by W E Johns
Considering the matter, it occured to Biggles that cultivation in the wadi could only exist by irrigation. It followed that if the water supply failed the ground would dry out in a few hours, and the burning sun would consume the seedlings as effectively as if they had been thrown on a bonfire. The thing to destroy then, was the water-supply, and this appeared to offer no great difficulty. One well-placed charge of explosive in the dam would do all that was necessary. Even if the dam were repaired it would take a long time for such a quantity of water, as was now in the reservoir, to accumulate again. During that time the whole place would have to be evacuated, for there would hardly be sufficient water to keep men and animals alive.
Discussing the matter with Zahar, the Arab gave it as his opinion that the trickle of water in the bottom of the wadi would dry up altogether before the end of the hot season. The rains were now past. It would not rain again for many months.
That, really, was as much as Biggles wanted to know.
It was Nicolo Ambrimos, the Sultan of Aden, who was trafficking in the new narcotic. It must have been he who had sent Hamud into the desert to collect seeds of the plant, and murder his companions so that there could be no witness. It was he who was now growing a large stock of gurra at El Moab. Fortunately, one charge of high explosive might well destroy the lot. All Biggles wanted was the explosive, and that could soon be obtained in Aden, or from the nearest Royal Engineers’ Depot.
Well satisfied with his night’s work he crept away as silently as he had approached. There had been no alarm. Indeed, the whole operation had been carried out with much less difficulty than he had expected. All that remained to be done was to collect Ginger and get home.
The thought of Ginger, who, in his interest in El Moab, he had for the moment forgotten, caused him to hasten. If it turned out that Ginger was really ill, a serious complication would arise, for it would be no easy matter to get him back to the aircraft. With this thought on his mind it was almost at a run, that, once clear of the camp, he returned to the spot where Ginger had been left. Reaching it he stopped, looking about him.
“Ginger,” he said quietly. There was no answer.
“Ginger, where are you?” he said again, raising his voice slightly.
Still no answer.
Biggles looked at Zahar. “This is where we left him, isn’t it?”
“This is the place,” confirmed Zahar.
Biggles made a swift circle round the area, whistling softly and calling Ginger by name. But there was no response. He returned to Zahar. “I don’t understand this,” he said in a puzzled voice.
“He is not here.”
“I can see that.”
“He went away.”
“He would not go away because I told him to remain here, and he obeys my orders,” declared Biggles.
“Then he was taken by force,” stated Zahar. “But that could not happen without a noise. If he were attacked he would fight. There were no sounds of fighting.”
“He may have been captured while he slept,” offered Zahar.
“In which case, surely he would have been taken to El Moab, and we should have heard talking and shouting?” argued Biggles. He bit his lip, utterly at a loss to understand what could have happened.
“It may be that he returned alone the way we came,” suggested Zahar.
“I warned him not to do that, and because he obeys orders he would not do it,” asserted Biggles positively.
“He is not here. Either he went by force, or of his own will,” insisted Zahar, with cold logic.
Biggles sat on a boulder and tried to work the thing out.
Zahar dropped on his hands and knees and began examining the ground closely. He found the place where Ginger had lain, and a moment later sucked in his breath with a sharp hiss. “There is no God but God! “ he gasped, in a voice of wonder.
“What is it? “ asked Biggles tersely.
“Here he was sick.”
“What about it?”
“He was sick because he had eaten hashish,” declared Zahar.
Biggles did not answer for a moment. “Nonsense!” he exclaimed.
“He had eaten hashish, Sahib,” repeated Zahar.
“I know this because I smell it. It is a smell not easily forgotten.”
“But he would not do such a thing,” almost choked Biggles.
“But he did it,” insisted Zahar relentlessly. “Doubtless it was written.”
“But where could he get the stuff?” asked Biggles, in a voice not far from exasperation.
“God is the knower.”
Biggles drew a deep breath, for once absolutely at it loss.
