Biggles Pioneer Air Fighter (51)

by Captain W E Johns

minute,' was his unspoken thought.

  He went into a shallow glide, peering below anxiously, praying that his altimeter was functioning properly and that he would not crash into a church tower or a tree. Something dark loomed below and for a minute he could not make out what it was.

  `Strewth! It's the sea!' he ejaculated, and thrusting the throttle wide open he began climbing swiftly. For a moment the discovery left him stunned. 'Where the deuce have I got to?' he said to himself, half in anger and half in fright; 'I ought to have crossed the coast half an hour ago. This compass is all wrong, I expect.'

  He climbed above the mist and for another fifteen minutes flew south and then dropped down again. Something dark reared up in front of him and he zoomed swiftly to avoid hitting

  a tree, but an exclamation of relief escaped his lips as he saw that he was, at least, over terra firma.

  `What a day!' he muttered again, and once more climbed up above the swirling fog, realizing that if conditions did not improve he would be lucky to get down without damaging the machine and possibly himself. In all directions the fog stretched in an unbroken sea of glistening white. 'This is no use,' he mused; Ì'd better find out where I am—it might as well be now as later on.

  He throttled back once more and commenced another slow glide towards the ground. At 50o feet he could just see what appeared to be open fields below. He S-turned, almost at stalling point, keenly alert for any possible obstruction. When he was satisfied that all was clear he tipped up his wing and sideslipped down; he levelled out, switched off the ignition, and a moment later ran to a standstill not ten yards from a thick hedge. For a few moments he sat contemplating his predicament, and then climbed slowly out of the cockpit.

  Ì suppose all I can do is to walk until I find a house or somebody who can tell me where I am,' he reflected ruefully, as, pushing up his goggles and loosening his throat-strap, he set off at a steady pace across the field. He was glad of his short, leather coat, for the ground-mist was cold and clammy. A hedge loomed up in front of him and he faced it blankly. 'Which way now?' he asked of himself. He thrust his hand in his trouser-pocket and pulled out a coin. 'Heads left, tails right,' he muttered. 'Heads, eh? Left it is then'; and he once more set off parallel with the hedge. A hundred yards and another hedge appeared dimly in front of him. 'Let's have a look what's over the other side,' he muttered, as he took a flying leap and landed on top of it. A sunken road, or, rather, a cart-track, lay before him. 'I wish this infernal mist would clear,' he thought petulantly, as he set off down the road. 'Hullo! Here's signs of life, anyway.' On his right was a row of poles which reminded him of the hop-fields he had often seen in Kent; a thick layer of greenery was spread over the tops of the wires that connected them. 'Don't tell me I'm back home again,' he said, aghast. 'No, by thunder; it's camouflage!'

  He paused in his stride to survey what was the finest and certainly the largest piece of camouflage he had ever seen. Below it the ground fell away suddenly into a steep dip, and across the intervening vally stretched row after row of posts, criss-crossed at the top with wires, and the whole covered with a layer of drab green canvas and imitation grass.

  `Whew!' he whistled. 'Whatever's under that would take a bit of spotting from the air.' He bent down and peered below the concealing canopy, but could only see what appeared to be a number of grey cisterns and cylinders. 'Beats me,' he muttered, as he continued his walk. 'Well, here's someone coming, anyway, so we'll soon know.'

  On the left a gate opened into the field he had just left, and he leaned against it carelessly, awaiting the arrival of the owners of the approaching footsteps. Ìt sounds like troops,' was his unspoken thought as he lit a cigarette and gazed pensively into the grey mist that hung like a blanket over the field. The footsteps of marching men were close now, and he turned casually in their direction. The sight that met his eyes seemed to freeze his heart into a block of ice. The shock was so great that he did not move, but stood rigid as if he had been transformed into a block of granite. Out of the mist, not ten yards away, straight down the middle of the road, marched a squad of grey steel-helmeted German soldiers, an N.C.O. at their head. Biggles looked at them with a face of stone, praying that they would not hear the tumultuous beating of his heart. There was a sharp word of command; as in a dream he saw the N. C.O.'s hand go up in salute, and his return of the salute was purely automatic. Another word of command and the troops had disappeared into the mist. For a full minute Biggles gazed after them, utterly and completely stunned, and then a thousand thoughts flooded into his brain at once. Nauseating panic seized him, and he ran to and fro in agitated uncertainty. Never before had he experienced anything like the sensation of helplessness that possessed him now.

