by W E Johns
‘Do you think you are fit to fly?’ asked Ginger anxiously.
‘I shall fly one of the Spitfires,’ answered Biggles coldly. ‘You will fly the other, because you know better than anyone else how I work in a case like this. Taffy, you will fly the Defiant. Sorry, Tex, but you and Henry will have to take charge of things on the ground. Don’t look so glum; if those Nazis get their feet on the floor you’ll have plenty to do, believe me. The three aircraft will leave the ground in fifteen minutes. That’s all. Now go and get cleaned up. Ginger, Taffy, Ferocity, stand fast.’
After the others had filed out, Biggles turned to those who were to fly. ‘This looks like being a tough show,’ he said. ‘I shall, of course, try to spring a surprise, for which reason I shall take you up to the ceiling. The Messerschmitts are bound to fly above the Junkers. I aim to go right down through them, which should upset them, if only for a few seconds. In a show like this seconds count. I shall go after the Junkers. The others will do what they can to keep the Messerschmitts off my tail. In your case, Taffy, I think your best plan would be to adopt the tactics Ball1 brought to a fine art in the last war. He used to throw himself straight into the middle of the enemy formation and then skid all over the sky, browning2 the whole bunch, and generally acting as though his idea was to ram anyone who got in his way. If you can get the enemy split up they’ll have to watch each other to prevent collisions. Make the most of that. Ginger, do what you can to keep my tail clear while I deal with the Junkers. I’ll meet you at the machines in ten minutes.’
Biggles had a new dressing put on his head, and a quick wash, which freshened him up considerably. When he went out he found the oasis a hive of activity. Arms were being distributed and men posted at strategical points. Airmen were struggling under loads of ammunition. Biggles made a quick round of the defences, and then joined Ginger, Taffy and Ferocity at the machines. For a little while, smoking a cigarette, he gazed at the eastern horizon; but as soon as the first pale flush of dawn appeared he trod his cigarette into the ground.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be heavy going while it lasts, but it shouldn’t last long. Today will see the end of either Salima or Wadi Umbo. When we sight the enemy stay close to me until I give the signal to peel off.’
Biggles swung himself into his cockpit and started the engine; he sat still for a few seconds with his engine idling, and then roared into air which, at that hour, was as soft as milk. Swinging round slowly towards the north-west he settled down to climb.
The radiance behind him became a living flame, and when some minutes later the rim of the sun showed above the horizon to put out the last lingering stars he smiled faintly with satisfaction. It was dawn. According to his calculations, Algy and the Karga Spitfires were still a hundred miles away, but every passing minute knocked five miles off the intervening distance. A glance at his altimeter showed that he was now at twenty thousand feet, but he continued to climb until Salima was no more than a lonely islet in an ocean of sand that rolled away to infinity. Ahead, the sky was clear. Biggles examined it methodically, above and below, section by section, for the tiny black specks that would be his first view of the enemy; but they were not in sight. At twenty-two thousand he turned on the oxygen and went on up to twenty-five thousand, at the same time turning a few miles to the north of a straight line between the two oases. Not for a moment did he relax in his ceaseless scrutiny of the sky. His face was like a mask, expressionless. Only his eyes seemed alive.
At last he saw what he was looking for. He spotted the four Junkers first; they were flying a good deal lower than he expected, not higher, he judged, than six thousand feet. Five thousand feet above them, and about a mile behind, four Messerschmitt 109’s followed the same course, like sharks in the wake of a convoy. Where were the rest? Lifting his eyes Biggles saw three more machines, perhaps five thousand feet above and a mile behind, the middle layer. All were on a straight course for Salima. Biggles had anticipated this, which was why he had edged to the north. He was anxious to avoid being seen before he struck. The Nazis had adopted a typical battle formation; there was nothing about it to make him change his plans.
