Green On, Go!
Y T. N. DELF (St. John's College, Cambridge) P ARACHUTING seemed merely a pleasantly exciting change from the dull routine of Army life, when as a • National Serviceman I offered to serve as a Territorial In an airborne unit. As time went by, however, and the, date of my two-week basic parachute course slid relentlessly nearer, nlY equanimity vanished. The worst of it 'was that 1 could Only blame myself for it all. By the time Lstood on Paddington station waiting for the train to the parachute school in Berkshire MY imagination had taken complete control. Not many of the Parachutes opened in my imaginary jumps. The three days of preliminary training were so intensive, and so cruel on our soft civilian muscles that we felt the real thing could not possibly be worse. In a hangar full of swings, slides, mats and dummy fuselages we rolled, jumped, swung and slid until life seemed confined to a ceaseless and inescapable battering. One particular gadget will stand out in the mind of every trainee. It was called ' The Fan '; from a small doorway high up in the hangar, you made a 30-foot jump, supported from a revolving drum by a cable attached to a harness. Our instructors told us comfortingly that their children used it as playground. We were unimpressed by such precociousness I I think our first jump from this devilish machine was, for most Of us, the biggest fright we had ever had. It was unlike real Parachuting in that we did get blasé after the second or third lump and watched with sadistic glee when a junior course first tried it out.
At last, after two days waiting for the wind to drop to the requisite fifteen knots, we were woken at 5.30 one morning and told that the big moment had at last come. We were to Make our two ' balloon descents' that morning. By now we had settled down to a state of continual nervous tension. This showed itself in different ways. Some talked incessantly, some looked glum, other couldn't keep still. All my life seemed to have been bounded by the language and atmosphere of Parachuting. Everything else faded into the background of My mind. No matter how many. films, demonstrations and assurances there were on the infallibility of parachutes a small but persistent doubt remained.
A strained excitement pervaded the ' Stand By ' room as we fitted our 'chutes and strapped on our steel helmets. On the latter some had chalked the names of their girl-friends or favourite film stars. 'A former Commando in my stick, with Clark Gable moustache and a disarming smile, told me he had never felt more scared in all his life, and asked me with a worried look, " Feeling a bit shaky, sir ? " I truthfully replied that I was petrified and we exchanged wan smiles, somehow deriving comfort from our,mutual fears. out the canopy as I fall away. The. instructor beckons No. forward. As he stands ready in the open doorway I notice that he has the wrong foot forward and I am proud that my reeling thoughts have still some coherence. A shout, a lurch, and it is my {urn. My heart pounds as I place myself in the doorway in the posture practised so often down there in the hangar. I stare ahead into the cloud. A scream in my ear, an instinctive jump, my eyes shut and I am falling. A ghastly clawing and contracting sensation in my stomach as I fall free for 150 feet, a flap above my head, and I am floating down, hanging limply beneath a tautly stretched white canopy. My thoughts collect once more, I open my eyes and, light-headed with relief, I gaze down at the miniature aerodrome below. The dream-like silence is broken by the kindly soft Irish brogue of the Flying Officer below whose instructions float up from the loud-hailer: " Assess your drift. Pull down on the front lift-web—right down now, you silly man. Head down, elbows in, knees slightly bent, feet together—FEET TOGE1 HER." The ground rushes drunkenly up, my feet touch and 1 crumple up in a painless if inept landing that is kindly put down on my performance sheet as ' Good forward right.' Exuberantly I pick myself up, at last a parachutist. Already those anxious seconds so indelibly impressed on my memory have become as unreal as a nightmare just after the awakening. Just as then, too, the only physical reminders of one's fears are a pounding heart and damp perspiration.
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