by W E Johns
‘Wait a minute,’ cried Malty, springing up. ‘A drug, you say; what was it?’
‘Nay, that I canna tell ye.’
‘Then I’ll see if I can find out,’ declared Malty. ‘There isn’t a drug without an antidote. Just a minute,’ he went on briskly. He ran back to the machine and presently reappeared with his medicine chest. He opened it, took out a case, and from a row of shining instruments selected a hypodermic syringe. ‘I’m going to take a blood test,’ he said. ‘Bare your arm, Mac; it won’t hurt.’
The old man rolled back his sleeve; he did not flinch as the needle slid into a vein in his arm.
‘Good,’ said Malty in the true professional manner. ‘Now we’ll see what we can do about it. You go on with your story; the others can tell me about it afterwards.’ Picking up his case, he disappeared into the cabin.
‘As I was telling ye,’ continued McAllister, ‘that’s how they kept me prisoner. The Chinese pirates captured me way back in ‘85, when I was wrecked in the China seas, me and the whole ship’s company. I was the chief engineer, and I fancy it was me they were after; the Chungs had told the pirates they wanted a man like me. The others they killed, every man jack of them, the murdering villains. They brought me here.’
‘Who are these people, and what are they?’ asked Dickpa.
‘I can tell ye, for I’ve lived so long among them that I know all about them, and their lingo. They’re the oldest race in the world, originally an off-shoot of one of the big Chinese mandarin families, thousands and thousands of years ago. The legend says there was a civil war in China, like there always has been; this lot got beaten and made for Tibet, and that’s how they discovered the mountain. I suppose you know about the mountain – I mean, that’s why you’re here?’
Dickpa nodded. ‘Yes, that’s why we’re here,’ he acknowledged. ‘But we really know very little about it. Is there any truth in this rumour about its curative properties?’
‘Maybe it’s the mountain, and maybe it’s something else, but I give you my word that I’ve never known anybody to be ill here.’
‘Then how do people die?’ queried Biggles awkwardly.
‘They don’t; at least, not very often.’
‘They live a long time, then?’
‘That they certainly do. In the end they just get infirm and die of sheer old age.’
‘Very pleasant,’ nodded Algy approvingly. ‘What do they do with the bodies?’
‘Feed the centipedes with them.’
‘Not so pleasant, eh?’ grinned Biggles, catching Algy’s eye.
‘Well, they’ve got to be fed on something,’ McAllister pointed out.
‘What do the Chungs live on?’
‘Cereals mostly. They don’t touch meat – not that there’s any here if they wanted it.’
‘What is this in the mountain?’ asked Dickpa. ‘We suppose it to be radium.’
‘Ay, that’s right, but it’s an unknown form – that is, unknown to anyone except the Chungs – so I’ve heard them say. I haven’t time to go into all the details, but that mountain’s the greatest source of power in the world. There’s nothing else like it. If our modern engineers had it, it would supply the world with all it needs – motive power, light, heat, energy, everything. But these people are absolute fools in many respects. They don’t understand mechanical things, not really, and they never will – more’s the blessing. The old original crowd discovered the mountain, and set to work to harness it so that they could conquer the world. For a thousand years or more they worked, and were all ready to strike when the whole thing went wrong. No one knows what it was, but something blew up and they were nearly all wiped out. Pity they weren’t all wiped out, I say. It would have saved me a deal of trouble.
‘The few that were left started off again. Hundreds of years later they’d nearly got everything ready when it blew up again, mostly because they didn’t know how to handle the thing, I expect. There were a few left alive, but the old ambition was in them, and off they started again, which brings us to recent times. They found that the thing they needed was modern machinery, the stuff we make, instead of their own flimsy contrivances, to control the power properly, and they started buying it through China. Tons and tons of machine parts have been brought up on coolies’ backs from Shanghai.’
Biggles nodded. ‘We’ve seen some of it,’ he said.
