Biggles and Cruise of the Condor

by W E Johns

  'Land the Condor up here on the plateau?'

  'Of course; it's the obvious thing to do. There is no point in lugging all this stuff down to the bottom; it would take us weeks, anyway.'

  Algy looked at him in open-mouthed surprise for a moment. 'Of course,' he said, 'I didn't think of it; still, there is no harm in taking a few souvenirs in case of accidents. Put a few in your bag, Smyth. A bird in the bag is worth two in the bush,' he went on facetiously, handing the flight-sergeant an exquisitely carved peacock with its tail outspread. 'This would make a nice mascot for the Condor,' he added, picking up a metal effigy of a condor in flight. 'Hi! Wait a minute, I'm coming.' His last remark was induced by the fact that Dickpa and Biggles had already started off towards the main doorway, and he hurried after them, throwing furtive glances at the silent figures on the floor as he passed.

  At the top of the steps Dickpa paused for a moment to gaze down at the stricken town below. He looked as if he was about to say something, but changed his mind and set off at a steady pace down the steps. The sun was sinking fast over the mountains in such a blaze of glory, as they crossed the plateau, that they would have liked to have stayed and watched it, but twilight was at hand and no time was to be lost if they were to make the passage of the bridge that day.

  'I'll give you a lead,' said Biggles calmly as they reached it, and without a moment's hesitation, before they were aware of his intention, he had stepped on to the single tree that formed the bridge, and started across.

  He was just about half way when he lurched drunkenly and dropped on all fours. The others, too, were flung to their knees by a shock that seemed to shake the whole plateau. The tremor lasted for perhaps thirty seconds. At the first concussion the lower of the two trees that spanned the chasm had plunged clear into space, turning over and over as it fell, until it looked no longer than a match-stalk. A shrill cry of stark horror burst from Algy's lips as he saw the other one totter and the far end start slipping down the short slope on which it rested. Biggles saw it too, and acted with the lightning-like rapidity that had enabled him to pile up a score of victories in France, and survive.

  He raised himself on his toes, crouching low like a runner at the start of a sprint race, and then shot like an arrow across the now sagging beam towards the opposite cliff. He knew he could not reach it when he started, and he was still six feet away from the rock and safety when the bridge collapsed. At the same instant he leapt into the air like a cat. The Express flew out of his left hand and disappeared into the void, while his right, still gripping the tomahawk, flashed over and down and the weapon buried itself like a wedge in a narrow crack on the very lip of the rock. Even then, had the weapon broken, or the blade slipped from its insecure hold, he must have fallen to eternity, but neither happened. For a moment he literally hung over the chasm, and then, in a swift flurry of waving arms and legs, he dragged himself over the edge into safety just as a second tremor, worse than the first, shook the earth. It passed as quickly as before, and all was still; a low mutter like distant thunder rolled echoing away to silence.

  Dickpa, who seemed to have aged five years in the last minute of time, looked up with haggard face and sniffed the air. 'Sulphur,' he said succinctly, 'the gas that-' But he did not finish the sentence.

  Biggles's face appeared among the rocks on the opposite side of the abyss. 'Brazil,' he jeered savagely, 'Brazil-where the mutts come from.'

  'If we'd been five minutes earlier we should all have been across,' observed Algy miserably.

  'And if we'd been five minutes later we should all have been up salt creek without a paddle,' returned Biggles philosophically. 'Throw me over a can of corned dickey,* Smyth; you've got the grub. I'm going to fetch the Condor-if I can. I don't know where I am, or where it is, and I wouldn't know how to get to it if I did. I'm no mountain goat. I like to see a pair of wings on either side of me before I do the high trapeze act. You ought to see what I've got to face. I'm going off right away while there are still a few minutes of daylight left. Go back to the temple; you can see the Condor from there, so you'll be able to see me take off. So long.' With a parting wave he was gone.

  * Army slang for corned beef.

