by W E Johns
They set off, Ginger carrying the rifle, and after making a detour round the bear-den, bore due east. Both were beginning to feel the need for food, but they said nothing about it, knowing that none was available. They plodded on steadily, stopping only to reconnoitre the country from the tops of the hills that lay in their path. However, they saw no movement of any sort, and shortly after midday they reached the western edge of the lake.
They now proceeded with greater caution, moving quietly from tree to tree, often stopping to listen and scouting the ground thoroughly as they advanced. However, everything was silent, from which they judged that the Russians had departed; otherwise so large a number of men would, they felt, have given some sign of their presence. At last they reached a point from where they could see the fuselage of the Blenheim, now hauled up on the bank, apparently as the Russians had left it.
‘Let’s go across and have a forage round,’ suggested Ginger.
‘I doubt if we shall find any food; I expect the Russians will have stripped the machine of everything portable,’ answered Biggles. ‘However, we may as well go round that way.’
Still keeping sharp watch, they advanced, not a little relieved to find the lake deserted, for it simplified what, had the Russians been there, would have been a difficult task. At last they reached the Blenheim, only to find, as Biggles had predicted, that it had been stripped of everything of value. Even the instruments had been taken.
‘Well, it was only to be expected,’ observed Biggles. ‘After all, the salvage was too valuable to be left lying here.’
There were some odd scraps of food, chiefly pieces of broken biscuit, lying on an empty case in the cabin, where the Russians had obviously made at least one meal out of the provisions the Blenheim had carried. These odd scraps the airmen ate with satisfaction.
‘There seems nothing more to stay here for,’ remarked Biggles w hen the last scrap had been consumed. ‘Let’s go across to the Glladiator. We’ll get a wheel off, and then gather some twigs to light a fire as soon as Algy shows up.’ They set off again, following the bank.
Now up to this point Biggles had not been concerned at not seeing the Gladiator, although he had several times looked in its direction, because he had forced it as far as possible under the trees. But as they drew nearer and he still could not see it, a I though he knew exactly where he had left it, a puzzled expression dawned on his face.
‘That’s a funny thing. We ought to be able to see it from here,’ he said once as they hurried on.
‘Just where did you leave it?’
‘Under the trees – near the foot of the avalanche.’
‘Perhaps it’s behind that tangle of rubbish.’
‘If it is then I didn’t put it there,’ declared Biggles.
‘Maybe the Russians found it.’
‘I don’t think there’s any doubt about that; they’d see it when they were chasing round after me – at the time when you were trying to pick up my shirt. But it didn’t occur to me that, since they were unable to fly it off, they would do anything with it.’
‘It was a valuable machine, and intact,’ Ginger pointed out.
‘Yes, I agree, but even so—’
When they reached the spot the matter was settled beyond all doubt or question. The Gladiator had gone; apparently it had been removed in sections, for round the place where it had stood the ground was trampled into mud by those who had done the work.
Ginger looked at Biggles. Biggles looked at Ginger. He smiled. ‘We certainly ought to have looked at our horoscopes before we started on this jaunt,’ he observed. ‘Did you ever know things go so awkwardly? I must say the Russians were pretty smart shifting all this stuff; they can’t have been gone very long.’
‘Let’s have a look.’
They scrambled up the ridge above the avalanche — the same ridge from where, so short a while before, they had looked down on the frozen lake at the end of their sledge-ride.
‘There they go,’ said Biggles, pointing, but taking care to keep below the skyline.
In the distance a large body of men, with several vehicles, was moving eastwards across an open plain. The vehicles were piled high, and even the men were heavily loaded.
‘Yes, there they go — and there goes the Gladiator,’ said Ginger bitterly.
‘There is this about it,’ resumed Biggles. ‘They have at least left us in possession of the lake. I only hope von Stalhein has given up the search for the papers and gone back to Germany. I should feel easier with him out of the way.’
‘Hmm. I wonder what happened to him? It isn’t like him to give up so easily.’