  `Steady, steady, you fool!' he snarled, as he fought to get a grip on himself 'Think—

  think!'

  Sanity returned at last and he listened intently. In the distance someone was hammering metal against metal. Clang! Clang! Clang! boomed the sound dully through the enveloping mist.

  They took me for one of their own pilots—of course they would. Why should they expect a British pilot to be standing gaping at them? Thank goodness I had my coat on, were thoughts that rushed through his mind.

  A little farther down the road a large notice faced him, and he wondered how he had failed to see it before.

  ACHTUNG! LEBENSGEFAHR

  CHLORGASANSTALT

  EINTRITT STRENG VERBOTEN Chlorgasanstalt! Gas! In an instant he understood everything; the camouflage covered a Hun gas-manufacturing plant.

  'I'll be getting out of this,' he muttered, and, vaulting over the gate, set off at a run across the field in the direction of the Camel. Another hedge faced him; he struggled through it and found himself in a field of roots. 'This isn't it,' he muttered hoarsely, and realised with horror that he had lost his sense of direction. He clambered back into the field he had just left and raced down the side of the hedge, pulling up with a cry of despair as the edge of the wood suddenly faced him.

  He knew he was lost. 'Curse this fog; where am I?' he groaned out viciously. It was suddenly lighter and he glanced upwards; the mist was lifting at last, slowly, but already he could see the silvery disc of the sun. 'The Boche'll see the Camel as soon as I shall,' he pondered, hopelessly, 'and the farther I go now the farther I shall get away from it. If they spot it, I'm sunk.'

  Another thought occurred to him—what of his discovery? Quite apart from saving his own skin he was now in possession of information which the Headquarters Staff would willingly give fifty officers to possess—the whereabouts of the German gas supply dump.

  Ìf I do get away I can't tell them where it is,' he mused; 'I don't know where I am to within a hundred miles. Dash that compass!'

  He started; someone was coming towards him. He dived into the undergrowth and crouched low, scarcely daring to breathe. The newcomer was a Belgian peasant, garbed in the typical garments of a worker on the land; in his hand he carried a hedger's hook. He was a filthy specimen of his class, dirty and unshaven, and Biggles watched him anxiously as he plodded along muttering to himself, glancing from time to time to left and right.

  Ì wonder if I dare risk speaking—if he would help me?' thought Biggles. But the risk was too great and he dismissed the idea from his mind. The peasant was opposite him now, snivelling and wiping his nose on the back of his hand. He stopped suddenly and listened intently.

  `Where are you?'

  The words, spoken in English in a quick sibilant hiss from somewhere near at hand, stunned Biggles into a frozen state of immobility for the second time within a quarter of an hour. His heart seemed to stop beating and he felt the blood drain from his face. Who had spoken? Had anybody spoken—or had he imagined it? Were his nerves giving out?

  He didn't know, but he bit his lip to prevent himself crying out.

  `Where are you?'

  Again came the words in a low penetrating whisper, but in an educated English voice.

  `Here,' said Biggles involuntaril
y.

  The peasant swung round on his heel and hurried towards him. 'Your machine is in the next field,' he said quickly; 'hurry up, you've no time to lose. Fifty yards—look out—get down!'

  Biggles flung himself back into the undergrowth and pressed himself into the bottom of the ditch that skirted the wood. The peasant's hook flashed above him and a tangle of briars covered him. Through them Biggles could just see the Belgian lopping at the hedge unconcernedly, muttering to himself as he did so.

  Guttural voices jarred the silence somewhere near at hand and a group of German soldiers, carrying mess tins, loomed into his field of vision. Without so much as a glance at the hedge-trimmer they passed on and were swallowed up in the mist.

  `Quick now,' said the voice again; 'run for it. There's an archie battery fifty yards down there—you were walking straight into it; I saw you land, and I've been chasing you ever since.'

