by W E Johns
Biggles smiled wanly. ‘Not so bad,’ he answered. ‘Silly, wasn’t it, giving myself a crack on the nut just as the show was practically over. It was a sticky business, too, largely as a result of running into our old friend von Stalhein.’
Colonel Raymond started. ‘What! Is he here?’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘Then those papers must be even more important than we at first supposed. Did you get them?’
‘Of course — otherwise we shouldn’t have come back.’
‘Where are they?’
Biggles held out his hand to Algy. ‘Give me my jacket, laddie, will you.’
Algy looked puzzled. A strange look came into his eyes. ‘Your jacket — yes — of course. I — er — well, that is — Ginger, where did you put Biggles’s jacket?’
Ginger looked round the cabin, then back at Algy. ‘Jacket?’ he echoed foolishly. ‘Now you mention it, I don’t remember seeing it.’
An awful look came over Biggles’s face. He staggered to his feet, glaring at Algy. ‘Did you come back here without my jacket?’ He spoke slowly, in a curiously calm voice.
Algy had turned pale. ‘I — I suppose we must have done,’ he faltered.
Biggles sank back like a man whose legs will no longer support him.
‘I remember now,’ resumed Algy. ‘You see, after the avalanche we were too concerned about getting you to the Blenheim to bother about your jacket. I remember looking for it, but it didn’t seem to be about, so — well, we didn’t bother any more about it.’ In a few words he described what had happened. ‘After all, I didn’t know the papers were in your jacket pocket, although I suppose I might have guessed it,’ he concluded.
‘It was muggy, and we were carrying our jackets over our arms when the avalanche hit us,’ Biggles told Colonel Raymond bitterly. ‘I shouldn’t have taken my jacket off, of course, but how the dickens was I to know that we were going to get smothered under a perishing landslide?’
The Colonel’s face expressed disappointment, but he was too much of a soldier to waste time in useless recriminations. He spoke to Algy. ‘You say you couldn’t see the coat after the avalanche?’
‘No, sir. Had it been there I could hardly have failed to see it.’
‘Then it comes to this. The jacket must be still there, buried under the snow.’
‘I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,’ answered Biggles gloomily. Then, suddenly, he laughed. ‘Forgive me,’ he implored the Colonel, ‘I can’t help it. It’s the daftest thing I ever did or ever heard of. If you only knew what we went through to get those confounded documents — and now we rush back home and leave them lying in the snow like a lot of waste paper. You must admit it has its funny side.’
Colonel Raymond looked doubtful.
‘It’s all right, Colonel — don’t worry; I’ll slip back and fetch them,’ promised Biggles.
‘Oh, no, you won’t. I’ll go,’ declared Algy.
‘Better let me go,’ put in Ginger. ‘I know exactly where Biggles was lying, and the jacket can’t be far away.’
Biggles raised his hand. ‘When you’ve all finished arguing maybe you’ll remember who’s in charge of this flight,’ he said curtly. ‘We’ve got to get the papers — there’s no question about that. The thing, then, is to find the most expeditious way of getting them, and I’ve already decided that. For reasons which I needn’t go into it would be unwise to go back in this machine. In any case, it would be foolish for all of us to go back in any machine. We four are the only people who know where the papers are, and if we were shot down or captured, the information would disappear with us. I’m going — alone. I’m going to borrow Eddie’s Gladiator. With luck I ought to be back in a couple of hours, although that depends, of course, on how long it takes me to find the jacket. The rest of you will go home, get some food inside you and have a good night’s rest. If I’m not back at Oskar by this time tomorrow you can reckon that something’s gone wrong. Then one of you can have a go — but don’t go together. Toss up for it — that’s the fairest way. If number two fails to return, then number three goes. If he fails, then number four gets his chance. One of us ought to succeed. If we all go west, then we must be a pretty poor lot. That’s the sane way of tackling it — don’t you agree, Colonel?’
