by W E Johns
“What’s happening down there?”
“You were right about that beastly iceberg,” said Bertie. “We saw it after you’d gone. Big feller. Drifting smack across the front of us.”
“How’s the machine?”
“Good as new, Algy says. He came ashore in the dinghy. Wanted to know what you were up to. I told him Marcel had gone to find out. When the shooting started he sent me along to see what was happening.”
“He’ll get a surprise when we tell him,” stated Ginger.
They strode on down the hill.
XII
MARCEL TAKES CHARGE
THEY found Algy waiting impatiently at the bay, where the dinghy had been pulled up. The aircraft was riding comfortably a short distance out.
“What the deuce has been going on up there?” he demanded with some asperity.
“Hold your hat while I tell you,” answered Ginger. “You’d never guess.”
He went on to tell of his discovery on the hill and what had happened subsequently.
Algy did not seem particularly surprised, and when Ginger asked him why, he said: “Why should we be surprised? Something of the sort was suspected. That was why we were sent out on this job. Biggles asked us to explore the island while he was away, and had we done that we should probably have found the thing anyway. As it was we never got started. Far from doing any exploring we’ve spent our time flapping from one jam to another. Now we have at least got something to show for our trouble.”
“Okay,” conceded Ginger, somewhat disappointed by this prosaic reception of his news. “What are you going to do about these guns?”
“I’m not going to do anything about them,” declared Algy, after considering the matter. “Our experts—or rather the French authorities—may want to see them just as they are. We know they’re there. That’s all that matters. I’m not lugging them home with me. We’ve been fiddling about here too long as it is. I’m all for getting away before we bump into more trouble. With any reasonable luck we should have been away by now. We ought to manage it tomorrow. Late as it is, fog or no fog, mines or no mines, I’d still have a shot at it today if it wasn’t for that confounded ice in the offing. Sick as I am of the sight of this place, I’m taking no chances of barging into a berg. You were right about that big one. Good thing you spotted it. We don’t know how much of the stuff there is about, and until this fog lifts we’re not likely to know. This south wind must have brought it along.”
“What about Biggles?” queried Ginger. “He may roll up tomorrow. If the fog clears, he’ll see the ice, but he won’t know about the mine.”
“I know,” muttered Algy anxiously. “That’s my biggest worry. If it’s possible, and this is in fact what I’m hoping, I shall get off before he touches down. There would then be no need for him to land. It’s the ice that scares me more than anything. I believe I could miss the mines, even supposing there are more there. What I mean is, I know exactly the line I took when I came in. I’d take the same line out. It’s hardly likely there would be two mines in the same place. Had there been a second mine anywhere near I feel that the one I set off would have exploded it. Not knowing much about these things I couldn’t be sure of that, though.”
“So what do we do?” asked Ginger.
“There seems to be nothing more we can do for the time being so I suggest we go aboard and have something to eat while we can see what we’re doing. It’ll be dark presently and I’d rather not show any lights. We’d better mount a guard. There’s a chance that ice may drift into the bay. I don’t mind telling you that I’ve reached the stage when I’m wondering all the time what’s going to happen next. This confounded place would get anyone cheesed. Let’s get aboard.”
An hour later, after darkness had fallen, another change in the weather became apparent. The breeze died away completely and the sea fell to a dead calm. The thermometer dropped nearly to freezing point and the fog dispersed like magic to reveal a sky glittering with stars.
That’s better, thought Ginger, who was on guard in the forward turret.
It was just before he was due to be relieved that he saw the light. At first he took it to be a bright star low over the horizon; but when it started winking dots and dashes he knew that a craft of some sort was there. He lost no time reporting the matter to Algy, who was soon gazing at the distant spark.
“I suppose it couldn’t by any chance be Biggles?” suggested Ginger. “Had he risked a night flight he might just have got here.”
“Not a hope. He would have come right in.”
“Not if he saw the ice.”
“The first thing he’d do would be to fly low over the island to look for a signal from us if we were here. Now the weather is clear he’d fly low to let us know he was about, anyway. There’s one thing certain. That ship, and it must be a ship, is signalling to the island. Only one ship would be likely to do that, or have any reason to do it, and that’s the submarine; or possibly a whaler or some other craft from which it gets its fuel. Nobody else would expect anyone to be on the island. Keep still and let’s see if we can get the message.”
“No. It’s no use,” resumed Algy, after a little while. “Either it’s in code or in Russian—the same thing as far as we’re concerned. It looks to me as if we were too late to stop that fellow contacting the sub by radio, with the result that the confounded thing has come back. If that’s the answer things are going to get even more complicated. Good thing we weren’t showing lights. That would have told them we were here, which might have been very awkward indeed, bearing in mind they have guns.”
“I’ll tell you what it looks like to me,” said Ginger thoughtfully. “The commander of the sub, assuming that’s what it is, is puzzled. In the first place, not knowing that we wrecked the radio, he must wonder why it went dead. Now he’s close enough for visual signals, and he still can’t make contact, more than ever he’ll be wondering why.”
