Night Witches (24 page)

T
ime slows. The blade seems suspended in the smoky air. Bright beads of blood hang beneath it. I move without thinking. I have Steen’s neck. I have him by the throat with his feet dangling. I need no knife. My hands reach inside, past his skin and muscles, deep, deep inside to where his spirit cowers. I wrench it out. His life.

I am death!

Reef is choking, spraying red drops and making the pool of blood around him swell.

Wolves howl louder, or maybe it’s me. I let go of Steen and drop him to the floor. It’s Reef I want, beautiful, black-haired Reef. I slip in his blood. Stuff my jacket against his wound to staunch the flow. Set my mouth to his mouth so he can breathe however many breaths are left to him in this life. I pour what’s left of me into him.

The pool of Reef’s blood spreads. The fire spits, sizzles and dwindles to sulky smoke. My light vanishes. The false day darkens. Night rushes back. I’m done.

T
he forest is calm.

Wolves, gorged and exhausted, lie on the ground, panting. Corvils fly back to their nests to preen with blood-stained beaks. Thorn-vines creep over mangled machinery.

Flutters of movement catch my attention. Out of the trees thousands of lace-wings are flying. They’re so beautiful with their pale-green colouring and delicate feathered antennae. They fill the clearing, landing on whatever corpses the ground hasn’t swallowed. They feed.

Life is life.

I hold Reef without moving, without crying, without knowing anything other than the fact he’s gone. He looks so peaceful. I bend to kiss him one last time. His lips are still so warm and soft. How could I ever have thought he’d betray me when all along he wanted my trust?

I can’t stand. I’m too tired and Reef’s body is too heavy. Eye Bright swoops up to the top of the ruined god-house, scattering lace-wings with its black feathers. Am I alone now? Is the war really over? Overhead there are specks of green and red in the sullen gloom of the Eclipse – wing-lights on Storms. I’m not alone, at least.

‘Down here,’ I croak. ‘We’re here!’

As the Storms curve over the clearing I see the sky is lightening. The shadows are passing. The Eclipse is ending. A sliver of sun shines out from behind Umbra’s disc. I wish Reef could have seen the end of Long Night.

I bury my face into his neck, not caring about the blood. Except there is no blood. Reef’s skin is smooth and unbroken. His throat is warm. His pulse is throbbing. I start to kiss where the wound should be. This is impossible! Wonderful!

I am life!

He stirs. I find his lips again. Still drowsy, he returns my kisses, soft at first then harder and deeper. He reaches his hands up and tangles them in my hair, then cups my face until the kiss becomes sweet and slow. Finally he opens his eyes. When he finishes gazing at me he blinks to see the new sunlight.

‘Did I miss something?’

I try to comb my hair with my fingers, to look as close as I can to normal. ‘Not really. Nothing I couldn’t handle.’

He sweeps strands of black from my eyes, which must be full of smiles. We sit together, perhaps for moments, perhaps for hours. The sun grows warmer.

Rain . . .

A cool, fresh breeze brings my name, and with it the smell of home.

‘The forest is beautiful in summer,’ I murmur, watching the trees toss their branches . . . along with bits of half-eaten armour.

Rain . . .

The forest calls again. What else is waiting for me in the shade of the silver-bark trees? Maybe one day I’ll leave to find out. I’ll wander where paths don’t exist, to discover if I’m alone, or if I’m
One of Many
. Perhaps, when I do go, I won’t just disappear. Reef will kiss me on the brow and whisper, ‘
I’ll find you . 
. .’

For now I’m content to be still. To be me, with him, in this place.

The sun leaps out from Umbra’s lingering shade, a perfect circle of gold.

The Long Night is over.

For now.

No, it’s not the huts that are burning –

It’s my youth, in the fire

Iulia Drunina

‘Where do you get ideas from?’ This is a question authors are often asked. For
Night Witches
the answer is from Russia. From World War Two. From the stories of the first-ever women to fly combat missions.

I knew from the moment I first got into the plane that I was born in the air, and it became my main purpose in life – to fly.

Captain Mariya Dolina – pilot and heroine of the Soviet Union

The 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union began with catastrophic strikes on the Russian Air Force, followed by fast, brutal land advances. The Russians were quick to respond. Among the Russian infantry, tank crews and air squadrons there were an estimated 800,000 women in combat.

The Air Force boasted fighter aces such as the legendary Lily Litviak, a young woman with twelve ‘kills’ to her credit. Lily was famous for her bleached blonde hair and fearless flights over the besieged city of Stalingrad.

As well as daring fighters there were the day and night bomber crews. The most famous all-female regiment began life as the 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, formed in 1942. The Regiment was so impressive it soon earned a promotion to ‘Guards’ status, becoming the 46th Taman Guards regiment. These night-bombers flew more than 24,000 combat missions. They clocked up a phenomenal tally of medals, including twenty-four awards of the highest accolade – Heroine of the Soviet Union. They flew in many major combat zones, from Stalingrad, to Sevastopol and Warsaw. By 1945 they had helped chase the invaders right back to the heart of the German capital. On the Reichstag – the German parliament building – one young bomber girl scrawled this in graffiti: ‘Hurrah! The 46th Women’s Guard Regiment flew as far as Berlin. Long live Victory!’

Today these women have avenged the heavy centuries of the oppression of women.

