A Night in the Life of... (a poem)

Epigraph : Out of every one hundred aircrew,

twenty seven survived their tour of operations.

The afternoon heat now gone, darkness

descends heavy like a blanket. Shaking,

I climb into flight boots, their roughness

soothes taught nerves. Smiles fixed, faking

gayer moods. A taste of bile in throats,

eyes staring, minds a'racing, our silence

drown out by engine noise. I watch spokes

going a'round, as we are drive out. Violence

in the air, the lighting that binds together.

Our aircraft rises out of darkening gloom

like the ancient colossus battling doom.

The air inside feels heavy on my chest, lungs

bursting, pulse a'racing, heavily breathing

I clamber into position. All now come together

within the skin of our machine, none can

have a selfish thought. Here we make our

stand, 300 Spartans holding the pass, we

soar over a sea glinting as made from glass.

On nights like these minds drift like clouds

caught swirling in the sharp searchlights,

to those who dwell in darkened shelters

a'waiting our bombs. Our aircraft weightless

now as death falls from her belly, descending

on our foe, now trapped in Dante's hell below.

At these moments my thoughts are speared,

he who pays the piper calls the tune.* Fear

strikes at my heart, that I too one day will,

be made pay the piper, for sins I commit still.

Job done, we turn for home, our thoughts

begin to roam, to those who a'wait alone.

In rooms brightened by dawn's rosy fingers,

a whispered prayer said each night, touching

our beloved pictures by candle light. Sleeping

but alert for sounds that precede our drone,

telling them we are safely home. Throughout

                        the ghostly ball, bombers moon** shined on all.

 

Glossary

*The Unknown Warrior by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

**This term refers to a full bright moon which illuminates

the earth like daylight, making it easier to find the target.

On such nights mass raids would take place, taking

advantage of the conditions. However this brightness

worked by ways.

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya one of the most revered heroes of the Soviet Union.

Extracts of a letter to Nicholas Jones

The following are extracts, which until recently were held in state archives within the walls of the Kremlin. They follow the short partisan career of Zoya Kosmodemyanskya, I hope they contribute to your studies of my country.

     I have attempted a brief summing up of Zoya life and death at the end for you, because her fate only finally became known long after these extracts were written.

***

Extracts of a Memo

20th January 1942

… as to your instructions, I have completed a report on subject Kosmodemyanskya, Zoya from Partisan Unit 9903. Find enclosed are the pages of a letter Kosmodemyanskya wrote to her brother Alexander an army private.

     I am sorry comrade that her letter is incomplete, German artillery destroyed much of the command post two days after she had written her last letter.

            Now, you order me…

***

The remaining pages from Zoya’s letter to Alexander

My name is Zoya Kosmodemyanskya I’m eighteen years of age. I serve the Motherland fighting against the fascist invaders in a Partisan Unit. Tomorrow, two comrades and I will set out on a very important mission. If I don’t return, please will anyone finding this letter, which I leave here at the Command Post, send them to my brother Alexander. I will write the address at the end.

      My dearest darling Shura   I wish to spend this night before my mission writing to you my love. I have missed my little brother so much; my eyes fill with tears just to think of your handsome face. I can’t tell you much about my mission, but I hope it will make you proud of your sister.

      I’m going to tell you our story my angel, and send it to you with all my love. You will have this present to carry within your heart, as you in your turn will serve our Motherland. Ready as I’m to lay down my life for the Motherland, so that we can be free of these terrible German’s who slaughter our comrades; I wish to have this time alone with you my darling angel. Before I die, I hope to kill as many Germans as I can, and so must you too my Shura. We must each send as many as we can to hell, for none surely can go to heaven.

      Do you remember my darling, how our Grandfather foretold before his terrible murder, that two angels would be born in our village? I’ve told that story so to you many times, so that you will understand just how special we both are. I believe we are those two angels’ my darling, who must now rise up, and battle the forces who wish to suppress, and murder our people.

      When our family journeyed to Moscow from godless Siberia, how happy I was that we went to school together. Do you remember sitting on my lap after school, I would read, stroking your lovely black hair, and telling you of those heroes in my books? I told you then, that the death of such great heroes always leads to the triumph of their just and moral cause. So it will be with us my darling, we will be the heroes who’s deeds will lead our people back to the path of final victory.