As the top layer drew near he frowned. There was something odd about them. Then he saw what it was. They were not all the same type. The leading machine was a Messerschmitt 109 F., an improvement on the 109. This settled one question. If von Zoyton was in the party he would be in the new machine. Where the aircraft had come from Biggles did not know, nor did he care. The machine was there, and that was all that mattered. With the Nazi ace at the joystick it was far and away the most formidable member of the hostile force, worth probably half a dozen ordinary Messerschmitt 109’s flown by pilots of average ability.
The enemy machines were still flying straight towards Salima. Biggles allowed them to pass. He felt sure that not one of the Nazis had seen the three British machines sitting nine thousand feet above them, or some move would have been made, some signal given. Von Zoyton would have placed himself between them and his vulnerable troop carriers. Once behind them, Biggles knew that there would be still less chance of discovery, for von Zoyton and his pack, if expecting trouble, would look for it ahead, in the direction of Salima; so Biggles swung round in a wide half-circle that brought him about two miles behind the enemy machines, on the same course, and still well above. He moistened his lips and braced his body. The time had come. He turned his head to look at Ginger and Taffy in turn. They were both watching him. He nodded. Then, with his lips set in a straight line by the strain of the impending action he thrust the control column forward. With a wail of protest the nose of the Spitfire tilted down until it was in line with the top layer of enemy machines. Speed, now, was what he needed, if he was to reach his real objective – the four Junkers troop carriers, which from his height looked like four bloated locusts crawling across the dunes.
Forward and still farther forward Biggles thrust the joystick, the needle of the speed indicator keeping a quivering record of his rate of dive. The top layer of Messerschmitts seemed to float up towards him as the distance closed between them. At any moment now von Zoyton might glance in his reflector and see what was coming down behind him, but so far he had not moved. The 109 F. was still cruising on even keel. Biggles could see every detail of the machine clearly. He studied it dispassionately, noting that von Zoyton had even found time to paint his nose and rudder blue; but his hand made no move towards the firing button. For the moment he was not concerned with Messerschmitts; his target was the machines that alone could wipe out Salima beyond recovery. His Spitfire, nearly vertical, flashed past the noses of the three Messerschmitts.
He went straight on down towards the second formation. He knew that von Zoyton would be tearing after him now, but confident that the Nazi could not overtake him before he reached the Junkers he did not trouble to look back. If all the three Messerschmitts were on his tail, as he guessed they would be, they would have to be careful to avoid collision with the second layer when he went through it. In this way he was for the moment making their superior numbers a handicap, not an asset.
He flashed past the middle layer of the four 109’s like a streak of lightning and the Junkers lay clear below, as helpless as whales basking on a calm sea. Down – down – down he tore, his airscrew howling like a lost soul in agony. A glance in the reflector now revealed a sight that brought a mirthless smile to his lips. The sky behind seemed full of machines, some near, some far, but all following the line of his meteoric dive. Satisfied that he had achieved his object in throwing the Messerschmitts into a confusion from which they would take a minute to recover, he took the nearest Junkers in his sights. But he held his fire. The range was still too long, and he had no ammunition to waste on chancy shooting.
Not until he was within five hundred feet did his hand move to the firing button. Then his guns flamed, and the Spitfire vibrated under the weight of metal it discharged. His face did not change expression as he saw his tracers cutting white lines through the
air into the fat body of the troop carrier. A fraction less pressure on the control column and the hail of bullets crept along the fuselage to the cockpit. Splinters flew before their shattering impact. A tiny spark of fire appeared, glowing ever brighter.
Biggles waited for no more. A touch on the rudder-bar brought his nose in line with the leading Junkers. Again his guns spat death. Again splinters flew as his bullets ripped through the swastika-decorated machine, which staggered drunkenly before making a swerving turn, nose down.
So close was Biggles by this time that he had to pull up sharply to avoid collision. While in the zoom, the grunt of guns behind him made him kick out his left foot, which brought him skidding round as though struck by a whirlwind. He had a fleeting view of a 109 as it flashed past. He jerked up his nose, fired a quick burst at it, and then snatched a glance around to see what was happening.
