by W E Johns
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: BIGGLES STARTLES THE CHIEF
CHAPTER II: HARD GOING
CHAPTER III: THE BAR PIGALE
CHAPTER IV: SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
CHAPTER V: SERGEANT VOUDRON OPENS UP
CHAPTER VI: EVERYTHING HAS BEEN ARRANGED?
CHAPTER VII: DEATH IN THE AIR
CHAPTER VIII: A RING TELLS A TALE
CHAPTER IX: ALADDIN’S LAMP
CHAPTER X: ONE MAN’S WAR
CHAPTER XI: STILL FARTHER EAST
CHAPTER XII: THE VALLEY OF THE TARTARS
CHAPTER XIII: A CASTLE WITHOUT A NAME
CHAPTER XIV: OUTSIDERS TAKE A HAND
CHAPTER XV: ALGY AND THE DRAGON
CHAPTER XVI: A STRANGE ALLIANCE
CHAPTER XVII: AFTERMATH
CHAPTER I
BIGGLES STARTLES THE CHIEF
“YOU’VE been looking unusually preoccupied the last day or two. Something on your mind?” Air-Commodore Raymond, of the Special Air Section, Scotland Yard, put the question to his chief operational pilot casually rather than seriously.
“I’ve been thinking,” answered Biggles. “Too much thinking sort of puts a damper on my natural exuberance.”
“Why this sudden mental exertion?” inquired the Air-Commodore, pushing forward the cigarette box.
“Since you ask, I was contemplating putting in a request for six months’ leave,” said Biggles calmly.
The Air-Commodore looked startled. “Six months! Anyone would think you were carrying the world’s troubles on your shoulders.”
“Maybe I am,” returned Biggles, reaching for a cigarette.
“So you’ve decided to take a rest.”
“I didn’t say anything about resting. If I do what I have in mind, rest will be a luxury handed out to me in small doses.”
“And just what have you in mind?”
“I’m thinking of joining the French Foreign Legion.”1
“Now I know you need a rest,” declared the Air-Commodore. “Who gave you this quaint notion, anyway?”
“Marcel Brissac, of the French Sureté.”
“Is he thinking of joining, too?”
“I believe he’s already in.”
The Air-Commodore sat back in his chair and put his fingers together. His manner became serious. “What’s all this about?”
Biggles lit his cigarette and carefully disposed of the match before he answered. “I had a long talk with Marcel the other day. When he told me that he was going to lose his identity in the Foreign Legion my reactions were the same as yours a moment ago when I suggested doing the same thing. I told him he was crazy. When he gave me his reasons, I was more than ever convinced that he had got a whole hive-full of bees in his bonnet.
But as he went on talking a doubt began to creep into my mind. Since then I’ve been thinking, and doing a little quiet research, with the result that I now believe that Marcel has tumbled to a racket compared with which all other rackets ever organized were mere kid’s stuff.”
“That’s a tall statement.”
“It may be tall enough to rock the world on its axis if it fell.”
“Why did Marcel pull you into this?”
“Because it concerns us as much as France. In fact, it concerns every country in the world. He realized that he may need help, so, naturally, as we’ve been working together on the International Police Commission2 for some time, he turned to me. I said I’d join him if I could get away. Should Marcel disappear, as he feels he may, I would be in a position to carry on from where he left off.”
“You’ve plenty to do here.”
“What I have to do here is chicken feed compared with what Marcel’s tackling—if what he suspects turns out to be fact and not imagination.”
“You’d better tell me about it.”
“All right. But don’t start scoffing until I’ve finished.” Biggles tapped the ash off his cigarette with a slender forefinger. “Did you notice an item in yesterday’s newspapers about a stick of bombs being dropped on some Arabs working near the Israel-Transjordan3 frontier?”
“I did.”
“With the result that the treaty which was about to be signed has gone up in flames.”
“Naturally.”
“Have you realised that for years every time two nations at loggerheads have been brought together by the United Nations something of this sort has happened?”
“Now you mention it, yes.”
“And you, like everyone else, have assumed the incident to be an unfortunate accident.”
“In the case you just quoted the Arabs naturally blame Israel or Egypt.”
“They absolutely deny responsibility.”
“It must have been a plane belonging to one or the other.”
“Why must it?”
“Well, as Arabs and Jews have been taking pot shots at each other for years across a disputed frontier it’s a natural assumption.”
“Assumption if you like, but don’t talk as if it were an established fact. It’s time those who judge these things brought some common-sense to bear. A settlement would suit both sides. Why on earth, then, should either side deliberately kick the apple-cart over?”
“I admit it isn’t easy to find a sane reason but that doesn’t alter the general opinion as to who was responsible.”
“And that’s exactly what was intended. And you, like all the rest, believe it.”
“I do.”
“And I think you’re wrong. I believe that neither Egypt, Transjordan nor Israel, had anything to do with it, either by accident or design. I believe they are all as innocent of that attack as you are, although, mark you, it was intended that one of them should take the blame.”
“By whom?”