  `What about the gasworks?' said Biggles irrelevantly.

  The pseudo-Belgian started violently. 'What gasworks?' he said, in a curiously strained voice.

  `The Hun gas dump,' replied Biggles.

  `Where is it?'

  `Just across there at the corner of the wood; it's well camouflaged.'

  `Great heaven! You've stumbled on the thing I've been looking for for three weeks. Get back and report it in case I am taken before I can loose a carrier pigeon. Here comes the sun—turn right down the hedge, fifty yards, then get through the hedge and you will see the machine in front of you.'

  `Where am I now?' inquired Biggles.

  `Thirty kilos north-west of Courtrai—one mile due east of Berslaade.'

  Àren't you coming? I can take you on the wing.'

  `No; I'll stay here and see what damage the bombers do.' `What's your name?' asked Biggles quickly.

  `2472,' replied the other, with a queer smile.

  `Mine's Bigglesworth-266 Squadron. Look me up sometime—goodbye.'

  A swift handshake and Biggles was sprinting down the side of the hedge in the direction indicated by his preserver.

  `Gosh! What jobs some people have to do. I wouldn't have that fellow's job for a million a year and a thousand V.C.s,' thought Biggles as, fifty yards down the hedge, he crawled through a convenient gap.

  As he sprang erect the mist rolled away as if a giant curtain had been drawn, and the sun poured down in all its autumnal

  glory. There, ten yards away, stood the Camel, and beside it two German soldiers. They carried mess tins, and were evidently two of the party he had seen a few moments before. With a bound, almost without pausing to think, Biggles was on them. The Germans swung round in alarm as they heard his swift approach, but Biggles held all the advantages of surprise attack. The first went down like a log before he had time to put his hands up as his jaw stopped a mighty swing from Biggles' right; the iron mess-tin rolled to one side as he fell. Biggles snatched it up by the strap and swung it with all his force straight at the head of the other German. It caught the man fairly and squarely on the temple and he dropped with a grunt like a pole-axed bullock. The whole thing was over almost before Biggles had realised the danger. With feverish speed he sprang to the cockpit of the Camel, switched on, turned the petrol on, and opened the throttle a fraction. Dashing back to the front of the machine he paused to feel the cylinders of the Bentley engine. They were not yet cold. He seized the propeller and whirled it with all his strength, almost falling backwards as it started with a roar. He tore madly round the wing and literally fell into the cockpit; once there, all his old confidence returned in a flash and he looked eagerly around. Behind him the field stretched open for take-off; in the far corner some men were running, pointing at him as they ran. He 'blipped' the engine with the rudder hard over, almost swinging the Camel round on its own axis, and for the first time since he realized he was in enemy country he breathed freely. He pushed the throttle open and tore across the field like a blunt-nosed bullet; a moment later he was in the air heading for the line, with the landscape lying clear and plain below him.

  A stab of orange flame and a cloud of black smoke blossomed out in front of him, another, and another, and Biggles twisted like a snipe to throw the archie gunners off their. mark. Strings of `flaming onions' shot past him and the sky was torn with fire and hurtling metal.

  `They're taking good care no one comes prowling about here for long,' he observed, as he kicked out first one foot and then the

  other to maintain his erratic course in order to confuse the batteries below. He was glad when the storm died down behind him. He surveyed the sky ahead intently. 'They saw me take off and they'll phone every aerodrome between here and the line to be on the look-out for me,' he told himself.

  With his nose slightly down and engine at full throttle he sped onwards. An aerodrome appeared ahead; he could see little ant-like figures running around the black-crossed machines which stood on the tarmac. Something struck the Camel with a vibrating sprang-g-g, and he knew the machine-gunners were busy. He put his nose down in a fury and swept across the hangars with his guns spurting a double stream of tracer, and laughed as he saw the figures below sprinting for cover. He zoomed up and roared on without waiting to see what damage he had done.

