Night Dive
Willard is disconcerted to find he is more frightened of accidentally parachuting into the moonlit Mediterranean Sea, rather than jumping out of the aeroplane itself. The thought of trying to untangle himself from his harness and cords, as he drowns in a cold blackness of an intensity he can barely imagine, seems an ugly way to die. But then, what is a pleasant way to cease living in a war? Even the fabled bullet to the head – the one that you’re not supposed to hear coming – deprives you of realising it is all about to end.
Perhaps he should savour the moment?
As always.
Willard looks around at the heavily equipped young men of the 82nd Airborne about to jump into Sicily, and tries to use his poker-playing skills to ascertain their inner emotions. Most can’t fake it – their silence overwhelms the actuality of the tremendous noise of the Dakota engines and the sound of the wind howling in through the recently opened door. Soon, they will jump. There is an apprehension that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. They sit quietly. Some smoke. Some twitch. One repeatedly cleans his teeth with a fingertip. Immediately opposite to Willard, a dark-haired boy has his eyes closed, as though in quiet dreams, but Willard can discern tension in the young hands, clasped together in his lap. The fingers are white in the full moon’s strong light. He has squeezed the blood from them.
Willard takes a photograph.
The aeroplane trembles as though it is suddenly running over cobbles and Willard is reminded of the trams in Prague, of the bumpy roads in Madrid in That Other War, of water in a fast-moving river in France before This War, playing at his thighs while he fished. He decides he needs to urinate and calls for the can to be passed down to him. A couple of the paratroopers laugh.
“You should have taken a practice jump,” says one. “Then you’d have learnt to go before flying. Those straps will strangle your bladder.”
Before Willard can respond, the Lieutenant at the rear of the aeroplane orders everyone to stand.
“Hook up!
The soldiers haul themselves to their feet, and clip themselves with strops onto the cable running above their heads the length of the fuselage. Willard puts his camera away and finally does the same. His hands shake. The paratrooper behind him reaches over his shoulder and gives Willard’s clip a wiggle.
“You’re okay, bud,” he says.
It is the boy Willard has just photographed.
“Thanks,” says Willard.
“It would be a shame to lose you so soon after getting to know you, Mister Levhart. I still can’t believe you choose to be here. Did you get your photograph?”
“I thought you had your eyes shut.”
The aeroplane shudders as it hits turbulence again.
“I didn’t dare shut them completely. Jeez, I couldn’t guarantee I’d be able to open them again.”
“Check!” bellows the Lieutenant.
One by one, the soldiers inspect the equipment of the man immediately in front of them, making sure that the strop is not tangled in their harness.
They shout as they do so.
“One okay!”
“Two okay!”
“Three okay!”
And so on. Willard tries to reassure himself that since he has been checked twice, everything will be mighty fine, thank you, but he is suddenly aware that in a few moments he is going to throw himself out into a void, an act he has never really contemplated. Landing in the sea suddenly seems a minor worry.
A red light goes on.
“Red light on!” shouts the Lieutenant.
The paratrooper due to go out first, approaches the open doorway, clasps either side with his hands, jams his left boot against the frame and stands there, half-in and half-out of the aeroplane. The other soldiers, with Willard in the middle, shuffle up so that they are as close as possible to the man in front.
Willard tries to think of Prague, of stalking a large trout, of the women he has loved. He forces himself to breathe. The paratrooper in front of him is snapping his fingers to some impossibly fast beat.
“Green light on!”
The first paratrooper swings his right leg out of the aeroplane, and he is instantly sucked into the void. The next man follows. And the next. Within moments, Willard is also there at the door. He puts his hands up, is startled by how cold the metal feels, and then doesn’t get time to think anymore, because Willard Levhart, the world’s greatest war photographer, is shoved outside.
He forgets to scream.
The wind blasts into him, slaps his face, punches him in the stomach, and wrests every drop of air from his lungs. For a split second, Willard thinks he is going to be sliced in two by the large tail-fin, but it rushes over him and the void calls out as it claims him.
There is a powerful jerk, and the next thing he knows his parachute has opened.
“Fuck me!” he shouts. “It works!”
As the adrenaline rushes into him, the way he believes turning over a Royal Flush would feel like, something large plummets past him.
It the boy.
His parachute has failed to open.
Willard spreads his legs, stares down between them, aghast.
There is frantic movement and something begins to blossom above the ever-decreasing shape. The young paratrooper’s reserve parachute streams up above him in a white streak. It hasn’t opened correctly. He struggles like a broken doll.
Willard stares at him until he cannot watch anymore, because there is only land waiting to claim the soldier, and it is a clear night.
As Willard finds himself checking that his parachute is still working correctly, he wonders what photographs he can take that will help show the cost, the price being paid here.
He tries not to think of the last picture he has taken.
Willard feels like he is carrying the boy’s soul in his camera.