Biggles In Africa

by W E Johns

  They marched on, nor did they stop or speak again until they were within a stone’s throw of the rocks, now dreadful in their appalling desolation. Ginger was clearly very near the end of his endurance. He swayed as he walked; his eyes were glassy and there was a ring of dry dust round his cracked and blackened lips. Algy was in little better case. He could no longer keep his mouth closed and he was drawing his breath in short, painful gasps. Biggles alone seemed anything like normal, but his face was drawn and his lips compressed in a tight, obstinate line.

  ‘Stick it, chaps, we can’t be far way from water now,’ he said encouragingly. But his heart was sick with anxiety, for he knew that in all their travels they had never been in such a desperate plight. He felt in his pocket and took out his automatic as he continued along the track, looking warily to right and left as he reached the first rocks, shimmering in the noonday sun. His eyes fell on a half-devoured zebra and he redoubled his vigilance. With every nerve tense, he jumped violently, as, with a snort and scurry, half a dozen long-horned buck leapt up just in front of him and dashed off. For a second or two they bunched as they tried to scramble through a narrow cleft in the rocks. His hand jerked up. Bang! bang! bang! spat the automatic.

  At the third shot one of the animals fell, but it was up instantly, dashing after the others apparently unhurt. Biggles watched it go dispassionately. Then he turned to the spot from which they had appeared, and a cracked cheer broke from his lips as his eyes fell on a small pool of water. It was stagnant and it looked foul, particularly at the edges where the mud had been stirred up by the buck, which had evidently been wallowing in it.

  It was characteristic of him that instead of rushing forward and drinking he first looked back for the others. They were both hurrying towards the spot, Ginger making heavy weather of it some distance behind Algy. Biggles ran into the water beyond the edge of the disturbed area, and filling his topee, went back to meet them. Algy, he could see, would be able to reach the pool, so he passed him and went right on until he came to Ginger, who was beginning to stumble.

  `Here you are, laddie, take a sip,’ he said. ‘Take it gently... steady... steady... that’ll do for the present. Feel better?’

  Ginger looked up and smiled wanly. ‘That’s pretty good stuff,’ he vowed.

  ‘You wouldn’t think so in the ordinary way,’ grinned Biggles. Then he took a sip or two himself, allowing the liquid to trickle over his lips with ineffable relish.

  ‘Can I have some more?’ asked Ginger.

  Biggles passed him the hat. ‘Go easy with it,’ he warned him. ‘You’ll knock yourself out if you try taking too much at one go. Come on up to the pool.’

  They found Algy sitting by the edge of the water bathing his face; his hat stood beside him, and from it he drank sparingly from time to time.

  ‘I suppose we shouldn’t complain,’ observed Biggles presently when, their most urgent pangs of thirst assuaged, they were lying by the pool. ‘But this is pretty awful stuff. It ought to be boiled to make it fit to drink, but not having a can it can’t be done.’ He got up suddenly. ‘Stand fast everybody,’ he ordered. ‘Or better still, collect some of this grass and start a fire. You might be able to get some twigs from those bushes over there, but watch out you don’t trip over a lion; there’s one not far away. I shan’t be long.’

  He was back in about ten minutes, grinning broadly, and carrying a large slab of red meat in his hand. He nodded approval when he saw that a small fire had been started.

  ‘Where the deuce did you get that?’ asked Algy. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sirloin of zebra,’ smiled Biggles, laying the meat on a flat rock and commencing to carve it into strips.

  ‘But where?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve purloined somebody else’s supper,’ explained Biggles. ‘I saw a dead zebra just below as we came up, but until I went back to it I couldn’t be sure how long it had been dead. It must have been killed within the last few hours, which suggests to me that a tawny-coated gentleman by the name of Felix Leo isn’t far away. He’ll probably return to his kill at sundown for another snack, so we’d better keep clear of it. We shall have to move off from here, too, before nightfall, or we shall find ourselves holding up the drinking parade. If Mr. Leo wants to come and have a drink, I don’t feel inclined to stand in his way and argue about it.’

