by W E Johns
Biggles, looking over the side, could see mile after mile of rolling white clouds, like great masses of cotton wool, stretching away to the infinite distance where they cut a hard line against the blue sky. Below them, their four grey shadows, each surrounded by a complete rainbow, raced at incredible speed over the top of the gleaming vapour.
As far as he could see there were no other machines in the sky, although he was not quite certain if they had actually crossed the Lines yet. But Rayner seemed to be flying on a steady course, and Biggles could not help admiring the confident manner in which the leader flew. He seemed to know exactly where he was and what he was doing.
For some time they flew on, climbing gently, rounding mighty fantastic pyramids of cloud that seemed to reach to high heaven. Compared with them the four F. E.s were so small as to be negligible – ‘like gnats flying round the base of snow-covered mountains,’ Biggles thought.
For twenty minutes or so Rayner headed straight into German territory, turning neither to right nor left, a proceeding which caused Mark to look round at his pilot with a sour grimace.
Biggles knew well enough what his gunner was thinking. The distance they had covered, with the wind behind them, could not be less than twenty miles; it would take them a long time to return with the wind in their teeth. He wished there were some gaps in the clouds so that he might see the Lines if they were in sight. They formed a barrier between the known and the unknown. On one side lay home, friends, and safety; on the other, mystery, enemies, and death!
From time to time round, whirling balls of black smoke stained the cloudscape; they increased in size, becoming less dense as they did so, and then drifted into long plumes before they were finally dispersed by the wind. Archie – otherwise anti-aircraft gunfire! Biggles eyed it moodily, for although he no longer feared it, he never failed to regard it with suspicion. After all, one never knew—
Mark stood up, and, with a reassuring smile at Biggles, fired a short burst downwards from his gun, to warm it up and make sure it was in working order. From time to time the other observers did the same.
Biggles was glad when at last Rayner changed his direction and began to fly northwest on a course nearly parallel with the Lines, a course that Biggles estimated would bring them back to the Lines some thirty miles above where they had crossed.
The clouds seemed to increase in size in their new direction, until they assumed colossal proportions. The patrol was now flying at nine thousand feet, but the summits of the clouds seemed to tower as far above them as the bases were below. Biggles had no idea that clouds could be so enormous.
They had been in the air for more than an hour, and so far they had not seen a single other machine, either friend or foe. Several times Mark stood up – as did the other gunners – and squinted at the blinding sun between his first finger and thumb.
‘This is too tame to be true,’ thought Biggles, as he wiped the frozen breath from his windscreen with the back of his glove, and worked his lips, which felt as if they were getting frostbitten in the icy wind. He noticed that Rayner was leading them to the very top of a stupendous pile of cloud that lay directly in their path.
‘He’s going over it rather than round it – got an idea there’s something on the other side, I suppose,’ thought Biggles, watching both sides of the gleaming mass.
The gunners were suspicious, too, for they all stood up as the machines approached it, guns at the ‘ready.’ Mark looked round and grinned, although his face was blue with cold.
‘Yes, this is where we strike the rough stuff!’ said Biggles to himself. He did not know why he thought that. On the face of it, there was no more reason to suppose that this particular cloud would conceal enemy aircraft any more than the others they had already passed. It may have been the amazing instinct which he was beginning to develop that warned him. At any rate, something inside him seemed to say that hostile machines were not far away.
Rayner was immediately over the top of the cloudpile now, and Biggles could see him, and his gunner, looking down at something that was still invisible to the others.
‘There they are!’ thought Biggles. And he no longer thought of the cold, for Rayner’s machine was wobbling its wings. A red Very light soared into the ail from the gunner’s cockpit – the signal that enemy aircraft had been sighted.
Rayner was banking now, turning slowly, and the other three machines swam into the spot where the leader had been a few moments before.
Biggles looked over the side, and caught his breath sharply as he found himself looking into a hole in the clouds, a vast cavity that would have been impossible to imagine. It reminded him vaguely of the crater of a volcano of incredible proportions.
