by W E Johns
The Renkells—or one of them—was at the oasis after all. If the machine was there, then it followed that the crew were there. Clearly, Biggles had walked into a trap, and that being so, it did not take Ginger long to decide that orders given before this fact was known were automatically cancelled.
As he jumped down on to the warm sand he saw the aircraft take off. It was not the transport, as he rather expected, but the Wolf, which suggested that the whole enemy party was at the oasis. It began to look very much as if the oasis was, in fact, the enemy’s headquarters. The Wolf, he observed, did not take off across the open sand; it chose for its run a shallow wadi that emerged from the eastern side of the oasis. Only too well aware that the sand was mined, Ginger guessed the reason. There was bound to be a gap in the mine-field, and the wadi provided it.
Actuated by this new peril, Ginger started running towards the wadi with the object of getting into the oasis. In his anxiety to discover what had become of Biggles he forgot all about such things as mines. Not until he was halfway to his objective did he remember them, and the effect produced was a sinking feeling in the stomach. But he did not stop. He daren’t. In sheer desperation he ran flat out, and fairly flung himself over the rim of the wadi, where he lay panting, not so much from exertion as shock.
By this time the Wolf was in the air. He wondered where it was going, and why, so he lay still to watch. He could see it distinctly, for at no time was it more than a hundred feet from the ground, a performance that puzzled him considerably. Nor was his curiosity allayed when the machine banked steeply and came tearing back over its course. He wondered what it was going to do, for there appeared to be no reason for such an evolution.
What happened was the last thing he expected. The nose of the Wolf suddenly dipped in line with the Mosquito and a stream of tracer bullets lacerated the sky, so that the sand round the damaged machine was torn and lashed with metal. Not all went into the sand, some must have penetrated the tank, for a flame shot up. Another minute and the machine was wrapped in fire. The bullets in the Mosquito’s guns began to explode.
Ginger was about forty yards away—too close to be comfortable. He started running down the wadi. This, as he quickly realised, was a blunder, for in the light of the blazing aircraft the pilot of the Wolf saw him. This information was conveyed by a burst of bullets that sent him scrambling, flat on the ground, under the lee of a dune. The Wolf roared over him at a height of not more than ten feet, and then zoomed, as Ginger knew it must. He was also aware that the pilot would turn to confirm that he had hit his mark. Obviously, he must provide the pilot with a mark to shoot at. In a moment he had torn off his jacket, and flinging it down where he had been lying, made a dash for a clump of camel-thorn that clung to the side of the wadi at no great distance.
He reached it just as the Wolf completed its turn, and at once dropped its nose towards the jacket, which lay conspicuously on the open sand. Again came the vicious snarling of multiple machine-guns. In the lurid glow of the burning Mosquito Ginger saw his jacket leap into the air, and then go bowling down the wadi as though impelled by a jet of water from a pressure hose. With this he was quite content, thankful that he was not inside it. Had he been, he reflected, its spasmodic movements would have been much the same. He did not stir. From the flimsy cover of the leafless bushes he watched the pilot turn again and land, using the same wadi from which it had taken off. The machine taxied in. The clamour of its motors died away. There were a few odd noises, then silence fell. The glare of the burning Mosquito began to fade. Petrol-soaked wood and fabric burns quickly.
Ginger sat still long enough for the flames to die down, and to recover from a series of shocks that had left him slightly bewildered; then he walked along the wadi to his jacket. It was shot to ribbons. With some difficulty he put it on, not so much because he wanted it as because he was loath to leave it where it might be seen in daylight, for this would expose his ruse. If the enemy wondered what had become of his body—well, they would have to wonder. He then returned to the camel-thorn to consider the situation.
