“This is little Boris from the Rynok suburb. You know the fancy apartments over there?” Malinkov growls. “He became a little too friendly with the Germans’ Sixteenth Panzer Division, running here and there to get them this and that, and in return they would give him a piece of chocolate.” The commissar’s small black eyes bore into us. “You know the child traitors, the Hiwis, often carry weapons. This one had a grenade. I was tempted to pull the pin and blow him to bits when they brought his body in. But I wanted an example. That is a Russian bullet in the boy’s head.” He scanned the small gathering in the lounge. “You understand. You are to shoot on sight if you see any suspicious behavior that might suggest a Hiwi.”
I stare at him, horrified. “But if it’s a child, how can we be sure?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth I know I have made a terrible mistake. His eyes are cold and steady and cruel. A smile crawls out from the corners of his mouth.
“And what, may I ask, is your name, comrade?”
“Comrade Valentina Petrovna Baskova.”
“I will remember that.” He turns on his heel to leave and then glances over his shoulder at the child’s body on the floor. “I suggest that you place him on the breastworks. I noticed that they needed some strengthening.” He pauses briefly. “Merry Christmas.”
It is near dawn of Christmas Day. I am so agitated by the commissar’s remarks that I cannot sleep so volunteer to take a double shift serving the DP-28s. My hands are red and stiff with cold. Rudi, who has taken Mikhail’s place on the machine gun, leaves for his break but immediately comes back from the lounge, looking frightened.
“Comrade Valentina. There’s another NKVD here to see you.”
A pit of fear forms in my stomach, but I keep my voice calm. “I’m right in the middle of reloading here.”
“I’ll take over.” I feel his eyes following me. Off to the gulag, I think.
I brace myself for the towering figure of Commissar Malinkov, eyes aglow with malice as he announces my arrest, but as I enter the lounge, I inhale sharply. Yuri! What in the world is he doing here? My surprise ices over into fear as I remember that, of course, snipers are part of the NKVD. Commissar Malinkov must have reported me as a collaborator, and now Yuri is here to arrest me. Or worse. If only I could have gotten across the river to Akhtuba. If only I were in the air flying over this damn city and not trapped in a trench.
Despite my growing panic, I fight to keep my composure. “Did they send you for me? I … I won’t blame you.”
Yuri blinks. “Blame me for what? What are you talking about?”
Perhaps noticing the fear in my eyes, he takes my hand and squeezes it. I stare at the dozens of rounds of sniper bullets in the straps of his bandolier. Little death birds eager to fly.
“Valya, what’s wrong?”
“Your boss was here. I said something inappropriate.”
He looks confused. “What?”
“Do you want me to repeat it?”
He keeps holding my hand. “No, I want you to come with me.”
“Where? To the gulag?”
“No, not the gulag. You’re going across the river.”
“What?” I’ve been waiting so long to hear these words they barely sound real.
He gives me a rare grin. “Think of it as a Christmas present from Yevdokiya Bershanskaya.”
“Yevdokiya Bershanskaya,” I repeat, my voice full of awe.
“Yes, Yevdokiya Bershanskaya, the commander of the 588th, the Night Witches. And actually, Comrade Malinkov was most helpful.”
“Malinkov? I thought he was suspicious of me.”
“He was suspicious of you,” Anna says, walking up to join us. “I didn’t want him to get the wrong impression of you when he came in with that Hiwi body, so I followed him out and told him that you were the one who blew up the super panzer.”
Yuri nods. “Yes, when he heard that, he agreed to let me escort you to the 588th’s base.”
After so much disappointment, it’s hard for me to comprehend this kind of news. “How will I get across the river?” I ask, thinking about the bombs and gunfire that have been raining down on the city for months.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you across,” Yuri says. “Why are you looking doubtful? Aren’t I the best sniper in Stalingrad?”
“Yes. Which means you probably have a big fat target on your back.”
Yuri laughs. “Go get ready. It’s time for you to fly.”
