Cold Victory

“Fl/Lt Boyd said your Soviet contacts hinted that they knew what game you were playing and threatened you with unpleasant consequences if you did not start to provide them with the information they requested.” Borisenko was turning redder by the minute, but she made no attempt to speak. “He and I fully support your decision not to put yourself at risk again.” She shifted her eyes just enough to search his face and then looked away again.

“The question is,” Robin continued, “whether it wouldn’t be better for you to leave Berlin altogether. I can arrange for you to be posted to one of our airfields in Bizonia, or you can return to England, whichever you prefer.”

“If I may, sir?” she squeaked out.

“Please.”

“I don’t want to leave Berlin.”

Robin lifted his eyebrows. “Why is that?”

“Well, sir. I like it here. I like the work. I feel it is important. I like being part of this operation. We are fighting back against Soviet aggression — for the first time, when you think about it. I mean, the Finns tried to stop the Soviets in the Winter War, but they lost. The only setback Stalin ever suffered came from Hitler — and then the Germans lost, too. The Airlift is a slap in his face, and I want to support it any way I can.”

“You can do that from Bizonia,” Robin pointed out gently.

“It wouldn’t be the same.”

Robin considered that answer and didn’t believe her. “Corporal, your life is in danger if you fall into Soviet hands.”

“I know, sir.”

“So? What’s the real reason you want to stay in Berlin?”

Borisenko looked down. She was flushed, and she kept swallowing.

“Do you have a relationship with someone here?” Robin put the question softly, and when she did not respond, he added, “There’s nothing wrong with that, Corporal. There is nothing more natural than for a young woman to become attached to a young man. Of course, such a relationship becomes problematic if the object of your affection is a Soviet citizen.”

“No, sir,” Borisenko lifted her face and looked him in the eye. “I haven’t fallen in love with a Soviet man, but I have forged a friendship with a Ukrainian woman. It is a very special relationship, sir — I don’t mean anything dirty or unnatural!” She hastened to add, flushing more violently than ever at the mere thought of it. “It’s more like finding a sister after being an orphan most of my life. If I leave Berlin, I’ll never see her again.”

“If the Soviet Secret Police arrest you, you’ll never see her again either,” Robin countered

“If I never cross over into the East again, they won’t be able to.”

“Can your friend come to the West?” Robin asked, astonished.

“Yes. We usually meet in Charlottenburg, near the Reichstag, but Mila said she could come to Wannsee or Kladow if I didn’t feel safe anywhere else.”

“A Soviet with that much freedom of movement isn’t an ordinary soldier,” Robin concluded.

“No, sir. She’s a Hero of the Soviet Union on Marshal Sokolovsky’s staff with the rank of major. She has managed to win for herself an exceptional degree of freedom — and it was through her that I found out in advance about the blockade. You remember about that, don’t you?”

“Of course I remember, but you crossed the Sector border to get that intelligence.”

“I know I’ve been a great disappointment to you, sir,” Galyna told him in a voice on the brink of tears. “I know I proved too transparent and incompetent in dealing with Ratanov.” Robin noticed that her hands were shaking. “But Mila is different. She is not part of the Soviet Secret Police. In her heart, she is still a simple Ukrainian peasant, the daughter of Kulaks. She doesn’t want to hurt me, and she might just learn something from Sokolovsky that would be useful to us — to Gatow, to HM government or the West generally.”

“And she’d tell us about it if she did?”

“Not you or Ft/Lt Boyd, no, but she’d tell me.”

“Why?”

“Because she trusts me, and —” Galyna hesitated but then came out with it, “and she hates them. She saw what they did to the Kulaks, to Ukraine.”

“A Hero of the Soviet Union who hates the Soviet Union?” Robin asked back sceptically.

Galyna nodded solemnly.

Robin tried to imagine it and to his surprise discovered that it wasn’t difficult to imagine at all. He’d sometimes seen flickers of that kind of hate in the eyes of his counterpart at the Red Air Force base in Staaken. If he’d learned anything about the Soviets over the last year, it was that the fighting men lived in fear of the Soviet Secret Police. Their relationship with the regime was ambiguous at best. After thinking about that a moment longer, he made a decision. “Borisenko, I’m not going to judge your friend. I’m willing to let you remain at your post for the time being on the condition that you give me your word of honour that you will not set foot outside the Western Sectors of Berlin without my explicit permission.”

Borisenko pulled herself smartly to attention and delivered a parade-ground salute. “Sir!” She stamped her foot as on parade and then added, formally, “I hereby swear I will not leave the Western Sectors of Berlin without your explicit permission.”

“Very well, then. Carry on,” he concluded, giving her a small smile of respect.

She answered with a broad smile of her own. “Thank you, sir! You won’t regret it.” Priestman had no way of knowing how prophetic her words would turn out to be.