Josef Stalin

The female regiments were the creation of a remarkable woman called Marina Raskova. She was the first woman to qualify as an Air Force navigator and the first female instructor at the great Zhukovski Air Academy. In 1938 she joined an attempt to set a long-distance flight record across Russia in a plane called
Rodina
, which means Motherland. After the German invasion thousands of girls and women clamoured to be allowed to fight in defence of their motherland. Raskova appealed for girls in the Air Force. She was swamped with new recruits – air crew and mechanics – who underwent harsh training programmes to get them ready for battle. Raskova was hero-worshipped by the regiments because of her skills, her compassion and her commitment. Sadly she didn’t live long enough to see the end of the war. Her plane was lost in a snow storm.

You knew your friend was going to fly it in combat, and you did everything, even beyond your physical might and strength, to have it in perfect condition and to save the life of your aircrew.

Senior Sergeant Matryona Yurodjeva-Samsonova – airplane mechanic

The young women of the 46th Taman Guards flew old wooden biplanes called Po-2s. These had been designed just as training planes, without cockpit covers, radios or sophisticated instruments. They were fitted with four small bomb racks, but didn’t get parachutes or self-defence machine guns until near the end of the war. Air crews flew in scorching summer weather and in the bone-bitter cold of Russian winters, when mechanics struggled to keep the fuel from freezing  . . . and their own fingers from rotting with frostbite.

The Po-2s were nicknamed ‘flying sewing machines’ and ‘flying coffins’. On the ground the women were sometimes mocked by men who couldn’t believe mere girls were capable of such stamina and bravery. As for the Germans, they came up with the most evocative name for the air crews that buzzed and bombed them every night. They called them
nacht hexen –
night witches – saying the whooshing noise of the planes sounded like witches on broomsticks passing over.

My spirit has always been emancipated, unconquered and proud. I was spell-bound by the mystery of flight. I thought of it as my integration with the universe.

Snr Lt Yevgeniya Zhiguelnko

Superstitions about witches and magic were driven underground by communism in the Soviet Union, along with most religious beliefs. They did not disappear completely. Spring still revived old rituals of offerings to Mother Earth, and tales were still told of the most powerful witch of all – Baba Yaga.

Witches were said to summon their power from the earth, where the dead are buried, never from demonic sources. I first came across Baba Yaga as a child, reading the eerie story of clever Vassilisa, a girl who survives her visit to the witch’s lair and is rewarded with supernatural help.

In stories, Baba Yaga is often portrayed as an ogress with stone teeth who devours children in her house raised up on chicken legs and surrounded by a bone fence. More impressively, the mythology also hints that she holds power over night and day, and that she guards the fountain of the water of life. She flies not on a broomstick, but in a mixing bowl called a mortar, speeding her way through the skies with a pestle.

Despite their communist upbringing, some Russian night-bomber girls tried fortune-telling in the magical darkness of New Year’s Eve. They followed dream messages, and trusted in a mystical power to keep them and their comrades safe. After the war, a statue of Baba Yaga was sculptured showing her as an Air Force mascot complete with modern flying goggles!

They converted the whole great country into a big concentration camp of life-term inmates. They would turn people into programmed robots stuffed with slogans and cheers for the great Stalin.

Senior Sergeant Anna Popova – flight radio operator

Witches were not the worst thing to fear in Soviet Russia. Josef Stalin’s communist rule brought tremendous change and upheaval as the vast country was forced to abandon old ways and dedicate itself to a new kind of society where all were supposed to be equal, and work for the common good. Under Stalin a mass surge of industrial advances gave Russia the strength and equipment to beat back the superior technology of German forces. Modernisation came at a terrible price. Stalin demanded total obedience. Secret police and networks of neighbourhood spies meant it wasn’t safe to say, or do, or even dare
think
anything individual. There was an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. Arrests were common. Those arrested were rarely seen or heard of again.

Friendship, mutual support, and love of our motherland helped us to endure and to await the victory.

Senior Lieutenant Serfima Amosova-Taranenko

This nightmare of paranoia and betrayal was matched by the fierce love and loyalty of the women in Marina Raskova’s regiments. The young women fought to defend a beloved country, regardless of how oppressive the regime. Many fought and died. Ageing Night Witch survivors still meet in Moscow once a year, to laugh, to drink and to remember darker days and fallen comrades.

Researching all this history had me enthralled and appalled. At times I felt I was flying with the real night witches on some starlit night, or through thick sea-mists. In fact, my only flying experience has been in sleek modern gliders and rather stinky training planes. My only meetings with witches have been on the pages of fairy-tale books.

My story
Night Witches
is a fantasy tale set on a fictional world, with invented characters and cultures, but it draws on the bravery, loyalty, fear and betrayal experienced by Soviet women during the war. I’ve also explored universal questions – How does it feel not to belong? How do you find the strength to do what you secretly feel is right? Who can you really trust in a world where loyalty is supposed to be blind? Most importantly – where can you find the power to be yourself?

In
Night Witches
science, religion and imagination battle together for dominance. Life wins.

I want to say we experienced many feelings and emotions – fear, joy, love, sorrow – as we faced very hard experiences. Sometimes when we successfully completed a mission we even sang and danced there at the airfield because life is life, and we were young.

Snr Lt Zoya Parfyonova – pilot and heroine of the Soviet Union