  Chapter 15

  A Perilous Passage

  When Biggles had said, 'You ought to see what I've got to face,' he had already taken a shuddering glance at the scene on the opposite side of the rock on which he was isolated. Behind him was the chasm, only thirty feet wide, yet cutting him off as effectually from the others as if it had been three hundred feet. On the other three sides he was confronted by such a stupendous array of peaks that even his iron nerve was shaken to no small extent. He realized, of course, that the pathway across the plateau and the bridge led across the rock on which he stood, and that there should be a continuation of it somewhere, and if there was such a path it would, sooner or later, lead down to more normal terrain. Hunting around, he presently found it in the form of a row of steps, cut like a narrow shelf into the sheer face of the cliff. Where they led he was unable to see, for. they wound around a buttress of rock and disappeared. He did not waste time in idle speculation, for he knew that the descent of the awful passage had to be undertaken unless they were all to perish miserably, and delay and contemplation would only make the task more to be dreaded.

  He tackled it as he tackled most jobs that were to be feared. He set straight off down the frightful causeway, his right shoulder brushing the face of the cliff and his left in space. He reached the bend, and steadied himself with an effort when he saw that the path continued for at least another fifty yards and again disappeared round a bend. 'Bah! Scores of those Inca fellows must have made this trip regularly, and with loads on their backs, I dare say,' he muttered through his teeth, and, braced with this thought, he continued his way. Curiously enough, the horror of it was already beginning to wear off by the time he reached the next bend, and he realized that it was in the first few awful steps that lay the real danger. He rounded the bend, which brought him facing the direction of the country through which flowed the stream where they had left the Condor, but it was now an indistinct world of deep blue and purple shadows falling away in long undulations to the misty horizon. Then, to his unutterable relief, the path widened suddenly and opened out into a small sheltered platform on which, under an overhanging ledge of rock, stood a stone seat. The place had evidently been used in the dim past as a resthouse, for the walls of the cliff were literally covered with carvings, mostly of crude design, representing all sorts of weird creatures that meant nothing to him, but would probably have been familiar to Dickpa could he have seen them. It was now nearly dark. He could see the narrow path winding on again, but he decided it was too risky to attempt in such a light, and settled himself to pass the night as well as he could in the primitive shelter.

  Taking everything into consideration, he was fairly successful. He was awakened once by a brief thunderstorm of such violence, and accompanied by such torrential rain, that at one moment he trembled lest the whole side of the cliff, including his precarious perch, be washed away. Fortunately, the overhanging rock protected him; and, remembering that the ledge must have weathered hundreds of similar storms, he crouched a little lower and was soon asleep again.

  When he awoke, the sun was shining brightly. He was rather stiff and sore from the hardness of his couch, and he gazed for a moment uncomprehendingly at the forbidding panorama of towering peaks and frowning precipices before the full significance of his position came back to him with a rush. After a couple of brisk exercises to restore circulation, he looked out at the continuation of the path. As before, it consisted of a flight of steps cut into the rock like a spiral staircase, vanishing round a bend about a hundred yards away and some distance below. Picking up his Inca tomahawk, he set off without further ado.

  He was about half way to the bend when a shadow swept across the face of the cliff just in front of him, and, looking round without any particular alarm to ascertain the cause, he saw the large
st bird he had ever seen in his life. It was snow white from beak to tail, and he judged it to measure a full twenty feet from wing tip to wing tip. Its cruel curved beak and formidable talons betrayed it to be a bird of prey, and he watched its stately flight in admiration. 'I didn't know there were such things as white eagles,' he mused as he continued his way.*

  * Although Biggles did not know it, he was looking at what is probably the rarest bird in the world, the magnificent king condor of the Andes, the existence of which travellers in the Cordillera have reported from time to time. Several attempts have been made to take one dead or alive, but without success. A well-known German naturalist explorer had a very nasty adventure with one. It was named the king condor because ordinary condors seemed subservient to it.

