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 heaps73, 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.
13. See you after the victory
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!.
A pilot from our squadron called Spirin flew to the Front headquarters with secret mail. When he came back after handing in the package his plane had disappeared from the parking lot. Spirin ran all over the aerodrome but the U-2 with number ‘7’ on its tail had vanished. Spirin reported his plight to the squadron and the squadron commander sent me with navigator Irkoutskiy to search for the vanished plane. We flew to all the aerodromes and airstrips of the Southern and South-Western Fronts but couldn’t find it. We arrived at the of Chougouyev aerodrome hungry and angry and decided to get hold of some food. Everyone was in the process of evacuation and there were enemy air raids over and over again. They wouldn’t even give us bread in the aerodrome canteen without ration cards (we had none on us)! Irkoutskiy ran to see the local commanders and I got back to the plane and saw a major sitting in my cockpit and yelling: “Contact!” Another airman (also a major) pulled the propeller with his hands and yelled running away from the propeller: “Aye-aye!” I stood stunned, then jumped on a wing of my plane and began thrashing the major, sitting in the cockpit, with my fists!
“You thief! Thief! Shame on you!” I was yelling, but he turned his face to me and said quietly: “Why are you screaming like in the bazaar? Had you said civilly that it was yours we would have gone to look for another ‘unclaimed’ one. But you’ve started screaming instead and even hitting…” He climbed out of the cockpit and strode away from the parking lot and the second major minced after him. For some reason I felt sorry for them…
During the retreat we often shifted base and changed airstrips, choosing them beside some forest or village. Our airstrips were under fire time and again, and sometimes bombed. But despite the difficulties and deprivations related to the retreat the morale of Major Boulkin’s squadron remained high.
“Fly a sortie and see whose troops are moving along the roads in this area”, the squadron commander once ordered me, making a mark on a map. Flying in the daytime in a plane made of plywood and percale, which can be shot down by an ordinary rifle, wasn’t a pleasant exercise. But an order is an order…
The troops on the roads turned out to be ours. “They are escaping encirclement”, I guessed. Exhausted and worn out, they were carrying their weapons and their wounded. Noticing a red-starred plane they began to wave their hands, field caps and helmets. But what’s this? Four Messerschmitts were diving on the column. For the first time I see the fiery thread of tracer. Soldiers were dropping, some ran away from the road…
Having made several passes on the column the Fascists pounced on my plane. A forest and a river winding between the trees saved me then. Nearly touching water with my undercarriage I followed all its curves and meanders. The manoeuvre was successful — the Germans fell back.
I returned to the aerodrome, landed and taxied to the parking lot. Dronov the mechanic greeted my return
