by W E Johns
“Grows?”
“Yes, it’s a plant.”
Understanding dawned in Biggles’s eyes. “Good Lord!” he breathed.
“Didn’t you know?” inquired Wilks.
“What gave you the idea that I was a professor of botany?” demanded Biggles. “Horticulture isn’t my long suit. Tell me more about this stuff.”
“Frankly, I don’t know much about it myself, except that it’s something to avoid,” answered Wilks. “The common name is bow-string hemp. It’s a tall, spiny bush, rather like a cactus. I believe there are different sorts, but the stuff around here sprouts up a bunch of leaves that look like flattish cylinders, mottled, about six feet high. You find it all over East Africa. In fact, I hear they are cultivating it now in Kenya—they make ropes out of the fibres. There’s a whole forest of it, hundreds of square miles, just over the frontier in Abyssinia. I happen to know that because during the war, on a reconnaissance, one of my lads, a chap named Saunders, made a forced landing in the blasted stuff. It took him a fortnight to find a way out. He reckoned he never would have got out had he not been found by some Samburus—the local natives. Saunders told me that the place was mostly swamp, crawling with crocodiles, snakes, and bugs of all shapes and sizes. He was nearly torn to pieces by mosquitoes.”
During this recital Biggles sat staring at Wilks’s face. “Well, I’m dashed! So that’s it?” he muttered at the finish. “What a set-up. I should never have guessed. Now we’re getting somewhere. It looks as if Gontermann’s permanent hide-out is somewhere in that cactus patch.”
“If it is, you’re going to have a lovely time trying to find it,” opined Wilks.
“If the compass course crosses it, and I’m willing to bet my brolly that it does, by following the line we ought to hit the camp.”
“That may be so,” agreed Wilks. “And then what?”
“I see what you mean,” said Biggles slowly. “If we fly over it we shall be seen, and if we are seen the blighters will know we’re on their track.”
“Exactly. How are you going to get at them?”
“How about dropping a bomb or two on them, to stir them up—if you see what I mean?” suggested Bertie. “Scatter them, and all that.”
“A direct hit would also scatter the rajah’s jewels,” Biggles pointed out. “Apart from that, we’re policemen now, not war flyers, and a policeman isn’t justified in dishing out his own idea of justice even though he may shoot in self-defence. I aim to catch this skunk Gontermann, and deliver him, alive, to those who will see that he answers for his crimes with a nice piece of new rope round his neck. Shooting is too good for him.” Biggles turned back to Wilks. “All the same, remind me to borrow a gun from you—in case. I wonder if we could get into this sanseviera stuff on foot?”
“I should be sorry to try that,” declared Wilks.
“Abyssinia is a wild country, and since the natives were sprayed with poison gas by the Italians they take a pretty dim view of white men, regardless of nationality.”
“But Gontermann and Co. are there,” argued Biggles.
“They probably keep the natives at a distance with machine-guns,” returned Wilks. “You couldn’t play that sort of game. Another point you appear to have overlooked is, you’d have to get permission to fly over Abyssinia. People are getting particular as to who waffles about over their territory.”
“Who’s going to stop us?”
“The Abyssinian Air Force might—the Emperor has one, you know, at Addis Ababa. If you start scrapping with them you’d be liable to start another war. This is really a matter for the Foreign Office.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” agreed Biggles. “We don’t want to start another rumpus. I’ll tell Raymond that we’ve located the crooks in Western Abyssinia, and ask him to get permission for us to go in from the Abyssinian Minister in London. That would keep us safe from the political angle.”
“Whatever you do, you’ll always be faced with the difficulty of making an air reconnaissance without being seen, and once you’re spotted you’ll be handicapped from the start,” said Wilks pensively. “I don’t see how you can get over that.”
“There’s always a way of getting over an obstacle—if you can find it,” remarked Biggles. “That’s one of my little axioms.” A twinkle came into his eyes. “I think I’ve got it. You say Abyssinia has its own air force?”
“Yes.”
“What machines do they use?”
“I’m not sure about that,” answered Wilks. “We had a formation over here a week or two back on a courtesy visit; but they were trainers—Tiger Moths.”
