They saw nothing that first run, but when he came in again, slower this time on a course of 020° headed straight into the wind, Field could see men standing amongst the rocks, waving to them. Through his glasses he counted eleven, and when they came in again, slightly lower this time, skimming the tops of the rocks, he made it fourteen. They stood off then, circling the open sea beyond the two arms of the bay whilst Fellowes reported to Base by radio.
Fourteen men still alive. Standing had no choice then. Nor had Ferguson. Nor had Fellowes. He yelled for the men back in the fuselage to get ready and headed back into Shelter Bay. The fuselage door was held open against the slipsteam, the two packages poised in the cold blast of the opening. Fellowes raised his hand. ‘Let go.’ They were flung out. The fuselage door slammed shut. The aircraft banked.
I had left the radio then and was standing in the lee of the hut. I saw the two packages fall — two black dots like bombs dropping from the side of the plane. Twin white canopies blossoming and the plane blown like a leaf towards Sgeir Mhor, losing height, its wings dipping like a bird in flight. It cleared the rocks and vanished into rain. The parachutes moved across the sky above my head, growing larger, but drifting very fast. And then first one and then the other were caught by down-draughts, the nylon canopies half-collapsed. They came down with a rush and then, just before they hit the beach, they each filled with a snap I could almost hear, were whirled upward and then landed gently, almost gracefully, halfway up the slopes of Keava.
I saw what happened to them, but Fellowes didn’t. He was too busy fighting his plane clear of Sgeir Mhor. And Field had his eyes on the rocks, not on the parachutes. All they saw when they came out of the rain squall and circled the bay were two parachutes lying side-by-side like two white mushrooms close under the first scree slope on Keava. They didn’t realise it was luck not judgment that had put them there. Field signalled back to Mike Ferguson, both thumbs up, and Fellowes took the plane in again. The drill was the same. The two men held the fuselage door open. The sergeant acted as dispatcher. But this time he was dispatching a man, not two inanimate packages. Again Fellowes judged his moment, raised his hand and shouted, ‘Jump!’
Whether Fellowes misjudged or whether Mike Ferguson hesitated, as the sergeant said he did, nobody will ever know. Field’s impression was that he jumped immediately. But in moments like this fractions of a second count and a pilot, tensed and in control of his machine, possesses a sensitivity and a speed of reaction that is much faster than that of the ordinary man. Fellowes thought it was a long time before the sergeant called out that Ferguson was away. In view of his parachute course record it seems more than likely that Ferguson did, in fact, hesitate. If he did, it was a fatal hesitation. He may have felt in those last few moments of the run-in that he was jumping to his death. The sergeant reported that his face was very white, his lips trembling as he moved to the door. But then again, in view of his previous experience, some nervous reaction was inevitable.
In a tragedy of this sort it is pointless to try and apportion the blame. Each man is doing his best according to his lights and in any case it was the wind that was the vital factor. My back was against the hut and at the moment the plane banked and that tiny bundle of human flesh launched itself from the fuselage I felt the whole structure tremble under the onslaught of the wind. It wasn’t just a gust. It came in a steady roar and it kept on blowing. I saw the parachute open, his fall suddenly checked. He was then at about 500 feet and right over my head; the plane, still banking, was being flung sideways across Sgeir Mhor.
If the wind had been a down-draught it might have collapsed his parachute momentarily. That was what had happened to the two previous parachutes. He might have landed heavily and been injured, but he would still have been alive. But it was a steady wind. It kept his parachute full. I saw him fighting the nylon cords to partially collapse it, but it was like a balloon, full to bursting and driving towards Keava at a great rate, trailing him behind it. For a moment it looked as though he would be all right. The sloped rock spine of Keava was a good 70 feet high at the point he was headed for, but as he neared it the steep slope facing Shelter Bay produced an up-draught. The parachute lifted, soaring towards the clouds. He cleared the top by several hundred feet. For a moment he was lost to sight, swallowed by the overcast. Then I saw him again, the parachute half-collapsed and falling rapidly. It was a glimpse, no more, for in the instant he was lost behind Keava.
Beyond the ridge was sheer cliff, and beyond the cliff nothing but the Atlantic and the gale-torn waves. It was all so remote that it seemed scarcely real; only imagination could associate that brief glimpse of white nylon disappearing with a man dead, drowned in a wet, suffocating world of tumbling water.
The plane stood off, circling by the entrance to the bay. It didn’t come in again and nobody else jumped. I went slowly back into the hut and picked up Standing’s voice on the radio. It was so shaken that I barely recognised it. He was ordering the pilot to return to Stornoway.
I was glad of that — glad that nobody else was going to be ordered to jump, glad that I didn’t have to stand again outside the hut and watch another parachute blown out into the Atlantic. I found I was trembling, still with that picture in my mind of a man dangling and the white envelope coming out of the clouds, half-collapsed, and the poor fellow falling to a cold death in the Atlantic. I had liked Mike Ferguson. He’d a lot of guts to face that jump. And then I was thinking of Marjorie Field and of that interview she’d had with Colonel Standing when I had been an involuntary eavesdropper. Somebody would have to tell her and I was glad I wasn’t her father. The dead have their moment of struggle, that brief moment of shock which is worse than birth because the ties with this world are stronger. But for the living, the pain does not cease with death. It remains till memory is dulled and the face that cased the loved one’s personality has faded.
I was still thinking of Marjorie when Standing called me, demanding estimates of wind speed, force of down-draughts, height of ceiling. I went to the door of the hut. The wind’s roar had momentarily died away. Nothing stronger now than 40 knots, I thought. My eyes went involuntarily to the sloping back of Keava. If only Mike had waited. He would have had a chance now, but it was done. He’d jumped and he was gone. The sky to the south, by the bay entrance, was empty, the plane gone.
I went back and reported to Standing. He asked particularly about down-draughts and I told him they were intermittent, that at the moment they had lost much of their force. There was a long pause and then he said they’d try and make a helicopter landing. I didn’t attempt to discourage him. Those men were still on Sgeir Mhor and I was tired. Anyway, it was quieter now. How long it would last I didn’t know. I just wished to God they’d flown the helicopter instead of trying to parachute men in. I wondered whether it was really Adams who had refused to fly or whether Standing’s cold mathematical mind had been influenced by the high cost of these machines. That was a thought that made me angry. When you consider how the Services waste the taxpayers’ money, millions stupidly spent, and here perhaps a decent man had been sent to his death for fear of risking a few thousands. ‘About bloody time,’ I said angrily. ‘If you’d used the helicopter in the first place.