39 Biggles Goes To School

by Captain W E Johns

The story had got into the papers, and men on horseback, in carts and other vehicles, were converging on the ruins of Hertbury Abbey. Newspaper reporters were there.

  Some were taking photographs. The Home Office and the British Museum had sent representatives to watch their interests.

  As soon as Biggles came in sight of the field of operations he saw that rumour had for once fallen short of the mark. He was astounded by the spectacle. Scores of men, and even women, were now hard at work. The whole area resembled nothing so much as a battlefield. Paper that had contained sandwiches blew about. In the middle of it all, on a high mound, stood P.C. Grimble, trying to keep order ; for fights were frequent as men accused each other of coming too near ground already claimed. Spectators formed a cordon round the scene. The Head was among them.

  In his indignation Smith waxed eloquent as he gave his opinion of claim-jumpers. He had, he told Biggles, read all about claim-jumping in a book on Australia. It was a common trick of unscrupulous rogues.

  Biggles was thinking hard, for it had occurred to

  him that the thing had gone far enough. "It wouldn't surprise me if there's a row about this," he told Smith anxiously. "It'll take an army to put all that dirt back into those holes.

  "

  "Jolly good job too," was Smith's view of it. "Serves them all right for jumping our claim. After all, we didn't ask them to dig."

  "What they don't understand is, there may not be a treasure at all," remarked Biggles.

  Smith had apparently overlooked this minor point. "That's right enough," he agreed. "But that's their look-out. Still, it's something to see, isn't it ? You can't see a treasure hunt of this size every day."

  Mrs. Grummit appeared with her husband's tea. The farmer, looking hot and tired, came to fetch it. Drawing near, he saw Biggles and Smith standing there. "Those are the boys who have got the chart ! " he shouted, advancing quickly. "Come on, hand it over ! "

  The Head stepped in. " Is this true, Bigglesworth, that you have the chart ? " he inquired.

  " Smith tertius has it, sir," Biggles told him. "May I see it, Smith ? " requested the Head.

  Smith passed it over.

  The Head examined it with a curious expression on his face. " Where did you get this ? "

  he asked in a peculiar voice.

  " We made it, sir."

  "Oh—you made it ? "

  " Yes, sir."

  "For what purpose ? "

  "For fun, really, sir," put in Biggles. "Farrow, the roadman, found a coin near the ruins so we decided to go treasure hunting. We thought we ought to have a chart."

  "So you made one ? "

  " Yes, sir."

  "Had you any reason for supposing that there was a treasure where you have put the red cross ? "

  "None whatever, sir," confessed Smith. " It just seemed to be as good a place as any."

  The corners of the Head's mouth twitched. "I see," he said seriously. " Did you induce all these people to come here and make fools of themselves ? "

  " Indeed, we did not, sir," protested Smith hotly. "We had only just started digging when Mr. Grummit came along and drove us off. Then he started digging himself. He jumped our claim. Not only that, but he let the cat out of the bag. Now look what has happened, sir. We can't find anywhere to dig ourselves. It isn't fair ! "

  " Quite so—quite so," murmured the Head. "He certainly let the cat out of the bag. But hasn't it occurred to you that these people are going to be rather annoyed with you when they learn how they've been wasting their time ? "

  Smith looked surprised. "But why should they be angry with us, sir ? After all, we didn't ask them to dig. We were pretty sick about it—weren't we, Bigglesworth ? "

  "Jolly sick," agreed Biggles.

  "Well, I think if I were you I'd go back to school," said the Head confidentially. "I can't allow this nonsense to go on any longer. The sooner the truth is told the better."

  "Very well, sir," answered Biggles.

  What the boys did was move off to a safe distance, and from there watch the effect of the Head's announcement.

  If the story of the treasure had spread swiftly, the revelation that there was no treasure spread even faster. Men, covered with grime, crawled out of the earth at all sorts of unexpected places. Some laughed. Some swore. " It was all started by a couple of kids playing ! " shouted one man as he put on his coat. Then began an exodus that, Smith alleged, somewhat vaguely, reminded him of Sodom and Gomorrah.

