Ghosts of the Past

by Mark H. Downer

  “Charlie, I need ya to elevate a couple hundred feet and stay on your line. The valley is widenin’ out. I’m gonna go visit our friend. I’ll be back in a jiffy. Stay in contact and holler if you can’t see what your doin’.”

  “I’m okay! Good hunting Brew.”

  Miller’s P-51 was in a hard left turn climbing up and over the same southern ridge at full throttle. At roughly 380 miles per hour she was diving down the valley hard overtaking quickly the weighted down Junker who was also rattling under a maximum speed that was just over half of the American predator.

  The pilot was good thought Miller. He was as low as he could get and he was seesawing back and forth as best he could in that boat. It looked heavy. Miller gained ground from behind, he thumbed the trigger to his weapons, and the four wing-mounted .50 caliber Browning machine guns exploded shells toward the weaving Junker. The lumbering transport pulled hard left and snaked into a contiguous ravine as the last of the Mustang’s burst slammed harmlessly into a rocky outcropping. Miller could not make the same turn at his speed, so he pulled up and made an ascending left hand turn until he was over the same ravine. The Junker was running straight down the line of a large stream below, and Miller plunged into the narrow gorge at a thirty-degree angle from above.

  “Charlie, are you still with us?” Miller barked into his radio.

  “I’m still here. But I’m not real confident. I can’t make out my instruments anymore.”

  “Hang in there, I’m on my way.”

  Hignite was throwing the airborne hulk all over the place. He had just managed to make the left-hand turn into the narrow ravine, having to keep the wings tipped at an angle for several hundred yards to prevent the ninety-six feet of wingspan from burrowing into the rocky bluff that guarded the exit of the stream into the valley below. It was some nifty flying, and he knew it, but he expected the P-51 to be right on top of him again any second.

  “He’s coming down on us from behind, six o’clock high.” Gernert confirmed his fears.

  Hignite pulled back hard on the wheel and started to climb above the steep walls, searching frantically for the next narrow depression or hollow to dive into. The subsequent sound of tearing and pinging metal alerted him that his adversary had him in his sights and they were taking hits. He banked hard right as the speedier Mustang buzzed by his left ear.

  “I’ll be right with ya buddy.” Miller radioed to Hathaway as he figured one more good pass at the German would do it.

  There was no answer.

  “Charlie! Do you read me?” It was more a cry of anguish than a question.

  “I’m still here.” Hathaway replied lethargically. “I need your help Brew. I can’t see for shit.”

  “Damnit!” Miller yelled aloud. “You’re a lucky bastard tonight!” A very good, lucky bastard he thought to himself as he broke off the attack.

  “I got ya in my sight, pal.” Miller sighed, as he soared over the snow-capped mountain peak and visually picked up Hathaway just below and in front of him. “You’re doin’ good, right on line. Let’s get ya home.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “What do you mean he’s gone?” Hignite asked incredulously.

  “I mean he disengaged and took off.” Gernert gave him a bewildered look.

  “Where’s the other one, I never did see him enter in?”

  “I never did spot him. I don’t believe he joined the fun.”

  Neither one of them considered it was over, and they were intensely scanning the sky for the return of one, or both of the fighters. They stayed low to the ground, flying into more open ground, the two of them staring silently out into the night in a state of befuddlement.

  After a few minutes, the tension and nervousness subsided and Gernert leaned back into his seat.

  He broke the quiet. “I don’t believe it! They had us easy.”

  “I think the other one was in trouble.” Hignite pondered. “Why would only one of them hit us, when two could have downed us in a heartbeat? That explains why they were so low and off course.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. He left us, because he couldn’t leave his friend that long. God is watching over us tonight, Major.”

  “Yes, we’re very fortunate indeed.” as Hignite scanned the instruments for any signs of trouble from the damage they took. “Rudi, you may want to go back and check on the cargo and look for any problems. We took a good number of hits on that last strafing, but so far everything looks good on the panel.”

  “I’m on it.” Gernert replied, while he was un-strapping from the co-pilot seat.

  Hignite now had time to get his bearings and get back on course. They would be no more than an hour away, if there were no more surprises.

  It had taken roughly thirty seconds for Hignite to put the Ju-52 through some maneuvers that would identify any structural damage that might interfere with the overall control of the plane, and for him to analyze the gauges and dials on the cockpit flight panel for any warning signs. Everything appeared to respond normally or be within optimum parameters.

  He couldn’t hear Gernert in the back, who was trying to crawl over and around the largest flying museum in history, in the hope of spotting anything out of the ordinary. So far, nothing sounded or appeared out of sync. He would give it a few more minutes, sitting in the back and listening for any telltale sign of concern. The crated artwork had shifted dramatically during the confrontation and was sprawled all over the back of the plane, several of them wedged up against the outside door and two others that had catapulted themselves all the way back to the tail.

  As he stretched out on top of a handful of the crates, he looked out the window on the left side studying the wing and port engine for any damage or smoke. Satisfied with his visual inspection, he rolled over and glanced out at the right wing and engine. There was definitely some damage, but nothing obvious that indicated trouble. What he could not see, was the nicked oil line that was starting to show signs of a weakening wall under the pressure of the lubricant.

