Over Fields of Fire

strength, I entered the squadron headquarters and the first thing that struck my eye was a large piece of paper fixed on the corridor wall. I was going to walk past but one of the airmen who chanced to be nearby said with a cunning smile: “Don’t turn your nose up, Egorova, read it — it concerns you.”

“Me?” I was surprised and went to the paper… Some amateur artist had depicted on it a fairy of the air drifting through a snowstorm. Under the friendly caricature was a caption: “A woman flies but the men have a day off!”

“They’ve given the blokes a good stir, eh?” Asked Listarevich who had suddenly appeared. I blushed and muttered something indistinct. “What are you shy for? You’ve taught all airmen a good lesson”, and offered me his hand. “Let me congratulate you: the commanders have put you up for an award for searching out the cavalry corps…”

“Egorova, the commander’s asking for you!” came the call.

“You’re to fly to the 6th Army to pick up General Zhouk — the Front Artillery Commander”, the squadron commander ordered.

“Yes sir!” I replied, repeated the order and began to plot the course on my flight map. I took off when the day was already declining. It was pleasant to fly. Everything was white and clean and the sky was clear as if there were no war. However, as the saying goes “God helps those who help themselves”! And just in case, I was doing a contour flight, hiding myself in gullies and copses, trying to merge with the countryside. Immediately after landing a light vehicle rolled up to my plane. A General came out of the car and I delivered my report by the book. “For the Front artillery commander you couldn’t find a bloke?” He asked discontentedly. I answered the question with a question: “Permission to ask where we’re flying to?”

A colonel accompanying the General named the required place. Taking the map from its case I plotted the course there on a wing of the plane with chilled hands, and got into the front cockpit. The general in his astrakhan, muffled in a scarf almost right up to his eyes, settled behind me and we took off. I could see the tired face of my passenger in the mirror fixed on the left hand side to a centre-section stanchion. Our eyes met time and again, I was showing him with my hand sometimes the earth decked out in silvery winter apparel, sometimes the sun — but the General continued to frown. But suddenly a shadow fell on the plane. I looked around and a treacherous chill ran down my back. Two Messerschmitts were insolently and self-assuredly diving upon us! I began to throw my machine left and right just above the ground fleeing the machine-gun bursts. But the Germans were coming in to the attack again and again! The engine snorted, then did it again… The impression was that it was choking like a man short of air. Below, as far as the eye could see, lay the steppe, densely covered with snow. No welcoming smoke, not a hut. The domain of the wolf. Suddenly the engine stalled… I turned back to my ‘passenger’ showing him by hand that I was going to land. In reply he just shook his head but an open dissatisfaction showed in that movement. “Talk about gentry”, I thought. “He doesn’t understand they can kill us… Like we have to land just because I feel like it?”… Especially given I was carrying not just an officer but a “God of War”81 commander. There’ll be no end of trouble now!”

The engine stalled and I was going straight for landing. And the Messers82 kept shooting at us. All the time the strong and gusty wind strove to catch the plane’s tail, to turn it upside down or at least break its wings. Generally speaking it was a simple task for a good stepnyak83. A U-2 was not a large machine — just plywood and percale. The wind was stubborn but I was not the complacent type either: I was the determined type too! I held the lever tightly and we landed safely. I jumped out of the cockpit to assist the General who was dressed so warmly that he couldn’t climb out by himself. But the Messers’ blood was still up. Heart-chilling bursts of fire were thrusting into the snow right next to our plane. At last we stopped the plane and ran towards the forest. We were stumbling, falling over, getting up and running again. My General had already run completely out of breath forcing his way through the deep snow drifts — his clothes and age were definitely not suited to cross-country running. Suddenly everything fell silent… Hearing that, I asked the General to wait for me behind the trees.

“What are you saying, wait for you till the cows come home?” The artilleryman interrupted me angrily, catching up with me. “In this weather I’m not going to do that! We have to leave the machine and look for some dwelling before it’s too late.”

