed almost homelike, with wrought iron cots, wool bedding, whitewashed walls, and wooden tables with a few vases of wildflowers someone had picked for decorations. The things always wilted quickly-no sunlight reached inside. After a year of this-moving from base to base, from better conditions to worse and back again-they'd gotten used to the bugs and rats and rattling of distant bombing. You learned to pay attention to and enjoy the wilted wildflowers, or you went mad.

Though that happened sometimes, too.

The second best thing about being a pilot (the first being the flying itself) was the better housing and rations. And the vodka allotment for flying combat missions. Inna and Raisa pulled chairs up close to the stove to drive away the last of the chill from flying at alt.i.tude and tapped their gla.s.ses together in a toast.

"To victory," Inna said, because it was tradition and brought luck.

"To flying," Raisa said, because she meant it.

At dinner-runny stew and stale bread cooked over the stove-Raisa awaited the praise of her comrades and was ready to bask in their admiration-two more kills and she'd be an ace; who was a better fighter pilot, or a better shot, than she? But it didn't happen quite like that.

Katya and Tamara stumbled through the doorway, almost crashing into the table and tipping over the vase of flowers. They were flushed, gasping for breath as if they'd been running.

"You'll never guess what's happened!" Katya said.

Tamara talked over her: "We've just come from the radio operator; he told us the news!"

Raisa's eyes went round and she almost dropped the plate of bread she was holding. "We've pushed them back? They're retreating?"

"No, not that," Katya said, indignant, as if wondering how anyone could be so stupid.

"Liliia scored two kills today!" Tamara said. "She's got five now. She's an ace!"

Liliia Litviak. Beautiful, wonderful Liliia, who could do no wrong. Raisa remembered their first day with the battalion, and Liliia showed up, this tiny woman with the perfect face and bleached blond hair. After weeks of living in the dugouts, she still had a perfect face and bleached blond hair, looking like some American film star. She was so small, they thought she couldn't possibly pilot a Yak, she couldn't possibly serve on the front. Then she got in her plane and she flew. Better than any of them. Even Raisa had to admit that, but not out loud.

Liliia painted flowers on the nose of her fighter, and instead of making fun of her, everyone thought she was so sweet.

And now she was a fighter ace. Raisa stared. "Five kills. Really?"

"Indisputable! She had witnesses; the news is going out everywhere. Isn't it wonderful?"

It was wonderful, and Raisa did her best to act like it, smiling and raising a toast to Liliia and cursing the Fascists. They ate dinner and wondered when the weather would change, if winter had a last gasp of frigid cold for them or if they were well into the merely chilly damp of spring. No one talked about when, if ever, the war might be done. Two years now since the Germans invaded. They'd not gotten any farther in the last few months, and the Soviets had made progress-recapturing Voronezh for one, and moving forward operations there. That was something.

But Inna knew her too well to let her go. "You were frowning all the way through dinner," she said, when they were washing up outside, in darkness, before bed. "You didn't hide it very well."

Raisa sighed. "If I'd been sent to Stalingrad, I'd have just as many kills as she does. I'd have more. I'd have been an ace months ago."

"If you'd been sent to Stalingrad, you'd be dead," Inna said. "I'd rather have you here and alive."

Frowning, she bit off her words. "We're all dead. All of us on the front, we're all here to die; it's just a matter of when."

Inna wore a knit cap over her short hair, which curled up over the edges. This, along with the freckles dotting her cheeks, made her look elfin. Her eyes were dark, her lips in a grim line. She was always solemn, serious. Always telling Raisa when her jokes had gone too far. Inna would never say a bad word about anyone.

"It'll be over soon," she said to Raisa under the overcast sky, not even a dim lantern to break the darkness, lest German reconnaissance flights find them. "It has to be over soon. With the Brits and Americans pounding on the one side and us on the other, Germany can't last for long."

Raisa nodded. "You're right, of course you're right. We just have to hold on as long as we can."

"Yes. That's exactly right."

Inna squeezed her arm, then turned back to the dugout and a cot with too-thin blankets and the skittering of rats. Sometimes Raisa looked around at the dirt and the worn boots, the tired faces and the lack of food, and believed she'd be living like this for the rest of her life.

