A groundcrew sergeant regretfully spread his hands. Anastas Mouradian eyed the callused palms with the dirt ground into the ridges of leathery flesh. “I’m very sorry, Comrade Lieutenant, but the hydraulics on your bomber are totally shot to shit,” the noncom said.
“How long will you need to fix things?” Mouradian demanded. “We’ll be flying again tomorrow as long as the weather stays good.”
Before answering, the groundcrew man used a strip torn from Pravda and some makhorka he took out of a pouch on his belt to roll himself a cigarette. After he scraped a match on the sole of his boot and lit the smoke, he courteously offered Mouradian the makings. When the pilot shook his head, the mechanic blew out a stream of smoke and said, “We’ll do the best we can. I don’t know what else to tell you right now.”
“Khorosho,” Stas replied, although it wasn’t good or even close to good. The longer he served in the Red Air Force, the more time he spent among Russians, the better he understood why they’d raised profanity to an art form practiced by virtuosos. The reason was simple: they had to deal with other Russians practically all the time. And if dealing with Russians all the time didn’t make you want to swear, nothing ever would.
He went back to the officers’ tent and gave Isa Mogamedov the news. Armenians and Azeris had been rivals, usually enemies, since time out of mind. All the same, Stas understood his copilot in ways he would never understand a Russian. The two peoples had lived in-and picked-each other’s pockets for so long, they’d rubbed off on each other.
Mogamedov’s tiny shrug meant Well, what can you hope for when Russians are working on something? Aloud, the Azeri said, “Maybe someone will come down sick and we’ll fly even if the plane can’t go.”
“You never can tell,” Stas said. “We serve the Soviet Union.”
“We serve the Soviet Union!” Mogamedov agreed loudly. You could never go far wrong saying that where plenty of other people heard you. He went on, “If we fly, we fly. If we don’t, it’s … that we don’t, is all.”
“Sure,” Mouradian said. What had his crewmate almost come out with before changing course? If we don’t, it’s God’s will, maybe? Something like that, Stas guessed. Something that sounded not only religious but Muslim. Something you didn’t want to say where plenty of other people heard you, in other words.
Stas let his eyes very casually flick around the tent. He didn’t think any of the Russians in here had noticed Mogamedov’s tiny hesitation. Even if they had noticed it, chances were they would be too dim to understand what it likely meant. They were only Russians, after all. A lot of things men from the Caucasus took for granted sailed right over their heads.
When Stas’ eyes came back to Mogamedov, he noticed that the Azeri was watching him. An instant later, Mogamedov wasn’t any more, at least not in any noticeable way. But the copilot would know that he knew; Mouradian knew that much himself. And he knew Mogamedov would worry, knowing that he knew. You could drown in all the permutations of knowing and knowing-about-knowing and worrying-about-knowing-about-knowing and …
“Nichevo, Isa. Nichevo,” Stas said. There was a useful Russian word, a Russian Russian word. It meant What can you do? or You can’t do anything or It can’t be helped. Russians had put up with a lot over the years. Their language showed it.
He hoped Mogamedov also understood he didn’t intend to do anything with what he thought he knew. A word whispered where it would find its way to an NKVD man’s ear could land the Azeri in water hot enough to boil him. Stas didn’t love Azeris. He didn’t suppose he ever would. But Azeris were wonderful fellows when measured against informers.
Late that afternoon, the groundcrew sergeant hunted down Mouradian and said, “Comrade Lieutenant, the work crew has overhauled the hydraulics. Everything is good as new.”
Which might mean they’d really done it. Or which might mean somebody’d told the sergeant that Pe-2 was going to fly no matter what. His broad, stubbly face betrayed nothing of what went on behind it. He was a Russian, all right.
“For sure, Comrade Sergeant?” Stas said. “Yob tvoyu mat’?” The all-purpose obscenity literally meant Fuck your mother, but, like any good curse, it stretched and twisted like a rubber band. Here, Mouradian had in mind something like You’re not shitting me?
“Yob tvoyu mat’, Comrade Lieutenant,” the groundcrew man said firmly. No shitting around. I really mean it. Stas had to be content with that. He wouldn’t get any stronger assurance if he dragged the noncom into court. Considering how strongly the Party put its thumb on the scales of justice, this was probably better than any testimony on oath.
When they did fly out at sunrise the next morning, the hydraulics retracted the landing gear. He didn’t have to crank it up by hand. He had Fyodor Mechnikov check the bomb-bay doors. “Fuckers work like they’re supposed to,” the bombardier reported.
“He wasn’t kidding,” Stas said to Mogamedov, impressed in spite of himself. “They really did fix things.”
“You hope. Don’t jinx it,” the copilot said. Stas nodded. That was good advice.
They flew on. Getting to the front took a while. Pretty soon, they’d have to move up to an airstrip farther west. The Nazis were falling back. They devastated the country from which they retreated. Not even Red Army men, notorious for foraging like wild animals, would find much to eat in this burnt-out terrain.
Somewhere not far ahead lay the border between the RSFSR and Byelorussia. Maybe the Germans and Poles would try to hold on to White Russia. Maybe they’d move back all the way to the Polish border. If they didn’t do that of their own accord, the Soviet Union would have to kick them out.
German flak guns fired at the Pe-2s. Most of the shells burst behind them. The Russian bombers were faster than the men on the ground gave them credit for. Somewhere up ahead lay the target: a Hitlerite artillery concentration that had held up a Red Army advance in this sector for days.
We’re artillery ourselves-flying artillery, Stas thought. The Luftwaffe’s Stukas had pioneered the idea. They dropped more explosives farther away than guns could reach, and softened up the opposition so the men on the ground could slice through it. Stavka had grabbed the notion with both hands. Now the Red Air Force and Red Army were using it against its inventors.
More German antiaircraft guns protected the 105s and 155s in their pits. The flak seemed thick enough to walk on now. Near misses buffeted Mouradian’s Pe-2. He clung to the yoke as he tipped the plane nose-down for his attack run.
“Let ’em go!” Mogadmedov shouted to Mechnikov, and the bombs fell free. Stas zoomed back toward Soviet-held territory at just above barn-roof height. He watched one startled German soldier start to dive for a foxhole, but was gone before the Fritz made it in.
“You know,” Mogamedov said after they got back to their own side of the front, “I think we are starting to gain on it.”
Stas was beginning to think the same thing. Even so, he answered, “Weren’t you the one who was talking about not jinxing it?” Mogamedov’s oxygen mask didn’t show much of his face, but the Azeri wagged a wry finger.
Now, Stas thought, let’s see if the landing gear works going down, too. And damned if it didn’t. He’d have to find that groundcrew sergeant a bottle of vodka or some good tobacco-not that crappy makhorka, which wasn’t worth smoking if you had anything better.