Surprised looks, which I pretended not to see. “What do you think of this one, Miz Pavlichenko? Our M1903 Springfield.”
“Yes, much more like the Three Line I used. I prefer a sliding bolt in field conditions. The nonautomatic safety catch here is very similar to the German army Mauser Zf. Kar. 98k, as well—”
I chatted about Soviet rifles and how they compared to various Allied models, urging the chairman to break the 1903 down with me so I could examine the trigger mechanisms and exclaim over the pull weight, the crispness, the feel of the hammerfall. The older men were grinning by the end. Even the watching corps of journalists looked grudgingly impressed, and William Jonson was starry-eyed. “Oh, Mrs. Pavlichenko, how I wish you would favor us with a demonstration.”
I hesitated. I’d always refused such invitations before today. I wasn’t a trick pony performing on command; I was a soldier. A journalist in Detroit had compared me to some American circus shooter he called Annie Oakley, asking if I could shoot over my shoulder while looking at a mirror, and I told him that skills like mine weren’t meant for big-top tents or party games. But these shooting club fellows looked so keen—the older men had the look of veterans, men who remembered what blood smelled like when mixed into mud, and the younger ones were so cherry-cheeked and innocent . . . yet they were the ones who’d go off to fight, if the First Lady’s plan to sell the idea of a second front through me succeeded. Mrs. Roosevelt was speaking with an Army colonel on the other side of the room, but I could have sworn she gave me a tiny nod from the corner of her eye.
“Nu ladno,” I said with a grin, and the men cheered.
My hands were trembling just a little by the time we’d hashed out the demonstration’s details: 100 meters distance, prone unsupported, ten shots, ten minutes to shoot, iron sights. You haven’t fired a rifle for a month and a half, the voice inside my head scolded. A professional needs to shoot at least twice a week to keep in practice! Was I supposed to defend my own reputation and the honor of the Red Army with rusty skills and an unfamiliar weapon?
“She’ll need someone to shoot against,” Kostia volunteered in English as we came to the range, unexpectedly. I blinked as a clamor of Americans jostled forward. “No, someone she’ll have trouble beating. Another Russian.” He grinned, provoking just the right chorus of laughs and catcalls. “If you’ll lend me a 1903, I’ll join Lieutenant Pavlichenko. Comrade Yuripov, would you care to join us?”
“That is not part of my directive,” said Yuri against the wall.
“Our delegation doctor, then.” Kostia gave a bland smile. “He fancies himself a keen shot.”
My head jerked up as Alexei sauntered forward in his western pinstripes from the cluster of delegation hangers-on, taking a rifle from the nearest hand. “Delighted,” he said in the English he was clearly making an effort to pick up on this tour.
“And I’ll join you,” William Jonson said eagerly, coming forward so fast he nearly tripped over his own shoelaces. “I fancy I can match any embassy doctor, ha-ha! Done a little pigeon-shooting in my boyhood, ’deed I did . . .”
“What are you doing?” I hissed to Kostia in Russian, but he just carried on loading his own rifle with a quick flash of his hands. We all took position, settling ourselves on the ground belly-down, and took five or six calibration shots to familiarize ourselves with our weapons, then waited for new paper targets: me lying between my husband and my partner; Mr. Jonson, who kept shifting his rifle’s barrel with a carelessness that made me twitch; and a handful of the older Americans who proclaimed they had fought in the Great War. The call to begin went out, Lady Midnight began the countdown, and the world fell away.
Ten shots. My first went a few centimeters wide of the bull’s-eye; from how the round landed, I could tell I’d jerked the trigger rather than squeezing it. I steadied myself, not letting the miss sting me. This wasn’t the battlefield; death wouldn’t claim me because I was a few centimers short of perfect. By the second shot, the unfamiliar rifle whispered, There. When I saw the bullet hit that time, I was grinning. Kostia was already sighting his third shot alongside me, an American with gray brush-