Red Star Airacobra by Evgeniy Mariinskiy

Author:Evgeniy Mariinskiy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027100
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781907677540
Publisher: Helion
Published: 2006-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

12

The German Communists

When Korolev and I entered the dug-out, Captain Ulyanov was sitting among the squadron officers. Well, the Regimental Party Leader had come to talk to the flyers, heart-to-heart, to pass on the latest news, to seek advice from the Communists how to organise his work better. And maybe he had come to have some fun, to laugh at the simple jokes of young people. It was a common thing to do. But why did he glance at the new arrivals so gloomily, and immediately turn towards the Squadron Party Leader, Arkhipenko?

“Well, we’re all here, tell us, Ulyanov.”

“Nothing good to tell. We’ve been feeling sorry for Chugunov. We haven’t taken him in hand properly. And I haven’t really been talking to him much. And I was relying on you. We have all been on different aerodromes. He’s been on one, I’ve been on another. Who would have helped him but you, the communists, his comrades? And you, Mariinskiy, have been accepted as a candidate. You know yourself, what kind of condition we are in. And you have to work, to worry about your mate!”

“What could I have done? The Commander, Korolev, has spoken to him many a time. What do you expect from me?”

“But what’s happened, really?” Victor interrupted me. “He’s in Nikiforovka, isn’t he?”

“That’s the thing. He stayed there, got passionate towards an orderly from sickbay, but she didn’t accept his hot pretensions. It looks like he’d got into a frenzy, and emptied his pistol into her stomach.”

“He’s a beast not a man.”

“What kind of beast?” Ulyanov was surprised.

“Variegated”, Victor explained his idea. “He’s a chicken in the air and a lion on the ground!

“What’s going to happen hyar now?”

“What’s going to happen?” The Party Leader repeated the question. “We’ve let it slip. It’s too late to think about it. His case has been sent to the courts martial. Most likely he’ll be sent to a penal battalion. Eh, we didn’t put him in his place in time.”

“Why feel sorry for him? We should have sent this Aeneas away long ago.”

“We should have. No. It’s not right, Korolev. Maybe he stooped to this stuff because you’d given up on him straight away, didn’t help him out. We’re all guilty, we have a sin to answer for.”

No more fighting occurred that day. The Fascists obviously didn’t consider it necessary to cover their surrounded troops. Strictly speaking, they’d never been covering their ground troops. The German aviation might not appear over the front line, for two or three hours, but then a large group of bombers and fighters might arrive. This way, they would try to build up aerial superiority over the front line, at least for a short period of time. And their transport aviation preferred the worst kind of weather, when it would be feasible to sneak into the pocket unnoticed. Then they’d bring up ammunition and crosses, to evacuate generals and senior officers under cover of low cloud, thick haze or snowfall. On one of these foul days, Gulayev came across a Ju-52, a three-engine transport plane.

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