27 Biggles - Charter Pilot

by Captain W E Johns

replied Ginger frankly.

  "What was the snag?"

  Matter of fact, there were two or three; but the chief trouble was, under the influence of this Herculean dope a fellow, not being used to it, didn't know his own strength, and that being so, he was likely to do himself, and anyone near him, a serious mischief. After I'd had a dose I broke everything I touched."

  There was more laughter, but Ginger went on. "Another snag was, it made you grow—

  then your clothes didn't fit."

  "And where did all this happen, if I may ask ? " inquired Bertie coldly.

  "In Patagonia."

  "Was Dr. Duck there?"

  "Of course."

  "What were you doing in Patagonia ? "

  "Looking for the Patagonian giants."

  "What gave you that bright idea ? "

  Ginger shook his head.

  It's a long story."

  "Never mind. We've nothing to do unless Jerry comes over. Tell us about it."

  Ginger got into a comfortable position and proceeded with the narrative : When Columbus discovered America, as you may have heard, about four hundred and fifty years ago, he was soon followed by a lot of other fellows anxious to grab anything that was going. They explored the coast, some going north, others south. Those who went south, if they went far enough, eventually came to the southern tip of the continent—Cape Horn. They had to sail round this tip to get up the other, the Pacific, side. This was no easy matter, and things weren't made any easier by the natives who lived on the mainland. According to all accounts, these people were giants.

  Admittedly, in those days some pretty tall stories were told, but there seemed to be no reason why mariners should invent a race of giants if they didn't really exist. It wasn't as though only one ship's company saw them. Scores of people saw these giants, and in a good many official log-books we find descriptions of them. It is not surprising, therefore, that these giants became an accepted fact. But later, when steamboats appeared, and scientists went out to look for the giants, they couldn't be found. What happened to them nobody knows. This is a mystery that has puzzled scientists ever since. It puzzled Dr.

  Duck. That these giants existed we need not doubt. Master Francis Pretty, who went round Patagonia with three ships under General Thomas Candish, and afterwards wrote an account of the voyage, says that they caught one of these giants, and, by measurement, found that the soles of his feet were eighteen inches long. That, in proportion, would make the man about nine feet tall. As a matter of detail I saw some who must have been taller than that.

  Mind you, I knew nothing about this until Dr. Duck came in one day and gave us the benefit of all the information that he had collected on the subject. His idea was, as you may suppose, that we should go and have a look for these lost giants. And that was really the object of our voyage, although it turned out somewhat differently from what we expected. At any rate, we went, and I may say that it was no picnic. I've never been so cold and miserable in my life as I was in Patagonia. I don't mind clean, hard frost, but the icy wind nearly got me down. Of all the bleak spots on the face of the earth Patagonia must be the worst.

  There's only one word to describe the country, and that is terrific. The mountains are enormous, and they're just piled together in one frightful conglomeration. Rocks, boulders, ice, snow and glaciers—that's Patagonia. I did see one or two stunted trees, but they had been distorted by the frozen blast into hideous shapes. It is just the sort of spot where you'd expect to find monsters, and I don't wonder that the early navigators did their best to keep clear of it. There's no question of landing aircraft on the open sea; it's too rough; nor are there any level areas of land where a machine could be put down ; but on account of the huge waves that beat on the shore there are places where the water has eaten into the land, after the manner of Norwegian fiords, and these, being protected by towering cliffs, are more like lakes than bays.

  We made our first landing on one of these, much to the surprise of the armies of penguins and sea elephants which, for some reason best known to themselves, have chosen this soul-chilling spot for their headquarters. I didn't like it a bit; nor did Biggles.

  Had the aircraft been damaged—and that possibility was always on the boards —I don't suppose we should ever have been heard of again.

  The only petrol we had was what we carried, so we had to use it carefully. We reckoned we had enough for about three fairly extensive survey flights.

