by W E Johns
‘And gone for good, if I know anything,’ murmured Bertie.
Algy paced up and down. ‘This is awful. What are we going to do about it?’
‘There’s a chance that Cozens may not be dead yet. At least, no one has yet reported finding the body, or we’d have heard of it,’ remarked Ginger hopefully.
‘If he isn’t dead he jolly soon will be,’ declared Algy. ‘Smith won’t be the type to keep a man who’s no more use to him. Cozens knows too much for them to let him go.’
‘How about waffling to Daly Flats and giving it a crack — if you see what I mean,’ suggested Bertie.
‘Biggles said we were to be here when he got back,’ Algy pointed out. ‘If we go to Daly Flats, and he gets here before we’re back, he’ll be completely in the dark as to what’s happened.’
‘He also said that if a situation arose we were to act on our own initiative,’ reminded Ginger.
‘You seem to be forgetting that we don’t know where this place Daly Flats is!’ exclaimed Algy. ‘That’s my fault, and I ought to be kicked,’ he went on savagely. ‘Instead of doing so much talking last night when Cozens was here I should have got him to give us the gen right away. He was just going to do it when von Stalhein rolled up. But there, it’s easy to be wise after the event. How was I to know that he’d have the brass face to come here?’
‘That was a bit of a corker, I must say,’ conceded Bertie. ‘It’s going to be a ghastly bind sitting here all day doing nothing. Biggles won’t be back here for hours. We shall have to do something about Cozens.’
‘Of course we shall have to do something,’ cried Algy desperately. ‘Even supposing he’s still alive, which I doubt, he’ll be on that lugger. How are we going to get hold of him? Luggers don’t have landing decks!’
‘We don’t know for certain where the lugger is, if it comes to that,’ contended Ginger. ‘For a start we could run down to the Daly to confirm that the Matilda’s on her way up.’
‘And then what?’ requested Algy.
‘It’d let the blighters know we’re wise to their dirty game,’ urged Bertie. ‘If we saw Cozens on deck, still alive, that’d be a load off our minds — if you get what I’m driving at.’
‘I don’t,’ rejoined Algy bluntly. ‘What I do see is, if that happened, they’d probably knock him on the head and throw him to the crocodiles. I don’t want to be responsible for the man’s death.’
‘We’re already responsible for the position he’s in, if it comes to that,’ argued Ginger critically. ‘The one thing that’s quite certain is, we shan’t save him by standing here yammering about it.’
Algy made up his mind suddenly. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s locate the lugger. Ginger, slip over to the control room and leave word for Biggles about what we’re doing in case he gets here before we’re back.’
Ginger went off at a run.
* * *
1 Certificate of Airworthiness.
CHAPTER XIII
Desperate Measures
The Otter was soon in the air, heading south-west for the river which, while of no great size as continental rivers go, has a notorious record of death and disaster out of proportion with its length. The ferocity of its native population, its crocodiles and mosquitoes and its sudden spates, combined for years to discourage visitors.
Algy, at the controls, struck the Daly at its broad mouth, where the muddy water meets the sea between slimy banks sometimes fringed with mangroves; for as he had said, they knew neither the speed of the current against which the lugger would have to force a passage, or of the vessel itself. Anyway, seeing nothing of a ship that looked like the lugger on the sea or in the estuary he turned inland.
For ten miles or so there was no break in the flat, reedy shore, often skirted by mudbanks on which crocodiles in startling numbers lay sunning themselves; but thereafter the river began to narrow, winding sometimes between steep, densely-wooded banks. An occasional wisp of smoke revealed the position of a native village or peanut farm. Waterfowl, white herons, pink cranes, black and white jabiru, geese and ducks, stood in the shallows or flighted up and down in clouds of hundreds.
For another twenty minutes, flying low, the Otter droned on at cruising speed. Then Ginger, who was watching ahead, cried: ‘There she is. At all events that looks like her. I’m afraid they’ll have heard us.’
‘Not necessarily,’ answered Algy. ‘They themselves will be making a certain amount of noise. I can’t see that it matters much if they do spot us. Well, that settles that question. The Matilda is on her way up the river. Now what do we do?’
‘Go nearer to see if there’s any sign of Cozens.’
‘Okay.’
‘You’ll have to buck up. The river narrows.’
Algy cut the engines. ‘I’ll glide in low. There’s a chance we may catch ‘em unawares. If Cozens is there it should encourage him to know we’re keeping an eye on things.’
The Otter, nose down, glided on at little more than stalling speed but fast overhauling the lugger.
‘There are several people on deck,’ observed Ginger. ‘I don’t think they’ve seen us yet. They’re looking ahead. That black-bearded ruffian of a skipper is at the wheel. Von Stalhein is with him. Quite a bunch of natives aft. By gosh! I believe I can see Cozens! Isn’t that him sitting on a coil of rope, or something, amidships. Behind the mainmast — with his chin in his hands.’
‘I think you’re right,’ said Algy tersely. ‘Yes, that’s him. And he’s seen us, from the way he jumped up.’
‘The natives have seen us, too. They’re running forward to tell the skipper.’
All faces on deck were now turned upwards, looking at the aircraft, which was still overtaking from about two hundred yards astern and fast losing height.
‘If you go any nearer they’ll start shooting at us,’ warned Ginger.
Said Bertie, from behind: ‘If the dirty dogs start that I’ve a few things ready to unload on ‘em, yes, by Jove!’
‘It seems a pity, but I’m afraid we’ve done all we can do,’ said Algy helplessly. ‘Case of so near and yet so far.’
No one, either on the ship or in the aircraft, could have been prepared for what happened a moment later. That Cozens himself might do something was a thought that certainly did not enter Ginger’s head, for on the face of it he was as helpless as were those in the Otter. Apparently he did not think so. What he did was jump to the rail and dive overboard.