“Yes, that makes sense to me,” agreed Algy. “But it won’t take him long to work out the only possible answer short of an accident. He’ll know something has happened here, to account for his caretaker-fellow not being on duty.”
“He’ll come along to find out what’s wrong.”
“I fancy he’d have done that already had he been able to. In fact, he was probably on his way when the ice made him change his mind. Loose ice is just as big a danger to him as it is to us—bigger, perhaps, since he has to stay in it. My guess is he won’t come any nearer until he can see what he’s doing. He may creep in a bit, but he’ll wait for daylight before he puts on any speed.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“You tell me,” requested Algy wearily. “How can we do anything at all? We daren’t leave now even if we could; it’s getting too close to the time when Biggles might arrive. I don’t think it’s likely that he’ll start before dawn; but he might. You never know with Biggles. Suppose we did manage to get off and started for home, and then missed him on his way out. What a mess he’d be in when he got here—ice on the water, mines under it, a submarine in the offing and no sign of us. He’d try to do something, of course, and probably lose his life doing it. No. I daren’t risk that. Time’s too short. All we can do now is hang on, anyway until daylight.”
The distant light disappeared.
“They’ve packed up,” surmised Ginger. “They’ve realised it’s no use.”
“That’s about it,” agreed Algy.
Bertie appeared behind them. “What’s the drill after all that?”
“Just carry on as we are until we can see what we’re doing,” Algy told him. “Whoever is on guard will have to keep wide awake. There’s a submarine to watch for now, as well as ice.”
“How very difficult everything is,” sighed Bertie.
“It may be worse yet,” returned Algy lugubriously.
“Things always seem to be most difficult when Biggles isn’t around,” observed Ginger.
“So what? It’s no use moaning a
bout it,” concluded Algy curtly. “Those not on duty can snatch some sleep if they feel like it.”
The party dispersed, leaving Marcel on guard.
None of them got much sleep. Algy, with the responsibility of being in charge, had too much on his mind. The cold, no doubt resulting from the proximity of icebergs, was intense. Ginger, lying in the dark, imagining all sorts of unpleasant possibilities, as so easily happens in the small hours, thought the dawn would never come. If the fog returned they would remain grounded. If the weather remained clear the submarine would see them, and probably shell them. Either way, it seemed to him, the situation looked ugly.
As it happened, the dawn broke crystal-clear. It revealed several small bergs in the vicinity, but nothing else. There was no sign of the vessel that had shown the light, although they realised, of course, that if it was the submarine it would be low in the water. They themselves, from water level, had only a limited view. They could only hope that as they couldn’t see it, it would be unable to see them—supposing it was still in the region. There was no time, and really no need, for anyone to go ashore in order to try to locate it from high ground. For even before the rim of the sun had showed above the horizon Algy had made his decision and everyone was busy.
They would, he resolved, take off before the submarine, which might still be about, could become aware of their presence. He would risk the minefield by going out on the line by which he had entered. In the circumstances it was agreed that this was a justifiable risk. Once in the air, as the sea was calm, they would simply move to a safer anchorage, or if necessary sit on the open sea, and wait there until they heard Biggles coming. Assuming that he would take off at the first streak of light, and they were confident that he would do that, they could work out his estimated time of arrival to a matter of minutes. If he did not turn up within the margin of an hour, they would take off and head for home, watching for him and trying the air for radio contact. All agreed that this was a sound and reasonable proposition.
Algy had actually gone through to the control room with Ginger with the object of putting the plan into operation immediately, when from the left of the two headlands that formed the bay, which had of course hidden what was behind it, appeared a slowly-drifting mass of ice some thirty to forty feet high at its peak. The extent of it could not be judged, as this was still behind the rock. By luck which Ginger thought was absolutely brutal, the ice was drifting across the very line of the proposed take-off.
Algy sat back. When he spoke all hope had vanished from his voice. “I give up,” he said. “It’s no use.”
It did seem, Ginger thought, as if they were being pursued by some malevolent fate. “All we can do is wait until it has gone past,” he averred, unnecessarily, since it was obvious that they couldn’t take off while the thing was there, straight in front of them. “There is this about it,” he added, clutching at any straw of hope in this fresh sea of trouble. “The sub, or whatever we saw out there, won’t be able to see us through that ice even if it comes in close, and—”
“I call that pretty cold comfort,” broke in Algy petulantly. “What you’re saying is, we’re likely to have to face only one horror at a time.”
“While the ice blocks the bay the sub can’t get into it,” concluded Ginger imperturbably.
“And we can’t get out of it. So we can just sit here and bite our fingernails until that infernal berg is considerate enough to move off. It’s taking its time about it. We look like being here for an hour or more.”
Bertie came forward. “I say, chaps, that’s a bit tough!” he exclaimed, looking at the berg. “I call that pretty low. Would you believe it!”
“I’d believe anything,” Algy told him despondently. “Whoever named this place Deliverance Bay must have had a warped sense of humour. Frustration Bay would be more like it.”
“We shall just have to sit here, laddie, until it goes past.”
“As the alternative would be to hurl ourselves into the middle of it, you’re probably right,” stated Algy with caustic sarcasm.