Zahar was still prowling about. “That is the way he went,” he averred, pointing a brown finger towards the desert. “I see his footmarks. The sands cannot lie. The hashish had deprived him of his senses.”
“But tell me this, O Zahar. Where could he get hashish?” cried Biggles desperately.
Suddenly Zahar stood erect and slapped a hand on his thigh. He went quickly to the water hole, and plunging in his hand, raised the liquid to his nostrils. “It was here,” he said simply. “He drank hashish.”
“You mean there is hashish in the water?”
“Without a doubt. This water passes through El Moab. In the water has been washed the sheets on which the hashish was dried. That is the answer.”
“So that’s it,” agreed Biggles wearily. “I drank a little and it made me feel sick. He drank more. What would be the effect?”
Said Zahar: “For a time he will feel ill. His brain will be in two pieces. He will wander about. Then he will fall down and sleep for many hours.”
“We must find him,” resolved Biggles. “Can you track him?”
“No” answered Zahar. “On this stony ground it would not be easy to track a caravan in daylight. By night, to track one man is impossible. I am a man of the desert and this is the truth.”
“Then let us see if we can find him,” said Biggles. For two hours or more they searched diligently, but without success, or any hope of it. The moon set and utter darkness descended on the wilderness.
“This is a bad place for us to be found in daylight, and we have far to go,” reminded Zahar at last.
Biggles pulled up, baffled, impotent. To find an unconscious body in such country, in the dark, was manifestly a hopeless task. “There is only one way I shall be able to find him,” he decided. “I will return with the aeroplane. When daylight comes, by flying low and covering much ground quickly, I shall see him.” He could think of no alternative, although such a course would, he feared, ruin his plan. It would be impossible to fly so near El Moab without being seen, or at any rate, heard. That, inevitably would put the camp on the alert. But there was no other way.
Whatever the result, he could not abandon Ginger.
“There is nothing more we can do here,” he said. “ Let us go.” He turned his face towards aerodrome 137.
It was a long weary walk back. The night died with tardy reluctance. Just before dawn, although he did not see it, he heard a light aeroplane purring its way overhead. Its course was from south to north, so he concluded that it was the Moth, now on its way to a rendezvous with a load of hashish. The sound passed on and the sullen silence of the great open spaces fell again upon the scene. At length the night died. The chilly dawn-wind swept eerily across the desolation. Dawn became day. The sun soared over the horizon. Biggles plodded on. The sun rose higher and resumed its relentless scorching of the tired earth.
Zahar said not a word. It was life as he understood it, and, doubtless, life as God wished it to be.
With the airfield almost in sight the silence was suddenly broken by a shot and a bullet kicked up the sand a yard in front of Biggles’s feet.
He dropped flat instantly, as did Zahar, for the attack was entirely unexpected. Had it succeeded, Biggles told himself morosely, he would have been to blame. But he was so tired that his early caution had given way to carelessness, in a country w
here carelessness can have fatal results.
He was by no means sure of the direction whence the shot had come. Neither was Zahar. When it was not repeated, Biggles crawled to the top of the nearest rise. Not a soul was in sight. On all sides lay the wilderness, dreary and forlorn in its stark sterility. Pistol in hand, Biggles rose slowly to his feet, ready for action. Nothing happened.
“Come, O Zahar,” he said in a tired voice. “Let us go on.”
Chapter 10
Bertie Gets A Fright
IN the meantime, while events had been shaping themselves around El Moab, Bertie had not been free from anxiety, although this for the most part was not on his own account. He was afraid that Biggles and Ginger had been caught by the haboob.
There had been no difficulty about getting the sabotaged aircraft repaired. Service riggers and fabric workers had attended to it at once, so that in an hour or two the machine was ready to take the air. He had no intention of being left out of anything that was going forward on the other side of the Red Sea, over which he was soon flying with a song on his lips.