  Algy glanced at the sun, already sinking below the peaks of the mountains. ‘We’d better see about finding a shakedown, then,’ he suggested. ‘It won’t be long before it’s dark. Hadn’t we better take some water with us?’

  ‘All we can do is bung up the ventilation holes in our topees and fill them,’ replied Biggles, impaling a piece of meat on a stick and holding it to the blaze. ‘We needn’t go far away. I don’t fancy sleeping among these rocks, but we can’t be choosers.’

  For a little while they busied themselves with their meal, toasting thin strips of the meat and eating it half raw. It was tough and not very palatable, but their hunger was such that these shortcomings did not worry them, and at the end, with their strength rapidly returning, they were quite cheerful. They spent some time cooking what remained of the meat, and then, with Biggles carrying the whole of the unpleasant-looking stock threaded on a piece of wood, and the others each carrying a hatful of water, they set off to find a place where the night could be passed with reasonable safety.

  This was more difficult than it first appeared, for although there were plenty of caves and shallow recesses in the rocks, they all looked as if they might already harbour inmates; however, in the end they chose—somewhat hastily, for by this time it was almost dark—a ledge of rock several feet wide which was completely overhung by a low cliff. The last remaining minutes of daylight were spent collecting dry grass and anything that looked as if it would burn. They did not light this, for even if only a small fire was kept going their entire stock of fuel would not last more than half an hour, so they decided to preserve it against emergency, when it might serve as a protection against wild beasts or as a means of illumination in case of any other trouble. The night was then divided into three watches, Ginger taking the first, which is usually reckoned to be the easiest. These dispositions made, they settled themselves down for the night.

  For some time Ginger squatted on a rock and stared into the darkness with restless, anxious eyes. A breathless silence had settled over the land, but it was not the comforting quiet of peace and security ; rather was it an uneasy, living silence, a tense hush of expectancy, as if all the wild creatures of the veld were crouching, watching, waiting for something to happen.

  Presently a faint hum rose on the air. At first he wondered what it was; but when a tiny, burning pain, as of a stinging-nettle, stung him on the nose, he knew, and he brushed his face irritably with the back of his hand. Then came another, this time on the cheek, and he stirred uneasily although without alarm.

  ‘Confound these wretched mosquitoes,’ he muttered angrily, as a dozen stings assailed his neck simultaneously. ‘We’re going to have a bonny night if this goes on; it must be because we’re near that water,’ he thought, as he remembered Biggles once saying something about mosquitoes frequenting damp, marshy places, which they made their breeding-grounds.

  But in spite of all he could do to prevent it, which was no more than pulling his shirt up round his neck, the vicious attacks of the insects grew steadily more determined and intense, and he glanced behind him, realizing that Biggles and Algy were likely to be severely stung in their sleep; but their quiet, regular breathing reassured him, and he resumed his vigil in silent misery.

  The moon, a great lemon-tinted ball of light, crept up slowly over the horizon and bathed the landscape in a pale, eerie glow, insufficient, however, for him to make out more than the broad outlines of his immediate surroundings and the vast expanse of plain that rolled away—to the end of the world, it seemed—from the foot of the hill on which they had made their camp.

  Suddenly he stiffened and his mouth grew dry with horror a
s a dreadful uproar broke out somewhere below him. It began with a ferocious, snarling roar that was instantly drowned in a shrill scream of mortal terror. Then came a frenzied drumming of hoofs on hard earth, punctuated with blood-curdling growls. Another scream, ending in a pathetic, choking sob; then a silence that was quickly followed by a ghastly purring sound.

  Ginger shivered, and edged a little nearer to the overhanging rock.

  ‘What the dickens is going on?’

  Biggles’s voice made him jump, but he was relieved to hear it. ‘Phew!’ he gasped, moistening his lips and swallowing hard. ‘This is awful.’

  ‘What is? What’s going on? Something woke me up.’ Biggles raised himself into a sitting position.

  ‘Something is being killed, or has just been killed, down below. I think it was a lion killing a zebra. I can’t see anything, but the noise was shocking. I’m fairly sweating with funk, and I don’t mind admitting it. Not only that, but I am being torn to pieces by mosquitoes,’ went on Ginger miserably. ‘It feels as if they’ve had most of the skin off my face already.’