Colonel Raymond smiled lugubriously. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think it is; it’s certainly wiser than putting all our eggs in one basket. One stands just as much chance as four going together, so by going one at a time we quadruple our chances. The only thing that worries me, Bigglesworth, is this: are you fit to fly with your head in that state?’
‘While I’m conscious I can fly,’ declared Biggles grimly.
‘All right; if you say so then it’s not for me to say no. When are you going?’
‘Right away,’ returned Biggles promptly. He turned to Eddie, who had been listening to the conversation. ‘D’you mind flying back in the Blenheim with the others, so that I can have your machine?’
‘Go right ahead,’ agreed the American. ‘But as I figger it, you guys have done enough for one day. What about letting me have a go at—’
‘Hey, wait a minute, Eddie,’ broke in Biggles. ‘That’s very kind of you and we all appreciate it, but this is our pigeon. Anyway, you don’t know where the avalanche occurred, and it would take us a long time to describe the place even if we could, which I doubt.’
‘Okay, buddy – but don’t lose my kite if you can help it. You’d better have my leather coat, too.’
‘I’ll try to get the machine home in one piece,’ promised Biggles.
‘What are you going to take with you?’ asked Algy.
‘My gun and a couple of biscuits should be enough,’ answered Biggles. ‘I could do with a spade, in case I have to dig.’
‘I should think one of these peasants would lend you a spade,’ cut in the Colonel, indicating the men and women who had been slowly congregating on the ice to have a close look at the enemy bomber.
Inquiry soon produced the required implement, which Biggles stowed away in the Gladiator’s fuselage. The others stood round while he got into his seat and fastened the safety belt. He waved his hand. ‘See you later,’ he called cheerfully.
The Gladiator roared across the ice like a blunt-nosed bullet, swept into the air and disappeared into the haze that hung in the eastern sky.
The others watched Biggles go with mixed feelings. They could not fail to see the wisdom of his plan, but none of them liked the idea of splitting up the party.
Colonel Raymond turned towards the Blenheim. ‘I expect the Finns will take care of this Russian machine,’ he said. ‘Let’s get back to Oskar. You all need a rest. Tonight you can tell me how you got hold of the papers.’
CHAPTER IX
‘Grounded’
Biggles flew straight back to the lake on full throttle, for it was now mid-afternoon and he was anxious if possible to get back before dark. Naturally he kept a sharp lookout for hostile aircraft, but he had no fear of them, for alone in a highly manoeuvrable single-seater he felt well able to take care of himself whatever he might encounter in the air — with the possible exception of a formation of Messerschmitts, which, apart from being faster, were equipped with cannon. His head still ached and he felt tired, but the very urgency of his mission did much to allay his minor discomforts. As he flew he instinctively considered such contingencies as might possibly occur, in order that he might be prepared for them if they did. He saw one Russian bomber, far away to the south, near the north-eastern end of Lake Ladoga where fighting on the ground was in progress, but as he had a more pressing matter to attend to he ignored it, and soon after-wards it disappeared in an easterly direction.
There were many signs to indicate that the thaw had now properly set in; faces of rock were exposed where the snow had vanished, the trees showed darkly green, and the lakes, on which the thin coating of snow had disappeared, were as black as tar.
This, he thought, would be to his advantage,
for it meant that the snow that formed the avalanche would be diminishing, with the result that it would be easier for him to find the missing jacket. With luck it might even now be exposed, and so save him the labour of digging.
Reaching the lake, he made a swift reconnaissance, flying low over the wrecked Blenheim and circling the banks at a height that could not fail to reveal enemy troops if they were there. The lake, like the rest, was black, its sullen surface broken only by the remains of the crashed aircraft. There was not a movement anywhere. Satisfied that all was well, and reckoning now that the recovery of the jacket was only a matter of minutes, he lost no time in landing.
