Wells had climbed to two thousand feet, but the leading plane was just as fast a machine, and flying at a still greater altitude. For three hectic minutes, while Gregory frantically searched the sky with his night glasses, they lost sight of it but, keeping to their course, they flew on over the deserted, lightless, marshlands until a star blacked out for an instant and enabled them to pick up the trail again.
An intermittent revolving beam showed as a pinpoint miles away to their left, and Gregory knew that they were now opposite the Dungeness light. A moment later Wells shouted to him and pointed downwards straight ahead. Two rows of lights were just visible, forming a 'T' in the blackness of the marshes. The other plane was descending towards them and Wells swerved away to the westward in order to avoid being spotted from below. The roar of his engine would, he knew, merge into that of the other plane as long as it remained in the air. He flew on until he was almost over Tenterden, climbing all the time, then turned and came back again to the southeast, climbing still. He was now at five thousand feet when, flying seaward, they passed again the tiny 'T' of lights below.
'Got them,' he yelled to Gregory through the voice pipe.
'But they'll hear us if we fly lower; and away from the "T" of lights it's too risky to make a landing,' Gregory shouted
You'll make the landing,' Wells bawled. 'What's your parachute for, man! Out you go.'
'Not likely,' Gregory bawled. 'Never made a parachute jump in my life not going to start now. Think I'm going to risk my neck?'
'Dammit, you must,' yelled the Inspector as he banked, circling still higher, over the secret landing ground. 'We'll never find this place in daylight. It's our one chance to register their base. You've got to do it: don't let me down.'
Gregory stared over the side of the plane at the little cluster of lights seeming now so infinitely far below. He was no coward in a fight. All his life he had taken a grim delight in facing odds and winning through where battle with other human beings was concerned but this was different. To jump from the safety of the plane into thin air with the horrible uncertainty as to whether the parachute would open, or if he would be dashed, a bleeding mass of pulp, on to the distant ground. Was the risk worth it? Why the hell should he? And then the heart shaped face of Sabine came clear before his eyes.
'If I do, will you let Sabine out?' he cried.
'I can't. You know I can't.' Wells's voice just reached him above the roar of the engine, angry at this frustration when he was so near securing evidence of real importance.
'You must.' Gregory's voice pierced the wind and thunder of the engine; 'otherwise I won't play.'
'Will you if I agree?' Wells shouted.
'Yes, damn you!' Gregory screamed back.
'I can't speak for my superiors,' bawled Wells.
Gregory was already fumbling at his back, seeing that the parachute was in position. He stood up uncertainly swaying as the plane soared through the air at 150 miles an hour. 'You've got to let her off,' he thundered, leaning over Wells's shoulder, his mouth close to the Inspector's ear.
'Go on, I'll do my best,' Wells turned his face up, shouting, 'won't arrest her myself anyhow.'
Gregory peered over the side again. The thought of leaping into that black immensity of space made his heart contract but he climbed out on to the fuselage. The wind rushed past him tearing at every corner of his garments as though it would strip him naked. For a second there was an awful pain which stabbed him in the pit of the stomach. He felt sick and giddy as he clung on with all his might to prevent the force of the blast ripping his clutching ringers from their precarious hold. Then he took a breath screwed his face up into a rueful grin and jumped.
14
By the Brown Owl Inn on Romney Marshes
As Gregory leapt the body of the plane seemed to shoot up like an express lift behind him. He felt himself gripped and twisted as though he was a straw in a tempest; then hurled violently downward. The plane roared away into the darkness above him.
His last thought before going overboard had been: 'Mustn't pull the rip cord until I'm clear of the plane.' He knew little enough about parachute diving, but he'd heard somewhere, back in the war days, before it became a sport and when it was only undertaken as a dire necessity, that many a stout fellow had come to grief because he'd opened his parachute at the moment of jumping and it had caught in the fuselage of the machine, tearing the fabric and so making it useless or hanging the miserable parachutist.
He had not realised that in such cases the machine, crippled and often burning from antiaircraft shell or the enemy's inflammatory bullets, was falling too and that the wretched pilot might be a moment or more before dropping with greater speed, he could get any distance from the wreckage; whereas in a normal jump, such as he had just made, he had been torn away from the fast-moving plane in a fraction of a second.
His fear, that if he had his hand on the rip cord the shock of the jump might open it immediately, had caused him to stretch his arms out sideways so that he could not possibly pull it inadvertently. Now, as he was flung face downwards by the rushing air current, his arms were forced back behind his shoulders and he was hurtling earthwards like a diver who has taken a fancy jump from a springboard, head foremost into the sea. The wind had ceased to turn him but seemed instead to be rushing upwards as he plunged down into the awful void.
Nearly a mile below him lay the earth; pitch black and terrifying; the friendly trees and inequalities of surface which formed its landscape blotted out by the midnight gloom. Not a light was to be seen in any direction, except the little 'T of flares which now appeared to be some way towards his right as he shot earthwards.
With horrifying rapidity the 'T' grew larger. By" a stupendous effort he forced his right arm inwards to grab the rip cord. The wind, tearing at his left as at some fin, instantly flung him over on to his back, and then, to his utter horror, he began to spin like a top.
His fingers were numb from the icy blast of the rushing air. He had an awful moment when he feared that they would no longer have sufficient feeling left in them for him to use them. Cursing himself for a panicky fool he tried to snatch comfort from the thought that plenty of people who did this thing for fun took extra pleasure in waiting until the very last moment before opening their parachute and that he must have a long way yet to drop.
It seemed an age since he had sprung off the plane; an eternity since he had begun his fight against the up rushing air to force his hand into the ripcord. At last he found it and, half choking from relief, jerked it with all his might.
Nothing happened. He pulled again but the cord was hanging loose now in his hand. Still nothing happened. He made a desperate effort to force his head round so that he could look over his shoulder. The movement flung him out of his spin and he was facing the earth head downwards again. The 'T' of flares was much bigger now. It seemed like some fiery group of stars rushing up out of the darkness which would roar past him over his right shoulder with the speed of an express train at any second. But it wouldn’t he knew that. When his right shoulder came level with the flares he would hit the earth. It would be as though some giant, greater than any fabled hero, had flung the whale world at him. He would be broken, burst, shattered into a thousand fragments by that appalling impact.