Captain Smith at once saw that he was risking the lives of both Bill
and himself by holding on to Bill’s flying suit. Accordingly he
released his grip and confined his activities to the plane and began
thinking of a possible way out of the dangerous situation they were
in.
There was still a big chance of the parachute’s opening and dragging
Bill from the plane. If that happened, Bill might or might not be
carried through the tail surfaces. Then, again, the parachute might
not open. Remote as that possibility was, they could not afford to
take any chances. Every effort must be made to get the streaming chute
away from the tail group. Smith immediately started to figure how it
could be done.
Bill in the meantime saw that by staying where he was, he not only was
risking his own life but was jeopardizing Smith’s as well. Bill
realized that something must be done at once whereby he could fall
free of the plane without being carried backward by the trailing
chute.
Bill climbed over the side of the fusilage, being very careful while
doing so not to increase the probability of the chute opening by
giving it any unnecessary motion. He reached the top step safely and
then stepped down to the lower one. From that position he could see
that the streaming shroud lines were inside of the elevator horn and
that it would take some little maneuvering to get them clear.
From Bill’s point of view there was but one way to do it. Somehow or
other he must work his way back to the tail group and throw those
shroud lines clear. He looked around to see how it might be done. To
climb back on top of the fusilage was out of the question, as that
would make it practically impossible to throw the chute clear. The
only other method was for him to work his way back along the control
cables which ran alongside the fusilage.
Bill immediately bent down and grasped the control cable with his
right hand, while he held on to the fusilage with his left. When he
was sure that he had a secure grip, he released his left hand and
grasped the cable with it. At the same instant his foot slipped from
the lower step and he found himself hanging from the control wire. The
force of his fall had caused the cable to cut his hands severely, but
he held on just the same.
In the meantime, while watching Bill, Smith was thinking out a method
whereby he could so throw the plane through the air that the shroud
lines would be cleared of the elevator horn. He thought that it might
be done by slipping the plane through the air. During such a motion
the plane would not have the same resistance to the air as the chute
and might possibly move away from the chute. When that time came, Bill
could drop with some degree of safety.
Thus it was that both Smith and Bill started working with the same end
in view. Bill worked his way backward toward the tail group, stopping
every once in a while to try and throw the shroud lines clear with one
hand while he retained his grip on the cable with the other. Smith put
the plane into a steep side slip and watched the parachute to see what
effect the sideward motion of the plane was having.
Several times Smith slipped the plane with no apparent results.
Meanwhile Bill Bruce was working his way farther and farther to the
rear of the fusilage. Finally Bill reached a point within a few feet
of the leading edge of the stabilizer. Here he again tried to throw
the shroud lines clear with one free hand. Smith at the same time put
the plane into an almost vertical slip. The shroud lines moved across
the surfaces, jumped the horn and strung out clear of the plane.
As soon as he saw that the shroud lines were clear, Bill dropped off
into space. The crowd on the ground saw all of these maneuvers, but
could not imagine the reason for their taking place. They saw the
streaming chute and knew that it should not be that close to the
plane. They also saw that Bill was still in the cockpit when he should
have been clear of the ship. None knew the perilous situation which
confronted the two airmen. Everyone, however, realized that something
had gone wrong and that the two men were fighting for their lives.
When Bill dropped from the plane, as far he could see, none of the
rules and instructions which Sergeant Ruhs had given him before going
into the air could possibly be put into effect. In the first place,
one parachute was already open and it was not necessary to count
three. Then, again, it would do no good to pull the ring of that chute
now, no matter how hard he pulled it. Ruhs had said that the chutes
always open. Would this one open or should he pull on the ring to open
the other chute?
Bill had a hard time to think logically while falling through space
with the string-like parachute streaming down after him. He was afraid
that, as his body tumbled around while falling, the first parachute
would wrap itself around the second one and keep it from opening. That
being the case, the sooner he pulled the rip cord on the second chute,
the better off he would be.
It was fortunate that Smith had climbed to about twenty-five hundred
feet before giving Bill the signal to jump. Otherwise things might not
have turned out so well for Bill. They had lost about five hundred
feet while trying to get the chute clear of the tail group, and then
Bill had fallen another thousand feet before he tried to open the
second chute.
That drop of a thousand feet had taken scarcely any time at all, and
Bill did not realize that he had fallen so far. He began to search for
the other ring with one hand. At the time he was falling head
downwards. He instinctively raised his hand toward his head to reach
the ring, but it took what seemed to him to be hours before he found
it. He gave the ring a pull, and kept on pulling until the wire was
clear.
