by W E Johns
A canoe load of Polynesians from Taha-Uka, in the Marquesas, had been driven off their course by heavy weather. They had run to Oratovoa for shelter and water. Having landed, they were looking for water when they were attacked by a pack of mad dogs and had only saved themselves by rushing into the sea and swimming back to their canoe. They thought they had heard someone shouting at the dogs but they didn’t see anyone. On reaching home they had reported the incident to the French resident official, who had in turn mentioned it in his routine report to Headquarters. Marcel had learned of the incident at the Colonial Office in Paris.
“Well—well,” murmured Biggles, cynically. “So now we have a pack of ravening hounds in the picture!”
“You don’t believe it?”
“It doesn’t make sense. Was this fantastic story investigated?”
“No.”
“I’ll bet it wasn’t,” averred Biggles. “Your people in Polynesia have something better to do than chase wild geese, dogs, or whatever these creatures are supposed to be.”
“Why should we chase them?” inquired Marcel. “We expect you to look after your property.”
“You’d have shouted loudly enough if one of your coloured nationals had been chewed up by these alleged hounds, I’ll warrant,” declared Biggles.
“Naturally,” replied Marcel, cheerfully. “We expect people like you to see that their tenants keep dangerous pets chained up.”
“Are you coming with me to have a look at these beasts?”
“If I may. I’d like to see them. I have permission to go with you.”
Biggles nodded. “This looks like being a real international turn-out. A Swedish colleague named Sven Heldersen is also coming with us.”
“Bon. Does he speak French?”
“I don’t know. The important thing is, since I can’t speak his language, he speaks mine. Now we’d better see about getting organized. We have a long way to go.”
That explains what the Sunderland was doing over the deep Pacific.
The call at Atuona had produced nothing tangible, but there were plenty of rumours. The dogs of Oratovoa were, Biggles was concerned to find, accepted without question. One man, a native, declared that a friend of his had been killed and eaten by them. Whether this was true or not one thing was certain. No Marquesan would go near Oratovoa.
The aircraft droned on, blue sky above and blue water below, until a small dark hump crept up over the horizon straight ahead.
“As there’s nothing else in that direction for thousands of miles, that must be the lump of rock we’re making for,” said Biggles. “Well, chaps, we should soon know all the answers.”
“What’s the drill?” asked Ginger, for so far Biggles had said nothing about what he intended to do when they reached the island.
“I’ll decide that when I’ve had a closer look at the place,” answered Biggles. “I’m still keeping an open mind about the whole business. I shall probably take the obvious course of flying round the coastline at a low level to see if anyone’s about. It shouldn’t take us long to discover if there really are people living here. Ten minutes should be enough for that.”
“Unless the people go into hiding,” put in Algy.
“Can you think of any reason why they should hide themselves?”
“Frankly, no. But if there is any truth at all in these rumours I wouldn’t expect to find people behaving normally.”
“If there are natives hiding in the jungles you’d be wasting your time trying to winkle them out,” stated Marcel positively.
“I wouldn’t try.”
“What if we can find nobody here, old boy?” queried Bertie.
“In that case there’d be no point in staying here. We’d toddle off back the way we came—unless anyone feels like taking a stroll at the risk of making dog’s-meat of himself.”
The Sunderland droned on, the outline of Mystery Island hardening with every passing minute.
* * *
1 See “The Case of the Haunted Island” in Biggles Presses On.
CHAPTER II
MYSTERY ISLAND SHOWS ITS FACE
ALL eyes were on the Island as the flying-boat, now with its engines throttled back, lost altitude as it glided towards the isolated cone of earth that projected from a boundless expanse of sapphire sea. In general appearance, as Marcel remarked, it might have been one of the Marquesas they had so recently left.
With a final landfall of only two or three hundred feet of height Biggles opened up again, and running in close on even keel began to cruise along the coastline.
