by W E Johns
Biggles eyed the Camel with a strange expression on his face, far the circumstances were so—well, he didn’t know quite what to call them, for never before had he seen comedy and imminent tragedy so hopelessly intermingled. ‘I’d bet a month’s pay to a piastre that Algy has a smack at me first; he always does like taking on the leader,’ he muttered. ‘And I’d have won,’ he went on bitterly, as the Camel pulled up in a steep zoom, half-rolled, and then whirled round for the attack with its nose pointing down at Biggles’ Halberstadt.
For once Biggles was nonplussed and a thousand ideas flashed through his brain, only to be abandoned instantly as he realized their uselessness. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw. Bronveld crouching over his gun, waiting for the Camel to come within range. The lad’s face was grim and set, but his hands were steady, and Biggles felt a thrill of apprehension. ‘That kid’s going to put up a good fight,’ he thought anxiously. ‘And from the way Algy is handling that Camel it looks to me as if the young fool stands a good chance of stopping a packet of Spandau bullets. He must be crazy to come down on top of us like that, straight over our rear gun.’
Then something like panic seized him as he visualized the unthinkable picture of his gunner killing Algy, or conversely, Algy’s feelings when he found he had shot down his best friend. Whatever else happened, that must be avoided at all costs. Better to betray himself and be shot by the Huns than that should happen. ‘At least I can let him know it’s me,’ he thought as, white-faced, he reached for his signal pistol, slipped in a red cartridge, and sent a streak of scarlet fire blazing across the nose of the diving Camel. But to his horror the pilot paid no attention to it, although, as if actuated by a common motive, the four remaining Halberstadts banked hard to the right and closed in on him. More with the object of avoiding a collision, he swung round in a fairly steep bank, and the other machines fell in line behind him.
The movement disconcerted the British pilots, who now found themselves facing an ever-circling ring from which guns spat every time they tried to approach, and while they were still milling round them in indecision,
Biggles darted out of the circle at a tangent and raced, nose down, for home. By the time the Pups and Bristols realized what had happened the other Halberstadts had followed on his tail and had established a clear lead, which they were able to keep until they were well inside their own territory. The danger was averted.
Biggles brushed his hand across his forehead. ‘Phew! that was quite enough of that,’ he muttered, as he looked back over his shoulder, and then stiffened with horror at the sight that met his eyes. The British machines, with the exception of one, had turned back, but the Camel, by reason of its superior speed, had continued the chase and had caught them. What was worse, its pilot was evidently still determined to strike at the leader of the Hun formation, and was roaring down in a final effort. As it came within range jets of orange flame darted from the muzzles of the guns on its engine cowling, and at the same moment, Bronveld, who was alive to the danger and crouching low behind his Parabellum gun, pulled the trigger. His aim was true. Biggles saw the tracer leap across the intervening space in a straight line that ended at the whirling engine of the British machine. Something stung his shoulder but he hardly felt it, for his eyes were fixed on the Camel in a kind of fascinated horror. Its nose had jerked up in a vertical zoom; for a moment it hung in space with its propeller threshing the air uselessly; then it turned slowly over on to its back and plunged earthward.
In a state of mental paralysis Biggles watched it hurtling through space. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t act. He could only stare ashen-faced at the spinning machine. He saw a wing break off, and the fuselage with its human cargo drop like a cannon-ball; then he turned away. He shifted his gaze to Bronveld, who was clapping his hands jubilantly. As their eyes met the German showed his teeth in a victorious smile and turned his thumbs upwards, a signal that means the same thing the world over. Biggles could not find it in his heart to blame him, for it was the boy’s first victory, and once, long ago, he had behaved in exactly the same way; only that time the spinning machine had black crosses on its wings, not red, white, and blue circles.
