Past Loves Ch. 12: Belit and Hanifa

12: Contested Airspace, The Eastern Front, USSR: January AD1943
Belitrova and Hanifa
The two women sat in a sea of darkness surrounded by the howling biting winds of the open sky. Below them, only the endless rolling black emptiness of the steppe, a featureless desert of inky void. Above only the grey sky, lit only by the shrouded light of the moon behind the clouds. Belitrova Yanovna concentrated on keeping the plane, a Polikarpov U-2 biplane, flying straight and level due west, even with the bitingly cold January winds buffeting them from all directions. Frost had long ago unfurled across her outer layers of clothing and the chill was attempting to work its deathly fingers into the gaps between her insulated underlayers. Her whole face was covered in a thick headscarf and her eyes were kept from freezing inside her head by a pair of aviator's goggles.
After flying crop duster planes in the Ukraine from an age that she was tall enough to see above the cockpit, Belitrova had thought that she knew her way around the skies. But she had graduated only 56th out of a class of over 300 women pilots who were trained for the Red Airforce. Which was why she was flying a rickety out-of-date night bomber rather than a fighter plane. But she told herself that she was still the best damn pilot to fly what was essentially a wood and canvas coffin with wings, out over enemy territory in the middle of the night and come back to tell the tale. Although she had to admit that a lot of her successful bombings were largely due to her crack navigator and bombardier Hanifa Madiova, currently sitting about a metre behind her in the rear seat.
As navigator and bombardier, Belitrova could have asked for no better than Hanifa. She could navigate in the dark, under clouds in freezing cold temperatures with only a compass, a map and a stopwatch. She had originally been a navigator on a seaplane over the Caspian Sea, but had signed up with the airforce pretty much as soon as the fascists had invaded. She had a streak of fervent patriotism that Belitrova found both exhausting and inspiring at times. But she was also playful and caring and devilishly passionate about everything, which made Belitrova love her all the more.
Although the two of them had been flying together since they were randomly put together in the same plane, they had been 'together' for only a little bit less. Even the memory of it now was enough to warm Belitrova a little as she thought back to that night. It had been after their first successful night raid which had struck at the heart of a fascist fuel dump. The fireball that had erupted from the explosion had been enough to light the landscape for miles around and nearly since the eyebrows off of her face.
That night the drink and music had flown freely and after several too many shots of vodka, and some dancing and intense eye contact, Belitrova and Hanifa had been found kissing passionately in a corner. They had been playfully jeered out of the mess hall and told to 'get a room'. They had woken up in each other's arms the next morning, their heads and bodies aching but both very happy to have found the other so close by. Thankfully their relationship hadn't caused any kind of stir with the higher ups in the unit. In a war where every man counted, their superiors couldn't afford to be too picky about who their pilots were interested in kissing. And besides, it wasn't like either of them could get pregnant from it, so where was the harm?
And so Belitrova and Hanifa had continued their love affair, mostly behind closed doors and in privacy, as they were keen not to shove their relationship in anyone's faces. Don't ask, don't tell was the policy. Belitrova was very happy with this arrangement. When they were airborne, they were professionals, dedicated and focused on the target. She kept them flying straight and Hanifa kept them flying in the right direction, and delivered explosive death to fascist scum below. She couldn't have asked for a better navigator to fly with, the two of them made one hell of a team.
'How far out?' She called back through the open air to Hanifa.
She had to call out loudly for her voice to be heard over the howling wind and the low rumble of the single engine at the front of the plane. Hanifa had kept her head down for most of the flight and was tightly wrapped up in the ill-fitting man-sized coat that she was wearing. Her whole head was wrapped up in scarfs too with her fur hat jammed on over the top of them.
'Checking position!' Hanifa yelled back at Belitrova. 'About ten minutes out I think!'
The Nazi fortified bridge that they were aiming for had already been hit ten times that night by Belitrova and her squadron. She was hoping that they had time to make this final run before dawn broke. But as she looked over her shoulder she saw the narrow glimmer of the grey dawn rising above the horizon to the east. The 588th Bomber regiment had already lost two planes with four good women in them that night and Belitrova had no desire to make it six.
