by W E Johns
‘Let’s sleep on it,’ suggested Biggles, yawning. ‘We may find something in the morning to give us a clue. I hope we do, because I hate mysteries, and here we certainly have one.’
They lay down on the sand, leaving Ginger, who was on first watch, to marvel at the beauty and the strangeness of the scene.
Dawn brought a cloudless day, but still the rollers growled and thundered on the reef, flinging showers of diamond-drops and wreaths of misty spray high into the air. A little breeze awoke and the palms began their secret whisperings overhead. The gulls once more took wing on their eternal quest for food. But the mystery was still unsolved. Ginger awoke to find Algy making coffee on the Primus, and to learn that no one had anything to report.
When, half an hour later, Biggles got up, he said: ‘Let’s get on. We’ll finish this job to-day. If we find nothing there can be no point in staying here.’
They walked down to the machine. Ginger pulled in the anchor. Biggles started the engines, and the aircraft began to taxi slowly round the inside of the reef, keeping as close to it as was compatible with safety. Everyone watched the reef, although, as Biggles pointed out, if there was anyone there in need of rescue he would hear them and show himself. Eventually, rather more than an hour later, the flying-boat was back at its starting point, having discovered nothing.
‘Well, there it is,’ said Biggles. ‘Now we’ll fly round. That’ll give us a bird’s-eye view. Keep watch on the bottom of the lagoon for anything unusual.’ The engines roared as he took off, drowning even the turmoil of the surf.
Five minutes later Ginger let out a yell. The machine was flying over the smaller of the two bulges, and looking down on it he saw something which, by the regularity of its shape, puzzled him. Then he realized with a shock that he was looking at the deck of a ship, and, moreover, a vessel of some size. It appeared to be wedged, on even keel, in a deep split in the coral, the deck level with it, which would account for it not having been seen before. The others spotted it too, of course, as soon as Ginger shouted ‘a wreck’, and in a moment Biggles had cut his engines and was coming round to land. When he was down he taxied to a shelf on which they could step ashore on the rough coral, and having switched off, the aircraft was made fast.
‘You wouldn’t think it possible for a thing that size to hide itself, even though it’s wedged deep in the coral and the weather has done its best to camouflage it,’ muttered Biggles, as they picked their way carefully towards it.
‘With the masts down and the funnel flat I’d say she was a wreck before she arrived here,’ observed Algy.
‘But look here, old boy, how on earth could it have got over the bally reef?’ asked Bertie, wonderingly.
Marcel answered. ‘A Pacific hurricane, with waves forty or fifty feet high, would toss it over like a matchbox. I have seen a ship, brought in by a tidal wave, a long way from the sea.’
‘So this is where the mad Englishman, poor blighter, tucked himself away,’ said Bertie, lightly.
‘I don’t know about that, but we can be pretty sure that this was the source of the rumours,’ returned Biggles. ‘If at one time there was a man on board, I’d wager he isn’t here now, or he’d have been out to have a look at us.’
When they came up to the ship with one accord they came to a halt, staring at what was before them. It would have been hard to imagine a vessel in such a state. A typical small deep-sea tramp, she was still in the water, but resting on the bottom on even keel, having apparently crushed the brittle coral by her weight so that the deck was more or less level with the rock on each side.
The masts were down, and covered the smashed upper works, including the funnel, with a tangle of rigging from which hung pieces of wind-blown seaweed, palm fronds and other debris. The davits were outboard but the lifeboats had gone. Seams in the hull gaped wide open. Plates had crumpled like tissue paper. The paint, blistered and peeling, was all colours. Streams of red rust ran down her sides.
‘No wonder Captain Dupreve didn’t see it,’ said Marcel.
‘We only saw it because we were above it,’ stated Ginger.
‘What a sight to give a sailor the horrors,’ murmured Biggles. ‘She must have been close on a thousand tons. It’s hard to believe that anyone could have survived in that mess. There’s certainly no one here now.’
