On Wings of Silence, page 5
Raisa laid another kiss on Oksana’s forehead and whispered, “Good bye, Luchik.”
CHAPTER 6
Beyond the fire Cal watched the young lieutenant gently tend to her friend’s body. Why were they here? Shit, why were any of them here? He stopped himself. He knew the answer to that. His unit had seen first-hand what Hitler and the Third Reich were capable of. The further the Allies pushed and encircled the final enclave of the Nazi supporters, the more horrors had been revealed. But these two women shouldn’t have had to endure any of this. No woman should.
Soon Raisa joined him at the fire. She didn’t sit. Wouldn’t look at him. Wiping her face, her hand shook.
He spoke softly, “Are you okay?”
“I am fine.” Turning away, she began to pace.
Calvin stood and held out a hand to stop her. “I need to tend to your wound.”
She marched past him. “I told you it is fine.”
If he could get her to stop for a minute, he could assess her, but she wasn’t having any of it. He’d seen shock exhibited in many ways. The last thing he wanted was her collapsing on him. “Doesn’t look too bad from here. A few stitches. I can make them so small you’ll barely have a scar,” he encouraged.
“I do not need stitches. One more scar does not worry me.” She was visibly shaking. It made her voice quiver.
“You’re cold.” He reached out to her again. “Maybe come sit by the fire.” Once more, she avoided his grasp and moved past.
“I am not cold. I told you I was fine.”
“Your body is telling me otherwise,” he asserted. “You’re trembling like a new lamb.”
Raisa shook her head and kept moving. “I always tremble. It is what I do.”
“You’ve been through a terrible ordeal tonight. I’m afraid you may be in shock. If you would stop pacing, I can examine you,” his tone was insistent.
She stopped but crossed her arms and held herself tight. “I appreciate what you did for Oksana, but I do not need your help. I am fine. This is how I manage ordeals...what is the word? Process? Cope? Manage my unease.”
Calvin frowned. “You do this often?” He gripped her arm hoping to take her pulse.
“Every night. Please let me be.” She pulled out of his grasp. “You are not helping.”
“It is not a healthy response.” He spoke to her back.
That stopped her. She spun on him “What is a healthy response to danger and death? Tell me? I have seen it all. Sobbing, vomiting, nightmares having girls screaming into the night, drowning one’s self in vodka. What is healthy? Tell me,” she snapped.
He held his hand in surrender. “I am only trying to help you.”
“I need no help.” She continued walking the short path back and forth. Her breathing increased. This might have been how she dealt with her stress, but it seemed to be exacerbating the situation. His concern continued to grow.
Calvin stayed out of her way but spoke to her in a gentle tone. “Lieutenant? Raisa, is it? Perhaps if you talk to me.”
“I have nothing to say,” her words were clipped.
“It might make you feel better.”
She glared at him as she passed. “What do you wish to talk about?”
“Tell me more about your two hundred women.”
Raisa stopped and looked back at her friend. Trembling, she hugged herself again as if she were trying to keep herself from shattering into a million pieces. “The enemy calls us Nacht Hexen.”
“Night Witches?” Calvin translated.
“Yes. We are a night bomber regiment.”
“All women?”
“Yes. Mechanics and crews, officers, pilots, navigators. All women. We run nightly raids across the front line. Many raids. From dusk to dawn each night.”
“At the front? Who would allow such a thing?”
She shot him an incredulous look. “Allow?”
“Yes. If what you’re saying is true, you’re a combat regiment.” Had he heard her right? Perhaps it lost something in translation. She must have been mistaken. How was it she flew a wood and canvas plane into combat? Against other bombers? Tracer rounds? It was suicide.
“I am telling you the truth. We are a combat regiment.” Her eyebrows raised.
“Women? At the actual front?”
“We are proud to fight for our country. What makes our patriotism any less because of our sex?”
“Nothing, of course, it’s just...” Had the Soviets gotten so desperate for soldiers they were recruiting young girls? The idea was horrifying.
