by W E Johns
“And suppose we do find the stuff growing at El Moab?”
“The entire stock will have to be destroyed.”
“How?”
“If the plants are too small to burn we’ll pull them out of the ground one by one.”
“There is no God but God,” burst out Zahar, in a voice which told the others with what little hope of success he regarded such an operation.
Ginger, too, looked doubtful. “That sounds a fantastic business to me.”
“Can you think of any other way?” enquired Biggles.
“No.”
“If we leave one plant Ambrimos will save the seeds and start all over again somewhere else.”
“I suppose so,” agreed Ginger moodily.
“The size of the job will depend on the size of the area we find under cultivation—supposing the stuff is there,” Biggles continued. “Naturally, I’m thinking in terms of square yards, not miles.”
“I’m glad to know that,” answered Ginger with a tinge of sarcasm.
Biggles went on. “We haven’t as much water left as I would like for a show of this sort. Owing to that infernal storm we’ve used more than we should, and in a country like this water is about the one thing a man can’t do without.”
“In that matter, Sahib, there is no need to fear,” put in Zahar. “On our way, we shall pass a narrow wadi in which there should be water in abundance, a stream that overflows from the lake which the Sultan has made to store water for the dry season. The stream dies at a water hole which I have seen but not used. You can fill the bottles there.”
“That’s good news,” declared Biggles.
“What about the machine?” queried Ginger. “Will it be safe here?”
“We shall have to chance it. I shouldn’t think many people pass this way in daylight, and the machine is pretty well out of sight in the hangar. We shouldn’t be away very long.”
So it was agreed, and an hour later the expedition set out across a wilderness made even more melancholy by the dim light of a moon still half obscured by dust. Visibility was fairly good, however, and improving all the time as the sand settled.
For the first part of the journey there was nothing to break the monotony. The travellers marched almost in silence. The only sound that came from the outer darkness was the occasional ghoulish screaming— sometimes called laughing—of a hyena. The blood-curdling noise was singularly appropriate to the setting, thought Ginger.
Zahar seemed to be in no doubt as to his course although there was no track of any sort. A surprising number of bones of animals long dead, pale objects on which the moon gleamed with an uncanny significance, littered the landscape. The going varied considerably as the party crossed flat areas of wind-polished stones or zigzagged up an eminence in which the bed-rock lay exposed. Detours were made round patches of scrub, and twice Zahar called a halt while he sought for the easiest way of crossing a wadi. Over all hung a sense of heaviness, a heart-chilling loneliness, as is usual in desert countries as yet unaffected by the handiwork of man. The air was still, and the heat of the day gave way to a refreshing coolness. But there was still a certain amount of sand in the atmosphere which inevitably found its way into the mouth and nose to awaken the demon thirst.
Knowing the rule about not drinking while on the march, Ginger refrained from touching his water bottle, but he was more than a little relieved when at long last Zahar announced that they were approachhing the water hole which he had mentioned. Presently he asked the others to wait while he went on to confirm that it was not already occupied by travellers who would almost certainly be enemies. Fortunately there was no one there, so they all scrambled down a stony bank to the water, a mere trickle that ended in a stagnant pool perhaps half a dozen yards across. To Zahar, such an ample supply of water was a thing to wonder at, and he gave repeated thanks to God as he filled his water bottle. From sheer habit, perhaps, he did not drink. Biggles took a sip and spat it out with an exclamation of dissgust. “I wouldn’t touch it unless I really needed it,” he told Ginger. “You’ll probably find a dead camel lying in it higher up.” As a precaution against emergency, however, he topped up his water bottle.
Ginger was too thirsty to accept his advice. He drank a little. The water was definitely brackish, as is most desert water, due to the salt in the sand. After he had finished drinking he also discovered that a sweet, musty flavour was left on his tongue. Actually, however, he swallowed very little, for the most part contenting himself with rinsing out his mouth.
After a brief halt the march was resumed.
It was about twenty minutes after this that Ginger began to feel unwell.
For a while he said nothing, hoping that the spasm of nausea from which he suffered would pass off. It did not. On the contrary, it became worse, and so he was at length compelled to reveal his condition to Biggles.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “ but I feel as sick as a dog. I’m giddy, too. I don’t think I can go on.”
Biggles stopped. “That sounds as if you’ve got a touch of the sun,” he diagnosed. “You’ve chosen an awkward moment to fall sick.”
Ginger sank down on a rock mopping cold perspiration from his face. “I feel pretty awful,” he asserted. “I think perhaps I’d better start back.”
“Start back! Are you out of your mind?” demanded Biggles with asperity. “What a hope you’d have of finding your way. You’d be lost before you had gone a mile. If you can’t carry on you’d better stay where you are and we’ll pick you up on the way back.”
“Okay,” agreed Ginger miserably. “Maybe the feeling will pass off when I’ve had a rest.” And in view of the outcome of this apparently simple incident it must be stated that he really believed what he said. And what was perhaps even more disastrous, Biggles thought so, too. At all events, it was plain from Biggles’s manner that he did not suppose Ginger to be suffering from anything worse than a passing indisposition— probably, as he said, an attack of sickness due to the heat during the day.
