The interpreter waited, agitated, for dawn to come. Headquarters still did not know the Americans’ losses, but according to reports from the front where the battle had raged, they had been significant.
Night still held sway, but dawn was quietly creeping up from the east. In the nearby woods, birds were already chirping, and c**k crows could be heard from the neighboring village of Rybnitsa. The darkness above the airfield gradually paled, so slowly as to be imperceptible, as if thick ink were being diluted with water. The night slackened its grip, then let go entirely, and the rose red of dawn touched the sky in the east, dim and smoldering like an icy flame.
So began yet another day of the war. The interpreter did not know what it would bring, or whether she would see the man who had b
