by W E Johns
“Are you a friend of Vandershon, Mr. Jurgens?” asked Biggles.
“Yes. We work together for long time.”
“You know what has happened to him?”
“But of course. I have been to see him in hospital. Zat is why I am late.”
“How is he?”
Jurgens shook his head sadly. “He vos very ill.”
“Would you like to know the man who knifed him?”
“Very much.”
Biggles pointed to the clerk. “There he is. He has just confessed. The radio operator will bear witness.”
Jurgens looked bewildered, as he had reason to be. “But I do not understand! Why should he do this thing?”
“He did it on the orders of his real master, the biggest crook, smuggler and murderer in South-East Asia. I was about to send for the police when you arrived.”
Jurgens still looked puzzled. “And who are you? What is your business here?”
“I’m a police officer from London. This attempt to kill Vandershon is not really my affair, but I liked him because he refused to take orders from a parcel of criminals. That’s why they tried to kill him. He knew that such an attempt might be made. I was in Kuala Lumpur when I heard about it and flew straight over. Now, if you take my advice you’ll call the police. After that, carry a gun and keep out of dark lanes. It won’t be for long. I have other work to do and must move on.”
“I will call the police certainly,” said Jurgens, moving towards the telephone.
“There’s one thing I’d like you to do for me,” went on Biggles. “See that no radio signals are sent out reporting my arrival here.”
“If you wish it.” Jurgens looked at the radio operator. “You hear that?”
“Yes,” acknowledged the man.
“If the police here want to know more about me, and what I’m doing here, tell them to call my chief. Air Commodore Raymond, at Scotland Yard, London. I may be back here shortly.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Then we’ll get along. Good night, Mr. Jurgens—and from now on mind how you go.”
Biggles, Bertie and Ginger with him, walked back to the Otter.
“Where next?” asked Ginger.
“The island. Having made a start we might as well finish the job while we’re at it, for when the Colonel hears what has happened here the hive will start buzzing. There’s not a breath of wind so the sea should be as fiat as a puddle.”
Biggles took off, set a course for the island, and climbed steadily to ten thousand feet. “If they’re not to hear us coming we shall need a long glide in,” he explained.
The Otter roared on over the open ocean. Overhead a full moon and a million stars gleamed, unmindful of the affairs of men.
CHAPTER X
NATURE TAKES A HAND
BERTIE took the Otter to its objective, completing the journey as silently as it is possible for an aeroplane to fly. That is to say, having glided the last few miles he finished by cutting the ignition and made his final approach at little more than stalling speed, touching down not at the flat end, but off the hilly northern end, at the greatest distance from the actual landing strip. The absence of surf round a rocky islet, as they passed low over it, indicated calm water, as indeed it turned out to be.
As the keel kissed the water—its wheels raised, of course—the ripples gleamed like blue fire with the phosphorescence for which certain areas of the Indian Ocean are famous, although the phenomenon can, on occasion, occur anywhere. As the aircraft surged to a halt some two hundred yards or so from the shore. Ginger could see the fiery trails of fish as they darted through the water. Having seen this sort of thing before, however, he did not comment on it.
“Nice work, Bertie,” complimented Biggles. “We’ll sit here for a bit to see which way the breeze or the tide takes us. At the same time we’ll watch the shore for signs of anyone moving. If we were seen or heard coming in someone will soon be along to investigate.”
Ten minutes passed. No challenge came. No light showed. The Otter was appreciably nearer the island.
“That’s fine,” observed Biggles. “It saves us putting out the dinghy.”
As the Otter continued slowly to drift in Ginger watched the land, although as yet it was no more than a vague silhouette, revealing no details except on the skyline, where an irregular line of palms, their fronds motionless, stood like watchful sentinels. The moon was bright, and the ripples round the hull danced like disturbed quicksilver. Where tiny wavelets were dying on the sandy beach the phosphorescence made a fascinating pattern of living fire. From time to time the usual strange, spicy aromas, thrown off by aromatic shrubs, were wafted on the almost imperceptible breeze. In short, it was one of those still, perfect tropic nights, when the whole world seems at peace.
The broad plan of the operation had been discussed on the way out. It was to be no more than a close reconnaissance for the purpose of obtaining as much information as possible. Should it be successful the Otter would return to its base there to await instructions from the Air Commodore. That he would request further particulars was almost certain. Biggles would, he hoped, be in a position to provide them.
Ginger saw a shadow detach itself from the island nearer the south end, and from the shape of its huge lateen sails, of which two were being raised, recognized it for what it was. He touched Biggles on the arm and pointed.
“A dhow,” murmured Biggles. “Heading west— with a load of contraband on board, I’d bet. That must have been lying in close when Bertie was here, but being dark in colour he probably wouldn’t see it.”
They watched the dhow, one if the oldest types of deep sea craft in the world, moving slowly across the face of the moonlit waters.