  Biggles rose to his feet. ‘I know,’ he muttered. ‘I’m nearly bitten to death, too. I was conscious of the things biting me even in my sleep. Whereabouts is this lion do you suppose?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. The sounds came from somewhere out there in the darkness beyond the water-hole. I think we ought to do something about it.’

  ‘What do you suggest we do—tell the lion to go home and not be a naughty boy? A lot of notice he’d take of us whatever we did while he’s busy over his supper. We shall have to do something about these mosquitoes, though, or we shall be in a pretty state tomorrow.’

  ‘What the dickens can we do about them?’

  ‘Light a fire, that’s the only thing. The smoke may drive them away, or at least discourage them; and as the flames may keep the lion at a distance too, we shall be killing two birds with one stone.’

  ‘But we haven’t enough sticks to last half an hour.’

  ‘Then we shall have to jolly well get some more. It isn’t much use trying to sleep anyway in this fly-bitten, lion-infested bedlam. Hark!’

  They remained silent for a few seconds. From the direction of the water-hole came a horrid sound of purring and lapping, both at the same time, like the noise made by a contented domestic cat over a bowl of milk, but magnified a hundred times.

  ‘That doesn’t sound very pretty, does it?’ observed Biggles quietly.

  ‘What’s the brute doing, do you think?’

  ‘Slobbering about in the blood of the wretched creature it has just killed, I fancy. It’s some distance away though; moreover, by the time friend Leo has had a good fill of fresh zebra he’ll be more likely to think about forty winks than worrying us. At least, we can only hope so.’ Biggles brought his hand down sharply on his cheek. ‘Dash these pests,’ he snarled. ‘I’m going down to those bushes for some more brushwood for the fire,’ he went on aggressively, taking out his jack-knife and opening it.

  ‘Don’t be a lunatic, Biggles,’ cried Ginger, seriously alarmed.

  ‘Lunatic or not, I’m going. These little swine are driving me crazy. The bushes aren’t more than a dozen yards away so I don’t think there’s any danger—no more than there is here that I can see. If the lion has ideas about us there’s nothing to stop him putting them into action at either place.’

  ‘That’s true, I suppose,’ admitted Ginger reluctantly. ‘But somehow it seems safer when we’re all together. Wait a minute while I wake Algy and light the fire. If we’re going to light it we might as well start it off now so that you can have the benefit of it.’

  So saying, he nudged Algy, who sprang up with a stifled cry of alarm.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked breathlessly. ‘Oh, I know; I guess it’s my turn for guard.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Ginger told him, ‘but all the mosquitoes in Africa are having a stinging competition and they’re using us as a stadium. I fancy the winner is on the small of my back, just out of reach. Our eyes will be completely closed up in the morning if we let them go on with it, so we’re going to light the fire and try to smoke them out. Biggles has volunteered to go and get some more brushwood.’

  As he spoke Ginger struck a match and held it to the fire. It blazed up brightly at once, and cast a lurid glow over the dry earth, the rocks, and their travel-stained faces. In fact, although the fire was only a small one, it glowed like a beacon after the darkness, which naturally had the effect of making everything outside its flickering radius more difficult to see.

  It may have been due, or at least partly due, to this that Biggles put his foot into it—as the saying is—in the literal sense of the word. True, he was not looking at the ground. In spite of his declared assurance, he was by no means certain that he would not encounter a lion, either the one they had heard or another, so as he walked towards the bushes his eyes were raised to the surrounding rocks and not on the ground immediately in front of him.

  He must have put his foot right in the middle of the coiled python. He did not see it. He felt something soft and yielding under his foot, and knowing that whatever it was it was alive, he sprang back; but quick as he was he was too late. In a flash, almost before he had realized what was happening, the snake, which always seems so slow and somnolent, had coiled itself about him, pinning his left arm and the hand in which he carried his automatic to his side. Fortunately, his right hand, in which he held the knife, was left free, and he at once made a number of wild slashes at the head of the snake as it reared up before him, at the same time letting out a yell that must have been heard a mile away.