Even so, Biggles hesitated. “Maybe we’d better call the whole thing off and concentrate on getting you back to the machine,” he suggested.
Naturally, Ginger protested at this. He recoiled from the idea that the sortie should be abandoned on his account. “I shall be all right,” he insisted.
“You’re quite sure?”
“Positive.”
“All right,” consented Biggles. “But whatever you do don’t move. I mean, if the attack passes off, and you feel better, don’t try to follow us. You’d probably miss us in the dark. Stay here and we shall know where you are.”
“Fair enough,” agreed Ginger weakly.
“We shan’t be long,” said Biggles encouragingly as he turned away. “We must be pretty close to El Moab. We’ll have a quick look round and come straight back. Keep quiet.”
Ginger nodded assent and lay back. The fact was, he was now feeling a good deal worse than he had led Biggles to suppose. In this, considering the circumstances, he was at fault, as he was very soon to realise. He should have made his condition plain, in which case the events that followed would have been very different from what they were. For had he said that he felt desperately ill, which was the simple truth, it is unlikely that Biggles would have left him alone in such a place—or anywhere else for that matter. Of course, Ginger’s behaviour was understandable. He could not bear to think that physical weakness on his part should result in the failure of the expedition.
He told the truth in one respect. He said he thought the worst had passed. He really thought it had. It did not occur to him that this was the onset of someething far more alarming. Having always enjoyed good health he could not imagine what was wrong with him; and the fact that something was wrong only served to irritate him. But this aspect of the matter was forgotten, to be replaced with real fear, as illness beyond his experience took him in its grip. Cramp racked his stomach. He thought he was dying, and so dreadful was the process that he hoped it would soon be over. Or was i
t all a nightmare? He did not know. He was no longer sure of anything. The moon began to swing about in the sky. The immediate landscape of rock and sand that formed the wadi took on strange colours, and began to pile up before him like a mountain. Time stood still. It no longer had meaning. This frightful thing had been happening to him for ages of time. He had never known anything else. Memory failed.
He tried to rise, but found that he had lost the power of movement. His bones and muscles had turned to jelly. Then he became two people, one in the throes of delirium and the other watching. An icy chill began to creep through his limbs. He was violently sick, and this brought a brief respite. Somewhere near at hand a hyena started its diabolical yowling.
He could see the beast. It split into a hundred parts, each part to become another hyena.
The moon was falling on him. The instinct of self-preservation awoke.
With an inarticulate cry he scrambled to his feet and reeling like a drunken man blundered blindly into the benighted desolation.
Chapter 9
Zahar Solves A Mystery
UNAWARE of Ginger’s desperate plight Biggles walked on, keeping close behind Zahar who automatically took the lead. They kept to the bottom of the wadi, which now became broad and shallow, rather than risk exposing themselves now that they were drawing near to their destination. The Sultan’s men, said Zahar, might be moving about, collecting fodder for their animals, or perhaps looking for one that had strayed.
The almost dry river bed was by no means easy going. It was strewn with boulders of all shapes and sizes, with occasional patches of acacia shrub, a bush that bristles with thorns.
Several times as they advanced Biggles passed his tongue over his lips, puzzled by a slight stickiness that formed on them. This had, moreover, a peculiar spicy taste, although not altogether unpleasant. Curiously enough, he did not connect this with the water he had tasted—not that there was any particular reason why he should. Even when, a little later, he experienced a momentary twinge of nausea, he put it down to an adulterant in the condensed meat paste, a tin of which he had opened from the store carried in the aircraft. He recalled that Ginger had eaten rather more of it, while Zahar had had none, such viands being forbidden by his religion. The implication was too obvious to be overlooked, and Ginger’s sudden attack was explained—or so he thought. Ginger, he was now convinced, was suffering from food poisoning, and as this can be a dangerous disorder he regretted that he had left him. Indeed, for a moment or two he contemplated going back, but having got so near the objective it seemed a pity to return without so much as a glance at the enemy camp. Rather worried, he walked on, wishing that he could move as silently as did Zahar over the loose stones.
The first sign that they were nearing their journey’s end came when, from no great distance ahead, there occurred that queer piercing sound, common enough in the desert, that a camel makes when it is grinding its teeth, thought to be a call to its companions. Zahar stopped at once, staring into the darkness; and as they stood there, listening, a donkey brayed.
“We have arrived at El Moab,” announced Zahar in a low voice. “What is your intention, Sahib? Remembering that we are now in the hands of Allah—may he be glorified.”
“My intention is to find out what happens here,” answered Biggles. “In particular, I would know if it was to this place that Hamud brought the seeds that were gathered in the Wadi al Arwat. If there is danger I will go on alone, so that should evil befall me you can go back and carry the tidings to my friends.”
“Wallah! Am I a jackal to be hiding in a wadi when there is men’s work to be done?” protested Zahar. “I know my way about this place, so surely it is better that I should go with you?”
Biggles did not argue the point. “As you wish,” he agreed. “Upon your own head be it.”
