by W E Johns
‘Yes, it’s all here.’
‘Help us to get it on board. Tell Jones to punch on the nose anybody who tries to get near us.’
‘You do have some quaint ideas,’ said Frayle, as he complied.
‘Maybe that’s why I’m here,’ murmured Biggles.
In ten minutes the big machine was loaded to capacity with bundles of British and American stores, labelled CHUNGKING.
‘What about something to eat before you go?’ suggesting Frayle.
‘No, thanks,’ refused Biggles.
‘It’s a long trip.’
‘We can manage.’
‘Not even a last drink?’ queried Bargent.
‘Not even a last drink,’ decided Biggles firmly. ‘I make a point of doing one thing at a time, and the thing at the moment is to get this pantechnicon to China. Get aboard. So long, Frayle. I’m aiming to be back for tea.’
‘I’ll have it ready,’ promised Frayle.
‘Put a guard on my Typhoon. Don’t let anyone touch it.’
‘Okay.’
Before Bargent had properly settled himself in his seat Biggles had opened the throttle, and the big machine was bellowing across the airfield.
‘Have you made this trip before?’ asked Biggles, as he throttled back to a steady cruising speed of just over two hundred miles an hour.
‘Four times.’
‘You must be lucky.’
‘Maybe so. But I reckoned it couldn’t go on. No sense in riding your luck too hard.’
‘I suppose that’s why you were trying it on again to-day?’ said Biggles smoothly.
‘Pah! It had to come sooner or later, and after seeing the others go, I thought the sooner the better.’
‘Desperate fellow,’ murmured Biggles. ‘Well, we shall see. Keep your eyes skinned.’
‘I suppose you realise that we’re flying without gunners in the turrets?’ said Bargent suddenly. ‘That’s asking for trouble, isn’t it?’
‘I have a feeling that we shan’t need guns on this trip.’
‘Why not?’
‘Put it this way. Guns couldn’t save the other crews. If guns can’t stop this rot what point was there in bringing gunners? In the event of things going wrong we should only push up the casualty list. My gosh! That’s pretty rough country below.’ Biggles was looking below and ahead at a terrible yet magnificent panorama of mountain peaks that stretched across the course from horizon to horizon.
‘It’s like that pretty well all the way to China,’ asserted Bargent. ‘Where it isn’t mountains, it’s what the books call untamed primeval forest. Anyone going down in it wouldn’t have a hope. They say it’s unexplored.
‘Let’s hope we shan’t have to explore it,’ returned Biggles. ‘Let me know if you see anything strange, in the air or on the ground.’
After that the two pilots fell silent. The Wellington droned on, devouring space at a steady two hundred and twenty miles an hour. Mountains, groups and ranges and isolated peaks, many crowned with eternal snow, rolled away below. Valleys and depressions were choked with the sombre, everlasting forest.
‘It’s about time we were bumping into something,’ said Bargent once, after looking at the watch. ‘We must be half-way.’
‘Begins to look as if this trip is going to cost you a hundred cigarettes, my lad,’ said Biggles slyly, with a sidelong glance at his companion.
‘If I don’t lose more than that I shan’t grumble,’ murmured Bargent.
Two hours later the airport of Chungking came into view.
‘That’s it,’ confirmed Bargent. ‘What’s the programme when we get there?’
‘We’ll sling this stuff overboard and start straight back,’ replied Biggles.
‘We’re not stopping for lunch?’
‘We’re not stopping for anything.’
Bargent shook his head. ‘You certainly are a strange bird,’ he muttered.
‘So I’ve been told. But never mind the compliments. As soon as we’re in, jump down and keep the crowd away from this machine. I don’t want anybody to touch it. I’ll push the stuff out. They can collect it after we’ve gone. I shall leave the motors running.’
‘Okay.’
As soon as the Wellington was on the ground a crowd of Chinese surged towards it; but Bargent held them off, gesticulating furiously. Biggles was throwing the stores out.
A Chinese officer came forward, speaking English.
‘That’s close enough!’ shouted Bargent. ‘Here’s your stuff. Some more will be coming through.’
‘You in great hurry,’ said the Chinaman impassively.
‘We’ve got to get back,’ answered Bargent.
