This last command they did not take literally. The first to exit the aircraft would be the duffel bags and wooden crates of C-2. The jumpers would go last.
That had been Canidy’s order. He said that he did not want to jump first and be floating blissfully to earth while, say, the chute failed on the C-2 and a hundred-pound wooden crate plunged onto his head.
The red light was replaced with green, and Kauffman kicked the first duffel out the door. After a moment, its static line went taut, popping the parachute. Kauffman, using one-second intervals, was already kicking out the second duffel and following it with the first of the two crates of C-2.
Kauffman had his foot on the second crate as John Craig van der Ploeg now literally stood in the doorway.
Deep breath in, then breathe out . . .
Kauffman could sense his anxiety.
“Don’t you worry one bit!” the jumpmaster shouted, his voice strong and encouraging. “For you, jumping in the dark will be just like jumping during the day.”
Van der Ploeg looked over his shoulder and shouted back: “How is that? I’ve done this—”
“You close your eyes during both—so either way it’s dark!”
Kauffman then laughed heartily at his own joke as he kicked the second crate out the door.
John Craig thought he heard Canidy chuckling behind him.
He stared out into the star-filled night sky.
And then he did close his eyes for a moment.
“Our Father, Who art in Heaven—”
“Go!” Kauffman shouted.
John Craig at once felt Kauffman give him a hard slap on the back—That was a push!—and the sudden sensation of being thrust into the hundred-mile-an-hour rushing air of the slipstream.
“Hallowed be Thy name . . .”
Feet together, knees bent . . .
He almost immediately came to the end of his static line. There was a slight tug, then it popped his chute, and as the canopy quickly filled he was violently yanked upright—then, nearly as quickly, was gently and slowly floating downward.
“Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done . . .”
Breathe!
Inhale . . . exhale . . .
Above and behind him, the sound of the airplane became smaller and smaller. He began to make out what few sounds there were around him—mostly rushing air making his parachute lines vibrate—and heard that there was absolutely no sound coming from the ground.
“On Earth as it is in Heaven,
“Give us this day our daily bread
“And forgive us our trespasses
“As we forgive those who trespass against us.”
He saw down past his feet the parachutes of the gear. Beyond them, he could make out a couple roads—the asphalt reflecting light, causing it to look like a river—and a very few lights from what he guessed were houses.
And then he saw the canopies of the gear collapse, telling him that they had found the ground.
Okay. I’m next.