Ascent by Jed Mercurio Read online

  On Yefgenii’s twentieth birthday there were drinks in the bar. Kiriya led the toasts. Despite his own pain, he could admire Yefgenii’s triumphs: it was white envy. He kissed him on both cheeks. “Congratulations, Kapetan Yeremin.” Pilipenko threw an arm round his shoulders. Yefgenii Yeremin had become the youngest kapetan in the VVS.

  Glinka was still a starshii-leitenant. His eyes drifted to Skomorokhov’s. Both men had the same look of a gap in them that’d never be filled.

  The next day, once airborne, they tested their guns as usual and then Yefgenii led them over the Yalu. From 15,000 metres they swooped into a squadron of Sabres. In the first pass he got one but his wingman was killed. “Glinka, get on my wing!” Yefgenii’s head swept round the cockpit. “Glinka!”

  Glinka was climbing out of the battle. Yefgenii saw him crossing above. Two more MiGs were battling a Sabre pair. Glinka looked down and saw Sabres converging on his leader. It was a simple move to tilt in their direction and open fire but instead he turned away and kept on climbing.

  Yefgenii was alone and vulnerable. A pair of Sabres had seen him and were swooping in behind. He jerked his aircraft into a sharp evasive turn and in doing so he spotted Skomorokhov turning in from the edge of the battle. “Sko! Get the fuckers off me! Sko!”

  Skomorokhov watched Yefgenii’s MiG curve along the horizon. Two Sabres were banking round behind him. Cloud matted the sky and the land. Against white, the aircraft stood out in isolation. Their dance was the only living thing in creation. They were cut off from the world.

  The leading Sabre opened fire on Yefgenii. “Sko!”

  Skomorokhov tilted away. He watched over his shoulder. His heart was pounding. Sweat chilled on his skin. To desert a comrade was unthinkable but so was losing his place at the top of the mountain.

  Yefgenii pulled round. Tracers were flashing past his cockpit. He saw a Sabre climbing onto Glinka’s tail. “Glinka, check six!”

  Glinka snapped his MiG into a turn. The move was so sudden and violent that the airflow ripped away. Yefgenii glimpsed Glinka’s wings glinting in the sun. They were tilting up to the vertical. For a split second the MiG hung in perfect stillness on its side. Then the wings shuddered and it stalled. Glinka plunged straight down and struck one of the Sabre pair that was closing on Yefgenii. The Sabre’s wing sheared clean off. It spun away and on the second or third rotation its fuel tank ruptured. Glinka’s MiG divided into a thousand nuggets and Yefgenii could even imagine them tinkling as they sprinkled into the air.

  Someone shouted “Taran!” It might’ve been Skomorokhov but Yefgenii couldn’t be sure. Taran, the ramming maneuver — on any other day he’d’ve laughed at the suggestion. The zveno was scattered and disorganized and Yefgenii ordered them to run for home.

  “Taran!” Skomorokhov repeated in the crew hut. He wore a strange expression as if he found the whole thing hilarious. His heart was still drumming from his betrayal. He hated himself for it but wasn’t glad that Yefgenii had survived. He felt he’d learned that his competitive drive knew no moral limit and that this was a thing to be proud of.

  Kiriya turned to Yefgenii. “Yeremin?”

  “It wasn’t a ramming maneuver, sir. It was a fuck-up. I’d call it a midair collision.”

  In his office Kiriya considered his report to Moscow. The officials there would know nothing of the sortie apart from his dispatch. His account would enter the records. It would become history; it would become the truth.

  With one act, Glinka’s life would be defined, and it was up to Kiriya to choose the definition. He began to write. Cornered by the Americans, Glinka committed the supreme self-sacrifice, the ramming maneuver. He took one with him rather than surrender. This was the stuff of comic books. Kiriya was recommending Glinka for a posthumous Order of Lenin. He’d be remembered as a great hero and a great pilot.

  As winter approached, the flying days became shorter, but it wasn’t long before Yefgenii overtook Skomorokhov. The news came down from the tower. Skomorokhov nodded. He felt the other men’s eyes on him. He was deposed from his royal status and now he knew they’d all see him the same way he saw himself — as tubby and balding.

