The Air-Commodore came up. "What do you fellows think you're doing," he rapped out.
"Well sir, I—er—" stammered Algy, nonplussed by this brusque greeting.
"I thought you came out here to stop wars, not start them."
"But we haven't started any wars," protested Algy.
"It sounds mighty like it to me," came back the Air-Commodore grimly.
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"What have you heard?"
"A man named Lindsay came to see me. Not satisfied with leaving a trail of dead men behind you it is now proposed to launch a major offensive in the territory of a friendly country."
"I don't think you've got it quite right, sir. I—" "Where's Bigglesworth?"
"He's somewhere in Iraq, or Persia—to tell the truth, sir. I'm not quite sure where he is.
But wherever he is it's doubtful if he's still alive. Hebblethwaite was with him. May I ask how you got here so quickly, sir?"
"When I heard Lindsay's story I decided it was time I took a hand. I was lucky to catch a Comet, with a spare seat, bound for South Africa. It didn't stop at Alexandria. but at Cairo. So I chartered this Dragon there intending to look for you, either at your hotel or, as seemed more likely, in gaol."
"I cabled you last night for instructions, sir, but didn't get a reply."
"I was on my way by then."
"May we have that Dragon, sir?"
"What do you want it for?"
"I think I'd better tell you what's happened," said Algy. And there, on a seat in the waiting-room, he gave the Air-Commodore a résumé of events up to date.
The Air-Commodore heard him out, and when he next spoke his tone of voice was less critical. "Yes," he said. "I agree. The position is pretty desperate. I didn't realize it until now." He looked at Marcel. "You certainly started something, my lad. When I came here I was only concerned with preventing this business from starting an international rumpus. Or, for that matter, a national one. Apart from half a dozen countries protesting at the violation of their territory, if a word of this gets into the Press there will be a fine old row. You know how it is. People will snap off at the handle and accuse government officials of co-operating with the racketeers, and all the rest of it. Every country in the Middle East is ready to blow up.
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It only needs a spark. But never mind about that now. We must do something about Bigglesworth. He must have been out of his mind to go to this Valley place."
"You know how he is, sir," protested Algy. "He won't accept hearsay evidence. To complete his case he wanted to see things for himself."
"What did you intend to do if you could get an aircraft?"
"Fly to the Valley of Tartars and pick up Biggles and Ginger—if they're still alive."
"It sounds a crazy proposition to me but we shall have to try it," said the Air-Commodore simply. "I'll come with you. Do you think you can find this place?"
"I think so, sir. Marcel has some good maps."
"Very well. We'll start right away. While the tanks are being topped up I'll ring the company that owns the Dragon and tell them what I'm doing.
I'd also better have a word with Sir George Graham, the British Chargé d'Affaires in Cairo. Get everything ready."
The Air-Commodore went off.
That was how it came about that a rather ancient Dragon arrived, later in the day, over the smouldering ruins of the secret squadron in the Valley of the Tartars. And it may be said here that Algy had some difficulty in finding the place. Indeed, it is unlikely that he would have found it had it not been for the tell-tale smoke, for the Air-Commodore had just given him orders to make for Mosul when it was noticed.
A few minutes later the aircraft was over the Valley.
There had been some conjecture as to what was causing the smoke. The Valley answered the question. What had happened was plain to see, and while Algy made his reconnaissance nobody spoke.
Then the Air-Commodore said: "So the Kurds are up to their old tricks again. If von Stalhein didn't shoot Bigglesworth the Kurds will have done so—and everyone else in the Valley by the look of things. I think we 148
can abandon hope of seeing any of them alive. Queer that after all these years Bigglesworth and von Stalhein should go out together. All right, Lacey. Head for Mosul.
"
"How about going down to see if—"
"Don't be ridiculous," interrupted the Air-Commodore. "What do you think we could do against that mob?"
Algy, looking down, knew in his heart that the question could be answered in one word.
