27 Biggles - Charter Pilot

by Captain W E Johns

  That's all. Now you know why I get a bit nervous when I'm swimming and something touches me under the water. I remember that crocodile and imagine its teeth are sinking into my leg. Of course, the reason why I wasn't hurt when the Crooning Croc grabbed me was because, although the fellow inside had an arrangement for moving the jaws, there was no power in them. Unfortunately, I didn't know that at the time. At any rate, that was the end of the Crooning Croc of Congawonga, and so ends the story.

  Ginger stood up, reaching for his clothes. "It's getting chilly,' he declared. "I'm going back to the mess for a spot of tea."

  V

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE OXIDIZED

  GROTTO

  FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ANGUS MACKAIL took the piece of duralumin from the vice at which he had been working, fitted it to the cigarette case that he had been repairing, and dropped it into his pocket.

  "Queer stuff, duralumin," he observed, addressing in general the officers who were watching him. It's light, yet tough. I wonder what aircraft manufacturers would do without it? Hello ! It's five o'clock. I'm going down to the mess to get a cup of tea."

  There was a move towards the officers' mess.

  " Talkin of metals," remarked Algy Lacey, "it was once my privilege—I can't say pleasure—to see a specimen of what must be the most uncommon metal in the world, a metal so rare that it was lost to science for thousands of years. In fact, it has often been asserted that no such metal exists, or ever did exist."

  "Then how did people come to know about it in the first place?" :queried Tug Carrington suspiciously.

  "Because it is mentioned by more than one ancient scribe."

  "What's the name of this metal ? " inquired Henry Harcourt.

  " Orichakum."

  "Never heard of it."

  "Few people have. Certainly nobody had seen a piece for thousands of years until Biggles, Ginger, Dr. Duck and myself rediscovered it in Borneo. Orichalcum is a puzzle that has survived the ages."

  "Tell me more about it," pleaded Henry.

  "To do that would involve us in an argument as to whether or not the lost continent of Atlantis ever did exist. According to ancient history, a land called Atlantis once flourished where the Atlantic Ocean now rolls. It disappeared some time before the Flood. For years arguments have raged about it. Nobody knows the facts, and nobody ever will know—at least, not unless somebody drains the water out of the Atlantic, and that would be a tidy job. Old Plato had a lot to say about Atlantis, although it had disappeared before his time—that is, about four hundred B.C. Plato, you remember, was an author and lecturer of note. According to him, the people of Atlantis were highly civilized; they were clever craftsmen, working in gold, silver, and orichalcum, although this last metal seems to have had some curious properties. Its colour was a bright shining red, and it flashed with an inward fire. Other old writers mention the stuff, and as the descriptions agree, there would appear to be some truth in the story. Anyway, that's all that's known about it."

  "And do you mean to say you actually found some of this stuff?" cried Henry.

  Algy shrugged his shoulders. "Well, we did and we didn't, as you might say."

  "Tell us what happened."

  "Not" me." Algy was emphatic. "You wouldn't believe me if I did. Get Ginger to tell you—he was there."

  "It wasn't altogether a satisfactory affair," put in Ginger, a trifle sadly.

  "Never mind, spill it," demanded Tex O'Hara.

  " You won't get any peace until you do," put in Biggles, who had been listening to the conversation with a faint smile on his face.

  Ginger nodded. "All right, then. I'll tell you while we have tea." And this is the narrative as he gave it:

  You may be sure (he began) that this particular trip, one of those which we made with Dr. Augustus Duck, otherwise Donald, didn't start as an orichálcum hunt. I'd never even heard of the stuff. To tell the truth, none of us had the remotest idea of what we were going to find when we got to Borneo. But I'd better start right at the beginning.

  There was one thing to be said for Donald's curious collection of weird information. It always had a foundation of fact. I mean, he never let us down. When we got to our objective we never drew blank; there was always something there to account for the rumour, even if the thing turned out to be something different from what we expected.