“Watch for smoke, or perhaps a flag, particularly near the water’s edge,” he said. “If there’s anyone here that’s where he should be.”
Mystery Island, now revealing its features at close range, to Ginger looked anything but inviting. On the contrary, its aspect was forbidding, repellent. With the exception of the inevitable coconut palms it had nothing in common with the low-lying atolls of, for instance, the Paumotus, which he had seen and on some of which they had landed. In a word, Oratovoa did not in the least conform to the popular idea of a South Sea island. From what he had heard of the place he had not expected that it would, but he was not prepared for anything quite as sinister as this.
Almost everywhere the great conical-shaped mass rose sheer from the thundering surf where blowholes spouted and hissed from a thousand wave-pounded caves and cracks. The summit, towering four thousand feet above, looked utterly inaccessible, for more reasons than one.
The lower slopes, where vegetation could secure a foothold, were buried under what appeared to be impenetrable tropical forest and jungle made up of the usual varieties of trees and shrubs tangled with interlacing vines of many sorts that had no beginning and no end. Through this riot of every shade of green burst the coconut palms, to wave their magnificent fronds in triumph. At frequent intervals sheer cliff broke through the herbage to provide perches for thousands of sea birds. These, disturbed by the unusual visitor, left the crags in clouds to keep it company, much to Biggles’ annoyance, for he was often at pains to avoid collision.
Above this green belt, which followed the coast wherever it was possible, and varied in width from a few hundred yards to half a mile, the scenery was savage, yet, in a way, majestic. Much of it was sheer, perpendicular cliff, grey, purple and black, split, seamed and riven by frightful gorges and ravines. There were places where a cliff had collapsed to form huge landslides of debris, from pieces of rock the size of houses to long screes of smaller stuff. Sometimes these had torn a passage far down into the forest, piling the uprooted trees into a hideous mass of smashed and tortured timber.
There were places where even the colours of the cliffs looked unnatural, revealing streaks of strange metallic hues, the result, Ginger could only conclude, of having been subjected to fierce heat. Sometimes a long, silvery thread showed where water was making its way to the sea. Where waterfalls cascaded over the higher cliffs they swayed in the breeze like lengths of flimsy gauze.
The general impression thus created was one of unreality. To Ginger it looked a nightmare of a place. There was no beauty anywhere. Everywhere it was the same; a picture of nature in the raw, undisturbed, untamed. There was no smoke, or any other sign of human occupation. If there were animals, they saw none. Only the seagulls, large and small, that had made the desolate island their home, provided movement.
In a few minutes the aircraft had circumnavigated the island without seeing any change in the spectacle. There was only one beach worthy of the name, and that was a narrow crescent of dark grey sand behind the bay noted in Admiralty Sailing Directions. Even that was a depressing-looking place, lifeless and with nothing that Ginger could see to recommend it.
“I don’t know what to make of this and that’s a fact,” Biggles told the others in a puzzled voice. “I can’t believe there’s anyone on this repulsive- looking dump. At least, I can’t imagine any sane person living here from choice. Apart from anything else there’s no contact wi
th the outside world. Now that planes fly over the Poles it must be the loneliest place on earth.”
“What about castaways?” suggested Algy.
“If so why haven’t we seen them? They must have heard us even if they couldn’t see us. Why don’t they show a flag or make smoke? No. Had castaways been here surely they would have made their home on that beach, where they could bathe, catch fish for food, and be handy to make contact with any ship that called. They certainly wouldn’t be sitting on top of the beastly place. They’d find nothing to eat there. I’d say those rumours we’ve heard are a lot of humbug.”
“So what do we do next, old boy?” inquired Bertie.
“One thing we can’t do is footle about burning petrol looking for we don’t know what,” answered Biggles.
“Aren’t you going to land?” queried Ginger.
“I don’t feel like putting down in that bay,” returned Biggles. “We were warned against rocks and I could see water breaking on some. This is no place to rip our keel open and be stuck here until the Air Commodore sends someone along to find out what became of us.”