We again reached the plane, which shuddered convulsively at every squall of wind. I looked at it anxiously, turning a deaf ear to my ‘passenger’s’ words, and thought to myself: “If it blows a bit stronger it’ll break the machine, carry it away. We have to tie it down immediately”. And I climbed into the cockpit.

“What are you going to do?” The artilleryman was surprised.

“I’m going to get the hawser from the fuselage — we’ll be tying the plane down.”

“I’m sorry but this way we’ll be tinkering with it till dark. And we’ll be done for in the dark!”

“Till dark or not, I have no right to abandon my equipment in this condition.”

“Well, you know…”

But glancing at my face, my ‘passenger’ understood I wouldn’t back away from my decision, and took the rope from my hands. We managed to drag the plane, tail forward, up to the forest with great difficulty. Only here did I examine it properly. Well, all in all the Fritz had crippled my U-2 pretty badly. The holes didn’t matter, the main thing was that a propeller vane had been shot off, one cylinder of the engine was gone and the oil and petrol tanks were breached. Strange that it hadn’t caught fire!

At last we had fastened the machine, tying it to the tree trunks, and disguised it with branches. Together we handled it quickly. Having finished, picked up the documents and plotted the necessary direction on the map, we went deep into the steppe. Oh, that night march was a hard one. We walked for an hour, then another, then a third… Snowy wool kept tumbling from the sky with no end as if from a torn sack. It was becoming harder and harder to walk. But the worst thing was that fatigue was accompanied by indifference. I hung my head low to hide my face from the tiresome snowflakes. Only they kept me aware of reality. “Or maybe it’s a dream after all?” — importunate thoughts were crawling into my head. “That’s the staccato thumping of rock breakers I hear, the faint shouts of miners in the tunnel, the jokes of my girlfriends from the brigade. I hear Tosya Ostrovskaya whispering something into my ear. I can’t understand what she wants and then Tosya begins shaking me by the shoulders. But I still can’t understand… And why is there snow in the tunnel? It tickles my cheeks so tenderly, wraps my hands so warmly. I really don’t want to free myself from its comfortable arms. And again Tosya shakes my shoulder… But this is not my girlfriend — she can’t have this manly bass…”

“What’s your name?”

“Anna.”

“You have to get up, Comrade Anna, get up and walk now.” Now I could discern the words clearly. “It won’t take you long to freeze like this…” But I hadn’t the strength for even a step, and I sat in the snow again.

“I’m not going any further. You go on your own…”

“Get up, get up, Anna,” the General kept tugging at me. “You’ll fall asleep and freeze to death!”

“Yes, yes, need to walk”, I replied automatically. At last I understood what was dream and what was real.” I’ll get up soon, for sure…”

My mind knew what to do but my legs refused to obey me. How could I find the strength to stand upright, so as to walk across this hostile snow-clad steppe? But the artillery General stretched his hand to me and I walked, managing to overcome my deadly fatigue… I held on to him for the first several metres but then felt more and more confident with every pace. The dead point was behind me and I found my second wind. And the howling of the wind no longer seemed to me so ominous, and the bottomless darkness was no longer so scary.

By dawn, with frostbitten faces and hands, we had come across our soldiers. They were artillerymen from the unit to which I and Frontline Artillery Commander Zhouk were flying. They walked us into a hut wherein an iron stove was burning and soldiers were sleeping all over the floor. I fell asleep as soon as I sat down by the threshold. In the morning the signalmen reported my location to my squadron, and mentioned that the plane needed serious repairs. Soon after that Spirin, the pilot, flew over to me with Dronov the mechanic and on a second trip he brought all the stuff necessary for repairs to the engine and plane.

It had taken the whole day to find the plane in an unknown forest (fortunately, a big patch of spilled oil on the snow had helped out) and tow it by horse to a village. Konstantin Sergeevich swore for quite a while examining the damaged plane. He wished a thousand damnations on the German flyers and on Hitler himself, promising to bury the Fuhrer on an aspen stake. But at the same time he went about his business, quickly installing something like a tent over the engine to protect himself from the wind.

When I saw that for ease of working he’d taken off his gloves I began to assist him.