‘No want any petrol?’
Bargent looked at Biggles.
‘No!’ shouted Biggles. ‘We’ve got enough to see us home.’
‘You no stay to eat?’ questioned the Chinaman.
‘Not to-day, thanks,’ returned Bargent. ‘I’ve got a date with a girl in Calcutta, and she’ll jilt me if I’m not back on time.’
The Chinaman grinned. ‘Me savvy.’
‘Okay, Bargent!’ shouted Biggles. ‘Get aboard. We’re on our way.’
The South African picked his way through the pile of bales that Biggles had thrown out of the aircraft, closed the door and resumed his seat. The engines roared, and the machine swung round, scattering the crowd, to face the open field. In another minute it was in the air again, India bound.
‘Get those cigarettes ready,’ said Biggles.
Bargent laughed. ‘I’ll help you smoke ’em.’
‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ declared Biggles. ‘I reckon I shall have won ’em.’
There was no incident of any sort on the home run. There was no flak; no aircraft of any type, friend or foe, was sighted. As they glided in to land Bargent swore that he had never felt better in his life.
Frayle, in uniform, greeted them. ‘So you got back?’ he cried in a voice of wonder.
‘If you think this is a ghost plane, try walking into one of the airscrews,’ invited Biggles. ‘You’ll find it hard enough, I’ll warrant.’
‘Well, that’s a mystery,’ said Frayle.
‘Not quite so much of a mystery as it was,’ returned Biggles.
‘What are you going to do now?’
Biggles glanced at the sun, now low in the west. ‘I want to get back to Dum Dum before dark, but I’ve just time for a snack.’
‘You think it’s safe to use the route now?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ answered Biggles quickly. ‘The Chinese now have a little to go on with, so you can afford to keep everything on the ground till you hear from me again. Yes, I know we got away with it this time, but that trick may not work again. By changing the planes at the last minute we slipped a fast one on the enemy. More than that I can’t tell you for the moment. I want you and Bargent to keep your mouths shut tight about this show. If you talk it may cost you your lives. Keep the machines grounded. I’ll be back. Now let’s go and eat.’
An hour later, in the crimson glow of the Eastern sunset, Biggles landed at Dum Dum and walked quickly to the mess, to be met by an enthusiastic squadron.
‘I say, old boy, that’s marvellous—absolutely marvellous,’ declared Bertie. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been to China?’
‘There and back,’ answered Biggles. ‘Let’s get inside. I’ve got to talk to you chaps, and I don’t mind admitting that I’d rather curl quietly in a corner and go to sleep. I seem to have done a lot of flying lately.’
‘If you’re tired, why not leave it until to-morrow?’ suggested Algy.
‘Because to-morrow morning I shall be just as busy—and so, perhaps, will you.’
‘The point is, did you spot the secret weapon?’ demanded Ginger.
‘Not a sign of it,’ returned Biggles, with a ghost of a smile. ‘Serious, now, everybody. Lock the door, Ginger. To-day. I carried out what we might call an experiment,’ he went on, when everyone had settled down. ‘It leads, as most
experiments do, to another. To-morrow morning I’m going to do a sortie over Burma.’
‘Alone?’ queried Algy, looking askance.
‘I hadn’t thought of taking anyone,’ admitted Biggles.
‘At least take someone with you,’ pressed Algy. ‘There may be something in this double pilot idea.’
‘It isn’t that I’m trying to run the show single-handed,’ asserted Biggles. ‘It’s just that I want to avoid casualties if it is possible. There’s no point in using more men on a job than it calls for. One machine can do what I have in mind to-morrow morning. Why risk two?’
‘Then why not take the Beau*1, or the Mosquito, and have someone with you for company?’ suggested Algy.
‘Yes, I might do that,’ agreed Biggles.
There was a chorus of voices offering to go, but Biggles held up a hand. ‘There’s only one way to settle this, and that’s by drawing lots,’ he declared. ‘That doesn’t apply to flight commanders, though; they’ll get their turns if I don’t come back. Algy, write six names on slips of papers and put them in a hat.’
‘Aren’t you going to tell us what happened to-day?’ queried Tex, while Algy was doing this.
