At sunset we went off, and by nightfall we were in position. A wonderful moon, nearly full, gave us a good view of Donald, calmly sitting out in the open.
I squatted under a tree-fern on the edge of the jungle, with the clearing in front of me. I couldn't see the others but I knew where they were.
Let me say at once that this was a more creepy business than it may sound. When darkness settles on a jungle, any jungle, all sorts of things start to move about, mostly small things, of course, but even small things have an eerie way of rustling or swishing about. In the intense silence even ants make quite a noise as they creep about among the dead leaves on the ground.
For a long time nothing happened. Every quarter of an hour Biggles whispered, "All's well ", and we replied as arranged. Apart from a few bats, about the size of our own, flitting across the face of the moon, there was little to see. I noticed a rat. He passed me quite close. He seemed to be turning over little stones, looking for something underneath them. Once he stopped and had a good look at me. Then he went about his business and disappeared on the far side of the dell. Obviously, he was not the culprit.
Then I saw an odd thing. It was nothing to be afraid of. In fact, I was amused. One of the little bats suddenly swooped down and hung on to a dead stalk quite close to my feet.
From there he hopped to the ground. Then he began what seemed to be an extraordinary series of antics—still without alarming me. Looking like a little fat mouse, he began to run towards me in a series of sideway rushes, each rush bringing him nearer. At last he was so close that I could see his tiny eyes shining. They glinted red in the moonlight. At that stage my impression was that either the little creature had hurt itself, or else it was looking for worms on the ground. Then, suddenly, without a sound, it took wing and hovered in front of my face, about a yard away. Its wings moved so quickly that I couldn'
t watch them. It was rather like a humming bird, except that this little creature swung slightly from side to side. Even then all I thought was what an extraordinary thing to do. I wondered what it was after. Not for an instant did I suppose that it was after me.
I find it difficult to describe what happened next. I've never been a believer in hypnotism, but the effect of this swinging in front of my eyes must have been hypnotic. I just sat and stared; and as I stared the use went out of my limbs. It was like having gas at the dentist'
s. I could feel myself going off. The dickens of it was, I could do nothing about it. I suppose I was too far gone. Then in a vague sort of way I was aware of the bat coming closer. Then the fluttering ceased, and I knew it had settled on me. There was a tiny prick in my throat that might have been made by the sharpest needle imaginable. And that's all I remember. The next thing I knew I was lying on my back on the camp-bed in our house with the others standing round me. Donald, in his shirt sleeves, was holding a bottle near my nose. I heard him say, "It's all right, he's coming round."
In ten minutes I was sitting up drinking hot milk and telling them what had happened. It appeared that I had failed to answer "All's well" when my turn came. Promptly investigating, they had found me unconscious. They had seen the bat fly off my face, just as a number of others were coming down for a meal. I had been unconscious for about an hour, and then the Doctor had brought me round.
As he put his instruments away he gave us his views. "We know now that the thing is a bat, evidently a new species," he said. "First it mesmerizes its victim, in much the same way that a hypnotist mesmerizes a subject by passing his hands in front of a person's face. Then it settles, and reduces the victim to complete unconsciousness by means of a fluid injected through a tiny tube, in the manner of a hypodermic needle. It then proceeds to satisfy its hunger, in which nasty business it is joined by hundreds of others."
But surely it would take a lot of bats to kill a man ? " I questioned.
'There were a lot of bats in the air at the time, and had we not interrupted the programme doubtless others would ha've arrived. The creature is, of course, a yam pire bat, evidently a new species; at any rate, it is unknown to me. Had such a creature always been in existence we should certainly have heard about it before this."
"What are we going to do about it?" I asked, feeling my face, which was still stiff from the effects of the injection.
We've got to find the colony, and exterminate every single bat," declared Biggles. It doesn't take much imagination to visualize what will happen if the little horrors breed and form new colonies. The islands, perhaps the whole of Central America, will become uninhabitable. It is to be hoped that so far there is only one colony of the voracious little brutes. It may not be easy to find, but we must make every effort."