  The first two flights revealed only those things that could have been seen from any one of the mountains—just a waste of rock, lashed by the wind into terrifying shapes, scored and scarred by glaciers and gulches. I'd seen some bad country, but never anything like this, and I broke into a cold perspiration every time I thought of what must happen if our engine let us down. Actually, it did, but by one of those miracles—but let me keep the story in proper sequence.

  On the third, our last trip, Biggles headed north, deep into the hinterland, perhaps the most inaccessible spot on the face of the earth. Naturally, as we were now heading away from the South Pole, a slight change of temperature became 'perceptible, and this was reflected on the terrain below. Some of the depressions were filled with water instead of ice, and there were greenish areas showing where some sort of vegetation had secured a hold. This, we found out later, was chiefly moss, heather, and dwarf birch trees.

  We were flying up a long depression, with a narrow strip of water marking the deepest part, when the engine coughed. We were only a few hundred feet up at the time, so things looked grim. Biggles turned at once and headed back for our base. The engine kept on choking and picking up again, but as soon as Biggles started to climb steeply to get over the surrounding mountains it vibrated so badly that I fully expected it to tear itself off its bearers. I was sitting next to Biggles. He looked at the mountains and shook his head.

  "I daren't risk it," he said, looking pretty worried. "We shall never get back. Our only chance is to stay here, where we can at least get down, and try to locate the cause of the trouble." It was obviously the most sensible thing to do so he turned again, and going into a glide, put the Wanderer down on the water. It was a rotten. landing—one of the few times I've seen Biggles slip up. But he's only human after all, and I reckon anyone would have made the same boob. The water was inky black, and reflected the sky like a mirror, making it almost impossible to judge just where the surface was. He had just flattened out when we hit the drink an almighty crack that shook me not a little.

  However, the Wanderer stood up to it, and although she flung a lot of water over herself, she finished up in one piece. As soon as we'd recovered from the shock we taxied up to the bank, a shallow shelving beach of shingle, and made ready to have a look at the engine.

  I was unpacking the tool kit when Algy let out a strangled cry that brought me out on the hull to see what was wrong. I took one look and nearly passed out. There were the giants, men and women, right on top of us —so to speak. They were standing at the edge of the water, looking at us. Behind them were a lot of square-cut holes in the face of the cliff from which they had evidently emerged. There was one saving grace about the situation.

  They didn't look hostile, although some of them were carrying clubs that appeared to have been made out of the knotted roots of trees. In fact, the women looked a bit scared and hung back, Had it not been for their beards we should have found it hard to tell which were men, for they were all dressed alike—just one simple garment of what seemed to be sheepskins. Their legs were bare, but their feet were bound up with thongs of the same stuff. I suppose their average height would be about nine feet. That may not sound very tall, but it made us look like midgets. Then one of them, supposing that we wanted to come ashore, caught hold of the Wanderer's bows with a hand like a leg of mutton and pulled the machine up on the beach—just like that. The aircraft might have been a toy canoe. That was the first indication we had of their strength.

  Biggles, looking a bit pale about the gills—as well he mig
ht—made the traditional signs of friendship, holding Out his hands as much as to say, "Come on, folks, it's all right."

  There was no question of doing anything else. We couldn't run away, and it would have been crazy to start rough tactics; so we just tried to look as though we'd been hobnobbing with giants all our lives. You ought to have seen Donald's face. Taking the camera, he went

  ashore, whereupon one of the giants grabbed his topper to have a look at it. It seemed to amuse them. Another one in spite of Donald's protests, took the camera; but either because he didn't know his own strength, or because he wasn't used to handling delicate mechanism, the silly ass squashed it flat between his finger and thumb and picked it to pieces. Donald let out a bleat like a wounded sheep, but it was too late to save the camera.

  But the real shock was yet to come. One of them spoke. It was a hoarse, uncouth voice, but the words sounded like, "Where have you come ? " We all looked at each other.

  Biggles gasped, "Am I crazy, or is that fellow talking English?"

  The same giant answered. He said, "Me talk. Me Amos."

