The rope seemed to tighten abruptly. The harness tightened upon his body. Peter gasped, sprawled and had the sensation of being hauled up back again into the sky....
It was all right, so far. He was now swaying down earthward with a diminishing velocity beneath an open parachute. He was floating over the landscape instead of falling straight into it.
But the German had not done with Peter yet. He became visible beneath the edge of Peter’s parachute, circling downward regardless of anti-aircraft and machine-guns. “Pap, pap, pap, pap.” The bullets burst and banged about Peter.
Something kicked Peter’s knee; something hit his neck; something rapped the knuckles of his wounded hand; the parachute winced and went sideways, slashed and pierced. Peter drifted down faster, helpless, his angry eyes upon his assailant, who vanished again, going out of sight as he rose up above the edge of the parachute.
A storm of pain and rage broke from Peter.
“Done in!” shouted Peter. “Oh! my leg! my leg!
“I’m shot to bits. I’m shot to bloody bits!”
The tree tops were near at hand. The parachute had acquired a rhythmic swing and was falling more rapidly.
“And I’ve still got to land,” wailed Peter, beginning to cry like a child.
He wanted to stop just a moment, just for one little moment, before the ground rushed up to meet him. He wanted time to think. He didn’t know what to do with this dangling leg. It became a monstrous, painful obstacle to landing. How was he to get a spring? He was bleeding. He was dying. It was cruel. Cruel.