“I think . . .” Nina blew out a thoughtful breath, smelling the soap Yelena had used to wash her short glossy hair, contemplating their plane. What beautiful words those were: their plane. “I think she’ll tell us when she’s ready, don’t you?”
THEY FLEW OUT on a warm May morning, Raskova in the lead. She’d be taking command of the day bombers but had vowed to personally escort all the regiments to their front first. She rose into the air like an eagle, one hundred and twelve eaglets following her, red Soviet stars flashing in the May sunshine. They leveled off below the racing clouds, Yelena’s head moving in the cockpit ahead of Nina’s as she snugged their U-2 tight and swift into formation. Major Raskova waggled her wingtips as the last plane veered into line, and they all waved back, the ripple moving down the line of wings like laughter. Nina realized her eyes were streaming tears behind her goggles—she hadn’t cried since the very first time she’d taken to the air at nineteen. Yelena took her hand off the stick and stretched it back over her shoulder, giving Nina a blind wave, and Nina waved back. Without even seeing her pilot’s face, she knew Yelena had an ear-to-ear smile.
No one was smiling when they touched down at Morozovskaia. “Those bastards,” Nina spat. An escort of fighters from the Fourth Air Army had risen up to escort the 588th in, only the men hadn’t been content to fly escort; they’d flown attack patterns like advancing Messerschmitts.
“They’re friendlies,” Yelena had shouted back to Nina, who tensed as she saw the first attacking swoop. “They’re just playing—” She held their course, but several of the younger pilots had got flustered and dove out of formation.
“Raskova’s going to have their balls for earrings,” Nina snarled once everyone was safe on the ground.
“They didn’t mean any harm,” Yelena argued. “It’s just hazing. Everyone coming new to the front is in for some hazing.”
“Especially if you’re us,” the argument shot back. “Comrade Stalin’s pet project—”
“—because we’re girls—”
“Well, don’t show them any reaction,” Yelena said as they fell into march exiting the airfield. “Heads high, ladies.”
Nina kept her eyes narrowed and her chin lifted as they walked the gauntlet of smirking men in flight overalls. Some wag from the back called out, “What’s the matter, girlies, can’t you tell stars from swastikas when you see ’em on a wing?” Nina broke marching rhythm to throw him an obscene gesture.
“Enough,” Major Raskova barked, all-seeing as ever. “You’ll be based out of Trud Gorniaka, ladies, find your billets. Don’t get comfortable. With the front so unstable we could be moving any day or any hour—”
“The Germans are close here,” Dusia Nosal proclaimed—a girl with a taut, thin face, probably the best flier in the 588th besides Yelena. She’d lost her newborn baby in a German bombing raid at the beginning of the war. “You can almost smell the sauerkraut. If we don’t get orders within the week . . .”
But the commander of the 218th who came for the following day’s inspection had barely a glance for the regiment. “He called us what?” Nina hissed.
“‘I’ve received one hundred and twelve little princesses, just what am I supposed to do with them?’” Dusia mimicked. “He was on the telephone to General Vershinin, or so I heard.”
“He wouldn’t say that to Raskova’s face!”
But Raskova had flown back to Engels, and the 588th received their orders from Major Yevdokia Bershanskaia now. “Two weeks of additional training,” Bershanskaia said over their groans. She had none of Raskova’s blue-eyed glamour, but she was steady, quiet, all brisk maternal efficiency like a hen herding chicks, no patience for stragglers or whiners. She’d wanted to fly fighters, Nina knew, but now she was commander of the 588th, and if she was disappointed, she didn’t show it. “You’re all to be individually flight-tested by a male pilot.”
“What do they think we’ve been doing all that time in Engels?” Nina demanded. “Buffing our nails? We can’t be trusted until one of the men signs off that we know which end of the stick to hold?”
“Ninochka,” Yelena said with a sigh, “shut up.”
Nina, still smoldering, climbed stonily into her U-2 the following morning with a freckle-faced pilot who looked about twelve and threw her plane around the sky so violently that her inspector nearly threw up. “Pass,” he said, green-faced. Yelena’s examiner was a tall handsome Leningrader with a lazy smile, and Nina hated him on sight. “They make damned pretty pilots in Moscow,” he said, laughing at Yelena’s blush. “Virgin ears, dousha? Better toughen up, or you won’t last a fucking minute against the Krauts—” He kept stringing profanities, clearly enjoying Yelena’s bright red cheeks, and when he finally let her climb into the cockpit, Nina hailed him from the side of the runway.
“What is it, little one?” he asked, loping up with a disbelieving glance for Nina’s head, which didn’t even reach his shoulder. “Are you even tall enough to see out of the cockpit?”
He yelped then, feeling the keen edge of a stropped Siberian razor pressing against the inside of his thigh. Nina smiled, angling her body so no one would see the blade between her fingers. Yelena waved from the U-2, clearly wondering what the delay was.
“My pilot,” Nina said sweetly, “doesn’t care for your fucking language, you bonehead Leningrad mule. Keep your mouth clean around her, or I will slice off your balls and cram them up your fucking nose.”
“Women in the air,” he breathed. “World’s gone crazy, giving planes to you bitches.”
“Bitches like my pilot fly better than you will ever fly in your whole goddamned life.” Nina gave another sweet smile. “So take her up there for a loop and keep your fucking language nice, and I won’t jam a propeller up your shit-factory and crank until your asshole flaps like your mouth.”
“He said I’m a skilled pilot and a credit to the Fourth Air Army,” Yelena reported afterward.
“Did he, now?” Nina said placidly.
The Fritzes were grinding toward Stalingrad, reportedly advanced into the curve of the Don River, before the 588th received their orders. “First combat mission to be flown by three planes only.” Bershanskaia’s hand made its signature chop before a single groan went up. “Myself and both squadron commanders. Regard it as an exploratory sortie, girls.”
“Let’s not grudge her,” Yelena said. “For the commanders it’s going to be all paperwork from here on out. She should have the honor of flying the first mission.”
“Don’t be so everlastingly generous,” Nina groaned. “Just admit that you’d walk over your own mother to get into a cockpit by now.”
“I’d walk over my own mother to get into a cockpit by now,” Yelena said immediately. “Just not a sestra.”
A fine summer evening, warm and breezy. Impossible to think that the front was just kilometers away from this prosaic stretch of flat fields and hastily erected bunkers, torn-up roads dotted with trucks and ground personnel in overalls. The horizon showed plumes of smoke rising kilometers away—coal deposits on fire, someone whispered. There was still a little daylight left when the regiment gathered on the makeshift runway to watch Bershanskaia and the squadron commanders make their way to their planes. “They’ll fly to the auxiliary airfield at the front lines,” the whisper went around. “Arm there, fly their run, then back here.”