  As Yefgenii returned to base, frost glistened on the edges of his canopy. Sweat chilled under his suit. When he took off his mask, his breath condensed into a small cloud. He had more kills than any pilot in the 221st. He was a Hero of the Soviet Union, had won the Order of Lenin and only Pepelyaev and Sutyagin had more jet kills in the entire VVS.

  Kiriya would often seek him out in public places so that the ground crews could see them talking together, the boss and the spectacular young hero, in a mutual reflection of celestial glory. He’d taken to calling him “Yo-Yo”. Kiriya chose to believe that he was the Sun to Yefgenii’s Moon; the boy shone with a brightness he supplied.

  Anyone who got a kill wanted to report it first to Yefgenii. His approval had begun to count more than Kiriya’s. He couldn’t go anywhere on the base without someone calling out a greeting. At dinner, the rookies would keep a place for him at their table, and be crestfallen if he gravitated to a rival clique. If he approached, their hearts would race, like teenagers with a crush.

  Pilipenko had accepted him as his equal in the air despite his junior rank, but, now that Yefgenii had surpassed them all, Pilipenko was at a loss to relate to his status. The best approach was not to consider him a man at all but a myth. His gifts were inscrutable, his achievements imaginary and his name could only be whispered, never said aloud.

  When with swooping hands they’d recount their stories in the bar, it was Yefgenii’s everyone wanted to hear. Skomorokhov would follow with one of his own — the day he became an ace, how he became a double — but it was never enough. At one time he’d been a prince; unburdened by Kiriya’s responsibilities to command, he’d been in a position to dispense grand favors. A word of praise to a young pilot would be greeted with fawning appreciation. A stinging put-down to a runt would win laughter.

  To a group of rookies Skomorokhov recounted how he was bounced by a pair of Sabres and ended up with smoke in the cockpit but still made it home. He received no looks of wonder. Instead the rookies turned to Yefgenii for his reaction. Skomorokhov flushed with resentment. “Yeremin, ever flown with worse viz inside the cockpit than out?” No one laughed at the joke.

  Yefgenii hadn’t called him “sir” or “Major” for weeks. “You know, Sko, I think the superior pilot uses his superior judgment to stay out of situations that test his superior ability.”

  Skomorokhov flung his vodka glass into the fire.

  Now, as Yefgenii climbed into the east, a dusting of snow lay across the fields below. The peaks of the Changbai Range were shrouded in fog, but the Yalu remained clear, the dividing line between the offices of mortals and the arena of those who wore wings. His sharp eyes hunted two more kills and a share in another and when he landed back at Antung the runway was hard as stone with bands of frost fringing its shoulders.

  The widow had instructed the other women not to return to their barracks until at least an hour after dinner. They knew it was so he could visit her but no one dared object. He was the glory of the 221st encapsulated in one man. To deny him would bring misfortune.

  They had sex in her bunk and as usual he withdrew before the end. Her fingers inched down his body, teasing him; she laughed; then she took him in hand and in mouth and in a few seconds he came.

  Afterwards she smoked a cigarette. “You’ve never told me how long you’re here for.”

  “I don’t know. It could all end tomorrow.”

  She passed him the cigarette. He drew in a breath. The tobacco was stale.

  “I know. I meant how long’s your tour?”

  “I’m here as long as I’m needed.”

  “But don’t you get homesick?”

  “This is my home.”

  The next day he claimed his twentieth victory. As the MiGs returned Skomorokhov’s hand strangled the control stick. He’d gone from being ace of the 221st t
o picking up Yefgenii Yeremin’s scraps. He let the boy’s MiG float into his crosshairs. He crooked his finger round the trigger. MiG 529’s exhaust hung behind the cross. “Dugh- dugh-dugh-dugh-DUGH!” Skomorokhov shouted as he released the trigger. His mouth was laughing but his eyes weren’t.

  By the time the jets were being towed to the hangars, snow was falling in flurries, yet the whole base must’ve been on the dispersal to greet him. They carried him on their shoulders. At twenty years of age Yefgenii Yeremin was a quadruple ace. He was the pride of the 221st and the spirit of a nation.

  AS THE NEW YEAR OPENED, the war — the half war, the shitty war — languished in stalemate. The status quo on the Korean Peninsula had been reestablished at the cost of more than four million lives and the public in America, Great Britain, Australia and Canada were turning against their countries’ involvement, but the competition to become Ace of Aces continued to beguile them. It was front-page news. Major James Jabara had returned to the war and begun adding to his victories. Captain Manuel “Pete” Fernandez and Captain Joseph McConnell were closing in on the score of fourteen kills claimed before his death by George Davis. These men were household names like Marciano, Fangio, and Hogan were household names.

