"Ditto to you, Freddy!" Dave shouted, and let his body drop down through the belly door.
CHAPTER NINE
In The Enemy's Country
The instant Dave Dawson dropped away from the belly of the Wellington black night engulfed him from all sides. He let his whole body go limp and relaxed save for the fingers of his right hand, which he kept tightly curled about the rip-cord ring. For a brief moment or so, as his body turned over and over in that sea of darkness, it seemed as though a million invisible hands were grabbing at the Belgian peasant clothes he wore and trying to rip them from his body. Wind whistled shrilling in his ears, and had he not been wearing goggles he knew that his eyelids would be fluttering like loose blinds in a gale of wind.
Then suddenly his falling body reached its maximum rate of falling speed, and the sensation became one of floating on a huge soft black cloud. He knew he was on his back because he could see the stars straight above him. He raced his eyes across the sky to the east and thought he saw the faint flicker of the Wellington's exhaust plumes, but he couldn't tell for sure. He wondered just where in that star-studded sky above him Freddy might be. Had Freddy already jumped? A sudden thought came to him, and a stifled gasp of alarm rose up to his lips. Supposing something had happened so Freddy couldn't quit the bomber? Supposing his parachute harness had caught on something, and propeller wash had wrenched him free, and he was now spinning headlong downward with a damaged and useless parachute flapping out behind? Supposing—?
He groaned aloud at the torturing thoughts and wished with all his heart and soul that he had waited and watched Freddy jump first. Then he would know for sure that Freddy had bailed out all right. But as it was now, perhaps—
"Watch your own step, sap! Are you going to free-fall forever? Pull the rip-cord ring, dope!"
Perhaps he shouted those words aloud, or perhaps they were only spoken in his brain. At any rate he cut off thinking about other things and gave the rip-cord ring a smart jerk. His body dropped earthward for another split second or so. Then suddenly giant hands reached down from above and violently jerked him back up toward the stars. His body spun around like a top and he was forced to gulp for air. Another few seconds and he was dangling feet downward at the ends of the parachute shroud lines and swaying gently back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. He sucked more air into his lungs, cocked his head and looked downward.
All he could see at first was just one great expanse of utter darkness. It was like gazing down into a coal mine at the hour of midnight. There was nothing but darkness and more darkness. Then gradually, as his eyes became better focussed, he saw not just one great expanse of darkness, but more of a collection of shadows. Some shadows were darker than others, and all of them were of different shapes and sizes. Suddenly he spotted a long snake-shaped shadow. It was almost a dark grey, and he knew at once that it was the Campine (or Kempen) Canal that extended eastward from Antwerp.