The Uvalde Raider by Ben English (great books for teens TXT) 📕

Max looked at the unterfeldwebel, his face an impassive mask. “Weren’t we all, Senior Sergeant?” he asked. “Weren’t we all?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

As the end of the summer of 1945 drew near, Max was in a disarmed enemy forces camp in the western part of Germany. He had managed to safely surrender both himself and his inherited command to the first American soldiers they could find. The war ended soon thereafter and the long nightmare for tens of millions had finally come to an end. Hitler was dead, and his inhumanly ruinous Reich had joined him in his incinerated grave.

Being a former German officer, he and others like him were being held until an exact determination could be made as to who he was, and what was to become of him. Life was better than it had been for a long time; he ate well, he slept well, and in the meantime his burns had fully healed with the assistance of American medical care.

He also had ample time to read his small Lutheran Bible, and to think about what he should do with his life from this point forward. Max had even begun wearing a small silver cross around his neck, a reminder to himself as to his new path.

The detainee camp was on a former Luftwaffe airbase, one he had flown out of many times during the war. The Americans had appropriated it for their own use and situated the camp near the end of the longest runway, which was used primarily by multi-engine aircraft. Max and his fellow Germans would sit for hours and marvel at the sheer numbers and types of aircraft flying in and out, signifying the overwhelming might of their erstwhile enemy.

‘How could we have ever hoped to defeat the British and the Bolsheviks at the same time?’’ he had wondered. ‘Much less these Americans with their endless stream of aircraft, men and equipment? Hitler and those closest to him must have been completely out of their minds.’

And so time passed day by day; time to heal, time to reflect and time to ponder. Two years ago the younger Max Grephardt had been so assured of himself, believing that he alone possessed all the necessary answers. Now his older reincarnation realized that not only had he not possessed any of the answers, he had never posed any of the proper questions. This place, this environment, this situation finally allowed Max the opportunity to do so.

Security at the camp was rudimentary at best, the hard corps Nazi party types had already been identified and carted away in the weeks before. The remaining former members of the German war machine were pretty much given free rein of the area, as long as they stayed in the general vicinity and away from the parked aircraft, along with the command and control facilities. The Americans knew what these German officers also knew: the war was over, Germany had lost. There was no reason to continue skirmishing in hopeless fashion against someone who no longer behaved as your enemy.

One obliging afternoon Max was sitting in a canvas folding chair, dozing after the noon meal. He had been watching the countless Allied aircraft coming and going until even that had become too much effort for him. The hauptmann pulled his uniform hat over his eyes, leaned back, and let the warmth of the sun and the surrounding peaceful sounds soak through his soul. Together, they served as a remembrance that just being alive was a very good thing indeed.

That was when he heard it, the noise of an airplane in trouble. Big trouble. The disconcerting sound shocked him rudely back into full consciousness, and he tipped his hat up to see a C-54 Skymaster trying to claw its way into the sky.

The C-54 had just become airborne and was struggling to gain altitude against an unseen giant hand that enveloped the transport craft, trying to shove it back to the ground. The plane slewed from side to side as the engines screamed futilely to keep it in the air. The young Luftwaffe pilot watched as the starboard wing began to dip, and he knew with a sickening certainty what was to occur next.

Max Grephardt was already out of the chair and bolting in the Skymaster's direction when that same wing dug into an earthen berm, and the American cargo plane began cartwheeling violently along the ground. He sprinted onward as hard as he could go, his legs propelling him at a speed he had not known since those Soviet bullets had cracked and hissed around him months before. That was when trying to save his own life, now he was trying to save the lives of others.

Nearing the scene of the horrific crash, Max was confronted with circumstances that would have prevented most men from going any further. A heavy acrid smoke assaulted his eyes and lungs, while the odor of melting rubber and electrical wiring filled his nostrils. A mostly solid sheet of flame from the ignited avgas blocked his way but he plunged on through, making for what was left of the cockpit and main fuselage ahead.

He could hear something of remaining life from inside, the sounds of confusion, of pain and of terror. Every man who had ever challenged the skies shares one thing in common with all others, the fear of fire and of being burned alive. This uncommon kinsmanship with those trapped within kept Max going, and he entered through a ruptured part of the fuselage near where the wings had once been.

In the smoke-filled interior of the shattered aircraft, the odors and the intense heat were all magnified to the level of being nigh unbearable. The first man Max came across was dead, eyes wide open but not seeing anything ever again. Max silently prayed the shortest of prayers for the man's