Ascent by Jed Mercurio (7 page)

Yefgenii pulled left with Kiriya now above him and Glinka tracking round on his right wingtip. The g-meter’s white needle flicked to the right. He looked all around with his head as heavy as a medicine ball. A Sabre crossed left to right from his ten o’clock position into his two and Yefgenii rolled hard right, holding the nose level with the stick and controlling yaw with right rudder. The stick juddered on the buffet. His shells ripped open the Sabre’s wing. The tailplane was bobbing in his crosshairs. Debris broke free and fell behind in a stream of confetti. The American knew his aircraft carried a mortal wound and he was in the long desperate struggle to make it home or else abandon ship. Yefgenii closed for the kill, but silver wings glinted as they swooped in behind him, so with a shriek of anguish he had to let him go. Yet again he twisted his head round. A black rim spread into his visual field. It crept in like liquid. He strained to push the virtual iris back open. He was searching for his shield but Glinka was gone.

Glinka had broken from his wing to pursue the damaged American. The Sabre was making a sluggish turn to get away but Glinka was on him with cannon fire and the American plummeted.

Bursts of R/T were colliding.

“Got him! Got him! Got him!”

“Fuck, fuck, Yeremin, four o’clock, fuck!”
It was Gnido, doing Glinka’s job for him.

Now Yefgenii swung left into a max-rate turn with a pair of Sabres in pursuit. Yefgenii twisted round to acquire the Americans and then glanced front to judge attitude and instruments. Hunched into a turn, pulling 6 g, his head flicked left and forward, left and forward. Then Gnido scissored between his tail and the Americans. The Sabres broke off to avoid a collision and Yefgenii was saved, but in a slick move the Sabres switched to Gnido. Gunfire hatched dotted lines along Gnido’s fuselage from nose to tail and gouged a lump of flesh and rubber out of his boot. Soon his plane was struggling for height.

Yefgenii shrieked,
“Fucking eject, fucking get out of there!”

The MiG fell in a long arc. Gnido wept with pain and with foreknowledge of the end. They were a good way south of the Yalu, operating over UN-controlled territory. He could still eject but to be captured would betray the presence of the VVS. If captured and then returned, no doubt he’d be persecuted as a traitor. He stayed in his straps and rode the jet all the way down. When it hit the ground it shattered. The splinters were so small and they were wrought so fast that the aircraft appeared to vanish.

Yefgenii glimpsed Kiriya and Skomorokhov turning in parallel with a pair of Sabres. Glinka had relocated to Kubarev’s wing but was operating too high to protect him from attack. A moment later a Sabre punched in behind Glinka. Yefgenii thought of Gnido and of his body smashed because of Glinka’s dereliction of duty. Had they been on the ground he could’ve abandoned Glinka. On the ground his acts meant nothing. But how he conducted himself in the air expressed his values, and in the air a countryman remained a countryman even if he was a coward.

Wisps of smoke trailed past his cockpit as Yefgenii soared back into battle. Some of the wisps curled. Some stretched. Jet-wash had churned this piece of sky into a hundred vortices that kicked his nose and belly and tried to spin his wings. He was still rocking when his guns opened on the Sabre. Fumes puffed out of its engine like a giant string of beads. Yefgenii kept on him. Shells kicked out from his nose into the American’s wings and tail. They were ripping up his ailerons and elevators. The Sabre began to buck out of control. Seconds later the pilot ejected. Yefgenii and Glinka were clear.

“Glinka, follow me down!”

With Glinka covering his tail, Yefgenii sank behind the Sabre pair that was scissoring in and out of engagement with Kiriya and Skomorokhov. He opened fire and the wing of the rear Sabre sheared clean off. It spun off to the side and on the second or third spin its fuel tank ruptured. A point of light expanded into a sphere of flame that burned itself out in less than a second. The surviving Sabre swung south for the P’yŏngyang-Wŏnsan line.

Someone was transmitting. “Min fuel.”

Kiriya clicked. “Shit, me too, we’ll have to let the fucker go.”

The MiGs disengaged. Soon the Sabres and the MiGs were pointing home, leaving behind them a sky beaded by puffs of gray and black smoke and beneath the smoke a shower of metal and far beneath that two parachutes blooming like new white flowers on the green and brown oblongs of earth.

In the tower they took Kiriya’s transmission that, of the six aircraft that set out, only five were returning to base. The widow looked into the east. She wondered if the young blond leitenant was among the ones coming home. She recognized his plane, felt something this time, for the first time.

