Bobby's flight was the last in his formation to land, largely because their planes were the least battle damaged. He buzzed the Srednaia Air Tower as he rocketed past the runway, and then banked into a wide turn, circling back around in order to give his squadron mates time to return to earth.
The first Yak, trailing smoke and lacking landing gear, belly-flopped onto the tarmac. The plane pivoted and slid off the runway into the snow and the emergency fire truck raced toward it. But before help arrived its pilot, Major Volkov slid back the canopy and safely leapt to the ground.
Twenty seconds later came Lenka, the fin of her tail sheered half off from machinegun fire. But somehow she retained control of the airframe and managed a perfect landing. Twenty seconds after her came Katya, fuel tanks punctured and her gauge, Bobby knew, almost on empty. Of the six Yaks in the squadron, those were the only three to make it back.
So next came the Airacobras. Not quite as light and agile as the Yaks, they showed more battle damage. Bullet holes riddled their sides and scorch marks stained their wings where cannon shells had hit and started brief fires. But they were also heavier and better armored than the Yaks, especially their cockpits, so despite the surface damage they actually remained more flightworthy.
Bobby waited his turn and then set his plane down with practiced precision. Its nose pointed up so he couldn't see the ground; he felt the wheels touch gently down. Then he lowered his flaps and gunned the engine to clear the runway. He'd done this so often that by now he felt like he could do it in his sleep.
Jack was last, least damaged of them all, and he came down twenty seconds behind Bobby. His emotions betrayed him and he came down fast and hard. The Airacobra bounced on the runway with a screech from its tires, but Jack quickly compensated and the next time the wheels touched asphalt the landing was gentle. On any other day the brother- and sister-hood of pilots would have jeered Jack good-naturedly for the hard landing, but not today. They all knew what had happened.
Bobby had his feet on the ground by the time Jack opened his cockpit door and slid out onto the wing. "Did you see a chute?" he asked, desperation in his voice, "I think I saw a chute!"
"Yes," Bobby assured him, "there was definitely a chute."
"Did anyone get the bastard who shot her down?" asked Lenka, jogging over to join them.
"Jack did, shot him right off her tail," Bobby said.
But Jack shook his head. "No, that's not true," he corrected. "I'm the bastard who shot her down."
Lenka grabbed his chin and turned it toward her. "Don't ever say that," she warned him.
"But it's true," Jack lamented, too lost in grief and guilt to think logically.
"Maybe it is," Lenka told him, not letting go of his chin, "and maybe we all know it's true. But we also know it was an accident, and it could happen to any of us. But the political officers don't know that. The political officers don't believe in accidents. Understand?"
Jack finally looked at her. He nodded.
Lenka let go of his chin. "Good. We will all cover for you. The whole squadron. You don't have to worry about us."
"I'm not," Jack replied. "I'm worried about her."
"Me, too," Lenka sighed. "But you getting arrested or shot won't help her."
* * *
Jack didn't join the other pilots for the morose victory celebration in the Officer's Club. The battle had been a success. They'd been outnumbered and had managed to fight the Germans to a draw, preventing them from strafing the Soviet tanks until Russian trucks, with anti-aircraft guns in their beds, had arrived to turn the tide and force the German warplanes to break off.
But it had been a costly victory. They'd lost almost half their pilots: three Yaks and two Airacobras. And so the drinking felt less like a celebration and more like a wake.
Jack waited in the radio tower, sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, making a nuisance of himself to the wireless operators, but refusing to leave until he had news of Bel's fate. Bobby sat with him; the only support he could offer was his company. Nobody blamed Jack for shooting Bel down. In fact, most of the other pilots didn't really believe that's what had happened. And even if it had, well, it was bad luck, that was all, nobody's fault, and certainly not worth reporting.
But Jack blamed himself, that was clear to see, and Bobby knew there was only one person who could prevent him from carrying that guilt to his grave: Bel herself. So he sat with his friend, respectfully silent, while Lenka brought them Vodka from the Officer's Club.
The news over the radio chatter was good. The attack had succeeded. The northern and southern Soviet forces had broken through the axis flanks and joined in a village called Kalach. The Germans in Stalingrad were now surrounded. It was an incredible victory.
