The Whitley’s engines had been throttled right back, but still Hislop was sucked into the churning maelstrom of the aircraft’s slipstream, the pummelling taking his very breath away. He was spat out on the far side. Hislop sensed himself falling for just an instant, before the static line pulled taut, ripping away his parapack and releasing his chute. A split second later, there was a distinctive crack in the night sky above him, as if a powerful gust of wind had caught a yacht’s mainsail, and a canopy of silk blossomed grey-white in the darkness. Hislop felt as if a giant hand had pulled him up by the shoulders, leaving him suspended in mid-air. As the oscillations of the chute diminished, he became aware of the vast and arresting silence and stillness of the Vosges night. After several hours cooped up in the aircraft’s suffocating hold, the emptiness felt deafening, but at least no one seemed to be shooting at him. He reached down to pull the cord that was supposed to release his leg bag and let it fall away.