He hailed. When no answer came he walked along until, not without difficulty, he could make out the name of the stern. ‘Belinda, London,’ he read aloud. ‘Poor old Belinda. What a spot she found for a graveyard. Well, we might as well go aboard and get the gen—if there is any. Let’s try what’s left of the bridge for a start.’
They made their way to it through the litter on the deck —cordage, broken planks, a tangle of rusty standing gear and the like. Reaching it Biggles peered in. Then he clambered inside. First he looked at the floor as if expecting to find a body. ‘No one here,’ he said. Then he raised his eyes, and his forehead puckered in a puzzled frown. ‘Hello! What’s been going on here?’ he exclaimed. ‘This is a queer do.’
‘What is it?’ asked Algy.
‘The instruments, everything, even the fittings, have gone. We’re not the first people here. Those screws didn’t unscrew themselves. Is this the work of natives, Marcel? Is this why they bolted?’
‘No,’ answered Marcel emphatically. ‘In the first place these people are not thieves. Secondly, they couldn’t have unscrewed those screws. And lastly, those instruments would be no use to them. They wouldn’t know how to use them. No, old cabbage. This is the work of a white man.’
‘The mad Englishman, I suppose. It looks more and more as if there was something in that rumour. A British ship would have British officers, anyway. But why they should dismantle the ship is beyond me. We may find the answer in the skipper’s cabin. Let’s have a look.’
As they picked their way through the debris towards the companion Ginger happened to look down into the narrow strip of water alongside. The bottom appeared to be covered with silver objects, but he soon realized what they were. ‘Here, take a look at this,’ he called.
The others joined him.
‘Cans,’ said Biggles. ‘We’re getting on. Somebody must have lived on this ship for some time after she was here. He lived on canned food and threw the tins overboard. Where is he? Where did he go?’
‘Maybe he fell into the hold, old boy,’ offered Bertie, pointing to a hatch, the cover of which had been removed.
‘That must have been done, too, since the ship came here,’ asserted Biggles. ‘She wouldn’t try to ride out a hurricane with her hatches off.’
They went below, finding nothing of interest until they came to what was obviously the captain’s cabin. In fact, he was there. On the floor. Dead. And he had been dead for some time. He was a grey-haired man of about sixty. His uniform was grey with salt stains and the gold braid tarnished. But it was not this that changed the expression on every face. There was a dark stain on the grey hair and another on the floor under the dead man’s head. Near an outstretched hand lay a revolver. Biggles picked it up and ‘broke’ it. ‘This hasn’t been fired,’ he said quietly, showing the caps of the cartridges.
He dropped on his knees beside the corpse. When he looked up his expression was grim. ‘This man was murdered. It looks as if he died defending his ship, but was clouted from behind with something heavy before he could use his gun.’
‘With that,’ said Ginger, pointing to a short length of iron piping that lay near.
Biggles picked it up with a hand wrapped in a handkerchief. ‘We’ll keep this,’ he said. ‘There’s a chance there may still be fingerprints.’ He looked around. Some empty gin bottles lay about but there was nothing of value. ‘Would the natives do this, Marcel?’ he asked.
‘No. Absolutely no. But this might be why they ran away.’
‘Why should they run away?’
‘Perhaps they would be afraid of his ghost. Perhaps, if they knew what had happened here, they were afraid they might be accu
sed of murder.’ Marcel shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I only know that the people who lived here would not do this. The Polynesian is not a murderer.’
Biggles mopped his face with his handkerchief, for the day was hot, and the atmosphere in the cabin stuffy. ‘Was this the mad Englishman, or was the madman the one who killed him?’ he said, softly. ‘We’re still a long way from getting this sorted out. In fact, it’s more of a mystery than it was. We could ask ourselves a hundred questions without guessing the right answer. Was this the only man on board when the ship came over the reef? What happened to the crew? The boats have gone so it looks as if they abandoned the ship before she struck. They must have been lost. Had any survived they’d have reported to the owners. Or are we looking at the last chapter of a mutiny?’
‘What about the ship’s log? queried Ginger. ‘That should tell us something.’
A search was made, but no log could be found.
