Sky Ghost

by Maloney, Mack;

  He would need a great mind to get him back to where he came from, and the way he saw it, all the great minds were either working on the war or in hiding.

  So, in the logical sway of things, it would follow that the quickest way for him to reach his goal, was for him to do whatever he could to shorten this war. Somehow. Some way.

  It was a long shot—he knew that. But what was the alternative? Sit back and wait for the end? He wasn’t exactly sure yet what kind of a person he was back in his old life, but he knew at least he wasn’t someone who would just give up and wait for the book to be closed. Not without a fight. Not without trying something, no matter how outrageous.

  He looked down at the letter of authorization. The CO’s signature was just a scribble, and the ink had stained, but it was still written by a man who knew he was fading fast—and wanted to do something about it.

  And maybe this was what Hunter was supposed to do, he thought. From the back of his skull, a voice was urging him on, telling him, yes this was exactly what he should do.

  And then, a plan began formulating in his mind.

  He sat there for at least half an hour. The wind blowing outside, the frozen officer not five feet away.

  Then he simply stood up, folded the letter, and put it in his pocket.

  Then he left the office.

  Chapter 19

  IT WAS 1800 HOURS, six o’clock in the evening.

  Dreamland base had been shut down tight all day as a fierce blizzard blanketed the Circle bases and halted all operations.

  Alone as always in the large, ghostly barracks, Hunter had spent the day finally reading the manual on the Mustang-5. He was glad he had it, if just to pass the time, but he really didn’t learn anything new. Flying was doing, and if you’re doing then you were past learning.

  The day also gave him time to build the plan which had germinated in his visit to the CO’s office earlier. Even he had to admit it was a monster of an idea. Multifaceted. Dangerous. Outlandish even. It made him wonder once again: Just who the hell was he in his previous life that he would even dream up the sort of scheme he was now contemplating? There was no answer to that, he guessed—so he didn’t dwell on it.

  Instead, he just went with the flow.

  A third set of thoughts had played on his mind all day too. It had to do with the last mission he’d flown, the one over Ireland with the 3234th. Why would it not let go of him? He didn’t know.

  But in a strange way, that’s what the first part of his plan was all about.

  The wind abated a little and Hunter took that as a sign that he should get moving. The weather here was unpredictable to say the least. He had to take advantage of any break in the squall.

  He put the manual away and raided one of the barracks’ clothes lockers. He liberated two sweaters, an extra flight suit, two woolen hats, and a pair of thermal gloves. None of them appeared to have been owned by any of the deceased residents of the barracks. This was just fine with him. He climbed into the clothes, being careful to layer himself as he did so.

  He’d secured a quart bottle of Hard Jack from the OC’s reticent bartender earlier in the day, 180 proof no less. He also bought a thick piece of dried pepper beef, a favorite of the maintenance crews. It was enough food and booze to man a small party. Now he took a long slug of the booze; it went down like gasoline. He took a bite of the beef, and it tasted worse than the booze—at first anyway. Thus fortified and bundled, he went out the back door of the barracks.

  The bitter wind greeted him like a punch in the mouth. Another quick swig of Jack dulled that pain. Another chaw of beef would keep his mouth moving, important for what lay ahead.

  He took a deep breath and took a look around. The wind had died down to a mere gale. It was cloudy as always, and some snow was still falling—but it would not be difficult for him to find his destination.

  Over the snowy hills to the north, the glow of lights was intense, amplified by the low cloud cover. There was a definite orange tint to this glow. Halogen, Hunter guessed correctly. The lights were about half a mile away.

  Then he turned to his left. Off to the northwest, there was another glow. This one was greenish, about two miles away. Beyond that, some more orange, and beyond that some more blues and greens. All around him, in an almost 360-degree sweep, the lights from the 12 bases which made up the Circle Wing glowed against the night sky like the aurora borealis.