Nothing. Had he been alone with Bertie he would probably have landed, in which case they would certainly have lost their lives. As it was, the Air-Commodore and common sense prevailed.
Reluctantly he turned the nose of the Dragon towards Mosul, the Nineveh of the Old Testament, of which the Prophet had so truly said, it would one day be cast down, and dry like a wilderness. For of the great walls that once took an army three days to march round, only a few crumbling stones, protruding from the sands, remain.
CHAPTER XVI
A STRANGE ALLIANCE
THOSE in the castle had watched the Dragon disappear over the horizon with sinking hopes. At least, Ginger had, for with its departure, the brief promise of relief that it had brought, went with it. He did not know who was in the machine, but whoever it was could not be blamed for keeping a safe distance between himself and the smoking ruins below.
On seeing that the aircraft did not intend to launch any form of attack the Kurds slowed the speed of their movements, although most of them continued packing up the 149
fruits of their victory. Some, on wiry desert ponies, galloped over to look at the castle, but while in the open took care to keep out of range.
After a while a number of them, both foot and horse, went into a conference, as their actions plainly showed, to decide what should be done about the surviving white men in the castle.
Biggles remarked: "The choice is between trying to winkle us out or leaving us to stew in our own juice. They know we can't get away."
Said von Stalhein : "They love fighting, these sons of dogs. They will try winkling."
Said Ginger: "I say they'll leave us to stew, leaving some men to make sure that we do."
This prediction proved to be the correct one, for as the sun sank into the desert, some of the men, after putting their horses out of sight in a wadi, took up positions on the hills, where they sat like vultures waiting for a stricken beast to die.
Biggles turned to von Stalhein. "What do you want to do? Please yourself.
I mean, you can ignore me."
Answered von Stalhein, in his cold, unbending voice: "Let us go out and kill some of these swine. I do not like the idea of sitting still waiting to die. Let us make it quick."
"You go, if that's how you want it," replied Biggles. "Personally, I shall eat my share of our unconsumed rations and go to bed. Playing hide and seek over hot rocks with those stiffs isn't my idea of recreation.
How do the men feel about it." Biggles looked up.
The men made it clear in no uncertain terms that they agreed with him.
They realized that they had to die, but saw no reason to hurry over it.
Von Stalhein bowed to the decision of the majority.
"We'll post guards," Biggles told von Stalhein. "We'll all take our turn.
That should make it easy. To sit too long staring at these silent hills by night isn't good for any man."
Watching from a loophole Ginger saw some Kurds 150
moving farther along the building. There they stopped to look at something, but he couldn't see what it was.
Guards were arranged. Biggles drew the first watch. The rest disposed themselves about the floor according to their fancy.
Ginger, physically tired and mentally exhausted by lack of sleep and the high-speed events of the past few days, knew nothing more until he awoke to see a moonbeam slanting diagonally through a loophole. So bright was it th
at for a startled moment he thought it was the beam of a torch. How long he had slept he did not know but he knew that it must be near dawn, for he could see von Stalhein, who had the last watch, squatting like a graven image in the doorway overlooking the bridge, his back to the room.
Ginger tried to go to sleep again, but to his annoyance he found himself getting ever more wide awake. And as he lay there, in a silence so profound that it seemed to beat on his eardrums, a feeling grew on him that all was not well. He could find no reason for this, but the feeling was not to be shaken off. It may have been the stirring of a dormant instinct, for certainly the conditions were ideal to arouse one if such a human faculty were still alive.
Half raising himself on an elbow he looked around. The others were sleeping. They might have been dead for all the movement they made. Only von Stalliein was awake, and in him he had the utmost faith, for whatever else he might be he was a soldier, whose early training had been at a school that had its foundations in iron-like discipline. No one would pass that doorway, he knew, while the Prussian ex-officer had breath in his body.