Straight down for a sheer eight thousand feet the walls of opaque mist dropped, turning from yellow to brown, brown to mauve, and mauve to indigo at the basin-like depression in the remote bottom. The precipitous sides looked so solid that it seemed as if a man might try to climb down them, or rest on one of the shelves that jutted out at intervals.
He was so taken up with this phenomenon that for a brief space of time all else was forgotten. Then a tiny movement far, far below caught his eye, and he knew he was looking at that which the eagle-eyed flight-commander had seen instantly.
A number of machines – how many, he could not tell – were circling round and round at the very bottom of the yawning crater, looking like microscopic fish at the bottom of a deep pool in a river. Occasionally one or more of them would completely disappear in the shadows, to reappear a moment later, wings flashing faintly as the light caught them.
They were much too far away to distinguish whether they were friends or foes, but Rayner seemed to have no doubt in the matter. A tiny living spark of orange fire, flashing diagonally across the void, told its own story. It was a machine going down in flames, and that could only mean one thing – a dog-fight was in progress in that well of mystery.
Then Rayner went down, closely followed by the others.
Biggles never forgot that dive. There was something awe-inspiring about it. It was like sinking down into the very centre of the earth. There was insufficient room for the four machines to keep in a straight dive, as the cavity was not more than a few hundred yards across, so they were compelled to take a spiral course.
Down – down – down they went. Biggles thought they would never come to the end. The wind howled and screamed through struts and wires like a thousand demons in agony, but he heeded it not. He was too engrossed in watching the tragedy being enacted below.
Twice, as they went down in that soul-shaking dive, he saw machines fall out of the fight, leaving streamers of black smoke behind them, around which the others continued to turn, and roll, and shoot. There were at least twenty of them: drab biplanes with yellow wings, and rainbow-hued triplanes – red, green, blue, mauve, and even a white one.
Soon the dawn patrol was amongst the whirling machines, and it was every man for himself.
Biggles picked out a group of triplanes with black-crossed wings that were flying close together. They saw him coming, and scattered like a school of minnows when a pike appears. He rushed at one of them, a blue machine with white wing-tips, and pursued it relentlessly. Mark’s gun started chattering, and he saw the tracer-bullets pouring straight into the centre of the fuselage of the machine below him.
The Hun did not burst into flames as he hoped it would. Instead, it zoomed upwards, turned slowly over on to its back, and then, with the engine still on, spun down out of sight into the misty floor of the basin.
Biggles jerked the machine up sharply, and swerved just in time to avoid collision, with a whirling bonfire of struts and canvas. His nostrils twitched as he hurtled through its smoking trail.
Mark was shooting again, this time at a white machine. But the pilot of it was not to be so easily disposed of. He twisted and turned like a fish with a sea-lion after it, and more than once succeeded in getting in a burst of fire at them.
This was the ho
ttest dog-fight in which Biggles had as yet taken part. One thought was uppermost in his mind, and that was – that he must inevitably collide with somebody in a moment. Already they had missed machines – triplanes, F. E.s, and Pups, which he now perceived the British machines to be – by inches. But the thought of collision did not frighten him.
He felt only a strange elation, a burning desire to go on doing this indefinitely – to down the enemy machines before he himself was killed, as he never doubted that he would be in the end. There was no thought in his mind of retreat or escape.
Mark’s gun was rattling incessantly, and Biggles marvelled at the calm deliberation with which he flung the empty drums overboard after their ammunition was exhausted, and replaced them with new ones.
Something struck the machine with a force that made it quiver. The compass flew to pieces, and the liquid that it contained spurted back, half-blinding him. Mechanically, he wiped his face with the back of his glove.
Where was the white Hun? He looked around, and his blood seemed to turn to ice at the sight that met his gaze. An F. E. – a blazing meteor of spurting fire – was roaring nosedown across his front at frightful speed!