‘There’s really nothing to tell,’ answered Biggles. ‘Nothing happened: that’s a fact.’
Algy came forward with a hat in which lay six slips of paper, folded.
‘Shake ’em up,’ ordered Biggles.
Algy shook the hat.
Biggles closed his eyes and put out a hand. His fingers closed over a slip. He raised it. In dead silence he unfolded it and glanced at the name. He took it to Tug and smiled.
‘You’re it, Tug,’ he announced.
‘Whoopee! That’s a corker,’ cried Tug. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever won a draw in my life.’
‘Unless it’s your lucky day it’s likely to be the last,’ joked Biggles grimly.
‘I’ll risk it,’ flashed Tug, grinning. ‘What time do we leave the carpet?’
‘We’ll decide that when we see what the weather is like,’ returned Biggles.
‘Do we wear brollies*2?’
Biggles shrugged. ‘In this affair they don’t seem to make much difference, but I suppose we might as well. Don’t mention this sortie to a soul, neither in nor outside the mess. Should anyone ask what we are doing you can say we’re browning off waiting for orders. That’s all. Let’s go in to dinner.’
Chapter 5
Suicide Patrol
It was still dark, but with that faint luminosity in the sky that heralds the approach of the Eastern dawn, when Biggles was awakened by the sudden bellow of an aero engine. This is not an unusual sound on an airfield, and he turned over with the intention of snatching a final nap, supposing that the noise was created by a motor under test. But when a second, and then a third engine opened up, he sprang out of bed and strode to the window. In the eerie light of the false dawn he could just discern the silhouettes of what he thought were Hurricanes, moving slowly on the far side of the airfield. For a moment or two he stood gazing, sleep banished, a frown puckering his forehead; then he slipped a dressing-gown over his pyjamas and picked up the telephone.
Two minutes later Algy arrived, also in pyjamas. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked tersely.
Biggles hung up the receiver. ‘Take a look outside,’ he invited. ‘Those five survivors of 818 Squadron are going off on a bomb raid in the danger area. My God! They’ve got a nerve.’
Algy nodded. ‘Yes, I remember now. Johnny Crisp told me last night that there was some talk of a final do-or-bust show in the hope of finding the thing that killed the others.’
‘They’ll do that, no doubt—or some of them will,’ returned Biggles, in a hard voice.
‘Johnny said they were going crazy, just sitting on the ground doing nothing. He, being the only remaining flight commander, will lead the sortie. Personally, I think he’s right. You know how it is; when a fellow’s nerves start slipping he has only one chance of saving himself—if he ever wants to fly again; and that’s to get in the air.’
‘Maybe. But these chaps are practically committing suicide, and they must know it.’
‘Johnny, and the other fellow I told you about, Scrimshaw, have always got back,’ reminded Algy.
‘So far. But there’s such a thing as pushing your luck too hard.’ Biggles started. ‘Just a minute! Yes, that’s it. I’m going to hook on to this raid, to watch what happens. All the evidence we have up to now is hearsay.’
Algy’s eyes opened wide. ‘But —’
‘Don’t stand gibbering. Go and get Tug out of bed and tell him to meet me on the tarmac in five minutes.’
‘What about breakfast?’
‘There’ll be more time for that when we get back.’
‘You mean—if you get back,’ said Algy, with gentle sarcasm. ‘Okay.’ He departed.
Five minutes later, when Biggles went outside, Tug was there, waiting, parachute slung over his shoulder. The rest of the squadron was there, too, grim-faced, silent. The five Hurricanes were just taking off, sending clouds of dust swirling across the parched airfield.
‘Look at ’em,’ said Biggles in a low voice. ‘There they go. That’s guts for you. Come on, Tug; we’ll catch ’em in the Mosquito.’ It did not seem to strike him that he was doing the same thing. He glanced round the ring of anxious faces, and smiled the strange little smile they all knew so well. ‘So long, chaps; keep your tails up.’
‘I say, old boy, watch out what you’re up to, and all that,’ blurted Bertie.
‘May I follow in a Spit?’ cried Ginger huskily.
‘No,’ answered Biggles shortly.