She had a Acıbadem Escort difficult call to make. As squadron leader, she could turn back now and not risk herself, her partner and the other two planes flying with her. But this would mean missing out on a chance to drop two more explosive bombs on the fascist bastards below, something which she knew her superiors and, more importantly, her flying mate would be deeply pissed off by. Or she could push on ahead and risk being spotted as the sun's light lost them the cover of darkness. If they were seen then the likelihood was that they would be shot down before they ever got to their targets. Their ancient biplanes were slow and manoeuvrable enough that they were practically untouchable by enemy aircraft, but anti-aircraft fire would rip them to shreds.
'I'm turning back!' she called out to Hanifa, 'Dawn's coming sooner than we thought!'
She could hear and feel Hanifa twisting in her seat behind her, looking back to where the sky was a slightly lighter shade of grey behind them.
'What are you talking about?!' Hanifa called back, 'The sun's not due to come up for another hour, we've got plenty of time, finish the drop!'
'I don't want to get shot down just so that you can miss the target like we do every damn time!'
'It's not about hitting the target, you know that! It's about making them fear us, about denying them rest, destroying morale! You let them get another hour of sleep and they'll be that much fresher when our ground forces attack tomorrow!'
'It's not worth it!' Belitrova called back and made to adjust her course, but before she did she felt Hanifa kick her solidly in the back with her heavy boots.
'Fuck that!' she yelled, 'You fly us there now, and let me drop this ordinance on those fascist pigs, don't be a coward!'
Belitrova could hear the frustration in her friend's voice. She looked back and saw the passionate anger in her eyes through the small slit between her scarf and her hat. And behind her the now definitely grey light of dawn. But she looked back at Hanifa's dark brown eyes, with an emotion filled crease between them and knew what she had to do. She turned back in her seat and gunned the throttle for the final approach to the target. She felt a short squeeze on her shoulder as she did so and set her shoulders for what came next.
- - -
In less than five minutes Belitrova saw the fire of the nazi camp burning like twinking sparks in the distance. Their previous raids that night had clearly taken their toll and the enemy had yet to quench those flames. Good, that would make this run even easier. As they climbed through the air, preparing for the final run, she took one last brief look over her shoulder and saw that the grey light had begun to turn to a milky yellow. They were running out of time. But Hanifa was right, they had come this far, they had to finish this.
At the apex of their climb, Belitrova pulled the plane into a glide and cut the engines. It's dull thrum was replaced with only the sound of the whistling wind passing over her wings. This was why the Nazis called them the 'Nachthexen', Night Witches. The sound of their stealthy low flying bombers was enough to instil fear in the hearts of many an invader, and with luck it would be the last thing that some of them ever heard tonight.
The descent was always the longest and hardest part of the flight. All Belitrova had to do was keep the plane moving at a steady speed, straight forwards. It was up to Hanifa to judge the distance and timing to make sure that the bombs dropped at just the right moment to hit the target. Every second Belitrova expected to hear the crack and boom of distant anti-aircraft fire. The delayed-explosion shells would rip through the canvas shell of her plane like a stone through a wet paper bag, she wouldn't even have time to dodge.
Gingerly, she reached back in her seat until her hand poked through into Hanifa's portion of the cockpit. She felt her partner's mittened hand grip hers in reply and give it a slight squeeze in re-assurance before returning to the controls. Timing was everything in these drops and Belitrova gripped the engine ignition in readiness to pull up and away the moment the bombs were dropped.
From behind she felt two short thumps against the back of ehr seat, the signal to count down from ten until drop. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Click-Click
The two bombs under either wing released simultaneously and in the same moment Belitrova kicked the ignition and the engine roared back into life. She gunned the throttle and pulled up and away as fast as she could in the semi-darkness. Even with the renewed noise of the engine thrumming at the front of the plane she still listened out for the sound of the bombs hitting the ground below. A moment later she was rewarded with the familiar distant twin booms and a flash of brief illumination as both detonated. A few moments after that came two more and then another two as her fellow Nachthexen unloaded their payloads as well.