"It should not be difficult," asserted Donald. "All known species of bats, having nocturnal habits, live in caves, hollow trees, or similar places, where they can remain in darkness during the day. If these little wretches have the same habit, and we may suppose they have, we ought to be able to find their headquarters. We'll get busy in the morning."
We got busy, too, but we didn't find the nest. I may mention that I felt no ill effects from the previous night's experience, and was able to join in the search. We were more than a week finding the place, and then we—or rather, Algy—only came across it by accident.
We were on a hillside, and he was climbing up a tangle of lianas to reach a ridge higher up, thinking there might be a cave there, when he shouted down to us that he could hardly breathe for the stink. The next moment he came sliding down, looking a bit shaken. "I've found 'em," he gasped. "They're in a crack in the rock, in a kind of recess, behind those lianas."
Well, we clambered up, and pulling the lianas aside, found that they concealed a long shallow cavity in the face of the cliff. It looked as if a lump of rock had fallen out, as sometimes happens in a cliff at the seaside due to the action of wind or water. There was plenty of room to move about. There was no sign of the bats, but we guessed they were there by the frightful stench. Long streaks of what looked like black treacle, oozing from a crack, told us where the creatures were.
Donald stepped forward, torch in hand, and shining the beam into the crack, took a peep.
"Yes," he said, "here they are—thousands of them. " Passing me the torch he added, "
Have a look."
As long as I live I shan't forget the sight that met my eyes. The crack, for as far as it extended, was packed with bats, piled on each other like bees in a hive. Their little eyes shone like sparks of fire as they stared at me, those behind pushing their way forward to get a look. With their little pointed ears flat back on their heads, like angry terriers, their lips curled, showing their flat pointed teeth, and their faces twisted into expressions of diabolical fury—well, even now the picture sometimes haunts my dreams. There was a noise which at first I couldn't account for; but when I realized with a shock that it was the grinding and gnashing of innumerable little teeth, I don't mind telling you that I stepped back quickly.
"What are we going to do with them now we've found them?" asked Biggles.
"They must be destroyed," declared Donald firmly. "The most humane way of disposing of them would be to asphyxiate them with gas."
Algy, in the meantime, was having a look. What possessed him to do such a thing I don't know, but plucking a stick, he gave the little beasts a poke. That did it. Before you could say Jack Robinson they were pouring out of that hole like a swarm of hornets. And they didn't just come out and fly away. They came straight at us, ripping at our faces with their teeth.
Biggles let out a yell. "Run for it ! " he shouted, and we needed no second invitation. We slid down those lianas a lot faster than we had come up. When we got to the bottom Biggles looked round "Where's Donald ? " he said. He wasn't with us. Back went Biggles up the vines, and presently he reappeared with the limp form of Donald over his shoulder. Why the bats had particularly made for the Doctor I don't know, but' he was smothered with the brutes.
Striking and slashing at the swarm, we got Dona
ld clear and made for the village. By the time we got to it we were all in a bad way, but Donald had been fairly stuffed full of poison. We did all we could for him. In our anxiety we forgot all about the bats. Later that evening, when we went outside for a breath of fresh air, we saw a mighty column of smoke going up. It looked like a volcano.
The natives, it seemed, had—unknown to us—been watching us. They saw the bats put us to flight, and they watched them return to their lair. Then they decided to take matters into their own hands, and I can't say that I blamed them. They covered the face of that cliff with an enormous heap of dry brushwood and then set fire to it. The bats must have been suffocated in the smoke. Not one escaped—or if it did, it has kept quiet, for from that day to this there has been no recurrence of the trouble. As soon as we were well enough to travel we flew Donald back home, and after that experience he decided to take things quietly for a while.
Ginger got up. "I think that story illustrates my contention," he declared. "If those bats hadn't developed a secret weapon—well, I don't know what you'd call it. Now I'm going for a stroll."
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