  Soon winter receded. The pine and larch shed their frosting. White peeled off the runway. As a clear night opened, the Milky Way arched like a backbone. The stars wheeled round night after night and he watched them not knowing what they were other than points of light. Yefgenii was looking up to be told his place. He looked inward and wondered the same.

  The Starshina saw him enter one of the hangars. He appeared to be carrying a tin of paint. The Starshina said nothing. No one questioned him anymore.

  It was still dark as tow trucks rolled out the MiGs. Soon gray light seeped down onto the plain, finding MiG 529 parked in the first slot of the dispersal, and astern of the wing root the PLAAF markings had been overpainted with the single large red star of the VVS. A hammer and sickle adorned the tail fin.

  The pilots strutted out from the Ops hut. One by one they stopped in their tracks but Yefgenii kept on walking.

  Kiriya and Pilipenko came out. Five pilots peered at Kiriya for an order. He gazed at the red star of his country, the hammer and sickle. He smiled. He said, “Go. Follow Yo-Yo.”

  Pilipenko whispered, “Boss, what if he gets shot down?”

  Kiriya shook his head and waved the pilots out. “Go. Fly!”

  Yefgenii led them over the river and into battle. A pair of Panthers from the U.S. Navy’s VF-51 were cruising east to their carrier in the Sea of Japan. He hit the first with a burst from his 23-mm guns and must have found a fuel tank because the Panther bloated into an orange globe that for its short life became a second sun in the wide Korean sky. The second Panther he struck with his 37-mm cannon. It swung out to sea, but power bled out of its damaged engine and it stalled and toppled. The canopy burst open and the seat rocketed out; a parachute bloomed and the pilot dangled over the gray waters.

  Next Yefgenii tipped his wings over and pulled north. The compass bobbed round and the DI tracked a half circle. As Yefgenii rolled out onto his heading he glanced over his shoulder out to sea and glimpsed a dark blue Sikorksy skimming the waves toward the ejected Panther pilot.

  He slid the throttle forward and rolled his MiG’s wings over and pulled a max-rate turn back out to sea. He let down to two hundred metres. The pilot bobbed on his life raft, waving his arms above his head to signal the chopper.

  Yefgenii opened fire then pulled up hard as blood flashed behind the glass panels of the Sikorsky’s cockpit and the tail rotor whirled out across the sea. The helicopter corkscrewed straight down into the water. The winchman bailed out but the pilot never appeared and when Yefgenii looked back for the last time the winchman was clambering aboard the life raft while the helicopter’s broken pieces bobbed on the waves.

  At Antung the first zveno touched back down and the second began to roll off the dispersal. A report had been passed down from the tower and Kiriya and Pilipenko strolled out to offer their congratulations. Today Yefgenii Yeremin had surpassed Pepelyaev. He’d scored more jet kills than any pilot who’d ever flown.

  The Starshina had one of his men ready to stencil three more stars alongside Yefgenii’s cockpit. “Polkovnik, what should I do about 529’s markings?”

  “Do?”

  “Yes, sir, should I make them regulation?”

  The whine of the jets was creeping up the taxiway. Pilipenko had to raise his voice. “Yes, boss, do it for Yeremin’s sake — there may be reprisals.”

  Kiriya shook his head. “Pip, a hero can always fall into disfavor. He can be killed. He can be forgotten.” The jets were swallowing his words now. Pilipenko could only read his lips. “But a legend never dies.”

  Out at sea a second Sikorksy picked up the men from the life raft and transported them to the carrier USS Essex. The Panther pilot and the winchman both reported that the MiG had borne the Soviet star on its fuselage and the hammer and sickle on its tail. VF-51 officers came in and out of the wardroom. One of them — an ensign who was the same age as Yefgenii Yeremin — ladled out a helping of soup from the pot on the stove. The men were talking about the Russian. The ensign, whose name was Neil Armstrong, didn’t say anything. He’d flown fifty combat missions, but he still preferred to listen.

  “Shooting up the rescue ship — that Honcho was one son of a bitch.”

  “Shit. Ivan’s here. Ivan the Honcho.”

