Chapter 15

'Oz's' group came down from the high pass before nightfall to find some shelter. The found a deep gully with a fast flowing stream that ran down towards the Llobregat. The comrades found ledges and hollows along the rock face of the cliff and tried to rest.

It was growing colder still and the they huddled together to keep warm. To make things more uncomfortable, a shower swept down on them, freezing, sludgy rain heavy with ice.

'Oz' had wedged himself into a hollow in the rockface. The wind swept past him, freezing, bitingly cold and he could feel his body heat being sucked out into the Pyrenees. He couldn't remember feeling so miserable before in his life.

Something scraped and another body tumbled into his hideaway. It was Catalina. She put her arms around him and pressed herself to his body. 'Oz' could feel her shivering, her face was blueish and he pulled her against his chest. She left the merest hint of warmth where she breathed into the comfort of his body. Eventually she stopped shaking dozed. He himself slept fitfully, woke, and checked Catalina was still breathing. She was and he relaxed a little.

Captain Chernagovka came and fetched John in the morning in a military car. He farewelled Benin with a long, lingering embrace. She told him, smiling, that he should not leave the aeroplanes waiting too long. She waved as the car sped off towards the Air Force's facility.

She looked down the phone list provided by the RAFTRWI Welfare Office, part of the package of materiel provided to them by the Air Force. She found the Medical Service and dialled the number. This was time to practice her newly acquired Russian phrases. She'd practiced the night before.

John was driven to a large hangar, something of a centrepiece in the Aircraft Testing area of the complex. A group of uniformed people had been lined up as a sort of reception committee. They all had their pilot's brevet proudly displayed on their chests and wore the short khaki quilted jacket permitted for air force personnel. The Captain explained that these were the cream of the Air Force's test pilots, the very best, and they were all anxious to meet him.

"Why?" John asked, bemused.

"Because you've been in combat," he replied, "and this," he smiled like a cheetah. In his hand was a copy of the 'Red Star, ' the Air Force's newspaper. On the front page was a photo of him, in Spanish Uniform, standing proudly in front of an I16 Mosca. He barely remembered when the photo was taken. Maybe 2 years ago, he thought, when the squadron received its first Mk 10. "You're a star, yes, like Hollywood film!" the Captain laughed.

The Captain introduced each Officer, who warmly shook John's hand. When the formality was over, they mobbed him, firing questions at him that totally defeated John's limited understanding of the language. John stood among them, embarrassed and confused by the adulation. The Captain laughingly told everyone to ask questions one at a time and he would translate.

"Perhaps," he said, "we should make ourselves more comfortable? Over tea and some breakfast?" John readily agreed, he was finding it hard to cope.

In the dining room they all sat at a large table, upon which was placed a samovar. The Captain poured for John. He was growing accustomed to Russian tea, strong, black and sweet.

"You fight Messerschmitt?" asked a woman, in English. She was blond and pretty, perhaps in her late twenties, and wore the ribbon of the Order of the Red Star.

"Yes," John told her, "some 'C' and 'D' models. The 'E' hadn't arrived by the time our squadron disbanded."

"Ah! And you shoot one down?"

"No," he replied, sadly, "I didn't get the pleasure." They all laughed at that, especially after the Captain translated for the non-English speakers.

Another asked a question in Russian.

"Lieutenant Smilovich wants to know whether you can turn inside a Messerschmitt in an I16?"

"Yes," John explained, "but they can outclimb and outdive you. They will not turn if you get on the tail of one. Instead, they'll roll over and dive straight down or go up in a loop. If you try to follow they'll come down on top of you."

"An Immelmann turn?" suggested the woman as the Captain translated for the others.

"Sometimes," he agreed, "but mostly a basic loop or a split 'S'"

"Ah!"

"Formation?" the Captain asked, "what's their basic formation in combat?"

"The 'Kette, ' a man and his wingman, behind and slightly above, in a loose formation of four."

"Ah!"

The conversation wound on for an hour as more tea arrived. They all wanted to know about the Messerschmitt Bf 109. Apparently, all of the Red Air Force's combat fighter pilots were spooked by the new German fighter. Designers and technicians had been working overtime to develop a response to the challenge. It dawned on John just why he'd been 'invited' to the facility, perhaps why he and Benin had been brought to Russia in the first place? He was one of only a handful of pilots that had encountered, and fought, the '109.'

Later, the group led him through to the hangar. There, in the centre of the cavernous building, was an aircraft, a single engined monoplane. The engine panels were open and a mechanic was working on it standing on a scaffold. Several other technicians smiled when they saw John. They were clearly proud of their baby.

John looked up at the open engine compartment. It was an inline, a V12, liquid-cooled and on the right cylinder head he could see stamped, 'Hispano-Suiza' and below it 'France.' It was an engine John was familiar with, the latest 'Moteur-Canon' version of the H-S 12Y. The Captain told him Russia had obtained the production license and it was going to be the standard in-line engine for Soviet fighter aircraft.

"Good!" he told them. It was a very reliable and powerful engine, although not particularly efficient at high altitude. John assumed the Russians would have known that.

He continued to walk around the aircraft, studying its lines, imagining it in combat, and its aerobatic potential. As he continued to study it, John became disappointed, then alarmed. He didn't care about crushing the egos of the technicians, standing so proud and waiting for John's nod. He was alarmed for the young pilots that would have to fly it in combat against the best fighter in the World. John thought it was a dog and he had to tell them so.