“Have you got any Tiger Moths here?”
“Yes, we’ve a couple. We use them for co-operation with the Askaris.” Wilks looked suspicious. “What’s the bright idea?”
“From what you tell me,” explained Biggles, “it wouldn’t be a remarkable thing if an Abyssinian Tiger Moth flew across this sanseviera area. I mean, Gontermann wouldn’t take any notice of that.”
Wilks looked puzzled. “I don’t get it. We haven’t got an Abyssinian Tiger Moth, and if you’re thinking of going to Addis Ababa to borrow one you’ll have grey hair before you get back. Our Tigers wear R.A.F. ring markings.”
Biggles grinned. “Did you never hear of a stuff called paint? They say you can’t make a leopard change his spots, but we could make one of your Tigers change his stripes by painting out our own nationality marks and substituting those of the venerable land of Ethiopia.”
“Hey! Wait a minute,” cried Wilks. “Do you want to get me court-martialled?”
“Frankly, I don’t care what you get, old bloodhound, as long as I get these infernal crooks,” returned Biggles lightly.
“You always were a calculating son-of-a-gun,” growled Wilks. But humour glinted in his eyes. “All right. I’ll do it. All the same, you owe it to the Foreign Office to let them know that you propose to cruise over a prohibited area, in case you run into trouble or have a forced landing.”
“Now you’re talking,” declared Biggles. He grinned again. “No use having pals if you don’t use them sometimes.”
“You write out your message for Raymond and I’ll see that it’s transmitted by radio right away,” invited Wilks. “Then, if you don’t mind, I’ll get some sleep. I’ve work to do to-morrow.”
“Now you remind me, I could do with a spot of shut-eye myself,” said Biggles, yawning.
CHAPTER XV
THE SANSEVIERA
THE air police were at breakfast the following morning when the answer to Biggles’s signal to Air Commodore Raymond was received. Wilks brought it into the mess, and delivered it personally. He was smiling.
“I should say your remark about Raymond tearing his hair out was understatement rather than exaggeration,” he observed. “Here’s your answer—I’ve had it decoded.”
“Read it,” requested Biggles, reaching for the coffee.
Wilks’s smile broadened as he read:
“Owing to Calpurnia affair matter has become a political issue in Parliament stop I shall be on the mat unless you end racket stop Go where you like and do what you like as long as you get crooks stop Leave subsequent explanations to me stop R.A.F., Middle East Command, has been ordered by Secretary of State for Air to co-operate without limit stop Signed Raymond.”
A smile spread slowly over Biggles’s face. “Strewth! Raymond must be in a sweat to send a message like that. I like the last part—that relieves you of any responsibility, Wilks.”
Wilks folded the message. “It looks as if you’d better get cracking, my merry sleuths,” he advised.
“You can get your boys cracking with their paint pots, on a Tiger Moth, for a start,” requested Biggles. “I’m going to cast an eye over this sanseviera jungle.”
“They’re already on the job,” answered Wilks.
“Good. In that case you can go and ring up Heliopolis to see if I can borrow a Mosquito.”
“It’s done,” announced Wilks. “Th
e machine is on the tarmac waiting for someone to fetch it. Collingwood is standing by to fly Algy and Bertie up, as soon as they’ve finished wolfing my last pot of marmalade.”
Biggles chuckled. “You always were one for keeping pace with things. Get moving, Algy, and make it snappy.”
“What do we do when we’ve got the Mosquito?” asked Algy, rising, with a piece of toast still in his hand.
“Bring it here—that’s all for the time being. I’ll take Ginger with me on this jungle jaunt; we ought to be back before you are. What we do after that will depend on what we find. We can’t do anything until we locate Gontermann’s hide-out.”
“Okay,” said Algy. With a wave Bertie followed him to the door.
Biggles also rose, and tossed his napkin on the table. “Come on, Ginger, if you want to sit in my spare seat. I’m all agog to run an optic over this botanical bunk-hole.”
“Anything more I can do?” asked Wilks.
