by W E Johns
He was now within a hundred yards, and still neither of the Germans had seen him. He was tempted to shoot at once, for the machine presented a fairly easy target; but, following his plan of trying to hit the propeller, he put his nose down in order to overtake the big machine and attack it from the front.
Unfortunately, at that moment, the German pilot, who had reached the end of his beat, turned; the observer spotted him and jumped for his gun, but was just too late.
Biggles was already turning to bring his sights to bear; his hand found and pressed the gun lever. Rat-tat-tat-tat...
Biggles may have been lucky, for the result was instantaneous. Splinters flew off the big machine and it plunged earthwards. As it passed below him Biggles saw the pilot hanging limply forward on his safety-belt, and the observer frantically trying to recover control. He throttled back and followed it down, and as it came out into a glide he half expected to see the observer make a last attempt to reach the Lines; but either his courage failed him or he was too occupied in controlling the machine, for he made no such attempt.
Biggles waved an arm furiously as the waiting S.E.s closed in, but they stood aside as victor and vanquished sped through them, with Biggles so close that he could see the German observer’s white face.
At a thousand feet from the ground Biggles saw him bend forward and struggle with something on the floor of the cockpit, and guessed that he was endeavouring to release the camera, about which he had no doubt had special instructions. But the warning rattle of Biggles’ guns made him spring up again. In his anxiety he tried to land in a field that was really much too small for such a big machine, with the inevitable result. It crashed into the trees on the far side.
Biggles was also feeling anxious, for he knew that as soon as he was on the ground the German’s first action would be to destroy or hide the camera, so he took a risk that in the ordinary way he would have avoided. He put the machine into a steep side-slip, and tried to get into the same field.
As he flattened out he knew he had made a mistake, for the machine did not drop as it would normally have done, but continued to glide over the surface of the ground without losing height. The modifications that had been so advantageous a few minutes before were now his undoing, and although he fish-tailed hard to lose height, he could not get his wheels on the turf.
At a speed at which the machine would normally have stalled he was still gliding smoothly two feet above the ground, straight towards his victim. There was no question of turning, and to have forced the machine down would have meant a somersault.
Seeing that a crash was inevitable Biggles switched off and covered his face with his left arm, and in that position piled his Camel on to the wreckage of its victim.
He disengaged himself with the alacrity of long experience, and leapt clear—for the horror of fire is never far from an airman’s mind—and looking round for the observer saw him standing a short distance away as if undecided whether to make a bolt for it or to submit to capture.
Biggles shouted to him to return and, without waiting to see if he obeyed, set to work to liberate the unfortunate German pilot, who was groaning in his seat. He derived some satisfaction from the knowledge that he was still alive, and with the assistance of the German observer, who came running up when he saw what was happening, they succeeded in getting him clear.
Wilkinson and another pilot came running down the hedge, having landed in the nearest suitable field when they saw the Camel crash.
“I thought you’d done it that time!” panted Wilkinson, as he came up.
“So did I!” admitted Biggles. “But I’ve bust my beautiful aeroplane; I’m afraid I shall never get another like it.”
“What the... Hallo, here comes Colonel Raymond,” said Wilkinson. “He must have been watching the show from the ground; and here’s the ambulance coming down the road. The sooner that high-flying pilot is in hospital the better; he’s got a nasty one through the shoulder.”
“Is the camera there?” cried Colonel Raymond, as he ran up, accompanied by two staff officers.
“Camera, sir? By Jove, I’d forgotten it!” replied Biggles. And it was true: in the excitement of the last few minutes all thoughts of the special object of his mission had been forgotten.
“Yes, here it is,” almost shouted the Colonel, tugging at something amongst the debris, regardless of the oil that splashed over his clean whipcord breeches. “That’s lucky—”
He stopped abruptly as several pieces of thick glass fell out of the wide muzzle of the instrument and tinkled amongst the splintered struts. He turned the heavy camera over and pointed accusingly at a round bullet-hole in the metal case, just opposite the lens.
“You’ve put a bullet right through it!” he cried.
Biggles stared at the hole as if fascinated. “Well, now, would you believe that?” he muttered disgustedly. “And they took five years to make it!”
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THE PRIZE
THE BOYISH face of the Hon. Algernon Lacey wore a remarkable expression as its owner walked in long strides towards the officers’ mess from the direction of the squadron office. He hesitated in his stride as MacLaren, the doughty Scots flight-commander, emerged from his hut, cap in hand and stared thoughtfully at the sky.
“Hi, Mac!” hailed Algy. “Have you seen Biggles anywhere?”
“Aye, he’s in the billiards-room.”
“Thanks!” Algy hurried on, entered the mess, crossed the ante-room, and pushed open the door of the room in which a small billiards-table had been installed, to find Biggles sitting in a cane chair with his feet resting on the window-still, a small circle of officers around him.
“Hi!” cried Algy. “I’ve some news that will shake you!”
“You may have news, but I doubt if it will shake me,” rejoined Biggles. “I’ve been in this perishing war too long for anything to cause me either surprise or consternation. What is it? Has Fishface decided to stand us a dinner?”