“What about that inlet which is supposed to run far into the island?” said Sven. “I didn’t see it.”
No one had seen it.
“There must be something of the sort here unless it’s been choked by rocks falling from above,” said Biggles. “We’d better have another look. I’ll cruise round again, a little higher. Keep your eyes open.” He began another circuit.
This time, perhaps because the machine was a hundred feet higher, or because they were watching for a definite object, they found the fiord. That it had not been observed on the first circuit was no matter for surprise, for it ran in at an acute angle behind a mighty buttress of rock.
Biggles took the machine through the opening and there before them was a long stretch of calm water coloured green and black by the reflections of the rising ground on either side. A few rocks projected from the placid surface but they were widely spaced and therefore easily avoided. Biggles said he would go down for a rest, something to eat and a cigarette.
A moment later the Sunderland’s keel was cutting a broad V on the water. The aircraft ran quietly to a stop at what they imagined to be the end of the inlet, to find that this was not the case. It was only a bend. Beyond it the narrow waterway continued for some distance at a width that diminished gradually from one or two hundred yards to a mere point.
Biggles taxied on with short bursts of throttle, holding to the middle of the fairway and keeping an anxious eye on the steepening cliffs that occurred at intervals on either side; for, as he remarked, some of the rocks looked so precariously poised that the vibration of the engines might be sufficient to bring them down. Even if they didn’t fall on the aircraft they might set up a swell sufficient to carry them into trouble in a place where there was little room to manoeuvre.
“This seems to be it,” he said at last, taking his hand from the throttle and allowing the flying-boat to run to a standstill resting on its reflection on the dark water. He switched off. The airscrews stopped. An uncanny silence fell, for here, out of the wind, even the trees were still. The only things that moved were some gulls that had followed them in. The only sound their melancholy cries.
“Well chaps, it looks as if we’ve come a long way for nothing,” said Bertie, cheerfully.
“Apart from the bay this is the only place where I’d expect to find anyone,” observed Biggles, taking out his cigarette case.
Ginger climbed on the hull and cupping his hands round his mouth let out a hail. “Ho there! anyone about?”
The result, as the echoes came back and retreated, startled him, as did some ripples large enough to denote the presence of a big fish in the water. He surveyed the sides of the gorge, more from casual curiosity than in expectation of seeing anything that could be associated with their quest. But an object caught his eye and held it. He moved to a new position and looked again, long and carefully. Then, abruptly, he returned to the cabin. “Hold your hats, everyone,” he said, tersely.
Biggles looked up. “What is it?”
“I believe I can see a vessel of some sort a little higher up.”
Biggles sprang to his feet, his expression changing. “You believe! aren’t you sure?”
“Not absolutely. All I can say is, I can see a bit of what looks like the stern of a small yacht. If it is a ship it’s pretty dirty. I can’t see the whole of the thing because a low, jungle-covered headland sticks out and comes between us. I fancy there’s a sort of awning, or what’s left of one, over the after-works. It was a piece of the stuff flapping that first caught my eye.”
“We’ll have a look at this,” asserted Biggles. “I shall be surprised if you’re right. A ship means a crew, and had there been anyone on board he must have heard us.”
“He would certainly have heard me hail,” said Ginger.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be seen,” put in Marcel. “Maybe that’s why he tucks himself behind the headland—hein?”
They went out on to the hull and Ginger pointed to the object that had claimed his attention.
It took Biggles only a moment, after he had raised his binoculars, to make up his mind. “You’re right,” he said, crisply. “It’s a ship. There’s a chance, of course, that it’s only an old abandoned hulk. We’d better have a closer look.”
He went to the controls and restarted the engines. Then, feeling his way at slow speed he moved the machine forward.
