Using one leg as propelling force, he loosed his grasp on the wheel and hurled himself forward, sliding on his stomach across the bomb compartment. Instantly the great bomber fell into a whirling spin. He was being hurled off his perch as his hands found the cowling around the cockpit, and he hung there desperately, dragging himself forward.
The spin was terrific now, due to the wingheaviness, and four tons were screwing earthward in a hell of shrieking wires. He fought to one knee, then got one foot on the fuselage.
Just as one hand found the ripcord ring he was hurled from his ship like a drop of water flung from a speeding wheel. An uncontrollable, strangled cry of fear escaped him as he found himself in space with a pack which was supposed to open on his back.
He fell end over end as he forced himself to count a full, slow five. His brain was numb, but the one idea which gripped him was that he must avoid that ship.
He jerked the ripcord, and with a sob of relief felt the little pilot chute snap out. The next second it had pulled the folds of glistening silk from the bag, and his body was jerked double as the shoulder springs rose.
His waist was sore as a boil as he swung in sickening arcs below the chute. Sometimes he was even with it. As the pendulum-like rushes through the air slackened, a great ball of fire burst from the ground.
The Larkin had made its last flight.
He was nearing the ground now, and it seemed to be coming up to meet him with ever-increasing speed. Fifteen feet a second, that was the speed of the drop, but now, less than a hundred feet high, it seemed terrific. He was close to the hangars, too, but he’d hit the ground before he was blown against them.
His hands grasped the shroudlines which ran from the harness to the edges of the big silk umbrella, and he loosened his muscles. As he hit the ground he pulled his body upward, and bent his knees like a man who lands from a jump.
He snapped off his harness before the breeze could drag him, and had the billowing silk in hand as Captain Adams puffed up to him.