‘Ay, in the cave, I suppose. I assembled that for ‘em. But let me go on. When they got the stuff they found they couldn’t erect it, and they needed a Western engineer. So they got me, and made me work on the thing. I’ve spent my life at it, telling them what was needed, and putting the machines together when they came: Mind you, I didn’t know what they wanted it for, not then – not that it would have made much difference, I suppose.
‘When I’d been a prisoner about twenty years they captured another fellow, another engineer, an Irishman named O’Connor; but when he learned what the game was, he said he’d see them in Hades before he’d help them. So they showed him what they showed me – the centipedes. It didn’t make no difference, and in the end he was flung into the pit with them. Brave lad, he was. I hadn’t so much nerve and went on working.’
‘You said something about these devilish things being electrically controlled,’ suggested Biggles.
‘That’s right. They’ve got funny ideas, the Chungs – very peculiar ones. They don’t think as we do. They wanted some sort of defence for keeping inquisitive people out, so they worked their plans on their own lines. They don’t understand guns, or anything like that. The centipedes is one idea. Hundreds of years ago the scientists got to work – clever devils they are, too – and in the end, by hybridizing snakes and scorpions and all sorts of horrors, they produced a new sort of centipede. Poisonous, they were. But one day they all got loose and pretty near killed the whole colony before they were rounded up again. The Chungs saw that a weapon that could turn round and bite them wasn’t much use, so they started off afresh and produced a new lot. They’re not poisonous, but they just eat anybody alive by sheer numbers. All the same, odd ones were always escaping and the people got fed up with being bitten, so they started off on a new scheme. They produced a breed with funny sort of pads on their feet that could only move when the ground was electrified. Wherever they were, and whatever they were doing, they could paralyse the lot by a single switch.’
‘But how do the Chungs get about? Doesn’t this electricity in the ground affect them?’ inquired Dickpa.
‘It would, if they didn’t have a safety device. Inside every house is a pan of liquid, which is nothing more nor less than an insulating fluid. I used some just now when I disconnected that cable that controls the door to this place. If I hadn’t have had it on my hands I should have got a shock that would have burnt me to cinders. Everybody keeps a supply of it here. Every day they dip the soles of their feet and the palms of their hands in it, so that the current doesn’t affect them. It becomes a habit, just like washing. Then they discovered a new sort of ray: it shines blue. Whatever they turn that on becomes paralysed and then blind; presently they go mad and then they die. You want to look out for this ray, but the insulating varnish makes you proof against it, though.
‘The next thing they did was to produce a way of making themselves invisible. It’s a by-product of the stuff in the mountain that causes that, but it takes years of preparation to be able to do it. They take the stuff in the form of a liquid and it works the trick. You couldn’t do it; nor could I. It would kill us if we tried. The effect doesn’t last long, though. When they first take it you can’t see anything at all, but as it begins to work off you can see them coming round, so to speak, when they look like shadows. Those are the ones you two fellows saw when you first came up here. There were others you couldn’t see at all. When they’re like that they’re as brittle as glass, but they’re human enough, for all that, and you can smash ‘em like so many bottles. And all the time these people are working to get hold of the world, and they’ll
do it, too, unless someone steps in and stops them. Their plans are nearly ready.’
‘How do they hope to effect this?’ asked Dickpa.
‘By radiating out in all directions from the mountain. As they go they will establish new stations and radiate again. They’ll send out rays in front of them all the time, which will clear the earth of every living thing for an area of hundreds of miles. The power will all be drawn from the mountain, picked up in the air without any wires or anything. An ordinary army is no use against that sort of thing. The whole British army could be wiped out at one click of a switch, and the fleet could be burnt up like so much matchwood. The discovery of aeroplanes upset them a bit because, for some reason or other, the power keeps low on the ground and they can’t get it to operate upwards – not very far. Still, they’re getting on, and they’ve got to the stage when they can upset anything electrical. All aeroplanes have internal combustion engines, which need spark ignition in the cylinders to make them work, and the ray upsets the timing of the magnetos. The only way to stop it would be by painting the magnetos and the wiring system with this special varnish. It’s a perfect insulator; no ray can get through that.’