He lay back, and was half-way to sleep when a sound jerked him back to full wakefulness. It was only a slight rustle, no more than the hard dry skin of a snake might make on the stone floor. In fact, he thought it might be a snake. At all events, his nerves were now at full stretch, and he abandoned all idea of sleep. He lay still. But he was listening with that intensity, as one sometimes
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does in the dead of night, as if all his faculties were concentrated in that one sense.
Without being aware of it he was waiting for the sound to be repeated.
His eyes were open. They moved restlessly, probing the darkest corners of the room.
And these seemed all the darker by reason of the moonlit areas.
Suddenly his eyes switched. They came to rest on the narrow entrance to the spiral stairway that gave access to the upper storeys. Had something moved there or was it his imagination? He needed no telling that in conditions such as these imagination can play tricks, can make a fool of a man. Yes! Something had moved. What it was he did not know. All he could see was a vague shadow darker than the rest.
His hand closed over the cold square butt of his Luger. Very slowly he raised his hand, an inch at a time, until the muzzle covered the shadow.
Then he waited. He had to be sure. Sweat stood out in beads on his face from the strain, but still he would not risk making a fool of himself by alarming everyone for no purpose. Von Stalhein would sneer.
Then the shadow moved, swiftly but noiselessly, and he saw a man appear as if by magic just inside the doorway, pressed flat against the wall.
The Luger crashed. Ginger sprang up and fired again into the open doorway. Half blinded by the flashes of his pistol he shouted: "Look out!
They're here!"
For an instant, where all had been silence, pandemonium reigned as recumbent figures sprang to their feet groping wildly for weapons. Then a match flared. The little naked flame showed a wild, unkempt figure asprawl the floor.
"The door in the corner," said Ginger crisply. "Watch it. That's where he came from."
Von Stalhein did not leave his post. "What is it?" he asked.
"They're inside the building," Biggles told him.
Von Stalhein called to one of the men. "Watch that 152
bridge and don't take your eyes off it," he ordered curtly, and came into the room.
Ginger, still covering the doorway, pointed. "That's where he came in. I happened to be awake."
"By thunder! A good thing you were," muttered Biggles.
"I think there was another behind him but I'm not sure."
"Would you like me to go up and investigate?" von Stalhein asked Biggles.
"No—thanks. We're few enough to hold off this mob as it is. Don't go near that stairway anybody but be prepared for a rush. Thank goodness it'll soon be daylight." As he finished speaking Biggles put a match to an empty cigarette carton that he had picked up from the floor.
In its yellow light von Stalhein stepped forward and picked up a Luger pistol that had been thrown from the hand of the Kurd when he fell. It was fully charged. He also removed a bulging bandolier. "That is better,"
he said. "He got these in the camp. Kind of him to bring them to us. I don't think we need this," he concluded. Taking the dead Kurd by the foot he dragged him through the dust of the floor to the outer doorway and flung him out.
The others stood silent while the body went bumping with a clatter of stones to the bottom of the ravine. There was something about the action that fascinated Ginger, although it appalled him. In it, he thought, was revealed the difference between the Prussian and Biggles. Somehow he couldn't imagine Biggles doing that. Yet von Stalhein was fully justified. The man had come to kill them. Instead, he himself had been killed. It was desirable, if not essential, to dispose of the body, for in such heat it would soon become unpleasant. Von Stalhein had disposed of it by the only method possible; yet there was something about the way he did it that betrayed that 153
streak of ruthlessness for which a certain type of Prussian is notorious.
However, it was done.
Von Stalhein was still standing in the doorway surveying the scene outside. Suddenly he jerked up his hand and his pistol spat.
Simultaneously a bullet struck the stonework an inch or two from his head and ricocheted round the chamber. "I think I got him," said von Stalhein, without emotion.
"Come inside," ordered Biggles coldly. "You're drawing their fire, and one man more or less in that crowd will make no difference to them. But one man less will make a difference to us."
"So that is why you invited us in," sneered von Stalhein.