  He took another slug of Jack, a third mouthful of pepper beef, and then started off, up and over the first hill, trudging over the hard-packed snow and ice.

  He would head towards the orange lights first.

  The hike was not as bad as it could have been.

  Sure the wind was blowing, and ice crystals filled the night air. But Hunter soon discovered he had the ability to put himself into another state of mind for the trek, just as he was able to put himself in another place while riding the long flights home from the UK bombing missions.

  If he didn’t dwell too much on the wind and the subzero temperature, then it ceased being windy and cold. The stars helped too. The sky was hardly clear, but there were some occasional breaks in the overcast, and sometimes they were big enough for a patch of stars to peek through. The night sky was much different up here, near the North Pole, than it had been in the view from his prison cell. The stars seemed brighter, and there were many more of them. The clouds moved quickly and gave him only tantalizing glimpses of the most impressive constellations, but these were enough to keep him entertained during the long, icy march.

  He reached his first destination 55 minutes later. He topped an ice hill and suddenly, there it was before him. Four huge runways, a couple of dozen buildings, a half dozen maintenance hangars. About 100 B-24/52 bombers, lined up wing-to-wing on the frozen tarmac.

  It was Circle Field #3. Home of the 999th Bomber Squadron.

  Hunter made it to the edge of the base, stripped off his overalls and hid the bottle of Jack. There was no fence, no barrier preventing him from just walking on to the base. Just like his own airfield, security here was nonexistent.

  He made directly for the base’s officer’s club. He found it quickly and was heartened to see the lights burning within. He pushed back his hair, took one more gulp of the icy air, and went through the front door.

  The place was livelier than the club back at the 2001st. Much livelier. There were two fights going on when Hunter walked in. The floor was wet with booze, spit, and even blood. Fists connecting, bottles breaking, the mayhem seemed routine. But many people were just sitting around too. Clutches of unkempt pilots at out-of-the-way tables, eating, drinking, playing cards. The air was thick with both cigarette smoke and pot. This was obviously the normal state of affairs for this place.

  Hunter drew few glances coming in, and quickly made for the bar. He ordered a whiskey, drained it, and then ordered another. Then he asked the bartender a question.

  “Who’s the big cheese here tonight?”

  The barkeep didn’t reply. He just nodded to a man sitting alone in one corner of the hall. His back was to everyone else.

  “What’s he drink?” Hunter asked the bartender.

  “Anything,” was the reply.

  “Give me two,” Hunter said.

  The bartender did so. Hunter walked over and put the two massive glasses of whiskey on the table, next to the six full glasses already there. Apparently everyone was buying drinks for this guy.

  The man never looked up. He just stared at the new glass of whiskey in front of him. Hunter sat down.

  And then it got a little weird.

  He intended to ask the man about the current state of his depleted squadron—but before the words could get out, the man looked up at him.

  Hunter nearly dropped his glass. The guy was in his mid thirties, just a touch of gray in his hair, a lot of Irish in his face. He was a little chunky, but very tough-looking.

  And Hunter swore that he’d met him before.

  “Who the fuck are you?” t
he man wanted to know.

  “Do I know you?” Hunter asked him.

  The man just stared back at him, and slowly took a long sip of whiskey.

  “You one of my new pilots?” he finally asked Hunter, still sizing him up. “I wasn’t told I’d be getting any…”

  “I’m from the 2001st,” he told the man. “You know? Right over the hill?”

  This barely registered on the man.

  “You here to borrow a cup of sugar?” he asked derisively—but Hunter could tell his heart was not completely in his bitterness.

  “I’m the fighter guy who flew with you three days ago,” Hunter said, tasting his own whiskey.

  The man laughed and took another swig. “Oh, that was you?” he asked. “Showed a lot of initiative, my friend.”

  It might have been as close as he would come to getting a compliment out of the man.

  “Just trying to do the gig,” Hunter replied. “You lost a lot of guys that day.”