When Yuri and I reach the river, I see the jackknifed hull of the ferry that was blown up almost two months ago. Staring at it, I can’t keep myself from imagining the bodies still trapped inside.
I turn to Yuri. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I was so angry that day.”
“I understand, Valya.” He smiles, and his face softens, making him look less like a sniper and more like a boy. More like someone I could care for, if he’d let me. If the war hasn’t broken that part of us.
“You saved my life. And … and I never thanked you,” I say. He takes my hand and presses it to his mouth. Is this a kiss? My stomach turns with as much confusion as excitement.
“There is no need to thank me. I should thank you.”
I laugh. “Are you kidding?”
“No.” His brow creases. “I don’t kid about this stuff. You see, I’m a sniper. I kill all day, all night long. But I got to save you. Save a life. I felt human again.” He pauses, then adds, “Briefly.”
I feel tears begin to tremble in my eyes, but before I can say anything, the corners of his mouth crinkle up into a grin and he continues. “But don’t thank me yet. You still might be killed flying those little toy planes. And then all my work will be in vain.”
“Don’t worry. I’m a pretty good pilot.”
“And I’m a pretty good sniper.”
He wraps his arms around me and we hold each other tightly, as if we were two drowning people hanging on for dear life.
On the east side of the river, we climb into a jeep, and Yuri and I are driven to an airfield forty kilometers east. The land is a barren white expanse cut by the single road that we follow. Occasionally we pass a shed or small building, but the structures become fewer and fewer as we travel farther from the docks. After about half an hour, I make out a cluster of low buildings in the distance. It is an aerodrome. I feel a wonderful stirring, and I’m almost tempted to cross my fingers as I draw closer to my goal with each passing second.
The jeep stops and Yuri and I jump out. No one is there to meet us, but standing by a Yak-7 is a tall woman gesticulating fiercely as she argues with a sergeant. “Those were not my orders. I was instructed to deliver Division Commissar Boris Luvovich to the temporary airfield.”
“Well, Comrade Lieutenant, there is war. Orders change. You are to deliver this young woman to the temporary airfield.” The sergeant hands her some papers. She looks at them briefly and scowls.
“What young woman?”
“That one there.” The man looks at a clipboard. “Comrade Valentina Petrovna Baskova.”
The woman looks at me, then strides over, fury in her eyes. “Her! This little princesa?” Her nose wrinkles as if smelling something foul. “Her!” she says again with utter contempt.
“She’s joining the ground crew. They’re short on mechanics.”
She scoffs, turns on her heel, and throws down the papers. “You’re going to be short on something else. Take me to your commanding officer.”
“As you please, Lieutenant.” He leads her into a nearby shed.
Yuri and I look at each other. “Something tells me this might take a while,” Yuri says, lowering himself onto a bench. After a minute or two, the man comes back out, glances at us, then merely shrugs and walks on. We can hear loud voices erupting inside. A quarter of an hour passes. Another man arrives and heads into the shed. There is more shouting. So they need ground crew, I think. Not pilots. Well, it’s still better than being in a trench.
I try to im
agine myself working with the Night Witches, and I’m so absorbed, it takes me a moment to notice that Yuri is holding the papers that the lieutenant flung on the tarmac. He raises one eyebrow as if to say, “How long do we have to listen to them argue?”
The sergeant reappears. “So?” Yuri calls. “Can we go now?”
“Not yet. They have to call Central to clear some details and fill out paperwork. The lines are down and we can’t get through.”
“How long will that take?” Yuri asks. “It’s already getting dark.”
The sergeant shrugs. “An hour, maybe two, three, maybe a day.”
“A day!” I gasp.
The sergeant turns and walks back to the hut. Yuri slides the flight papers onto my knees. “This is all the paperwork you need. The Yak’s been fueled.”
I stare at him. “Are you serious? I can’t just take the plane.”
“Why not? By the time they finish the paperwork, you’ll be long gone.”
“But what will happen to you? You’ll get in big trouble.”