  He had only taken a few steps when a noise of rushing air made him turn quickly with an unpleasant consciousness of danger. The bird was swooping down on him, and he dropped to his knees just as it swept over him, the long curving talons that would have torn his face to ribbons passing within a foot of his head. He was on his feet the instant it had passed, hurrying towards the bend, for the narrow shelf to which he clung was no place for an encounter with either bird or beast.

  But before he had taken six steps it was clear that the bird had no intention of abandoning its presumed prey, for it soared up in a steep climbing turn and then dropped like a stone towards him, pinions raised, talons projecting viciously below. Biggles grabbed in his pocket for the automatic which he had carried ever since the affair of the Indians, but before he could use it the bird was on him. Instinctively he flung himself down at full length as the bird swept past in a vertical bank at the end of its dive, and the rush of air that followed it nearly blew him from the ledge. He jerked up the automatic, and three fingers of flame leapt from the muzzle. Crack-crack-crack! it spat viciously.

  He knew instantly that the bird was hard hit. It faltered in its flight, actually dropping a few feet, and then, recovering itself with an effort, flew to a neighbouring crag, where it settled and then collapsed with outstretched wings. Twice it made a stupendous effort to rise, but failed, and finally, after a convulsive flap of its great wings, it lay still.

  'Sorry, old bird, but you asked for it,' muttered Biggles in a tone of sincere regret as he dropped the automatic back into his pocket, for he was genuinely sorry that he had been forced to destroy such a noble-looking creature.

  He had nearly reached the bend when a great noise of rushing wings caused him to look up with a start. The air was full of huge, dark-brown birds falling towards him from out of the blue sky. He saw them land, one after the other, with effortless ease on the rock where the white bird lay; then they rose in a cloud and swept towards him with a directness that left no doubt as to their intentions. He waited for no more. As swiftly as he dared he sped along a pathway where, the day before, he would have hesitated to take a single step. He reached the bend with the revengeful winged subjects of the dead king close behind him, knowing that unless some shelter quickly revealed itself he was lost. A single bird he might, and had indeed, vanquished, but a whole flight was beyond his ability to cope with.

  He slowed down as he reached the bend lest his impetus should carry him over the brink, and, turning the corner, saw that the path still continued. As he started forward again the sound of gushing water came to his ears from somewhere near at hand, and then he pulled up dead with an involuntary cry of dismay. The path ended abruptly-in mid-air, so to speak. At his feet lay a broad ravine about twenty feet wide; it looked as if the side of the mountain had been split by some mighty convulsion of nature, for he could see the path continuing on its way over the other side. At the bottom of the ravine, forty feet below, a boiling rapid, swollen by the recent rain, raced with headlong, pent-up fury between its narrow rocky confines.

  Biggles knew that he was at the end of his tether, for the birds were already swooping to the attack. There was only one thing to do, and he made up his mind quickly. Backing a few yards up the path for the takeoff, he sped down the slope and launched himself into space. He knew before he jumped that it was too wide for him, but nevertheless he actually reached the opposite bank; for one awful moment he struggled to maintain his balance, but a rock gave way under his weight and he plunged down into the whirling torrent below.

  The icy coldness of the water struck him like a physical blow as he disappeared beneath the surface, but he was up again in a moment, amazed to find he was unhurt. He kept his head and concentrated his efforts on remaining afloat, keeping a watchful eye open for rocks, knowing that it was out of the question for him to attempt to scale the precipitous wall of the canyon. Of the birds he could now see no sign.

  From the rate he was travelling he judged the torrent was losing height quickly, and he abandoned himself to it, conserving his strength for a supreme effort in case a break should occur in the side of the canyon sufficient to give him a foothold. He became conscious of a dull booming sound not far away, but from his position at water-level he could see nothing. The noise reminded him of something he had heard before, and even as the word 'Falls' rose to his lips he was hurled outwards and downwards.

