be comfortable with his frustration or his pride in the boy. He did not know Valya at all.
‘This,’ he said to the loader and the hull gunner, newly minted Cossacks, ‘is your
Valentin slid down from the tank.
‘Are we done?’
Dimitri itched to backhand the boy for the sudden swings he caused in Dimitri’s chest.
At that moment - because, thought Dimitri, there is a God and He listens and once in a while even if you don’t ask He answers - a convoy of panel trucks rumbled up through the dark, headlamps jouncing over the ruts in the field cut by the company of heavy tanks. In the beds of the trucks, lit by the lights of the vehicles in line behind, jostled crowds of old men holding up bottles, and women. Dimitri saw fiddles, an accordion, and even a clarinet.
He recognized her voice. Just Sonya called out for him.
He moved to his son and lapped his arm across the boy’s shoulder.
‘Yes, Sergeant. We’re done. Excuse me.’
Dimitri grabbed his two new charges by their lapels and tugged them away from the lantern, telling them they had an additional duty as Cossacks to perform. They must each take a girl.
‘Dima, is this another game?’ Pasha asked, lagging at the end of Dimitri’s arm.
‘Yes,’ Dimitri told him, ‘and Cossacks play it well. Come.’
* * * *
CHAPTER 7
July 1
1430 hours
Kalinovka aerodrome
Katya stood beside a dozen other girls from her regiment watching the truck roll closer to the aerodrome. The others hoped longer than she did, asking, ‘Is it them? Can you see?’ But Katya noted from far away how the four women in the back of the approaching truck held on with both hands to the side rails, how they did not wave their white silk underhelmets in the afternoon. They were not the four Night Witches come back from the dead, but replacements. Zoya and Galina, Marina and Lily were gone. They were not in this afternoon’s truck the way they were not in the truck yesterday or the day before. The four dead friends would stay Night Witches forever now, they would never be. anything else. That is not such a bad way to die, Katya thought, to remain for all time someone brave. She was the first to turn from the road.
Leonid said nothing. He put his arm around her shoulders and walked with Katya to the big tent her squadron shared. Minutes behind her the other girls did come in from the road, some even saying, Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow. Katya and Leonid opened the four girls’ steamer trunks. Diaries and personal items would be sent home to their parents. Unmailed letters would be posted. The four beds would be remade for the replacement pilots and navigators. Katya was moved by the disparity of things she and Leonid pulled from the trunks: stuffed animals and extra signal flares, dried flowers and flight logs.
The other girls milled around the four beds, littered now with items from the trunks. They joined Katya in sifting through the objects, arranging piles, recognizing and weeping over mementos, sitting on the beds remembering many talks. This was not the first time there had been deaths in their squadron, but it was the only instance when two crews had been lost on a single mission. The doubled blow seemed almost too great.
Katya watched Leonid withdraw from the tent; Katya had the others around her now. She rose from Lily’s cot. The springs squeaked, a sign of life but not of Lily’s, and Katya had to hold back tears over such a small thing.
She went outside. Leonid stood staring into the midday sky.
‘Today’s the first day of July,’ he said.
Katya nodded.
‘How much longer can they wait?’ she asked, gazing up with him. The battle would take place underneath and in this sky; the blue that fell all the way to the horizon gave Katya the sense the battle would be fought in tight quarters, two titanic fighters in a bout, under this ringing blue sky.
‘I don’t know. It should have started by now’
Katya was jarred, this seemed insensitive. She wanted to point back into the tent, to the sobbing girls, and tell Leonid it has started. But she knew what he meant. It’s going to be worse, far worse, than anything before. So she let the comment alone.
‘Walk with me, Leonya, will you?’
She turned and headed for the hardstands where the eighteen U-2S
of her squadron sat chocked and waiting. She did not speak along the way.
When they reached her plane, Leonid ran his hands over the patched wings. He patted the engine housing and plucked the wire struts. He chewed his lips in thought. Katya watched him and again felt the sting of resentment. Was Leonid being condescending, the way he looked over her intrepid little plane? He tapped on the U-2 as though he’d never seen one.
Then he squatted on his heels. With a finger he drew a circle in the dust.
‘This is your target tonight. Show me how you’ll attack.’
Katya walked over to sit cross-legged beside the little circle. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Show me your flight and attack plan.’
She was in no mood to have her squadron criticized, especially not by a free-ranging, fast-flying fighter pilot. Four dead comrades bought her this day free from tongue clucking.
‘I want to go back to the tent.’