“By somebody who is interested in keeping the Middle East on the boil. Not only the Middle East. This sort of thing has been happening all over the world wherever a frontier is in dispute. We’ve seen it happen in South America, Indo-China, North Africa—”
“Just a minute,” broke in the Air-Commodore. “What are you getting at?”
Biggles’s tone of voice took on a quality of deliberation. “Marcel believes, and I am now convinced, that these trouble-making incidents are not accidents, nor are they designed purely for political propaganda. They’re all part of a sinister scheme to kill the efforts of the United Nations to bring about settlement by peaceful means. In other words, someone intends to keep these wars going.”
“Fantastic! For what possible reason?”
“Money. That’s the answer, and it sticks out like a sore finger. No—wait a minute. Let me finish. The effect of these incidents is to keep the whole civilized world sweating in a non-stop armaments race—defence programmes, so-called. Every time a truce talk looks like getting somewhere bang goes a bomb and the parley goes to pieces in a cloud of recriminations. As I said just now, this has been going on for years, everybody blaming everybody and the peace-planners getting nowhere. Every time peace looms up the stock markets slump. Every time a bomb goes off, they soar. One bang and up goes the price of oil, rubber, steel and the rest of the basic commodities known as war materials. Somebody is making millions out of this gamble in human lives and you can’t deny it. Would you want peace to break out if you were holding millions of pounds’ worth of materials and equipment?”
“This is a very serious thing you’re saying, Bigglesworth.”
“I’m aware of it. But it’s no use blinking at facts because you don’t like the look of them.”
“What facts? So far your argument has been conjecture.”
“You won’t deny that millions are being made out of armaments which sell because no country dare let up on its de
fence programme.”
“No, I won’t deny that.”
“And you won’t deny that there are people in the world unscrupulous enough to sabotage peace rather than see wars come to an end?”
The Air-Commodore hesitated.
Biggles stubbed his cigarette and took another. “I told you that I’ve been doing a little research so I’ll give you an example of the sort of cosmopolitan juggler I’m talking about. Julius Rothenburg. Until he died no one had ever heard of him, yet not only was he one of the richest men in the world but one of the most powerful. He could push presidents out of their chairs and throw out any government he didn’t like. Yet to this day no one knows where he started life or if Rothenburg was really his name. So close did he keep behind a wall of mystery that no one knew whether he lived in London, Paris, New York, Switzerland or Monte Carlo. He had homes all over the place. Maybe he thought someone would have a crack at him with a gun, which would have been a good thing for the world in general. In the first World War he sold arms to both sides. Between the wars he amused himself by organizing revolutions in South America. His method was to sell arms to one country and then tip off the neighbouring countries that they were about to be attacked. Then they had to buy weapons, too. He never appeared in the picture himself, of course. His deals were put through by a staff manager named Johann Klutz, who was boss of an army of spies—in high places as well as low. It would be interesting to know what Klutz has been doing since Rothenburg died a couple of years ago.”
“You think he may still be in the same line of business?”
“He wouldn’t be likely to change—unless, of course, he’s retired on his ill-gotten gains. To that sort of man the accumulation of wealth becomes a disease. Gold is their drug. They have to have it.”
“Tell me,” said the Air-Commodore curiously. “This line of thought started you say with Marcel Brissac?”
“What put him on to it? Was it just surmise or did some concrete information come his way?”
“I was leading up to that. Yes, it was an incident, a trivial one really, but there were some queer angles to it that set him thinking. It seems that some time ago an aircraft was shot down on the border of French Somaliland. It had just bombed a village on the Abyssinian4 side of the frontier. Where it had come from or why it had done such a thing no one could even make a guess; but the result was a riot that nearly started a war.”
“Did this machine carry nationality markings?”
“Yes—and that’s the first strange thing about it. The machine was a French type—a Breguet, to be precise—and carried French military insignia. That’s what started the fuss. Naturally, Abyssinia blamed France for what looked like an unprovoked outrage. But the Breguet wasn’t acting under French orders. What made the thing look bad was, they had to admit ownership of the aircraft. As a matter of fact it had disappeared months before and had been written off as lost.”
“In what circumstances did it disappear, and from where? I recall the incident and, if I remember rightly, the French found it difficult to explain that.”
“Quite true. As a matter of fact, the machine, a light bomber type, on the establishment of Escadrille5 77, serving in North Africa, was taken out of its hangar one night and flown away. You can say it was stolen. Apart from suggesting laxity on the part of the station guards, such a story would have sounded so thin that French General Headquarters didn’t even put it forward. It wouldn’t have been believed if they had. People just don’t pinch military aeroplanes from service stations. The French preferred it to be supposed that the machine disappeared while on an official reconnaissance flight. I happen to know, through Marcel, that this was not the first time a machine had disappeared in exactly the same circumstances. I also happen to know that precautions have been taken against a repetition, so should anyone try it again he’s likely to get a shock.”
“I see. Carry on.”
“Some time after the Abyssinian incident another bombing attack was made; but this time the French were ready, and had a couple of fighters waiting. When the visitor refused to obey their orders to land they shot him down. The pilot saved his skin by baling out, but was captured. He turned out to be a deserter from the French Foreign Legion—a German named Voss.”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted the Air-Commodore. “You’ve got something wrong there. The French Legion has no aviation branch. It would make escape too easy for Legionnaires who decided they didn’t like the service after all.”