“Yes, you can get me a nice big automatic and a couple of spare clips of slugs,” answered Biggles. “I’d better have a pocket compass, too.” He went out to the aerodrome where a placid-looking Tiger Moth was receiving the final touches of its transfiguration.
In ten minutes, while the paint was still tacky, Biggles was in the air, flying south-east on the compass course that Bertie had given him, towards the Abyssinian border. This was well over two hundred miles distant, or a two hours’ flight each way, and as the Tiger, even with a special long-range tank, had an endurance of just over five hours, it left only an hour—allowing a margin of safety—for the actual reconnaissance. Fortunately, the sanseviera area began not far from the border.
When this was reached, the country below, while bearing no resemblance to the desert, was nearly as depressing. The tangled mass of undergrowth, which Biggles knew must be the sanseviera, occurred first in scattered outposts; but these soon became larger, and eventually merged into one vast, dull green panorama, stretching as far as the eye could see, undulating rather than flat, with outcrops of gaunt rock sometimes breaking through the higher parts. There were numerous pools of water, frequently linked together by winding channels, and an occasional open space, or group of flat-topped trees, caused presumably by a change in the nature of the soil. If there were any paths through this hideous blemish on the earth’s surface, they could not be seen. Yet, as Biggles pointed out, it was fairly certain that there must be paths, for twice he went low to examine the source of smoke which curled upward, and on each occasion it came from a primitive native village.
Biggles surveyed the gloomy picture with disfavour. “What a place—what a mess,” he muttered. “Fancy getting lost in that lot.”
Sometimes circling over suspicious-looking areas, but always returning to the original compass course, Biggles went on, and at the end, after covering nearly seventy miles of it, came to the far side of the sanseviera jungle. The growth gave way to arid, rocky hills. By that time he was near the limit of his petrol range, so, without finding what he sought, he was compelled to fly straight back to the aerodrome. He made no secret of his disappointment.
Bertie and Algy were not yet back, but they landed some time later in the new Mosquito.
The same afternoon Biggles made another five-hour reconnaissance, again without result. He went out the following morning as soon as it was light, and returned, disgruntled, to report no progress. Algy and Bertie went out, using the same Tiger Moth. They, too, came back depressed, with nothing to report.
“I know what the trouble is,” said Biggles savagely, as they dressed on the third morning. “They’ve got the place camouflaged—too well camouflaged. But there, I suppose that was only to be expected. No doubt they all know something about camouflage, but Scaroni, as a transport and supply officer, is probably an expert. I’m sick of flying up and down over the cursed stuff, but there’s nothing else for it. What worries me is, if we go on like this Gontermann will realise that the Tiger isn’t just a casual machine passing over; not being a fool he’ll know that somebody is looking for him. Come on, Ginger, let’s have another shot.”
The Tiger went off. Collingwood also went off, to Zufra, and returned later with the Askaris, who had finished their job of mine clearing. Biggles wasn’t interested in mines, or Zufra. The reconnaissance had revealed nothing, and he was getting desperate. His state of mind was not improved when a signal was received from Raymond, demanding in no uncertain terms to be informed what he thought he was doing.
Biggles looked at the others, with eyes weary and bloodshot from long hours in the air. “He wants to know what we are doing,” he said plaintively. “I don’t know what to tell him, and that’s a fact.”
“You can tell him we’re all going nuts, looking for a needle in a haystack a hundred miles square,” muttered Algy.
Wilks was sympathetic, but had no suggestion to make. Biggles turned towards the mess. “Let’s have some lunch. I’ll try again this afternoon.”
Half an hour later, surprisingly, another signal was received from Raymond. This time it contained information, and Biggles whistled joyfully when he read it. “Listen,” he said. “I’d completely forgotten that I’d asked the B.B.C. to listen for signals. Raymond says they’ve picked up something; they can’t decipher it; all they can say is, something is coming over the air from an unknown source in Africa. They’ve sent us the bearing, in case it is any help to us.”
“Is it?” asked Bertie, vaguely.
“I’ll say it is!” cried Biggles. “That is, if it is Gontermann signalling to Preuss, as I hope. It’s the answer to my prayer.”