“What?”
Her question jerked him back to their conversation. “You shouldn’t—”
She cut him off. “Shouldn’t?”
“You’re misunderstanding me.” He struggled for the right words to explain his position.
“Oh, I think I understand. You are a...a chauvinist? Is this the proper word?”
“Yes,” he was too quick to answer. “No, I mean, yes, it is the proper word. No, I am not a chauvinist.”
She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her gaze narrowed. “Your words tell me otherwise.”
He held up his hand in surrender. He’d had this argument before with several of the nurses at the field hospital. They, unlike Raisa and her comrades, were not permitted to serve in front-line units. Many objected to the Army’s restriction and whenever Calvin tried to discuss it rationally, his words always seemed to infuriate them. The discussions always deteriorated into heated accusations that he preferred his women chained to an oven without shoes. Calvin never got a chance to explain his point without digging up things that were still too raw for him. Even now. More than a year later. This conversation was no different. He’d learned long ago it was best to let it lay.
“Let’s start this conversation over. You require medical attention. Why don’t you sit by the fire and let me tend your wound? If you don’t want me to stitch it, I won’t, but it needs to be cleaned and disinfected.”
She pulled a deep breath. The muscle in her jaw twitched. Still glaring she sat and pulled off her cap.
Calvin hauled his gear closer and kneeled next to her. Eye to eye, he noted the hazel of hers. Behind a pistol barrel, they had looked darker. Her hair was bobbed, and soft to the touch as he tipped her head to examine the wound. The firelight turned several strands to copper. Cold pinked her cheeks, her lips.
She hadn’t exhibited any signs of concussion, but he shielded one eye from the light of the fire and assessed the contraction of her pupil and then the next. Good.
Using the small amount of snow that had begun to melt, Calvin dampened a cloth from his pack and wiped at the dried blood marring her face. A sprinkle of freckles made the bridge of her nose look as if she’d been dusted with bits of gold. Blood stiffened the hair at her temple and stained her collar, but on closer inspection the wound was not as grievous as he’d initially thought. Still a stitch or two would help. Calvin began to ask once more, but it was almost as if she could read his mind. She shot him a stare which emphatically said, ‘No.’
Calvin did the rest of his work in silence. It seemed safer this way, for the both of them. The only sound was the pop of wood in the small fire. Raisa continued to tremble as she held her arms tight about her chest.
The moment he applied the bandage, she was back on her feet and pacing once more. Calvin sighed and let her be. There was nothing more he could say or do for her that he believed she’d accept, and he wasn’t going to force anything. His mouth had already gotten him on her bad side.
Calvin added more bits of wood to the fire and leaned back against the wall. As for his adrenaline, he’d hit his own wall. When was the last time he’d slept? Somewhere along the way, he’d lost his watch. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. Fitting the temples back behind his ears, he glanced once more at the body of the dead navigator. If he could just close his eyes for a minute without envisioning another with moonbeam hair. He shook his head to erase the memory. Maybe sleep was a bad idea.
What he really needed was time to think. Come up with some sort of plan to get them both out of this situation alive. Knowing the incessant pain in his arm would keep him from any true sleep if he could just find a minute’s rest, he’d be sharp again and could think straight.
Raisa pacing the small space made him dizzy. At least if he closed his eyes, he couldn’t see her walking back and forth, back and forth.
Cold woke him. The fire had gone out. Shit, how long had he been asleep? It was light beyond the meager walls of the barn. He pushed against the rough wood of the wall and struggled to his feet. Moving brought the sharp bite of pain to his arm. Son of a bitch.
The woman Raisa had stopped her pacing and her trembling. She was curled close to the cold fire, blissfully still and fast asleep. Calvin cocked his head to listen. Had it only been the cold to wake him? Funny thing about sleeping in the middle of a war. Even dead asleep you were listening for footsteps. Thankfully, only the wind outside could be heard in the barn. He pulled his jacket tighter and cursed his arm once more. He’d need to change the dressing, and he really wasn’t looking forward to seeing the damage to his arm in the light of day.