His first inclination was to reconnoitre the oasis forthwith, approaching by the wadi which the Wolf had used as a runway, for this, as far as he knew, was the only safe passage. Desperate though the circumstances were, he had no desire to test his luck in the mine-field if it could be avoided. Then he remembered Algy and Bertie, who would be coming along in the Spur, and this threw him into a quandary. Although it was unlikely that they would arrive before dawn, there was a chance that they might turn up at any time. Even now they might be on the way. On arrival they would most certainly land, in which case the Spur would probably follow the Mosquito to destruction. If it were not blown up, it would probably be shot down by the Wolf in a surprise attack. That would not do. At all costs the Spur must be preserved, otherwise, whatever else happened, they would all eventually perish in the desert. The Spur was now the only link with civilisation.
Still pondering, Ginger also saw that even if the Spur delayed its flight until dawn, it would be futile to try to save it within sight of the oasis. If he stood up in the open desert where he could be seen by Algy, he would also be seen by the enemy. That would be fatal. If it became known that he was still alive, steps would be taken to finish more efficiently the task the Wolf had just attempted. At present he was presumed dead, and if anything was to be done to save Biggles—assuming he was still alive—that impression must remain. He dare not risk going to the oasis to look for Biggles in case the Spur should arrive while he was there.
As far as he could see there was only one chance of saving the Spur, himself, and, eventually, Biggles. This was to go to meet the aircraft. Out of sight of the oasis he would be able to take up a position in a conspicuous place, where there was a fair chance that Algy would see him. Being the only moving thing in the desert he would stand out like a fly on a tablecloth. To make sure, he might even make smoke, for he had a box of matches in his pocket. If the machine came over before daylight he would have to light a fire, using such materials as were available. If Algy or Bertie failed to see him it would be just too bad, he decided. At all events, he would have done his best.
Feeling better now that he had a fixed plan, he turned his face towards the north, and started walking, keeping in the wadi for as long as it ran in the right direction. It gave him an uncomfortable feeling to recall that in front of him lay four hundred miles of desert. He had neither food nor water. It was better, he told himself, not to think about that. He knew all about the risks of becoming lost. Once before he had been lost in the wilderness, and he had no desire to repeat the experience. However, while the stars remained visible this should not happen. He walked on.
The moon climbed over its zenith, shedding an eerie light over the vastness around him, and still he walked, a speck in the centre of a round horizon. An hour passed, and still there was the same circle of sand around him. He was tired, but he dare not rest in case he fell asleep, and the Spur passed over while he slumbered. In his hand he carried his matches, a few odd letters from his pocket, and some strips of rag torn from the lining of his jacket, all ready to make a tiny blaze should a drone in the northern sky herald the approach of the Spur.
An eternity of time passed—or so it seemed. Sometimes his feet sank into soft sand, sometimes they rustled harshly on rough volcanic ash. Once he crunched through an area of gleaming salt, evidently the dry bed of a lake. He tried talking to himself to keep awake, but the sound, in the empty loneliness, frightened him, and he soon gave it up.
The night wore on. To his weary brain the outlook became ever more melancholy. He began to fear that even though he made contact with Algy and Bertie they would be too late to help Biggles. In the long night hours anything could have happened, he reflected gloomily.
More time passed. The moon ran its course across the heavens, and sank, as silently as a stone in a deep pool, into the distant world beyond the horizon. A period of darkness followed, and what with this, and sheer wearines
s, he was constrained to take a rest upon a little mound of sand. Around him the horizon was still the same unbroken circle, and a sinister feeling came over him that he was the only living creature left on earth.
But all things have an end, and for Ginger it came when the first faint flush of the false dawn lightened the eastern sky. The sun, of course, had not yet shown its face. Ginger stood up, and as he did so there reached his ears the sound for which he had so long waited—the drone of a high-flying aircraft. The sound came from the north, so that he knew it could only be made by the Spur. It was difficult to fix its precise position. But after a while, as he gazed up, he suddenly saw a living spark of fire moving across the dome of heaven. He had seen the phenomenon before, so he was not altogether surprised; but he was thrilled. He knew that the speck of orange light was a ray from the still invisible sun striking upwards, to be caught, and flung back, by the undersurfaces of the aircraft’s wings. The world around him was still in sombre darkness.