‘He isn’t here, anyway, and that’s all that matters at the moment,’ asserted Biggles. ‘We’ll stick around until Algy comes; we’ll give him the O.K. and then make for home. Let’s get a bit of a fire together and then sit down and rest while we have the chance. We’ve got a long walk in front of us.’
So they sat down and discussed the situation until they heard the sound for which they were waiting — the roar of an aeroplane coming from the west.
Biggles stared for a moment at the approaching aircraft. It’s Algy,’ he confirmed. ‘At least, it’s a Gladiator, and I don’t know who else it could be. Let’s light the fire.’ Suiting the action to the words, he put a match to the little heap of twigs, which soon sent a coil of smoke curling upwards. This done, they stood on the ridge in as conspicuous a position as they could find.
Algy, in the Gladiator, was not long spotting them; the machine, it fter roaring low over the smoke, glided back with the pilot waving.
Biggles raised his arms with his ‘thumbs up’ (a signal that is universally understood to mean that all is well), and then pointed to the west. To emphasize this last point, that they were starting for home, he began to walk quickly in that direction.
But Algy did not go. He merely circled round, in much the same state of mind that Ginger had been in on the previous day. After a while he climbed higher, flew straight for a minute or two, and then glided back, very low. As he passed over the two white faces staring up at him his arm appeared over the side of the cockpit and a small object dropped like a stone.
Biggles ran and picked it up. It was Algy’s cigarette case. Inside was a message written on a page torn from a pilot’s notebook. He read it aloud.
‘Understand you have both crashed. Am returning home to fetch food; light fire when I come back so I can see you. I will drop grub. If you reach possible landing field, wait, and make signal. I’ll come down. If this is O.K. raise both arms in the air.’
Biggles looked up. The machine was still circling. He held up his arms. Instantly the machine dipped its wings to show that the signal was understood and then bore away to the west.
Biggles and Ginger watched it go. ‘Well, that’s something achieved anyway,’ declared Biggles. ‘He does at least know how we’re fixed; and knowing the line we shall take, he ought to be able to keep in touch with us. If he can keep us going with food we shall take no harm — in fact, getting home ought to be a fairly easy matter. Say, what’s that?’ He spun round in alarm as the noise of the Gladiator’s engine seemed suddenly to become intensified. Then his face grew pale. ‘Look!’ he gasped, pointing.
Ginger was already looking, and had seen what Biggles had seen. Three Messerschmitts were dropping out of the sky like bullets on to the tail of the cruising Gladiator.
‘Good heavens! He hasn’t even seen them,’ said Biggles in a strangled voice.
Ginger said nothing. He could only stare.
But if Algy hadn’t seen the Messerschmitts when Biggles had spoken, he very soon did so, as the behaviour of his machine proved. He was too old a war pilot to be caught napping. As the German machines came within range, the Gladiator swept up in a tight half roll, turned as it came out, and sent a stream of bullets at its nearest aggressor.
The three Messerschmitts broke formation instantly and the leader went into a glide as if his engine had been hit. Nor did he
return to the combat. But the two that remained attacked the Gladiator with skill and ferocity, keeping one on each side, but as the lone machine gave neither of them a sitting shot the battle remained indecisive. In his heart Biggles knew that such an unequal combat could not continue long, for neither in performance nor armament is the Gladiator, which is now an old type, a match for the Messerschmitt. Further, Algy had to press on towards home, or try to, for his petrol supply was limited; but every time he tried to break away the Messerschmitts, being faster, were on him, and he had to resort to aerobatics to keep out of their fire, which he returned as often as occasion offered. Then, suddenly, the Gladiator seemed to draw away.
‘They’ve had enough!’ cried Ginger jubilantly. ‘Good old Algy!’
Biggles shook his head. ‘Forget it,’ he said bitterly. ‘They’re keeping away from his fire, that’s all. They’ll keep out of range and get him by using their cannon. Algy won’t be able to get close enough to do them any harm.’
