Daughters of the Night Sky(44)
“It was our pleasure,” Renata said, holding her chin high and smiling bright. I loved that about her. The pride she took in her work, the joy she still showed despite the inferno to the west.
“You have your orders,” I told her. “You won’t need them, but it makes me feel better knowing that you have them all the same.” I fixed my gaze on her brown eyes, and she patted the three letters she’d tucked into her breast pocket that I’d scrawled out when we were supposed to be sleeping. Even a missive for the Solonevs. They might not love me, but they had given me my husband and deserved the attention. I gripped Renata’s hands for a moment and gave her a hard smile. I’m glad you’re here for me.
“Clear skies, ladies,” Sofia said, shaking our hands before climbing into her cockpit, and giving the signal that she was ready to depart. The second crew would depart six minutes after they were up in the air, and we would follow six minutes after them.
My hands were stock still as I took my place in the rear cockpit, but as the engine roared to life I felt deafened, though I’d heard the drone hour after hour for the past few months. I deepened my shallow breaths and kept my eyes on the back of Taisiya’s helmet to calm my nerves. She seemed so steady. I didn’t know if I ought to find comfort in her resolve or berate myself for my lack of it. I chose the former. She waved to the ground crew to signal our readiness and turned her head forward.
Up in the air, we flew in tight formation. Our bombs would be more effective if dropped in rapid succession. It was twenty minutes before the target came into view, owing to our slow aircraft. The German camp was orderly. Proper barracks, a large mess hall fashioned from canvas. They didn’t improvise like we did, with bunks in tents, trenches, and obliging villagers’ homes. It appeared they didn’t have to. The munitions store came into view, obvious by virtue of looking so unremarkable. We cut our engines and swooped low, banking to the left so hard, I gripped one of the metal support beams until I could feel my fingers cramping in my leather gloves.
The plane emitted an unearthly whistle as we glided down, unaided by our engines and only minimally controlled by Taisiya’s gliding skills.
While daylight would have given the Germans a clear target, sound is more fickle. All they heard was an eerie squeal as we whooshed toward our targets. While it was logical for them to assume the enemy would come from the east—they knew where we were encamped, in the broad sense, if not precisely—they couldn’t pinpoint the exact direction from which we approached. The wind carried our sound where it willed, and by the time the Germans realized that the humming sound was not coming from three sewing machines that inexplicably found themselves in their camp, we were upon them.
Sofia dropped her bomb first. Then Darya.
I removed my right glove to pry open the cap, then pitched the flare over the edge, illuminating the path for Taisiya to loose the bomb.
Before the bombs made contact, Taisiya fired the engine back to life and made her course back to our airfield. I craned around to see that all three bombs made their target in rapid succession. Seeing the munitions tent send off a series of small explosions, like fireworks, as their precious instruments of death blazed below us, I let out a whoop that was swallowed by the roar of the engine.
The Germans, having at last realized what was happening, opened fire with their pistols and small arms—whatever they had by their bedsides. We were only five hundred meters high, so in the light from the fires, we could see their tiny figures below pouring out of the barracks, aiming their pistols in a futile attempt to ward us off. There was no time for them to launch an effective counterattack, so they fought back with what they had at hand.
In a proper aircraft their bullets would have been about as effective as throwing rocks in the sky—we could have evaded faster and flown higher. As it was, I could hear a few of the bullets make tearing sounds in the canvas that coated our wings. Sofia’s plane was up in front and quickly escaping the range of the enemy bullets. Taisiya and I were catching the brunt of the fire, but it was the haunting squeal of metal from Darya and Eva’s plane that worried us.
Their engine sputtered. Then stopped.
The Germans saw they had hit their mark and kept firing at the craft. Darya and Eva were in a perilous dive, and flames were shooting from the engine. We could feel the whoosh of air from their rapid descent as we flew over them. There was nothing we could do to save them from going down.
I forced my eyes to stay locked on the back of Taisiya’s head. This was no time to think. I called course corrections to Taisiya over the interphone and longed to have a throttle in my own hands, to have some control over whether we lived or died, but I could only grip my hands together and will our plane to safety.
We cleared the German camp, but it seemed like hours before we reached our own. Again and again I glanced behind us, certain I could hear the whirr of German engines, ready to retaliate for their destroyed munitions, but they launched no counterattack. We saw a spire from the church in the nearby town, and I felt myself give in to my trembling.
As I clambered down from the cockpit, the ground seemed too firm, too real. I felt Taisiya’s arm around me, and while the onlookers would think it a gesture of consolation or solidarity, it was the only thing propelling me forward.
Sofia was white as bleached cotton when we touched down and staggered back to the throng that awaited us. Renata and Polina looked horrified by the condition of the plane they’d so painstakingly prepared. The wings would need hours of patchwork. It was a miracle we’d been able to return unscathed.