Jack spent the next fourteen hours in the back of a truck, bouncing over the twisted trails of northern Siberia. The roads, pitted with boulders and tree roots, were so treacherous that the truck driver didn't dare shift out of first gear from fear of breaking an axel.
Jack's bed during the journey was a wooden bench. His pillow alternated between the shoulders of the two Red Army guards flanking him as his head ping-ponged back and forth with the truck's violent movement. But after being deprived of sleep for so long, Jack slept like a rock. It was the most comfortable rest he'd ever had.
Jack could have slept for weeks, but he was roughly woken when the truck finally arrived at its destination. The man who shook Jack awake was tall and stiff in a freshly laundered Red Army aviator's uniform. Despite the man's foreign insignia, Jack immediately recognized his attitude as that of a commanding officer, so Jack saluted.
The man saluted back and then tapped himself on the chest. "Captain Ivanovich," he said. "New commander." His English was thick with a Russian accent.
Jack tapped his own chest. "Jack Wright," he said.
The man nodded but also corrected him: "Lieutenant Jack Wright." He then handed Jack a Russian flight suit.
They had arrived during the North's brief period of night, and the airfield was dark when Jack and Bobby stepped down from the back of the truck. Even the sky was black, the Siberian constellations hidden behind a low layer of clouds. Only the horizon was gray, the northern sun hiding just out of sight.
Jack and Bobby shaved, bathed, and dressed by lantern light. There was no running water, so their showers were provided by gigantic ladles that they tipped over their heads. The night air was crisp, and the water made Jack shiver as he soaped himself clean for the first time in weeks. When he and Bobby emerged from the bathing tent, the sun had returned from its hiding place and dawn stretched over the horizon. The sight of planes on either side of a gravel runway took Jack's breath away.
All twelve of the warplanes were American Bell Airacobras, re-painted in Soviet Red. "Which one's mine?" Jack asked Captain Ivanovich.
Ivonovich squinted against the rising sun and pointed. "Number five."
Jack wandered over to the indicated plane. The numbers "4375-5" were painted on the fuselage and underside of both wings. Jack ran his hand over the American-milled aluminum as if caressing the plane. The bright Soviet red made it look like a race car. "I need paint," he said, looking back at Ivanovich.
The Russian Captain looked confused. "Paint?"
"Yeah, paint." Jack mimed painting a house. "You know, for the nose art." He pointed at the front of the plane.
The captain frowned and shook his head. "No art," he announced. "Just number."
Jack smiled. "No problem," he assured the captain. "Just number." He gave the captain a thumbs-up.
Neither Jack nor Bobby knew the name of that airfield, nor the names of any of the little runways they landed on during their subsequent journey south. None of them even had so much as a sign, a fact that made Jack curious.
"They removed the signs," Bobby informed him when Jack brought it up.
"But why?" Jack asked.
"They don't want us to know how to get back."
"Get back where?"
"To the United States," Bobby said grimly. "We're Soviets now, Jack. We'll never see the States again."
It was a sobering thought, but Jack didn't really believe it. If he ever wanted to get back to the United States, he assured himself, he'd find a way. And signs or no signs, Bobby was a smart son of a bitch. He had that photographic memory of his. He'd remember how they came. In the meantime, Jack was perfectly content to be flying for Russia.
They were hopping from airfield to airfield, now, travelling long hours in the air and landing only to re-fuel and rest. Their planes were fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks under the wings, extending the planes' range, and Jack marveled at the scenery below: giant pine forests cut with crystal blue rivers. Here and there smoke rose into the sky from isolated settlements. Most were logging camps, where the thick forest was scarred with stumps. But some were pit mines, terraced craters cut into the earth like festering wounds, descending into muddy red lakes of standing water that looked like blood. At first Jack wondered how these isolated camps even came into existence – there were no roads emanating from them, no rails for trains, no runways for planes. But then he caught sight of the workers themselves. They wore threadbare prison uniforms and Jack realized with horror that these were labor camps for the condemned. Whatever they cut or mined was stockpiled until winter, at which time they could be sent on sledges down frozen rivers that would be, by then, frozen into solid ice roads.