He turned back to his own cockpit feeling as if he had turned into a block of stone. Something seemed to have died inside him, leaving in its place only a bitter hatred of the war and everything connected with it. He ground his teeth under the emotion that shook him like a leaf, while in his mind hammered a single thought, ‘Algy has gone west . . . Algy has gone west.’ The wind seemed to howl it in the wires, and the deep-throated Mercedes engine purred it in a monotonous vibrating drone.
Through a shimmering atmosphere of unreality he saw the aerodrome at Zabala loom up, and automatically throttled back to land. His actions were purely instinctive as he flattened out and taxied slowly up to the hangars. The Count, von Stalhein, and several other officers were standing on the tarmac waiting, but none of them meant anything to him now. He no longer feared von Stalhein. He no longer cared a fig if he was suspected, arrested, or even shot.
He switched off, climbed stiffly to the ground, and walked slowly towards the spot upon which the others were converging. He could hear a babel of voices around him, German voices, and a wave of hatred swept over him. What was happening? He hardly knew. He became aware that Bronveld was tapping him on the back while he spoke rapidly to Faubourg. They were all laughing, talking over the battle, and a strange feeling swept over Biggles that he had seen it all before. Where had he seen the same thing? Suddenly he knew. The scene was precisely that which occurred on any British aerodrome after a raid; only the uniforms and the machines with the sinister Maltese crosses were different. As in a dream he heard the Count speaking.
‘Splendid,’ he was saying, ‘splendid. Kranz is full of praise for the way you handled a nasty situation. Your firing of the red signal to form circle when you did, he says, saved the whole formation. And that last bomb of yours, and the way you left the formation to make sure of a hit, was brilliant. Your recommendation for the Iron Cross shall go off to-day. And Bronveld has shot down a Camel. We knew that before you got home; it fell in our lines and the artillery rang up to say they are sending the body here for burial. We will see that it is done properly, as we always do, because we know the British do the same for us. But what’s this? Why! you’re wounded, man.’ He pointed to Biggles’ shoulder, where a nasty-looking red stain was slowly spreading round a jagged tear in his overalls.
‘Oh, that.’ Biggles laughed, a hard, unpleasant sound. ‘That’s nothing. I hardly noticed it. The Camel fired the shot,’ he added, wishing that it had gone through his head instead of his shoulder.
‘While you were holding your machine steady so that Bronveld could shoot,’ observed the Count. ‘That is the sort of courage that will serve the Vaterland.*3 But go and get your shoulder attended to and make out your reports, all of you. I am looking forward to seeing the photographs.’
Biggles removed his flying cap and goggles and walked towards the Medical Officer’s tent. He was conscious that von Stalhein was watching him with the same puzzled expression that he had worn after the Mayer exploit. ‘He doesn’t know what to make of me,’ he thought. ‘Well, a fat lot I care what he thinks. I’ll fly over to Raymond to-morrow, and throw my hand in; in future I’m flying in my own uniform, in France, or not at all. I’ve had enough of this dirty game and I never want to see a palm tree again.’
The wound, which was little more than a graze, was washed and bandaged by the elderly, good-natured German doctor, after which he went to his room and threw himself on his bed. The sun was sinking like a fiery orange ball in a crimson sky that merged into purple overhead, and threw a lurid glow on the hangars and the sentinel-like palms. It flooded into his room and bathed his bed, his uniform, and his tired face in a blood-red sheen.
For a long time he lay quite still, trying to think, trying to adjust himself to the new state of things, but in vain. His most poignant thought, the thing that worrie
d him most, was the fact that he had been responsible for Algy’s death in the first place by causing him to be posted from France to the land of the Israelites. That Algy might have been killed if he had remained in France did not occur to him. ‘But there, what does it matter? What does anything matter? The lad’s gone topsides, and that’s the end of it,’ he thought, as he rose wearily. He washed, and was drying his face, when an unusual sound took him to the window. A tender had stopped and half a dozen grey-coated soldiers in the uniform of the German Field Artillery, under the supervision of a Flying Corps officer, were unloading something. It was a long slim object shrouded in a dark blanket.