In a moment, with fingers that shook a little from the knowledge of the tremendous consequences involved, he lighted his little fire. The flame of a match seized the paper hungrily, and devoured it all too quickly, almost before he could get the rag alight. He flung himself on his face and coaxed the flame with his breath. To his great relief the rag caught, but at best the fire was but a puny affair, and his heart went cold with apprehension. The plane droned on with awful deliberation through the crystal clear atmosphere.
Then came the daily miracle of dawn. First, the stars lost their brilliance. Then long pale fingers swept upwards, like beams from a battery of ghostly searchlights, to shed a mysterious radiance over the waste of sand. The light became tinged with colour, pink, green and gold. The colours faded, and it was day. The aircraft was no longer a spark, but a black speck speeding across a ceiling of eggshell blue.
Ginger threw up his arms and waved. He danced, and ran about, hoping by this means to attract the attention of the pilot. And it seemed that he succeeded, for to his unspeakable joy the aircraft began to turn, and a change in the note of the engines told him that they had been throttled back. But he continued his gymnastics, swinging his tattered coat about his head, until he was convinced that he was the objective towards which the descending machine was heading. Then, quite exhausted by his efforts, and feeling rather foolish, he ran up and down the sand to make sure that it was firm, and that there were no obstructions such as rocks to spell final calamity.
The Spur landed, and it had hardly run to a standstill before he was on the wing, gesticulating, and making incoherent noises.
Bertie pushed back the “lid,” and adjusting his monocle regarded him with frank alarm. “I say, old boy, are you all right?” he inquired earnestly.
“No, far from it,” snapped Ginger, who was in no mood for pleasantries.
“You’re not loony, or anything like that, from thirst?” queried Bertie.
“No!”
“Then what have you been doing to yourself? I’ve heard of people getting all worked up and rending their jolly old garments—”
“Never mind what you’ve heard,” broke in Ginger. “Get out, both of you. I’ve got a tale to tell.”
Bertie jumped down, followed by Algy. “What is it?” he asked anxiously.
“They’ve got Biggles,” announced Ginger.
“Who’s got him?”
“I don’t know exactly,” confessed Ginger. “Let me tell you all about it.” And he forthwith plunged into an account of the things that had befallen since the Mosquito left the coast.
“Beastly things, mines—if you know what I mean?” muttered Bertie when Ginger broke off.
Algy was still staring at Ginger. “What in thunder are we going to do?”
Ginger shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought as far ahead as that. My one concern was to get hold of you.”
“How far are we from this perishing oasis?”
“I’m a bit hazy about that,” admitted Ginger. “Somewhere between ten and twenty miles, for a rough guess.”
“If we fly over the place they’ll see us,” went on Algy. “If we land in that wadi they’ll shoot us up as we come in, so that’s no use. If we try to reach the oasis any other way we’re liable to be blown up. Suffering Spitfires! What a kettle of fish.”
“We’ve got to do something,” declared Ginger.
“Absolutely... absolutely,” murmured Bertie, polishing his eyeglass.
“Don’t stand there burbling like a bally parrot,” snarled Algy. “Think of something.”
“How about shooting the beastly place up, and all that sort of thing?” suggested Bertie. “Borrow some bombs from the boys in Egypt and fan the whole works flat. That would tear their rotten Renkells for them.”
“And tear Biggles at the same time,” grated Algy.
“By Jove! Yes, I didn’t think of that,” confessed Bertie contritely. “How about fetching some troops—punitive expedition, and so on, if you see what I mean?”
“And launch the attack somewhere about next Christmas?” sneered Algy, with biting sarcasm. “Think again.”
“If we go on sitting here, the Wolf will probably come prowling along and find a nice sitting target,” muttered Ginger. He squatted on an undercarriage wheel and cupped his chin in his hands. “We ought to be able to think of something. What would Biggles do in a case like this?”
