Above him he saw that Messerschmitt One-Tens had joined the Heinkels in trying to finish off the Spitfires. He leveled off as the Merlin gave its last gasp of power and sent the ship gliding toward home.
For a time Stan thought the Jerries had missed him, they were so busy up above. Eight thousand feet below his wings the rough waters of the channel were moving up to meet him. The first warning Stan had that he was not to escape without a fight was a terrific jolting and ripping that almost shook him loose from his seat; the next was the staccato rattle of a rapid-fire cannon that was ripping great chunks out of his right wing.
The Spitfire writhed up on her side, then rolled over on her back and shot seaward. Stan pulled the stick back against his stomach and kicked the right rudder viciously. He looked up just as the Jerry loosed another broadside which missed the ship. The Jerry zoomed back up, satisfied he had finished the Spitfire that was trying to slip away.
Stan gave the Jerry but a glance. He was battling to pull the Spitfire out of the spin he had jammed her into. He soon realized that there was no control left in the ship, so he unbuckled his belt and rammed back what was left of the hatch cover. He squirmed out of the cockpit and dived. As he slid away from the ship he felt himself caught and held. His chute bellied out and the shoulder straps wrenched at him. A second later he was ripped loose and whirled away from the crumpled wreck. As he leveled off he saw that he was about 3,000 feet from the water.
It appeared also that Stan had the channel to himself. Overhead he could hear the faint drone of motors; otherwise there was no sound except the cries of a half-dozen excited gulls that swooped down about him curiously as the chute let him drift downward toward the gray sea.
An inshore wind whipped at his clothing, twisting him dizzily as he dangled there in mid-air, and he had a brief, crazy hope that it might carry him in to land before he went down. But that wild hope died at once when he realized the shore was miles away.
There was nothing for it but to take his wetting and hope the R.A.F. life jacket was as good as it was supposed to be. He stared downward at the choppy surface that seemed to sweep upward to meet him, gritting his teeth to drive fear away. This was a chance every channel flier took… and sometimes they were rescued.
He handled the chute controls skillfully, easing himself down with the wind while he fought to loosen the buckles that held the straps tightly about him. If he went into the water with that chute dragging him down there wouldn’t be any chance of eventual rescue.
As his numbed fingers tore at the buckles he wondered what it felt like to drown. The sea was close now. A bleak gray expanse of waves that reached hungry arms upward to receive another human sacrifice. One buckle came free, then another. He ripped himself out of the harness and plummeted down the last ten feet, his body driving deep into the icy cold water.
He came to the surface sputtering and beating the water madly, then remembered the life jacket he wore, and let its buoyancy support him while he took stock of the situation.