The truth of this assumption was soon all too apparent. The Messerschmitts, keeping out of range of the Gladiator’s machine-guns, opened fire with their cannon. As soon as Algy realized this he took the only possible course open to him — he put his machine in a turn and held it there, to prevent the Messerschmitts from getting their sights on him. Yet whenever opportunity offered he darted in and attacked. This was all right up to a point, but Algy’s trouble was his limited fuel supply, which made it imperative that he should cross the frontier before it gave out. Twice he made a dash for home, but each time he was compelled to turn and face his opponents as they closed in on him. The end of such a fight was inevitable. Several times shells appeared to burst right against the Gladiator, causing those on the ground to hold their breath in anguished suspense. All three machines had now drawn away to the west for a distance of two or three miles, so that it was not easy to follow the battle, Several times the machines appeared to pass very close to each other, and after one such encounter the Gladiator was seen to falter; then its nose went down and it dived in a straight line for the treetops.
More than that Biggles and Ginger could not see, for rising ground and intervening trees obstructed the view. The two Messerschmitts circled for a minute or two over the place where the Gladiator had disappeared, and then made off to the south-east.
‘He’s down,’ said Ginger in a dull voice.
‘It was bound to end that way,’ muttered Biggles harshly. He was as white as a sheet. ‘Come on, let’s find him,’ he added, and broke into a run.
Panting, scrambling over obstacles that lay in their path, often stumbling and sometimes falling, they ran on, still hoping against hope that by some miracle Algy had escaped death, but in any case anxious to know the worst. Twilight closed in as they ran on.
‘The crash must be somewhere about here,’ declared Biggles at last, slowing down. ‘It was over these trees that he went down.’
‘Thank God the machine didn’t take fire, anyway,’ whispered Ginger fervently through dry lips. Ìf it had we should have seen the glow. I—’ He broke off and turned a startled face to Biggles as a shrill whistle pierced the trees. ‘Why, that must be him!’ he cried joyfully.
Biggles’s face lighted up. ‘He’s got away with it after all,’ he shouted excitedly. ‘Hi! Algy! Where are you?’
‘This way.’
They dashed in the direction of the voice, and presently they saw Algy coming towards them. He seemed a bit unsteady on his feet, and he was mopping blood from his chin, but he was grinning broadly.
‘What have you got to laugh about?’ demanded Biggles. ‘You gave us the fright of our lives.’
‘The bloke who can walk away from a crash has always got plenty to laugh about,’ declared Algy.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Nothing to speak of.’
‘Well, you obviously haven’t any bones broken, and that’s the main thing,’ said Biggles thankfully. ‘What happened?’
‘They got my engine, so I pancaked on the treetops, which, as you will notice, are pretty thick hereabouts. I’ve made harder landings on open ground.’
‘Where’s the crash?’
‘Just over here.’ Algy led the way to the spot where the Gladiator, its fabric badly torn, still hung balanced precariously on the pliable tops of the fir trees. Drops of oil, or petrol, or both, dripped steadily from the machine and splashed on the carpet of fir needles.
‘I think I did myself most damage getting down the tree,’ remarked Algy. ‘That’s how I damaged my chin — stubbed it on a dead branch.’
Biggles regarded the aircraft sympathetically. ‘Well, she’ll never fly again,’ he announced.
‘No, but she might help another machine to fly,’ cried Ginger hopefully.
Biggles started. ‘By jingo! You’re right there,’ he agreed enthusiastically. ‘That’s an idea. We’ll shake her down and borrow one of her wheels.’
Algy stared in amazement. ‘What’s all this?’ he demanded. ‘What the dickens do you want a wheel for? Are you thinking of playing hoops on the way home?’
Biggles laughed, and briefly explained the situation.
‘But surely you’ve got the papers?’ burst out Algy.
‘No. We had them and lost them again,’ confessed Biggles. ‘That is to say, I had them and passed them on to Ginger, and he’s hidden them. He’s tucked them into a hole under a tree somewhere.’
