Over Fields of Fire

14. The Greenhorn

The winter campaign of 1942 was successful. The enemy was still very strong but the imperishable value of the first successes was that that they inspired us, instilling in us the spirit of belief in Victory. Those days this spirit was typical of all the troops on our Southern Front. Together with the troops of the South-Western Front they broke through the enemy defences at the Balakleya sector and formed the Barvenkovskiy Salient. Every frontline soldier was sweating on the success of the dashing raid by the two cavalry corps of Parkhomenko and Grechko on the Germans’ rear. In the winter cold, on the ice-crusted ground they spread panic in the Hitlerites’ camp with their sudden strikes. One encouraging dispatch after another was coming to Front headquarters via radio but suddenly the air waves fell silent. The commander needed to know exactly in which direction the corps could have moved after their last message had arrived. The commanders understood that the cavalry, exhausted in fierce combat and sleepless nights, needed rest. They had to be brought back, but how could it be done if the air waves were silent? “Let’s send a U-2”, The Southern Front Communications Commander General Korolev suggested.

A whirlwind was raging behind the misted windows but we — the Signals Squadron pilots — were up to the task… On one of those days of February when a blizzard had swept banks of snow all over the streets of the Filippenko hamlet I was called up to the squadron headquarters. They told me about the situation on our sector of the Front and ordered me to fly to the Barvenkovo Region where I would have to find Parkhomenko and Grechko’s cavalry corps and hand them over a package marked ‘Top Secret’. The Southern Front Communications Chief was to fly with me as far as Barvenkovo, but from there I would have to operate independently.

An angry wind was battering the machine. The engine was shivering as if in a fever and sometimes the wail of the wind drowned it out. All this was not a problem but how to break through the solid curtain of snow? It was endless, it had swallowed my small plane and held me tightly in its hands. Snow was clogging my goggles and was hitting me in the face. There was practically no visibility: I had only my intuition and experience to rely on. But there are moments when even they are powerless — and that was exactly what I felt on that day. But at last we were here in Barvenkovo. I delivered the General not far away from the railway station and was about to fly on. Climbing out of the cockpit the General leaned towards me, looked at me with his sad eyes and kissed the helmet on my head…

The snow was becoming thicker and thicker, the blizzard was getting stronger. In the cockpit I felt as if I were on a trapeze. All this taken together made it completely impossible to orient myself during the flight. What should I do? Return? But I had no right to take such a decision: I’d been ordered to keep flying and find the cavalry at any cost. Finding them would mean saving many thousands of lives… And I, finding any sign of a dwelling, would land my U-2 to learn who was there — friend or foe. Each time I had to land in extremely poor weather conditions. Airmen know what that’s like. I landed three times and three times I took off despite the winds and snowfall. I flew very low examining every gully, every ravine. I noticed tanks on one farmstead but I had not got a good look at them when they opened fire on me. But it turned out alright — the snowstorm saved me…

No one knows how my flight would have ended up had I not noticed horses in a gully. “Those are ours!” I closed in for landing and as soon as I touched down two soldiers in cavalry uniform ran up to me. So I was right! “Which corps?” — I asked them.

“General Parkhomenko’s 1st.”

“I’m from the Front headquarters. Which of the commanders is here?”

“The Head of Intelligence.”

An officer in a camouflage jacket was already walking towards me. He introduced himself as Head of Intelligence of General Parkhomenko’s 1st Cavalry Corps, and immediately told me the current situation, and I plotted the position of the 1st and 5th Corps on my flight map with barely visible pencil marks.

“Well done, pilot! See, you found us on a day like this. Give me the package, I’ll hand it over to the corps commander.”

“No, I have to do it myself”.

“Why ‘have to’?” The intelligence officer took a short pause and then laughed loudly and resoundingly. — I took you for an aviator but you’re an aviatrix! D’you want me to take you there?”

“No, I’ll find my own way.”

“Well, be careful”, he warned. “You’ll have to crawl for about a hundred metres up to that shed. The roundabout way through the ravine is too long and not safe: you can run into Germans…”

At last the package was handed over to a dog-tired General. He looked at the order and swore foully, not suspecting that standing before him in a flying suit and flying boots was a woman. A shell burst nearby. The explosion raised pillars of snow-dust, shaking the ground. Over our heads shrapnel whistled past, but the General continued to stand deep in thought. Then, turning to me, the General said decisively: “Here’s what to do. Shoot over to Grehcko in the 5th Corps, deliver my message to him and then fly to Front headquarters — bring us a radio set. We’ll do a bit more fighting here…”

“I won’t be able to do it before dawn, Comrade General — the plane is not equipped to fly at night.”

