Anna Timofeeva-Egorova - Over Fields of Fire

I crawled out from under the wing and moved a bit forward to position myself better. There was hustle and bustle in the village: the cattle were bellowing, machines roaring, people running… I had a full view of the village from the hillock: the gully divided it into two. And while the streets of the eastern side were crammed with troops its right half was empty. But right behind that emptiness lay the frontline. The sounds of fighting were coming from there — from the west. I understood: the Germans were just about to break through to the buildings about half a kilometre beyond the gully… And that’s what happened. Suddenly an explosion boomed in a deserted street, then another, then a third. The roof of one of the huts caught fire, a slender Lombardy poplar bent down in the middle, and frightened birds shot up into the sky. And suddenly in front of me, like on the movie screen, very close, the blunt snouts of German tanks came into sight. Their cannon muzzles were seemingly targeted directly at the hillock upon which the plane stood unmoving, an excellent target. Unfortunately it didn’t just seem that way: a shell exploding by the mill made me run to the plane.

A good two hours had already gone by but the communications officer hadn’t come back yet. Obviously, he’d forgotten about me. “What should I do? The Hitlerites will be here very shortly. I have to save the plane…” — These thoughts got mixed up in my head. A second shell exploded next to my plane and tore the cladding of the fuselage and the wings with its fragments. I quickly jumped into the cockpit, tried to start the engine but failed, for I needed someone to turn the propeller. Then I saw a tonne-and-a-half truck rushing down the road. It was fishtailing for there was no tyre on one of the wheels. Running down to the road I tried to stop it but the driver (he looked like a boy to me) decided to drive around me. Without stopping to think I pulled my revolver from its holster and began shooting furiously at the intact tyres. He stopped and cursing began to pull out his rifle…

“Drop that thing”, I pointed at his weapon. “Help me start my engine instead.”

The driver was taken, hearing a female voice. “Stop, I tell!” I said and put the revolver away.

“What are you up to? Don’t you see: the Fascists are on us, the front’s been broken through. I have to catch up with my unit.”

“You’ll still have time! My plane’ll be lost here.”

“The hell with it, jump in here while it’s not too late.”

A new explosion made me turn my head towards the U-2. I saw shell fragments tearing apart the fuselage of my shuddering plane. “It’ll be done for…” I jerked the door of the truck, “Come on out! Just for a minute.”

“It’s plain you’re crazy!” the chap obeyed. “Where is the plane?”

I pointed up towards the mill. “You’ve gone mad! Don’t you see them shooting? Your bird is about to catch fire! Jump in the cabin!”

I wouldn’t, and so he gathered his nerve. With a quick look around the chap grabbed me by the arm and dragged me up the hillock. Now crawling, now dashing we reached the mill. It was already half-smashed by shells and its broken blades were hanging down. The wings of my plane had been holed too, and climbing up on one of them I got a real scare: an air-blast had torn away the seat of the rear cockpit and thrown it up on the dash-board of the front one. What if everything was destroyed? I got into the cockpit and was happy to see that there was apparently no serious damage.

“Take the propeller.” But the chap had already grabbed it without an invitation.

“Turn the propeller a few times and jerk the blade, then jump away so it doesn’t hit you!”

“Heave ho!” and the propeller began to spin. The driver was blown away as if by the blast — he disappeared straight away. I noticed only when the tonne-and-a-half truck scampered away behind the hillock. The Germans intensified their firing at my plane. I had to get out of the cockpit and turn the machine towards the take-off direction myself. And just where did I get the strength from? Most likely from fear — and the determination to escape the enemy at all costs and save the machine played its role too. Basically, I took off under the Fascists’ very noses… There were no instruments, the dashboard was smashed, but the engine caught and I am alive…

I was flying east. The sun had already gone down and twilight had swallowed the ground. How would I land in the dark? I was circling, looking for my aerodrome, but below were only slag heaps 73 73 Translator’s note — apparently from the coal shafts numerous in that part of the country. , cables, the railways that led to each shaft. At last I saw a small light far away. Surely they hadn’t set a fire for me? Fortunately they had!

It turned out that when all the deadlines for my return had passed they had decided in the squadron that I wasn’t coming back. On top of that the pilots from the 6th Army Signals Flight had landed on our airstrip during their retreat and reported to Major Boulkin that my plane had supposedly been seen flying towards a village occupied by the enemy. In short they had they had given up on me in the squadron. Only my plane mechanic was stubbornly waiting and believing I would return. It was him who had set up the small fire on the airstrip.

After landing I didn’t leave the cockpit for quite a while: I still couldn’t believe I had broken free of the enemy’s clutches. I took off the helmet, wiped my sweaty face with a sleeve of my overall, and stayed sitting in a kind of stupor. A routine day at the front had ended…

Dronov the mechanic, having looked over the planed noted, “You flew here on ambition, Comrade Commander. But no drama, we’ll fix it up…”

In the morning the mechanic reported the machine ready to fly. My ‘cropduster’ looked brand-new. “Thank you, Kostya!” For the first time I called Dronov by his first name. He blushed, muttered something and for some reason began shifting the plane covers from place to place…

“There’s something God-given in you”, the pilots were joking when I turned up to report to Boulkin the squadron commander, “Some natural flair! We had already said a few words for you at dinner… You’d be sure to find your way even if all instruments were turned off and the maps were taken away from you.”

“I would, I would for sure, especially if possessed by anger.”

“Why would you be angry?”

“How could I not be! The communications officer ordered me to wait for him and didn’t come back…”

“Egorova!” the squadron commander called. “The Head of Frontline Communications General Korolev asked if you came back from the mission. The communications officer who flew with you sends his apologies for not warning you.”

“Why did he desert me in Kalarovka?” I asked Boulkin angrily.

“He didn’t desert you, he was trying to catch up with the Army Headquarters in a passing vehicle to give the Commander the Frontline HQ’s order to retreat.”

“What was the point over handing over the order to retreat if the Army had retreated long ago?..”

“He was doing his best to carry out his mission and was late… But he returned to the Frontline headquarters. After all he sends you his apologies”, the squadron commander repeated.

“Apologies to whom, if he doesn’t even know if I’m alive or dead?”

I felt pain and anger. And my senior officer too! I was sure that abandoning me, a woman, to death, he had behaved in an unmanly manner.

Quite often we had to fly to the South-Eastern Front HQ, located, back then, in Kharkov. There was complete confusion at the Kharkov aerodrome. Some planes were landing, others were taking off. Many ‘horseless’ flyers who had lost their planes in combat or even in non-combat situations roamed about the parking lot — the Germans had destroyed quite a few of our planes right on the aerodromes!.