Firstly, the motor; it was short-winded at the altitude the Messerschmitt prefers. An enemy flying the '109' just needed to climb and this aircraft would be at a severe disadvantage. Secondly, the design itself, and here, John mused, is why pilots should be consulted by designers before any metal is cut.

The nose was too long and the cockpit was set too far back for forward vision. The pilot sat almost level with the trailing edge of the wing and thus had no view downwards. The wings were short, not a bad thing in an aerobatic aircraft, but it meant the landing speed would have to be very high. That, coupled with the extremely limited forward view, meant that it would be highly dangerous to land in perfect conditions. The presence of any crosswinds, battle damage, or a rough improvised landing strip, and the aircraft would be positively lethal for even an experienced pilot.

"It was designed by a team led by a young, new designer called Mikoyan," the Captain explained. "he was assisted by an old hand, a fellow called Dr Gurevich. We call it the MiG 3. What do you think?"

"They should be shot!" John told him. The Captain's face froze.

The woman Doctor returned smiling. She pulled back the curtain behind which Benin was putting her clothes back on. The Doctor's smile was all Benin needed. She grinned back.

"When?" Benin asked.

"On or about the middle of August," she replied. Benin counted back the days in her head. She thought it must have been on the 'Tchervonya Ukrainiya.' She smiled at the thought. 'John had been so tender, so considerate.'

She wished he could've been here instead of buzzing around in the aeroplanes he so loved. She hoped it wouldn't always be so, that she'd take second place to a machine.

"You wish to send a message to your husband?" the Doctor asked. 'Husband, ' Benin thought. Yes, she supposed convention would mean marriage. It would certainly be less complicated in the long run, but she wasn't sure whether she was ready. It meant readjusting her whole political outlook, to take on an institution she once swore would never be her destiny. 'A form of bondage, ' she recalled, 'a bourgeous property contract'! At least, she thought, the Russians do it in a civil ceremony in front of a State appointed official. She couldn't see herself in a church, bowing in front of the altar, while a robed priest droned on in Latin.

"Madam?"

"Sure," Benin replied, "by all means. Send a message to my 'husband'"

'Oz' woke with a start. The sun filtered into the gully sending bright gold shafts of light onto the sparkling, clear waters of the stream. Catalina stirred beside him. She wiped her face on his jacket before looking up, bleary-eyed and smiling.

"It's morning?" she said. 'Oz' nodded. "We survived!" she added. John nodded again. He hoped the rest of the them were in the same condition.

Outside they heard the stirrings of life as the rest of their friends stumbled out from their shelters. Someone urinated into the stream just outside, muttering. A man stumbled past looking for firewood. Beni appeared and beamed at them.

"That's all of us!" he said, delighted.

No breakfast was forthcoming, the last of their food had been eaten. They were all fatigued, cold, wet from last night's shower, and still Catalina found the energy to start singing. 'Oz' thought she was the most remarkable woman he'd ever met.

Just then, there was a shower of stones and two men slid down the cliff above them. They wore heavy snow suits and felt boots, an ice axe vied with ammunition pouches on their belts. On their heads they wore woollen balaclavas and over their shoulders, short, repeating carbines.

The comrades scrambled for their weapons or ducked for cover. The two newcomers, however, put up their hands and called for calm. Their accents were strange to 'Oz's ears. Catalina whispered to him that they were Basques, and no friends of Franco.

"Where y'goin'?" one of the men asked.

"France," Beni answered.

"How?"

Beni shrugged. He admitted he'd no idea.

The man whistled through his teeth. Catalina explained, quietly, that the Basques do that all the time.

"Y'come, I show!" the man said. They hastily grabbed their belongings and stumbled after the fast-moving Basque guerillas as best they could.

John had raised a hornet's nest. In the near distance, behind a closed door, he could hear angry voices, raised, agitated. He'd been left standing in the middle of the hangar in front of the aircraft he instantly loathed, and bagged bluntly in front of its proud technicians.

Reputations must be riding on his approval, John thought, because the Russians, technical and operations alike, had flown into a frenzy when he made his pronouncement.

A figure came up alongside him. It was the woman, the blond test pilot he'd talked to in the dining hall. She was grinning evilly.

"You told them the MiG 3 is a piece of shit?" she said.

"Yes," he answered.

"I tell them," she chuckled, "we all say the same thing, but they not listen. Maybe they listen now?"

"I hope so," John said, "because, if I was a squadron commander, I wouldn't want to send my boys up in one."

"Nor me," she agreed, "or girls either." John grinned at the mild reproach. "I'm Jana Ivanova, in case you forgot" she told him, "senior pilot here."

John shook her hand. He had forgotten her name. Unknown to John, Jana Ivanova was as near a star as was possible in Stalin's Russia. She had been an aerobatic and display pilot before being assigned to RAFTRWI. She'd travelled throughout Russia, exciting crowds with her feats of aerial dexterity, in a kind of road show to display Soviet aviation to the masses. She'd also toured in the West, had starred for the Russian team at air displays in France and Germany. And, when all was said and done, she looked like a Hollywood film star with her long blond hair and favourable genes. She was something of a poster girl for the new Russia. The attractive face of the Soviet system to display to the West.

"You see," she explained, "here in Russia is all about friends and arse-licking. Mikoyan, he's liked in the Ministry and he goes out of his way to suck up. He made some very good aerobatic machines for the team in France. The Ministry liked the, how you say, 'praise' the foreigners gave to the Russian team. The bureaucrats all got medals for doing a good job and showing Russia is top in aviation. But it's all bullshit. We had the best pilots and we could have won the competitions with a better plane. But Mikoyan, he praised the plane and blamed the pilots."