  This shook me to the quick, because although the fellow spoke English he certainly didn't look British. Of course, this made things easier. Biggles said we'd been shipwrecked, and they all nodded as if they understood. Upon this they invited us into one of their cave-houses. It turned out to be a much bigger room than we expected ; in fact, it was the general assembly hall, so, following their example, we sat down on heaps of dry moss. It wasn't very comfortable because there was a fire burning in the middle, both for heat and light, and as there was no proper chimney the smoke got in our eyes. Next, they produced a whacking great oyster shell for each of us. A woman staggered in with a cauldron of soup and sloshed some into each shell.

  "It's going to be all right," said Biggles, looking mighty relieved.

  There were no spoons, but taking cue from our hosts, we picked up the shells and drank the soup. It was awful. It tasted like nothing on earth. I'd no sooner drunk mine than an extraordinary feeling started to creep over me. I felt sort of elated, as though I were somewhere else, looking at myself. How can I describe it . . . ? I felt that I was swelling

  like a balloon, as if I was as light as a feathers

  "Great Scott ! I've been poisoned," gasped Algy, looking scared stiff.

  Biggles pointed out that it must be all right, because we were all—including the giants—

  eating soup out of the same dish. The giants evidently understood Algy's alarm, and said something about the food making us strong. And it was true. I felt that I could push a house over. I had taken a screwdriver out of the tool chest, so to test myself I gave it a twist. It crumpled up like a straw. Biggles said, "You silly ass, don't do that." And taking the tool off me he straightened it. It might have been soft lead instead of steel.

  Upon this Algy suggested that we got to work on the engine, because he was getting worried. So we all trooped out, giants as well, except Donald, who, with a notebook on his knee, started talking to the head giant. We got busy on the machine. The trouble turned out to be 4 blocked petrol lead. It was dark by the time we'd cleared it. Algy wanted to get off right away and risk a landing at our base in the moonlight, but Donald was enjoying himself and refused to go. It seemed that while we had been working on the machine he had been making discoveries. In front of him were several pieces of faded parchment which, he told us, were regarded by the natives as tribal treasures. And they explained a good deal. I couldn't read the writing on these parchments, but Donald, who had studied them, said they were pages out of an old sea log-book. The writing was early English, with a lot of Norman-French and Latin mixed up with it. There was a crude chart, lettered in Spanish, which bore the date 1381.

  "That means," Donald pointed out, "that these people were the real discoverers of America—certainly the first colonists. You realize that if this date is correct, and there is no reason to doubt it, the ancestors of these people must have landed here a hundred years before Columbus, who didn't cross the Atlantic until 1492. We know from William of Worcester's Annals of England, dated 1324, that the existence of the New World was known long before Columbus's time. He says that two ships went out from Bristol to find the island of Brazil—and that was not an isolated venture. There seems to be no doubt whatever that in 1381 an English ship got across. Probably it was wrecked on the coast. At any rate, the sailors couldn't get back, and they must have settled here, or, in the first place, near the coast, and intermarried with the natives. When the first Elizabethan mariners reported giants here they little knew that they were talking about their own countrymen. They were too scared to land and make inquiries."

  The giants had no idea of their origin. As far as they knew, they had always dwelt there.

  Their diet was pathetically frugal, for the inhospitable country offered practically nothing in the way of food. They had two main dishes, moss and a kind of fresh-water mussel which they found in the lake. These were stewed together, and it was the mixture that gave them strength. So, by the curious irony of fate, instead of starving to death as you might suppose, they had accidentally struck a diet which not only offered the vitamins necessary to support life, but increased their stature and their strength to a tremendous degree. They themselves were unaware of this because, as far back as they could remember, they had never made contact with other people. They assumed that they were normal and that we were dwarfs.

  Well, we spent the night there, and when we woke up in the morning our clothes were too small for us. I burst all my buttons. It was a most uncomfortable feeling. Not realizing our strength, we began to do silly things. I put my foot through the starboard plane. Biggles nearly tore the joystick out by the roots testing the controls. We smashed nearly everything we touched. As a result, we had a committee meeting and decided that we should have to be very careful. Actually, as we did not persist in the diet, the effect soon wore off, and we shrank to our normal sizes.