  Grummit raved. "What about my pasture ? " he was yelling. "Stay here and fill in these holes, some of you ! " He shouted in vain. It was evident that the lust for moving earth had expired.

  "Serves him jolly well right for jumping our claim," said Smith, with warm satisfaction. "

  All the same, I think we'd better drop treasure hunting for a bit."

  Biggles agreed.

  "We'd better keep clear of old Grummit's farm, too."

  Again Biggles agreed.

  " It just shows what people are like," was Smith's final comment, as they walked back to school.

  Once more Biggles could only agree.

  The story got into the newspapers under the headline of The Great Treasure Hoax, and a laugh went up. But Biggles and Smith saw nothing funny in it. They had a feeling that they were not popular in Hertbury, and thought it prudent, for a little while, to keep away from the town that was their only shopping centre.

  Ix

  THE CHESTNUT WOOD

  THE days passed, in the ordinary way, one very much as another, with nothing worth recording. Biggles settled down, and on the whole managed to keep out of trouble—

  anyway, out of serious trouble.

  There was a little unpleasantness with Mr. Bruce over so small a matter of letting off fireworks outside the master's study door on the dve of Guy Fawkes day. He had played the trick once and got away with it. This encouraged him to make the fatal mistake of trying to repeat it ; but on the second occasion it went wrong, and for his pains he took from the Head six slashing cuts of the cane, three on each hand, to discourage experiments of a like nature. The lesson he learned was not to try to repeat a success too soon or too often. He bore Mr. Bruce no malice, for he knew he was in the wrong. He merely felt that as it was the firework season Mr. Bruce might have seen the joke.

  Indeed, that was his rather optimistic defence when he delivered the fatal slip of paper, outlining the offence, to the Head.

  Said the Head, with a sort of caustic mirth : " You've had your little joke, Bigglesworth, now I'm going to have mine."

  Biggles saw nothing funny in the Head's joke and spent the rest of the day blowing on his hands. What actually happened was this. It must first be explained that the door of Mr. Bruce's study was a formidable piece of oak, dating back to the fifteenth century, when the school was built "to teach the sons of gentlemen Latin.

  " Originally the latch had been a primitive device. To open the door it was merely necessary to insert a finger in a small hole provided for the purpose, and lift the latch.

  The hole went right through the door. The latch had disappeared, but the hole remained.

  By looking through it it was possible to see into the room. Wads of paper pushed in by the master were as promptly pushed out by boys passing the door, and the practice had in consequence been discarded.

  It struck Biggles in passing that the hole might have been specially designed to hold a squib. He peeped in. Mr. Bruce was in his armchair, dozing by the fire. Into the hole went a squib. Biggles lighted the fuse and ran. He heard the explosion from a safe distance. He heard the door open and close. Silence returned.

  It seemed to Biggles that this was rather good fun, and reasonably safe, so holding another squib in one hand and a box of matches in the other, he made a cautious advance and applied his eye to the hole. Something obstructed his view. At first he could not make out what it was. Then, with a spasm of horror, he saw that it was another eye, within an inch of his own. With a gasp of fright he turned to run,
but he was too late. The door flew open and a voice cracked one word, " Bigglesworth ! " Realising that as he had been identified it was no use going on, Biggles came to a skidding stop, turned slowly, and even more slowly, returned. Feeling very small, he waited while Mr.

  Bruce wrote a note to the Head and then carried it to the seat of judgement.

  As a matter of detail he had some slight compensation for this unfortunate incident, in that Hervey, his arch-enemy, in an effort which Biggles suspected was intended to take the lustre from his own exploit, got into even hotter water. There were of course a lot of fireworks about, as there are at every school in the gunpowder season, and from morning till night the quad resounded to the bangs of maroons and the crackle of squibs. Roman candles squirted sparks in all directions.