The third runway they landed at was built more like a prison than an airbase. It was surrounded by barbed wire and wooden lattice-work watch towers. It wasn't designed to keep prisoners inside, however. It was designed to keep them out. The vast wilderness was a far more secure prison than any man-made structure, and the only real chance a prisoner had of escape from a labor camp was to hijack a truck or a plane. So, this airfield was protected from that eventuality and manned with NKVD guards armed with rifles and machineguns.
It was here that Jack, for the first time in days, had trouble sleeping. The airbase reminded him too much of the prison from which he and Bobby had so recently been released. The next morning, as he marched out to his plane, he noticed that the auxiliary fuel tanks had been removed.
Now they landed twice a day to refuel. And those days grew shorter as they continued to fly south. First there had been only a few hours of genuine darkness, but now the nights began to feel familiar to Jack, just like the ones he'd grown up with in the American Midwest. The scenery began to change, too, from giant virgin forests to a patchwork quilt of rolling grain. Even the airfields reminded Jack of home. No longer were they remote police or military installations. Jack began to see civilian aircraft, old World War I surplus biplanes converted to use as crop dusters and mail haulers.
* * *
The morning of October 20 was, Jack knew, the last leg of his journey. Wherever the Soviets were taking him, they would arrive in a few hours. Jack knew this because he knew his plane. He could feel its weight under him, and he could feel that it was heavier. That meant his guns had finally been loaded; the extra weight he felt was the belts of coiled ammunition. And that, in turn, meant they were nearing the front.
They saw the smoke long before they reached their destination. At first Jack thought the smoke was coming from Stalingrad, the skeletal city that sat under a haze of destruction, tiny in the distance, across the wide black ribbon of the Volga.
But as their aircraft flew in from the North-east, the new cloud of smoke emerged in the foreground. It rose from a collection of squat buildings and hangars in the middle of the fertile floodplain formed where the Akhtuba River branched off the Volga.
Occasional flashes of lightning crackled under the cloud, but this lightning was moving up instead of down. The flashes were tracer bullets thrown into the sky by anti-aircraft machineguns. Tiny little shadows danced in the air beneath the cloud: warplanes diving and twisting and climbing.
Jack realized that the collection of buildings was a Soviet airfield – and it was under attack.
Captain Ivanovich gave a gruff order over the crackling radio. The pilots – both American and Russian – responded to the orders, tightening their formation, altering their direction, and climbing.
Jack knew they were climbing to gain altitude on potential enemy warplanes. Aircraft were always faster descending when they had gravity helping them. So whichever force held the "high ground" had a clear combat advantage.
But what Jack didn't understand was why they were veering from their course. Instead of heading toward the airfield to their southwest, they were turning directly south. As far as Jack could tell, they were wasting valuable time. The men and women on the ground at the airfield were getting bombed and strafed; they desperately needed help. If anything, Jack's squadron should have turned directly southwest and maxed out their throttles to reach the beleaguered Soviet base as quickly as possible.
But when Captain Ivanovich gave the order to turn back toward the airfield Jack suddenly understood the reason for the delay. Ivanovich had maneuvered the squadron so the sun was now at their backs. They'd be difficult to notice coming in high from the southeast.
As they got closer to the Russian airfield Jack could begin to identify the aircraft that, until now, had been the size of darting flies. Jack could see they were German Stuka dive-bombers. They'd already dropped their bombs and so now were twisting and turning to avoid the anti-aircraft machineguns before diving to strafe the runways and bunkers. No Soviet aircraft appeared to be in the sky defying them.
The clumsy single-seat Stukas were no match for American Airacobras. Jack was confident his squadron could easily drive them off. But more troubling was a squadron of German JU-88 twin-engine bombers escorted by infamous German "Messerschmitt" fighters approaching the airfield from across the Volga River to the west. Jack had never fought against Messerschmitt before, but he knew they were similarly armed to his Airacobra and had a fearsome reputation. But if those twin-engine bombers reached the airfield their explosive payloads would obliterate the Soviet installation.
