Anyway, Biggles decided it was pointless to wait any longer. Already he had been away from the lagoon much longer than he intended, or imagined he would be. Algy would be wondering what could have happened to him.
Suspecting he had run into trouble, perhaps met with an accident, in his natural anxiety he would probably come to look for him. Biggles didn’t want that to happen if for no other reason than it would leave the aircraft unguarded. Stiffly, as a result of being so long in a cramped position, he stood up.
Before he had time to take a step he had sunk down again as to his ears came a sound he certainly did not expect to hear, although on reflection he realized that he should not have been so surprised because there was good reason to believe Collingwood was not alone on the island. The sound he had heard was voices; human voices, engaged in what seemed to be normal conversation. So that was it. Collingwood had met his companion, friend, assistant, or in whatever capacity he might be. The voices were not far away, but not close enough for him to hear what was being said. Peering through the coarse grass he saw the speakers appear. One, of course, was Collingwood. That was to be expected, so there was nothing remarkable about that. What was surprising was that the other should be a coloured man. Biggles took him to be an Indian, not so much perhaps on account of the colour of his skin as because India was the nearest mainland. He was an older man than Collingwood, dressed native fashion and altogether an unpleasant-looking type. From a belt hung a heavy knife, or dagger. He passed close enough for Biggles to see that his face was badly pitted by smallpox, although for that he was not to be blamed.
So this, thought Biggles, was the man who had cut the mooring rope. He was obviously working with Collingwood. He seemed a strange companion for such a man.
Biggles watched. With what interest he watched can be imagined. He noted that Collingwood’s haversack now appeared to be full. He still carried the little hand-shovel. The two men, apparently on the best of terms, passed on to the beginning of the old landing strip. He watched them until they were out of sight and then moved quickly; quickly in order to make the most of what daylight remained, for it was already fading. But he felt he could not leave the place until he had learned the purpose of Collingwood’s visit or discover where he had found his coloured companion. This posed another problem. From where could he have appeared? Why hadn’t he seen him? Or what was even more likely, why hadn’t the man seen him? Obviously he had not. There was something very queer about this.
Biggles now walked through the herbage to strike at right angles the track the two men must have left even if there was no actual pathway. He had no difficulty in finding it. The grass had been flattened by being walked on, not once, he thought, but several times. He followed it back. This brought him to the depression, or hollow, the little valley he had observed earlier. He had forgotten about it. So this was where the coloured man had been. Both men, in fact. The footmarks led down into it. He followed them down.
At the bottom they disappeared. There was not a sign of human interference. There was no hut, or tent, as if someone had been living there. This again, Biggles thought, was most extraordinary. One side of the hollow was practically bare, with little vegetation. There was certainly nothing there. The other side was a tangle of shrubs, including one or two young, stunted date palms, as if someone had been eating dates and the stones had germinated. Not that Biggles wasted any time thinking about this.
If there was anything in the hollow, he reasoned, and he thought there must be something or why had the men been there, it could only be behind the shrubs. Moving forward into them, parting the twigs in front of him, he saw he was right. A black hole yawned in the bank. It was hardly large enough to be called a cave, although it seemed to go back some distance. Anyhow, it was large enough to allow a man to enter, and the regularity of the sides showed that it was man-made, not a natural formation.
Biggles went close and considered it. He peered inside, but the interior, naturally, was pitch-dark and he could see nothing. To say he was astonished would be to put it mildly. He was amazed. The cultivation above he could understand, but this had him completely baffled. Why a hole? For what had the men been digging? For that they had been digging was made evident by an implement like an army entrenching tool, pointed at one end and broad at the other, lying on the ground. Gold? It was not the sort of place one would expect to find gold. Treasure? A pirate might have buried his treasure on the island, but why make a tunnel to hide it? It didn’t make sense.
He examined the sides of the hole and the stuff that had been excavated, lying at his feet. It was the same material as the piece he had picked up in the hut. Collingwood had said it was phosphate. This he could not believe. The stuff in bulk might have a commercial value, but it could not come into the category of being precious or he must have heard of it. It seemed to Biggles that he had solved one problem only to set himself another.
In a last attempt not to be thwarted he flicked on his petrol lighter and went in a little way; but the small, flickering flame, revealed nothing new except that the hole went in for some distance; too far for him to see the end. He thought it prudent to turn back. Later, with the torch from the aircraft the place could be more closely investigated. He was anxious not to be caught in the dark so far away from the lagoon; nor did he want to encounter the coloured man should he return to the hollow. He retreated into the daylight, now fast fading, and set off for the lagoon, putting his best foot forward.
When he came to within sight of it he stopped. The Gadfly was not as he had left it, on the water. Presently he made it out, ashore on one of the little beaches of coral sand. He could not see Algy. Alarmed, afraid something had happened, he broke into a run.