Raisa arrived at the command dugout for a briefing-a combat mission, she hoped, and a chance for her next two kills-but one of the radio operators pulled her aside before she could go in.

She and Pavel often traded information. She'd give him the gossip from the flight line, and he'd pa.s.s on any news he'd heard from other regiments. He had the most reliable information from the front. More reliable than what they could get from command, even, because the official reports that trickled down were filtered, ma.s.saged, and manipulated until they said exactly what the higher-ups wanted people like her to know. Entire battalions had been wiped out and no one knew because the generals didn't want to damage morale, or some such nonsense.

Today Pavel seemed pale, and his frown was somber.

"What is it?" she asked, staring, because he could only have bad news. Very bad, to come seek her out. She thought of David, of course. It had to be about David.

"Raisa Ivanovna," he said. "I have news ... about your brother."

Her head went light, as if she were flying a barrel roll, the world going upside down around her. But she stood firm, didn't waver, determined to get through the next few moments with her dignity intact. She could do this, for her brother's sake. Even though she was supposed to die first. The danger she faced in the air, flying these death traps against Messerschmitts, was so much greater. She'd always felt so sure that she would die, that David would have to be the one to stand firm while he heard the news.

"Tell me," she said, and her voice didn't waver.

"His squadron saw action. He ... he's missing in action."

She blinked. Not the words she was expecting. But this ... the phrase hardly made sense. How did a soldier just disappear, she wanted to demand. David wasn't like an earring or a slip of paper that one wandered the house searching for. She felt her face turn furrowed, quizzical, looking at Pavel for an explanation.

"Raisa-are you all right?" he said.

"Missing?" she repeated. The information and what it meant began to penetrate.

"Yes," the radio operator answered, his tone turning to despair.

"But that's ... I don't even know what to say."

"I'm so sorry, Raisa. I won't tell Gridnev. I won't tell anyone until official word comes down. Maybe your brother will turn up before then and it won't mean anything."

Pavel's hangdog look of pity was almost too much to take. When she didn't reply, he walked away, trudging through the mud.

She knew what he was thinking, what everyone would think, and what would happen next. No one would say it out loud-they didn't dare-but she knew. Missing in action; how much better for everyone if he had simply died.

Comrade Stalin had given the order soon after the war began: "We have no prisoners of war, only traitors of the motherland." Prisoners were collaborators, because if they had been true patriots they would have died rather than be taken. Likewise, soldiers missing in action were presumed to have deserted. If David did not somehow reappear in the Soviet army, he would be declared a traitor, and his family would suffer. Their parents and younger sister would get no rations or aid. Raisa herself would most likely be barred from flying at the very least. They'd all suffer, even though David was probably lying dead at the bottom of a bog somewhere.

She pinched her nose to hold the tears back and went into the dugout for whatever briefing the commander had for the flight. She mustn't let on that anything was wrong. But she had a hard time listening that morning.

David wasn't a traitor, but no matter how much she screamed that truth from the mountaintops, it didn't matter. Unless he appeared-or a body were found, proving that he'd been killed in action-he'd be a traitor forever.

Terrible, to wish a body would be found.

She had a sudden urge to take up a gun-in her own two hands, even, and not in the c.o.c.kpit of her plane-and murder someone. Stalin, perhaps.

If anyone here could read her mind, hear her thoughts, she'd be barred from flying, sent to a work camp, if not executed outright. Then her parents and sister would be even worse off, with two traitors in the family. So, she should not think ill of Stalin. She should channel her anger toward the real enemy, the ones who'd really killed David. If he were dead. Perhaps he wasn't dead, only missing, like the report said.

Inna sat beside her and took her arm. "Raisa, what's wrong? You look like you're going to explode."

"It's nothing," Raisa answered in a whisper.

She kept writing letters to David as if nothing had happened. The writing calmed her.

Dear Davidya: Did I mention I have three kills now? Three. How many Germans have you killed? Don't answer that, I know you'll tell me, and it'll be more, and I know it's harder for you because you have to face them with nothing but bullets and bayonets, while I have my beautiful Yak to help me. But still, I feel like I'm doing some good. I'm saving the lives of your fellow infantry. Inna and I stopped a whole squadron from completing its bombing run, and that's something to be proud of.