The picture presented was one that only a fighter pilot sees. The sky was full of aircraft, banking, diving and zooming, as much to avoid collision as to take aim. From the eddying core of the dogfight a number of machines appeared to have been flung out. A Messerschmitt was going down in flames. Another Messerschmitt and the Defiant, locked in a ghastly embrace, were flat-spinning earthward. There was no one in the cockpit of the Defiant. From the Messerschmitt the pilot was just scrambling out. Flung aft by the slipstream he hurtled against the tail unit and bounced off into space. A Spitfire and the blue-nosed 109 F. were waltzing round each other. Von Zoyton seemed to be trying to break away, but every time he straightened out the Spitfire dashed in, guns blazing, forcing him to tum. Below, only two Junkers were in sight. They were some distance apart. One was making for the oasis, nose down; the other was circling as if the pilot could not make up his mind what to do. All this Biggles saw in an instant of time. Without hesitation he roared down after the Junkers that was still heading for Salima.
Again he held his fire until the last moment, and then poured in a long, deadly burst. The bullets missed the fuselage at which he aimed; they struck the port wing near the root, and the effect was as if the wing had encountered a bandsaw. It began to bend upwards. The slight play at the tip, always perceptible in a big metal wing, became a regular flap, horrible to watch. Then the sheet metal began to tear like paper; the wing broke clean off, and whirling aft, passed so close to Biggles before he could turn that he flinched, thinking that it must strike him. The Junkers rolled on its side, while from the cabin, in quick succession, the paratroops dived into space.
Biggles turned away, and looking for the last surviving troop carrier saw that it had gone on, and had nearly reached Salima. Below and behind it parachutes were hanging in the air like scraps of paper windblown. It had succeeded, or almost succeeded, in its allotted task, and there was nothing he could do about it – except hope that those at the oasis would be able to deal with any paratroops that managed to reach it. His anxiety on this score was short-lived, and he smiled when he saw the armoured car burst from the trees and race towards the place where the paratroops would land.
Satisfied, he turned away. His head was now aching unmercifully, and he was almost overcome by a fit of nausea. He knew that he had been flying on his nerves; that he had already overtaxed his physical strength and was not in a condition to carry on the fight; yet he could not bring himself to leave the air to a victorious enemy. Worried by a growing sense of unreality he began to fear that he might faint. There seemed to be very few machines about, and these were widely scattered; but he could still see four Messerschmitts. One was retiring, but the other three were converging on him. Where was Ginger? Glancing down he was just in time to see the Spitfire strike the ground flat on the bottom of its fuselage, bounce high, stall, and then bury its nose in the yielding sand. Ginger was out of the fight.
Dry-lipped, feeling sick and faint, Biggles turned to meet the Messerschmitts. The matter would soon be over one way or another. He knew he could not hang out for more than a few minutes. The Messerschmitts seemed to be a long way away. He could not think what they were doing. He found it hard to think at all. From their behaviour it seemed that the hostile aircraft were hesitating, inclined to break off the combat. Setting his teeth he flew straight at them. Then a movement to the right caught his eye, and he saw four machines in a scattered line roaring towards the scene. For a moment he stared at them uncomprehendingly. Then he understood why the Messerschmitts were packing up. The Karga Spitfires had arrived.
But what were they doing? They appeared to dance in the air like midges over a garden path on a summer night. They became blurred, like a photograph out of focus. The sky was beginning to tum black. Biggles bit his lip until it hurt. His hands were trembling, clammy; cold sweat broke out on his face. ‘My God!’ he thought. ‘I’m going to faint.’ Pulling back the cockpit cover he tried to rise, to throw himself out, but all the strength seemed to have left his body. Abandoning the joystick, he used both hands to raise himself, but as the full blast of the slipstream struck him he paused, gulping in the refreshing air. It revived him. He began to feel better. Things began to clear, so he slid back into his seat, cut the engine, and began a steady glide down. At first he was content to lose height, but as his strength returned he looked around and set a course for the oasis.