  It was during French class, at a period when Monsieur Bougade's face was turned to the blackboard, that Hervey, lifting the lid of his desk, disclosed to an admiring audience his latest acquisition. This was one of those red, diabolical-looking fireworks, consisting of a fuse about eight inches long on which had been assembled about fifty small squibs. It was a beautiful piece of work, and all eyes were glistening when, on the point of the master turning back to the class (which it must be admitted Hervey judged very nicely) it had to be put out of sight.

  Hervey showed it several times, and, like Biggles, encouraged by success, became more and more ambitious, even going through the actions of lighting it. Finally, when Monsieur was writing an unusually long sentence on the blackboard, he broke all previous records by actually lighting a match and making a pretence of applying it to the fuse. This time he cut things rather fine, and the desk was only half closed when the master, whose suspicions may have been aroused by the uncanny silence, spun rpund, eyes

  sweeping the room for the cause of such unusually good behaviour.

  It may have been due to haste that Hervey's rehearsal of the treat to come moved into the present tense. His demonstration of lighting the fuse had been most realistic. Too realistic, in fact, as was soon to be proved. At all events, as Monsieur Bougade was turning back to the board there was a good healthy explosion in Hervey's desk ; and this, after a brief interval, was followed by such a volume of sound as might have been made by a nest of machine-guns in action. It turned out later that Hervey had quite a lot of fireworks in his desk in addition to the masterpiece he had shown.

  At that moment Biggles was genuinely sorry for Hervey. Hervey sat at his desk, white-lipped and wild-eyed, an expression of horror frozen on his face as if he had been stricken suddenly by some awful disease. In spite of his efforts to hold it down the top of his desk beat a brisk tattoo, every crack puffing smoke, while the hole that held the inkwell became a miniature volcano that erupted sparks and tongues of coloured fire.

  Smoke rose in a cloud. In the midst of it sat Hervey, giving a wonderful impression of a martyr dying at the stake. For the best part of a minute the dreadful noise continued.

  Then the reports became less frequent, and after a final whizzing sound, such as might have been made by an expiring Catherine wheel, the din subsided. Only the smoke continued to roll upwards. Hervey's eyes closed. His body sagged. His head lolled. He appeared to be dead. A solemn bush fell.

  The silence, following the uproar, was of suffocating quality. Nobody moved or spoke. It was as if the entire room had ceased to breathe. All eyes were on the victim of the tragedy, from whom all glory had departed. All hearts must have gone out to him. All, that is, except that of Monsieur Bougade. Standing on his rostrum with his lips parted, his breath coming fast, the French master gazed glassy-eyed into the smoke with the fixed expression of a man who sees a vision.

  It was the coughing that broke out, as the acrid smoke filled every corner of the room, that appeared to restore him to consciousness. Not a word did he say. He went to his desk, wrote a note, folded the paper and, still without speaking, held it out. There was no need to say for whom it was intended.

  Hervey rose like a sleep-walker, advanced, took the note, turned about, and walked slowly down the aisle in the manner of a prisoner going to execution. All eyes were still on him as he disappeared from sight. Monsieur Bougade opened some windows to let the smoke out and the class continued in the melancholy atmosphere of a funeral service.

  It was half an hour before Hervey returned. His face was pallid and stained. His eyes were red, and his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. He slumped into his desk and sulked until the bell rang for break.

  On the first Saturday afternoon in November Biggles had an adventure, or the first of several, that took all the joy out of his life, even though there were compensations. It was his first experience of real trouble, and he lost weight, not to mention sleep, under the strain of it.

  The thing began, as so many things do, with an incident so small in itself that no degree of foresight could have foreseen the tragedy in which it was to end. The sweet chestnuts were now ripe, and as the district was well furnished with trees, the quad was soon littered with skins. Every boy, large and small, had chestnuts in his pocket, and a good deal of fun was had by roasting them over secret fires. Biggles decided to go chestnutting

  , an enterprise in which Smith announced his willingness to participate. Smith pointed out, however, that as most of the trees in the vicinity had been stripped, it would be necessary for them to go rather far afield, and suggested a raid on Foxley Wood.