The Acıbadem Escort Bayan squadron pulled up and away from the fortified site, attempting to make it up and out of range before the enemy had a chance to react. But they were too late. Suddenly the night sky was illuminated once more by numerous white-hot puffs of exploiting chaff as the nazi anti-aircraft gunners responded to their bombardment. Belitrova hunkered low in ehr cockpit, for all the good it would do and held on tightly to the steering column, ducking and weaving through the field of exploding metal as best she could.
It was still dark enough that she knew that the fascists could have no idea what they were shooting at, or were, but this would not stop a stray shell or lucky shot from ripping them into pieces. They had now wheeled around enough that the light of the coming dawn was ahead of them and she pushed the little plane as hard and fast as she could to get out of range before time ran out. Behind her, she heard Hanifa yell out into the open air,
'Take that you filthy shitasses!'
'Hanifa stay the fuck down!', she shouted back as another shell exploded off their right side. The plane rocked slightly from the force of the explosion, but after a quick check, they didn;t appear to have been hit.
The explosions began to recede as they swiftly fled, leaving them far behind, Belitrova dared to look away from the controls and look around in the coming light of dawn to try and spot her two fellow flyers. To their left she could make out the shadow of Kostina's Polikarpov, but when she turned to the right, she twisted and turned but could not make out the shape of Tatarova's plane.
'Hanifa, do you see Tatarova?' she called back.
Hanifa's eyes were sharper than hers, especially in the dark. But after a few moments of searching Hanifa called back,
'No... but there's a lot more fire back the way we came. She might have gone down.'
Her voice was small and broken, even over the sound of the rushing wind and thrumming of the engine. Tatarova and Irene were the fifteenth and sixteenth squadmates they had lost in a month, Hanifia always took it hard when they lost fellow flyers. Belitrova set her jaw and scowled. She hoped that the other plane had simply pulled away in a different direction and that they would be there at the makeshift airfield when they got back. Or if they had indeed been shot down, she hoped that the crash had killed them both. Better to die than to fall into the hands of the enemy.
- - -
Dawn had well and truly broken by the time the two remaining planes touched down on the makeshift landing strip. They taxied slowly to a halt on the thin scrubby grass of the steppe and clumsily clambered out of the plane, their cold limbs stiff from their time aloft. Hanifa had her eyes cast skyward, searching for the missing Tatarova and Irene. Belitrova looked up as well but couldnt see anything, and Hanifa's eyes were much sharper than her's. There was nothing, the sky was empty and the only sound was the ticking cooling noise of her plane engine and the birds in the hedgerows around.
Gingerly, Belitrova reached out and took Hanifa's mittened hand in her own, and pulled her in for a hug. There were no tears, the two of them had long since moved past the point of tears for their comrades, but holding each other close brought some small comfort in these moments. Even though both of them were still incredibly cold from the flight, their shared meagre body heat helped to slowly warm the two of them up. As the taller of the two, Belitrova stood with her chin resting lightly on the top of Hanifa's head as she held her and Hanifa wrapped her arms around her waist, encompassing her in her enormous oversized overcoat.
Eventually the two of them broke apart and Belitrova placed a small kiss on her lover's forehead, feeling the soft warmth of her skin there before they headed over to the large mess tent at the end of the field.
Breakfast was a simple affair, but they had certainly had worse. Canned American meat had been featuring a lot more recently, it seemed like the convoys were finally getting through. After breakfast it was time to head back to their tent to catch up on sleep. Their flight schedule was so erratic at the moment that it was important for them to rest whenever they had the chance. Three other crews were already laying down for sleep when the two of them scrambled into the tent. But thankfully nobody said anything when they cuddled up together in the same small bunk. In these cold January days, a fair few of the women had taken to sharing bunks to keep warm.
But strangely, as tired as she was, as Belitrova lay there in the dim light of the tent, Hanifa's head resting softly on her chest and her arm and leg draped over her, she seemed unable to fall asleep. Around her the sounds of the camp beginning its day echoed on, mechanics shouting and clanging, the rumble of engines firing as the day-time bombers and fighter planes took off. But she had become so used Escort Acıbadem to these noises over the month they ceased to keep her awake when she was so dog tired after a night of flying.
