Daughters of the Night Sky(35)
“We will be working in teams of five,” Sofia went on. “Each team will consist of a pilot, navigator, armorer, and mechanic. This way each pilot and navigator will learn how to work seamlessly as a unit, using your strengths and weaknesses to your advantage. Each armorer and mechanic will learn the nuances of their aircraft and how to anticipate the needs of their particular flight team. The fifth member is always your aircraft. I expect you all to care for them as such.”
Sofia announced the teams, stopping in front of Taisiya first. “Lieutenant Taisiya Pashkova, pilot. Lieutenant Ekaterina Soloneva, navigator. Sergeant Polina Vasilyeva, mechanic. Sergeant Renata Kareva, armorer.”
Just as Taisiya had requested. Taisiya squeezed my elbow in a quick gesture of solidarity. She knew it wasn’t what I wanted but knew better than to say anything, and I was grateful.
“We’ll be looking after you.” Our new armorer, Renata, greeted us with hearty handshakes. The mechanic, Polina, followed suit, but with a measure less buoyancy.
“I’m glad to have you,” Taisiya said, assessing our crew, looking satisfied.
“Yes, we look forward to working with you,” I interjected.
Taisiya cast me a sidelong glance, and I bit my tongue. Up in the air, we would be partners, but our crew needed a leader. Sofia had chosen her for the task, not me.
We were dismissed to the barracks to get outfitted by the quartermaster and settle in.
“The Polikarpov is a good plane,” Polina said as we left the quartermaster’s with our supplies in tow. “She may not be fancy, but she’s sturdy and hard to break.”
“You know them well?” I asked.
“My papa had a similar plane he used for crop dusting, as well as for training my brothers and me.”
“You didn’t take your pilot’s license?” Taisiya interjected, matching our pace. “You seem rather keen on aircraft to not have an interest.”
“Oh, I wanted to,” she assured us. “But aviation clubs cost money we didn’t have.”
“I know how that is,” I said, patting her shoulder. “Had it not been for my scholarship to the academy I’d never have been able to afford it.”
“Or me,” Taisiya admitted. “My father is a farmer, too.”
Polina smiled at us, looking wistful for a moment as she glanced up at the winter clouds whirling in the sky. Had she been closer to a military academy her chances might have been better.
“My mother refused to let me,” Renata piped up, holding the door to the barracks open for us. “She doesn’t like that I’ve enlisted at all. She only allowed me to come because I wouldn’t stop haranguing her about it and she was convinced they’d send me home.”
“It’s a mother’s job to worry. You’ll make her proud,” I said, eyeing my assigned bunk longingly. We would sleep and eat together as a unit, per Sofia’s orders. As before, Sofia had rejected the option to sleep in private officers’ quarters, choosing bunks close to ours for herself and her crew. We changed into our long undergarments—the closest thing we had to pajamas—and crawled into our new bunks.
“Thank you,” Taisiya whispered as the rest of the room drifted off to sleep. “You could have objected, and Sofia probably would have listened to you. I’ll rest easier knowing it’s you up there with me.”
“We’ve got a fine team,” I agreed. “And I trust you to lead it.”
CHAPTER 11
March 1942
Moscow winters, as I learned as a girl, can in the course of a few minutes go from merely unpleasant to the sort of cold that tears at your flesh. When I was a young girl, maybe seven years old, I got locked out of our apartment one afternoon in January. Mama thought I was with Papa; Papa thought I was with her. I’d actually gone to the bakery to buy pryanik , sweet gingerbread baked into small cakes and stamped with pretty designs or cut into shapes. I had collected coins from Mama for doing little tasks for her and finally had enough for the massive pryanik shaped like a matryoshka doll. I had no idea when I might be able to persuade my parents to let me buy the coveted treat, so I let each believe I was with the other and ate the honey-and-spice confection in clandestine solitude. The kindly shop owner, Comrade Brusilov, even gave me a cup of strong tea that smelled of musky spices and campfire smoke to accompany my cake, knowing my little savings wouldn’t stretch to include it.
I savored every bite of the gingerbread and every sip of the tea, oblivious to the trouble I would be in when my parents discovered my deceit. When at last I could find no reason to delay my return, I walked slowly back to our building only to realize I had no way in. I waited for one of them to come home, but it was at least two hours before either had need to return. Mercifully Papa arrived home before the frostbite set in, but I didn’t miss it by much. With a vow never to pull a similar stunt again, I asked for an emergency key that night and never again left without it tied to a ribbon around my neck.
I thought of that key as a talisman against the vicious bite of winter, but now, as I craned my neck around the small windshield to get a clearer view of our target, the wind ripped like claws at the unshielded skin on my face. The snowflakes matted my lashes, making it next to impossible to see the target I was to mark with my flare.
I removed my gloves, pinning them tight between my knees—there was no replacing them—and prepared to lob the metal flare over the edge of the plane onto the target. The frozen metal stuck to my hands, warmed by the wool-lined gloves, but there was no way to remove the flare’s cap while my fingers were covered.