  The man swigged his drink and snorted.

  “Where you been, pal? You read the papers? We’ve been losing guys like that for the past four months.”

  “Any interest in trying to change that?” Hunter asked him point-blank.

  “Besides staying on the ground you mean?” the man asked back.

  “I mean finally doing something that will have some kind of effect on all this, instead of wasting eight hundred lives dropping bombs into a big hole in the ground,” Hunter told him.

  The CO drained his glass of whiskey and let out another drunken cough.

  “Anything is better than what we’re doing now,” he said.

  “Your men feel the same way?”

  “What’s left of them, yes.”

  The man started on another drink. Two drunks went flying through the air right in back of him. He didn’t flinch a muscle.

  “How many aircraft do you think are still operational here?” Hunter asked him.

  The man shrugged and burped.

  “We got about a hundred and six that can still get airborne,” he replied. “The whole Wing, counting trainers and cargo humps? Maybe eleven hundred or so. It was six thousand this time last year.”

  “You think there’s enough pilots left to fly all those planes?”

  “Barely,” was the man’s reply. “Why all these questions?”

  Hunter just shrugged. “Might have something cooking. Maybe a different way of doing business.”

  The guy laughed again.

  “You? How can you change anything?” he asked Hunter. “You’re the newest guy on the Circle.”

  “Leave the details to me,” Hunter told him.

  The guy drained his drink in one great swallow and started on another.

  “Well, whatever you have in mind, count us in,” he said with a slur. “It will be entertaining, if nothing else.”

  Hunter finished his own drink, and then stood up. “Someone will be in touch,” he said.

  But the man didn’t hear him. He was already nose-deep in his next glass.

  Hunter headed for the door. Step one in a long process was complete. But one thought still lingered.

  He passed by the bar.

  “That guy,” he asked the bartender. “The CO. What’s his name anyway?”

  The bartender snorted a laugh too. “If you don’t know who he is, you must be very new around here.”

  “I am,” Hunter replied. “So?”

  “That man’s name,” the bartender said, “Is Captain P.J. O’Malley.”

  Ten minutes later, Hunter was trudging through the snow again.

  He’d retrieved his bottle of Jack and his extra clothes and had started out over the hills once more. He was fairly drunk by now, dangerous in such freezing weather, but OK with him. The wind was not blowing, and the air was not cold. He’d convinced himself of that, and thus it was so.

  About a mile away, he saw yellow lights. They were his next goal. And he was inside another state of mind again too. But this one had nothing to do with the stars or constellations.

  His feet were stepping through foot-high snow. Crunch! Crunch! The noise he made with his boots seemed awfully loud.

  That guy back at the 999th—his Irish face, his drinking habits, his old-at-35 demeanor. Damn, Hunter knew him. Knew him and had drank with him and had fought with him. He could feel it in his skin, in his bones and way, way in the back of his skull.

  But who the hell was he?

  Crunch! Crunch! The snow was getting deeper and the ice harder but Hunter trudged on.

  The voice in his ear back on the huge chopper. The man named Fitzgerald and that familiar Irish brogue. He was sure he’d known him too. But who the hell had Hunter hung around with in his previous place? A bunch of Micks? Is that why he was drinking so much? And what was next? A fistfight? A brawl with a Protestant?

  The phenomenon of thinking he recognized people was the exact same feeling as déjà vu—whatever the hell that was. Maybe, though, it just happened to be that the two people with which he’d had this deep impression were Celtic. If it happened a third time, that might hold the key.

  But that guy O’Malley, back at the 999th. He looked so familiar.

  Crunch! Crunch!

  The yellow lights were slowly getting closer, even as the wind became stronger. It was hitting him on the lee side now and he used it to move him along.

  Crunch! Crunch!

  What was it going to be like when he reached the yellow lights?

  Forty minutes later, Hunter came up over the hill, taking his last swing of Jack and chewing his last piece of beef.

