C Taylor - Nadya's War

Klara let me go, though I could tell by her pained expression she didn’t want me to leave. The couple of hundred meters to the command post seemed as if it stretched out to a full kilometer. The noise of Anisovka muted in my ears and the bustle was reduced to blurred movements in the corners of my vision. My mind was shutting down in anticipation of having to relive the day before in agonizing detail.

Gridnev was waiting for me outside, his leather flight jacket zipped up and goggles around his neck. “Come in, Nadya,” he said, holding the door open for me. “This will only take a moment. I’m taking some of the boys from Third Squadron up for some training.”

I nodded. My muscles relaxed as I stepped through the threshold and thanked God for the small favor. “I’ll try to write it up quickly so you can sign and be on your way, comrade major.”

I sat down at the chair by his desk and looked at the map on the wall. Battle lines around Stalingrad were scribbled all across it. The German army had a firm foothold there, that much was clear, and the Romanian armies looked to be dug in and protecting the flanks. The war looked as it always had on first glance, but as Gridnev rifled through some papers and I studied it more, I noticed a buildup of Soviet forces to the south and northwest of the city.

“Is something going on, comrade major?” I asked, eyes fixated.

“With Stalingrad? Always.” he said. He flopped a couple of pages onto the desk and pushed them my way. “I put this together based on what you told others at Rakhinka. Read, sign at the bottom. You’re on light duty for today, but you’re flying tomorrow. I know Alexandra was close to you, but I need everyone, every day, from here on out.”

I barely heard the last two sentences. I was too busy reading what he’d put in my lap. It was the after-action report I was supposed to give. Normally, I’d give an oral report, type it up after answering any questions he might have, and then we’d both sign it together. Instead, this report had already been signed—and prepared, I assumed—by him. The contents were straightforward, accurate for the most part as to what happened on the escort. It said I earned two kills, but also claimed Alexandra had shot down two 109s and an He-111 before running out of ammunition and being forced to return to Rakhinka. And she had done all of that after being wounded.

As much as I wanted her to go home a heroine, it would be another lie I’d have to live with. I slumped in the chair. “This isn’t right, comrade major. She didn’t shoot down anything.”

Gridnev arched an eyebrow. “Are you certain? I was under the impression you’d temporarily lost sight of her.”

I nodded. “That’s correct, comrade major.”

“Then unless you saw something concrete contradicting this report, I’d like you to sign at the bottom.”

I took the pen he offered and looked down at the line begging for my signature. A few simple strokes of the pen would grant Alexandra one last set of honors, I knew, and no one would be the wiser—especially with Gridnev’s approval. Morality aside, putting lies to official reports was a severe crime, and I didn’t understand why Gridnev would risk such a thing. Then again, the report would likely never be challenged. Still, my gut tightened. “Why?”

“Because she deserves the honor for all that she’s done,” Gridnev said. “And her parents could use the extra comfort knowing their girl died valiantly protecting Stalingrad and had something to show for her sacrifices.”

I pulled the report closer. I wanted to sign and give Alexandra the recognition she deserved. She may not have shot down a couple of fascists that day, but she was no less heroic in my eyes. I longed for people to talk about her fondly for generations, and this gave it to her. She’d be an ace. One of the few pilots to have five confirmed kills in aerial combat—a female one at that.

“I can’t,” I said with a heavy sigh. “It’s not the truth, and she’d have my head if she could if I did such a thing. Honesty was always the most important thing to her.”

Gridnev smiled and took the report. He crumpled it up and tossed in a nearby box. “How is this one then?” he asked, reaching in his desk and handing me a new document.

I looked it over. The report was sterile, a simple account of an uneventful escort followed by an interception of German bombers. It credited me with victories over an He-111 and a Bf-109. Alexandra’s loss was a line near the end, and like the first one, Gridnev had already signed it at the bottom. I detested how little attention she’d been given, but signed the paper without objection. “This one is accurate, comrade major.”

He tucked the form back into a folder. There was a hint of pride in his eyes, accented by the smile on his face. “You may go, Nadya, and do as you please for the rest of the day. Thank you.”

I stood, bewildered at what had happened. I started for the door, but stopped after a couple of steps and turned back toward him. “Why the two reports?”

“I wasn’t lying about what I said of Alexandra,” he replied. “But there are some who would have liked you to sign the first document and those reasons were not good ones.”

“Petrov…” The Commissar’s name slipped by my lips without thought. My eyes widened at the spoken accusation, but they found nothing to be fearful of in Gridnev’s look.

“Your intuitions serve you well, Nadya,” he said. “I told him you’d never lie, even to benefit another. But I’d leave this exchange—even the false report—unspoken from here on out if I were you. I don’t want him or anyone else thinking you didn’t sign the original report because I tipped you off.”

“Of course, comrade major.”

I should have been happier to have sidestepped Petrov’s little trap. There was no telling what he wanted to do to me had he caught me making false reports. The truth of the matter was, however, there was no telling what he’d try next.

A ZIS-5 truck idled near my dugout. White smoke from the exhaust hung in the air, making clouds that reminded me of those I’d been in the day before. A driver waited inside the cab, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he absently stared at the entrance to my earthen home. A few moments later, a soldier came out of the dugout with a stuffed burlap sack over his shoulder and a large book in his arm. Alexandra’s book.

“What are you doing?” I yelled, running up and planting myself between the soldier and the waiting truck.

The young private jumped. He looked himself over with a perplexed expression on his face as if some grave breach in his uniform of winter coat and pants was about to send him to the stockades. “Junior Lieutenant Makunina’s items are being sent to her parents, comrade pilot,” he said. “Major’s orders.”

I snatched the copy of War and Peace he carried like a hawk plucking a fish from water. “This isn’t going.”

“The Major was explicit,” he stammered. “Everything goes.”

“This does not go,” I said.

“The book has her—” The soldier hesitated. His face paled and his voice trailed as he finished his thought. “It has her name in it.”

At that point I realized my left hand had tightened around the handle of my revolver at my side. I let go of the firearm, but kept the intensity in my voice and stare. “This book stays.”

The poor boy shifted the sack on his shoulders, and thankfully for the both of us, he didn’t argue any further. “Yes, comrade pilot.”

I fumed as he hopped in the truck and left, all the while clutching Alexandra’s book against my chest. It was all I had left of her and I’d be damned if I was going to let anyone take it from me. I headed inside the dugout and cringed at how hollow it felt when I looked at Alexandra’s bunk. Without her personal affects around, the place seemed alien, even more so when I noticed Bri and the mutt had taken refuge under Alexandra’s bunk together. I wouldn’t have called them friends, but I assumed their mutual hatred of the cold drove them to a cease fire.