by W E Johns
CHAPTER XVI
SORTIE TO SHANSIE
IN a short while the Liberator was in the air, not heading eastward on a direct course for its objective which would have taken it dangerously close to Victoria Point, but northward, above the clustering islands of the Archipelago. Biggles held the machine low, so that the aircraft sometimes passed between rather than over the green hills of the higher islands.
On Ginger’s left, as he sat beside Biggles, the sun appeared to be falling into the sea like a monstrous crimson balloon, the distortion being due to heat haze. None of the gun turrets was manned There was no point in manning them for they were not fitted with guns. The only military equipment the big machine carried were its bomb-racks, installed for the transport of bombs rather than for operations. In the event of opposition, therefore, the only hope of successful evasion lay in speed, of which all the Liberator types have a good turn.
Biggles flew north for about five minutes, covering in that time something like thirty miles; then, after a methodical scrutiny of the sky, still flying low he turned due east towards the dark, low-lying mainland. Ginger knew why Biggles was flying low. The advantages were apparent, quite apart from the fact that as Shansie was only sixty miles distant there was little time to take altitude. By keeping low the area of hostile territory from which the aircraft could be seen was restricted, and—and this was even more important—Biggles intended to make sure of his target. The best-aimed bombs from a considerable height are apt to miss their mark. There was to be no chance of that.
With the dying sun lining its trailing edges with fingers of fire the Liberator roared across the narrow strait—at this point about fourteen miles wide—and sped on over the forest. The jungle looked grim, forbidding, in the failing light. There was no sign of life or of human habitation although occasionally the regular spacing of trees marked rubber plantations, perhaps being worked or more probably abandoned. But Ginger knew that eyes would be looking up at them, the eyes of fugitive Chinese coolies as well as enemy eyes; he knew, too, that field telephones would soon be flashing the news of the British bomber’s sudden appearance to Japanese headquarters at Victoria Point. Away to the south the Pak Chan River came into view, looking like an enormous black snake winding through the jungle.
Said Ginger: “I reckon if we hold on this course we shall pass Shansie about twenty miles to the north.”
Biggles answered: “That’s my intention. Having overrun the village I shall turn and make the bombing run on the homeward journey. That will enable us to carry straight on for home without any messing about.”
“Going to make a dummy run?”
“Not me.”
“How many bombs?”
“You can give them the lot. There won’t be time for practice shots or fancy work. The thing to hope for is that the Zeros are on the carpet for the night, not in the air. If we happen to catch ‘em in the atmosphere there are likely to be some pyrotechnics with us in the middle of them. Keep your eyes mobile and let me know if you see anything. We’re getting close.”
Ginger stared long and steadily into the grey light that had already taken possession of the eastern sky. Not a speck marked its flat surface. For another five minutes the machine roared on over a slightly undulating plain of treetops that seemed to roll away to eternity, then it banked steeply as Biggles turned south. Ginger focused his attention on the new direction. Not a machine was in sight. For the present, at least, the sky was their own. Again Biggles turned, this time to the west, so that he was running back parallel with his outward course, but some miles to the south of it. The roar of the motors increased slightly in volume as he eased the control column forward. Again the river swept into view and beside it the green paddy-fields of Shansie.
“Okay,” said Biggles crisply. “There she is. Take station. Don’t bother about sighting. Unload when I give you the word.”
Ginger took his position and looking through the open bomb doors saw trees flashing past below. They ended abruptly at the river and open cultivated country, across, which some men were running, pointing, gesticulating, for the most part towards aircraft that were dispersed under convenient trees. Ginger saw one man stop and take deliberate aim with a rifle. Where the bullet went he did not know; nor did he care; he had little fear of being hit by such a shot, anyway. The aircraft altered course the-merest trifle. Biggles’ voice came clear and sharp over the intercom. “Ready!”
Ginger waited, thumb on the bomb release.
“Now!”