‘Have you any of it left ?’ asked Biggles quickly.
‘Yes, there’s quite a lot in my bottle. You can have it. Put it on your electrical gear, and your engines will be all right even if the ray is switched on. That’s done from the main control station, which is at the foot of the mountain. My word! you ought to see it. I doubt if there’s anything like it in Europe. Only a few people are allowed in. The head Chung, a fellow named Ho Ling Feng, is one. I’m another, but I’m watched pretty close. They take good care that I don’t get a chance to smash the works up. When you arrived on the scene everyone got all excited, and they set about busting you up pretty quick. By a bit of luck and me, you’ve got away so far.’
‘You?’
‘Yes; I went mad, I think. I sloshed a bucket of varnish over the big dynamos so that the juice was cut down to about half power, or else you would have been dead, the lot of you, long ago; then, knowing about the centipedes, I ran down here and tried to jigger the machine that controlled them. But the party in charge of the station stopped me, though I managed to hold things up for a while. Then I ran up here to see if I could spot you; they followed me, of course, and the rest you know.’
‘If what you tell us is true, we must get back at once and inform the rest of the world what is going on,’ declared the Professor. ‘I doubt if they’ll believe it, though,’ he added plaintively.
‘A lot of use that would be in any case,’ snorted McAllister.
‘Suppose they did believe you, what could they do? Send an army? Even if they could get an army over the mountains, which I doubt, they’d be snuffed out before they could lift a rifle. Aeroplanes? You know what happened to your engines, and the power was only half on. On full power you’d have been down long before you got near this place. Air Force machines would be forced down in that wilderness of a plain, and then what could the fellows in them do? Nothing, except die of starvation, for there’s nothing to eat in this part of the world. If they brought food with them, they’d never get near here, not on foot; the rays and the centipedes would see to that – besides, you couldn’t expect ordinary generals, and ordinary soldiers, to fight something they can’t see. And in any case, they couldn’t do anything in a couple of weeks, and that’s the time I reckon the Chungs will start operations.’
The others stared at him aghast. ‘Then what’s the answer?’ asked Biggles.
The old man shrugged his shoulders. He looked suddenly very old and worn. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said simply. ‘You’ve got so far. No one has ever got so close before and never will again. You’ve got to smash the main power-station somehow. If you do that you’ll hold them up for years, and while they’re held up the people at home can get busy and do something about it. Well, that’s about the lot, I think, except that presently I’ll tell you all about the works and the layout of the place, so that you’ll know how things are fixed. I shall have to rest now; I feel all in.’
Malty ran out of the cabin with a test-tube in one hand and his case in the other. ‘I’ve got it, I’ve got it!’ he cried exultantly.
The others sprang to their feet.
‘It’s a concoction of opium, that’s all,’ he went on. ‘I suspected it from the beginning, because opium is essentially a Chinese drug. I’ve mixed some dope that will kick it out of you. I’m afraid it may make you feel a bit queer at first, but I think it will work. I hope so, anyway. Come on, give me your arm, and I’ll give you a dose.’ He took McAllister’s arm, inserted the needle, pressed the plunger home, and discharged the contents of the syringe.
The old man smiled wanly. ‘Maybe there’s a chance, you think?’ he asked wistfully.
‘I certainly do,’ declared Malty. ‘To tell you the truth, drugs happen to be a subject that I know a lot about - too, much, I used to think.’ He caught Dickpa’s eye and winked.
‘I pray you’re right,’ muttered the old man feebly, ‘if it’s only to help you put an end to these devils. If you could do that and take me back in your aeroplane so that I could have one last look at the old Clyde — ah, but that’s too much to hope for.’ He sank back weakly. ‘I feel a bit queer,’ he murmured apologetically.
‘Stout old lad,’ muttered Biggles, as McAllister sank back in a swoon.
‘He’s all right,’ said Malty. ‘There’s no need for alarm. The stuff I gave him was bound to act that way; indeed, it would have been no use if it hadn’t.’