“How do you work that out?” asked Algy.
“Because, if we strike this bearing from London across Africa, and then plot the course the Renkells took from Zufra, the point where the two lines meet—if they do—will be the place we’re looking for. Let’s go to the map room.”
After a few busy minutes with a pencil and ruler Biggles let out a cry of triumph. “We’ve got it!” he declared, stabbing the map with the point of his pencil.
His enthusiasm was not without justification, for the two lines he had drawn cut across each other in the middle of the sanseviera.
“And now what are you going to do?” asked Wilks dispassionately. “You must have flown over that spot before. If you fly over it again it’s ten to one you’ll still see nothing.”
“I’m not going to fly over it,” asserted Biggles grimly. “I’m going to land.”
“In the sanseviera?” cried Wilks, aghast.
“In the nearest clearing that I can find to this spot.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Maybe; but I shall soon go crazy, anyway, if I go on flying over that perishing jungle.”
“And suppose Gontermann and his gang are there?” inquired Wilks. “What are two of you going to do against that bunch?”
“There’ll be four of us,” retorted Biggles. “We’ll borrow the other Tiger.”
“And what if you bust them trying to get down?”
“If we make crash landings we’ll clear a proper runway, so that you can fetch us out with a Lanky.”
“Suffering Icarus!” cried Wilks. “What do you think this is—a circus? By the time you’ve finished you’ll have my machines scattered half-way across the blinking continent.”
“That’ll give you something to do—picking ‘em up,” persisted Biggles. “Come on, don’t stand there blowing through your whiskers. Trot out that spare Tiger. Never mind about painting fresh colours on it—I’m in a hurry.”
“It’s taken me twenty years to climb to Group Captain,” muttered Wilks in a resigned voice. “By the time you’ve finished running my station I shall be back to aircraftman, second class.”
“Then you can start to climb up again,” said Biggles, grinning. “Now you’ve had some practice you ought to be able to do it in nineteen years. Come on, chaps, let’s get cracking. Algy, you follow in the second machine. If I can find a clearing without too many obstructions I’ll
go down first; if it’s okay for you to follow I’ll give you a wave.”
“Good enough,” agreed Algy cheerfully. “Thank goodness things are looking up at last.”
“You’ll probably change your mind about that when you’ve trodden on a snake or two, or tripped over a crocodile,” growled Wilks.
“Don’t take any notice of him,” scoffed Biggles. “He always was a pessimistic cove.”
Wilks’s sunburned face flashed a smile. Then he became serious. “Will you take a tip from me?”
Biggles noticed the change in his manner. “I’ll always take a tip from the man on the spot,” he assented.
“Take Sergeant Mahmud with you—he’s back from Zufra.”
“For what purpose?”
“He may save you a packet of trouble if you encounter hostile natives. He speaks Amharic, the local lingo.”
“I see,” said Biggles slowly. “It’ll mean leaving one of the others behind, but I think you’ve got something there, Wilks. Sergeant Mahmud will fly with Algy. Sorry, Bertie, old boy, but you’ll have to stand down. Wilks is right; it’s in the best interests of the expedition.”
Bertie’s face fell, but he was too well disciplined to argue. “Pity, and all that,” he sighed. “Isn’t there something else I can do?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is,” returned Biggles. “We should look silly, shouldn’t we, if one of the Renkells —or both of them for that matter—decided to pull out, leaving us staggering about in a couple of Tigers. You take the Spur and patrol the frontier. Keep high and you’ll be able to watch a lot of sky. Should one of the Renkells try to break out, go for him.”
Bertie polished his eyeglass without enthusiasm. “As you say, noble chief. Since birth it has been my fate to hold the dud end of the stick.”
“You never know which is the dud end until afterwards. You may have all the luck,” predicted Biggles, with unsuspected accuracy as it turned out. “Well, we’ll push along. Cheerio, Wilks. See you later.”
“You hope,” murmured Wilks.
In a few minutes the two Tigers were in the air, Biggles and Ginger in one, and Algy, with Sergeant Mahmud as passenger, in the other.