Captain Ivanovich immediately recognized the threat and ordered the Airacobra squadron to ignore the Stukas and intercept the big bombers, instead.
There were twelve planes in Jack's squadron, divided into three flights of four planes each. The flights were further divided into pairs of wingmen. Bobby was Jack's wingman, and they were in the same flight as Captain Ivanovich and his wingman, a pudgy kid named Ivan. The Captain wanted Jack and Bobby close, no doubt, because he didn't yet fully trust the Americans.
Captain Ivanovich studied the approaching bombers and Messershmitt. There were the nine bombers, with the twelve deadly Messerschmitt flying in a V-formation above and behind them. Jack's squadron of Airacobras were badly outnumbered.
But the Messershmitt fighters didn't matter – at least not to the men on the ground defending the Soviet airfield. The Messershmitt had no bombs and so offered no threat to the ground. If the Airacobras could destroy the twin-engine bombers before the Messerschmitt could destroy the Airacobras, the airfield might be saved. But to do so would be virtual suicide.
These were the kinds of decisions officers of every nation were making every day – calculations of odds and success and tallying that success with the lives of the men under their command.
Captain Ivanovich knew his duty. He would attack the bombers and try to destroy them in a single pass. He ordered First Flight to climb and provide the squadron top cover. Then he described his plan, first in Russian, then in English.
Second Flight would peel off, out of the sun, throttling toward the rear of the bomber formation. The Messershmitt would break off to intercept Second Flight, the sun blinding their pilots to the rest of the squadron. That would leave the bombers stripped of their fighter escort for precious seconds.
Then Third Flight, Jack's flight, would dive from the sun and rip into the bombers with their heavy 37mm cannon. A moment later First Flight would abandon its top cover and dive in behind Third Flight, tearing apart any surviving bombers. If everything went according to plan, all nine JU-88's would be disabled before the Messershmitt pilots realized their mistake and turned to engage the Airacobras.
It was a sound plan. Jack was impressed, even if it did mean the enemy fighters would have a huge advantage in the subsequent dogfight. By then, though, it shouldn't matter because the bombers would have been driven off or destroyed.
Captain Ivanovich gave the order and Second Flight pulled away from the sun. The enemy pilots saw and immediately reacted, the Messershmitt banking and diving away from the lumbering JU-88's.
Now the Captain gave his second command. Jack felt the thrilling sensation of weightlessness as he dove and his seat felt like it disappeared out from under him.
They were spotted immediately. The bombers' starboard guns bean to fire, spitting tracer bullets directly toward Jack. He remained calm; they were still well out of range. But they wouldn't be for long. He fingered the cannon trigger on his flight stick in anticipation.
They were passing directly over the Soviet airfield now. The fuel depot had exploded; it was the main source of the billowing smoke. Fighter planes – Jack recognized them as Soviet Yak-1 fighters – were smashed where they had been parked. The runway was pitted with bomb craters, but none the less a few brave Soviet pilots were navigating it. Three Yaks had somehow escaped destruction of the initial bombing and now they were taxiing carefully past the craters and then trying to build up enough speed to take off. Jack could also see more pilots darting between wreckage, looking for any plane that might still be flight worthy.
Jack heard Captain Ivanovich's voice in his headphones, warning the pilots of Third Flight to straighten their attack. In less than a second the bombers would be within range.
And then Jack noticed something else out of the corner of his eye: the lead Yak on the runway below, the one throttling to launch speed, had a unique picture painted on its fuselage.
It was an image of two wedding bells.
"That's Bel!" Jack exclaimed in surprise. And at the same instant he saw a Stuka looping around to shoot the Yak before it could take off.
Jack broke formation, diving after the Stuka. Bobby, his wingman, instantly followed.
Captain Ivanovich's voice erupted in anger over Jack's earphones, but it was immediately drowned out by the roar of Jack's 37mm cannon.