  As you may suppose, we soon got accustomed to his freakish tales, but I must confess that my credulity was strained to breaking point when he turned up one day and told us why he had decided to go to Borneo. When Biggles asked for further information he held up one of those quaint old Victorian magazines called The Family Entertainer, dated 1880.

  In this magazine there was an article purporting to be true, written by a man who signed himself Tuan Sommers. He was a planter in Borneo, working his own up-river estate at the foot of the Leelong Mountains. Briefly, it appeared that in one of these mountains there was a cave. And it was no ordinary cave. It was like no other cave on earth.

  Everything in it was white—but it wasn't chalk. When I say everytg I mean everything.

  The bats were white. The wothis were white. There were even plants with white leaves and white flowers. At the time the article was written the world was full of wonders, and nobody apparently had thought it worth while to

  investigate this particular masterpiece. We agreed with the Doctor that it sounded interesting. Biggles asked, naturally, if the Doctor expected him to wander about Borneo looking for a cave that might, or might not, be there. He pointed out that it was hardly to be expected that Tuan Sommers, who had written the article some sixty years ago, was still there—or, for that matter, still alive.

  Donald chuckled and produced some more documents. It seemed that he had already been busy. He had sent a cable to the Government House at Sarawak, and had received a reply to the effect that old Tuan Sommers was dead, but his son, Tuan Sommers Junior, was still very much alive, and was, in fact, still running the estate. Another cable had been sent to young Tuan asking if the cave was still there, and if so, might we explore it?

  Was there a place near at hand where a marine aircraft could be landed? Obviously, we couldn't land in the jungle.

  The answer came back "yes ", as far as he knew the cave was still there, although he—

  Tuan Sommers Junior —had never seen it. The natives, holding the place to be haunted, wouldn't go near it. It would be possible to land a flying boat on a straight stretch of river near his bungalow, which was only about twelve miles from the alleged site of the cave.

  Not only would he have the river cleared of obstructions in readiness for our arrival, but he would be pleased to offer us the hospitality of his roof while we were there.

  This made the trip sound easy, a mere picnic, in fact—and up to a point it was. But only up to a point, as you will hear.

  With one thing and another it took us about a month to get to Mojok, which was the name of Sommers's estate. That didn't worry us, for we were in no particular hurry. As the cave had been there for at least sixty years there was no reason to suppose that it would disappear at that particular moment. In due course we landed on the river, and found young Sommers a very charming fellow. He seemed pleased to see us, for he had few visitors at his jungle retreat, and I must say he did us very well.

  But when we took a look at the jungle, the twelve mile trek that lay between us and the cave didn't look so good. There was no possible landing place nearer, so it meant that the journey would have to be made on foot. Moreover, as the cave was situated at a height of about ten thousand feet, the way was all uphill. There are some tidy-sized mountains in Borneo. Unfortunately, Sommers couldn't come with us because just at that time he had to go down to the coast to attend to some Government business, but he offered to lend us a guide—one of his Punan headmen. This fellow wouldn't go right to the cave, because, like the rest, he was scared of it, but he would at least take us to a point from where we should have no difficulty in finding it.

  W
ell, we set off. Sommers implored Donald to wear more suitable clothes, but the old man refused point blank to be parted from his top hat and frock coat. He said he had worn them all his life—which wasn't hard to believe—and wasn't going to discard them for any jungle. How he didn't melt in the heat, I don't know. In the bamboo swamps through which we first had to pass it was terrific—sticky, steamy heat. The mosquitoes were bad, and there was a fair number of snakes, but the worst curse of all was the leeches. They always are, in any tropic jungle. It doesn't seem to matter what you wear, some of the little beasts always manage to get inside and cling to your skin. We had to make frequent stops to remove the brutes.

  The fungi fascinated me—the most amazing forms you ever saw, all colours of the rainbow. Pitcher plants hung everywhere like enormous bowls of putrid water. If you touched one you got a pint of stinking fluid, all mixed up with dead flies, down your neck. Still, we accepted all this as a matter of course.