A black figure emerged from the flames with its arm flung over its face, and leapt outwards and downwards. The machine, almost as if it was still under control, deliberately swerved towards the white triplane that was whirling across its front.
The Hun pilot saw his danger, and twisted like lightning to escape. But he was too late. The blazing F. E. caught it fair and square across the fuselage. There was a shower of sparks and debris, and then a blinding flash of flames as the triplane’s tanks exploded. Then the two machines disappeared from Biggles’s field of view.
For a moment he was stunned with shock, utterly unable to think, and it was a shrill yell from Mark that brought him back to realities. Where was he? What was he doing? Oh, yes, fighting! Who had been in the F. E.? Marriot? Or was it McAngus? It must have been one of them. A yellow Hun was shooting at him.
With a mighty effort he pulled himself together, but he felt that he could not stand the strain much longer. He was flying on his nerves, and he knew it. His flying was getting wild and erratic.
Turning, he swerved into the side of the cloud, temporarily blinding himself, and then burst out again, fighting frantically to keep the machine under control. Bullets were crashing into his engine, and he wondered why it did not burst into flames.
Where were the bullets coming from? He leaned over the side of the cockpit and looked behind. A yellow Hun was on his tail. He turned with a speed that amazed himself. Unprepared for the move, the Hun overshot the F. E. Next instant the tables were turned, Biggles roaring down after the triplane in hot pursuit.
Rat-tat-tat-tat! stuttered Mark’s gun. At such short range it was impossible to miss. The yellow top wing swung back and floated away into space, and the fuse lage plunged out of sight, a streamer of flame creeping along its side.
For a moment Biggles watched it, fascinated, then he looked up with a start. Where were the others? Where were his companions? He was just in time to see one of them disappear into the side of the cloud, then he was alone.
At first he could not believe it. Where were the Huns? Not one of them was in sight. Where, a moment or two before, there had been twenty or more machines, not one remained except himself – yes, one; a Pup was just disappearing through the floor of the basin.
A feeling of horrible loneliness came over him and a doubt crept into his mind as to his ability to find his way home. He had not the remotest idea of his position. He looked upwards, but from his own level to the distant circle of blue at the top of the crater there was not a single machine to be seen. He had yet to learn of the suddenness with which machines could disappear when a dog-fight was broken off by mutual consent.
He had hoped to see the F. E. that he had seen disappear into the mist come out again, but it did not.
‘I’ll bet that Pup pilot knows where he is; I’ll go after him,’ he thought desperately, and tore down in the wake of the single-seater that had disappeared below. He looked at his altimeter, which had somehow escaped the general ruin caused by the bullets. One thousand feet, it read. He sank into the mist and came out under it almost at once. Below lay open country – fields, hedges, and a long, deserted road. Not a soul was in sight as far as he could see, and there was no landmark that he could recognize.
He saw the Pup at once. It was still going down, and he raced after it intending to get alongside in the hope of making his predicament known to the pilot. Then, with a shock of understanding, he saw that the Pup’s propeller was not turning. Its engine must have been put out of action in the combat, and the pilot had no choice but to land.
As he watched the machine, he saw the leather-helmeted head turn in the cockpit as the pilot looked back over his shoulder. Then he turned again and made a neat landing in a field.
Biggles did not hesitate. He knew they were far over hostile country – how far he did not like to think – and the Pup pilot must be rescued. The single-seater was blazing when he landed beside it, and its pilot ran towards the F. E., carrying a still smoking Very pistol in his hand.
Biggles recognized him at once.
‘Mahoney!’ he yelled.
The Pup pilot pulled up dead and stared.
‘Great smoking rattlesnakes!’ he cried. ‘If it isn’t young Bigglesworth!’
‘Get in, and buck up about it!’ shouted Biggles.
‘Get in here with me,’ called Mark. ‘It’ll be a bit of a squash, but it can be done.’