He watched with an expressionless face, for he was past feeling anything. It was all a part of the scheme, the moving of the relentless finger of Fate that had lain over Palestine like a blight for nearly two thousand years and left a trail of death in its wake. He watched the soldiers carry the body into the tent that had been set aside as a temporary mortuary. He saw them come out, close the flap behind them, salute, and return to the tender, which, with a grinding of gears, moved slowly across the sand and disappeared from sight. It was like watching a scene in a play.
Then, moved by some impulse, he picked up his cap, left the room, and strode firmly towards the tent. ‘I might as well say good-bye to the lad,’ he thought, with his nostrils quivering. He threw aside the flap, entered, and stood in dumb misery at the end of the camp bed on which the pitiful object rested. Slowly and with a hand that shook, he lifted the end of the blanket—and looked.
How long he stood there he never knew. Time seemed to stand still. The deathly hush that falls over the desert at the approach of twilight had fallen; somewhere in the desert a sand-cricket was chirping. That was all. And still he stared—and stared.
At last, with a movement that was almost convulsive, he replaced the blanket, stepped back, and leaned against the tent-pole while he fought back an hysterical desire to laugh aloud—for the face was not Algy’s. It was that of a middle-aged man in the uniform of an infantry regiment, with pilot’s wings sewn on his tunic above the white and violet ribbon of the Military Cross. It was quite peaceful. A tiny blue hole above the left eyebrow showed where life had fled, leaving a faint smile of surprise on the countenance, so suddenly had the end come.
Biggles pulled himself together with a stupendous effort and walked reverently from the presence of Death. With his teeth clenched, he hurried back to his room and flung himself face downwards on his bed, laughing and sobbing in turn. He did not hear the door open quietly to admit an orderly with tea on a tray, who, when his startled eyes fell on his superior officer, withdrew quickly and returned to the camp kitchen.
‘Karl,’ he called to the cook, ‘Brunow’s finished—nerve’s gone to bits. Funny how all these flyers go the same in the end. Well, I don’t care as long as they’ll let me keep my feet on the ground.’
Chapter 15
Ordeal by Night
The German orderly, although he had good reason for thinking that ‘Brunow’s nerves had gone to bits’, was far from right. Biggles’ nerves were unimpaired, although it must be admitted that he had been badly shaken by the belief that Algy had been killed, but after the first reaction had spent itself the knowledge that the whole thing had been nothing more than a bad dream was such a relief that he prepared to resume his work with a greater determination than before. Lying propped up on his pillow, he reviewed the events of the day which, taking things all round, might have panned out, a good deal worse. Hess had gone west, and he had no regrets on that score. ‘Yes, taking it all round I’ve been pretty lucky to-day,’ he mused, which was not strictly true, for such successes as he had achieved had been due more to clear thinking and ability than to good fortune. His only stroke of what could be regarded as luck was the firing of the red signal light which had saved the formation, thereby putting up his reputation with the Staffel, for when he had fired it he had not the remotest idea that it was the German signal to ‘form circle’, a fact that he could only assume was the case from what followed.
By dinner-time he was normal again but eager to see the end of his masquerade in order that he might return to normal duties. So deep-rooted was this longing that he was prepared to take almost any chance, regardless of risks, in order to expedite the conclusion of the affair. Certain vital facts he had already grasped; of others, a shrewd suspicion was rapidly forming in his mind, and he only needed confirmation of them to send him to British headquarters and place his knowledge at the disposal of those who would know best how to act upon it.
It was with a determination born of these thoughts that he decided during dinner to pursue his quest in a manner which inwardly appalled him, but which, he thought, if successful could hardly fail to produce results. The idea came to him on the spur of the moment when he heard a machine taxi out across the aerodrome. Subconsciously he waited, expecting to hear it take off, but when it did not he knew–guessed would perhaps be a better word—that it was standing on the far side of the aerodrome waiting for a passenger about whose identity there was no doubt in his mind. And when a few minutes later von Stalhein left his chair, and after a whispered conversation with the Count, went out of the room, he fancied that he knew what was about to take place.
