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Old 19th Jul 2017, 16:04
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PPRuNeUser0139
 
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Chapter 3 - First Contact
Tumbling - downwards! The silence! - fumbling for the rip-cord. Only the silence - no sensation - rip-cord - rip-cord. Then the slight jerk arresting my downward travel - smoothness; a feeling of floating, gently swaying; a feeling of relief. I breathed my thankfulness to God. The white canopy above me, the unknown below me. Was it all a bad dream? What was I doing hanging suspended in the air gently swaying? Still the silence, - then a ringing in my ears, and as if to break my dream, the violent explosion as the aircraft hit the ground not three miles away. My left glove slipped from my hand and fluttered down into the darkness. Then I consciously discarded the other one as being of no further use. It was all a bad dream and I would wake up in the comfort of my bed. Was it though? I insisted it was - I passionately wanted to believe it was - but with the first glimpse of the bluish moon bathed ground I knew that it wasn't a dream. Nearer and nearer, lower and lower - gently sinking. What was I to do when I hit? - ah yes – the quick release box.

I hit the ground heavily and crumpled, the white canopy settled about me. There I lay and again the feeling of being in a dream came to me. This was the soil of England and I was safe. I must do nothing, just lie awhile and think. Noise of aircraft flying high above. Aircraft? - yes that was it - I had been shot down and had baled out - but - it wasn't me, - I was secure in my bed - this was just a flight of my all too vivid imagination. The soil was real! and I could feel the hard lumps of potatoes. Real, real soil and real potatoes and a real parachute now stretched out startlingly white against the dark ground. Real! - ''understand man'' this was no dream, this was happening. What was I to do? "Where was I? What time was it? My watch - where was my watch - I clawed up earth covered potatoes but no watch. Thirty-eight dollars I had paid for it during my training in America. I must find my watch. I became obsessed with the idea - more potatoes but no watch; I must think - I must get away - The strong impulse to get up and run came to me. Slowly normality returned and I began to think more clearly. I heard the soft murmur of aircraft flying high above. I had the feeling that if I stood up, someone would shoot me. Slowly I began to pull on the silk cords of the parachute, bunching it up about me. Still no sudden ringing shot, that would end my life. I thought that I must bury the parachute so I began scooping out a hollow in the soft moist earth and pushed it down into the hole. I lay down again listening - nothing except the faint hum of the aircraft flying away in the distance.

Slowly, inch by inch I began crawling to the comparative safety of the shadowy hedge at the side of the field. It seemed as if many eyes were watching my every move - eyes that were laughing at my futile efforts to escape - eyes that were waiting to sight along a rifle. Reaching the comforting shadows I stood up and looked around me. My parachute and harness had effectively been buried. The dark blue reefer I was wearing I had put over my battledress - effecting a disguise. I felt for my emergency food box and felt the smooth surface of the celluloid casing in my pocket. Now I must walk to put as much distance between myself and the scene of the crash for in the morning I knew that a thorough search would be made covering a radius of ten to fifteen miles. I wondered which way to go and decided to walk westwards for a while and then north-westwards. According to my rough calculation, I was very close to the Dutch-German border, on the Dutch side, I couldn't be sure, hence my decision to strike out westwards.

The bright light of morning found me resting behind the hedge bordering a cornfield. I must have dropped off to sleep for a while, for the sun was fairly high in the sky. The happenings of the previous night came to me in startling clarity. The line of tracer and cannon fire, the aircraft burning and my fight to get out and then falling through space. I remembered the loss of my watch and the potatoes, how I had half-walked and half-run along the narrow dirt paths and across moon bathed fields incurring the displeasure of a farm dog as I skirted round a farm house. I continued to rest there with the bright blue sky above, the rich golden corn on one side and the thick green hedge on the other. ''Life could be much worse'' I mused. I wondered what happened to the rest of the crew - I had seen nothing of them.
All day I stayed there, watching the birds, the swaying corn, the timid field mice and the many ants drawing along pieces of straw. I thought of home and what my family were doing now and did they already know what happened to me. I thought of my friends on the squadron and whether they had missed me yet. I decided to eat nothing that first day and just recline in the sun, storing up my energy for further walking in the night.

I dozed and thought about the happy days I had spent in America during my training and wondered if it would all be wasted and I would soon be thrown into a prison camp. There was no point in thinking torturing thoughts so I just relaxed and waited for darkness. Darkness came and with it an urge to move further westwards. Silently and cautiously I made my way to the road. All was clear so I strode westwards, my flying boots making little noise on the loose earth. I passed sleepy isolated farmhouses through dark menacing woods, over trickling rivulets and across short turfed fields, always with the idea of putting as much distance between myself and any subsequent search party. Every so often I would stop and listen. It was impossible to estimate distance for I changed direction many times. A burning curiosity possessed me but I resisted the temptation to look through the crack of a heavily curtained window of a farmhouse.

Light was already beginning to show in the eastern sky and soon the sun would rise heralding another day. Before I went into hiding again I had to find water. I found a stream and dipped my rubber water bag into it. The water was dirty and stinking. I put in a double dose of purifying tablets and with this dripping treasure I sought my second hiding place. Why not another cornfield I thought - and searched for half an hour before I found a convenient spot between a high hedge and the tall corn. The sun rose, warming the earth and the early morning mist swirled around me as I sat down and thought that they would know at home now, there would have been the cold unemotional telegram ... and much crying. I was exhausted, aching in every limb, too tired to eat, so I sipped from my water bag - nauseated by the smell. Then I dropped off to sleep.
More to follow..

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