  Up front, Hignite was really starting to wind down. The stress and strain of years living on the edge all seemed to be vacating his body at once. The realization that it was truly over was starting to sink in. If they could manage to land this hulk on the remote valley strip near Glarus, stay out of trouble with the party they were to meet, and disappear into Switzerland until the final solution, he was going to survive this war.

  “Everything appears okay, Major.” Gernert announced as he bent down to enter the cockpit again.

  “Yeah, the bird seems to be holding up.”

  “I did notice some pretty significant damage on this side, up in the wing and around the engine, but nothing was smoking.” Gernert added as he strapped himself back into his seat.

  Hignite glanced over at the oil pressure gauge for the starboard engine and noticed a slight dip, but nothing noteworthy. Gernert followed his reaction and came up with the same conclusion.

  “Keep an eye on that,” Hignite nodded toward the instruments.

  The next fifteen minutes were uneventful. They had managed a visual of the southeastern tip of Lake Zurich off in the distance and altered their heading to the southeast, making the turn over the town of Uznach. It was the first time in a long time Hignite had seen the lights of any town at night from the air. Blackouts had been the norm for most of the cities on both sides of the war.

  Gernert noticed the problem first, “Major we’ve got a problem with my engine over here.”

  The smoke started billowing out almost immediately, followed by a spontaneous drop in the oil pressure gauge. The injured line had burst and was now throwing oil all over the engine.

  Hignite leaned forward and eyed the damage. “The bastard did get us!” He sat back, reached for the throttle on the right side engine, and eased back on the power. “I’m not real confid
ent we can stay afloat without it.”

  The two of them started looking ground ward simultaneously. Almost in unison, they somberly looked back at each other with identical concern.

  Gernert peeked back at the engine, which was now starting to pop bursts of flame. “She may be getting ready to burn Major.”

  “Shut her down!” Hignite barked.

  Gernert reached for the ignition switch and flipped it off, watching the propeller slowly wind down, and stubbornly come to a complete stop. Hignite could feel the precipitous drop in power and the heavy load was self-evident as the weighted down Junker began a gradual uncontrolled descent.

  “We’re going to have to dump some of the loot.” Hignite reasoned.

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news Major, but our little rendezvous with that Mustang moved things around back there. The stuff has been slammed back into the door so hard, it would take a miracle to get it open.”

  “You better head back there and start praying for a miracle, because if we don’t shed some weight we’re going to have to put her down in the next few minutes. I assume you noticed, as I did, our choice of landing strips appear to be more vertical than horizontal.”

  Gernert did not bother to reply, he was already making his way back to the belly to see what he could do. As he crawled his way over the wood encased treasures, his worst fear was realized… the door was blocked completely. He stripped off his flying gloves and tried desperately to jam his hand down to where the door handle was located, but the small crease allowed only four fingers and half his palm to wiggle there way in. He rolled over on his back and repeatedly started kicking at the door with the heel of his right foot, to no avail.

  “Max, I’m not having any luck back here, how much time have we got?” he yelled as loud as he could.

  Hignite was trying to hold her up as best he could, without success. He was looking frantically down on the terrain below for any semblance of lights that would indicate a village and a flat spot that would function as a landing area. He was headed over a valley wall when he spotted the long, irregular, virgin patch of snow that meandered around the valley they were dropping into fast.

  As he banked left to get a better look at what might be their only opportunity, he heard Gernert yelling in the back.

  “We’re out of time, get yourself strapped in back there,” Hignite screamed, knowing Gernert probably stood a better chance in the back than up front with him.

  As he held the Junker in a thirty-degree turn he could see much better the untouched, pure white blanket below that he undoubtedly knew covered a frozen lake beneath. It appeared to be long enough, as he leveled the wings and started to line up an approach, but it hooked slightly to the left as it tracked around the steep mountain slope. To the right and at the top of the bend was a steep, long, overhanging face of rock and ice that seem to disappear down into the bleached abyss. The cliffs presented a problem if he didn’t take the proper angle across the curve of the lake. Fortunately, the leading edge and ground leading up to the cliffs looked pretty close to water level.

  Hignite veered to the right just enough to get in position, and then he gradually put the struggling aircraft into a wide, left-hand, descending turn to take them in. Tilting his head back over his right shoulder, he yelled as loud as he could over the intensifying noise of the dive. “Hang on Rudi, I’ve got an opening, but it’s gonna be tight.”

  Gernert needed no warning. The sudden drop was enough to let him know they were going down, but without an opportunity to know where. His choices were limited to where he could seek shelter, but he had managed to rig up a couple of the loose shoulder harnesses, just a few meters behind the cockpit, that had not been covered up by the mess of tangled crates scattered about.

  Hignite had never landed on ice of any kind, so he really had no idea how the plane was going to react. His biggest fear, as he measured his final approach, was the depth of the snow over the ice. He also began to realize the closer he got, the once big swath of flat, washed-out landscape started to take on some definition on the ground. There were emerging mounds and outcroppings on what probably were the irregularities of the shoreline.

  This ought to be very interesting.

