Free Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War by Ben Macintyre Page B

fine crowd of lads. How many will I see again?”
    —
    David Stirling hit the desert floor with such force that he blacked out. Just a few minutes earlier, the pilot of the plane, unable to navigate accurately in the storm, had asked if he should abort the jump. “No, certainly not,” said Stirling. Then he jumped. When he came to, he found he was being dragged along by his parachute “like a kite” in a forty-mile-per-hour wind, whipped and grated across sharp gravel and rocks. After a struggle he managed to twist the clip of his parachute release, and the canopy flapped away into the storm. Stirling staggered to his feet in the darkness, covered in lacerations and pouring blood but otherwise unharmed. He switched on his torch and began shouting into the wind. The pilot had told him which compass bearing the men had been dropped on: by following that bearing, the first man dropped should come across the second, and so on. It took two hours to gather what remained of his team. One man had vanished; apparently unable to release himself from his parachute, he had probably been dragged to death. Another had broken an ankle and could not stand. The worst injury was to Sergeant Jock Cheyne, a tall twenty-five-year-old Scotsman from Aberdeen, “full of quaint Scots humour.” Cheyne had broken his back on landing. The men had all been told that in case of serious injury their best chance of survival would be to “crawl to a roadside and hope.” There was no road for miles, and poor Cheyne was unable to crawl anywhere. The supply canisters had vanished. Armed only with revolvers and a handful of grenades, and barely a day’s supply of water, Stirling’s unit was now useless as an attacking force.
    Once his dismay had subsided, Stirling became practical. He would continue toward the coast and try to carry out a reconnaissance of the target airfield, and perhaps an attack, along with Sergeant Bob Tait, who, like himself, seemed to have suffered only superficial injuries. Sergeant Yates, the company sergeant major, would make for the LRDG rendezvous with the four men still able to walk. The two most badly injured men would be left behind. “It’s an awful feeling,” one of the departing men recalled, “to leave two friends, but you had to, couldn’t carry them, just had to hope they would be picked up by the Germans.” The two men were left with a supply of water and two revolvers. Few words were said. There was little to say. Cheyne lay unconscious, “huddled in the blankets that were brought him.” The injured men were never seen again.
    Paddy Mayne’s team fared little better. Reg Seekings, to his intense and vociferous fury, was dragged across the desert for fifty yards and straight through a thorn bush, flaying hands, arms, and face. “I could feel the blood running down, and Jesus that got my temper up.” Finally he wrenched himself free of the parachute. Mayne had landed unscathed, and gathered his bedraggled troop. They had come down, he estimated, at least a dozen miles from the drop zone. Dave Kershaw, a veteran who had fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, had broken an arm. Two other men were too badly injured to walk. Only two of the canisters were located, containing two tommy guns, eight bottles of water, six blankets, and some food and explosives. Mayne insisted the mission would go ahead as planned. The most injured men would be left with water and rations. “We shook hands with them, wished them luck, and set out to find our objective.” (The two men were captured by an Italian patrol the next day.)
    Of the five parachuting parties, only that of Jock Lewes had landed more or less intact. Their plane had come under attack from the coastal antiaircraft batteries, and the pilot, dodging searchlights and fighting the wind, shouted that he had only a vague idea of where they were. “We’re jumping blind,” thought Johnny Cooper as he leaped into the dark. The only sound he could