The Stuka broke apart in mid-air. The pilot tried to eject but he was too low. The Stuka's momentum threw him forward nose-first into the ground at three-hundred miles an hour.
Jack could hear Bobby's cannon now. It was ripping into the Stuka's wingman. The German aircraft spun out of control, spewing smoke like a bottle rocket. It burst into flame as it ploughed a gorge across the floodplain.
The lead Yak lifted from the runway, its wingman doing the same a moment later. Bel and Lenka – Jack was sure it must be them – climbed as steeply as possible, letting loose with their machineguns into the bellies of the surviving twin-engine bombers. The JU-88's shuddered under the impact and the pilots panicked, breaking off from their course.
First Flight was diving on the remaining bombers, now, forcing the few that remained to turn and outright destroying the one that tried to keep course. Jack saw it break apart just like the Stuka, but five human bodies tumbled from the big German bomber, not just one. A parachute bloomed, and then another. But three of the bomber's crew must have already been dead or unconscious, because they never reached for their rip chords. Instead, they tumbled and spun until gravity's fist smashed them mercilessly against the earth.
Despite Jack's disobedience, the bombers had been driven off.
Now chaos reigned. The Messerschmitt fighters had returned, in hot pursuit of Second Flight, who had pulled them away as decoys. Jack barely had time to notice that two of Second Flight's planes were missing, obviously shot down. Then the Messerschmitt were on top of him. As the planes roared past Jack felt the impact of high-explosive shells into his wing. But it didn't rip off. Jack was alive. And a glance to his left told him so was Bobby.
But the Messerschmitt hadn't even been hit. As Jack twisted around to re-engage, he knew he and Bobby were about to be slaughtered. "Concentrate on the right," he advised Bobby. Perhaps together they could take down at least one of the planes, even if it meant leaving themselves completely open to the other.
Jack grimaced against the G-force pressure as his plane banked and rolled. He could see the Messerschmitt, now, doing the same, turning their guns in his direction. And then, suddenly, he saw a line of tracer fire behind them. One of the Messerschmitt began to smoke and the other broke off. Jack and Bobby both triggered their cannons. The crippled fighter tumbled to the earth. And Jack had only an instant to see his saviors – the three Yak fighters he'd rescued from the runway – roar past him from the direction where they had shot the Messerschmitt from behind.
The Yaks successfully turned the tide of the battle. Jack and Bobby mercilessly locked on the tale of the Messerschmitt that had just been orphaned from his wingman. They tore it apart, forcing the pilot to eject, and then went hunting for more victims.
By now the Messerschmitt were badly outnumbered. Recognizing their defeat, they turned back across the Volga. Captain Ivanovich knew better than to chase them into enemy-controlled airspace.
Jack and his squadron were forced to land on the damaged runway; many planes were crippled by the fight and those that weren't were low on fuel. Once on the ground he discovered that he was right – this was Verkhnaia Akhtuba Airfield and had been assigned as his home base. But with the ammo and fuel dumps on fire, it was useless.
Three of the Soviet Airacobra pilots were critically injured. Their planes had survived but their cockpits had been smashed by machinegun bullets and the pilots were bleeding out fast. Jack rushed to help the paramedics pull the injured pilots onto gurneys. By the time he had finished, he, too, was drenched with blood.
Captain Ivanovich conferred with the base commander and conversed on the radio. The orders came to re-locate to Srednaia Akhtuba airfield, far to the south. They would have to re-fuel their planes by siphoning petrol from the Yaks that had been crippled by the Stukas. Then they could climb into their Airacobras, and accompanied by the surviving Soviet pilots and Yaks, fly south.
The Yaks began to land. Jack watched as the fire-engine red fighter plane marked by the double wedding bells carefully picked its way off the runway to the paddock. Jack broke into a run toward it. The cockpit glass slid back, and Jack was ecstatic, because he had been right – it was Bel. When he saw her in the cockpit her face was covered with soot and her hair was tangled with sweat. But she was beautiful.
He'd found her.