The ditty died abruptly when he observed the sandstorm sweeping across his front, blotting out both land and sky. He was too experienced a pilot to commit the folly of trying to fly over it. In any case there was no point in it, for the territory with which he was concerned lay within the affected area. So for a time he flew up and down, keeping at a safe distance from the storm, watching the sky for Biggles’s machine, which he fully expected to see coming back. His anxiety grew as time passed without any sign of it, and he was at last compelled reluctantly to accept the explanation that Biggles had been caught on the ground, too far inside the path of the storm to escape from it. This is not to say that he feared Biggles and Ginger had lost their lives. He had too much faith in Biggles’s ability for that. For skilful air pilotage consists not so much of flying an aircraft well in normal conditions as being able to cope with a sudden emergency should it arise; and it is in this that experience tells. But he did think that the machine, if it had not been caught on the ground, must have been forced down, with results more or less serious for the aircraft and its occupants. However, there was nothing he could do about it while the sand persisted in the atmosphere, so as his petrol was running low he had no choice but to return to Aden.
In point of fact, he was inclined to think that Biggles had reached his first objective and was on the ground when the haboob descended upon him before he could get clear, otherwise he would have received a signal by radio. In this surmise, as we know, he was pretty well correct.
Thereafter all he could do was kill time on the aerodrome until the atmospheric conditions returned to normal. As a matter of detail he flew out again in the late afternoon as far as the track of the storm, but to his chagrin, finding the hinterland still obscured by dust, he was again compelled to return to his base. By the time he got back it was nearly dark, so there could be no further attempt to locate Biggles until the morning. That Biggles was down was now certain, for he had long exceeded his petrol capacity. Bertie was concerned about the safety of Biggles and Ginger, but he was not seriously alarmed.
With the sabotaging of Biggles’s machine still fresh in his mind he decided to spend the night in the cockpit rather than risk a repetition of the trouble. And in view of what happened it seemed likely that such a plot was projected, although there was no means of confirming it. The affair did not get as far as that.
Having dined in the R.A.F. mess as a guest, during which time he thought the machine would be safe as there were still airmen moving about, he returned to the hangar in which the machine had been parked for the night. There, more than a trifle bored, he sat down to wait for the morning.
After the airfield had settled down for the night he moved his position to a softer seat in the cockpit. He knew, of course, that a headquarters guard was maintained; but he also knew that such a guard would not prevent a determined intruder from getting in. As the war revealed, to guard an entire airfield against trespassers, by reason of its extent, requires more men than can normally be made available. He could, of course, have asked the station commander to put a special guard over his machine, but he felt that he had already made a nuisance of himself. Moreover, such a request might create an impression that he was nervous, a supposition which, naturally, he was prepared to go to some trouble to avoid.
The machine was parked facing the open entrance, which he was thus able to watch. The time passed slowly, as it always does in such circumstances, and he was half regretting that he had imposed upon himself such a tiresome task, when, just before dawn, silhouetted against the moonlight, he saw a native figure slip silently and stealthily round the corner. The inside of the hangar was, of course, in pitch darkness, so that it was not possible to see what the man was doing. Afraid that some mischief might be done before he could prevent it, Bertie started to get out; but the Arab must have seen him, or heard a moveement, for he bolted. Bertie had only the merest glimpse as he darted off in the direction whence he had come. He hurried to the entrance but the intruder had disappeared. Nor did he return.
The stars were now paling in the sky so Bertie made no attempt to rest for fear of over-sleeping. In any case, his anxiety about Biggles and Ginger was such that he was in no mood to relax. So, without haste, he made ready to take off.
By the time the false dawn was lighting the east with its pallid glow he was in the air, on a course for aerodrome 137, the only definite objective that he knew where Biggles might be found. He hoped he would find him there, but he was in some doubt about it. Crossing the narrow arm of the Red Sea he began in the growing light to scan the ground in case Biggles had been forced down by engine trouble—a likely enough event should the machine have been exposed, even for a short time, to the dust-laden air. But he saw nothing of it, and in due course made out the weather-worn fabric hangars of the abandoned airfield. After flying round it once or twice he landed to see if there were any signs of Biggles’s occupation. Actually, apart from the fact that there was no sign of the aircraft, he knew by this time that Biggles was not there; had he been, he would have heard him and shown hlmsel£ He observed that two of the hangars were pretty well flat, so he wasted no time on them. The other was somewhat askew, but he taxied his machine into it to keep it out of sight while he looked around.
