"GO." The red light had changed to green and the first men were out. Shuffling from the rear the rest followed swiftly and seemed to drop on to each other's shoulders as they went through the door. The last man went by. I stepped behind him and in the same smooth motion went on out. The rush of air twisted me and a momentary black cloud blotted the stars as the tail assembly passed over. The roar faded and I floated, weightless and almost mindless, like a baby in the womb, while my mental clock ticked the slow seconds. "Three thousand, four...." The snapping of elastic and the rush of risers behind my head stopped in a sliding jerk. I looked up. Above me a black circle swayed. It was complete; no torn canopy to worry about. Alive now, I looked around full circle. Faintly I saw two parachutes below and in front of me as I glanced back the way we had come. We were dropping quickly into a steep valley, the others at a lower level where it widened somewhat. I could see outlines of the terraced rice fields coming up to meet me. In that warm, wet air I could have made it standing. The chute collapsed without a protest. I struck the quick release and stepped out of the harness. "Pretty soft," I was thinking. "I hope the rest is like this." Where the hillside joined the terraces I found a trail that paralleled the line of our jump. I followed it down hill.
An hour later, we were all together. The slow speed of the plane, the low jump altitude and the lightness of the wind had kept the sticks from scattering. Nobody was seriously hurt. We buried the parachutes in an overhanging bank under the Kudzu and began our march down the path. As the protected one I was now about the middle of the file. The moon was rising and the light was strong in treeless areas. We kept to the blackness of the shadows as much as possible and made a reconnaissance before crossing any open space. Our progress was slow. It must have been another hour when the line stopped advancing. A short time later a whispered message came back, "Send the Colonel up front."
When I got there, Blackie and Pak were talking Korean to a small man dressed in the ragged coat and baggy pants of a peasant. Pak introduced him.
"This is Lee Sung. He has the password and knows all about us."
I took the small limp hand Lee Sung extended. "I am Colonel Macdonald, the Doctor. What do you want us to do now?"
"I have a place where you can stay," he replied in excellent English, with an accent that seemed familiar, though blurred with lack of use. "We should go there immediately."