Daughters of the Night Sky(26)
The horizon glowed orange with artillery fire. How close were the ground troops? The metallic tang in my mouth let me know I didn’t want to know the answer. The usually unflappable Taisiya’s eyes were wide as we surveyed the scene before us. Half the base was ablaze, and everyone was looking for orders where there were none to give. Before now war had been but an idea. Now it was a very real thing that had come to our doorstep.
“To the mess hall!” Orlova barked, and we lurched into motion. There was a cavernous basement below it that was the closest thing we had to a proper bomb shelter. It wasn’t blast-proof but would withstand a lot more than our exposed barracks. I didn’t want to hide belowground like a coward, but we had no training together as a unit. We would be worse than useless.
An unearthly screech streaked over my head, and I fought against the urge to cower. We had to keep moving. The bomb made contact with the squat gray training building to our south, shaking the ground beneath our feet so violently my teeth cracked together. Taisiya stumbled over a stray hunk of brick that landed in our path, and I grabbed her hand before she fell to the asphalt.
“My God,” she rasped. I could feel her body trembling as I gripped her elbow and waist to steady her. The German planes were swooping down like falcons over our airfield, leaving our aircraft and equipment in a wake of fire.
“Keep moving,” I urged her, scanning the scattered lines of recruits that stretched in front of and behind me. No one had fallen back, no injuries serious enough to slow their progress. Keep moving, all of you. Anyone who stops is a much better target.
Two men in uniform emerged from their blasted building. One limped so badly his ankle had to be broken; the other looked to be nursing severe burns on his arms. Both had lacerations and scrapes on their hands and faces. The burned man looked at us, his wild eyes desperately hunting for a helpful face. I longed from the center of my gut to reach out to him. To help him to safety, to put salve on and bandage his wounds, but I marched on. I was no medic, and we didn’t dare break ranks now. He could follow us if he was able.
We marched forward, though we wanted to run to safety. Another bomb whizzed overhead, landing on what had been our barracks five minutes before, but we did not run. I forced in a smoky breath that singed the hairs of my nose and gnawed at the tender flesh in my throat and pressed on.
We reached the relative safety of the basement below the mess hall. The walls trembled as bombs dropped, raining down furiously at first, and slowing as the night continued. None of us attempted to sleep on the damp floor amid the rumbling and crashing above us, but as I looked at the faces of my new comrades in arms, I noticed concern, but no fear or dread. No tears.
This was only the first taste of what we would see in battle, and it was clear Orlova had chosen women made of ice and steel.
CHAPTER 8
Muscovites fled from the city like grains of sand spilling from a shattered hourglass. The Germans had made it to the heart of our country, and there was nothing for the residents of the capital to do but seek the safety of the countryside. I hoped safety was somewhere to be found for them.
There were three hundred pilots who needed new training grounds, and all of us looked to Major Orlova for guidance. Three days after the attack, she had ushered us to these mercifully (if ineffectively) heated freight cars, clearly designed for equipment and supplies instead of passengers. Now we sat on their floors, letting ourselves sway back and forth in time with the discordant rocking of the train. I had fashioned my duffel into a cushion and propped it against the wall of our car, finding a small measure of comfort in the padding against my aching shoulders.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Irina whispered after several hours of rattling.
After years of seeing the military machine in action, Taisiya and I knew we’d have the answer when they were prepared to give it. That wasn’t the answer the other girls wanted to hear.
“Southeast is all I can tell,” Taisiya replied. “Like everyone else who isn’t going to the front. They’re likely hunting for new training quarters for us and want us farther from the front.”
“I wish they’d tell us how much longer we have in this wretched box,” Lada muttered, her face a shade of frog green violent enough to be visible even in the dim light from the cracks in the doors of the freight car.
“A pilot who gets trainsick?” Irina chided. “Fine picture that paints.”
“Go play on the track, will you?” Lada growled.
“Play nice, girls,” I chastised with a wink. “They’ll tell us when they have news, I’m sure. We just have to pass the time.”
“Matvei is well,” Taisiya said, poring with a tiny flashlight over one of the letters that had been forwarded to Moscow, her head bobbling along with the rattle of the train. “The food is dreadful, and he misses his mother’s kotleti and potatoes, but he likes his comrades well enough. It doesn’t sound like he’s at the front.”
“I’m glad,” I said, patting her knee. She hadn’t been able to read the letter, with the chaos of the last few days, but seeing his handwriting on a piece of paper no more than two weeks old had caused her shoulders to drop a few centimeters and her breathing to deepen, visibly. “I haven’t heard from Vanya since we arrived in Moscow.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” she said, taking my hand for a moment. “He’s one of the best pilots Chelyabinsk has seen.”