12: Contested Airspace, The Eastern Front, USSR: January AD1943
Belitrova and Hanifa
The two women sat in a sea of darkness surrounded by the howling biting winds of the open sky. Below them, only the endless rolling black emptiness of the steppe, a featureless desert of inky void. Above only the grey sky, lit only by the shrouded light of the moon behind the clouds. Belitrova Yanovna concentrated on keeping the plane, a Polikarpov U-2 biplane, flying straight and level due west, even with the bitingly cold January winds buffeting them from all directions. Frost had long ago unfurled across her outer layers of clothing and the chill was attempting to work its deathly fingers into the gaps between her insulated underlayers. Her whole face was covered in a thick headscarf and her eyes were kept from freezing inside her head by a pair of aviator's goggles.
After flying crop duster planes in the Ukraine from an age that she was tall enough to see above the cockpit, Belitrova had thought that she knew her way around the skies. But she had graduated only 56th out of a class of over 300 women pilots who were trained for the Red Airforce. Which was why she was flying a rickety out-of-date night bomber rather than a fighter plane. But she told herself that she was still the best damn pilot to fly what was essentially a wood and canvas coffin with wings, out over enemy territory in the middle of the night and come back to tell the tale. Although she had to admit that a lot of her successful bombings were largely due to her crack navigator and bombardier Hanifa Madiova, currently sitting about a metre behind her in the rear seat.
As navigator and bombardier, Belitrova could have asked for no better than Hanifa. She could navigate in the dark, under clouds in freezing cold temperatures with only a compass, a map and a stopwatch. She had originally been a navigator on a seaplane over the Caspian Sea, but had signed up with the airforce pretty much as soon as the fascists had invaded. She had a streak of fervent patriotism that Belitrova found both exhausting and inspiring at times. But she was also playful and caring and devilishly passionate about everything, which made Belitrova love her all the more.
Although the two of them had been flying together since they were randomly put together in the same plane, they had been 'together' for only a little bit less. Even the memory of it now was enough to warm Belitrova a little as she thought back to that night. It had been after their first successful night raid which had struck at the heart of a fascist fuel dump. The fireball that had erupted from the explosion had been enough to light the landscape for miles around and nearly since the eyebrows off of her face.
That night the drink and music had flown freely and after several too many shots of vodka, and some dancing and intense eye contact, Belitrova and Hanifa had been found kissing passionately in a corner. They had been playfully jeered out of the mess hall and told to 'get a room'. They had woken up in each other's arms the next morning, their heads and bodies aching but both very happy to have found the other so close by. Thankfully their relationship hadn't caused any kind of stir with the higher ups in the unit. In a war where every man counted, their superiors couldn't afford to be too picky about who their pilots were interested in kissing. And besides, it wasn't like either of them could get pregnant from it, so where was the harm?
And so Belitrova and Hanifa had continued their love affair, mostly behind closed doors and in privacy, as they were keen not to shove their relationship in anyone's faces. Don't ask, don't tell was the policy. Belitrova was very happy with this arrangement. When they were airborne, they were professionals, dedicated and focused on the target. She kept them flying straight and Hanifa kept them flying in the right direction, and delivered explosive death to fascist scum below. She couldn't have asked for a better navigator to fly with, the two of them made one hell of a team.
'How far out?' She called back through the open air to Hanifa.
She had to call out loudly for her voice to be heard over the howling wind and the low rumble of the single engine at the front of the plane. Hanifa had kept her head down for most of the flight and was tightly wrapped up in the ill-fitting man-sized coat that she was wearing. Her whole head was wrapped up in scarfs too with her fur hat jammed on over the top of them.
'Checking position!' Hanifa yelled back at Belitrova. 'About ten minutes out I think!'
The Nazi fortified bridge that they were aiming for had already been hit ten times that night by Belitrova and her squadron. She was hoping that they had time to make this final run before dawn broke. But as she looked over her shoulder she saw the narrow glimmer of the grey dawn rising above the horizon to the east. The 588th Bomber regiment had already lost two planes with four good women in them that night and Belitrova had no desire to make it six.
She had a difficult call to make. As squadron leader, she could turn back now and not risk herself, her partner and the other two planes flying with her. But this would mean missing out on a chance to drop two more explosive bombs on the fascist bastards below, something which she knew her superiors and, more importantly, her flying mate would be deeply pissed off by. Or she could push on ahead and risk being spotted as the sun's light lost them the cover of darkness. If they were seen then the likelihood was that they would be shot down before they ever got to their targets. Their ancient biplanes were slow and manoeuvrable enough that they were practically untouchable by enemy aircraft, but anti-aircraft fire would rip them to shreds.