In two or three minutes all doubts were settled. Riding at an anchor behind the headland, only a short distance from a shelving beach of detritus, was a small yacht, dirty and weather-stained but, as far as could be judged, seaworthy. There was no one on deck, and some gulls sitting on the roof of the wheel-house suggested there was nobody on board, either.
With the others standing on the hull, or in the open doorway, watching intently, Biggles took the aircraft right up. “Anyone aboard?” shouted Ginger; but there was no reply. Not that one was really expected. The vessel was not a hulk, but it had an abandoned look about it.
Ginger regarded it suspiciously, for there is always something sinister, some hint of tragedy, about an abandoned ship.
Biggles joined the others as they stood trying to make out the name on the stern.
“Dryad. Rotterdam.” Algy read it out, letter by letter.
“That’s the craft belonging to those Dutch cine-camera people,” reminded Ginger.
“So this is where she ended up,” remarked Biggles. “There was truth behind that rumour, anyway.”
“If one tale is true the others could be true,” opined Marcel.
“Those two naval vessels that came to have a look round must have missed the inlet,” said Biggles. “That’s understandable. Maybe the skippers wouldn’t risk running close inshore for fear of the rocks. That’d be understandable, too.”
“Where could the people have gone?” queried Sven. “Certainly there is no one on board.”
“No one alive, anyhow,” returned Biggles, meaningly. “We shan’t solve the mystery standing here. Get aboard, some of you, and see what you can find. The log-book may tell us what went wrong. That something must have gone wrong is quite obvious.”
Ginger walked along a wing, and reaching out grabbed the rail and pulled himself aboard. The others joined him, except Biggles, who remained at the controls of the aircraft.
“This ship was at sea not so very long ago,” observed Sven, confidently, as they looked about them.
“Well, there’s no one on it now, and by the look of things I’d say it was some time ago that this deck was last swabbed.” Ginger eyed the two lifeboats, canvas shrouded, still on their davits. “How did the people get ashore?” he queried.
“They may have been towing a dinghy,” offered Algy.
Ginger’s eyes explored the tiny stony beach, less than fifty yards away. “Whatever they used to get ashore that’s where it should be,” he said. “I don’t see it.”
“Never mind that. Let’s go below,” returned Algy.
They separated, each to explore as he felt inclined.
Ginger made for the companion-way and went down, not without qualms, for he was fully prepared to find signs of tragedy. But all appeared to be in order—with one exception. He failed to find the log-book. He hunted for it in every likely place but in the end was forced to the conclusion that it wasn’t there. He returned to the deck to find the others. Biggles, having made fast, was coming aboard.
“Where’s the log?” was Biggles first question.
“I can’t find it,” reported Ginger.
“But it must be here!”
“It isn’t. I’ve looked everywhere. Search for yourself.”
“Hm. That’s queer.” Biggles looked around. “Anyone else anything to report?”
“The engine seems to be all right and there’s plenty of oil in the tanks,” said Marcel.
“What is it? A diesel?”
“Yes.”
“They couldn’t have been short of water,” volunteered Sven. “There’s a modern distillation plant below. That would make them independent of calls merely for water.”
“How about grub?”
Bertie answered. “Not much. A few tins of biscuits. Enough, perhaps, to have seen them back to the Marquesas.”
Biggles frowned. “They could hardly have been as low as that when they came here.”
“I fancy you’re right, old boy. There’s a lot of paper and packing stuff kicking about as if there had been a spot of looting. And I can tell you this. There isn’t a bottle of booze of any sort on board, which on a craft of this sort strikes me as a bit odd—if you see what I mean.”
“Anyone raiding the stores would be pretty certain to lift any grog that might be about.”
“Absolutely, old boy, absolutely.”
All standing together on deck they discussed the mystery.
“If the people aren’t on board they must have gone ashore; and if they went ashore they must still be there, alive or dead,” Biggles said. “It could be either. But why they should all go ashore leaving no one in charge of the ship beats me. People don’t do that sort of thing.”