Daughters of the Night Sky

Taking off with the benefit of a proper runway was a luxury I could well become accustomed to. The wooded terrain in Poland was far easier to maneuver over than the peninsulas and mountains in the south, with their erratic winds, but we’d traded in the hospitality of farmers’ homes and makeshift barracks in abandoned schools for tents and trenches. We might have complained about the dismal conditions in Poland, but we barely had time to sleep, let alone consider our discomfort. The canvas of our tents flapped angrily in the winter winds like geese who had waited too long to migrate. The tents did little to shelter us from the cold of the Polish morning, but it was better than the days we had to sleep outdoors.

We hadn’t run at our full effort in a few weeks, but we’d been ordered to harass a German camp just to the west of the front. No specific targets in mind—we were just to keep them awake, make a mess of their camp, and encourage them to move westward back toward Germany. We’d made progress over the last few months, and the Germans were getting more and more desperate. We rarely got a close look at the enemy troops, except when they made the occasional raid of our camps, but the faces we saw were getting both older and younger—old men and little boys. Men of proper fighting age were becoming scarce in Germany. When we saw the faces of our own troops, I saw much the same phenomenon, though to a lesser extent. If we had an advantage over them, it was the size of our country and our sheer numbers.

Oksana led Snowdrop over the front lines on our first run, dropping the payload square on a convoy of trucks, the loss of which would hurt. We skittered away from the camp before anyone gave chase and before the searchlights blinded Oksana and prevented a stealthy escape. She powered the engine up and took us full throttle back to our makeshift base. Polina and the crew bustled up to us, prepared to refuel the plane and make a quick scan of the wings for any bullet holes that couldn’t go without patching. Renata and three other women from our regiment loaded the bombs and gave the all-clear sign when we were fully armed.

“Don’t charge the engine,” Oksana called to Polina. “We have three starts left. I want to get back there.”

Oksana’s drive had become intense as she saw our victories mounting. In my heart I could see she’d begun the war thinking that Russia would stand her ground and keep her territory, or most of it, but that Germany would ultimately be victorious. She fought to keep as much of the motherland intact as she could as a bastion against the cruelty of the Nazis. Now a loftier goal was in sight—she could see a future where the forces of Hitler were expelled completely. She was desperate to fly as many sorties as she could so the tide wouldn’t risk turning back against us. Every bomb dropped was another step closer to Berlin and victory.

The moment she was given the all clear for takeoff, Oksana soared back to the front. We were only a twenty-minute flight to the camp, so there wasn’t much use in resting before we arrived. Just as we came to the edge of the German camp, Oksana cut the engine before we would be heard. We deployed our bombs, one after another, making a mess of their barracks. The searchlights caught us as we dropped the final bomb, and I was ready with the newly equipped machine gun they had mounted to the rear of my cockpit in case any of the Germans gave chase.

Oksana’s movements, usually efficient and assured, became agitated, then panicky. “The engine won’t start again,” she called into the interphone. I felt the metallic taste of fear at the tip of my tongue. “We’re out of starts.”

“How? We should have two left.”

“I have no idea. We must have miscounted.”

The searchlights locked in on us, and the antiaircraft guns had no problem finding their mark. The wings were shredded in short order, and we were losing altitude quickly. If the impact didn’t kill us, the Germans would do the job. I saw visions of Vanya and Mama, my breath catching with the realization I wasn’t going to see them again. I gripped the open edge of the cockpit on either side of me. The ground was spinning closer. There would be no recovering from the dive, though Oksana still wrestled with the throttle.

“We’ll have to bail out,” I called back to her, grateful for the large pack on my back.