He would have liked to follow at once in order to watch von Stanhein, but that was out of the question, for it was a matter of etiquette that until the Count rose and led the way to the ante-room, no one could leave his place without asking his permission, and then a very good excuse would be demanded.
So he sat where he was, sipping his coffee, but listening for the sound that would denote von Stalhein’s departure for the British lines; and he had not long to wait. Within a few minutes there came the distant roar of an aero engine; it swelled to a deep crescendo and then died away in the distance. ‘There he goes,’ he thought. ‘If I could only be at the other end when he lands I might learn something.’
Now that his mind was made up on a course of action he fidgeted with impatience for the meal to end, and when at length the Count got up, the signal for a general move, he followed the others through to the ante-room with a light-heartedness which sprang, not from anticipation of the self-imposed undertaking before him, but from relief of knowing that the time had come to begin. He hung about conspicuously for a little while, turning over the pages of a magazine, and then satisfied that everyone was settling down for a quiet evening, he left the room and walked unhurriedly to his quarters, where he changed his regulation boots for a pair of the canvas shoes that most of the officers wore when off duty, and slipped an electric torch into his pocket. This done, he strolled towards the tarmac. He did not go as far as the front of the hangars, but turned to the left behind them and moved along in the direction of the fort. The building was in darkness, but knowing that a sentry would be on door duty, he kept to the rear, and then worked his way down the side until he stood under the window where, a few nights before, he had seen von Stalhein writing.
With his heart thumping in spite of his outward calm, he took a swift glance around to make sure that he was not being watched, and then, reaching for the window-sill, drew himself up until he could throw a leg across the wooden frame. The other followed, and he slipped quietly inside.
After the bright starlight outside he could see nothing at first, but by waiting a minute or two for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, he could just make out the general outlines of the furniture. He crossed swiftly to the door, and tried it, but as he expected, it was locked, so he went over to the writing-desk upon which a number of documents were lying, but they were, of course, written in German, so he did not touch them. In any case he was not particularly concerned with them. Working swiftly but quietly, he made a complete inspection of the room, and then turned to the tall wardrobe which stood against the far wall. He opened it, and shielding the torch with his cupped hands, he flashed it on the interior, when he heard a sound that brought him round with a start although not particula
rly alarmed, for it came from the direction of the window. It seemed to be a soft scraping noise, a rustling, as if a large bird had settled on the ledge.
Bending forward, he could just make out two dark objects that moved along the window-sill with a kind of groping movement. For a moment he could not make out what they were, and then he understood. They were hands. Some one was coming in through the window.
Now even in the flash of time that remained for him to think, he knew there were only two courses open to him. One was to step forward and confront the marauder, who, by his clandestine method of entry, obviously had no more right in the room than he had, and the other was to hide. Of the two the latter found more favour, for the very last thing he wanted was the hullabaloo that might conceivably take place if he allowed himself to be seen. So he stepped back, squeezed himself into the wardrobe, and pulled the door nearly shut behind him just as a man’s head appeared in the square of star-spangled deep blue that marked the position of the window. Even in the uncertain light a single glance was sufficient to show that it was not a European, for the dark-bearded face was surmounted by a turban. As silent as a shadow, the Arab swung his legs and body over the sill with the feline grace of a panther, and stood in a tense attitude, listening, precisely as Biggles had done a few minutes before. Then, still without making a sound, he glided forward into the room.
For one ghastly moment Biggles thought he was coming straight to the wardrobe, and he had already braced himself for the shock of meeting when the man stepped aside and disappeared from his limited line of vision. For a moment he wondered if he had gone to the electric light switch with the object of turning it on, but the half-expected click did not come. Nor did the man reappear. Nothing happened. All was as silent as the grave. A minute passed, and another, and still nothing happened.