“May my face be blackened if I fail you,” said Zahar. “Let us go on. This is a thing to be remembered.”
“You never said a truer word,” averred Biggles, whose feet were aching from the rough going.
He made his way cautiously to the lip of the wadi and looked over. From the elevated position thus gained he could see a good deal more than had been possible from the depression, for the wadi took a sharp turn, so that he was, as it were, on an escarpment, a sort of saddle-back, with the ground falling away both behind and in front of him. It seemed that the wadi, as it made the bend, also opened out somewhat, and it was in the shallow basin thus formed that the huts and tents of El Moab had been erected. The site had obviously been selected on account of the trickle of water that ran through it.
Biggles spent some time studying the layout of the place. Not that there was much to see. There were two or three huts in the manner of a small military camp. One was fairly large. It was, explained Zahar, who had joined him, the house in which the manager lived. A huddle of black native tents stood a little distance beyond. Here, too, were some camels and donkeys, not tethered, but wandering at will. What lay beyond the basin—or, to give a more accurate impression, saucer—was not evident, for the wadi closed up again to a narrow rocky defile. It was across this, apparently, that a dam had been built, for above it, through a low place in the bank, moonlight glinted on a fairly extensive sheet of water.
Having completed his inspection of the general features of the place, Biggles moved on again, now with the utmost caution, with Zahar, dagger in hand, close by his side. Gradually the picture became more clearly defined. A smouldering camp fire came into view as someone blew on the embers, making it possible to see the outline of some natives who were seated around it. Others moved dimly in the background, near the animals. Once, the silhouette of a camel’s head and neck, grotesque in the wan light, appeared above the sky-line. The outline of the buildings hardened, and again it was moonlight that revealed an object which, had Biggles not been prepared for it, would have caused astonishment. It was an aircraft which he identified as a Moth, presumably the one that had been seen in the air. It now had a cover over the engine cowling and the wings and tail had been anchored with sandbags. In that position, apparently, it had weathered the haboob. A faint, rather sickly yet aromatic aroma, had become perceptible.
Biggles touched his companion on the arm and said softly: “What can I smell?”
“Hashish,” answered the Arab, He pointed to a long low hut that stood beside the rivulet that meandered down the centre of the wadi. “That is the house where the hashish is made,” he went on.
Biggles looked at the manager’s bungalow, a little way beyond. “What is the name of the man who lives there?” he asked.
“That I cannot tell you for I have never heard it; but he is, I think, from Egypt,” was the answer.
As the camp seemed to have settled down for the night Biggles went on again, warily, with eyes alert for danger. He did not at first go down into the wadi, but remained just below the lip, taking care not to show himself against the sky-line. The lake that was the reservoir for the place came into view, and, at the nearer end, the dam that held the water in check. This was higher than he had supposed it to be, a matter of nearly twenty feet, which gave a clear indication of the considerable amount of water thus made available, although this would naturally diminish as the dry season advanced. The irrigation channels that carried the water to the land under cultivation could also be seen. This comprised most of the ground in the bottom of the wadi not occupied by buildings.
Towards this area he now made his way, although as far as he could see there was not a crop of any sort. In a whisper he asked Zahar what he thought about it.
The Arab said that he thought there had recently been a crop of the hemp from which hashish is derived. This had been cut, and was now, judging from the smell, in the drying-room. No doubt the aeroplane had arrived to transport some of the finished product to Egypt.
This explanation seemed so reasonable that Biggles accepted it without question, and in the event it proved correct. Nevertheless, as this was the area with which he was most concern
ed—the real reason for his visit, in fact—he moved still nearer to confirm it. The change of position was made without alarm. So secure from prying eyes, presumably, did the Sultan consider his plantation, that he did not bother to post sentries.
Admittedly, Biggles told himself, it was not the sort of place where a European was likely to go in the ordinary way. Natives did not matter.
He soon learned all he needed to know. The hemp crop had been harvested. That is to say, the leaves had been gathered and the unwanted stalks left on the ground. In one place, however, the earth had been cleared and tilled, and a close investigation showed that a new crop had just been planted. The plants were small, and they were not hemp. They were gurra, in the form of seedlings a few inches high about a foot apart. Biggles pulled up one of the seedlings and held it to his nose.
That settled any doubt. The area concerned covered perhaps half an acre. Now the difficulty of destroying such a crop was at once apparent. The plants were too spindly to burn collectively as they grew, even if they had developed enough rosin to make them inflammable. The alternative appeared to be, as he had said, to pull them out of the ground one by one; but the objections to this were obvious. In the first place, it was unlikely that such an operation could be carried out in one session. Many hours of time would be required. Yet it was no use half doing the job, for as soon as it was light the damage would be discovered. The young plants would be put back in the ground and some of them at least would survive. These would provide stock for others, over which a guard would be posted so that there could be no opportunity of repeating the performance. Biggles wanted to be quite certain of destroying every single plant so that not one remained. As the original plants had been burned at the Wadi al Arwat no fresh stock would be available from that source. Gurra, would, therefore, pass out of cultivation and so cease to be a menace.