The Undaunted (Book 2 of The Undesirables)

Chapter 29: The Choirboy

The all-Airacobra squadron of the 437th fighter regiment took off before dawn. That was disappointing to Bobby, since he'd hoped this flight could be as much reconnaissance as combat mission. If he ever hoped to return to the States, Bobby knew, someday soon he would have to ditch his plane and parachute into Stalingrad, hoping that somehow Karen would find him and rescue him. That was Dr. Parson's ultimatum: there was only one way Bobby could return to America, and that was by recruiting Karen to the cause.

But before Bobby took that literal leap of faith, he wanted to see the city from above, to memorize its pattern of streets and monuments. When his parachute opened, he wanted to know where he was.

Major Volkov had the opposite desire. He wanted the fighter squadron to remain hidden if possible. He didn't want to draw anti-aircraft fire from the city or attract the attention of Messerschmitt interceptors. He wanted the city, and the sky, as dark as possible.

Neither Bobby nor the Major got what they wanted.

It was a clear night, so the sky was blanketed with stars and a fat, bright, half-moon. The stars weren't much trouble, but anyone looking up from a vantage point that placed the moon behind them would see the silhouettes of aircraft speeding across its glowing crescent. Hopefully they'd mistake the American-made Airacobras for German planes.

The moon and stars cast silver light and long black shadows across the landscape below. As they approached the Volga Bobby could see light sparkling off large, dark shadows on the water. At first Bobby thought they were waves but then he realized they didn't rise and fall. They just moved slowly, drifting on the river's slow current.

That's when Bobby realized the shadows weren't waves, they were icebergs. A shudder ran down Bobby's spine. The weather had turned; winter had arrived, and no more ferries would be able to cross the Volga until spring. The Russian soldiers still holding out in the city were now truly cut off. They, and Karen, were completely on their own.

Stalingrad itself looked less like a city than an expanse of rocky badlands Bobby had seen from the open door of a boxed car during his journey across America.

In the silver light he could barely make out the forms of jagged peaks and narrow gorges filled with tumbling stones. They were actually the towers of ruined buildings and streets choked with rubble, but without electric light the distinct outline of the forms wasn't visible. There was almost no light at all coming from the city; only a few cookfires here and there that marked strongpoints held by Russians or Germans.

And then the city was behind Bobby and miles of steppe stretched out before him. From this height, with such diffuse light, the ground below looked completely flat. Not a shadow stretched across the surface of frozen grass. Remembering his history, Bobby imagined Huns or Mongols swarming over the land, horse hooves churning the soil on their way to terrorizing Europe. And then Bobby's imagination turned from the past to the future. Images of horsemen were replaced in his mind's eye by those of tanks. He saw hordes of T-34's, modern day cavalry, churning the soil beneath their treads. And Bobby realized with hope that he was probably right. This terrain was perfect for an armored assault, and with most of the German tanks pressed into service supporting the combat in Stalingrad, there would be nothing out here to stop a Russian horde.

But the flat ground also meant that Bobby could see almost forever. If the German observation balloon survived, it would be able to see the Russian attack in plenty of time for the Wehrmacht to react. Field Marshal Paulus would pull his panzers from the city and blunt the Russian offensive.

The sun was beginning to rise behind them. Major Volkov ordered a change in course and the pilots began an aerial ballet that had become second nature to them. Each flight of four planes banked and climbed and dove so that they wouldn't break formation and yet also wouldn't interfere with each other. At the end of the complicated dance, several of the flights had swapped places but the formation itself remained unchanged.