Ginger’s thumb jammed hard on the button and the bombs went through the hatch like a string of sausages, taking up that curious oblique flight that bombs make when they leave an aircraft. There was an instant of suspense during which a line of tracer shells flashed past the Liberator’s port wing. They did no damage. Lying prone Ginger looked down to observe results. He could see several bends in the river, but he did not know which was the right one. Flashes told him, then smoke, billowing clouds of smoke. The aircraft seemed to soar bodily as blast struck its under-surfaces. At first the smoke obscured everything; then from under it appeared what seemed to be an ever-widening ripple. It did not look dangerous or even alarming; but he knew that this was water; that the river bank had gone and that a liquid wall several feet high must be surging across the paddy-fields. Men were running. Without any spectacular display of power the tide overtook them, when they merely disappeared from sight. But the force of the flood could better be judged from the way the water lifted the aircraft when it reached them; it rolled them over and over as if they had been paper models. Ginger’s view of this satisfying spectacle lasted only for a few seconds; then the picture drifted away aft and forest once more filled its place. He went back to his seat in the cockpit.
“Okay,” he announced. “The embankment got the groceries. You must have scored at least one direct hit judging from the way the waves went bubble-dancing across the fields.”
“I should be a dim type to miss a target that size from that altitude,” returned Biggles evenly. “I’m going home the way we came.”
The Liberator swung a little to the north and raced on over the forest, so low that the slipstream set the treetops waving, towards a sun that was now half sunk in the western ocean. Nothing opposed its progress. As it shot across the coast some fifteen miles above Victoria Point, Ginger relaxed a little. Sea and sky were empty. Or were they? A few seconds later he leaned forward, concentrating on something that had caught his eye on the surface of the water a trifle to the north of their course.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
Biggles’ eyes found the mark. “Looks like a dilapidated kabang. Probably another of Li Chi’s spies coming across with more gen.”
“There are two men in it,” observed Ginger.
“What of it?”
“They’re waving.”
“So I see.”
“They seem excited about something.”
“Maybe they’re afraid we’re Japs, going to shoot them up.”
“Edge a bit closer,” requested Ginger.
“I’ve no time to hang about,” answered Biggles. “I’d rather get my wheels on the runway before the light goes altogether.”
Ginger stared hard at the little craft for as long as it was in sight. “Do you know something?” he queried in a puzzled voice. “I believe one of those fellows was Prince Lalla.”
“What!” Biggles looked interested for the first time. “What gave you that idea?”
“There was something familiar about the figure of one of them, and his face was certainly several shades lighter than the other.”
Biggles looked concerned. “Lalla might have escaped when the Japs took over Shansie. It’s no use going back —we couldn’t pick him up; but it might be a good thing if the Gosling has arrived to take it out and have another look. If it did turn out to be Lalla you could pick him up.”
“I’ll do that,” asserted Ginger.
The Liberator landed and ran on t
o the shelter. Tug was there, waiting, with Henry Harcourt. The new Gosling rode in the mooring prepared for it.
“How did it go?” called Tug.
“Okay,” answered Ginger, and made for the Gosling.
“What’s he going to do?” demanded Tug, turning questioning eyes to Biggles.
“There’s a native craft making for Elephant Island. He thought he saw a friend in it,” explained Biggles. “What about the ships—did you find ‘em?”
“They’ve parted company,” reported Tug. “The big ship is heading north-west, flat out, judging by her wake. The Sumatran is coming this way.”
Biggles nodded. “If she’s coming this way it looks as if she’s got a Jap crew on board—probably making for Victoria Point.”
Ginger took off in the Gosling.
“I passed fairly near those ships,” said Henry. “I spotted Tug and we came back together. He gave me a lead to the lake.”
“Did the ships fire at you?”
“No.”
Biggles knitted his forehead in a frown. “Queer. There’s something phoney about this... but I’m dashed if I can make out what it is. Never mind, we can’t do anything about it. Any news from India?”