I'm so worried about you, Davidya. I try not to be, but it's hard.

Two more kills and I'll be an ace. Not the first woman ace, though. That's Liliia Litviak. Amazing Liliia, who fought at Stalingrad. I don't begrudge her that at all. She's a very good pilot, I've seen her fly. I won't even claim to be better. But I'm just as good, I know I am. By the way, you should know that if you see a picture of Litviak in the papers (I hear the papers are making much of her, so that she can inspire the troops or some such thing) that Inna is much prettier. Hard to believe, I know, but true. After my next two kills, I wonder if they'll put my picture in the paper? You could tell everyone you know me. If you're not too embarra.s.sed by your mouse-faced little sister.

I've gotten a letter from Mama, and I'm worried because she says Da is sick again. I thought he was better, but he's sick all the time, isn't he? And there isn't enough food. He's probably giving all his to Nina. It's what I would do. I'm afraid Mama isn't telling me everything, because she's worried that I can't take it. You'd tell me, wouldn't you?

You'd think I had enough to worry about, that I wouldn't worry about home, too. They can take care of themselves. As I can take care of myself, so do not worry about me. We have food, and I get plenty of sleep. Well, I get some sleep. I hear the bombing sometimes, and it's hard to think they won't be here next. But never mind.

Until I see you again, Raisa Like dozens of other girls, Raisa had written a letter to the famous pilot Marina Raskova asking her how she could fly for the war. Comrade Raskova had written back: I am organizing a battalion for women. Come.

Of course Raisa did.

Da had been angry: he wanted her to stay home and work in a factory-good, proud, n.o.ble work that would support the war effort just as much as flying a Yak would. But her mother had looked at him and quietly spoken: Let her have her wings while she can. Da couldn't argue with that. Her older brother, David, made her promise to write him every day, or at least every week, so he could keep an eye on her. She did.

Raisa was a.s.signed to the fighter regiment, and for the first time met other girls like herself who'd joined a local flying club, who had to fight for the privilege of learning to fly. At her club, Raisa had been the only girl. The boys didn't take her seriously at first, laughed when she showed up wanting to take the cla.s.ses to get her license. But she kept showing up to every session, every meeting, and every cla.s.s. They had to let her join. Truth to tell, they didn't take her seriously even after she soloed and scored better on her navigation test than any of the boys. She never said it out loud, but what made Raisa particularly angry was the hypocrisy of it all. The great Soviet experiment with its n.o.ble egalitarian principles that was meant to bring equality to all, even between men and women, and here the boys were, telling her she should go home, work in a factory with other women, get married, and have babies, because that was what women were supposed to do. They weren't meant to fly. They couldn't fly. She had to prove them wrong over and over again.

Thank goodness for Marina Raskova, who proved so much for all of them. When she died-a stupid crash in bad weather, from what Raisa heard-the women pilots were afraid they'd be disbanded and sent to factories, building the planes they ought to be flying. Raskova and her connections to the very highest levels-to Stalin himself-were the only things keeping the women flying at the front. But it seemed the women had proven themselves, and they weren't disbanded. They kept flying, and fighting. Raisa pinned a picture of Raskova from a newspaper to the wall of their dugout. Most of the women paused by it now and then, offering it a smile, or sometimes a frown of quiet grief. More dead pilots had lined up behind her since.

"I want a combat mission, not scut work," Raisa told Gridnev. Didn't salute, didn't say "sir." They were all equal Soviet citizens, weren't they?

He'd handed her flight its next mission outside the dugout, in a bl.u.s.tery spring wind that Raisa hardly noticed. They were supposed to report to their planes immediately, but she held back to argue. Inna hovered a few yards away, nervous and worried.

"Stepanova. I need pilots for escort duty. You're it."

"The flight plan takes us a hundred miles away from the front lines. Your VIP doesn't need escorting, he needs babysitting!"

"Then you'll do the babysitting."

"Commander, I just need those next two kills-"

"You need to serve the homeland in whatever fashion the homeland sees fit."

"But-"

"This isn't about you. I need escort pilots; you're a pilot. Now go."

Gridnev walked away before she did. She looked after him, fuming, wanting to shout. She wouldn't get to kill anything flying as an escort.