CHAPTER XI
BIGGLES TAKES TO WATER
BIGGLES passed one of the longest nights that he could recall. As Gontermann had promised he had been given a bed, actually a palliasse, outside the hut; but he slept badly, if at all. As the night wore on, rather did he fall into a state of half oblivion, in which he was yet conscious of what was happening.
Ginger’s presumed fate weighed heavily on him; indeed, it overshadowed everything, and, as is usual with death, created an atmosphere of unreality. Lying there, with nothing between his face and the stars, an immeasurable distance, the drama seemed all the more poignant. The silence, too, was uncanny. Strain his eyes, and listen though he would, everything seemed still and lifeless, as though he were alone on some forgotten world that had got adrift in space.
In spite of all that Gontermann had said, he could not believe that he was not being watched. If he was, he saw no sign of the watcher. Not that it mattered. He was content to lie and think. He wanted to think. He was worried about Algy and Bertie. Sooner or later they would arrive. Gontermann and his confederates knew nothing of that, but he did not see how he could turn their ignorance to advantage. The Spur would probably be blown up when it attempted to land. There appeared to be no way of preventing that. If he told Gontermann, it would come to the same thing in the end. On the face of it, nothing could prevent a melancholy conclusion to a mishandled affair. That the enemy was possessed of war stores, not normally available to civilians, and therefore unsuspected, was, to Biggles, no excuse. He could not shake off a feeling that he had shown a lamentable lack of foresight, with the result that he had blundered badly.
With the approach of dawn the air grew cooler. As the stars began to pale, unable to bear inaction any longer, he determined to find out if he was under surveillance. He was lying fully dressed, so the question of clothes did not arise. First he sat on the edge of the bed. Nothing happened, so he stood up. Still nothing happened, so with infinite caution he moved away among the palms, making no more noise than the moon passing across the heavens. At last the silence was broken by a curious sound that could only be described as a snort. Advancing in the direction whence it came he saw Scaroni, sitting with his back against a log, a rifle across his knees, as though he had been detailed to keep guard, but had dozed. Biggles eyed the rifle. It seemed too good to be true. But before he could move Scaroni started, yawned, and rubbed his eyes. It was clear that to attempt to get the rifle now would only result in a general alarm.
With no definite plan in mind, but hoping to make a discovery that could be turned to good account, Biggles edged away.
Time was now important. At any moment the Spur might arrive, or Gontermann might appear to insist on an answer to his proposition, a proposition which, Biggles knew quite well, was really an ultimatum. It was an issue he preferred to avoid.
He came upon the water-hole. Remembering the mines, he regarded it from a safe distance. It was larger than he expected—a silent pool of stagnant, dark-coloured water, of unknown depth, perhaps fifty yards long and varying in width from twenty to thirty feet. There were large patches of greenish scum, particularly round the papyrus reeds that in several places fringed the bank. He considered these reeds thoughtfully. They were too sparse to offer a place of concealment even if they could be reached; but as he gazed at them the germ of an idea was born in his mind. At the far end of the pool the palms straggled nearly to the edge of the water. One had almost fallen, so that the trunk lay far over, the sagging fronds hanging within three feet of the placid surface of the pool.
This palm presented possibilities that Biggles was not slow to observe. The trunk offered a passage, a rather risky passage, by way of a bridge, over the mined area surrounding the pool. Having reached the crown, it should be possible, he thought, for a man to slide down the fronds into the water without a great deal of noise. It would be futile to suppose that anyone afloat in the water would not be seen by a person standing on the bank; but there was a trick...
His ruminations were interrupted by a cry. He recognised Scaroni’s voice. The Italian shouted, “He’s gone!” A moment later Gontermann answered: “He can’t have gone far. See if you can find him.”
Biggles was already on the move. He did not need to be told whom Scaroni was to find. There was this about the situation; his fate, when he refused to join the gang, was a foregone conclusion; so he stood to lose nothing by taking the most desperate risks to avoid a show-down.