Ascent by Jed Mercurio Read online

“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.r />
  He said, “This is a war between great nations. Not the same as a great war. But enjoy it — it’s the best one we’ve got.”

  “Just like this vodka!”

  Kiriya grinned. “What do you care? You’re a starshii-leitenant with two and a half kills!”

  “I am, boss!”

  The men stayed late. There were more hours of drinking before they drifted back to the barracks.

  Out in the darkness, Yefgenii paused. The Moon hung in the east. He breathed. The air carried a smell of pinecones from the forest that divided the base from the airfield.

  If he’d been killed yesterday, there’d’ve been only a blank space where his life had run. Now something of substance was forming in the space that some of us fill and others leave empty. He hated men like Glinka who aimed only to survive this tour so they could return to their lives. Glinka’s type didn’t long for battle and that which comes with it: the chance to measure themselves against other men. Perhaps only in sport does a man measure himself against another man in any sense that’s true. The air battles were sport, but they were also more.

  Yefgenii’s dream had been born in a sewer and now he could dream of vying with the likes of Jabara for the title of Ace of Aces. He wouldn’t dare announce his ambition to the others. They would only laugh.

  As it happened, Jabara wasn’t even in Korea anymore — he’d been sent back to the U.S. on a publicity tour. At this time the leading ace of the war was Major George A. Davis Jr., with fourteen victories, though Davis wasn’t in Korea anymore either. He’d been shot down and killed in February by Kapetan Mikhail Averin of the 148th GvIAP.

  “Congratulations, Leitenant.”

  He spun around. The widow stood a short distance away but he couldn’t see much of her except that she was smoking a cigarette. A light breeze wafted the smoke toward him. “On what?”

  “Your victories.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you smoke? I have only this one, but we can share it.”

  He hesitated.

  She smiled. He was still only a boy. She walked toward him and offered him the cigarette.

  He took a drag, then handed it back. She stood beside him in silence. They breathed the cold night air that smelled of pinecones. He looked at her. Gnido was dead, but he was alive.

  THE AIR WAS SPLIT. Metal clashed like the clash of cymbals. An F-86 floated into his crosshairs and he pulled the trigger. Tracers flickered. Smoke ballooned till it enveloped him and then, when he broke out of it, the Sabre was far below and trailing a plume of soot.

  Another day burned and from the brown foothills, 5,000 metres down, came a burst of light. Maybe it came from water or from glass. A few seconds later he glimpsed it again a half kilometre farther south and now he knew it to be the glint of metal that was moving at hundreds of kilometres per hour. He tipped his wings over and dropped the nose. The other five pilots in the zveno knew not to question. They followed him down knowing soon enough they’d see what he’d seen. It was a Gloster Meteor. As he closed he identified red-white-and-blue roundels on its wingtips and on its fuselage aft of the wing roots. The British pilot didn’t even see the MiGs. He’d never known it was a fight and now it was his death. Yefgenii’s shells struck his fuselage and the Meteor swung into the hillside.

  At 10,000 metres four B-29s were sailing toward targets in North Korea. Eight Sabres flew escort. In the first pass the fighters scattered. MiGs and Sabres divided into elements and then it became a free-for-all. He isolated a Sabre and his cannons ripped into its tailplane. The hits went on until smoke burst from its engine, then it stuttered and fell.

  He was an ace.

  As he thought of medals, a Sabre locked onto his tail. Gunfire peppered his wing. As he pulled round hard he glimpsed splinters leaping off and vanishing into his slipstream. The turn tightened to the buffet. The stick was quaking but the needles held still on their marks as he sucked in short breaths and strained out long ones. Grayness encroached on the rim of his vision and he had to quicken his respiration. He was going at thirty a minute and beginning to feel light-headed. Then the Sabre swam into his gun-sight. He’d outturned it. His finger hammered the trigger and in seconds the American was smoking. Three MiGs were lost but the Sabres had been cut apart and now Yefgenii was climbing up to a B-29. His guns nailed its starboard engines. It was trying to turn but it was big and clumsy and the pilot must’ve been calling for fighter support but those who were left were down among the MiGs fighting for their own lives. Yefgenii’s cannons began to rip the bomber’s port engines. The big gun stuttered out of ammunition so he continued with the 23 mm guns. The B-29’s cowling splintered. Blades and the shaft of the propeller spiraled apart. The bomber plunged and one by one the men began bailing out.

  The widow stenciled the new red stars on his cockpit. She’d started without even asking his permission. She felt a share in his success.

  From the Ops hut Kiriya watched her paint on the stars: he had eight. Skomorokhov watched: he had twelve. Pilipenko watched: he had nine. The hunger drove all three. Each man nurtured a dream of becoming Ace of Aces. Behind the camaraderie, dark thoughts poisoned the brotherhood.