Fishface was the popular name for Brigadier-General Tishlace, general officer commanding the Wing in which Squadron No. 266 was brigaded.
“No,” replied Algy. “At least, not so far as I know. But Wat Tyler has just shown me tonight’s orders— they’re being typed now. We’ve been detailed for a week’s propaganda work. Several other units have got to do it, too, I believe.”
“Propaganda?”
“Yes. You know the game—dropping leaflets over the other side of the Line, telling Huns that they’re losing the war, and if they like to be good boys and give themselves up what a lovely time they’ll have in England!”
“Great Scott! What will they want us to do next? Do they think we’re a lot of unemployed postmen?”
“It’s no joking matter,” answered Algy seriously. “D’you know what the Huns do to people they catch at this game?”
“No. But I can guess.”
“It’s either a firing-party at dawn, up against a brick wall, or the salt mines in Siberia!”
“Then, obviously, the thing is not to get caught.”
“You’ve said it,” observed Mahoney. “I had to do this job once when I was in 96 Squadron. We didn’t go far over the Line, I can tell you; in fact, Billy Bradley dropped a load only about two miles over. There was a dickens of a wind blowing at the time and it blew the whole lot back over the aerodrome. It looked as if the whole blooming Army had been having a paper-chase.”
“How do you drop ‘em?” asked Biggles curiously.
“They’re done up in bundles, with an elastic band round them. You just pull the band off and heave the whole packet over the side. They separate as they fall, and you get an effect like an artificial snowstorm at a pantomime.”
“Well,” declared Biggles, “I don’t mind a rough-house once in a while, but I’d hate to dig salt in Siberia. I never did like salt, anyway. When do we start this jaunt?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
The door was flung open, and Wilkinson—better known as �
��Wilks”, of the neighbouring S.E.5 Squadron —entered and broached the object of his visit without delay.
“I hear you blighters have been detailed for this paperchase tomorrow?”
“So Algy says,” replied Biggles. “Why, what do you know about it?”
“We’ve been doing it for the last three days.”
“The dickens you have!”
“We have. And we’re pretty good at it!”
“How do you mean, good? It doesn’t strike me that it needs any great mental effort to throw a bundle of papers over the side of an aeroplane. Still, it’s the sort of thing your crowd might easily learn to do quite well.”
“Don’t you make any mistake! Headquarters usually has a job to make people go far over the Line, but we’re doing the job properly. I dropped a load over Lille yesterday.”
“Lille! But you don’t call that far. It’s only about ten miles!”
“It’s far enough, and farther than you Camel merchants are likely to go!”
Biggles rose slowly to his feet. “We’ll see about that!” he declared. “I should say that where a palsied, square-faced S.E. can go, a Camel should have no difficulty in going. In fact, it could probably go a bit farther. In order to prove it, tomorrow I shall make a point of heaving a load of this confetti over Tournai.”
“You’re barmy!” jeered Wilks. “How are you going to prove you’ve been there, anyway?”
“If you’re going to start casting nasturtiums at my integrity I shall have to take a camera—”
He broke off, and with the other officers rose to his feet as Colonel Raymond, of Wing Headquarters Intelligence Staff, entered the room with Major Mullen, the C.O..
“Good-morning, gentlemen!” said the Wing officer. “All right, sit down, everybody. What were you talking about, Bigglesworth? Did I hear you say you were going to heave something at somebody?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Biggles. “Wilks here—Wilkinson —says he dropped a packet of these—er—propaganda leaflets over Lille yesterday. Just to show that there is no ill-feeling I said I’d drop a load over Tournai.”
“Tournai! It’s a long way—about thirty miles, I should say, for a guess. I’d be glad to see you do it, but it’s taking a big risk.”
“No risk at all, sir. I thought it might be a good thing if we set Wilks and his S.E.5 people a mark to aim at. Shackleton’s Farthest South sort of thing—or rather, Farthest East.”
Colonel Raymond smiled. “I see,” he said slowly. “If your CO. has no objection I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll present a new gramophone to the squadron that takes a packet of those leaflets Farthest East during the next two days. Time expires—shall we say—at twelve noon, the day after tomorrow.”
“That’s very sporting of you, sir!” replied Biggles. “You might order a label made out to this squadron.”
“You wait a minute,” broke in Wilkinson. “Not so fast!” He turned to Colonel Raymond. “You make the label out to us, sir; it will save you altering it.”
“I think I’ll wait for the result first!” laughed the Colonel. “I shall expect a photograph for proof. I shall be outside, on the tarmac, at twelve o’clock the day after tomorrow, to check up. Good-bye!”
Biggles bent forward and peered through the arc of his whirling propeller for the fiftieth time and examined the sky carefully. Satisfied that it was clear he turned and looked long and searchingly over his shoulder. From horizon to horizon not a speck marked the unbroken blue of the sky.
He glanced at his watch and saw that he had been in the air rather more than an hour. Thirty minutes of it he had spent in climbing to his limit of height over his own side of the Lines, and for the remainder of the time he had pushed farther and farther into hostile country.