      Do you still have my notebooks, which I gave to you when I left to join the partisans? All my thoughts regarding these heroes, who we met on our travels through those wonderful books, are in my notebooks. How high we flew my true darling, soaring through skies, spreading our angel’s wings over so many different lands, you alone were my fellow traveler.

      Mother and Father never understood that we should never have run to Siberia. Father was always so timid and afraid, that in the end, Mother was afraid too. They are both afraid of the shadows from their past. When I told Mother, I was leaving school to join the partisans, how she wept. However, I told her ‘Mother …

***

Extracts Memo

…the following is an account of the subject in question one Kosmodemyanskya Zoya, including her training and any missions that she was orders to carry out. Under the command of a Major Zhuravlëv, a school for saboteurs and partisans was set at Kuntsevo in October 1941, on the western outskirts of Moscow. The subject Kosmodemyanskya was among the first of the volunteers, she was a student before her arrival at Kuntsevo. The subject had been an active member of Komsomol since 1938, and was in her final year of State School No. 201.

      Kosmodemyanskya received five days training in demolition, some small arms and unarmed combat training. The subject joined Partisan- Reconnaissance Unit No. 9903.

      At the beginning of November 1941, Kosmodemyanskya crossed over the front on her first mission in a group of twelve. The group were unfortunately ambushed by a fascist patrol, although some of the group were killed and some others [defeatists who are now being sought by the NKVD] fled, Kosmodemyanskya carried out the mission with the remainder of the group.

      On 21 November a group of three, containing Kosmodemyanskya again crossed the front; their mission was to burn buildings occupied by the fascists, which were being used as stables for horses and billets for soldiers in the village of Petrishchevo. One group member completed his task and got away to the forest. It now appears that Kosmodemyanskya was only partially successful in her task, and was then captured. The third member of the group is now being sought by NKVD as it appears he either fled or may even have informed on his group.

       Kosmodemyanskya seems to have been interrogated through the night, and then executed the following morning. The village has now been recaptured and the local NKVD proceeds with their investigations at the time of writing.

      One last point comrade, it now appears that Kosmodemyanskya said a few words before the fascists hung her; we are in the process of finding witnesses of this action, as well as any photographs the fascists took at the time.

     

***

Extracts of a Letter Written to Nicholas Jones

I will sum up the evidence then, and add what I can from later investigations.

       Zoya was caught, because she had been betrayed by one of the other two group members, he confessed later and was shot by the Soviet NKVD. She was severally beaten, so badly in fact that two German soldiers left the room in disgust at the fellows’ actions. Giving her name only as Tanya, she refused to give any further information. Later in the night two women from the village also abused her for burning down their houses, they too were later shot by the NKVD. Nothing you will find was left to chance in the creation of a national hero.

       In the morning Zoya was marched to the centre of the village, the Germans had had hung a sign around her, with the word ‘Arsonist’ written on it. A gallows was erected and the German soldiers took photographs of the event, some of these where found by the NKVD on a dead German officer in Smolensk later in 1943.

       The eyewitness, whom the NKVD found at the village, said that Zoya had told the Germans to surrender. Her last words were ‘You can’t hang us all!’

       The story was printed in Pravda   at the end of January 1943; complete with pictures of the dead girl whose name at that time was still Tanya. Later identified as Zoya, by her brother Alexander she was made a Hero of the Soviet Union, the first women to be so honored. Russian soldiers took pictures of Zoya with them, into the Battle of Berlin in March 1945.

      Zoya was reburied in Novodevichie Cemetery and later generations of Soviet children honored her name.

      In 1943 a Soviet film was made named Zoya, it deals with the last days of her life, as well as some untrue portrayals of her family. Her brother Alexander, who was killed in 1945 fighting in East Prussia, was also made a Hero of the Soviet Union.

      After Soviet area finished, it became known that Zoya had done little damage to the German forces and may even have been mentally unstable. An old general long retired from the KGB, said her exploit was of no military value, and her life had been wasted.