The Shaman
First Post
The roar of the big Pratt and Whitney engines fills the Dakota’s darkened cabin. Most of the trainees sit quietly, lost in thought. A few tug absently at straps and buckles – others appear to be asleep despite the thundering motors. At the open door sits Sergeant Duval, the jumpmaster, his scarred face hidden in shadow beneath his helmet.
Outside the small Plexiglas windows the eastern horizon is a rich royal blue, heralding the rising sun.
The camp at Sully, even by the Spartan standards of the Legion, was execrable. An abandoned farm about ten miles south of Sidi-bel-Abbès, the training base of the régiments de étranger de parachutistes remained better suited to livestock than the cream of the Legion’s elite. The barracks were converted barns, home to multitudes of mice and rats that mercilessly chewed at equipment, uniforms, and hair. Personal hygiene was handled at a horse trough in the yard. The latrines were slit trenches screened by canvas awnings and infested with squadrons of buzzing flies. By general consensus the food wasn’t fit for mice, rats, or flies, though apparently it was good enough for legionnaires, and the water, trucked in each day from Sidi-bel-Abbès, was as warm as urine and about as wholesome.
Days at Sully were busy, much of it reminiscent of basic training: weapons drill, obstacle courses, unit organization, long marches, longer days. But an undercurrent of tension and excitement flowed among the assembled legionnaires as the students lined up to jump off towers and plane fuselages mounted on metal beams into piles of sawdust or sand, or practiced packing chutes in a barn filled with the silk canopies suspended from the rafters. Soon the towers were taller and the students were buckled into leather harnesses suspended from pulleys. And soon it was time to jump.
The base at Blida, the army parachute training camp where the students were sent in the final week of their training to make the five jumps required to earn their silver wings, was like a palace compared to Sully – warm beds in clean barracks, plentiful good food, hot showers and flush toilets. Unlike the surly Legion NCOs, the moniteurs at Blida were patient and helpful.
Your training section fell under the watchful eye of Sergeant Duval. Wearing the blue beret of the régiment de parachutistes de coloniaux, the sergeant’s easy demeanor stood in stark contrast to his battle-hardened visage. At mess the men spoke in hushed voices about the jagged red scar that started at the corner of Duval’s mouth and ran across his face to his left ear, an ear of which only a small flap of skin remained – in the mess hall it was said that the scar came from a Vietminh mortar round exploding directly in front of Duval’s foxhole, and that he had stayed in his ’hole for more than four hours with the rest of his unit to repulse wave after wave of ‘viets.’ When asked about the wound by a particularly bold student, the sergeant simply leered (as he could not smile) and continued on with his lesson.
The fifth and final jump was planned for yesterday – the students and instructors, some seventy in all, would participate in a mass drop on a plain south of the Aurés Mountains with full battle gear. The training unit would march from the drop zone to an objective and dig in for the night, then march out to a pick-up point the following day for transport by truck back to the base and a drunken bacchanal in the bars of Blida that night. The Dakotas were wheels up at 0400 as planned, winging their way south when the co-pilot appeared and approached Sergeant Duval – over the engines you could hear the youthful Air Force lieutenant tell the moniteur “…oil pressure…place to land…” Then the transport plane was banking, shedding altitude.
The pilot made an emergency landing at a small rural airstrip. It took nearly three hours for a deuce-and-a-half to arrive to pick up your stick, another five hours to get back to Blida. The mood on the truck ride home was subdued. That night, in the almost empty mess hall, Sergeant Duval arrived to brief the ten students. “I spoke with Commandant Bernelle. We are going to jump tomorrow morning, same location, and rendezvous with the rest of the company. They will have about a sixteen kilometer head-start on us. We’re going to catch them.” Duval leered. “Plan on traveling fast and light – weapons and ammo and one canteen only.”
The red light at the edge of the door appears. Sergeant Duval stands and faces the cabin.“Ready!” he calls.
All of the men hold up their static lines. “Stand up!” Duval calls. The students struggle to their feet. “Hook up!” the jumpmaster orders. Metal clips snap onto the fixed cable running the length of the cabin. The sergeant taps his shoulders. “Equipment check! Sound off!” Each paratrooper checks his harness first, then the gear of the man in front, calling out each in turn, “Eleven ready!...Ten ready!...Nine ready!...Eight ready!...” until Sergeant Duval yells, “One ready!”.
Duval gazes intently out the open door. The lurid scare across his face looks white in the glow of the jump light when he finally looks back at the students. “Form up on me. Watch your dispersal – stay three meters apart.”
The green light appears.