It was the day following the discussion in the mess, and, in accordance with his declared intention, he had left the ground shortly after dawn, bound for Tournai. So far he had been fortunate, for he had not seen a single machine of any sort. Even the archie had dwindled away as he had penetrated beyond the usual scene of operations.
Below lay a rolling landscape of green fields and woods, very different from that nearer the Lines. It was new to him, for, although he had been as far over on one or two previous occasions, it had not been in this actual area.
Again he peered ahead, and saw that his course had been correct. Tournai, a broad splash of grey, red, and brown walls, lay athwart the landscape like an island in a green sea. He wiped the frosted air from his windscreen, unwrapped a piece of chocolate from its silver jacket, popped it into his mouth, and once more began his systematic scrutiny of the atmosphere. The sky was still clear. “It looks as if it’s going to be easy!” he thought, as he took a camera from the pocket in the side of his cockpit and placed it on his lap.
Then he groped under the cushion on which he sat and produced the object of the raid. It was a tightly packed wad of thin paper, not unlike banknotes, held together by an elastic band.
Once more he searched the sky. Satisfied that he had nothing to fear, he eased the control-stick forward for more speed and roared across his objective.
When he was slightly to the windward side of it he took his unusual missile from his lap, pulled off the elastic band, and flung it over the side.
Instantly the swirling slipstream tore the papers apart and scattered them far and wide.
By the time he had turned for home a multitude of what appeared to be small white moths was floating slowly earthward.
It was an extraordinary spectacle, and a smile came to his face as he watched it.
Then he turned to bring the sun behind him, aimed his camera at the scene below, and depressed the shutter release. He repeated the process, in case of an accident occurring to one of the plates, and then raced away towards the distant Lines.
Twenty minutes passed. Only half the distance had been covered, for he was now flying against a headwind. Nevertheless, he had just begun to hope that he would reach home without being molested, when a cluster of fine dots appeared over the western horizon. The effect was not unlike a small swarm of gnats on a summer’s evening. He altered his course slightly to make a detour round them, but continued to watch them closely. The speed with which they increased in size made it clear that the machines were travelling in his direction, and presently he could make them out distinctly.
It was a formation of six British bombers, D.H. Fours, being hotly attacked on all sides by some fifteen or twenty Albatros scouts. The D.H.’s seemed to be holding their own, however, and held on their way, flying in a tight V-formation.
The affair was nothing to do with Biggles; in any case he could not hope to serve any good purpose by butting in, although he wondered why no escort had been provided for the bombers, so he gave them as wide a berth as possible, hoping to pass unobserved. But it was not to be.
First one of the enemy scouts saw him, then another, until the air between him and the D.H. Fours was filled with a long line of gaudily painted aeroplanes, all racing in his direction.
“Those ‘Four’ pilots ought to be pleased with me,” he thought bitterly, “for taking that mob off their heels. This is going to be awkward!”
The Albatroses were at about his own altitude. If anything, they were a trifle higher, which gave them a slight advantage of speed. To fight such a crowd successfully, so far from home, once they had drawn level with him was obviously impossible.
He was, as near as he could judge, still a good twelve miles over the enemy’s side of the Lines; not a great distance as distance counts on the ground, but a long, long way when one is fighting against overwhelming odds.
He looked around for a cloud in which he might take cover, or around which he might dodge his pursuers, but in all directions the sky was clear. He scanned the horizon anxiously, hoping to see some of the scouts of his own side with whom he could join until the danger was past; but the only British machines in sight were the fast disappearing D.H. Fours.
The nearest Albatro
s was less than a quarter of a mile away. Once it caught him he would be compelled to stay and fight, for to fly straight on would mean being shot down like a sparrow.
“Well, I’ll get as near to home as I can before we start,” he thought, pushing the control-stick forward. The note of the engine, augmented by the scream of the wind round wires and struts, increased in volume as the Camel plunged downwards.
Biggles flew with his head twisted round over his shoulder, watching his pursuers, and as the leader drew within range he kicked the rudder-bar and threw the Camel into a spin, from which he did not pull out until he was as near the ground as he dare go.
He came out facing the direction of the Lines, and although the Albatroses had spun with him, as he knew they would, he managed to make another two or three miles before they came up to him again.
The combat could no longer be postponed, yet if he stayed to fight so far from home, the end was inevitable. However many machines he shot down, in the end his turn would come, for the longer he fought, the more enemy machines would arrive. A large field lay almost immediately under him, and a little farther on he saw an aerodrome, and an idea flashed into his head, although he had no time to ponder on it.
The vicious rattle of a machine-gun reached his ears, warning him that the Hun leader was already within range. He jerked the control-stick back and sideslipped earthwards, imitating as nearly as he could the actions of a pilot who had been badly hit. Would it work? He could but try.
Following his plan, he swerved low over the treetops, throttled back, and ran to a standstill at the far side of the big field, after steering an erratic course. Then he sagged forward in the cockpit and remained still.
Out of the corner of his eye he watched the many-hued torpedo-like Albatroses circling above him. An orange-coloured machine, the one that had fired at him, detached itself from the others and glided down to land. One by one the remainder turned over the hedge and made for the aerodrome, from which a party was no doubt on its way to take charge of the wounded “prisoner”.