“No use brooding, old boy, no use at all,” said Bertie comfortingly. “How about me brewing a dish of tea while we’re waiting?”
“Okay. Go ahead with the brewing,” Algy told him without enthusiasm.
Bertie retired, whistling a ditty.
Thereafter, Algy and Ginger merely sat gazing helplessly at the berg as it crawled at a snail’s pace across the entrance to the bay. Indeed, although he did not say so, there were times when Ginger thought the thing was not moving at all. It might get stuck there, he pondered morosely. He knew that only about one tenth of an iceberg showed above water. If the berg was thirty feet high, and he reckoned it was not less than that at its highest point, then there was getting on for three hundred feet of it that could not be seen. Which meant that if the water did not reach that depth, the ice would be dragging on the bottom and might well get stuck. It was such an awful thought that he dismissed it from his mind. Fixing his eyes on the end of the promontory, he saw that the ice was moving, but only just.
“I’m afraid we’re going to be here for some time,” he told Algy.
“I’d already worked that out.”
“No use getting snooty about it.”
“Sorry, but the thing’s getting on my nerves.”
“That’s the trouble about having nothing to do. How about me pushing out the dinghy, and trying to spot the sub, if it’s there, from high ground?”
“You might as well. Don’t be long, though.”
Ginger went through to the cabin. “I’m going ashore to see what snags there are on the far side of the ice,” he announced. “Any more for the Skylark?”
“I’ll come with you,” offered Bertie.
The dinghy was soon out and paddled quickly to the landing-slip.
Leaving Bertie with it Ginger ran up the rising ground, occasionally taking backward glances seaward to check if he was high enough for his purpose. As soon as he found he was far enough up to see beyond the berg that blocked the view below, he stopped, and gazed out across a dead calm sea that was now almost entirely free from ice. By an ironical twist of fate the berg that had held them up was the only one of any size. Of the submarine, or any other craft, there was no sign; and he was about to shout the information to Bertie, who was watching him, when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning quickly he was just in time to see the stern of the submarine disappearing behind, and not far beyond, the right hand promontory. In an instant he was racing back to the dinghy.
Bertie, seeing him coming and sensing urgency, was ready and waiting. He sent the dinghy ploughing back to the aircraft.
“The submarine’s there,” Ginger told them all, pointing. “She’s fairly close in, too. I think she must be going to land a party to find out what’s happened.”
“Where is she exactly?” asked Algy.
Ginger told him.
“Then it rather looks as if she’s making for the hut, or the nearest place to it where people can get ashore.”
“With the sea so tranquil, she could land men anywhere,” declared Marcel.
“As they can’t get into the bay they’ll naturally land as near the hut as possible to find out what has happened to their man,” opined Bertie.
Ginger looked at the iceberg that had been the cause of the trouble. The tail end of it was just clearing the promontory—at any rate the part that showed above water. The gap was still a narrow one; a matter of feet; nothing like wide enough for the machine to get through. He reckoned that at the berg’s present rate of progress it would be half an hour at least before they could get out. Even that was not to be relied on, for a fresh current, or the tide, or a breeze if it arose, could cause the thing to change direction.
Marcel spoke. “When these men get to the hut, if that is where they go, and they see no man there, they will think fast.”
“When they see the smashed radio aerial they’ll get cracking to find out who did it,” put i
n Ginger.
Marcel shrugged his expressive shoulders. “Then we must do some cracking, too, I think.”
“Where are we going to crack to?” growled Algy. “If we try to get out of the bay we’re likely to crack everything to some order.” He looked at his watch. “Another hour may see Biggles here. That’ll just about put the lid on everything.”
Ginger clapped a hand to his head. “What’s the matter with us?” he cried. “We can do plenty of cracking—and how!”
Everyone looked at him.
“All right—and how?” inquired Algy critically. “You tell us.”
“With guns,” proceeded Ginger. “There are enough guns in that arsenal I found to repel a major invasion—not only rockets and heavy stuff but machine-guns. I believe the machine-guns were put there for this very job—I mean, to prevent a landing on the island—if there was a war. Okay, the war has started. They shot at us. Now we can use their own guns to shoot at them.”
The others stared at him.
Bertie broke the spell. “I say, chaps, that is something. Hoist the blighters with their own beastly petard, as old Willie Shakespeare used to say.”
“Are you suggesting that we start something that may end in total war?” inquired Algy cynically. “Have a heart!”
“We might as well go out with a bang as sit here and be shot to bits when these stiffs find us, because that’s what’s going to happen,” argued Ginger.
“Absolutely,” confirmed Bertie, polishing his eyeglass. “Absolutely, couldn’t agree more.”
Ginger warmed up to his subject. “We can prevent them from landing,” he declared. “We can make them keep at a distance. We might even make them submerge. What can they do about it ? Shoot back and knock all their hard work to pieces? Not on your life. That would be a joke.”
“I don’t see anything funny about it,” returned Algy coldly. “I don’t want my name to go down in history as the man who started the Third World War.”
“The only thing your name will go down on, if we stand here nattering much longer, is a tombstone,” replied Ginger firmly.