He had a shock when his wheels touched, for he was unprepared for the cloud of spray that shot into the air. Indeed, his alarm was such that he nearly took off again; but as the machine settled down he felt the hard ice under his tyres, so he allowed the Gladiator to run on. From the splash of the water and the speed with which it pulled him up, he judged that there could not be less than four inches of water on the ice, and this astounded him, for he could not understand how the ice had melted so quickly. Then, as the Gladiator stopped, seeming in some miraculous way to stand poised on water, he thought the thing out, and presently realized that it was not so much the melting ice that had produced the water, as water running down the banks and flooding it. Naturally, as the snow thawed it would run downhill and so flood the lake.
This was a contingency for which he had certainly not been prepared, and it rather worried him, for there seemed to be a risk of the ice melting and becoming too thin to support the weight of the machine before he could recover the jacket and get off it. Seriously concerned, he taxied up to the lip of the avalanche, where he jumped out and splashed through the icy water to the bank.
The scene that met his eyes appalled him. He had expected something pretty bad, but not as bad as he actually found, for now that much of the snow had disappeared the debris that remained, earth, rock, and trees, looked far worse than it had done originally. The snow that remained was dirty slush, through which trickled rivulets of water. He began to wonder if the papers would be any use even if he found them, and he could only hope that the varnished fabric in which they were wrapped would preserve them.
There was no sign of the jacket, but this did not surprise him, although he had hoped that it would now be exposed; moreover, he perceived that his chance of finding it by digging was not very bright, to say the best of it, for he had no idea whether the jacket had caught in some obstruction at the top of the hill, or whether it lay buried under the mass of rubbish at the bottom. There was this about it, however: the slush was fast melting, and the faster it went the easier his task would be — or so he thought.
He fetched the spade from the Gladiator and set to work exploring the chaos, not concentrating on any one spot, but making a general survey, and digging only round trees in the branches of which the jacket might have been caught. Darkness closed in, the gloomy twilight of northern latitudes, and finally compelled him to desist — at least, it made the search so difficult that it seemed hardly worth while going on with it, for not only would the jacket be hard to see, but there was a chance that he might slip in the mush and do himself an injury. Several times, as the snow that supported him gave way, rocks went plunging down the slope.
He lit a cigarette and for a minute or two gazed at the wild scene ruefully. He looked at the Gladiator; it was well in near the bank and there seemed little chance of its being seen from above; still, he did not feel inclined to pass the night cramped up in the tiny cockpit. The big fuselage of the Blenheim looked more inviting, so he made his way to it, not without trepidation, for he found that walking over the invisible ice was disconcerting. However, he reached the machine and went inside, to find, as he expected, that the bottom of the fuselage was just high enough to be clear of the water. Nothing appeared to have been touched, so he made himself as comfortable as possible and prepared to wait for morning.
A more depressing spot would have been hard to find. Inside the cabin it was practically dark, and he dare not risk a light for fear it might be seen by a wandering enemy scout.
All round lay the water, still, silent, black, and forbidding, with the sombre firs clustered like a frozen army on the sloping banks. His head ached. His feet were wet through, and consequently icy cold, and he had no means of drying them. There was this to be thankful for, though: everything inside the machine appeared to be exactly as it had been at the time of the crash, except that the food store had been depleted, presumably by the two Russian pilots. Still, there was more left than he was likely to require.
He was not in the mood for sleep. Indeed, he felt that it would be futile to try to sleep, so he sat in the seat under the centre gun-turret, occasionally smoking a cigarette, waiting for the dawn — a tedious way of passing a night at any time and in any place. Ultimately he must have dozed, for he was suddenly aware that the sky was turning grey. With a sigh of relief he stretched his cramped limbs, but then stiffened suddenly, staring aghast at the floor — or rather, the water that now covered it. Trial soon revealed the alarming fact that there was a good six inches of water in the cabin, and he realized instantly what this implied. The water over the whole lake had risen, and could not now be less than a foot deep.
For a moment he was staggered by the calamity, and wondered why he had not foreseen it. Cursing his stupidity, he prepared forthwith to evacuate his refuge and return to the Gladiator, which he could see standing just as he had left it, although it seemed to be lower in the water.
