The Bloody Meadow Read Online Free PDF

less.’
    The fur hat slapped the aircraft’s flank appreciatively as if it were a trusted charger, and its thin metal skin responded with a wobbly boom.
    ‘She has a top speed of nearly two hundred kilometres an hour – can you imagine? And she’ll take us all the way to Kursk in one go. We’ll be in Odessa in the early
afternoon if the wind is behind us and they refuel quickly. There are sometimes delays, of course.’ The man shrugged his shoulders and Korolev nodded his understanding. There were often
delays, but even the possibility of being in Odessa within seven hours was astonishing. It had taken him nearly a month to get back from Odessa when he’d been discharged from the army in
’twenty-two, and that must be more or less the same distance. He put a gloved hand to one of the struts and pulled – it seemed sturdy.
    ‘It doesn’t look like much,’ Korolev said. ‘I mean – to go so fast and up so high.’
    ‘She’s reliable,’ the hat said firmly. ‘The new planes may be quicker and bigger, but this one’s never let us down. Am I right, Antonina Vladimirovna?’
    ‘You are indeed, Comrade Belakovsky.’ The young mechanic smiled – white teeth flashing in the light from a lantern. It occurred to Korolev that the girl was perhaps too young
for such a responsible job.
    ‘You should make a film about her,’ she continued.
    Belakovsky laughed, revealing a pock-marked nose and a scrubby salt and pepper moustache that nestled under widely spaced nostrils. Korolev thought he recognized the fellow from a newspaper, or
perhaps a newsreel, and held out his hand in greeting.
    ‘Korolev,’ Korolev said. ‘Alexei Dmitriyevich. Moscow CID.’
    ‘Nice to meet you, Comrade Korolev. Belakovsky, Igor Zakharovich. And what takes you to Odessa?’ Korolev was considering how to respond when a officious-looking woman in a thick
padded coat came out of the terminal building.
    ‘Comrade Belakovsky? Comrade Korolev? We must weigh you now.’ She waved them towards the doorway.
    ‘The plane can only carry so much weight, Korolev,’ Belakovsky explained, seeing his surprise.
    Sure enough, inside the terminal a pilot in a long leather flying coat was standing on some scales with a canvas postal bag in one hand and a half-smoked papirosa in the other.
    ‘One hundred and six kilos,’ said the female clerk, writing it into a ledger. ‘You’re putting on weight, Anton Ivanovich.’
    ‘It’s the post,’ the pilot answered gruffly, sucking on the paper tube of the cigarette, and Korolev was sure his voice was slurred. He certainly looked the worse for wear. At
least his colleague, a younger fellow with a clean shirt poking out from his fur collar, had bothered to put a razor to his chin. Unless, of course, he didn’t yet have to shave – it was
possible, he supposed. The boy was very young – but surely there would be exams and so on. They wouldn’t let just anyone fly such a valuable piece of machinery, would they?
    The passengers lined up and Korolev saw that he was in privileged company. A short, round-chested officer with a general’s insignia on his collar and a cluster of medals visible underneath
his open greatcoat was next in line. Belakovsky took Korolev’s arm.
    ‘Comrade Korolev, you must meet Stepan Pavlovich. You’ll have read his articles in Izvestia . Lomatkin – the journalist? Comrade Lomatkin, this is Korolev from Petrovka
Street. A detective, I’m guessing.’
    Korolev shook the hand of a thin young man, handsome in a bookish sort of way, who looked slightly nervous. Perhaps it was his first time flying as well.
    The next fellow on the scales had Party cadre written all over him – a pale ascetic-looking fellow in a long brown coat that looked even more military than the general’s. He stood
unsmiling, a small leather suitcase in his hand.
    ‘Seventy-five kilos, Comrade Bagraev,’ the weigher said. ‘Captain Korolev, please.’
    Korolev walked over and took his turn on