  Now Biggles, in describing his adventures afterwards to the others, was convinced that he fell a distance of at least a hundred feet, a computation that brought a smile to Algy's face.* Be that as it may, Biggles had a fleeting impression of being pounded to pulp by a tremendous force that surged around him in a world of darkness; a roar like thunder sounded in his ears, and just as he thought his lungs must surely burst he found himself blinking at the sun with his arms resting on something solid. Dazed, gasping like a stranded fish, he wiped his dripping hair from his eyes and saw that he was lying on a shelving sandbank in the middle of a wide, rippling stream. He could see the falls some little distance away churning the water into boiling foam.

  * As a matter of fact, this was quite possible. In Samoa and other islands in the South Seas in which high waterfalls occur, the Polynesians think nothing of allowing themselves to be carried over certain falls even higher than this. It is indulged in as a kind of sport rather than a feat demanding nerve and endurance.

  At first he was unable to believe that he was still alive, so certain had he been that the cold hand of death had already settled upon him, but he rose gingerly to his feet, and, seeing that the water was fairly shallow, reaching not much higher than his waist, he waded wearily to the nearest bank, where he flung himself down out of sheer exhaustion. In a few minutes his numbed faculties were restored and his frozen limbs beginning to thaw in the sun. A slow smile spread over his face. 'The next time anybody talks to me about going off at the deep end I shall know what they mean,' he mused. 'Well, I suppose I'm still in Brazil.' He rose to his feet and looked around. On his left, and seemingly quite close, towered the perpendicular wall of the plateau. To the right of it were the giant peaks that fell away into a series of foothills, between two of which he now stood. Being in a valley, his field of vision was very restricted, so he set off up the side of the nearest hill to get a better view. When he reached the top and looked down, he could scarcely believe his eyes.

  Straight in front of him, and not more than a quarter of a mile away at the foot of the gently sloping hill, was another stream at a lower level, and this he recognized at once as the one up which they had walked to the cave. His eyes swept along it, and came to rest on the Condor, standing just as he had left it except that its exposed wings were now shining brightly in the sun.

  Delighted with his good fortune, he set off down the hill without delay. 'Dickpa was certainly right about Brazil,' he thought as he pushed his way through creeper-clad bushes and high grass. 'This is the place where you can always reckon on the unexpected happening.

  Still, this bit of luck wasn't out of its turn.' He struck the stream a trifle below the Condor, and he made his way quickly towards it, anxious to learn if any damage had been done by the monkeys. 'I'll get myself a tin of beans before I do anything else,' he thought,
suddenly realising that he was famished.

  Casually, he opened the door of the cabin. Almost as if to prove what he had just been thinking, the sight that met his eyes was so completely and utterly unexpected that he could only stand and stare in stupefied astonishment.

  Upon a cushion, engaged in the prosaic occupation of ladling out the contents of a tin of pork and beans with a spoon, sat a man.

  'What's the big idea?' said Biggles coldly, reaching for his automatic and looking the stranger up and down, for he was the most amazing apparition he had ever seen. He was a black man, with curly white hair and a straggling wisp of beard. The tatters of a vest hung over his shoulders, revealing a tattooed battleship on his skinny chest, while in lieu of trousers he wore a strip of old blanket wound about his middle, and this, secured with a liana, served as a sort of kilt. But it was not these things that caught Biggles's eyes and held them fascinated in spite of danger which might threaten. On his feet and legs were a pair of new, beautifully cut officer's field boots, and the whole effect was so incongruous that Biggles could only gape in comical amusement.

  'Don't shoot, boss,' answered the man quickly, in English, to his still greater amazement, in answer to his question, nearly choking in his haste to speak with his mouth full of beans. 'I ain't one of them good-fer-nuthin' fellers what's after you—no, sir, that's true sure as God's in heaven. I don't mean no harm, boss—'

  'Hold hard a minute,' cried Biggles, recovering from his astonishment. 'Are you here alone?'

  'Sure, boss.'

  'What's your name?'

  'Aaron Speakdetruf.'

  'What?'

  'Honest to God, sir; if my old muther was here she tell you that's truth, sir.'

  'Where have you come from?'

  'Fust place, way back in Trinidad; second place, way down the river.'