Biggles looked round and stretched. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘to come back to material things, what about a bit of food? Thank goodness we do at least know what it’s all about now. Afterwards we’ll see about knocking a few chunks off the Chungs.’
CHAPTER 8
AN ANXIOUS NIGHT
IT was dark by the time McAllister had finished his story; they made him as comfortable as they could in the cabin, arranged for double guards over the machine, and prepared to turn in early. But they reckoned without the mountain, and the fact that they were now much nearer to it. As the sun sank an eerie light crept over the landscape, flooding everything with a ghastly blue luminosity. The peak was clearly visible from the plateau, and with their flying kit draped round their shoulders to keep out the cold, they sat and watched it for a long time.
‘No need for street lamps, with that thing burning,’ observed Biggles after a while. ‘It would get on my nerves. Whether it does good or not, personally I think it’s an unnatural horror that ought to be blown up. I wish we had a few hundred-and-twelve-pound bombs with us; we’d soon scatter their blinking beacon.’
‘Couldn’t one of us fly back and get some bombs?’ suggested Algy. ‘We could unload everything not required for the journey, which would allow for the weight and enable us to carry enough petrol to get back home again afterwards.’
‘Don’t be crazy. Where are we going to get bombs; at the grocer’s?’
‘We might try and get some at one of the R.A.F. stations in India.’
‘And get clapped into jail for our pains. People don’t sell bombs, or give them away, without knowing what they’re wanted for. But we shall mighty soon have to be doing something.’
‘Why, what’s the hurry?’
‘Because you can bet your life that the Chings, Changs, Chungs, or whatnots, are busy at this moment putting the works in order. When it’s running on full power again they’ll try to do something unpleasant to us – or to the machine. I don’t know about you, but I find this prospect of invisible rays tinkering with the engines a trifle unnerving.’
‘But McAllister says the varnish will be O.K.’
‘I know he does, and that may be so, but when I am flying I like to depend on something more substantial than a bottle of varnish. It doesn’t seem right. It would give a qualified ground engineer the jimjams. No! I’ve got a feeling that we ought to get away from here before the Chungs get the
ir works functioning again. Suppose the varnish didn’t work! A pretty lot of coots we should look, shouldn’t we, sitting up here with a whacking great aeroplane that wouldn’t fly, slowly dying of starvation!’
‘I think the sooner we get this varnish on the magnetos the better,’ said Algy. ‘It’s plenty light enough to see; what about it?’
‘Good idea,’ replied Biggles. ‘Come on, Ginger, let’s get to it.’
It was nearly midnight by the time they had finished, for they had no brushes and were compelled to apply the varnish with their hands. It was slightly sticky, with a queer unpleasant smell, and Algy was bemoaning the fact that there was not enough water to wash when Malty came to tell them that McAllister had recovered consciousness.
‘Why wash your hands?’ asked Biggles as they went towards the cabin. ‘Let the stuff dry on; it may be useful. Do you remember how Mac poured it on his hands before he broke that connexion that worked the door? By the way it sparked, there was enough current there to burn him to a small piece of charcoal, yet he came to no harm. Hello, Mac,’ he went on as they entered the cabin.
The old man was lying on the floor with his head resting on a bundle of coats. He looked very old and frail, but his eyes were bright. ‘I’m still here,’ he smiled weakly.
‘Of course you are,’ Biggles told him cheerfully. ‘With Malty’s dope you’ll be skipping about like a two-year-old when we start knocking old Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum’s prize piece of furniture about.’
‘What are you thinking of doing ?’
‘Don’t quite know; haven’t made any plans yet. To tell the truth, I was waiting for you to come round, to see if you could help us. If you can get on your pins, I’ll take you for a flight as soon as it’s daylight, and you can point out the works. If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll start dropping boulders on them, but we can’t make many trips or we shan’t have enough petrol to get home.’
‘Ay, that would be fine,’ said McAllister eagerly. ‘People who don’t want boulders dropping on them shouldn’t live in glass houses,’ he added, with a chuckle.