“Yes, I can see that. All right then, perhaps drop me in a river from a low altitude?”
“Sir, you’d hit the water at over 100 miles per hour and bounce like a billiard ball off the bumper. Every bone would shatter.”
“On top of that, I’d lose my shoes. This is annoying. I suppose then it’s the parachute for me?”
“Yes, sir. Have you had training?”
“Scheduled several times, but I always managed to come up with an excuse. I could see no sane reason for abandoning a perfectly fine airplane in flight. That was then, however, and now, alas, is now.”
Basil shed himself of the RAF fleece, a heavy leather jacket lined with sheep’s wool, and felt the coldness of the wind bite him hard. He shivered. He hated the cold. He struggled with the straps of the parachute upon which he was sitting. He found the going rather rough. It seemed he couldn’t quite get the left shoulder strap buckled into what appeared to be the strap nexus, a circular lock-like device that was affixed to the right shoulder strap in the center of his chest. He passed on that and went right to the thigh straps, which seemed to click in admirably, but then noticed he had the two straps in the wrong slots, and he couldn’t get the left one undone. He applied extra effort and was able to make the correction.
“I say, how long has this parachute been here? It’s all rusty and stiff.”
“Well, sir, these planes aren’t designed for parachuting. Their brilliance is in the short takeoff and landing drills. Perfect for agent inserts and fetches. So, no, I’m afraid nobody has paid much attention to the parachute.”
“Damned thing. I’d have thought you RAF buckos would have done better. Battle of Britain, the few, all that sort of thing.”
“I’m sure the ’chutes on Spits and Hurricanes were better maintained, sir. Allow me to make a formal apology to the intelligence services on behalf of the Royal Air Force.”
“Well, I suppose it’ll have to do,” sniffed Basil. Somehow, at last, he managed to get the left strap snapped in approximately where it belonged, but he had no idea if the thing was too tight or too loose or even right side up. Oh, well, one did what one must. Up, up, and play the game, that sort of thing.
“Now, I’m not telling you your job, Murphy, but I think you should go lower so I won’t have so far to go.”
“Quite the opposite, sir. I must go higher. The ’chute won’t open fully at 150 meters. It’s a 240- meter minimum, a thousand far safer. At 150 or lower it’s like dropping a pumpkin on a sidewalk. Very unpleasant sound, lots of splash, splatter, puddle, and stain. Wouldn’t advise a bit of it, sir.”
“This is not turning out at all as I had expected.”
“I’ll buzz up to a thousand. Sir, the trick here is that when you come out of the plane, you must keep hunched up in a ball. If you open up, your arms and legs and torso will catch wind and stall your fall and the tail wing will cut you in half or at least break your spine.”
“Egad,” said Basil. “How disturbing.”
“I’ll bank hard left to add gravity to your speed of descent, which puts you in good shape, at least theoretically, to avoid the tail.”
“Not sure I care for ‘theoretically.’” “There’s no automatic deployment on that device, also. You must, once free of the plane, pull the ripcord to open the ’chute.”
“I shall try to remember,” said Basil.
“If you forget, it’s the pumpkin phenomenon, without doubt.”
“All right, Murphy, you’ve done a fine job briefing me. I shall have a letter inserted in your file. Now, shall we get this nonsense over with?”
“Yes, sir. You’ll feel the plane bank, you should have no difficulty with the door, remember to take off earphones and throat mike, and I’ll signal go. Just tumble out. Rip cord, and down you go. Don’t brace hard in landing — you could break or sprain something. Try to relax. It’s a piece of cake.”
“Very well done, Murphy.”
“Sir, what should I tell them?”
“Tell them what happened. That’s all. I’ll happily be the villain. Once I potted the compass, it was either do as I say or head home. On top of that, I outrank you. They’ll figure it out, and if they don’t, then they’re too damned stupid to worry about!”
“Yes, sir.”
Basil felt the subtle, then stronger pull of gravity as Murphy pulled the stick back and the plane mounted toward heaven. He had to give more throttle, so the sound of the revs and the consequent vibrations through the plane’s skeleton increased. Basil unhitched the door, pushed it out a bit, but then the prop wash caught it and slammed it back. He opened it a bit again, squirmed his way to the opening, scrunched to fit through, brought himself to the last point where he could be said to be inside the airplane, and waited.
Below, the blackness roared by, lit here and there by a light. It really made no difference where he jumped. It would be completely random. He might come down in a town square, a haystack, a cemetery, a barn roof, or an SS firing range. God would decide, not Basil.
Murphy raised his hand, and probably screamed “Tally-ho!”
Basil slipped off the earphones and mike and tumbled into the roaring darkness.
“Certainly,” said Basil, “though I doubt I’ll be allowed to make the trip. The path to Jesus would include sobriety, a clean mind, obedience to all commandments, a positive outlook, respect for elders, regular worship, and a high level of hygiene. I am happily guilty of none of those.”
“The damned insouciance,” said the army general. “Is everything an opportunity for irony, Captain?”
“I shall endeavor to control my ironic impulses, sir,” said Basil.
“Actually, he’s quite amusing,” said the young civilian. “A heroic chap as imagined by Noël Coward.”
“Coward’s a poof, Professor.”
“But a titanic wit.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Sir Colin. “Please, let’s stay with the objective here, no matter how Captain St. Florian’s insouciance annoys or enchants us.”
“Then, sir,” said Basil, “the irony-free answer is no, I do not know the path to Jesus.”
“I don’t mean in general terms. I mean specifically The Path to Jesus, a pamphlet published in 1767 by a Scottish ecclesiastic named Thomas MacBurney. Actually he listed twelve steps on the way, and I believe you scored high on your account, Basil. You only left out thrift, daily prayer, cold baths, and regular enemas.”
“What about wanking, sir? Is that allowed by the Reverend MacBurney?”
“I doubt he’d heard of it. Anyway, it is not the content of the reverend’s pamphlet that here concerns us but the manuscript itself. That is the thing, the paper on which he wrote in ink, the actual physical object.” He paused, taking a breath. “The piece began as a sermon, delivered to his congregation in that same year. It was quite successful — people talked much about it and requested that he deliver it over and over. He did, and became, one might say, an ecclesiastical celebrity. Then it occurred to him that he could spread the Word more effectively, and make a quid or two on the side— he was a Scot, after all — if he committed it to print and offered it for a shilling a throw. Thus he made a fair copy, which he delivered to a jobbing printer in Glasgow, and took copies around to all the churches and bookstores. Again, it was quite successful. It grew and grew and in the end he became rather prosperous, so much so that — this is my favorite part of the tale — he gave up the pulpit and retired to the country for a life of debauchery and gout, while continuing to turn out religious tracts when not abed with a local tart or two.”