CHAPTER 7
WORRY FOR ALGY
ALGY had watched Biggles until he was out of sight; then, with the Gadfly motionless at anchor he subjected his surroundings to a searching scrutiny. First the reef. He could see nothing of interest. The only living things were a few small groups of sea birds, mostly boobies and gannets. He studied the surface of the lagoon. No stretch of water ever looked more peaceful. Except for a slight ruffle inside the break in the reef, it might have been a sheet of blue ice, pale turquoise in the shallow parts and shading to ultramarine and purple where the water ran deeper. He turned his attention to the main body of the island thinking he might see Collingwood. He was not in sight, but the slight rise beyond the water-line prevented him from seeing the actual huts or the abandoned landing ground at the end of which they stood. Silence reigned except for the non-stop murmur of breakers on the distant beach. Like Crusoe he might have been monarch of all he surveyed.
Satisfied with his inspection he settled down in the cockpit, from which he had a view in every direction, to await Biggles’ return. The weather seemed set fair. The air was warm. Not a cloud in the sky. The conditions were conducive to sleep, but he resolved to keep awake and alert. He did not think Collingwood would try anything while he was on board, but he was taking no chances.
Yet inevitably, with nothing to do, under the influence of the unchanging scene, he fell into a reverie, deriving some slight amusement from the position in which he found himself. As a boy, as a result of reading romantic and mostly imaginative stories of desert islands and coral atolls, uninhabited of course, he would have asked nothing more than to find himself on one. Now, perhaps unfortunately, he reflected, he knew better; knew that conditions of life on what was supposed to be a little earthly paradise were not in accord with the truth. That was known from men who had in fact, as opposed to fiction, experienced the ordeal and had managed to survive. How many unfortunate mariners, victims of shipwreck, had perished miserably, he wondered. Hundreds. Possibly thousands. Their numbers would never be known. This could be judged by the records of those who had been lucky enough to be rescued.
Richard Falconer was one of them. He found himself on a ‘desert isle’ through his own carelessness. He was lazing in a dinghy, being towed by the ship of which he w
as one of the crew, when the tow-rope broke. He was lucky, after drifting for days, to be thrown ashore on an island. A real desert island. The population consisted of rats and seagulls and on these he had to exist. The only water was rainwater that collected in the rocks and he suffered terribly from thirst before eventually he was seen by a passing ship and taken off.
Philip Ashton was another sailor who was overjoyed at being rescued from an island paradise. He deserted his ship at Ruatan Island, off the coast of South America. For nine months, until he was rescued, he found life so unbearable that he often contemplated suicide.
What, pondered Algy, had become of the people who had been cast away on the lonely Crozet Islands in the South Indian Ocean? Their plight became known to the world when a dead seagull was found on the coast of Western Australia. Around its neck was a tin band in which had been punched laboriously with a nail the words: Thirteen castaways on CROZET ISLAND. Help for the love of God. Help was sent, but no one was found, so the fate of these unfortunates will never be known. Of course, the seagull might have lived for years with the message round its neck.
Alexander Selkirk, the original of Robinson Crusoe, was, as we know, put ashore at his own request after a row with his captain. But that was a different matter altogether as he was able to choose his island; and he took care to choose one, Juan Fernandez in the Pacific, where he was not likely to suffer any serious privation apart from loneliness. He had the advantage of being able to take ashore with him things that would be useful. Even so he was glad enough to be taken off after he had been on the island four years and four months.
Thus soliloquized Algy, regarding his own little desert island without enthusiasm. He had seen enough of it to discourage any ideas of settling on it. Collingwood could have it, all of it, as far as he was concerned. Algy was glad to know he would have the means of turning his back on it when the time came.
From these sober deliberations he was jolted into the world of reality, literally jolted, by a bump from below, not severe but sufficient to cause mild alarm. His first thought was that the aircraft must have dragged its anchor and drifted to a part of the lagoon where the water was more shallow than there had been reason to suspect; or perhaps a formation of coral had been built up nearly to the surface. They had not been all over it, having had no reason to do so.
He looked over the port side. There appeared to be plenty of water. although it was so clear that it was not easy to judge the depth. A variety of fishes swimming about reassured him that the water was there. Moving his position he looked down over the starboard side. There was no coral near the surface there. either. All he could see was the long black shadow of the aircraft. That was what he took it to be until it slowly dawned on him that such a shadow, from the position of the sun, was a physical impossibility. He stared down. And as he stared the shadow moved a trifle. But it had certainly moved; or part of it, one end, had moved. How, as the plane was stationary? Then from the shape, he realized the truth. It was a shark. Not one of the enormous brutes that are known to exist, but large enough, about ten or twelve feet long, to make Algy feel uncomfortable. He did not for a moment think the creature would deliberately attack the aircraft; sharks didn’t attack ships, or if they did he had never heard of a case; but he would have preferred it farther away. He dismissed any ideas he had of taking a plunge to keep himself wide awake.