His landing was purely automatic, although he would have run on into the trees had not a mechanic had the wit to dash out and grab a wing tip so that the machine slewed round, raking up the sand. Biggles switched off and sat still, limp from reaction. Flight-Sergeant Smythe’s face, pale with concern, appeared beside him.
‘Are you all right, sir?’
‘Yes, I’m all right,’ answered Biggles weakly. ‘Drink – get me a drink.’
The flight-sergeant shouted and a man came running.
Biggles drank from the water-bottle, carelessly, the water gushing unheeded down his chin and over the front of his jacket. ‘Phew!’ he gasped. ‘That’s better. Give me a hand down, flight-sergeant. I’m a bit shaky on my pins. What’s happened?’
‘Nothing much, sir. We soon mopped up the umbrella men3.’
Tex appeared. With the flight-sergeant he got Biggles down and steered him towards the palms.
‘I’m all right now,’ declared Biggles. ‘Let me sit in the shade for a minute. I must have got a touch of sun.’
‘What you’ve got,’ said Tex deliberately, ‘is a touch of overwork.’
Biggles sat down and had another drink. ‘What about Ginger?’
‘He’s all right,’ answered Tex. ‘He ran out of slugs and came down for more – but he was in too much of a hurry considering his under-cart was shot to bits and wouldn’t unstick4. He came a lovely belly-flopper. He’s got a black eye and a split lip. The last I saw of him he was sousing his face in a bucket of water.’
‘What about Taffy and Ferocity?’
‘This looks like ’em, coming now.’
Looking up, Biggles saw them walking towards the oasis, dragging their brollies. Taffy was limping. They seemed to be having a heated altercation.
‘Look at them, the fools,’ muttered Biggles, beginning to laugh. ‘Tex, go and stop them, or they’ll be fighting each other in a minute.’
Presently they came up. Taffy was incoherent. ‘He did it, look you!’ he shouted.
‘Did what?’ demanded Biggles.
‘Broke my Defiant. I wanted to go one way, whatsoever—’
‘And he wanted to go another way?’ put in Biggles.
‘Yes,’ agreed Taffy disgustedly.
‘And between you you ran into a Messerschmitt? You see what happens when two people try to fly the same kite?’ said Biggles sadly. ‘Where are the Karga Spitfires?’
‘Chasing the Huns back home,’ grunted Taffy.
Biggles started. ‘Hello! What the dickens . . . what’s this coming?’
They all looked up as a deep-throated roar announced the approach of a heavy aircraft.
‘It’s a civil machine,’ said Tex. ‘It must be the freighter – bound for the West C
oast. Sure, that’s it.’
‘Do you know,’ said Biggles, ‘I’d clean forgotten all about it. No matter, it ought to be able to get through without any trouble. If it doesn’t – well, I can’t help it. I’ve never been so tired in my life. When Algy comes back tell him to carry on.’
Biggles lay back, closed his eyes, and was instantly asleep.
1 Albert Ball, British World War One fighter pilot who shot down 44 planes. He was killed in 1917.
2 Slang: shooting his machine-gun at as many aircraft as possible.
3 R.A.F. slang for paratroops.
4 i.e. his wheels wouldn’t descend into landing position.
CHAPTER 17
THE LAST ROUND
THE SUN WAS fast falling towards the western horizon when Biggles awoke. He was still lying under the palms, although someone had put a pillow under his head. Ginger, his face black and blue, lay stretched out beside him. The flight-sergeant was standing by. Everything was strangely quiet. Biggles took one look at the sun and then called the N.C.O.
‘Flight-sergeant, what do you mean by letting me sleep so long?’ he demanded.
‘Mr. Lacey’s orders, sir. He said you were to sleep on.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Resting, sir.’
‘All right. Tell all the officers I want to see them in the mess tent right away.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Biggles prodded Ginger. ‘Here, snap out of it.’
Ginger started and sat up. ‘What, again?’ he moaned.