  A Fokker triplane, looking like a Venetian blind, flashed down on his flank and the sight sent him fighting mad. The Camel made the lightning right-hand turn for which it was famous and the twin Vickers guns on the cowling poured a stream of bullets through the Fokker's centre section. The Boche machine lurched drunkenly and plunged down out of sight below. Biggles continued his way without another glance. Far away to his left he could see a formation of straight-winged machines heading towards him, and he swept still lower, literally hopping the trees and hedges that stood in his path. The pock-marked desolation of the trenches appeared below and Biggles thrilled at the sight; he shot across them at fifty feet, wondering vaguely where all the bullets that were being fired at him were going.

  He was over his own side of the lines now, and he sagged lower in the cockpit with relief as he passed the balloon line. Ten minutes later he landed at Maranique. Major Mullen was standing on the tarmac and came to meet him as he taxied in.

  `You've got back, then, Biggles—had a good leave?'

  `Fine, sir, thanks,' responded Biggles.

  It's been pretty thick here. What time did you leave this morning?'

  Òh, about sixish.'

  `Then you must have called somewhere on the way—I hope hey gave you a good time?'

  `They did that,' grinned Biggles as he climbed out of the cockpit. Major Mullen eyed his mud-plastered boots and coat with astonishment. 'Good Lord!' he cried. 'Where the deuce have you been?'

  Òn leave, sir,' smiled Biggles innocently. 'But I've got an urgent message for H.Q.'

  In a few words he described his adventures of the morning, and ten minutes later his written report was on its way by hand to Headquarters. One thing only he omitted—his finding of the gas plant. He reported its position, but the credit for that discovery he left to '2742'.

  `That's the least I can do for him,' decided Biggles.

  BIGGLES hummed cheerfully as he cruised along in the new Camel which he had just fetched from the Aircraft Park.

  Ànother five minutes and I shall be home,' he thought, but fate willed otherwise. The engine coughed, coughed again, and, with a final splutter, expired, leaving him with a '

  dead' prop. He exclaimed softly, pushed the joystick forward, and looked quickly around for the most suitable field for the now inevitable forced landing. To the right lay the forest of Clarmes. 'Nothing doing that way,' he muttered, and looked down between his left wings. Ah! there it was. Almost on the edge of the forest was a large pasture, free from obstruction. The pilot, with a confidence born of long experience, side-slipped towards it, levelled out over the hedge and made a perfect three-point landing. He sat in the cockpit for a minute .or two contemplating his position; then he yawned, pushed up his goggles and prepared to

  take stock o
f his immediate surroundings. He raise his eyebrows appreciatively as he noted the sylvan beauty of the scene around him. Above, the sun shone from a cloudless blue sky. Straight before him a low lichen-covered stone wall enclosed an orchard through which he could just perceive a dull red pantiled roof: To the right lay the forest, cool and inviting. To the left a stream meandered smoothly between a double row of willows.

  `Who said there was a war on?' he murmured, lighting a cigarette, and climbing up on to the 'hump' of his Camel, the better to survey the enchanting scene. 'Well, well, let's see if anyone is at home.'

  He sprang lightly to the ground, threw his leather coat across the fuselage, and strolled towards the house. An old iron gate opened into the orchard; entering, he paused for a moment, uncertain of the path.

  Àre you looking for me, monsieur?' said a musical voice.

  Turning, he beheld a vision of blond loveliness, wrapped up in blue silk, smiling at him. For a moment he stared as if he had never seen a woman before. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and opened them again. The vision was still there, dimpling.

  `You were looking for me, perhaps?' said the girl again.

  Biggles saluted like a man sleep-walking.

  `Mademoiselle,' he said earnestly, 'I've been looking for you all my life. I didn't think I'd ever find you.'

  `Then why did you land here?' asked the girl.

  Ì landed here because my mag. shorted,' explained Biggles. `What would have happened if you had not landed when your bag shorted?' inquired the vision curiously.

  `Not bag—mag. Short for magneto, you know,' replied Biggles, grinning. 'Do you know, I've never even thought of doing anything but land when a mag. shorts; if I didn't, I expect that I should fall from a great altitude and collide with something substantial.'

  `What are you going to do now?'

  Ì don't know—it takes thinking about. It may be necessary for me to stay here for some time. Anyway, the war will still be on when I get back. But, pardon me, mademoiselle, if I appear