Daughters of the Night Sky(29)
“To what end?” she asked, cinching her belt tighter around her waist.
“New uniforms?”
“Good luck with that,” Oksana said, bitterness dripping from her every syllable.
Taisiya and I rolled our eyes in unison as we turned away and started off. Oksana’s skills had to be enviable if she’d advanced this far with such a foul attitude.
The quartermaster sat in a massive room next to the hangars, where endless racks housed everything from helmets and ammunition to canned food and boots. When we knocked at the door, he did not bother looking up from the smudgy-gray pages of his ledger.
“What is it?” he croaked, taking a drag off a stubby cigarette.
“Our uniforms,” Taisiya said, her voice lowering an octave as she spoke to the wizened old man. “It seems you sent men’s uniforms to the women’s regiment.”
“What did you expect?” He finally looked up from his tattered volume. “The army doesn’t make women’s uniforms.”
“What are we to do about it?” I asked, my tone sharper than I intended. “They don’t fit properly, and we’ve got to stand for inspection this evening. The boots are all enormous.”
With a dramatic sigh, he pushed back his chair and rose, hobbling over to a large cabinet with a stiff gait that betrayed the fact that he probably hadn’t risen to his feet in hours. He returned to his desk with four spools of green thread, the same dismal shade of green as our uniforms, and two packets of needles.
“If you want uniforms that fit, I suggest you ladies call upon your proper skills and get to work.”
I bit back an insult and could tell Taisiya was swallowing her words as well. I wanted to hurl the spools back at his shriveled face and tell him to do the sewing himself and let us pilots do our jobs, but quartermasters were always senior officers. Anything remotely that insulting would have seen me on the next train back to the Urals and stripped of my wings.
As we returned to the barracks, armed with our thread and needles, I silently thanked my mother for the late-night sewing lessons she forced on me. By the time we started our lessons, after the dinner plates were cleared away, she was so tired she would fall asleep when I was midseam, and I would have to wake her to get her instructions on how to continue. I loathed disturbing her, but now I was glad she insisted.
Back in the barracks Taisiya flung herself on her bunk and held up the underpants once again. “Well, at least we have a place to keep our lipstick,” she said, sticking her fingers through the flap.
I laughed despite the absurd task before me and smiled appreciatively at Taisiya.
“They didn’t completely forget that we’re women,” Renata lamented, strapping herself in the shining, white, army-issue brassiere. It held her breasts in like a girdle, making her wince uncomfortably as she hooked it closed. “Damned torture device.”
“A joy,” I agreed. I’d been wearing a similar brassiere since I started at the academy. Anything to make my femininity less apparent.
Two hours later I’d done a passable job of taking in the waist on the trousers and had basted in the waist of the jacket well enough to stand inspection. I would have to find a larger block of free time to let out the bust of the jacket and alter the silhouette properly.
Sofia came in to find us with our uniforms in pieces and questioned what we were doing.
“There must be a mistake,” Sofia said when Taisiya explained the problems with the uniforms. “Perhaps the quartermaster was sent the wrong uniforms.”
“No, Major. We asked, and there was no mistake. Since the uniforms aren’t suitable as they are, we’re doing our best to make them fit,” I said, gesturing to the green mass on my bed.
“I’m not sure why I expected differently.” For a moment Sofia’s bravado vanished. Her lips formed a grim line. “It will be the first of many times we’re called to alter things to suit, ladies. Carry on.”
CHAPTER 9
“Lieutenant Soloneva, may I speak with you? And Lieutenant Pashkova?” Sofia called to us between training runs as we stretched our legs, cramped by hours in the tiny cockpit. Oksana was at her flank, but her expression didn’t betray any distress.
“Of course,” I said, falling into pace with her, Taisiya joining behind us.
“Ladies, you have an advantage that many of these women don’t—military training. Discipline,” she said, turning to face us when we were several yards away from the nearest pair of ears.
“These women are some of the most dedicated pilots I’ve encountered,” I said, remembering the antics of some of the cadets at the academy who had the full benefit of “military discipline.”
“I don’t mean to imply otherwise,” she replied without malice. “I wouldn’t have picked them if they weren’t. But they’re new to our way of life all the same. I’m looking to you to set a good example.”
“I hope we’ve done so thus far,” Taisiya said, the color in her face draining a few shades.
“Without question,” Orlova replied. “Your calm during the evacuation, your cool heads were admirable. I need you to know that I’m relying on you to be the model for this continued exemplary behavior. Especially when resolve is tested—which it will be.”