‘What the hell are you waiting for?’
‘I think I’d better stay,’ I said. If I stayed he’d be forced to make an attempt to land.
He must have sensed what was at the back of my mind, for he suddenly laughed. ‘You don’t know very much about me, do you, Neil?’ The snarl had gone out of his voice. But his eyes remained hard and bitter. ‘Go on. Get back aft with Tubby, and don’t be a fool. I don’t like heroics.’ And then suddenly shouting at me: ‘Get aft, man. Do you hear? Or have I got to come down there myself and throw you out?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Ever jumped before?’
‘Once,’ I answered, my mind mirroring the memory of that night landing in the woods of Westphalia, hanging in the straps with my parachute caught in a tree and my arm broken.
‘Scared, eh?’ The sneer was intentional. I knew that. He was goading me to jump. And yet I reacted. I reacted as he wanted me to because I was scared. I’d always been scared of having to bale out after that one experience. ‘Of course I’m not scared,’ I snapped and turned and moved awkwardly to the fuselage, the weight of my parachute bouncing against my buttocks.
Tubby already had the door of the fuselage open. The rush of air made it bitterly cold. The plane was turning now over the hangars, losing height rapidly. He didn’t say anything. You haven’t room for anything else in your mind when you are faced with a jump. We caught a glimpse of the quarters, looking very neat and snug in its little patch of trees. I could even make out the hen-run at the back with the white dots of two or three fowl. Then we were banking for the run-in. The trees slid away under us. I saw the snaking line of the road coming up from Ramsbury. Then, over Tubby’s shoulder, I made out the edge of the airfield. He glanced at me with a quick, nervous grin, gripped my arm tightly and then, still looking at me, fell outwards into space.
I watched his body turn over and over. Saw his hand pull at the release of his parachute. The canopy of nylon blossomed like a flower and his body steadied, swinging rhythmically.
We were right over the airfield now. My limbs felt cold and stiff. The sweat stood out on my forehead. I heard Saeton scream at me to jump, saw him clambering out of the pilot’s seat. He was going to leave the controls, come aft and throw me out. I closed my eyes quickly, gripped ‘the cold metal of the release lever and fell forward into the howl of the slipstream. My legs swung over the back of my neck. Opening my eyes I saw the sky, the sun, the horizon coming up the wrong way as though I were in a loop, the airfield rolling under me. Then I jerked at the release; jerked at it again and again in desperate fear that it wouldn’t work.
Suddenly my shoulders were wrenched from their sockets, the inside of my legs cut by the hard pull of the straps. My legs fell into place. Sky and earth sorted themselves out. I was dangling in space, no wind, no sound — only the fading roar of the plane as it climbed, a black dot over the far side of the airfield. Above me the white cloud of the parachute swung gently, beautifully, the air-hole showing a dark patch of sky. Twisting my head I saw Tubby touch the ground, roll over and over in a perfect drill landing. Then he was scrambling to his feet, pulling in his parachute, legs braced against the drag of it, emptying the air till it lay in an inert white fold at his feet.
Travelling with the light wind the air was quite still. It was as though I were suspended there over the airfield for all eternity. There seemed to be no movement. Time and space stood still as I dangled like a daylight firework. The drone of the plane had died away. It had vanished as though it had never been. The stillness was all-pervading, pleasant, yet rather frightening.
Though the movement was imperceptible my position gradually altered in relation to the ground. I was gliding steadily along the line of the east-west runway. I tried to work out my angle of drop in relation to the trees bordering the airfield near the quarters. But it was quite impossible to gauge the rate of fall. All I know is that one moment I was dangling up there, apparently motionless, and the next the concrete end of the runway was rushing up to meet me.
I hit the concrete with my legs too firmly braced for the shock. I hit it as though I’d jumped from a building into the street. The jar of the touchdown ran up my spine and hammered at my head and then all was confusion as my parachute harness jerked me forward. I had the sense to throw up my arms and duck my head into the protection of my shoulder as I hit the concrete.
I remember being pitched forward and over and then there was a stunning blow on the front of my head and I lost consciousness.
I couldn’t have been out for long because I came round to find myself being slowly dragged along the concrete by my shoulders. I dug my hands and feet in, anchoring myself for a moment. Blood ran down my face and dripped into a crack in the concrete. Somebody shouted to me and I caught hold of the strings of the parachute, struggling to fold it as I’d been taught to do. But I hadn’t the strength. I dropped back, half-unconscious, a feeling of terrible lassitude running along my muscles.
The pull of my shoulders slackened. Somebody stooped over me and fingers worked at the harness buckles. ‘Neil! Are you all right? Please.’
I looked up then. It was Else. ‘What — are you doing here?’ I asked. I had some difficulty in getting my breath.
‘I came to see the test. What has happened? Why have you jumped?’
‘The undercarriage,’ I said.
‘The undercarriage? Then it is not the engines? The engines are all right?’
‘Yes, the engines are all right. It’s the undercarriage. Won’t come down.’ I looked up at her and saw that she was staring up into the sky, her eyes alight with some emotion that I couldn’t understand. ‘Why are you so excited?’ I asked her.
‘Because-’ She looked down at me quickly, her mouth clamped shut. ‘Come. I help you up now.’ She placed her hands under my arms. The world spun as I found my feet and leaned heavily against her, waiting for the aerodrome to stop spinning. Blood trickled into my mouth and I put my hand to my forehead. It was the old cut that had reopened and I thought: This is where I came in. ‘What about Tubby? Is he all right?’
‘Yes. He is coming here now.’
I shook the blood out of my eyes. A small dot was running down the runway. He shouted something. I didn’t understand at first. Then I remembered Saeton and the aircraft. Ambulance! Of course. The quarters were not five hundred yards away. ‘Quick, Else. I must get to the phone.’ A muscle in one of my legs seemed to have been wrenched. It was hell running. But I made it in the end and seized hold of the telephone. My voice when I spoke to the operator was a breathless sob. She put me through to the Swindon hospital and then to the fire brigade. Tubby came in as I finished phoning. ‘Ambulance and fire brigade coming,’ I said.
‘Good! You’d better lie down, Neil. Your head looks bad.’
‘I’m all right,’ I said. ‘What about the plane?’ The need for action had given me strength.
‘Saeton’s stooging round over the field at about 5,000 feet using up his remaining gas.’ He turned to Else. ‘You’d better get some water on to heat. He may be a bit of a mess when we get him in.’ She nodded quickly and hurried out to the kitchen. ‘What’s that girl doing here?’ he asked me. But he didn’t seem to expect an answer, for he went straight out to the airfield. I followed him.
Looking up into the sun brought a blinding pain to my eyes, but by screwing them up I could see the glint of the plane as it banked. The air was very still in the shelter of the woods and the sound of the engines seemed quite loud. Time passed slowly. We stood there in silence, waiting for the inevitable moment when the plane would cease its interminable circling and dive away over the horizon for the final approach. My legs began to feel weak and I sat down on the ground. ‘Why don’t you go and lie down?’ Tubby asked. His voice sounded irritable.
‘I’ll stay here,’ I said. I wasn’t thinking of Saeton then. I was thinking of the plane. There it was, flying perfectly. Only that damned undercarriage stood between us and success. It seemed a hard twist of fate.