‘But —’
‘You heard me. Come on, Tug. Let’s get cracking, or we’ll lose sight of those crazy Hurry-wallahs.’
In a few minutes the Mosquito, probably the best and fastest long-range medium bomber in the world, was in the air. It carried no bombs. Biggles was at the control column, with Tug sitting beside him instead of adopting the prone position which the special structure of this type of aircraft permits. Both wore the regulation parachutes. The five Hurricanes were mere specks in the fast-lightening sky, but the Mosquito began slowly to overhaul them.
Below, looking eastward, like an army of black snakes, was the pattern of waterways that comprise the delta of the river Ganges. Rivers, streams, and irrigation canals, lay asprawl a flat, monotonous terrain, cutting it into a vast archipelago before emptying themselves into the Bay of Bengal. Here and there a village nestled in a verdant bed of paddy-fields, or clung precariously to the fringe of one of the numerous masses of forest that had invaded the fertile land from the east. By the time these had given way to the more sombre green of the interminable Burmese jungle the sky was turning from lavender to blue, with the Mosquito about a mile astern and two thousand feet above the Hurricane formation.
‘What’s their objective—do you know?’ queried Tug.
‘Apparently there’s a bridge over the Manipur River which the army is anxious to have pranged*1, to interrupt the Jap lines of communication.’
‘Do you know where it is?’
‘Not exactly, but it’s somewhere north-west of Mandalay; you’ll find it on the map.’
Tug unfolded the map on his knees and studied it closely for a minute. ‘Okay, I’ve got it,’ he remarked.
‘We must be pretty close to enemy country, even if we’re not actually over it,’ said Biggles presently. ‘Let me know at once if you see anything suspicious. You might get down and have a squint below, to see if you can spot any sign of ground activity.’
Tug dropped to the prone position and for a little while subjected the landscape to a searching scrutiny. Then he climbed back to his seat. ‘Not a blessed thing,’ he stated. ‘All I can see are trees and rivers. No sign of any trenches, or anything like that, to mark the noman’s-land between our troops and the Japs.’
‘What with jungle and camouflage. I didn’t expect to see much,’ returned Biggles. His eyes were
on the Hurricanes.
‘Listen, Tug. We’d better have some sort of a plan. I’ll watch the formation. You watch the sky. If you see anything, anything, let me know. Let me know, too, if you feel anything. If I see or feel anything unusual I’ll let you know. It may sound silly, but if I start behaving in a manner that strikes you as odd, you take over and get back home straightaway.’
Tug grinned. ‘Okay. Funny business, this waiting for something to go pop.’
‘I don’t think funny is the right word,’ argued Biggles. ‘I’d say it’s dashed uncomfortable. We must be well over enemy country now, so something may happen any time. Hello—that tells us where we are.’
A few wisps of black smoke had appeared in the sky round the formation, which went on without altering course.
‘That’s ordinary flak*2,’ declared Tug.
Biggles had a good look at it before he answered. He even flew close to a patch, studied it suspiciously, and then dispersed it with his slipstream. ‘I think you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘Just ordinary flak.’
It soon died away and no more came up. A quarter of an hour passed without incident. The Hurricanes roared on with the Mosquito keeping its distance.
‘I’ll bet those boys are wondering what this Mossy is doing, trailing ’em,’ chuckled Tug. ‘They seem to be all right so far.’
‘So do we.’
‘Maybe it’ll turn out to be a false alarm after all.’
‘Maybe.’ Biggles was noncommittal. Not for a moment did he take his eyes off the Hurricanes.
Another twenty minutes passed and the formation began to lose height, at the same time opening out a little.
‘What are they doing?’ asked Tug.
‘It’s all right. That bridge over the river ahead must be the target. They’re going down to prang it. Keep your eyes skinned for enemy aircraft—or anything else.’
Nothing happened—that is, nothing out of normal routine. The Mosquito held its altitude, circling wide, while the fighter-bombers went down and did their work. Pillars of white smoke leapt skyward in the target area. Biggles noted one direct hit and two near misses, and made a note in the log he was keeping. There was no flak, no enemy opposition of any sort. The Hurricanes, their work done, turned away, closing in again to the original formation, and headed for home, taking some altitude.