Biggles shook his head. ‘The murderer wouldn’t leave that behind. I can’t find the Bill of Lading, either. He must have taken that, too. I wonder what she was carrying. The matter of insurance comes into this, don’t forget. Let’s have a look in the hold. We noticed the hatches were off. That’s queer, come to think of it.’
They explored the holds. They were empty.
‘She wasn’t in ballast, so she must have been carrying cargo,’ said Biggles, when they were back on the deck. ‘Where’s it gone? It looks as if someone has lifted the lot. Which means that it must have been something that could be manhandled, and easily disposed of. Now what about your Polynesians, Marcel?’
Marcel was emphatic that they would not have touched it. Had they done so, he argued with some force, there would have been signs of it in the village, for they could hardly have transported hundreds of tons of stuff in canoes. He conceded that they might know what had become of it. That could be tied up with their reason for evacuating the island.
‘We’ve got to find ‘em,’ decided Biggles. ‘We can’t drop the case now. Ah Song, the Chinaman, is the man we want. He’ll know what happened. At least he’ll know why the people fled. Let’s get back to Tahiti. I’ll cable the Air Commodore for particulars of the Belinda, and while we’re waiting for a reply Marcel can make inquiries on the waterfront. A ship has been here since the Belinda was wrecked, and that means more than one man. We’ll leave everything here just as it is. Let’s get airborne. We can still make it in daylight.’
They returned to the aircraft, took off, and by sunset were moored in the harbour of Papeete, the capital of Tahiti. Marcel went ashore to send the cable Biggles had written, and to start inquiries on the waterfront for Ah Song or the missing islanders.
For three days there was no news. Then it arrived together—the reply from London and a report from Marcel that he had met the skipper of a trading schooner who had seen Ah Song recently at Atuona, on one of the Marquesas Islands.
‘Where are they?’ asked Biggles.
‘About eight hundred miles from here. Two hundred miles north of Oto-Via.’
‘We’re going to be sick of the sight of water before we’ve finished this job,’ stated Biggles.
The cable from the Air Commodore read as follows:
‘S.S. Belinda, 1,200 tons. Captain Macdonald, master. Lost with all hands in big hurricane of Jan 1952 outward bound London to Wellington, N.Z., via Panama. Mixed cargo, canned goods and cereals. Insurance paid’
‘At last we seem to be getting somewhere,’ said Biggles. ‘But we’ve still some questions to answer. The most important is, who killed Captain Macdonald? Obviously he stuck to his ship after the crew had taken to the boats and were subsequently lost. The next question is, who lifted the cargo? It would be worth money. It would be reasonable to assume it was the man who killed the captain. He must have had a vessel of some size to shift all that cargo, but, of course, he may have gone back several times. Foodstuffs would have a ready market up and down the islands. Let’s go to Atuona and hear what Ah Song has to say about it. Get busy on the course, Algy.’
‘The Marquesas are volcanic mountains, not atolls,’ volunteered Marcel. ‘There are eleven. Not all are inhabited. Not many people go there. Mostly traders. I’ll show you Atuona on the chart.’
The following afternoon found the Sunderland nosing its way to the beach at Atuona, watched by a curious little crowd of spectators. From one of them Marcel learned that Ah Song had taken charge of a store while its Chinese owner was away at Tahiti on business. They had no difficulty in finding him, and at once explained the purpose of their visit.
At first he was reluctant to speak, but when Marcel told him sternly that he might find himself accused of complicity in a murder, he recovered the use of his tongue. And this, in his quaint pidgin English, is the story he told.
The ship, the Belinda, came over the reef in a hurricane and was thrown into the position in which it remained. When the storm had abated and the canoes had gone over to it from the village, only one man was seen on board. He behaved as if out of his mind. He refused to leave his ship, and, brandishing a revolver, threatened to shoot anyone who tried to come on board. This state of affairs persisted for some time—Ah Song could not say how long, but it was many months. Anyway, the islanders soon learned to keep away from the ship and its belligerent captain. They decided that he was mad.
‘Did you believe that?’ asked Biggles.
‘No. I tlink he dlunk,’ answered the Chinese blandly. ‘Dlink, dlink, all time dlink. I tink bimeby he die.’