“Anxious to get away before the monsoon comes along, no doubt,” said Biggles. “Get out of these waters, anyway, which are famous, or infamous, for a particularly nasty blow locally known as a sumatran.” He thought for a minute and went on. “This business begins to take shape. Junks bring stuff from farther east, opium mostly, I imagine. Dhows from the Indian side, or maybe from the Middle East, call here and collect it for general distribution. The game has been going on for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. Now renegade whites like the Colonel have barged in to make easy fortunes, regardless of the mischief they do and the lives they wreck with their infernal drugs. But we’re close enough in to be doing something.”
The Otter had in fact drifted into an attractive little cove, and was now no more than a cable’s length from the sandy beach.
“I’ll swim ashore with a line and haul her in,” offered Ginger.
Biggles hesitated, looking hard at the water.
“What are you looking for?” asked Ginger.
“Crocodiles. There’s a general idea that crocodiles live only in rivers, but it’s wrong. Crocodiles hang about nearly all the islands in this part of the world. But I think in shallow water you should be safe.”
Ginger took a line and went overboard. He hadn’t far to swim. Touching bottom almost at once he waded ashore through a sea of blue fire and pulled the aircraft into shallow water where, under Biggles’ instructions, it was turned with its bows pointing to the open sea ready for a quick take-off should it be necessary. The anchor was dropped to hold it in that position—to the indignant chattering of a number of monkeys that had come to the beach for their evening meal of crabs and limpets.
Biggles considered the close-growing shrubs, mostly bamboos, with an occasional casuarina tree, that backed the beach. “It’d be a job to get through that stuff in the dark,” he opined. “We’d better stick to the beach, for as far as it will take us, anyway. Bertie, as you know more about the lay-out of the place than we do, you’d better lead. How far are we from the cove where you saw the yacht?”
“Roughly three-quarters of a mile, I’d say.”
“Okay. Algy, you’d better stay with the machine to cover our retreat in case we come back in a hurry. If we’re not back here by half an hour be
fore sunrise you’ll know something has gone wrong. You obviously won’t be able to stay here in daylight, so in that case you’d better go back to Kataradja, or perhaps to one of the other islands, returning at your discretion to look for us, and perhaps pick us up. But we shall get back in an hour or so if we can. That’s my intention, anyhow.”
As Biggles finished speaking a little wave, larger than the rest, splashed on the beach in a cloud of glittering gems. He looked at it. He looked at the Otter. It was rocking slightly, uneasily. He looked at the line of palms. Their fronds were stirring gently, rustling. He turned his eyes to the sky. A small solitary white cloud had appeared, very high, and was moving slowly westwards. He looked at the others.
“I have a feeling,” he said slowly, “that the skipper of that dhow knew what he was doing in pulling out. He knows these waters better than we do. Everything is telling us that there’s something on the way. It’s full early for the monsoon, but my common sense tells me to go home while the going’s good. If the monsoon did break it could go on for months. We might lose the Otter, and this is no place to be marooned.”
“The monsoon comes from the south-west,” said Algy. “That cloud is coming from the east.”
“I know,” muttered Biggles uneasily. “I also know from Sailing Directions, which I looked up before we started, that the wind can change direction in a matter of minutes. Look at that!” He pointed to a faint flicker of light that had shown for a moment over the rim of the world in the south-westerly quadrant, “That’s lightning!” There was a moment of indecision and he went on: “Maybe we can find out all we want to know in an hour. It’s either now, or it may mean waiting for months. Lead on, Bertie. We’ll risk it.”
It was, perhaps, a justifiable risk, although before long he was the first to say that he must have been out of his mind. But the indications had so far been slight. He hoped to be away from the aircraft in no more than an hour. And, as he said, if the monsoon did break they might have to wait for months before the operation could be repeated. It was for this reason in particular that he succumbed to the temptation to proceed, although his every instinct was against it. It was a risk, and he took it with his eyes wide open. But it is easy to be wise after the event.1
Leaving Algy standing guard over the machine they set off along the beach towards the low-lying end of the island, where the real objectives lay.
It turned out to be easy going, beach following beach, sometimes deeply indented with rocky headlands intervening: but to use an old saying, what they gained on the swings was lost on the roundabouts, for the winding coastline greatly increased the distance that had to be covered, and it was the best part of half an hour before they came within sight of the cove that sheltered the yacht, with the Chinese junk now moored beside it. There were lights on the junk, and sounds of activity suggested that like the dhow it was making preparations for departure rather than risk being caught on the windward side of the island, even though it had a snug mooring, should the monsoon break.
However, this was not Biggles’ objective. As he said, what he wanted to see was the accommodation ashore, and, perhaps a forlorn hope, the merchandise that was being handled. This, if contraband, would provide the evidence he needed to bring the matter to the notice of the authorities. The fact that he was satisfied in his own mind that the whole set-up was a smuggling organization was not enough. Nor was the Count’s disclosure, that gold was being smuggled into India in oyster shells, enough. He wanted proof.
On their left now was a gently sloping bank on the top of which, Bertie said, was the landing ground. On the point of starting up Biggles stopped as if an idea had struck him.
“That yacht might pull out if it started to blow, in which case we should not only lose sight of it but have no means of identifying it if we saw it again anywhere except here. We ought to know its name, and this is an opportunity to get it. It’s lying close in, and it should be possible to read the name from that scrub, or the rocks, that come within a few yards of it. I’m not sure, but I fancy it’s moored fore and aft to those rocks.