“I didn’t say Voss was flying in the Foreign Legion. He was an ordinary foot-slogging soldier. But he could fly. His record showed that he had served in the Luftwaffe under Hitler. Take particular note of that. I’ll return to it in a moment. Voss was questioned. Where did he get the machine? What was his object in attacking the village, which was an extraordinary thing to do, and on the face of it, pointless? Well, Voss refused to talk. He said he would be killed if he did, but refused to say by whom. Now note this. While he was awaiting trial Voss contrived to escape in a manner that made it pretty certain he had powerful friends behind him. This wasn’t the end. A couple of months later the same man had to make a forced landing in Indo-China6 after bombing a friendly village. This time the machine was an American type. Again Voss refused to talk, saying that he would be killed if he did. But the French, who, as you know, take a realist view of this sort of thing, promptly told him he would be killed if he didn’t. And to show they weren’t kidding they marched him out in front of a firing squad. This made Voss change his mind. Apparently he decided it was better to take a chance than face certain death. So he opened up. He claimed, in the first place, to be a soldier of fortune, prepared to fight anywhere and anybody for the highest bidder. Whilst serving in the Foreign Legion, the only international unit that he knew about, he had been approached by a man who had offered him a lump sum, plus a high rate of pay, if he would desert and enter his service as a pilot. His job would be to obey orders and not ask questions. Once started there could be no changing his mind. If ever he went back on his word he would be killed without mercy. Well, the fellow accepted, and from that time on served in a small cosmopolitan unit based on private air-strips, not shown on any map, in Africa and Asia.”
“Who was the man who induced him to desert?”
“That’s what Marcel would very much like to know. The man might be a key to the whole dirty business. But Voss maintained that he didn’t know the man. He never heard his name spoken. After he left North Africa, where he was serving at the time, he never saw the man again. Marcel doesn’t believe that. He’s convinced Voss was lying, but he couldn’t prove it.”
“Why is he so sure Voss was lying?”
“Because this mysterious recruiting agent must have been aware that Voss was a fully-trained military pilot. How could he know that unless he had seen Voss’s records?”
“Voss might have talked about it.”
“It comes to the same thing. If Voss talked about his previous military service it would surely be to his comrades in the Legion. For which reason Marcel believes that Voss knew perfectly well who the man was, because either he must have been in the Legion, or in some way connected with it, to get the information. This hooks up another significant factor. Out of very few desertions from the Legion over the last two years more than half of them had either been pilots or air mechanics. Could that be coincidence? Marcel doesn’t believe it. Neither do I—now.”
“What else did Voss say?”
“Very little, for the simple reason, Marcel thinks, he didn’t know much. Voss admitted that although he carried out his orders he never really knew what he was doing, or who he was supposed to be fighting. He received his pay regularly but had no idea who was behind this queer unit or what its real purpose was. The only man of authority he ever saw was the commandant of the show, another deserter from the Legion known as Capitan Klein. That was all, but the story explained several incidents which up to that time had baffled the Intelligence experts.”
; “What finally happened to this fellow Voss?”
“He was tried, got off with a light sentence and has since disappeared.”
“And when did Marcel first become suspicious?”
“Some months ago. He began by mustering all the known facts, which told him that Voss’s story must be true—at least, in substance. He then had to ask himself what possible purpose a secret military air service could serve. Such an organization would obviously cost a lot of money. Where was the money coming from? People only put up big money when there is a profit hanging to it. Who was getting the profit? At first, he told me, he thought the thing hooked up with fluctuating currency rates of exchange. Watching these put him on to what he believes to be the right track—the international stock markets. It became evident from certain transactions that somebody knew what was going to happen before it did happen. Somewhere a smart guy was anticipating every explosion. Shocking though the thought was, it was clear that somebody—and it could only be a financial operator in a big way—was making money by fostering international disunity. Who was it? Well, that’s what he’s trying to find out, because while it goes on the United Nations are wasting their time. I own the thing seems unbelievable, but there it is.”
The Air-Commodore looked grave. “If there is anything in this it would certainly explain a lot of things,” he admitted. “For some time the Foreign Office has been puzzled by the simultaneous appearance of agitators in the unsettled areas. It was plain that they were being financed by someone with a lot of money. In view of what you now tell me I can see that the Foreign Legion, composed largely as it is of men without a country, would be an automatic recruiting centre for a parcel of unscrupulous rogues who put money before loyalty, honour and every other decent thing.”
“That’s why Marcel has joined.”
“He’s hoping to be recruited as Voss and the others were?”
“He’s hoping to get a line on the rat who is organizing these desertions, anyway. He’s not worrying about the actual deserters. They’re only small fry. He wants to get to the tap-root of the thing.”
“And suppose he does track down the instigator of this monstrous business, what will he do about it? Such a man would have the cleverest legal brains in the world at his command—not that you can arrest a man for making money on the Stock Exchange.”