“A sniper get in trouble. Never!” He laughs bitterly. “I’ll tell them I went to take a piss and you got away.”
We walk side by side to the Yak-7. I’m so full of energy and nerves, and I can barely keep from bouncing, but Yuri is entirely calm.
“By the way,” he asks, “you ever fly one of these things?”
“Of course. My father used them for teaching at Engels.”
We don’t say good-bye. As I walk around the plane, doing my preflight checks, Yuri seems to evaporate into thin air, just as he materialized out of thin air when I first noticed him in our apartment. He’s a master of invisibility, and I don’t blame him for it. This war has forced us to say enough good-byes to last a lifetime.
There’s a flight helmet in the backseat, and goggles for the passenger who is supposed to fly in the back. Well, that passenger is not me, nor Division Commissar Boris Luvovich. And the pilot is not that screaming shrew of a lieutenant. I can still hear voices arguing, but then I turn on the engine and it purrs to life, drowning them out with my favorite sound in the world. I brake with one foot and turn, then press the rudder pedal with the other. As I begin taxiing down the runway, I look at a rearview mirror and smile. What a way to run a war. Once I have enough speed, I pull on the stick and the nose of the plane lifts into the darkening sky.
The Darlings’ nursery window has indeed blown wide open, and I feel myself jumping on the back of the wind. I can’t stop grinning. I’m in the pilot’s seat of a Yak-7 trainer, the very plane that the all-women regiments of the 122nd trained in at Engels, where my father instructed. Bigger than the little U-2s of the Night Witches, it is heavily armed, with two UBS machine guns on the cowling. The cockpit is closed, not open, as on the U-2s. But it doesn’t matter. I can still feel the wind, intuit the edges of a breeze. I have the flight plan—second star to the right and straight on till morning.
I wonder if Wendy ever looked back. Did she ever think about what she had left behind? She must have loved her mother and her father, and of course Nana, the dog.
But I have been leaving our own Number 14 in Stalingrad since the day Mama died. The first time Mama ever read Peter Pan to me, she pointed out the address. “Same as ours, little pumpkin.” There is no one to call me little pumpkin anymore.
I shake my head and reprimand myself for such thoughts. I cannot afford to loiter within my grief, picking over my losses like a miser might pick through trash looking for lost gold. Now I must concentrate on being both pilot and navigator. The coordinates for the temporary airfield are clearly marked on the navigation chart, a secret airfield near the Northern Caucasus. It is behind the enemy lines, behind where the cauldron, the kessel, encloses the Sixth Army of the Nazis.
I feel a flutter in my stomach. I was of course much closer to the enemy when I was in the trenches in Stalingrad. I’ve seen the guns of those panzer tanks close up. I know the cold dark eye of death staring us down. Now I’m thousands of meters in the air. So which way would I prefer to die? Raked from the sky by a Stuka and explode into a burning fireball? Or blown to pieces on Gvardeyskaya Street in Trench 301? I try to shove these thoughts aside and concentrate on flying.
The moon reflects off the snow, but even this lovely sight isn’t enough to mask the wreckage of war. Beneath me I can see a bombed village that is still smoldering. A forest to the south of the village appears like a graveyard of charred tree stumps.
Still, I can’t keep from grinning as I gain elevation. It feels so good to fly after so long. For the first time since Mama died, I remember what it’s like to feel joy.
The fizz of exhilaration turns to ice as I see the shadow of the gull-swoop wings of a Stuka printed against the rising moon. The broken cross brands the silver light. I’ve played out this scenario countless times in my head, but this is different. My heart thuds against my rib cage like a trapped bird, and cold dread seeps through my body. Pulling back on the stick, I plunge into a steep dive. I see the German pilot turn and my stomach plummets. He’s going to chase me. He doesn’t even know me and he wants to kill me.
My first instinct is to cut my speed. If only I were in a U-2 I could go so slow that the Stuka would fly too fast to aim at me. But it’s too late. I’m in his crosshairs.