Ah Song continued. One day another trading schooner, the Mahina, called to see if there was any copra. Captain Clark, the owner, who sailed with a native crew, was told of the wreck. He took his schooner close and landed. It remained there for some days. One night, hearing a noise, an islander had paddled across in his canoe to see what was happening. He saw the crew of the Mahina carrying heavy loads from the Belinda.
‘Were these boys Polynesians?’ put in Marcel.
Ah Song said no. They were too dark. He thought they might be from Malaita, in the Solomon Islands.
‘What happened next?’ asked Biggles.
Ah Song said Captain Clark came back and told them there was no one on the ship. The mad Englishman had killed himself and so the lagoon would be haunted by his ghost. They would be wise to leave the place, which would now have nothing but bad luck. He would take the women and children and the men could follow in their canoes. He also said that if ever they spoke of this they would die.
‘Did you believe that?’ asked Biggles.
‘P’laps.’
Biggles looked surprised.
Ah Song explained that he thought they would die because Captain Clark would kill them. He was a savage man.
‘Did you ever go back to the ship?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I tlink if I do Captain Tlark kill me.’
‘Did you suspect he had killed the man on the ship?’
‘I not know. I not want to know.’
‘So you went along with the others?’
‘No good me stay alone.’
Ah Song concluded by saying that he had gone to the Paumotus with Captain Clark but had later moved to Atuona.
‘Do you know if Captain Clark ever went back to Oto- Via?’ asked Marcel.
The Chinaman said he did not know. But, he added, significantly, it was well known that there was now a glut of trade goods about the islands which had caused prices to drop. There was much canned salmon, corned beef, rice and beans. No one knew where these came from.
‘But you have a pretty good idea,’ challenged Biggles.
Ah Song did not answer.
With that they left him, Marcel saying that there was no ghost on Oto-Via and the islanders would be told they could go back to their homes if they wished.
‘That man was telling the truth,’ he went on, when they were outside.
Biggles was also of that opinion. ‘Had he been lying, or had he any cause to lie, he
wouldn’t have opened his mouth,’ he affirmed. ‘The picture begins to take shape. The next thing is to find Captain Clark and the Mahina.’
‘That should be easy,’ declared Marcel. ‘If he isn’t at Tahiti he’ll turn up there sooner or later. Tahiti is the centre of everything in this part of the Pacific.’
‘Let’s get back,’ said Biggles. ‘I’d feel happier with my tanks topped up.’
But back at Tahiti the following afternoon a shock and a surprise awaited them. Marcel was only ashore for an hour and then returned with the news, given to him by a trader in the Hotel du Port, which flanks the waterfront, that Captain Nat Clark had sold his schooner, the Mahina, and had sailed for England ten days ago, in a freighter named Esperence, due to dock at Southampton in about forty days from the time of departure from Tahiti. This latter information Marcel had obtained from the booking agent.
‘That’s all right,’ said Biggles, after a moment’s reflection. ‘We can beat him to it. Who bought the schooner?’
‘Captain Hay.’
‘Is he here?’
‘No. He sailed for Tongariva five days ago.’
‘What about the crew?’
‘He took over Clark’s boys.’
‘Where’s Tongariva?’
‘It’s one of the nearest of the Paumotus—about three hundred miles.’
‘Good,’ returned Biggles. ‘We’ve time to have a word with Captain Hay and still get home before the Esperence. We’ll do that to-morrow.’
‘You know, old boy, somebody’s going to get a kick in the pants when your bills for petrol come in,’ remarked Bertie cheerfully, polishing his eyeglass.
‘That’s his worry,’ returned Biggles, evenly. ‘I’m not aviating round the Pacific for the fun of it, or for the sake of looking at a lot of water. I was sent to do a job and I’m doing it. This aircraft won’t fly without fuel and oil. That’s why I was given an official carnet for as much as I needed. Forget it. I’m going to get statements before witnesses from the crew of the Mahina about what happened at Oto-Via. I take it there’s a lagoon at Tongariva, Marcel?’