FIRST DROP

By MAJOR MARTIN LINDSAY

FOR four days there had been a strong wind. For four. days I had felt as if my skin had been cleaned every morning with ether, in preparation for the surgeon's knife. The fifth day was calm. No breeze stirred the maple leaves. We went into the store and reached up to the shelves for our parachutes. We might have been going in to sit for an examination. Everybody was so very witty.

" Don't do like the man who made a hole in the Brighton Road. He pulled his tie instead of the rip cord."

" . . . it's guaranteed to open. If it doesn't, they give you a new one."

The small, stuffy, overcrowded room and my nervousness as we waited reminded me of sitting in the dressing room before a steeplechase. At any moment I expected a little man in a bowler hat to come in and say, " All jockeys riding in the 9.3o out into the hangar please."

We climbed into the aeroplane and sat on the floor of the fuselage. The engines roared and we took off. I knelt forward and peered out through a little porthole at my side. Spread out below me was an ordinary English countryside: fields and lanes, the odd farmhouse, yard and stacks, a straggling line of cottages, a disused brick kiln, a copse or two, the silvery line of a canal with the sun on it—typical of the England for which we are fighting, and in whose need we were making this fantastic experiment that morning.

I noticed how Moist the palms of my hands were. I wished I did not always feel slightly sick in an aeroplane. The last time I had flown had been to Norway, dodging the Heinkels en route. I remembered the little cockney air-gunner with cauliflower ears who chewed gum and grinned at me, his finger on the trigger. Where was he now? I remembered another face: that of a man I met years ago in some bar; he told me that he had once been paid a pound apiece by the Chilean Government for testing thirty parachutes. " Not enough," I theught to myself at that moment, " Not nearly enough." - It seemed an age, but it cannot have been more than ten minutes, when the instructor beckoned to me. The Germans ye a chucker-out in their aircraft, for the encouragement of ervous recruits. Flight-Sergeant Brereton, 6 ft. 2 in., would ve made a good absetzer. I began to make my way down the fuselage towards him, screwing myself up to do so. Resolution," I said to myself, " your something and your olution will bring us victory," was on the hoardings. But could only remember the one word " resolution," and kept epeating it to myself. I crawled on hands and knees into the ear gunner's turret, the back of which had been removed. I tried not to overbalance and fall out nor to look at the dscape speeding across below me, as I turned to face onward again. Hitherto it had been a mental struggle; now was a physical struggle, to squeeze past the flight-sergeant's gs and turn in that narrow place, hampered by the parachute ck strapped to my back. Without the flight-sergeant to IP me to my feet I could scarcely have managed it. I now 'und myself standing on a small platform about a foot square, the very back of the plane, hanging on like grim death o the bar under which I had had such difficulty in crawling. e two rudders were a few feet away on either side of me ; behind me was nothing whatever. As soon as I raised myself to full height I found that I was to all purposes outside the plane, the slipstream of air in my face almost blowing me off. I quickly huddled up, my head bent down and pressed into the capacious bosom of the flight-sergeant.

The flight-sergeant held up his hand for me to watch. I was about to make a " pull-off," opening my parachute which would not pull me off until fully developed—a procedure which was calculated to fill me with such confidence that I should be only too ready to leap smartly out of the aircraft on all subsequent occasions.

The little light at the side changed from yellow to red. " Not long now I" he shouted to me with a grin, looking over my shoulder at the country beneath.

"Oh, God!" I said to myself. "Oh, God!"

I was undeniably frightened though at the same time filled with a fearful joy.

The light changed to green and down fell his hand.

I put my right hand across to the D-ring in front of my left side and pulled sharply. A pause of nearly a second, then a terrific jerk on each shoulder. I was whisked off back- wards and then swung through nearly 1800, beneath the canopy and up the other side. But of this I was quite oblivious, having something akin to a black-out. At any rate the first thing I was conscious of after the jerk on my shoulders was to find myself, perhaps four seconds later, sitting up in my harness and floating down to earth. The only sensation I registered was one of utter astonishment at finding myself so suddenly in this remarkable and ridiculous position.

I looked up and saw the silken canopy billowing in the air-currents—a thing of beauty as the sun shone on and through it. I reached down and eased the harness straps from the more vulnerable portion of my anatomy. I looked down at the ground. Green tops of trees and sheep tracks across the green turf stretched below me. I saw the smoke flare that had assisted the pilot not to drop me in the lake. I saw the ambulance on the edge of the landing-ground. I saw some cows and just had time to decide that they were Jerseys. Little knots of people were running about beneath me. But mainly I watched the smoke flare. Suddenly I realised that. the ground was coming up very rapidly towards me. The smoke had shown me that I should fall over on my right side. I made myself limp and prepared to fall in that direction. Before I knew what had happened I was sprawling on the ground, having taken a bump but no hurt.

As I got to my feet a feeling of exhilaration began to fill me. " There's nothing in it," I said to myself. This fearful bogey was dead now, another dragon slain. Then I realised I was wet. I ran my hand down my side: a thick and slimy substance met my fingers. The exhilaration swiftly melted away. People came running up and I found myself an object of ridicule. What an anti-climax * * * " Your morning tea, Sir I " said Private Wells, who in private life is a Fellow of Balliol.

So it had all been just a dream, I said to myself. Of course it never could have been true.

. . . a nice morning," his voice droned on, " And what will you be wearing today, Sir? Shall I put out your new tartan trews or your canvas overalls? If you are contemplating another descent today, Sir, I should recommend the overalls. I have cleaned off all the—ah—the—ah—excretum vacci."

And overalls it has been ever since.