David Robbins - Last Citadel

‘You’re being very brave.’

In response, Vera almost barked. ‘Don’t we do enough? We risk our lives in these shitty little airplanes they give us. Leonid risked his, too. He knew this could happen. We do enough, Katya.’

Katya wondered, How can I answer her? How can I say, No, we don’t, we never do enough so long as a friend is in trouble. How do I tell this girl, my good friend, that I would die to find him? I can’t do otherwise. She knows this. She agreed to come. She’s just frightened.

‘If he’s not there, we’ll go on. I promise, we’ll only look for a few minutes.’

‘And if we find him?’

‘Then, Verushka, you have to trust that I’m the best pilot you know and I can land this plane on a ruble.’

Vera made no response. Behind Katya the flashlight came on. Vera was checking her maps.

‘There’s the Udy River. Straight now, twelve miles. Damn it. Let’s get him and go home, wing-walker.’

Katya chuckled. This was her absolution from Vera, the bond and honor between them was stronger than the danger. The U-2 bumped over an air current, and this was a signal to focus on their task. Leonid was on the ground, and the Night Witches were coming for him.

They flew over the heads of a hundred thousand enemy soldiers. The Germans drew back a hundred thousand bolts, stuffed themselves deeper into their helmets or holes, winced, and eyed the night sky for a glimpse of the Russian plane droning past in the dark. They knew the sound of the U-2’s puttering engine. But none would know it better than Leonid, and none would be happy to hear it but him.

The village of Tomarovka lay where the Vorskla River crossed an east-west rail line running to Belgorod. Vera located the tracks and kept Katya over them, headed west. The area where the fighter captain had said Leonid was down should be within two or three miles of these tracks. When Vera whispered they were five miles east of the village, Katya began her descent. She had to fly in low enough to be certain Leonid would hear her. And if he did send up a flare, Katya and Vera would need to get on and off the ground fast.

At two thousand feet, the potshots began. Katya did not hear the reports from the rifles and machine pistols, but muzzle flashes like a carpet of orange sparks blinked in her path. She could not glide over these men and guns, the motor had to keep running, that was her signal to Leonid. One ragged hole appeared in the port wing. She kept the U-2 flying straight; it made no sense to dodge, these were blind shots. She settled lower, to fifteen hundred feet, and leveled.

Tomarovka sat three miles to the west, dead and invisible. So close to the front lines, the occupying Germans hunkered without lights. Vera found a bend in the rail tracks that matched her map. ‘Start circling,’ she said. Her voice was firm and this gladdened Katya. She took the plane into a soft bank, dipping the port wings to look down at a velvet black earth. She prayed for Leonid to hear her. She asked that he be in a smooth field, that he not be hurt, that the Germans not know he was there until she had taken him away. She felt that God heard her better when she was in the air. She was closer to Him, to His domain, mimicking His angels. Katya muttered, ‘Amen.’ Vera said, ‘I don’t know what you were asking for, but Amen, too.’

Katya swept in a wide arc, staring at miles of nothing, as though down an eternal well, the earth was so featureless. Her engine pop-pop-ed . She flicked her eyes once at the gauges to make certain of her attitude and height, then did not pull her gaze from the deep, horizonless ground. She drifted lower, to make her engine louder. The propeller and pistons shouted: Leonid, Leonid! It’s me!

For long minutes, Katya flew and scanned. The red winks from the ground grew fewer, the Germans got tired of shooting at a noisy but fleeting shadow. She banked right, to change her pattern to a figure eight and fly closer to the fortified village. She leaned so far out of the cockpit the wind almost whipped the goggles from her face.

She began to hear her own heartbeat louder than the engine. One more minute churned past. Vera’s voice came from far away, behind the motor and wind, the pounding of her heart, and the silence of Leonid.

‘Katya.’

A white sparkle punctured the even darkness on the ground. Her first thought was someone was lighting a fuse, as if to fire an old-fashioned cannon up at them. She turned the plane broadside to the light and banked to circle it just as it vanished. She kept her eyes on the spot; seconds later, the sparking flash came back, disappeared again, then returned.

Was this Leonid?

Katya whipped the plane directly at the light and it flicked on and off once more. It must be Leonid! Of course! He couldn’t send up a flare, a German patrol would spot that, too, and home in on him. He was flashing a flare on the ground, covering it with a bucket or something. Katya checked her altitude: one thousand feet. She pushed in the throttle and flicked off the magnetos. The engine coughed and quit.

‘What are you doing?’ Vera asked.

Katya did not answer. She let the U-2 glide for ten seconds. This was the hallmark – the broomstick – of the Night Witches. Leonid, if it was him, would know and answer.

He did. The flare appeared, then blinked out.

Katya fired up the propeller, the plane had fallen to eight hundred feet. The flare glimmered from a mile away to the west. Leonid must have left his wrecked plane, to hide in the fields. He’d known she would come.

She tried to keep her vision glued to the spot in the dark canvas where she believed he was, but taking her eyes from the ground for a moment to check her dials, Katya lost the location. Vera, the steady navigator, did not lose the bearing.

‘Left. More. More. There! Straight ahead. Go get him, Katya.’

Katya’s mind raced with the plane. Leonid would have moved to a field he knew would be suitable for her to land in. She had faith in this; he was a pilot himself, and like his captain said, a clever lad. The U-2 needed very little runway, less than four hundred feet. She could swoop in, stop, bring him onboard, then turn and roar out for safety. Yes! They would do it! There, a half-mile ahead, was another flare. This one did not blink but glowed fiercely, a landing light!

Katya swung the U-2’s nose right at the beacon. She dropped altitude for a fast and abrupt landing. There was no time to do a fly-by and check out the conditions of the field; she had to trust Leonid for that. Her heart climbed into her throat with the approaching ground, five hundred feet below and closing. One hand juggled the stick, the other adjusted the throttle; she put out her senses to determine the direction of the wind, it seemed light and at her back. Her feet stayed ready at the rudders.

The flare gleamed straight ahead. This close to the ground, she could discern the shapes of trees to her left and right, and behind the flare spread a flat dark swath of ground. Leonid had done his job. Now she did hers.

At three hundred feet off the field, she was still coming in hot. She had time to bleed off the last of her speed in the thousand feet before she lifted the nose and laid down the wheels. She pointed at the white flare, aiming to touch down just past it, Leonid would have set it at the leading edge of the runway. She felt a thrill, not just for the return of Leonid but for the heroic feat of all this, the podvig . Her hands and toes kept the plane reined tight, she leaned forward in these last seconds, into the mane of the airplane.

In that moment another, smaller flash lured her eyes away from the flare to her extreme right. Blinks of crimson glittered from a stand of trees silhouetted against the night. In that one swift glance, Katya knew. A German patrol had followed the sparking flare and the pops of her engine. Enemy soldiers were running at her, firing.