Ground crews watched them angle onto the dispersal. All the guns were blackened. All the fuselages were pockmarked. The ground crews dragged chocks on short thick ropes, then, when the pilots cut their engines, wedged the chocks under their wheels.

The widow held the ladder as Yefgenii stepped down the rungs. “Any luck, Leitenant?”

He gazed down at her. He was the biggest of the pilots and he was two rungs off the ground. “Two and a half.” He grinned.

She’d never seen him smile. He had a big boyish smile. “Half?” She laughed. “What happened to the other half?”

He realized she had an image in her mind of half an airplane flying home, maybe cut off at the wing roots with the pilot’s bare ass hanging out behind the cockpit. “No!” he laughed. She started laughing too. He said, “When the actions of two pilots lead to a kill, each gets half.”

Now she blushed for not having known. “Yes, of course, how silly of me.” She ducked away and pretended to examine the tires for cuts and creep.

Yefgenii wondered if perhaps he’d sounded too arrogant, too flippant. He’d enjoyed her laughter. He wanted to hear it again soon.

He dropped to the ground and began to stride across the dispersal. The other pilots converged on him from all angles. He glanced over his shoulder. The widow’s bottom was large and round. Her back hunched. Her hair was tied back and dirty. She rose from her haunches and as she did so she glimpsed him looking at her.

Glinka was crossing toward him fastest. He was pulling off his glove, holding out his hand. “Yeremin, that Sabre was all over me, you saved my fucking life!”

“That’s the fog of war for you, Glinka.”

Glinka half-laughed, half-hissed, not sure how to respond, but now the other pilots were around them and Yefgenii turned away.

Skomorokhov waved a glove overhead. “We got three! Yeremin got two!”

Yefgenii smiled. He couldn’t stop himself even though little Gnido was dead. “Two and a half.”

“Two and half! He’s just a boy and he’s halfway to an ace already!” Skomorokhov slapped Yefgenii on the back then rubbed his hand as if it had hurt. The men were enjoying the horseplay. Even Yefgenii kept grinning a big wide grin. He was sunning himself in the recognition. The light was shining on him at last. He felt its warmth.

Kiriya scanned the group. His face was set hard. He wasn’t yet giving away what he thought about Yefgenii disregarding his order to relinquish the lead. “Who else got anything?”

Glinka stepped up. “Me, boss — a half.”

Kiriya said, “What happened to Gnido?” He saw Yefgenii glaring at Glinka. “Yeremin?”

“We were south of the Yalu, boss, when he got hit. He went in rather than eject.”

“He put out a mayday?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it happened.”

“He was dead already,” said Skomorokhov. “Dead, or wounded, or else he’d’ve put out a mayday.”

Kiriya shrugged. “Sounds like he just went in.” He turned and left the dispersal for Ops.

Yefgenii chewed his lower lip. “Gnido took the long fall.”

Skomorokhov smoothed hair over his bald patch. “Forget it, Yeremin, it never happened.”

Yefgenii returned to the crew hut. He accepted his comrades’ congratulations and ignored the dark jealous looks that were barely hidden. Glinka carried on without the least sign of guilt. He urged Pilipenko to mark half a star on the scoreboard. Later he was ordering the ground crew to do the same on his MiG. Yefgenii gazed out of the window as they stenciled a half star on the cockpit while Glinka milked their admiration.

The clock on the wall ticked. The cloud closed into a white ceiling. The temperature fell. The cloud sank lower. Light leaked out of the world. The tower reported the last wave inbound for the airfield.

Yefgenii waited by the latrines. A door opened and Glinka stepped out. “Boss wants to see you.” Glinka gulped. He nodded and began to walk toward the buildings. “No, he’s this way.”

They marched away from the wooden shacks. The lights of the runway and the tower became remote. Over their heads passed the whine of jets rejoining the circuit. The landing lights of the last wave lit patches of cloud into gleaming white orbs that sailed through the cloud like ghost ships. In the no-man’s-land between the dispersal and the runway itself, Glinka could barely see Yefgenii, let alone Kiriya. “Where is he?”

“Here he is.” Yefgenii struck him hard on the angle of the jaw. Glinka didn’t go down, so Yefgenii hit him again and this time he crumpled to the ground with a sound that was almost a sob.