  Glinka didn’t look. He couldn’t bear even to meet Yefgenii’s eyes. Resentment ate away at him.

  The following week Yefgenii claimed two more and overtook Kiriya. Kiriya offered his congratulations but inside it was agony. The boy stood a realistic chance of making the kind of reputation in this war that would crown him a king among kings. The line of stars after his name on the scoreboard in Ops got a little longer. Now only Pilipenko and Skomorokhov had more. They were going up at least twice a day to get kills, to stay ahead. In secret Skomorokhov had started aligning a pair of mirrors to help him comb over his bald patch.

  The land was turning brown. Only the pines remained green. In the mornings frost glistened on the bare trees. The snow line was creeping down from the mountains; a soup of cold air seeped onto the plain. Even at lower altitude, the MiGs laid white trails that lasted half the day, and, below them, the Yalu River appeared no longer steel but darker, like the gray of slate.

  Stars sparkled overhead as Yefgenii stood under the black sky. He was the youngest ace in the VVS, the youngest jet ace in history, yet in his chest remained a space to be filled. He’d set himself on the long journey to the heavens, to become celestial himself, but he feared no number of kills would be enough. His eyes drifted over the patterns of the stars. Already it felt too late to learn their names. The race against death would be too swift.

  He heard footsteps crunch over the hard ground. They approached from the barrack shacks and stopped at the perimeter where he stood.

  “I knew it would be you,” she said.

  “How?”

  “You want to be alone. I get that from you, when you come back from flying.”

  “Now I’m not alone.”

  “No.” Her breath formed a thin vapor. It gave her evanescent tusks. “D’you want me to go?”

  “I’m not inclined to tell you what to do.”

  “What would you say, if you were?”

  He appeared not to understand. She smiled at him. She felt so much more experienced than him, and, of course, she was. She had to take his hand to draw him near, and then he understood he had permission.

  Soon his palms were gripping the widow’s ribs. Her breasts slapped against the backs of his hands as he thrust in and out of her from behind. The smell of her cunt rose into his nostrils. Her wide buttocks shone like ivory in the moonlight. They were globes.

  Yefgenii felt his semen rising and he knew in the next few seconds he’d come. He pulled out of her and with two or three jerks of his hand he spurted into the shrubs around their feet. His come clung to the leaves, where it glistened like some strange kind of resin.

  She turned. She blinked at him as she straightened up. Only his eyes had colour. Though they were his only notable feature she didn’t like them. She would have preferred them large and brown but h
is were animal eyes. He gazed back at her with a look that could have presaged love or murder but in truth was a look that meant he would do nothing and that he felt nothing.

  He wondered why he’d acted like this with her. The answer was because it was on the ground. By his actions on the ground he would not be known and therefore they weren’t worth troubling over.

  The next morning he and Kiriya scrapped over a kill. A damaged Sabre was struggling south trailing black smoke. The MiGs were scissoring over each other’s wings to launch the fatal shots. Yefgenii got the American in his crosshairs and blew off his tail.

  “You jammy bastard, Yeremin, I had him.” They were flying home, crossing the Yalu. Kiriya’s laugh sounded hollow as he clicked off.

  “Boss, you know you’ve owed me one for a long time.”

  “I suppose I have.”

  In the bar they toasted each other but the muscles in Kiriya’s face were twitching. Skomorokhov and Pilipenko raised their glasses too. Every day at the scoreboard the boy’s line of stars lengthened. It was creeping toward theirs like a snake, like a monster. Pilipenko stopped calling him “son.” Skomorokhov would sometimes slip out of a room when he strutted in.

  His eyes were always first to the target. A Sabre kill over Sŏnch’ŏn made him a double ace. There were four more F-86s and then a U.S. Navy F9F-2 Panther that swung out into the Sea of Japan but lost power from the damage his guns had done to its engine. It toppled forward toward the sea. The canopy burst open and a moment later the pilot was launched out over the gray waters. A white parachute bloomed. The sea broke the plane’s back and flung up a plume of spray.

  He led six MiGs after a pair of Sabres. The Americans fought with courage but they were outnumbered. The first struck trees. He damaged the second but before he could finish him off the pilot made it over the Nan and then ejected. So now he’d overtaken Pilipenko. In the 221st IAP, only Major Skomorokhov had scored more kills. The moment Skomorokhov heard the news he marched into Kiriya’s office and demanded to go up on the next wave. They both went up, Kiriya and Skomorokhov, but for them the sky had emptied. Kiriya contained his emotions but it felt like dying inside. Skomorokhov hit the runway so hard he burst a tire.