three tinfoil tubes of liver paste—the best damn ration anybody’s army issued. Kuchkov shoved them into a greatcoat pocket. The other Russians plundered the rest of the corpses. Then the patrol moved out again.
ANASTAS MOURADIAN AND ISA MOGAMEDOV eyed each other in what would have been loathing if they’d had the nerve to show it. “Well, well,” Mouradian said in Russian. “Someone in the personnel office is having a little joke on us.”
“Very likely, Comrade Pilot,” his new copilot and bomb-aimer agreed in the same language. “Or else a sergeant with too much to do grabbed the first cards that came up … and here we are.”
“Here we are, all right,” Stas agreed dryly. Speaking Russian helped ease things a little. It was also the only language an Armenian and an Azeri were likely to have in common.
Armenians had lived in Armenia forever, or as near as made no difference. Azeris had lived next door to them—and occasionally (or sometimes not so occasionally) tried to overrun them—for the past 900 years or so. They used different tongues. They followed different faiths. Given a choice, Mouradian and Mogamedov would either have icily ignored each other or gone for each other’s throats.
They got no choice. Brute Soviet force overrode their petty nationalisms, their different religions, their different tongues. They would work together—or the KGB would make them both sorrier than either could hope to make the other. That wasn’t exactly the way Stalin’s New Soviet Men were supposed to be forged, which wasn’t to say it didn’t work.
Of course, Stalin was a Georgian. Beria, who ran the KGB, was a Mingrelian. They both sprang from the Caucasus themselves. They understood the local feuds as no Russians—onlookers from outside—could ever hope to do. They understood the force required to supersede them. They understood … and they used it.
If a Red Air Force Pe-2 had an Armenian in one cockpit chair and an Azeri in the other, their superiors might indeed think it was funny, but wouldn’t care past that—unless the two men in the cockpit showed they couldn’t fight the Nazis. That, their superiors would care about. And Mouradian and Mogamedov would both regret making them care.
Business, then. In the air, they would have to try to keep each other (and their bombardier, a bad-tempered Russian sergeant named Fyodor Mechnikov) alive. On the ground … On the ground, Stas intended to have as little to do with his new crewman as he could.
“How much experience in the plane have you had?” he asked now.
“Fifteen missions,” Mogamedov answered. “A 109 shot us down. I managed to get out. My pilot stopped a 20mm with his face.”
“Something like that happened to me, too, when I was in an old SB-2,” Mouradian said. “I’m surprised they didn’t give you a plane of your own.”
The other flyer shrugged. He was a little swarthier than Mouradian, his eyes a little narrower. To a Russian, all men from the Caucasus looked alike: in their charming way, the Russians labeled them black-asses. Men who were from the Caucasus knew better, not that Russians bothered to listen to them. “They put me in with you instead, Comrade Pilot,” Mogamedov said, and not another word.
More words would have been wasted anyhow. Mouradian did waste a few: “We’ll do our damnedest to give the Nazis grief, then.” He wanted to sound loyal—and to be heard to sound loyal.
“ Da ,” Mogamedov agreed. Mouradian needed a new copilot because his old one, Ivan Kulkaanen, had been rash enough to intimate that the USSR wasn’t running the war so well as it might have. He’d tried to run when the Chekists came after him. He was a Karelian. He knew everything there was to know about snow. The secret police hunted him down anyway.
Right now, the new Caucasian cockpit crew wasn’t going anywhere. Snow blanketed the airstrip. The clouds that dropped it weren’t much higher than the treetops. Flying
ANASTAS MOURADIAN AND ISA MOGAMEDOV eyed each other in what would have been loathing if they’d had the nerve to show it. “Well, well,” Mouradian said in Russian. “Someone in the personnel office is having a little joke on us.”
“Very likely, Comrade Pilot,” his new copilot and bomb-aimer agreed in the same language. “Or else a sergeant with too much to do grabbed the first cards that came up … and here we are.”
“Here we are, all right,” Stas agreed dryly. Speaking Russian helped ease things a little. It was also the only language an Armenian and an Azeri were likely to have in common.
Armenians had lived in Armenia forever, or as near as made no difference. Azeris had lived next door to them—and occasionally (or sometimes not so occasionally) tried to overrun them—for the past 900 years or so. They used different tongues. They followed different faiths. Given a choice, Mouradian and Mogamedov would either have icily ignored each other or gone for each other’s throats.
They got no choice. Brute Soviet force overrode their petty nationalisms, their different religions, their different tongues. They would work together—or the KGB would make them both sorrier than either could hope to make the other. That wasn’t exactly the way Stalin’s New Soviet Men were supposed to be forged, which wasn’t to say it didn’t work.
Of course, Stalin was a Georgian. Beria, who ran the KGB, was a Mingrelian. They both sprang from the Caucasus themselves. They understood the local feuds as no Russians—onlookers from outside—could ever hope to do. They understood the force required to supersede them. They understood … and they used it.
If a Red Air Force Pe-2 had an Armenian in one cockpit chair and an Azeri in the other, their superiors might indeed think it was funny, but wouldn’t care past that—unless the two men in the cockpit showed they couldn’t fight the Nazis. That, their superiors would care about. And Mouradian and Mogamedov would both regret making them care.
Business, then. In the air, they would have to try to keep each other (and their bombardier, a bad-tempered Russian sergeant named Fyodor Mechnikov) alive. On the ground … On the ground, Stas intended to have as little to do with his new crewman as he could.
“How much experience in the plane have you had?” he asked now.
“Fifteen missions,” Mogamedov answered. “A 109 shot us down. I managed to get out. My pilot stopped a 20mm with his face.”
“Something like that happened to me, too, when I was in an old SB-2,” Mouradian said. “I’m surprised they didn’t give you a plane of your own.”
The other flyer shrugged. He was a little swarthier than Mouradian, his eyes a little narrower. To a Russian, all men from the Caucasus looked alike: in their charming way, the Russians labeled them black-asses. Men who were from the Caucasus knew better, not that Russians bothered to listen to them. “They put me in with you instead, Comrade Pilot,” Mogamedov said, and not another word.
More words would have been wasted anyhow. Mouradian did waste a few: “We’ll do our damnedest to give the Nazis grief, then.” He wanted to sound loyal—and to be heard to sound loyal.
“ Da ,” Mogamedov agreed. Mouradian needed a new copilot because his old one, Ivan Kulkaanen, had been rash enough to intimate that the USSR wasn’t running the war so well as it might have. He’d tried to run when the Chekists came after him. He was a Karelian. He knew everything there was to know about snow. The secret police hunted him down anyway.
Right now, the new Caucasian cockpit crew wasn’t going anywhere. Snow blanketed the airstrip. The clouds that dropped it weren’t much higher than the treetops. Flying
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