  Now he knew quite well what every one knows who has lived in countries where this particular type of snake occurs—that the python is not venomous; it cannot give its victim a poisonous bite, but endeavours to kill it by crushing it in the same manner as a boa constrictor; but this it is unable to do unless its tail is firmly anchored to something substantial, such as a tree or a rock.

  Even in his present extremity Biggles remembered that there were no trees near. For the rest, he was conscious only of the creature’s great weight and the swaying head with its ghastly, flickering tongue a few inches from his face.

  His wild yell brought Algy and Ginger to the scene with a rush, and they saw at a glance what had happened. Both carried their automatics, but to use them was clearly out of the question, for it was impossible to put a bullet through the python without a big risk of its also going through Biggles. Admittedly, its head was clear of him, but to hit it as it swayed from side to side would have tried the skill of an expert revolver shot, and neither of them was that.

  Biggles, realizing by this time that in his cramped position he could not hope to give the creature a mortal wound, and seeing the others run up, flung the knife clear. ‘Go for the tail,’ he shouted. ‘The tail—the tail—slash its tail.’

  Algy heard the steel tinkle against a rock, and darted to the spot where the knife fell, but to his utter and complete consternation he could not find it.

  ‘A light, Ginger,’ he screamed hysterically. ‘Get a light!’

  But Ginger had no light, for after starting the fire he had put the box of matches down on the rock on which he had been sitting. However, he did not wait to explain this, but darted back to the fire, and grabbing a handful of blazing twigs, managed to hold them in spite of the pain until he reached the spot where Algy, now on his hands and knees, was still looking and feeling frantically for the knife.

  Fortunately the grass, being bone dry, flared up the instant the twigs fell into it, revealing the knife lying in a hollow of the rock. Algy saw it first, and reached for it, but an instant before his hand closed over it, the python’s massive tail, seeking a hold on the same rock, swung round and sent him over backwards.

  But Ginger had also seen the knife. Disregarding Algy, he snatched it up with a gasp of relief and flung himself on the creature’s tail just as it found the rock. Out of the corner of his eye,
in the yellow light of the fire, he saw Biggles fall heavily, still swathed in the python’s gigantic coils, so he started hacking at the tail with a fury born of blind panic.

  The rest was nightmare. The dry skin, pulsating under his left hand as he grasped it, made him feel sick, but he stuck to his task desperately, vaguely conscious of shouting to Algy to help him. The snake, thus attacked, released its tail-grip on the rock and began threshing about, dragging him with it; but he hung on, still shouting for Algy to help him.

  Algy, whose breath had been completely knocked out of him when the snake had thrown him over backwards, rose unsteadily to his feet and threw himself across the black, sinuous body of the creature between Biggles and Ginger. Gripping it with his knees, he pressed the muzzle of the automatic into it and pulled the trigger.

  The result was instantaneous. The python, with incredible speed, released its hold on Biggles and turned on him; and taken thus unaware, he sprawled forward as its full weight descended on his back.

  At this juncture Ginger, who was still hacking at the tail, behaved with commendable presence of mind. Holding the knife in his teeth, he tore up a double handful of dry grass, held it in the flames for a second, and thrust the whole blazing mass into the snake’s open mouth.

  Almost before they were aware that the danger had passed, the python dropped to the ground with a crash and glided swiftly away into the darkness, leaving them all staring at each other, panting for breath and trembling violently from shock and exertion.

  ‘Are you—hurt—Biggles?’ gasped Algy.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ replied Biggles weakly. ‘A bit bruised, I think—nothing more. Gosh! What a horror to meet on a dark night—ugh!’ He shuddered at the recollection.

  ‘If ever I sleep again in this perishing country it won’t be my fault,’ declared Ginger emphatically, wiping his hands on a tuft of grass. ‘I’d no idea such frightful creatures still walked the earth, or you wouldn’t have got me here. No, sir. First lions, then mosquitoes, and now snakes—I think it’s about time we headed for home and let them have this place as likes it.’