Glancing back at Raisa, he considered her for a long moment. How long had she been sleeping? He didn’t want to wake her if he didn’t have to. She’s been through hell and back. Most people he knew, man or woman, would have crumbled under such stress, but Raisa certainly wasn’t like any other he’d known. Other than shaking like jelly in an earthquake, she’d been tough as nails one minute and soft and caring the next. Interesting combination.
Images of her and her sergeant ran through his mind. The tenderness between them. The woman’s final moments. The way they whispered to one another. Their final kiss. He wondered if they’d been more than comrades. Friends? Lovers? Calvin shook his head. What was between them, or had been, was none of his business.
Moving through the barn, he checked the perimeter and didn’t discover anything to indicate they’d had company. The day continued to brighten and the snow outside was undisturbed and blinding in the sun. Not a single cloud remained from the storm, and the air had a decided warmth of spring. This late in the season, what snow had fallen last night was sure to melt into a muddy mess by this afternoon.
From where he stood, Calvin could just make out the old farmhouse. There was no movement that he could see. At least not from this distance. He’d get the fire going again and make his way over there. Check things out. If he crossed to the tree line, his footprints would be less noticeable and there would be less chance he’d meet a mine buried in the field he didn’t want to meet.
A short time later, Calvin pushed into the ravaged house. He stilled his breathing and listened again. Like the barn, the farmhouse was silent and cold. Nothing suggested any occupants, friendly or not. A thick layer of dust everywhere told him the occupants and any visitors had long gone. The place was a ransacked tomb. Everything was smashed or torn. Debris littered the wooden floors. He doubted there was anything worth searching for, but perhaps there were still some things he could use.
Wandering through each room, he kicked aside bits of broken furniture and remnants before navigating the rickety remains of the staircase to the upper floor. Nothing remained in the bedrooms either save a rusted bed spring thrown against the wall and the shattered remains of a nightstand and milk glass lamp. Faded, yellowed wallpaper peeled in wide strips from the plaster walls. Holes had been viciously blown through the lathe and plaster clear to the outside. Nothing had been spared.
Moving past the bedframe, something crunched beneath Calvin’s boot. He froze before bending and retrieving the shattered remains of a framed photograph of a young couple. A wedding photograph. Bits of glass fell away as he looked into the eyes of a man with a high starched collar. His chest puffed in pride with a wide smile on his face. Putting the edges of the torn photo together revealed a dark-haired woman who shared her groom’s grin behind an armload of flowers.
Calvin scanned the room. Had this been their house? Had the groom carried his bride over the threshold and up here to their bed? Did they arrive with hopes of growing old here together? Raise their family? Calvin couldn’t help but wonder what had become of them. Had they been seized like so many in this area? Were they dead? Imprisoned? Or had they been some of the lucky ones who had gotten out before the SS carved their bloody path through this region?
Setting aside the photograph, Calvin continued his search, once more struck by the similarities to his own parent’s home. He couldn’t imagine seeing his childhood home destroyed like this. Through what remained of the kitchen, his boots crushed shards of pottery and china littering the floor. Anything that could have been smashed had been obliterated. But this house hadn’t been shot at like the barn. This destruction had been done by human hands. Methodically. Meticulously. Viscously.
A screened door hung by a single screw off the back of the kitchen. Calvin scanned the surroundings before stepping outside. The brightness of the sun on the snow blinded him, but shielding his eyes, a few familiar sights gave him some hope. The wellhead was still visible beneath the snow. He had Halazone tablets in his kit to purify water, but seeing the state of the house, he wouldn’t trust the well hadn’t been poisoned. No, there was still enough snow to fill his canteen and get to a more secure source.
What appeared to be the farm’s cold frame caught Calvin’s attention. A common thing as everyone back home had a root cellar. Calvin kicked at the door and the crumbling remains of the ladder beneath the snow. He’d lay money there was no food left, but if he could manage to drop down it was worth looking.