“I’ll go down and get her name,” offered Ginger.
“Okay. Don’t be longer than you can help but take no chances of being seen. We’ll wait here.”
Ginger set off on what had every appearance of being a minor expedition, for which reason, no doubt. Biggles had raised no objection to him going alone. But as is so often the case when a project looks easy, there were difficulties, and these were the more exasperating because not by any reasonable amount of foresight could they have been anticipated.
The area between the place where the party had stopped and the nearest point to the yacht, a matter of sixty or seventy yards, was filled with rough scrub between outcrops of rock. These rocks, he soon discovered, were larger than he had supposed, and the vegetation that flourished between them was therefore taller than he had reason to believe. The cavities between the rocks were deep enough to cause him some concern for his limbs. For a time, then, he blundered about without making much progress, becoming more and more worried because he knew that Biggles had reason to be impatient. An occasional gust of wind set the palm fronds waving and feathers of surf were appearing round projecting rocks.
In these circumstances he was not a little relieved when a stroke of luck, or what he had reason to think was luck, came his way. He came upon a narrow path leading down into the cove. Telling himself he was a fool for not seeking at the outset what he should have guessed was there, he set off along it at a good pace, for as the scrub on either hand was higher than his head there was no chance of him being seen. The only danger might be someone else using the path; but he guarded against such an encounter by frequent short pauses to listen. He was now close enough to the junk to hear voices although he did not know what was being said. Not being concerned with them he paid no particular heed.
Well satisfied with the turn events had taken in his favour he pressed on to make up for lost time and was soon on the edge of the sea—not the beach, but a flat shelf of rock with a vertical drop often feet or so on one side into the water. He was crossing this, with his eyes on the yacht, which was the nearer of the two vessels, when he stumbled and nearly fell over a bulky object that lay across his path. It felt soft. It also felt alive; at least, he thought it had moved when his foot struck it. Before he had time to look down he knew what it was, for he could feel coils gliding round his legs.
At that dreadful moment, thinking of all snakes as venomous, he gave himself up for lost.
In moments of desperate emergency the human brain is capable of its best efforts. Under the impulse of self-preservation it can act with the speed of light. Thus with Ginger. In a flash he guessed, from the size of the beast and the fact that it had not bitten him instantly, that it was a python, or a snake of the boa type, which kills by constriction.
To kill such a reptile in the dark with a pistol was out of the question. No such thought entered his head. One leg only was held, and what he did was to try to throw himself clear. In this he succeeded after a fashion. Forgetting the sea was so near he lost his balance and fell in, dragging the snake with him.
For a few frightful seconds the two bodies splashed together in the water. Ginger colliding with coils whichever way he turned. Then the snake must have swum away for he found himself clear. In a frenzy he struck out for the rock from which he had fallen, but finding himself confronted by a sheer face he turned and made for the stern of the yacht, which was only a short distance away. Reaching it he clung to the rudder, gasping, his brain whirling, yet wondering vaguely if he had been seen or heard by the men on the junk. He looked round for the snake, but to his unspeakable relief could see no sign of it. It occurred to him that it may have been as startled as he was.
When, after a lapse of some minutes, during which he brought himself more or less under control, nothing had happened, he remembered his mission. He swam on his back a little way, looked up, and in the clear moonlight was able to read the name of
the yacht. It was Floridia. That being all he wanted to know he swam to the nearest rocks, pulled himself up, and backing a little way into the scrub squatted while he recovered his breath and his composure; for under the reaction of the shock he was trembling in every limb. His opinion of tropic isles at that moment was not very high.
Where was the path? He had only a vague idea. He decided that he would have to find it, and take it, snake or no snake, for to push a passage through the scrub would take much too long. As it was, Biggles would be fuming at the delay, and with good reason. The surf was beginning to murmur on the beaches. The palms were beginning to brandish their fronds in gusts of wind of increasing strength. More clouds were piling up in the sky, although they now appeared to be stationary. All these were clear signs that weather was brewing.
Voices from the direction in which he believed the path to be brought him to his feet. At first he thought it was the others coming to look for him, but a chatter of foreign language soon warned him that this was not so.
The silhouettes of a line of men, dressed native fashion, with parcels on their heads, appeared against the sky. From the speed at which they walked he knew they must be on the path. This gave him the position of it, but, obviously, while they were on it he could not use it. He could only crouch and watch. They walked quickly, making it plain that their errand was urgent, and he had an uncomfortable feeling he knew why. The wind was freshening, and the lightning, while still beyond the horizon, was brighter. That a storm was on the way was no longer to be doubted.
He saw the men go to some rocks on the edge of the water. From there, using a flimsy bamboo gangway that he had not previously noticed, they went on board the junk. Lights appeared, reflecting on the yacht and the nearby rocks. He noticed some drums of oil there. He could smell oil, and made a mental note that the yacht was oil-burning. The men did not return. From the junk came chanting as if an anchor was being weighed, or a heavy sail hoisted.