'I'm turning back!' she called out to Hanifa, 'Dawn's coming sooner than we thought!'
She could hear and feel Hanifa twisting in her seat behind her, looking back to where the sky was a slightly lighter shade of grey behind them.
'What are you talking about?!' Hanifa called back, 'The sun's not due to come up for another hour, we've got plenty of time, finish the drop!'
'I don't want to get shot down just so that you can miss the target like we do every damn time!'
'It's not about hitting the target, you know that! It's about making them fear us, about denying them rest, destroying morale! You let them get another hour of sleep and they'll be that much fresher when our ground forces attack tomorrow!'
'It's not worth it!' Belitrova called back and made to adjust her course, but before she did she felt Hanifa kick her solidly in the back with her heavy boots.
'Fuck that!' she yelled, 'You fly us there now, and let me drop this ordinance on those fascist pigs, don't be a coward!'
Belitrova could hear the frustration in her friend's voice. She looked back and saw the passionate anger in her eyes through the small slit between her scarf and her hat. And behind her the now definitely grey light of dawn. But she looked back at Hanifa's dark brown eyes, with an emotion filled crease between them and knew what she had to do. She turned back in her seat and gunned the throttle for the final approach to the target. She felt a short squeeze on her shoulder as she did so and set her shoulders for what came next.
- - -
In less than five minutes Belitrova saw the fire of the nazi camp burning like twinking sparks in the distance. Their previous raids that night had clearly taken their toll and the enemy had yet to quench those flames. Good, that would make this run even easier. As they climbed through the air, preparing for the final run, she took one last brief look over her shoulder and saw that the grey light had begun to turn to a milky yellow. They were running out of time. But Hanifa was right, they had come this far, they had to finish this.
At the apex of their climb, Belitrova pulled the plane into a glide and cut the engines. It's dull thrum was replaced with only the sound of the whistling wind passing over her wings. This was why the Nazis called them the 'Nachthexen', Night Witches. The sound of their stealthy low flying bombers was enough to instil fear in the hearts of many an invader, and with luck it would be the last thing that some of them ever heard tonight.
The descent was always the longest and hardest part of the flight. All Belitrova had to do was keep the plane moving at a steady speed, straight forwards. It was up to Hanifa to judge the distance and timing to make sure that the bombs dropped at just the right moment to hit the target. Every second Belitrova expected to hear the crack and boom of distant anti-aircraft fire. The delayed-explosion shells would rip through the canvas shell of her plane like a stone through a wet paper bag, she wouldn't even have time to dodge.
Gingerly, she reached back in her seat until her hand poked through into Hanifa's portion of the cockpit. She felt her partner's mittened hand grip hers in reply and give it a slight squeeze in re-assurance before returning to the controls. Timing was everything in these drops and Belitrova gripped the engine ignition in readiness to pull up and away the moment the bombs were dropped.
From behind she felt two short thumps against the back of ehr seat, the signal to count down from ten until drop. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Click-Click
The two bombs under either wing released simultaneously and in the same moment Belitrova kicked the ignition and the engine roared back into life. She gunned the throttle and pulled up and away as fast as she could in the semi-darkness. Even with the renewed noise of the engine thrumming at the front of the plane she still listened out for the sound of the bombs hitting the ground below. A moment later she was rewarded with the familiar distant twin booms and a flash of brief illumination as both detonated. A few moments after that came two more and then another two as her fellow Nachthexen unloaded their payloads as well.
The squadron pulled up and away from the fortified site, attempting to make it up and out of range before the enemy had a chance to react. But they were too late. Suddenly the night sky was illuminated once more by numerous white-hot puffs of exploiting chaff as the nazi anti-aircraft gunners responded to their bombardment. Belitrova hunkered low in ehr cockpit, for all the good it would do and held on tightly to the steering column, ducking and weaving through the field of exploding metal as best she could.
It was still dark enough that she knew that the fascists could have no idea what they were shooting at, or were, but this would not stop a stray shell or lucky shot from ripping them into pieces. They had now wheeled around enough that the light of the coming dawn was ahead of them and she pushed the little plane as hard and fast as she could to get out of range before time ran out. Behind her, she heard Hanifa yell out into the open air,