  Hignite leveled out and set the trim to keep more of the weight back on the tail. He knew the minute he hit the snow, it was going to be like slamming on the brakes, and the plane was going to pitch forward if it didn’t have the proper balance. He could not have been any more correct.

  As the wheels on the landing gear plowed into the foot deep snow, the resistance was too much. What little angle he managed to achieve without slamming the tail down first, was instantaneously negated and the plane balanced out for the first fifty meters and then progressively tilted forward. Hignite compensated by throwing the flaps up and throttling up the remaining two engines to try and keep her from going nose down and into a flip. The maneuver gained them a few more precious seconds of time, but cost them dearly in the end.

  The power boost, minus the starboard engine, pushed the plane and the flight path significantly to the right. Thirty meters later the right wing cruelly slammed into one of the nearly invisible, snow covered rocky protrusions jutting out from shore.

  “Sheist!” were the last words muttered in unison by Hignite and Gernert as the impact tore off the right wing and slingshot the rest of the plane forward and to the right, head first into the face of one of the magnificent cliffs that stood guard over the frozen lake.

  Chapter 2

  May 14, 2001. Louisville, Kentucky.

  Matt Ferguson sat straight up in bed, the mind and body going from deep sleep, to wide awake in a matter of seconds. He reacted immediately to the sound that had awoken him by reaching over to hit the snooze button, but the second ring of the telephone shook him into complete reality. Bypassing the clock radio, Ferguson snatched the telephone up on the third ring. “Hello!”

  “Mr. Ferguson?” the voice on the other end inquired.

  “Speaking.”

  “Mr. Ferguson, this is Nurse Tackett at Jefferson Manor.”

  “Yep, Uncle Max?”

  “I’m afraid so. He took a turn for the worse about a half hour ago.”

  “I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

  “Please hurry!” The line went dead before his feet hit the floor.

  The mental and physical jolt of being improperly awakened was enough to propel him immediately out of bed and toward the closet. He glanced at the clock resting comfortably on the nightstand, undisturbed by the noise of the phone. It read 2:08 AM. Damn! I’ve only been asleep for a couple of hours.

  Ferguson stopped in front of the vanity mirror in the bathroom and rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers. He opened them slowly to the soft, dim glow of the nightlight and examined his reflection. He was two months removed from his twenty-sixth birthday and in the best shape of his life. A little sore from his weekly basketball game the night before, and a little hung over from the five pints of brown ale he had consumed afterward. Still, his six feet three inch frame was lean and muscular. The full head of dark brown hair accented the sharp, rugged facial features and brown eyes. He pondered whether to jump in the shower, but the urgency in the nurse’s voice convinced him to get dressed immediately.

  After brushing his teeth, he pulled on the jeans hanging on bathroom door hook and ripped off a sweatshirt from a hanger in the closet. The Kentucky Wildcats hat went on the head to mask the two hours of sleep damage to the hair. Slipping on a pair of Cole Haan loafers that were waiting by the door to the garage, he was out of the house in just under ten minutes from the time he hung up the phone.

  He would have roughly another ten minute drive from his house off Elmwood Lane in the St. Matthews area to the Jefferson Manor nursing home about eight miles east on Herr Lane. Ferguson punched the overhead garage door button as he exite
d the house, climbed in and started up the Eddie Bauer Explorer, backed out into the street and drove away in the quiet darkness of the morning.

  Ferguson turned on the radio, and inserted the CD protruding from the slot. Otis Redding’s Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay came on soothingly, allowing him to relax and think about how he was going to handle the inevitable.

  Taking care of his great Uncle Max Hignite had been pretty much Ferguson’s responsibility since Max had been sent to the nursing home late last year. However, that was fine with Matthew Hignite Ferguson. Sharing his great uncle’s name had always provided Ferguson with a kindred bond with Uncle Max, and when he had finished graduate school at the University of Kentucky, and moved to Louisville to enter the working world, Ferguson found it easy and rewarding to spend time with the old man.

  Ferguson’s mother, Uncle Max’s niece, had died several years prior from a short and intense battle with cancer, and his father had moved to San Diego to try to pick up the pieces. He had since remarried, retired, and spent most of his time never leaving the golf course and southern California. Ferguson’s older brother was still trying to step into reality, moving from Aspen ski instructor during the winter months to building houses in the Denver area as warmer weather set in. Neither had time for Uncle Max, and neither did any of his other nieces and nephews scattered around the states. Uncle Max had never married, and Virginia, his live-in significant other for the last fifteen years, died two years ago, prompting his move into the nursing home.

  Eight weeks ago, Uncle Max had suffered a stroke, and the lingering effects coupled with the inescapable reality of old age placed the end in sight. It was a finality that both Uncle Max and Ferguson had accepted, although it was still a bitter pill for Ferguson, since he had truly come to love Uncle Max.

  Ferguson pulled into the parking lot at 2:27 on the dashboard clock, parked and quickly hustled inside, waving at the night duty receptionist on his way down the west hallway. Nurse Tackett was waiting at the nurse’s station as he made the right-hand turn into the last corridor. He knew in an instant that he was too late.