“Not a thing. Oh yes—Johnny Crisp blew in yesterday hoping to see you. Said he heard you were about. He’s got his own squadron now—Beau1 torpedo carriers. Says if you have a party he’d like to bring his gang along to it.”
Biggles smiled. “‘Fraid he’s a bit too far away.”
As the sun dipped below the horizon the Gosling returned, and ploughing a stormy furrow across the smooth surface of the lake ran on to the shelter.
“Bear a hand!” shouted Ginger from the cockpit. “I’ve got Lalla and Melong. They’ve both been hit.”
There were several minutes of careful activity as Lalla and his overseer, Melong, were helped to land. Lalla, it turned out, was only slightly wounded, but Melong was in a bad way; a bullet had gone through his groin and another had torn a nasty wound in his side. He had lost a lot of blood. Biggles’ face was serious as with the help of the others he dressed the wounds with lint, bandages and antiseptic, from the Liberator’s first-aid outfit.
“What happened?” he asked Lalla. “We’ve heard that the Japs are at Shansie.”
“A plane came over. We didn’t pay much attention to it except that we stopped working. We were trying to make an airfield for you. But the pilot must have seen what we were doing. He went off. Half an hour later some big machines came and dropped parachute troops on us. There was a fight but we had no chance. At the end it was everyone for himself. I took to the jungle. I’m afraid Shansie is finished.”
“What happened to your father?”
“I don’t know. He was in the bungalow when the trouble began. I didn’t see him. I got away with Melong. In the forest we were joined by some of our men. They helped me to get Melong to the coast. I was trying to get to you to warn you in case you flew out and landed amongst the Japanese.”
“That was thoughtful of you,” put in Biggles.
“We were shot at near the coast and I thought it best that we should scatter,” continued Lalla. “I stayed with Melong. Some friendly natives gave us the kabang. We were lucky that they had one hidden.”
“Hidden? Why?”
“They say the Japanese are collecting all native craft, and taking them to Victoria Point. It may be only a rumour, but it is said that they are to be used to take troops to Elephant Island.”
“Is that so?” murmured Biggles. “It sounds feasible.” He went on to say that he had bombed the embankment at Shansie, and why. “Any damage we have caused doesn’t matter now, I’m afraid,” he concluded.
Lalla agreed. His mood seemed to be something between blind rage against the Japanese for the destruction of his home, and despondency.
“If you feel up to it you can have a chance to hit back at the Japs tonight,” Biggles told him. “We’re planning a raid on Victoria Point. One of my officers is a prisoner there.”
“I shall come,” declared Lalla, showing his white teeth. “All I want now is to kill Japanese and go on killing them.”
“As far as I’m concerned you may,” said Biggles dryly. Melong was carried to the native quarter and handed over to Ayert to be made comfortable.
“He die quick,” observed Ayert dispassionately, after a glance at the wounded man.
As a matter of detail Ayert was right. Melong died during the night, although the others did not learn of this until the morning, by which time the fate of Melong’s son was known. The others derived some consolation from the fact that the overseer was spared the grief that this knowledge would have caused.
It was now almost dark, and Biggles determined to make his attack on Victoria Point forthwith—before, as he said, the Japanese could come to the island in the native boats, which might happen at any time, and before the Sumatran arrived on the scene to complicate matters.
To this Ayert agreed. His men, he said, were ready. “Then let’s get cracking,” decided Biggles.
“Can I come?” asked Henry. “Tug says he’s going.”
Biggles smiled. “Okay. You may as well bite a Jap or two as stay here and be bitten to death by mosquitoes.”