Her mind kept going back to the moment of decision, where she had made the call to follow what Hanifa had told her and continue on the mission rather than turning back. If she had ignored her and aborted the final bombing run, then Tatarova and Irene would still be alive. She knew that it had still been very dark when they had hit the target and the likelihood was that they had been hit by a randomly fired AA shell rather than a targeted hit. But still if she had called it off they would never have been there in the first place.
She told herself that it was a war, people died, friends, comrades, that it wasn't up to her to save them. She shouldn't blame herself for their loss, she should get mad at the enemy for taking them, make them pay for ever crossing the border into Mother Russia and ending the lives of millions who would have been better off left alone. But such arguments even with herself were not enough to settle her mind.
Eventually, after an hour or more of these thoughts and more rolling around inside her head, Belitrova gave up all thought of sleep and gently disentangled herself from her lover and made to leave. But before she could raise the tent flap to step out into the cold again, she heard Hanifa murmur behind her,
'Where are you going? Come back, you're warm and it's cold.'
Belitrova turned around and looked back at Hanifa still wrapped up under the blankets. She really did look incredibly cute. Her short, straight dark hair was a thicket of knots and her sleepy almond-shaped eyes barely opened to gaze accusingly up at her. Her pale round face looked almost cherubic in the pale light seeping through the tent flaps and Belitrova couldn't resist leaning back in to place a small kiss on her thin pink lips.
'It's okay darling, I can't sleep at the moment, but I'll be back soon.'
She closed the tent flap behind her and stomped off towards the airfield. The air was beastly cold as she wrapped her overcoat around her tightly, pulled her thick bearskin cap on tightly over her hair and shoved her hands into her armpits. As she stood on the edge of the landing strip she watched as plane after plane geared up and launched itself into the morning sky. Just how many of these pilots and their crew would return with empty holds? She had been told that the Luftwaffe were on their last legs and that the day-time skies were practically uncontested, but who could really trust what the political commissars told them?
At that moment she heard a noise and was about to turn and see what it was when two arms wrapped themselves around her and she felt the warm soft presence of Hanifa hugging her from behind.
'You should be sleeping,' she murmured thoughtfully through a smile.
'So should you.' Hanifa replied from the small of her back.
Belitrova disentangled herself and turned to face her girlfriend, looking down into the shorter woman's sleepy face and returning the hug.
'What's wrong? Why won't you come back and sleep? You need your rest as well.' Hanifa asked, her eyes filled with concern.
For a moment Belitrova was quiet, she didn't know what to say. Part of her wanted to lie and say that there was nothing the matter, that they should go back and lie down. Another part of her wanted to blame Hanifa for the loss of Tatarova and Irene, if she hadn't insisted on finishing the bombing run then they would still be alive. She wanted to lash out and put her grief and fear and loss onto somebody else, just so that she didn't have to feel it on her own chest.
But in the end, she just leaned in and planted a soft tender kiss onto Hanifa's lips. Her face was stone cold as their cheeks brushed together but her lips were soft and warm, warm enough to melt some of the cold fear in Belitrova's heart. At that moment she didn't care who saw the two of them, she loved Hanifa more than she had ever loved anybody and she wasn't going to hide it.
'I love you Hanifa,' she whispered over the icy gusts of wind which rolled across the airfield. Although they had been together as fellow flyers and then as friends and lovers for many months, this was the first time that either of them had said these words. For a moment Hanifa looked shocked and taken aback, but then a wide happy smile broke across her face and she pulled Belitrova in even tighter for another kiss, their lips parting and they breathed in each other's joy.
'I love you too,' she murmured back as they broke the kiss again. 'But, is that why you're out here? I don't understand what's the matter?'
Belitrova looked deep down inside herself and knew what was keeping her from sleeping. She had been afraid to acknowledge it herself because of what it would mean.
'Every time we fly, we know it might be our last mission. I'm a good flyer, and you're an even better navigator. But one day our number might come up, just like it did for Tatarova and Irene. And that doesn't scare me, it's like they say, 'one flash and you're ash'. But I am afraid, I'm afraid of losing you. It scares the life out of me that you could catch a stray bullet, or a piece of shrapnel and that would be it, no more Hanifa.