  The first thing he saw on the other side were the frozen runways. Once again there were no fences, no guards patrolling the perimeter of the airfield. No less than eight dozen B-l 7/B-36 bombers were waiting in the snow beyond a group of buildings.

  Appropriately enough, they were bathed in the yellowish lights.

  Hunter let out a long cold breath. His second destination was now before him. Circle Base Four. The home of the 13th Heavy Bombardment Squadron.

  The 13th’s operations hall was filled to capacity.

  Every seat was taken, and some people were standing along the walls. No less than 16 officers were sitting atop a slightly raised stage at one end. Each one was crisply dressed. Each one had his own microphone. Cameras were running from three angles. Someone tested the mikes, and there was a squeal of feedback. The lights dimmed. The premission briefing had begun.

  A huge moving map was projected on the screen behind the officers. It showed the British Isles.

  Someone hit a special effects button and dozens of little cartoonish flames began popping up on the map. Obviously these were the targets intended for the 13th the next day.

  Now little weather clouds were coming into view. They were thick over the North Sea, but clear over the British Isles. This brought a smattering of applause from the assembled bomber pilots.

  Another switch was thrown, and now dozens of bombers were popping on the screen. Each one was unique, and they each bore different numbers, different paint schemes, different nose art. They looked oddly realistic. Even their little propellers were turning. More applause; some hoots. The individual pilots began busily writing down exactly where their particular airplanes were in the animated formation.

  The briefing continued. The cartoon bombers neared their targets. Numbers up and down the sides of the screen showed bombing routes for individual packages, approach and egress paths, and projected weather for the ride home. At the very end, the words Enemy Air Activity flashed onto the screen. This brought a hush from the pilots. Then came the notation: Details Currently Classified.

  This definitely took the wind out of the room. The place became very quiet, and finally the animation ended. The screen disappeared into the ceiling and the curtains were closed—but the lights stayed down.

  “OK,” someone called out finally. “What are we really going to do?”

  Thus began a very strange discussion among th
e pilots. What the person meant was, where was the 13th really going to drop their bombs? In the ocean? Or on land somewhere?

  “If we find the right place, with some buildings on terrain,” one pilot said, “we can turn on the cameras and at least get some photos of it. It would be a better way to prove we flew the mission than just dumping our loads into the sea again.”

  “But where is such a place?” another pilot asked. “What piece of land can we unload over that’s not within range of some enemy aircraft? We can’t bomb the Faeroe Islands again. We’ve got too many films of bombing seagulls already.”

  It was a real dilemma for the 13th. When the Wing CO went catatonic, most of the squadrons around the Circle just began operating on their own. Doing their own thing. Some flew regular missions. Some went overboard and showed initiative beyond what could be expected. Some sent up only a few airplanes. Some sent up the whole kit and caboodle. Some didn’t fly at all.

  The 13th was different. They all wanted to fly their 50 missions so they could go home as heroes—so flying was never the question. However, they were all of the ilk that they didn’t want to risk their lives while fulfilling their mission quotas. So they became very adept at dumping loads and not meeting the enemy at all. They’d bombed the small Faeroe Islands many times already, just to get smoky film as proof of completing their mission. Most of the time though, they just dumped their loads at sea.

  The mission to the Isle of Man two days ago had thrown a monkey wrench into this method of operation, though. For the first time in a very long time, some fighter support showed up. Small as it was, it had come as a shock. It also gave them a witness, which was the last thing they wanted.

  So they had to improvise that day. They actually flew the mission, hoping that the enemy would do them a favor and shoot down the hero. When they saw him dive into two dozen German interceptors, they figured that was enough. They all turned tail and headed for home, dropping their bombs at sea. As far as they knew, the guy went down somewhere over the Isle of Man.

  “How about dumping at the very northern corner of Scotland again?” another pilot asked.

  “That makes damn good film, or we can edit some stuff together again and…”