  Biggles had heard of Foxley Wood, and had in fact seen it from a distance. It was about two miles from the town and three hundred yards from the nearest point of the road. It was on the estate of Sir Colin Markland, who was not only a Justice of the Peace, but one of the Governors of the School. Not that that really mattered, Smith hastened to point out. The reason why no one ever—or very rarely—went near the wood was because it was the most jealously guarded covert of Mr. Samuel Barnes, gamekeeper to Sir Colin.

  In Foxley Wood Mr. Barnes tended his pheasants as a mother tends an ailing child, and he had taken pains to let it be known at the school that any boy found trespassing in the wood could expect no mercy from him. The stick he carried, Smith admitted frankly, was not an ornament, and more than one boy during the past twenty years had felt the weight of it.

  Actually, it was unnecessary for Smith to enlarge on the nature of Mr. Barnes. Biggles had heard a lot about him. He had heard how, after a fearful fight in which both men had been injured, he had caught the notorious Mick Dunnage, who was not only an habitual poacher but was also the worst character in the town, being a powerful, drunken brute who made a practice every Saturday night of beating his wife. For his last poaching offence, as he had several convictions against him, he was given six months' hard labour, from which he had recently returned home. Having given his wretched wife a good thrashing he let it be known that Barnes was next on his list for punishment.

  t As neither Barnes nor Dunnage were regarded with affection by anyone at the school, no sides were taken in the feud, it being felt that whatever the two men did to each other would be to the advantage of the community.

  With this view Biggles was not entirely in agreement, for having spent a good deal of time with his uncle's keepers he realised that theirs was a thankless task. They were in a position of authority, yet had no uniform, like the police, to protect them. If they did their job well, and they were no use otherwise, they were regarded as officious and disliked on that account.

  Biggles had often seen Mr. Barnes about, and held the secret opinion that his chief fault was that he was a very good gamekeeper. Once the old man had nodded to him in passing, and Biggles suspected that his nature was probably not so black as it had been painted.

  However that might be, Biggles resolved to take a chance in the wood where, according to report, the best and biggest chestnuts grew. It so happened, however, that on the Saturday afternoon for which

  the project had been planned, Smith had gone sick with a toothache, which left Biggles with the choice of abandoning the raid or going alon
e. He decided that he would go alone. It might even be all to the good, he told himself, for his hunting trips in India had taught him that two people invariably make more noise than one, one reason being, of course, that two people talk.

  So at two-thirty, without divulging his objective to a soul, blissfully unaware of the deep and dangerous waters for which he was heading, he set off. He had no reason to suspect anything worse than to be chased by an irate gamekeeper. That was the limit of his apprehensions.

  It was a pleasant day for the time of the year. The sun shone without much heat in a pale blue sky unmarked by a cloud. The trees had lost most of their leaves, but enough remained to give colour to a landscape that was mostly flat and consisted of rolling fields of stubble with an occasional splash of green-topped turnips. At the corner of one field, by a group of cornstacks, smoke rose from a threshing machine. The voices of the men working there sounded curiously loud in the still air. In another field a man was following his plough, drawn slowly by a pair of grey horses and followed by a wheeling crowd of rooks. It was a typical autumnal scene, and the English countryside at its best.

  The sun was already well down in the west when, at a little after three o'clock Biggles came within sight of his objective. It was on the left-hand side of the road, at a distance of some three hundred yards, the intervening area being occupied by a field of stubble. In the hedge that ran parallel with the road there presently appeared a gate, and from this another hedge ran back at right angles to the wood.

  Biggles stopped at the gate and subjected the landscape to a long and careful scrutiny.

  He had kept his eyes open for Mr. Barnes all the way from the town, but had not seen him. The wood, a sombre-looking rectangle of timber covering, perhaps six acres, looked—now that he was actually faced by it—darkly forbidding, even sinister. Against a background of shadows the trunks of the outer trees stood erect like warning fingers.

  There were no chestnut trees in sight, but these, Biggles had been informed, were roughly in the middle. Very carefully he turned his cap, with its tell-tale badge, inside-out.