Biggles's face hardened. "Listen, Hauptmann von Stalhein," he said stiffly. "I have never seen any reason to regard you with affection but I have never expressed a wish to see you dead. You are at liberty to stay here or go outside, as you wish; you can go to the devil as far as I'm concerned; but while you choose to stay here you will take orders from me."
Von Stalhein clicked his heels and bowed.
Biggles turned to the others. "Whichever way they come they can only come one at a time. Von Stalhein, guard the outer doorway. Ginger, watch the inside one."
The order was obeyed and an attentive silence fell.
Time passed. So slowly as to be almost imperceptible the grey mysterious light of dawn crept through the ancient loopholes.
There was nothing to eat, nothing to do, after one of the men with what seemed an unnecessary amount of noise pulled up a bucket of water from the well.
After a while von Stalhein said "Excuse me, Bigglesworth; what are we waiting for?"
"For nothing in particular. There is a chance that the Kurds may go.
There is a remote chance that we may be relieved. Should either of those things happen, if we 154
are alive we shall profit. If we've thrown away our lives uselessly we shall not."
"Relieved? By whom?"
"Two friends of mine. You know them. They know roughly where we are. By some means or other they will get here. On that you may rely. The only matter in doubt is when they will get here."
"Surely the matter for doubt is what they will do when they come."
"That, I'm afraid, we must leave to them."
There was another interval of silence.
It was broken, first, by wild cries on the hillside, and then, a moment or two later, by the drone of aircraft.
"Here comes Algy," said Ginger, striving to remain calm.
"If it is he, then he is not alone, for I can see six machines,"
announced von Stalhein from the doorway.
The drone became a roar as the machines came on, and could presently be identified as Harts of the Iraqui Air Force. Curiously, perhaps, no one appeared to guess their purpose; at any rate it was not remarked. Ginger had just decided that it was only a routine patrol when there came the scream of falling b
ombs, and a few seconds later the sticks were throwing up clouds of sand and broken rock. Then the air vibrated as the machines broke formation, and diving, weaved over the landing ground and the surrounding hillsides. Machine-guns chattered.
Occasionally through the dust Ginger could see Kurds galloping towards the shelter of their mountains.
"Your friends seem to have gone to quite a lot of trouble," said von Stalhein.
"Whether they were responsible or not, someone is making quite a spot of trouble for our enemies," returned Biggles. "Ah ! Here comes that old Dragon. That explains it. I think we •had better stay where we are for a little while."
They watched while the Harts recovered formation 155
and stood away to the west. The Dragon landed. Then, into the Valley, slowly, rolled three armoured cars.
"That seems to be all," said Biggles. "Let's go down."
"May I have your orders please," requested von Stalhein, as coldly emotionless as ever.
"Oh, you'd better come with us," answered Biggles casually. "Our friends may have some cigarettes. I'm sure you can do with some. Anyway, I can."
Keeping a watchful eye open for snipers they marched out of the castle and on to the landing ground.
Long before they reached the Dragon Ginger had recognized not only Algy, Bertie, and Marcel, but, to his unbounded amazement, Air-Commodore Raymond.
"Quite a family reunion," observed Biggles whimsically. "As they say, wonders will never cease."
If Ginger was astonished to see the Air-Commodore it was no more than that of the others when they saw von Stalhein, as their expressions made apparent. Ginger realized, of course, that the rescue party didn't expect to find any of them alive; as in fact they were saying a few minutes later.
The Air-Commodore's face when Biggles introduced von Stalhein was a study. "You've heard of this gentleman, sir, but I don't think you've ever actually met," said Biggles, deadly serious.
"Yes . . . I mean no," said the Air-Commodore, in a curious voice.
Biggles winked at Algy as von Stalhein clicked his heels and bowed stiffly from the waist.
"War certainly makes strange bedfellows," averred the Air-Commodore, in a voice heavy with wonder. "I don't know why you aren't all dead. You can tell me later."
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