  We left the giants the next day. We parted good friends. Donald, of course, had samples of both the moss and the mussels. Unfortunately, by the time we got home they had died, and were just a putrid mass. Donald made a report to a body of scientists, but, to put it mildly, they were sceptical; whereupon he decided to take a party out. By this time winter had set in, so the trip had to be postponed until the following summer. Then we chartered a big flying boat and went back, only to find that in our absence a frightful disaster had occurred. The cliff in which the houses were built had collapsed in one enormous landslide, not only burying the unfortunate giants, who must have been in their caves, but filling the entire valley. There wasn't even a place to land. It was a terrible disappointment for poor Donald, but there was nothing we could do about it, so after cruising round for a While we had to come home again. And that's how the matter rests.

  Donald swears that he's going back again one day with an army of workmen to clear the landslide ; he'd need an army, too, for millions of tons of rock would have to be shifted.

  Really, in his heart, he knows that the project is impossible.

  Ginger yawned and looked up. "Well, that's all. I'm going for a stroll to get a spot of fresh air. Anyone coming?"

  VIII

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE MUSTY MAMMOTH

  FLYING-OFFICER " Ginger " Hebblethwaite, tired after his second patrol that day, stretched luxuriously in front of the mess fire. The action drew up one leg of his slacks, showing a strip of bare flesh between the top of the sock and the bottom of the trousers.

  Tex O'Hara noticed it, and smiled. Then his smile turned to a frown, and he leaned forward, eyes focusing on a mutilated section of skin.

  "Say, kid, that's a whale of a scar you've got on your leg," he remarked. "How did you pick that one up ? "

  Ginger glanced down. "Oh, that," he returned carelessly. " I collected that in a little affair with a mammoth."

  A hush fell upon the room, a silence broken by the tinkle of Bertie Lissie's eyeglass falling on the reading table.r />
  "Would you mind saying that again?" murmured Bertie. "I seem to be getting a little hard of hearing."

  "I said, that's where a mammoth gave me a poke with his tusk," repeated Ginger.

  "Did you say mammoth?" put in Henry Harcourt, in a queer voice.

  "That's what I said," replied Ginger. " M-a-mm-o—"

  We can spell," interrupted Henry irritably. "Are you asking us to believe that you were punctured by a prehistoric mammal— ?"

  "I'm not asking you to believe anything," yawned Ginger.

  "But the last mammoth passed out centuries ago,"

  ,

  declared Tug Carrington. Even I know that."

  "You wouldn't have thought so if you'd been with me on the day I—but what's the use of arguing? Ask Biggles, if you don't believe me."

  Something tells me that Dr. Donald was in this picnic," murmured Angus Mackail.

  He was," acknowledged Ginger. "It was his party. I was only a spectator."

  "Well, go ahead," invited Henry. "Tell us about it."

  Ginger settled himself comfortably on the settee, and this is the story he told : It was a dark and stormy night—I'm not joking. That's a fact. We—that is, Biggles, Algy and myself—were at home, in London, having a short spell of civilization. We had been to the flicks, and had just finished supper when the door was flung open and Dr. Duck burst into the room. He was obviously in a state of high excitement—as they say in thrillers. However, we got him into a chair, and waited for him to get his breath.

  "We've got to go," he declared.

  "Yes, I can see that," answered Biggles. "The point is, where?"

  To Greenland," says the Doctor.

  Greenland's icy mountains," grinned Algy.

  "Exactly," says the Doctor. "That's where we're going."

  "For what?" says Biggles.

  "Mammoths," says Donald.

  When he was coherent this is what he told us. For some years there has been a regular trade in mammoth ivory—that is, tusks. These tusks nearly all come from Siberia where they are dug out of a sort of bog country called the Tundra. Presumably at some time in the past the mammoths browsed there, and when they died they fell in the bog and in this way were more or less preserved. Mammoth ivory, therefore, is not an uncommon commodity, although as few people are concerned with it we don't hear much about it.