Algy screwed up his face in an expression of agony and leaned weakly against a tree. ‘Suffering alligators!’ he lamented. ‘And after all this you still haven’t got those blithering documents. I thought you’d got them in your pocket. I shall go off my rocker if this goes on much longer, and spend the rest of my days crawling about looking for scraps of paper.’
‘I reckon we all shall,’ agreed Biggles. ‘However, Ginger knows where they are, and as far as we know there’s nothing to stop us getting them, so that’s something to be thankful for. Let’s get this machine to the ground for a start, and pull one of her wheels off.’
Getting the machine to the ground, however, was by no means easy, and in the end Ginger had to climb up a tree and shake. ‘Hush-a-bye baby on the tree top,’ he crooned, as he swayed to and fro, allowing the machine to sink slowly through the branches.
‘Don’t play the fool,’ cried Biggles. ‘We don’t want to have to carry you home — we’ve plenty on our hands without that. Look out, she’s coming.’
With a rending of branches and a tearing of fabric, the machine crashed to the ground.
After that it did not take long to knock out the pin and remove a wheel.
‘That’s grand,’ declared Ginger. ‘It was most thoughtful of you to drop in like this, Algy, old pal; otherwise we should have had to pad the hoof all the way home.’
Biggles picked up the wheel. ‘You know where the papers are, so lead on,’ he told Ginger. ‘I shall feel happier when they’re in my pocket.’
‘How long have we been on this job?’ inquired Algy as they set off through the trees.
‘Oh, about four days,’ returned Biggles.
‘That’s what I made it, but it seems more like four months.’
‘Don’t worry, we’re on the road home now,’ said Biggles reassuringly.
‘I suppose you haven’t overlooked the possibility of the two Messerschmitt pilots going home and reporting a crash hereabouts, in which case somebody might come over to look for it?’
‘No, I haven’t lost sight of that possibility,’ answered Biggles, ‘but I don’t think we need worry about that. Even if somebody did come, by the time he reached here we should be miles away. He’s welcome to what’s left of the Gladiator.’
‘We ought to have set fire to it,’ said Ginger.
‘I did think of it, but it seemed crazy to light a beacon which would have been seen for miles, and bring anybody who happened to be about straight to the spot.’
‘You’re dead right,’ agreed Algy. ‘The thing is to get home.’
As
they topped the last rise that overlooked the valley wherein Ginger’s Gladiator stood, and at the near end of which was the clump of trees where he had concealed the papers, Ginger started back with a cry of consternation. He looked at the others with an expression of agitation. ‘Keep back,’ he said tersely.
‘What is it?’ asked Biggles quickly, sensing that something was wrong.
‘Take a look, but be careful not to show yourself,’ replied Ginger in a voice that was tremulous in spite of his efforts to keep it calm.
The others knelt and peered over the ridge into the valley below. Dotted with tents and fires, around which numbers of men were moving or resting, the valley was now a camp.
What the Russians were doing there, or why they had come there, none of them could at first imagine, but they were there, and that was all that really mattered.
Biggles sat down on a rock and threw the wheel aside. ‘To think that I’ve carried this blessed thing all this way for nothing!’ he exclaimed disgustedly.
‘Yes, that certainly has torn it,’ muttered Algy.
Biggles looked at Ginger. ‘Couldn’t you think of any other place to hide those papers than in the middle of a Russian camp?’ he said with bitter sarcasm.
‘And couldn’t the Russians, with the whole blessed country to choose from, find a place to camp without choosing the spot where I hid the papers?’ answered Ginger bitingly.
‘Where did you leave the machine?’
‘Up the far end of the valley.’
‘That means that the Russians will have found it, so what they’ll leave behind when they go — if they go — won’t be worth picking up. There even seems to be a tent among the trees where you say you hid the papers. Somebody will only have to find them and take them away to finish a really good job of work. I suppose there was no possibility of anybody finding the papers, was there?’
Ginger looked dubious. ‘Well, I couldn’t do more than I did. I shoved them in a hole and put a stone on it. Anyway, I thought no one ever came here. I wasn’t to know that a blinking army was going to take up residence on the spot. What are we going to do about it?’