All he found was the stub of a recently-smoked cigarette, of the brand which Biggles habitually used. It was not much, but it did at least tell him that Biggles had landed there; and had, moreover, been there after the haboob had passed, for although the cigarette end lay in the open it was clear of sand. Everything else was under a thick film of dust.
Unfortunately, this small clue could give him no indication of where Biggles had gone, which was, of course, what he wanted to know. He could only assume that Biggles had survived the haboob and was now making an air reconnaissance of the area. At all events, he felt pretty certain that Biggles had not gone home, or he would have seen him. It was likely that he would have received a radio signal to that effect. The absence of such a signal puzzled him not a little. If Biggles’s machine was in the air why hadn’t Ginger spoken to him? There seemed to be no need for wireless silence.
Polishing his monocle mechanically Bertie considered the matter, not knowing what to do next. If, as he supposed, Biggles was making an air survey of the district, it was obvious that, at the end of it, he would do one of two things—possibly both. He would either fly straight back to Aden or return to aerodrome 137. Even if he decided to return to Aden there seemed a possibility that he would look in at the old aerodrome on the way on the off-chance of him being there. Reasoning thus, Bertie decided that the best thing he could do was stay where he was—for a little while, at any rate.
If Biggles did not put in an appearance within the next hour or so he would return to Aden and wait for him there. He was tempted to make a reconnaisance on his own account, but in the end decided against it in case such a course should interfere with whatever Biggle
s was doing. The sun was now up, so he moved back into the deep shade of the hangar beside his machine to await events.
He had cause—or he thought he had cause—to congratulate himself on his reasoning, when, about twenty minutes later, he heard the drone of an aircraft approaching from the south. Naturally, at first it did not occur to him that it could be anyone but Biggles, and he was about to run into the open to greet him when, to his unbounded astonishment, he observed that the machine was a Moth. Taken aback, he remained where he was, watching; and as he watched the engine died, and the nose of the machine tilted down in a way that told him beyond any doubt that the pilot intended to land. What such a machine was doing in such a place and at such a time was beyond his comprehension, so it was with no small interest that he adjusted his eye-glass to await the solution. He noted, with another twinge of surprise, that the aircraft carried neither civil registration letters nor military insignia.
The Moth landed, but instead of stopping in front of the hangars, as might have been expected, the pilot taxied on beyond the end hangar and so out of sight. The engine stopped. A moment later there came a clang of metal. After that, silence.
Wondering not a little at this strange behaviour Bertie strolled along the line of hangars to see what was happening. Not for an instant did it occur to him that he might be in danger. Pilots of all nationalities are at heart a friendly brotherhood, and if he thought about the matter at all, he supposed that his appearance would be greeted with, if not open arms, fraternal pleasure.
When he came in sight of the Moth he saw that the pilot had left the cockpit and was busy at something on the far side of it. Drawing nearer he saw to his astonishment that he was working a hand pump; that he was, in fact, in the act of filling his tank from an underground supply, a small man-hole cover having been removed for the purpose. Actually, Bertie was not so much surprised that a quantity of fuel had apparently been left behind when the airfield was abandoned, as by the fact that this wandering pilot should know of its existence. Drawing still nearer he saw that the man—who still had not noticed him—was not a European. His skin, even allowing for sun-tan, was too dark. Not that this made any difference as far as he, Bertie, was concerned. To him a pilot was a pilot, whatever his colour or nationality. From a distance of perhaps a dozen paces he hailed the Moth pilot cheerfully. “Hallo there! “ he greeted, from the opposite side of the aircraft.