Mahoney clambered aboard and squeezed himself into the front cockpit with the gunner.
‘Look out,’ he yelled. ‘Huns!’
Biggles did not look. He saw little tufts of grass flying up just in front of the machine, and he heard the distant rattle of a gun. It told him all he needed to know, and he knew he had no time to lose.
The F. E. took a long run to get off with its unusual burden, but it managed it. Fortunately, its nose was pointing towards the Lines, and there was no need to turn. The machine zoomed upwards and the mist enfolded them like a blanket.
For a few minutes Biggles fought his way through the gloom, then he put the nose of the machine down again, for he knew he could not hope to keep it on even keel for very long in such conditions. The ground loomed darkly below; he corrected the machine, and then climbed up again.
‘Do you know where we are?’ he yelled.
Mahoney nodded, and made a sign that he was to keep straight on.
Biggles breathed more comfortably, and flew along just at the base of the clouds. Suddenly he remembered the blazing F. E.
‘Who was in that F. E.?’ he bellowed to Mark.
‘Rayner!’ was the reply.
So Rayner had gone at last – gone out in one of the wildest dog-fights he could have desired. Sooner or later it was bound to happen, Biggles reflected, but it was tough luck on poor Marble, his observer.
Poor old Marble. Two hours before they had drunk their coffee together, and now—What a beastly business war was!
It must have been Marble whom he had seen jump. And Rayner had deliberately rammed the Hun, he was certain of it.
‘Well, I only hope I shall have as much nerve when my time comes!’ he mused. ‘Poor old Rayner, he wasn’t such a bad sort!’
Biggles pulled himself together and tried to put the matter from his mind, but he could not forget the picture. He knew he would never forget it.
An archie burst blossomed out just in front of him and warned him that they were approaching the Lines. Two minutes later they were in the thick of it, rocking in a wide area of flame-torn sky. The gunners, knowing to an inch the height of the clouds, were able to make good shooting, yet they passed through unscathed, letting out a whoop of joy as they raced into the sheltered security of their own Lines.
Mahoney guided the F. E. to his own aerodrome, which Biggles had seen from the air, although he had never landed on it, a
nd after a rather bumpy landing, it ran to a standstill in front of No. 266 Squadron sheds, where a number of officers and mechanics were watching.
‘I believe I’ve busted a tyre,’ muttered Biggles, in disgust. But a quick examination revealed that the damage had not been his fault. The tyre had been pierced from side to side by a bullet.
There was a general babble of excitement, in which everybody talked at once. Biggles was warmly congratulated on his rescue work, which everyone present regarded as an exceptionally good show.
‘Does anyone know what happened to the other two F. E.s?’ asked Biggles.
‘Yes, they’ve gone home,’ said several voices at once. ‘They broke off the fight when we did, and we all came home together!’
‘Thank goodness!’ muttered Biggles. ‘I thought they had all gone west. How did the show start?’
‘We saw the Huns down in that hole, and we went in after ’em; it looked such a nice hole that we thought it ought to be ours,’ grinned Mahoney. ‘There were seven of us, but there were more of them than we thought at first. We had just got down to things when you butted in. I didn’t see you until you were amongst us. Which way did you come in?’
‘Through the front door – at the top!’ laughed Biggles.
‘Well, it was a fine dog-fight!’ sighed Mahoney. ‘The sort of scrap one remembers. Hallo, here’s the C.O.!’ he added. ‘Here, sir, meet Bigglesworth, who I was telling you about the other day. He picked me up this morning in Hunland after a Boche had shot my engine to scrap iron.’ He turned to Biggles again. ‘Let me introduce you to Major Mullen, our C.O.,’ he said.
‘Pleased to meet you, Bigglesworth,’ said Major Mullen, shaking hands. ‘You seem to be the sort of fellow we want out here. I shall have to keep an eye on you with a view to getting you transferred to two-six-six.’