“Let’s go!” yells the sergeant and steps into space. The stick surges forward and through the door into darkness.
Each character must make a Jump check, a Reflex save, and a Spot check – please post the results.
Outside the small Plexiglas windows the eastern horizon is a rich royal blue, heralding the rising sun.
- / -
The camp at Sully, even by the Spartan standards of the Legion, was execrable. An abandoned farm about ten miles south of Sidi-bel-Abbès, the training base of the régiments de étranger de parachutistes remained better suited to livestock than the cream of the Legion’s elite. The barracks were converted barns, home to multitudes of mice and rats that mercilessly chewed at equipment, uniforms, and hair. Personal hygiene was handled at a horse trough in the yard. The latrines were slit trenches screened by canvas awnings and infested with squadrons of buzzing flies. By general consensus the food wasn’t fit for mice, rats, or flies, though apparently it was good enough for legionnaires, and the water, trucked in each day from Sidi-bel-Abbès, was as warm as urine and about as wholesome.
Days at Sully were busy, much of it reminiscent of basic training: weapons drill, obstacle courses, unit organization, long marches, longer days. But an undercurrent of tension and excitement flowed among the assembled legionnaires as the students lined up to jump off towers and plane fuselages mounted on metal beams into piles of sawdust or sand, or practiced packing chutes in a barn filled with the silk canopies suspended from the rafters. Soon the towers were taller and the students were buckled into leather harnesses suspended from pulleys. And soon it was time to jump.
The base at Blida, the army parachute training camp where the students were sent in the final week of their training to make the five jumps required to earn their silver wings, was like a palace compared to Sully – warm beds in clean barracks, plentiful good food, hot showers and flush toilets. Unlike the surly Legion NCOs, the moniteurs at Blida were patient and helpful.
Your training section fell under the watchful eye of Sergeant Duval. Wearing the blue beret of the régiment de parachutistes de coloniaux, the sergeant’s easy demeanor stood in stark contrast to his battle-hardened visage. At mess the men spoke in hushed voices about the jagged red scar that started at the corner of Duval’s mouth and ran across his face to his left ear, an ear of which only a small flap of skin remained – in the mess hall it was said that the scar came from a Vietminh mortar round exploding directly in front of Duval’s foxhole, and that he had stayed in his ’hole for more than four hours with the rest of his unit to repulse wave after wave of ‘viets.’ When asked about the wound by a particularly bold student, the sergeant simply leered (as he could not smile) and continued on with his lesson.
The fifth and final jump was planned for yesterday – the students and instructors, some seventy in all, would participate in a mass drop on a plain south of the Aurés Mountains with full battle gear. The training unit would march from the drop zone to an objective and dig in for the night, then march out to a pick-up point the following day for transport by truck back to the base and a drunken bacchanal in the bars of Blida that night. The Dakotas were wheels up at 0400 as planned, winging their way south when the co-pilot appeared and approached Sergeant Duval – over the engines you could hear the youthful Air Force lieutenant tell the moniteur “…oil pressure…place to land…” Then the transport plane was banking, shedding altitude.
The pilot made an emergency landing at a small rural airstrip. It took nearly three hours for a deuce-and-a-half to arrive to pick up your stick, another five hours to get back to Blida. The mood on the truck ride home was subdued. That night, in the almost empty mess hall, Sergeant Duval arrived to brief the ten students. “I spoke with Commandant Bernelle. We are going to jump tomorrow morning, same location, and rendezvous with the rest of the company. They will have about a sixteen kilometer head-start on us. We’re going to catch them.” Duval leered. “Plan on traveling fast and light – weapons and ammo and one canteen only.”
- / -
The red light at the edge of the door appears. Sergeant Duval stands and faces the cabin.“Ready!” he calls.
All of the men hold up their static lines. “Stand up!” Duval calls. The students struggle to their feet. “Hook up!” the jumpmaster orders. Metal clips snap onto the fixed cable running the length of the cabin. The sergeant taps his shoulders. “Equipment check! Sound off!” Each paratrooper checks his harness first, then the gear of the man in front, calling out each in turn, “Eleven ready!...Ten ready!...Nine ready!...Eight ready!...” until Sergeant Duval yells, “One ready!”.
Duval gazes intently out the open door. The lurid scare across his face looks white in the glow of the jump light when he finally looks back at the students. “Form up on me. Watch your dispersal – stay three meters apart.”
The green light appears.
“Let’s go!” yells the sergeant and steps into space. The stick surges forward and through the door into darkness.
Each character must make a Jump check, a Reflex save, and a Spot check – please post the results.
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