* * *
1 R.A.F. abbreviation for the Beaufighter aircraft.
CHAPTER XVII
THE RAID
IN darkness that was almost tangible, and air so heavy with sticky heat that it felt as though it never could have been cool, the Lotus nosed its way unchallenged to the deeply indented coastline of Lower Burma. Dark though it was the silhouette of the land was even darker, dark with a solidity the air did not possess. Sagging palm fronds hung motionless against the heavens like an ornamental frieze cut out of black paper. Nothing moved except the Lotus and an ever-widening ripple that started at its bows and ran back as straight as lines drawn with a ruler to fade and at last vanish in the mysterious gloom of the straight. The only sound was the soft throb of the engine running at quarter speed.
Ayert stood at the wheel, seldom moving, his whitened face giving him the appearance of some frightful pagan idol, his one eye probing the darkness ahead for the mouth of the little river which he had asserted would make an ideal landfall. Nor was his navigation at fault, although the method he employed was not apparent to the white men who stood near him. Perhaps there was no method. If there was, perhaps Ayert himself did not know it. Perhaps he was actuated by sheer instinct. However that may be he found the river, and the launch, travelling noiselessly now and dead slow, entered it like a black panther slinking into a cave that hid its den. For a minute or two the launch went on, slowly losing way; then, without shock or jar, it scraped its side against the southern bank.
“Nice work, Ayert,” commended Biggles quietly. “You think the launch will be all right here?”
“No one come,” answered the bosun. “Hide here from navy gunboat many time. No find.”
“Good. Let’s get along. Lead the way,” requested Biggles.
There was inevitably a certain amount of noise—the rasp of steel, the rustle of accoutrements and the patter of sandalled feet—as the native commandos rose up from the deck on which they had been lying and climbed over the rail; but once ashore there was no more noise. Ginger felt a cold chill run down his spine as he looked at the whitewashed faces, hideous to behold, filing past him. They did not look much like white men, he thought, unless the faces were those of dead men. They looked more like creatures from another world.
Ayert and two big Malays led the way through the jungle. The white men came next with Lalla, and the rest followed in single file. Again, how Ayert found his way was a mystery, for there was no track; but he moved with confidence, and Biggles, who knew they were now entirely in his hands, was content to follow. He was only too glad to have a guide in such a place.
From the place of disembarkation to Victoria Point was, so Ayert had stated, an hour’s march. But here his reckoning was at fault, due perhaps to
frequent halts which he called while the ground ahead was reconnoitred or some suspicious sound investigated ; as a result, an hour and a half by Biggles’ watch had elapsed before Ayert halted, touched him on the arm, and announced that the settlement lay just ahead. For some time they had been skirting patches of cultivated ground.
Knowing that Ayert could move with no more noise than a cat walking on a pile carpet Biggles requested him to go forward alone and locate the position of enemy sentries, if any. He had a fair mental picture of the place from a map showing the main features which Ayert had provided, but the first obvious precaution was to ascertain the number and position of enemy troops. Upon this information would the direction of the assault be determined. There seemed no immediate need for haste, and his intention was, as he had told the others coming over, to spend some time getting the men in the best possible positions before striking a blow. Then, at a word, the place could be taken at a rush before the enemy could stand to arms in any sort of military order. That was what he hoped. It was a reasonable if conventional plan, and had it been put into execution it might have succeeded. But in the event things fell out differently, as in war they so often do.
The first intimation that the plan might go adrift occurred when Ayert returned in such haste that he made a good deal of noise. From the way he forced a passage through the undergrowth it was clear that he was in a hurry; and when he appeared it was at once apparent from his manner that something of extreme importance was afoot. He beckoned urgently, but all he said—in a voice thick with excitement—was, “Quick!” Without waiting for a reply, without waiting for anything, he turned and darted forward, pushing his way through bushes regardless of noise.
Biggles did not wait for explanations. He followed, as did the others, Ginger with his pulses racing, for he was convinced that something serious had gone amiss. He could not hazard a guess as to what it might be, but he was conscious of an atmosphere of impending tragedy, perhaps disaster. Even so, the sight that met his eyes when a minute later he burst through the undergrowth far exceeded in melodramatic effect anything that he could have imagined.