  At four thousand feet we entered a new world. I'd read somewhere about the moss forests of Borneo, but the writer didn't do them justice. Every inch of the ground, every tree trunk, every branch was covered with moss, thick green cushions of it, mats of it. It hung from the trees in festoons so that you appeared to be going through a fairy cave illuminated by pale green lights. I saw some wonderful orchids, too, but they weren't what we had

  come for. It was much cooler now, which made the going easier.

  In due course we reached a spot where Ulu, our Punan guide, stopped and told us he wouldn't go any farther. I was rather surprised at this because he spoke English quite well—he had been working for Tuan Sommers for years. But I suppose the old superstitions were still ingrained in him, and he stuck his toes in.

  According to the Doctor's altimeter we were now at nine thousand feet, still in moss forest, although the moss was less luxuriant, and the trees stunted and gnarled. Ulu pointed to a sort of ridge about five hundred feet above us and told us that we should find the cave there. He would wait—not that he expected ever to see us again. Although we had started at dawn it was now eleven o'clock, which meant that we had been six hours covering twelve miles—pretty good going in jungle, and uphill at that. Ulu said he would wait for a few hours. If we didn't come back he would know that the devil-devils had got us, and return alone. He wasn't going to be caught out in the jungle, after dark—no, sir.

  Reckoning that the return journey, being downhill, shouldn't take us more than four hours, we had until about three o'clock to do our exploring. So we had four hours before us—unless, of course, we cared to spend the night there and find our own way back the next day. We didn't discuss this. I think we all assumed that four hours would be long enough. At any rate, off we went, and there, sure enough, was the cave, a sort of narrow slit in the face of the cliff, obviously a flaw in the rock of which the mountain was composed. Outside the cave the moss was extremely thick, but instead of being green it had become a sort of dirty white. It was all as dry as dust, too, and crunched under our feet, rather like dried coral. We came upon an enormous python crawling through it; it was the same colour, sickly white. The creature seemed to be sick, too; at least, it made no attempt to attack us. In fact, it seemed to take it all its time to move at all. Before very long we knew why. We all carried torches, so in we went.

  One glance was enough to reveal that old Tuan

  Sommers hadn't lied. I won't say that the cave was white near the entrance; it wasn't; it was more of a pale grey; but as we went on it quickly became paler, and then dead white, snow white, an extraordinary spectacle. And now a singular state of affairs arose.

  Everything being white, we could see nothing but shadows. I bumped into a white bush without seeing it, and Algy nearly put his foot on a fair-sized snake. It was as white as the floor, so it's not surprising that he didn't see it. The snake, a queer, blunt-headed creature, hissed and went off down the cave. We looked at the bush. The flower, a kind of orchid, was white. The leaves were white and the stalks were white, so you could only tell which was which by the shape. There were flies on it, white flies, while white bats fluttered over our heads. In the light of our torches they looked like enormous white butterflies. You can't imagine how peculiar the whole effect was.

  Donald, of course, was tickled to death. It was he who discovered that the white stuff came off, like fine powder. He picked up a white worm from the floor, and drawing it through his hand, showed us that his palm was white. I did the same thing with a leaf.

  "It's a deposit of some sort," declared Donald. "Of what ? " asked Biggles.

  " Ah, that's what we've got to find out," answered Donald, smelling the stuff. "I think it's metallic," he decided. Our best plan would be to collect a piece of the rock and take it outside into the light. We shall then be able to examine it more closely."

  As he spoke he knocked a chip off the wall and asked me to carry it outside. When I went to pick it up I got the shock of my life. Once, when Biggles was running a transport company, I helped him to carry some gold, and that's pretty heavy stuff As a matter of detail, a cubic foot of it weighs eleven hundred pounds—say, half a ton. But this stuff . . .

  well, I had only to lift a small piece, but it took me all my time to drag it outside.