It was evident that for some reason known only to itself the creature had come close enough to the aircraft to bump its back on the hull. What could it be doing? Scratching sea lice off its back? Whatever it was Algy hoped the performance would not be repeated. Too much of it would do the machine no good. He settled back in his seat prepared to forget the incident.
In this he was over-optimistic. A few minutes later came another bump. This time he was not caught unprepared and in a flash he was again looking over the side; this time to see the big fish sinking slowly to the bottom. This was too much. If the beast was going to make a practice of this sort of thing something would have to be done about it, or the shark, becoming bolder, might do some serious mischief; cause the hull to spring a leak, or even knock a large hole in the bottom. For while a flying-boat is robust enough for its normal work, it will not take much knocking about. Clearly, something would have to be done about it.
What was the thing doing there in the lagoon, thought Algy angrily. There was much more room in the sea. Had it perhaps found the new breach in the reef and come in to have a look round? It was obviously not hungry, for there were plenty of fish, its normal diet, all round it. Perhaps it would not persist in its unsharklike antics. He would give it one more chance.
For a while it seemed as if this hope might be fulfilled. All remained quiet. Algy looked over the side two or three times thinking it had gone; but it was still there, its tail swinging lazily to maintain its position. Through the clear water he could see an evil little eye looking up at him. Just as he had decided the brute was tired of playing games, if that was its idea, the aircraft was shaken by such a jolt that he was lifted in his seat. This really startled him. Obviously this could not be allowed to go on. It was no use shooting at the thing through so much water. It was unlikely that the bullet would even reach it. If it did, and stung it, it might cause it to throw itself about to the peril of the machine.
After giving the matter some thought he decided the best thing, in fact, the only thing, he could do, was move the aircraft to another place, trusting the shark would not follow. Moving with care in case there was another jolt, for he had no wish to find himself overboard, he pulled on the anchor rope. The anchor did not move. When the water had settled he could see the reason. A fluke had caught in a growth of coral. He pulled the machine directly above it and tried again, now a vertical haul. The anchor refused to budge an inch. Algy swore softly. Everything was being as awkward as it could be. It was evident that if he wanted to move the machine the anchor would have to remain where it was, anyhow for the time being, although eventually it would have to be released, because to be without it would raise difficulties later. Had the shark not been there it would have been a simple matter to dive down and unhook the fluke; but in the circumstances that was not to be considered, even though there was no indication that the shark was a man-eater. The chances were that it was not, but Algy was not prepared to risk it.
The only alternative was to slip the anchor. By marking its position it could be recovered later. That meant fastening the end of the line to some sort of flotation gear. No trouble about that. An emergency lifebelt would do the job. He fetched one from the cabin, untied the anchor rope, attached the lifebelt and tossed it over-board. To his horror the shark floated up and had a good look at it. For a horrid moment he thought it was going to eat it. Sharks have been known to swallow strange articles. However, it sank back to the bottom without interfering with it.
Algy proceeded with his plan. He started the engines, moved the machine to a new position and again looked down. To his annoyance the shark was still there, apparently having followed the aircraft, or its shadow on the bottom. It seemed more active.
That settled it. Collingwood or no Collingwood it would be better to run the machine up on the beach, as had been the original intention. This he did without any difficulty, the operation hastened by the now setting sun. With the machine well up on the coral sand he switched off and prepared to resume his vigil. Now that he had settled with the shark he had another worry. Biggles, who had been absent longer than had been expected. He hoped nothing had gone wrong. He gave himself a quick drink from a can of orange juice in the cabin and then went to the top of the rise to see if the noise of the engines had brought out Collingwood. There was no sign of him.
It must have been while he was there, surveying the huts, that Biggles came into view, for when he returned to the aircraft and looked along the shore he saw him coming. He saw him break into a run and could guess the reason. He would be alarmed to see the machine ashore and was in a hurry to know why it had been taken o
ff the water.
Biggles’ first words, when he arrived somewhat breathless, confirmed this. He said, all in one sentence: ‘What’s happened — why have you come ashore?’
‘I had to. A shark started to have fun and games knocking the machine about.’
Biggles stared incredulously. ‘A shark! Sharks don’t do that sort of thing.’
‘This one did. Kept bumping itself against the keel. Don’t ask me why. I can’t think like a shark. Maybe it was only trying to scrape some barnacles off its back. I don’t think it meant any harm, but I thought too much of it wouldn’t do the machine any good, so I decided to move to a different position hoping it would lay off. When I tried I found the anchor had stuck under some coral. I couldn’t move it. It’s still there. I had to slip my cable. I left a marker on it. Anyway, I thought I’d better come ashore while the ship was in one piece. That’s all. If you’re thinking of taking a plunge to wipe off the sweat, don’t forget you won’t be alone in the water.’
‘Great grief!’ exclaimed Biggles. ‘What next! It wouldn’t be surprising to find a shark in the lagoon now there’s a gap in the reef, but why it should fiddle about with a plane is beyond my imagination.’
Biggles and the Deep Blue Sea Page 6