military static-line jump are your colleagues. It is fortunate the average military canopy is only steerable to a limited extent. A Hercules disgorges more than sixty parachutists in under a minute. Some will have their eyes open, some will have their eyes shut, whatever they are told in training. The thought of sixty soldiers careering round the sky under their parachutes, each with independent steering, is terrifying. It is best to allow the wind, and Mother Nature, to let each one down in a safe, orderly fashion. Full control is reserved for freefallers. There are fewer of them, jumping from a greater height, allowing more room for error.
The final danger is landing. A significant percentage of any parachuting course is spent on how to hit the ground and roll. It is roughly equivalent to jumping off a wall, twelve feet high. Grandly called ‘ground training’, the various parachute centres are wealthily endowed with devices to simulate heavy landings. Once a freefaller, life is different. It is possible to turn into wind just before ground contact. The lift this provides should give a soft landing. Static liners take what comes. Knees together, feet together, elbows in, chin tucked down and roll. Most of the time they get away with it. Unfortunately casualties do occur, particularly broken ankles, broken heel bones, broken shin bones and the occasional broken back. Alastair, a very good friend and an excellent doctor, managed to break the lot in one go. Parachutists can also develop awful spines by the time they reach middle age as a result of repeated injuries and arthritis. For certain active-service scenarios, to ensure soldiers are not exposed for too long to enemy fire, jump height can be as low as 350 feet. This gives no room for error. Casualty rates of over 10 per cent have been associated with this.
In later years, once I qualified as a doctor and had joined the SAS, my parachuting skills made me fair game for dropping-zone, or DZ, medical cover. I would be thrown out first, wherever we might happen to be, medical kit in hand. Not in hand really. Equipment was attached to two large hooks in front of me, just beneath my reserve. Once clear of the aircraft I would open the two hooks, the equipment falling away, though remaining attached to my harness by twelve feet of sturdy rope. This was useful, particularly when jumping at night. I could hear the equipment strike the ground first, giving time to brace before Mother Earth leapt up and grabbed me for her own. The problem is who provides DZ medical cover for the medics? No one, I am afraid. The first out is on his own.
The purpose of jumping at night is to lessen the chance of detection by the enemy. Even if a parachutist breaks a leg as he lands, he is unlikely to scream about it in the middle of a war zone. He will lie there and suffer, or should do, until help arrives. As a doctor, I became accustomed to listening for the sound of breaking limbs. It is unmistakable once you have heard it. You can see nothing, it is all done on sound. As a parachutist lands there should be two thumps. The first is his equipment, the second is himself. A third sound, usually a high-pitched ‘click’, following close behind the second, is the fracture. The moment I heard that tell-tale sound, I would prepare my splints, ready to immobilize what I was sure would be a broken bone.
That first day, as Jim and I staggered from the DZ, I began to relax. The intense emotions I had gone through, the total fear, were subsiding. I started to think once more, my head bowed to the ground, as I carried the heavy weight of the parachute in its large green bag on my shoulders. Jim disturbed my thoughts.
‘Penny for them.’
‘They’re not worth it.’
‘Go on. Try me,’ came the challenging reply.
‘The SAS. What do you know about them?’
‘Bugger all. Bunch of lunatics I reckon. Why?’
‘I’d like to join them. What do you think?’
‘You must be ****ing mad, Richard.
Joanne Ruthsatz and Kimberly Stephens