  The first thing we noticed was the colour. The part that had been exposed was still white, but the new face, where it had been chipped off, was red—a rich, glowing crimson.

  There was no doubt that it was a metal of

  some sort. Donald was as white as a sheet, and started babbling something about orichalcum. That was the first I ever heard of it.

  Then an amazing thing happened. The stuff started to smoke. I went to turn it over—and let out a yell. It was hot. We could only assume that exposure to light must have had this effect on it, because it was cold enough inside.

  Biggles said to me, "What are you looking so scared about ? "

  I answered, "Nothing." As I spoke I looked at his face and saw that it was chalky white. "

  You don't look too happy yourself," I said.

  It was old Donald who realized the truth. "Great heavens ! " he cried, "the stuff is oxidizing on us. We shall all have a coating of metal on us if we stay here."

  It was true. I looked at my hands. They were like chalk—horrible. "Here, let's get out of this," I suggested.

  By this time the piece of metal that I'd dragged outside was glowing scarlet; we were some distance away from it, but we could feel the heat from where we stood. Donald refused to go without taking a specimen of the stuff with him, although to touch the piece I had brought out was obviously impossible. Then, when we looked at the mouth of the cave we got another shock ; smoke was curling out—due, presumably, Donald thought, to the action of the air on the new face where he had knocked a piece "off. But what properly upset the apple-cart was the piece lying outside. I told you that the moss and undergrowth was as dry as tinder. Well, it caught fire, and in a few minutes the whole area was a sheet of flame. We had to bolt for our lives.

  What happened after that we don't know. The Doctor thought that the heat outside must have had some effect on the oxidized area just inside the cave, causing it to start glowing; this in turn affected the main lode in the interior. We don't know for pure. All I know is that when I looked back from the place where we had left Ulu the whole ridge was a blinding white-hot glow, painful to look at. Ulu had gone. Apparently he had lost his nerve as soon as the smoke appeared, so he didn't wait as he had promised. We made for home without him.

  I shan't forget that march in a hurry. What with the heat, and the smoke that rolled down into the valley, it was like toiling through an inferno. To make matters worse, the oxide acted as an irritant on our skins, so that before we got back to the bungalow the parts that had come in contact with the metal *ere blistered. We were at the bungalow for a month, recovering.

  What would have happened had we stayed in the cave longer than we did I can only guess. The Doctor is inclined to think that we should either have
become permanently oxidized, like the snakes and bats, or died from the effects.

  Donald submitted a report to the Royal Society after we got home, with the result that another party went to the mountain to make further investigations. But apparently we had spoilt the grotto. It couldn't be found. The whole of that part of the mountain where it had been had melted into a solid glassy-looking mass of rock. Whether the orichalcum inside—if that, in fact, is what it was—had burnt itself out, or whether it remains, nobody knows, and unless an earthquake occurs to expose the cave again, nobody is likely to know. If it's still there, as far as I'm concerned it can stay there. I've no desire to have an armour-plated hide.

  Ginger got up. "Well, chaps, that's all. I'm going up to have a look at my machine; she's flying a bit tail heavy."

  VI

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE PURPLE CLOUD

  THE hour was late. The mess fire, around which the officers of No. 666 (Fighter) Squadron had congregated, was low. Flight-Lieutenant Bertie Lissie was asleep on the settee. Some of the others were reading. Conversation, which for some time had been desultory, had died away.

  Henry Harcourt, who was sitting next to Ginger, broke the silence.

  Said he, "Ginger, I've been thinking about these adventures of yours with Dr. Augustus Duck. There's one thing I'm not clear about. What did these trips really amount to? I mean, did you discover anything of major importance? Did you achieve anything really useful? "

  "Certainly," answered Ginger promptly. "At Labyrinth Island we put an end to the activities of a gang of skin smugglers. By putting the kybosh on the Crooning Crocodile we made life easier for a tribe of ignorant savages."

  "Yes, I know all about that, but I was thinking more about the scientific aspect, which was really the object of these expeditions."