Another burst of cursing directed at the quartermasters who were lagging behind the Corps: the men and horses had nothing to eat. And on top of that the radio wasn’t working, he had sent a cart yesterday to Barvenkovo but it had disappeared. Continuing to curse, the General waved his hand in despair and suddenly asked “Have you caught cold or something? Your voice is kind of weak.”

“No…” I replied, took the envelope from his hands and asked: “What should I say at Front HQ?”

“What should you say?” The General said, still gritting his teeth. “Are you kidding, you greenhorn? Look what fire you’ve drawn down on us with your cropduster! You’re staying here with us…”

“But you’ve ordered me to deliver the package to the 5th Corps. I request permission to carry out the order.”

“Off you go then…”

It wasn’t too difficult to find General Grechko’s 5th Corps for I knew its location already from the Intelligence Commander of the 1st Corps. I landed my plane almost in the middle of the hamlet, handed the package in and took off straightaway. I remember that General Grechko was very polite. He told me, “Take off your flying suit, you’re wet all over. I’ll feed you and give you tea.”

I said: “I have to head back.”

“No, don’t put on the wet flying suit!”

I was returning to my aerodrome by night: I made circles knowing I had definitely reached it but was afraid to land, lest I crash my plane. It was pitch-dark on the ground. I wished someone would think to light a match at least or have a cigarette! At last I noticed a light and descended for landing. I touched down safely and at that moment my mechanic came up and helped me find the parking lot. Dronov was waiting for me as usual, not leaving the aerodrome. It had been him who, on barely hearing the murmur of my engine, had rushed to the airfield with a blowtorch. It was its light I’d noticed from the air…

Chilled to the bone, dead tired, I entered the command post like a ghost, to report to the squadron commander that the mission had been completed. He listened to me in silence, silently went to the telephone and ordered he be connected to Front HQ. “Permission to go sleep?”

“Granted!” Boulkin casually waved his hand. I was offended. Passing by the canteen I walked towards the house I was billeted in. Despite the late hour my hostess wasn’t asleep. Seeing me in such a state she began to bustle about, wailing “How did you manage to get so fagged out, darling? Have a drink, here’s some warm milk…” She helped me to pull off my wet boots and the flying suit, gave me warm valenki. “May be you’d like to get up on the oven? It’s lit…”

“The oven”, I agreed weakly.

My hostess was the exact copy of my mum. All mothers seem to have something or other in common. Each time I came back to spend the night in her hut she would sit me at the table and start treating me to Ukrainian borsch and the most tasty pickled tomatoes. She used to put all this on the table, sit on the other side and begin to tell me yet again about her three little boys who were fighting somewhere in the North. She would recall how difficult it had been to raise them after her husband’s death, regret that the sons hadn’t managed to get married and present her with grandchildren — the war had started. At the mention of this the hostess would sigh bitterly, wiping with the ends of her apron the tears running down her cheeks and keep plying me with food: “Eat, eat, my girl. Maybe someone’s mum will feel sorry for my little boys and feed them. Maybe even yours!”

After the hot milk I had drunk I got warm on the oven and dozed off. Around midnight someone knocked on the door. Grumbling, the hostess flipped aside the door hook and let in a man in a short army fur coat.

“Where is Egorova?” He asked.

I recognised Listarevich’s voice and responded: “Here I am, Comrade Senior Lieutenant, on the oven.”

“Hard as it may be you’ll have to leave the warmth. You’re called to Front Headquarters. I’m off for a vehicle…”

“I won’t let her go”, my benefactor wailed. “Have you ever heard of a girl tormented so! She’s not had time to dry out, to get warm and you’re getting her up again. Is there no bloke to get up at night? It’s always her…”

I jumped down from the oven, quickly dressed, took my revolver and stuck a map in the leg of my flying boot as the vehicle came up. Senior Lieutenant Listarevich — executive officer of the squadron — deftly opened the door of the pick-up and said apologetically: “Sorry that we haven’t let you have a rest, Annoushka. You’re urgently called to the Front headquarters to report on the cavalry corps you found today.”

Listarevich was a very cheerful and joyful man by nature, liked to joke and laugh but over the last few days he had changed, as if into a different man. The Fascists had been committing atrocities in his native Byelorussia, in the Gomel Province: and his ancestral home was there — his old mother, a teacher and father, a postal worker. We could see Konstantin was worried but he wouldn’t show it and seemed to have become even more energetic and was working with tenfold zeal.

Our squadron, although designated ‘Communications’ nevertheless carried out intelligence duties over the front, searches for units and groupings that Front HQ had no information about. The Chief of HQ often had to stand in for the Squadron Commander. He would have loved to fly missions himself — flying was more to his heart than HQ work — after all he was a former fighter pilot, having flown an I-16. But he couldn’t: it was out of the question…

Our squadron was detached and it had its own kitchen, fuel, everything. We were fed well but you wouldn’t always be on time for dinner. Later they began to issue us bags of sandwiches. Listarevich controlled many services: engineering, the PARM (field aircraft maintenance workshop), technical and provision supplies. But the executive officer kept up with everything. He also found time to talk to us, the pilots, the navigators, to ask what we needed or to say simply, smiling, before a sortie, “Good luck!”