Cautiously he lowered himself on to the ice, and as he did so the full enormity of the disaster struck him for the first time, for the water came up to his knees. He did not mind that. What did upset him — to put it mildly — was the realization that he would not be able to get the Gladiator into the air, for with such a depth of water dragging at its wheels it would not be able to achieve flying speed. The water, he knew, must be getting deeper every minute.
He made his way to the bank, which was a lot nearer than the Gladiator, for the prospect of wading knee-deep across the middle of the lake was not inviting. As it was, he walked with his heart in his mouth, for his weight was sufficient to cause the fast-melting ice to rock, and send tiny ripples surging towards the shore. He fully expected it to collapse at any moment and let him through. However, he reached the bank without mishap and set off at a run, following the edge of the lake towards the scene of the avalanche.
It took him nearly half an hour to reach it, or what was left of it, for the snow had nearly all disappeared. And then the first thing he saw was his jacket, tangled up in a small branch about fifty yards from the shore. The branch was sinking under the sodden weight of the garment, and he realized with a further shock that had he not arrived at that moment the papers would have been irretrievably lost. Quickly he waded out, dragged the jacket off the branch, and carried it back to the shore. The packet was still in his breast pocket, intact. ‘Phew, that was a close thing,’ he muttered, as he pushed the precious documents into the pocket of the flying jacket that he had borrowed from Eddie — the pocket in which he had found the cigarettes and matches.
There was nothing now to detain him, so he splashed out to the Gladiator, dragged himself, dripping, into the cockpit, and started the engine. In his heart he knew that he would never get the machine off the water, for its wheels were submerged, but he felt that he must try. He tried in vain. Up and down the lake he roared, cutting the water into a white, swirling wake, and in his anxiety taking the most desperate chances of turning a somersault. He saw that if he persisted in his efforts this was what would happen, with disastrous results. He made one last attempt, opening the throttle until the tail cocked high in the air, and the airscrew flipped up great clouds of spray; but the drag against the wheels was too much, and the machine was no more able to get up flying speed than if it had been in deep snow or soft sand — both equally fatal to an aeroplane. Reluctantly he taxied back to the bank, runnin
g the machine high and dry, and there he was compelled to abandon it, for it could be of no further service to him. As far as he knew there was not a level stretch of ground for miles, and even if there had been he had no means of getting the machine to it.
He prepared to walk home. There was nothing else for it. And he had, in fact, covered a hundred yards when a thought occurred to him, a thought so disturbing that he shook his head in dismay. For he saw that he dare not leave the lake. He would have to remain there, for this reason. When, in a few hours, he failed to turn up at Oskar one of the others would set out to look for him, and on arriving at the lake, probably not realizing that it was now water instead of ice, would attempt to land on it, with a fatal result. From the air the motionless water would doubtless look like ice; he himself might well have made this same mistake had he not known what had happened. In the circumstances the only thing he could do was to remain where he was in order to warn Algy or Ginger, whichever of them came, that there could be no more landing on the lake. By the irony of fate, the very circumstance that had exposed his jacket now made it impossible for him to leave the place. There was this about it, he mused, as he hurried back to the Gladiator; whoever came would understand his plight and in some way attempt a rescue, although how this was to be achieved he could not imagine, for he knew of nowhere where an aircraft could land. A flying-boat or seaplane, or even an amphibian, would be able to get down on the water, but he had seen no such aircraft the whole time he had been in Finland, and did not even know if the Finns possessed such machines. There was certainly not one anywhere near Oskar.
Reaching the Gladiator, he took the signalling pistol from its pocket and, loading it with a red cartridge, prepared to wait. As a secondary precaution he gathered the driest twigs he could find. As soon as he heard the aircraft approaching he would light a fire; the pilot would see the smoke, and fly low over it to investigate before doing anything else. That would be the moment to fire the pistol. At the same time he could throw lumps of rock into the water, and the splash and the ripples would reveal it for what it was.