Back at the barn, Calvin set the few items he’d salvaged aside and added more wood to the fire. He warmed his hand. Raisa was still asleep. Out of a sense of respect, Calvin took the remains of a drape he’d secured from the farmhouse and covered Oksana’s body and the ashen mask of her face. Lost in his own mourning, he stood beside her for a long moment before adding a quick prayer for her soul. Not that he was a religious man, but it felt like the right thing to do. His mother would have insisted. When Raisa awoke, they would need to discuss what to do with her.
There were a great many things that would require discussion. Let’s hope this time he’d keep his foot out of his mouth.
CHAPTER 7
Raisa woke. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Her head pounded and her body felt as if she’d taken a beating. Then it all rushed back to her. It hadn’t been a nightmare. The events of last night were real. The mission, the storm. Ice. Crashing.
Oksana was dead. “I love you, Raisa. I’m in love with you.”
Raisa moaned, burying her head beneath an arm. It was all true.
“Good morning.” She startled. Calvin Elliott was tending the fire, pulling a tin pot of sorts away from a tidy bank of coals.
“Good morning,” she mumbled, her voice still thick with sleep.
“I’ve found us a feast.” He held up a hand. “If you can call two wrinkled carrots and a sad excuse for a turnip a feast, but it was all I could find. There’s warm water. No coffee, I’m afraid. Or do you drink tea? Doesn’t matter, I don’t have tea either. Maybe carrot soup?” Water also simmered in the shell of his steel helmet. He tossed the handful of sad vegetables into the water.
In the light of day, Calvin Elliott looked even more German than the night before. Blond hair was cut short on the sides. The shadow of a darker beard followed his jaw. Wire-rimmed glasses framed eyes the color of cornflowers. She recalled their conversation of last night. It was clear he believed women were inferior and had the gall and stupidity to say it. Had he not been such a horse’s ass, she might have found him attractive.
But he’d been an unexpected support to them last night when she’d lost hope. Taking care of Oksana like he had. Helping even when she was beyond help. It hadn’t escaped Raisa’s notice that he gave his last dose of morphine to Oksana when clearly, he could have used it to relieve his own pain. He gained some of her respect for this alone.
Raisa turned to look at where Oksana lay. She still couldn’t believe she was gone. If anyone should be dead, it should be her. Oksana was nothing but light and beauty. It made Raisa’s heart ache to think she’d never see her sweet smile again. The body was draped in a stiff cloth adorned with dusty yellow roses.
“What is covering her?”
“A curtain. I found it in the farmhouse.”
“You went to the house?”
“Nothing much left, but I snagged a few things I thought would come in handy.” He held up his hand as if he anticipating an objection from her. “Made sure to hide my tracks, although the temperature is climbing. Doubt there will be much snow left by this afternoon. We won’t need the fire for much longer. Going to let this die out.” He pushed at the coals with a stick. “I’m worried the smoke may be more visible than we want.”
His chatter was beginning to grate on her. Her head pounded. “You talk too much.” She rubbed a hand over her forehead and winced when she brushed the bandage there. She recalled how gentle he’d been with her. How he’d held her gaze and wiped the blood from her face. He still talked too much.
“Never been the strong, silent type,” he joked.
Raisa gave him a side glance. “Could you give it a try?”
He held up a surrendering hand again and smirked. “Not a morning person, got it.”
Raisa continued to rub her eyebrows. “My head hurts.”
“I can help with that.” He pulled over the warmed water, fished two round, white tablets out of a bottle, and held them out to her.
“Thank you.” She swallowed them with a sip of warm water. It heated a path into her empty belly. The tin warmed her hands. “Thank you,” she repeated. She drank some more.
“When you’re feeling better, we should discuss our plan.”
She gave him a hard look over the tin’s edge. “Our plan?”
“Might be a good idea,” he suggested.