Listarevich and I arrived in Kamensk-Shakhtinskiy, where the Southern Front headquarters was located, after midnight and an orderly walked us into a brightly lit room straightaway. I saw a group of generals around a large desk and stopped in confusion not knowing whom to report to.

“Was it you who flew to search for the cavalry corps?” At last someone asked me.

“Yes, it was me.”

‘Show me on the map where Parkhomenko’s and Grechko’s cavalry are.”

I approached the desk seeing that two commanders had courteously made room for me. But unfortunately I couldn’t recall all the settlements the cavalry were in. Feeling nervous I moved my finger for a long time over the operations map, marked all over by coloured pencils, but nevertheless failed to find the necessary area.

“Permission to show you on my map?” I asked timidly, knowing everything was plotted precisely on it, and pulled out of my flying-boot leg my old large-scale one with routes drafted along its length and breadth but still intelligible to me. Everyone laughed boomingly and amicably and I relaxed — the tension had disappeared.

“Down here…” I pointed immediately.

Questions showered one after another and now I was answering clearly. I didn’t have time to notice who was asking the questions but I was addressing only one General. His kind broad face with beautiful luxuriant moustache attracted me. Smiling, this man pointed with his thumb to another General, behind his back, as much as to say ‘address him, he’s the man in charge here’. But I was dragged as if by a magnet and giving my report, addressed again and again the moustachioed General with the gentle eyes.

When I had showed and told everything they thanked me and let me go. Leaving the room I came across the head of Frontline Communications. He inquired, “How was it?”

“I gave a full report, Comrade General.”

“Well done…”

Korolev hesitated a bit and using the pause I decided to find out who the man was who was smiling at me. “Comrade General, who’s the Commander? Is it the one with the moustache?”

“No, that was General Korniets from the War Council. Why, did you like him?”

“Yes, very much so…” I admitted.

Listarevich and I got back from Kamensk towards morning. But I hadn’t managed to get warm properly and fall asleep when again an order came: “You, Egorova, will have to fly across the front line again to deliver a radio to the cavalry corps. You know the route, I hope you’ll handle it successfully”, Boulkin said.

But the route had got no easier for having been reconnoitred. There was the same blizzard, the same snow, the same almost blind flying. But to be honest, it was easy to position myself on the map knowing the precise location of the troops. However, I had to go quite a bit off track as there were no cavalry at the old location — they had already taken cover somewhere. Having lost hope of a successful search I decided to land the plane and question the locals. Landing near a small unremarkable hamlet and leaving the engine on, I ran across the snowdrifts to the nearest hut. I knocked on the window with frozen-through fingers and this made a kind of especially resonant and booming sound as if someone had tapped one icicle on another. An old man in an undershirt over his pants and in valenki came out at my knock A very old man but sturdy and upright… “Grandfather, have our men passed through here?”

The old man hastily interrupted me: “Get out as fast as you can, sonny! The Germans are here, came last night!”

He pointed and turning around I saw Fascists by the next hut. I should have run straightaway but my legs had become as if paralysed, somehow numb and wouldn’t move at all. The old man saved me, giving me a shove in the back and I rushed towards my salvation — to my faithful ‘cropduster’. The rattle of a machine-gun burst rolled over me from behind, I turned back and saw the old man in the white shirt crashing down into the snow. And whilst I ran to the plane he kept looming up in front of me — that sturdy man who seemed to have stepped out of a fairy tale. But another machine-gun burst reminded me that this was no fairy-tale. Then I nimbly jumped into the cockpit and revved up. My U-2 shuddered and quickly slid across the snow field on its skis. It took off under a hail of bullets and not all of them missed. The mirror on the centre-section stanchion was smashed and the percale on the right wing was rattling… I was very hot but my teeth were chattering as if from cold…

Not till the end of the day did I had manage to locate the cavalry again. I came across the now familiar colonel — the head of Intelligence — in the school building where the corps headquarters was situated.

“Congratulations on your safe arrival”, he greeted me and walked me to Parkhomenko immediately. “Comrade General, here is the messenger from Front headquarters”, the Colonel reported and handed the package over to the Corps Commander.

“Call him over, let him in”, the General ordered mixing Ukrainian words with Russian, without lifting his head up from the map and not noticing who had come. But then he raised his head and I saw a face lined by fatigue and sleepless nights. But the strain of field life did not seem to have affected the General’s habits. He was carefully shaved, his hair was combed. He breathed neatness and true cavalry bearing. I stood to ‘attention’ without noticing, which didn’t escape the General’s eye.