The pilot chute came out with a snap and then Bill felt his speed
slacken with a distinct jerk. He looked up and saw that the second
chute was open. The first was still in the form of a streamer. With
the opening of the chute, Bill started a pendulum motion, his body
swung in a large arc below the chute. The length of the arc gradually
decreased until he was hanging suspended directly under the center of
the silk umbrella-shaped chute. He looked up at it with astonishment,
for he had no idea that it could possibly be so large.
While he was still looking upward the first chute opened, and each one
forced the other out at an angle. Bill was hanging down between the
two. Bill looked down at the ground. It seemed as if he was hardly
falling at all, the drop was so slow. He found it rather a pleasant
sensation—after the chutes had opened.
Bill had been too busy fighting for his life when he was about to
leave the plane to think of anything else but clearing the chute from
the elevator horn. He could not make up his mind whether or not he
would have been a little afraid to jump under normal conditions. One
thing certain, the thought of fear of jumping had not entered his mind
after he had inadvertently opened the first chute.
The wind was drifting him across the aviation field. Evidently all the
maneuvering in the air had taken but a very short time, although it
seemed that hours had passed.
Bill watched the ground come closer and closer. He was aware of the
fact that Smith was circling around in his plane, but Bill never
looked at the airplane. Smith drew away as Bill came down close to the
airdrome. Bill bent his knees slightly as he neared the ground and
then he hit. It was not a violent jar, but the wind carried the chutes
along while Bill was on the ground.
Two twenty-four foot parachutes afford a large surface for the wind to
catch, and had the wind been much stronger, Bill would undoubtedly
have been dragged along the ground. Ruhs arrived alongside almost as
soon as Bill hit. He grabbed the top shroud lines and pulled them
down. The chutes immediately became deflated and dropped to the
ground.
Bill got up on his feet and the crowd cheered when they saw that he
was not hurt. It had been a terrible ordeal, but both Bill and Smith
had come off unscathed. Bill’s hands were cut from climbing along the
cable, but that was not worth considering when there were so many
worse things which might have happened.
Ruhs untangled Bill from the shoulder braces and said, “You can ride
back in the ambulance if you want to.”
“Not for mine,” replied Bill. “It looked for a while as if I would be
in no fit condition even for an ambulance, but I am all whole. I will
walk.”
“How did your chute come to open up before you were clear of the
plane?” asked Captain Smith when Bill reached the line.
“I was afraid that I would not be able to find the ring after I
dropped into space,” replied Bill. “Accordingly I held on to the ring
while I tried to climb out. I lost my balance against the wind
pressure when I stood up, and, in trying to regain it, must have
pulled open the chute.”
“Next time you had better wait until after you count before grabbing
the ring,” said Smith. “I doubt if we will always be as lucky as we
were today. I don’t understand now why that first chute did not open
and drag you out of the cockpit.”
“Neither do I,” said Bill.
“Weren’t you scared to death up there when your chute fouled the
plane?” Bob Finch asked Bill as they were returning to town that
evening.
“Bob, I didn’t have time to be scared. There were too many things to
do if I wanted to make a fight for my life. In a time like that it
would have been fatal to be scared.”
The next day, when the operations office opened, there were several
radios and telephone messages waiting. Those messages came from the
various forests. The rain had put out all the large fires that had
been burning before. The lightning had started quite a few new ones,
but there were others which had started in districts where no
lightning storms had been reported.
“I cannot account for all of these fires in the area to the
southeast,” said Simmons as he placed pins in the map to show the
approximate locations of the new fires reported. “However, these which
are reported over in this area have me buffaloed. There is no rhyme or
reason for their existence. There were no thunder storms anywhere near
them. It rained hard enough for all the old fires to have been
extinguished, and yet here is a string of new fires starting. Look at
them, all in a row. What started them?”
“Perhaps there was a small local thunder storm over there,” suggested
Kiel.
“How could that have been possible without the lookouts and the forest
wardens knowing it?” replied Simmons. “That doesn’t sound reasonable
to me.”
“Are you trying to infer that there is someone out in the woods
deliberately setting fires?” asked Bill.
“That is exactly what I am driving at,” replied Simmons. “I thought so
before the rains started, and I am more convinced than ever now. The
fires are breaking out at too regular intervals and times to be
resulting from carelessness. Furthermore, Bill Bruce, you and I are
going out in a plane this morning and catch that firebug.”