“My father—”

Yefgenii kicked him in the stomach. “You talk to anyone and I’ll find you in your bunk, before morning you’ll be dead.” The breath hissed out of Glinka and for a few seconds he was openmouthed and gasping. From the ground he gazed up. Yefgenii was becoming a blur.

A jet thundered overhead making the earth tremble. Its landing lights ghosted through the cloud. For a moment they crowned Yefgenii like a halo.

Yefgenii began shrieking at Glinka but the roar of the jet was drowning him out. In a blur Glinka saw him framed beneath a great gleaming white nimbus with his mouth snapping open in brutal shrieks. He rained down blows in between which Glinka caught only snatches of his rant:

“… war…

“…work…

“…team…

“…country…

“…glory…

“…victory…

“…kill…”

Yefgenii’s face appeared to be floating within the great white glow and then Glinka saw the light sail on. The jet roar rumbled away. It was the last aircraft of the last wave. He spat blood and tried to get up again but Yefgenii kicked him back down. He kicked him till he became breathless himself and he was spitting too when he shrieked, “Don’t you want to kill Americans?”

Glinka coughed in the dirt on all fours. “What’s the point of this shitty war?”

Yefgenii struck Glinka again and again. Glinka attempted to slap away the punches and kicks but soon gave in and rolled over. Yefgenii peered down at the crumpled figure. He could beat him to death out here in the darkness. Instead he hoisted Glinka onto his shoulder and carried him the half kilometre back to the transport trucks. The other men saw Glinka’s wounds and the bruises on Yefgenii’s knuckles and said nothing. Kiriya saw them too but he didn’t say anything either.

Night deepened as the men rode back to their barracks. They were in good cheer. Tonight there’d be celebrations in the bar. In the barracks Yefgenii rested on his bunk. His neck ached from the sortie. Pain ran in cords from the back of his head down to his shoulder blades.

The bunk beside him was empty. The sheets had been stripped down to the tatty, yellowing mattress. Someone had already packed Gnido’s effects into boxes.

“Come on, Yeremin!” The others were changing out of their flying kit. “Come on, half-ace!”

Yefgenii swung off his bunk and began to change into the uniform that resembled a demobilization suit. It marked him out as a rookie, since his seniors had accumulated enough flying pay to replace theirs with smart civilian dress.

Skomorokhov offered him one of his shirts. Yefgenii took it, sweeping some of Skomorokhov’s hairs out of the collar. At that, both men turned away lest their mutual embarrassment about Skomorokhov’s hair loss ruin the moment.

In the bar they flew the sortie all over again. Hands performed dogfights, then broke off for more cheap vodka.

Wearing Skomorokhov’s shirt, Yefgenii at last looked like a pilot of the 221st IAP, though the buttons appeared ready to pop. Skomorokhov told him he could keep it and bought him a drink for the third or fourth time that night. He dug him in the ribs and winked at him. Yefgenii turned to Pilipenko. “One more vodka and he’ll be kissing me.”

Over and over again, in an obsessive tic, Skomorokhov smoothed hair over his bald patch. He’d grown the front long and combed it back. On occasions such as these he considered himself more on show than any other man. He was the Polk’s leading ace. His status, like that of royalty, surpassed rank.

Kiriya observed the men’s high spirits. Morale was up. Toward the end of the night he decided it was time to beckon Yefgenii. He did so with a twitch of his fingers.

“All day I’ve been thinking what I’m going to do about you, Yeremin. You’re supposed to be my wingman. You’re not supposed to lead me into battle and nick all the kills for yourself.”

“It happened very fast, boss. I wasn’t even thinking.”

“Bullshit, you were trying to prove what you’re capable of.”

Yefgenii shifted. He was drunk. He didn’t trust himself to say the right thing.

“To cap it all, you beat up Stalin’s nephew.”

“Glinka is
Stalin’s nephew?
”

“So you admit beating him up.”

Yefgenii gulped.

Kiriya roared with laughter. “Of course he isn’t Stalin’s nephew!”

Yefgenii wanted to laugh, but remained too tense.

“Fuck him. I’m moving you up from wing to lead; I’m promoting you to
starshii-leitenant.
”

Yefgenii looked stunned.

“How about ‘Thanks, boss’?”

“Thanks, boss.”

Kiriya clinked glasses with him. “Enjoy it while you can.” He studied this gauche boy standing before him more than a head taller with hair so blond it looked white and eyes that burned blue, and round his chin and neck acne that stippled his creamy skin. He wondered if he might be one of those few whose names the brotherhood would one day incant as if casting a spell.