If I don’t do something, I’m going to die.
I suddenly remember that my Yak-7 carries a pilot-operated cannon that fires through the propeller spinner. But this has to be my last resort. My best chance at survival is to outfly him. Although the Yak does not have the low-speed capability, it’s as maneuverable as a hummingbird.
I pull back on the stick and head straight up, then continue in the vertical so I’m looping down again, no banking. There are stars at my knees and the charred tree stumps seem to all but scrape my flight helmet. The infamous Stuka siren begins to sear the air. But I’m used to this. This was the wailing sound we heard over Stalingrad night and day for months. It was specifically designed to unnerve the enemy. But now, with a Nazi pilot chasing me at three hundred kilometers per hour, the shrill noise rattles my bones.
My loop briefly confused him, allowing me to elude him for perhaps thirty seconds. But he’s coming in again. I make a quick decision. I’m going to roll. I drop into a steep slicer turn. I’m sacrificing a lot of altitude here, but there’s much to gain. I can cut the corner of the Stuka’s attack line. He’ll overshoot, putting me directly below him so I can come up firing.
Don’t fire too soon, I tell myself. Not yet … not yet. I’m so close to his plane, I can almost touch it. But seconds later I hear an explosion. How is that possible? My hand’s not even on the cannon trigger. The Yak wobbles as if caught in a patch of rough air. I glance down and stare, startled. On the ground I see the Stuka; its tail with the broken cross sticks up into the night. He has crashed. There’s another explosion, and the smell of petrol wafts into the cockpit. Within seconds the Stuka is engulfed in flames. I hear my father’s voice: “I tell those cadets to be a bomb miser. Never waste them. The Motherland does not like waste. Outfly the enemy.”
I outflew him. Papa! I think. I did it!
The Nazi crashed. He crashed chasing me but I’m right side up in the sky now. All is in order. The moon and the stars are where they are supposed to be. Papa would be proud.
I change course and head southwest, then begin a banking turn. I can see the tanks of the Russian Sixty-Fourth Army beneath me. Another Yak flies into an escort position beside me. We are about twenty kilometers from the southern boundary of the kessel. I haven’t felt this safe in months. We continue due west and soon are over the Fifty-Seventh Army, which is holding the southwest corner of the kessel. The escort leaves me. I’m on my own.
I switch off my torch, since it ruins my night vision. My only navigational aids are rivers and railroad tracks. There is a river that feeds into the Don, so I am pretty sure I’m on course.
I descend to two hundred meters. A minute later, I can make out some small huts. There
are no landing lights, of course. How could there be this close to the kessel? At best there might be someone on the field smoking a cigarette.
I circle once, then come in for a landing, letting out a sigh of relief when the wheels thud against the ground. This is like no airfield I’ve ever seen. The runways are mere rutted fields. There are no hangars, and planes are huddled out near the takeoff strips. Guy wires anchor them to the ground in defense against the strong winds. The only buildings are a half dozen or so crude wooden shedlike structures. “Temporary” seems like an extravagant word to describe this airfield. Perhaps “instantaneous” is more appropriate, for it could most likely be torn down and reassembled in a matter of hours. The field is swarming with mechanics and all sorts of support vehicles, and two U-2s land behind me before I even have time to cut the engine. It seems like bedlam to me as I taxi to a halt.
As I step out of the Yak, a voice shouts to be heard over the din.
“Baskova, what are you doing out here? You’re not a mechanic.”
Then another voice comes. One heart-wrenchingly familiar. “I’m a sister!” And there she is—Tatyana, her curly bright red hair flying out from the edges of her ushanka. She is like my own red star in the night. I rush into her arms. I know I have to tell her about Mama first thing, but I’m already sobbing and can’t get the words out.
It has begun to snow heavily. Tatyana half drags me against the wind toward a shelter. I suppose I should also tell them I “borrowed” this Yak. But I’ll explain later. I’m crying too hard to speak.