  “Ivan the Terrible.”

  DAY AFTER DAY Ivan the Terrible entered the arena. The red star drifted over flooded paddies. The battles that followed were chaos. MiGs and Sabres looped and scissored. From a flicker of tracers and a flash of metal, a globe of fire ballooned, then out of that fire burst the MiG with the red star on its body, the hammer and sickle on its tail and scorch marks on its wings that spun streamers of evanescent gray smoke. Below him a Sabre toppled back to Earth. Some days their trails floated in the sky for hours after the battle, some ending in the knot of an impossible maneuver, but his always pointed home.

  Every pilot wanted to fly with him and even the lowliest ryadavoi would ask if he was going up that day. Some would even run up into the tower for an update on his mission and then convey each installment to the men on the flight line as if they were reading episodes from a comic book. “Kapetan Yeremin is engaging the Americans!” They’d applaud. “Kapetan Yeremin is returning with a kill!” They’d cheer. They’d take turns waiting on the dispersal to paint the newest star on his cockpit.

  The widow gazed into the east, counting the planes as they reappeared. When one or more were missing she’d turn from the sky and devote herself to her work. She wouldn’t look up again until they were rolling up the taxiway and she could read their markings. 529 with the big red star on its fuselage would always be there, would always be leading the others back in. When he cut his engine, she’d swing the chocks under the wheels and push the ladder up to the cockpit. She’d ask, “Any luck, Kapetan?” and he’d answered as if to any man, and this was how it would be apart from their times alone in her bunk or, if the night were mild, out in the wild grass on the edge of the woods.

  He was leading a zveno south when they encountered a flight of F-84 Thunderjets from the 136th Fighter-Bomber Wing. He got one. Skomorokhov got one. A U.S. Navy exchange pilot, Lieutenant Walter Schirra, got one of theirs.

  The survivors dispersed. Yefgenii watched a pair of Thunderjets turn south for the P’yŏngyang-Wŏnsan line. He glanced at his gauges. “I’m still good for fuel. Sko?”

  “Me too.”

  “Come on, let’s get ’em.”

  Yefgenii and Skomorokhov went to full throttle and began the chase. With every passing minute their fuel burned, but with every passing minute they closed on the Thunderjets.

  Cloud cover obscured the Nan River but Skomorokhov could see bits of P’yŏngyang looking like a gob of bubblegum stamped on the land. Yefgenii was just ahead of him. He’d already ope
ned fire. There was no chance of hitting the Americans but it might provoke them into doing something suicidal like turning back for a fight.

  Skomorokhov let Yefgenii’s MiG float through his crosshairs. They were far from home, surging into battle, with no witnesses. A dead man might become a legend but he wouldn’t be around to claim the spoils of victory, the status, the adulation. He throttled back.

  “Sko, what’s happening? Keep up, will you?”

  Skomorokhov didn’t want to desert a comrade, but if Yeremin was reckless enough to chase two jets toward their own base then that was his own lookout. “Sorry, I’m already at min fuel.” He had plenty left, of course.

  “I thought you had enough.”

  “Must be something wrong, got to turn back.”

  Skomorokhov watched Yefgenii press on after the Americans. There was still a fair distance to close and two of them to tangle with. He swung north knowing Ivan the Terrible wouldn’t give up the chase.

  The other MiGs were orbiting just south of Sinanju, waiting for them. “Where’s Yeremin, Major?”

  “I told him to turn round. He wouldn’t listen. We can’t wait here. We’re too low on fuel.”

  “We can’t leave him.”

  “Sorry, no option. Recover to base.”

  Word came down from the tower that only four ships were coming back. They touched down and taxied up to the dispersal. As the minutes expired, more and more people gathered on the airfield. Some of the youngsters — no more than boys — were weeping. The pilot of the downed MiG had been a new leitenant. No one even mentioned his name.

  Kiriya passed binoculars to Skomorokhov to search the column of sky above the river, but his hands were trembling so much that he couldn’t focus. He’d abandoned Yeremin to his fate. It was at worst a sin of omission. If the boy believed himself indestructible, then he got what he deserved. “He’s out of fuel by now, boss, he’s not made it.”

  Shelves of stratus streaked the eastern dome of sky. A blue haze coloured in the gaps. The wind sock was fluttering but pointing toward them, to the west. “There’s still a chance,” Kiriya said.