“At ease, at ease”, he ordered jokingly. “You bear good tidings, you eagle! Did you bring the radio?”

“Yes!”

At this moment claps from nearby shell bursts resounded from outside the windows. To all appearances the Fascists had intensified the barrage. The General pricked up his ears: “The Devil sent you, lad!” he said. “You’ve brought trouble down on us. You’ve disclosed our location. See what the Hitlerites are up to?”

The Corps Commander had not guessed there was not a ‘lad’ but a ‘lass’ before him. It didn’t seem the right moment to explain what was what. The shells and mortar bombs were exploding closer and closer, shaking the building. Window glass jangled somewhere just nearby and I heard shrapnel rattle on the roof. Parkhomenko remained unruffled and sat at his desk as calmly as before, his chest, decorated with battle awards, spread wide. However I was unable to stay calm. I was seriously concerned about the fate of my machine. My mission was complete and I had to rush back — it would be dark soon.

“Comrade General, what should I tell Front HQ?” At last I dared to ask.

“What should you tell them?” Parkhomenko rumbled. “You’re making fun, aren’t you? Don’t you see what kind of fire you’ve brought down with your ‘cropduster’? It’s too late to fly, lad. You’re staying here with us. Let your bird damn well burn! We’ll find you a horse and teach you to sabre”.

But no, I couldn’t burn my ‘bird’. After all, I had been ordered to come back and I was supposed to obey orders. Running from the General’s office I rushed towards my plane along wicker fences and huts. It turned out to be a long way. Fire sometimes pinned me down to the ground but I kept running from one shell-hole to another, relying on an old frontline belief that a shell would never hit the same spot twice. Fortunately I reached the plane in one piece and alive, but when I tried to start the engine I found it had been damaged. What a disaster… So it had been hit by shrapnel. I had to make my way back to Headquarters along the same route. Cavalrymen were dashing back and forth, soldiers were loading carts with their humble possessions: the headquarters was preparing for evacuation. Parkhomenko met me with the words, “So, lad, you’ve decided to stay with us?”

“No, Comrade General, I request assistance!”

“What kind of assistance?”

“I need a horse to tow the plane away…”

“I have no spare horses, don’t you see what position I’m in?”

But I managed to convince the Commander: he gave me a horse. Rope was found as well. I tied it to the undercarriage axle with two knots and made kind of a collar on the horse’s neck. I had everything attached and I was just about to take the horse by the bridle and go when a rider came to give me a hand — a hefty bloke from the Kuban Cossacks. He grumbled, fixing up the traces: “What the hell do we need this plywood jalopy for? If we hang around at all Fritz will nail us.”

“So hurry up if you don’t want to get nailed”, I hurried him.

“Hurry up, hurry up? A horse likes it when everything’s done neatly. Each rope should be just right… It’s no good for a beast to have its withers or whatever rubbed raw. It’ll die…” At last the bloke took the horse by the bridle and yelled loudly:

“Well, darling, off you go!”

I took hold tightly on a wingtip so as to hold it on the bumpy road. Fortunately, a heavy snowfall began soon and then night fell — it hid us from the enemy shells. It was the first and only time in my life I ‘flew’ such an unusual horse-drawn carriage. The horse, worn out during the raid pulled without haste, paying no attention to the road. The plane groaned sadly on the bumps. Something cracked alarmingly inside with every new rut. The wings, clumsy on the ground, now bent down to the very snow, now resiliently straightened, lifting me with them. This unnatural vibration didn’t cheer me at all: it looked as if I was about to lose my wings. But, be that as it may, with the help of the horse and the gloomy rider I managed to drag the plane to a safe place. We stopped in some village and in the morning I had time to poke around the engine. I asked the lady of the hut we’d stopped in to warm up some water, drained the oil from the engine into a cast-iron pot and put it into the oven too. Then my helpers from the cavalry helped me pour the now-hot oil into the tank, splashed hot water over the carburettor and began to turn it over. To everyone’s joy the engine sneezed a couple of times and then started.

More than once on that February day I thought kindly of my aeroclub teachers. No, it hadn’t been a waste of time to make the student pilots take apart and put together all the engine components, it hadn’t been for nothing they’d made us stay after flying, to tinker with the machine along with the mechanic. If you want to fly well — know your plane perfectly! Such had been the rule. And now a thorough knowledge of the equipment had helped me to handle the repairs.

“Permission to head off, Comrade General?” I asked Parkhomenko.

“Granted! Take the package and a wounded man, and don’t be angry at an old fellow like me. All sorts of things happen in war. I took you for a bloke, and you’re…” Something gentle appeared in the General’s eyes, he awkwardly waved his hand and gave a shy, boyish smile.