I must have been in shock.
THREE
USSR
One
I was thinking, I should pull the ripcord, when a quick jerk yanked me upward. The chute had opened automatically.
Suddenly my thoughts were sharp and clear. The chute had been set to open at fifteen thousand feet, which meant I was somewhere below that. And under fifteen thousand feet I didn’t need the emergency oxygen in my seat pack and could take off my face plate.
I was immediately struck by the silence. Everything was cold, quiet, serene.
The first thing to do when the parachute opens, I had been taught in Air Force survival school, is to look up and make sure the chute has billowed correctly. This I was reluctant to do, since, having only one chute, I was not anxious to discover whether it had failed. But I looked up. The orange and white panels blossomed out beautifully. But against the vast expanse of sky, the chute looked very small.
There was no sensation of falling. It was as if I were hanging in the sky, no movement at all.
Part of the aircraft passed me, twisting and fluttering like a leaf. I thought it was one of the wings. Yet I had no way to estimate size or distance. It could have been a small piece up close or a large piece some distance away.
Looking down, I saw I was still quite high, probably ten thousand feet.
Below were rolling hills, a forest, a lake, roads, buildings, what looked like a village.
It was pretty country. A typical American scene. Like parts of Virginia.
As if by wishing it I could make it so.
It was odd. Under other circumstances it would have seemed amusing. A country as large as the Soviet Union, so vast, with huge sections almost totally uninhabited, and I had to pick a populated area in which to go down.
Remembering a map in my pocket, which showed alternate routes back to Pakistan and Turkey, I took off my gloves, took it out, carefully ripped it into little pieces and scattered them. One piece of incriminating evidence was gone.
I also remembered the silver dollar and took it out. Looking at it at this point, I realized the coin cover wasn’t such a good idea after all. What better souvenir of the capture of a capitalist American pilot than a bright new U.S. dollar? It was one of the first things they would take. Unscrewing the loop at the end, I slipped out the poison pin and dropped it into my pocket, where there was a chance it would to unnoticed, then tossed away the coin.
I recall thinking: That’s probably the first dollar I’ve ever deliberately thrown away.
I also recall wondering what some Russian farmer would think when he came upon this years from now—an American dollar in the middle of a Siberian field!
My mind seemed to be perfectly sharp and clear, though incapable of dwelling on a single thought for any length of time. It kept jumping from one thing to another.
Occasionally I would start to swing, but mostly I fell straight, without oscillation, without any real sense of falling.
I thought again of the pin, wondering whether I should use it. Recalling the crash of the C-118 and how the local populace had almost lynched one of the crew, for a moment I seriously considered it. Yet I was still hopeful of escape.
The forest was to my right. I tried to maneuver the shroud lines in order to float down into the trees, thinking that if I could reach them I might at least have a chance of getting away. But the winds were variable. I’d drift toward the woods, then back toward the lake. That worried me, since I knew that tangled in the chute, with all the equipment I was carrying, swimming would be impossible.
Only a few hundred feet remained. I spotted a small car moving along a dirt road. It seemed to be following my course. I watched as it stopped near the village and two men got out.
I also saw, almost directly under me, a plowed field, a tractor, and two men. One was on the tractor, the other standing alongside piling brush.
By now I was too far away to reach the trees. I had also missed the lake. But now a new worry emerged: power lines.
Suddenly the earth rushed up to meet me. I missed the lines by about twenty-five feet, coming down about an equal distance from the tractor, hitting hard, the weight of my seat pack causing me to fall, slamming my head against the ground.
While one of the men collapsed the chute, the other helped me to my feet. Soon joined by the pair from the automobile, they assisted in removing the parachute harness and helmet. My head ached and my ears rang from the sudden descent.
The village was less than one hundred yards away. There must have been a school there, for suddenly there were twenty or thirty children running toward us, followed by almost as many adults.
Escape at this point looked impossible. I still had the gun, but the knife was attached to the parachute harness they had removed.
Everyone was questioning me at the same time. Because I couldn’t speak Russian, I could neither understand them nor reply. They seemed solicitous, but also curious. When I didn’t answer—I didn’t even know the words for “Thank you”—I could see that they were puzzled.
One of the men held up two fingers, pointed at me, then at the sky. Looking up, I could see, some distance away and very high, a lone red and white parachute. There had been no second chute on my plane. Unable to see whether there was a man below the chute, I guessed this to be in some way connected with the explosion. Had they used a rocket, it was possible this was the way they recovered the missile’s first stage. I shook my head no, indicating I was alone.
With my continued silence I could see the puzzlement changing to suspicion. A man on either side, I was helped to the car. One, spotting the pistol on the outside of my suit, reached over and took it. I didn’t try to stop him. By now the crowd numbered more than fifty.
It was a small compact car. Loading my parachute and seat pack in the trunk, they motioned for me to slide into the front seat beside the driver. The man with the pistol slid in on my right. Three or four other men crowded into the back.
Driving through the village, I made motions indicating I was thirsty. It had been six or seven hours since I had had anything to drink, eat, or smoke. Also, sure they were taking me to the police, I wanted to delay confrontation as long as possible.
It occurred to me that had I been able to speak Russian, I could have pretended to be a Soviet pilot and commandeered their automobile. I probably wouldn’t have gotten far—knowing a plane had crashed and its pilot had bailed out, there would be search parties, roadblocks—but certainly it would have been better than my present situation.
Stopping in front of a house, one of the men went in and returned with a glass of water. Gratefully I drank it, but my mouth remained dry. I suspected I was in a state of mild shock. I was terrifically tense, extremely tired. Pilots are unusually conscious of their hearts. Mine was racing, at well over ninety beats per minute.
I could only estimate this. Because of the difficulty of slipping the band over the pressure suit, I didn’t wear a watch when I flew. I could only guess at the time. I had been four hours into the flight when the explosion occurred. Nearly a half-hour had passed since then.
Too early for them to miss me at Bodö.
One of the men offered me a cigarette. I accepted, noticing the picture of a familiar dog on the package. “Laika,” he said. I nodded, indicating understanding. The brand had been named for the Russians’ Sputnik II passenger. A filter cigarette, it tasted very much like its American counterparts.
There was a package of Kents in my flight-suit pocket. I left them there.
The man who had seized my pistol now had it out of the holster and was examining it. I saw what he saw at exactly the same instant: on the barrel the initials USA. I hoped he didn’t understand their meaning. But with one finger he traced the letters in the dust on the dashboard, asking in Russian what could only have been: Are you an American?