But even more important for Bobby, Jack and the other pilots in their squadron, it meant that Bel and the other downed airmen hadn't landed in enemy territory. The ground had been won and held by Russians, and already the Soviet forces were sending search parties out to rescue Russian pilots and capture German ones.
A few hours later the Srednaia wireless operators received more good news. Two Soviet pilots from their squadron had been rescued. One was being treated for hypothermia but was expected to recover. At first they didn't have the rescued pilots' identities, not even their gender. An hour later they were identified and Bobby's heart sank: neither of them was Bel.
There was something else happening on the radio, though. There was an excitement over the victory, and the operators were burning power keeping all of their lines open. There was camaraderie between the operators and the men and women on the other end of the line. They knew each other, knew each other's voices even if they had never met in person. In many ways they were faster friends with the men and women they communicated with over the wireless sets than they were with members of their own units, since it was their fellow radio operators who they talked with the most.
So between the official statements and communications, they gossiped with each other, in fast Russian that Bobby and Jack weren't able to keep up with.
When Lenka returned to refresh their drinks, Bobby asked her to stay a minute and eaves drop for them. "What are they talking about?" he asked.
Lenka lit a cigarette and slid her back down the wall to sit beside them. She puffed on the Russian tobacco, listening and concentrating. "They're telling war stories," she concluded.
"War stories? What do you mean?"
Lenka shrugged. "This was a great victory," she explained in a whisper, "and so the wireless operators are bragging about their own units, about how they helped contribute to that victory." She pointed at one of the radio operators, her cigarette still burning between her fingers. "Mikhael, there, he's bragging about you, Jack, that you are an ace, that you shot down five planes and that brings you officially to nine."
"Six planes," Jack lamented.
Lenka quietly scolded him. "I told you not to talk about that." She took another puff of her cigarette and smiled. "He's calling you the 'Red Yankee'. Born in America, but you fight like a Russian."
Jack didn't smile back, he just took another long sip of his vodka and looked at the floor with shame.
"Did Bel have any kills before she went down?" Bobby asked.
Lenka nodded. "Two Stukas before those 109's locked on our asses."
"Then she has ten total, she's an ace, too," he said, trying to cheer Jack up by referring to her in the present tense.
But Jack didn't respond.
An excited voice came over the radio, a woman's voice. "She's from 13th Mechanized Corps," Lenka explained as she listened, "she's describing how her unit had to abandon the tanks they were riding because of a minefield, and how they had to charge the Romanian trenches on foot."
Bobby crinkled his eyebrows in thought. "That sounds like where we were fighting," he said. "I thought I saw an infantry charge. I wondered why the tanks had halted."
"Wait a second..." Lenka lifted her hand, gesturing for Bobby to "shush". She listened for a moment and then whispered a translation, her voice as excited as the woman's on the radio. "There was a pilot," Lenka said, "shot down, who landed right in front of the tanks. He joined the infantry charge, armed only with his revolver."
"Jesus Christ," Bobby said with both horror and admiration. "Why the hell would he do that?"
But Lenka was concentrating too hard on the voice on the radio to answer him. "They're already calling the pilot a Hero of the Soviet Union, it's not official yet, but it's practically a guarantee. Even when shot down he kept fighting. 'An inspiration to the nation,' that's how General Zhukov described him."
Bobby frowned. "Then he must be dead."
Lenka nodded. "He must be. Inspirations are always dead. Live ones might inspire the nation to do something Stalin wouldn't like."
"He might have been from our squadron," Bobby conjectured. "I wonder who he was?"
"Oh shit," said Lenka, her voice cracking and tears welling in her eyes.
"What?" Bobby asked, suddenly worried.
"Lenka dropped her still-burning cigarette and tried to wipe her eyes with the back of her hands. "It wasn't a man. The only thought it was a man, because of the flight suit. When they saw up close they realized..." She couldn't finish the sentence.
"It was a woman," Bobby realized with horror.
Jack exploded into sobs, trying to hide his face in his arms.
Bobby pulled his friend into an embrace, holding his shaking body tightly, trying to comfort him.
But he was little comfort, Bobby knew, because he was weeping, too.