Ginger, remembering the crocodiles, let out a cry of horror.
For a few seconds, Algy, utterly unprepared for such a move, stared unbelievingly; but when Boller raced to the stern of his ship and opened fire with a revolver, blazing shot after shot at the head bobbing in the water, he acted quickly.
What none of those in the aircraft had realized until this moment, although Cozens may have taken it into account, was the speed of the current. Before the Matilda had started to turn, the swimmer was forty yards astern, with the gap widening rapidly. Others had joined Boller in the stern and bullets were ripping up feathers of water round Cozens’s head; but so far apparently none had touched him, for he continued driving on with a powerful overarm stroke. There was really nothing surprising about this, for to hit a moving target the size of a man’s head, at long range, with a revolver, would need all the skill of a superlative marksman.
Another factor that Cozens may have considered when he played his desperate stroke was the position of the Matilda. The ship, naturally enough, was ploughing its way up the middle of the stream. This meant, as now became evident, that it had the choice of stopping and then going astern, or edging nearer to one of the banks in order to give itself enough room to do a complete turn about at full speed ahead. When Boller had rushed aft the wheel had been taken over by another man, who seemed to be in some doubt as to which course to take. Then, when he did make up his mind and started to turn he found he had insufficient room, and there was some confusion before he succeeded.
All this had occ
urred in a matter of only two or three minutes, but in that time others had been busy. Cozens still swimming strongly and striking out diagonally for the nearest bank, was now a good two hundred yards away from the lugger, while Algy, after slamming on full throttle and shoving his nose down for speed, had turned on a wing tip, as indeed was necessary if he was not to hit the trees lining the bank — which in fact he nearly did, missing a tall palm by so narrow a margin that Ginger clapped his hands over his face.
The issue was still in doubt, for in order to pick up the fugitive the trickiest part of the flying was yet to come; and there was no time to be lost, for the current that had given Cozens his early advantage was now on the side of the lugger, and it could be only a matter of minutes before the swimmer was overhauled.
Algy did not commit the folly of trying to land downstream on fast flowing water for reasons which need hardly be explained. Apart from anything else, from his position he would have been bound to overshoot his objective by a wide margin, and he would then have been carried on for some distance before he could get round. He took the only practicable course, which was to tear down the river for half a mile, do another vertical turn, and coming back, land in line with the swimmer in order to catch him as he was swept down by the stream. It would, of course, have been impossible for Cozens, no matter how strong a swimmer he might be, to swim against the current.
Algy carried out the first part of the manoeuvre like the experienced pilot he was; but the next step was complicated by the fact that between the machine and the swimmer was a mudbank. As there was no time for the Otter to get down above it before Cozens reached it, all Algy could do was land below it, and keeping his nose into the stream, engines running, wait for Cozens to come down to him. So far so good. The position now was the Otter fifty yards below the mudbank, nosing into the fierce current at half throttle, rocking and throwing up a bow-wave, the spray of which, splashing on the windscreen, made it none too easy for those behind it to see what was happening in front. Cozens, coming down fast, was near the upper end of the mudbank and striking out to clear it — Algy, of course, keeping lined up with him. A quarter of a mile away was the Matilda, travelling at alarming speed. Ginger prayed fervently that it might run aground on the mud, but Boller must have seen it, too, for in the event this did not happen.
At this stage it struck Ginger that Cozens was doing a lot of unnecessary splashing, considering that all he had to do was float; then, with a strangled gasp of horror he saw the reason. What he had taken to be a pile of dead trees on the mudbank were moving, and he realized they were crocodiles — one of them a grey-green brute nearly twenty feet long. No wonder Cozens was splashing, kicking out again towards the middle of the stream, for any attempt now to reach the river bank must have landed him on the mud amongst the beasts he was striving so desperately to avoid.
Algy, trying to keep in line, was nearly swept down the stream broadside on, but by cutting one engine he managed to straighten out.
Ginger, yelling to Bertie to stand by at the cabin door with a line in case Cozens just missed them, watched in a fever of excitement the swimmer’s head bearing down on them, expecting every instant to see it disappear as he was dragged under by the beasts in the water.
Forty yards — twenty — ten.... Gasping, Cozens caught the Otter by the bows and hung on, trying to pull himself up. The effort proved beyond him.
‘This side,’ yelled Ginger, making frantic signals.
Cozens let go, clutching at the smooth hull to check his speed. Leaning out, Bertie grabbed him, first by the hair, then under the arms. A heave and a crash and they were both inside, flat on the floor.
Algy waited for no more, but at once started to turn, for the Matilda was now so close that he couldn’t have got off upstream without colliding with it. Nor, for that matter, could he take off downstream on such a current without risking disaster at a sharp bend a little lower down. But once round he had the legs of the ship, and those on board must have realized it, for the chatter of a machine gun now added to the general frenzy. One or two bullets hit the Otter. Where, Ginger did not know. Like Algy, he was only concerned with getting clear.
The next minute was to live in his mind for ever. He had, in his time, seen some crazy flying; but none like this. As the Otter tore down the river it seemed certain that they would hit something, if not a log or a crocodile then one of the birds which, disturbed by the noise of the engines and machine-gun fire, rose in multitudes from both banks. If the aircraft did not collide with one of them, he thought, it would be due more to the birds than to Algy, who simply had to take his luck. An aeroplane can’t dodge birds when they are all around it.
Not until the Otter had secured a lead of a mile did Algy turn into the stream and take off. Airborne, he sideslipped away from a stream of bullets that came up from the lugger, and then pulled up out of range.
‘We’ve done it!’ cried Ginger in a thin voice, relaxing in his seat.
Algy, pale of face, smiled wanly. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said weakly.
‘Where now?’
‘Back to Darwin. Better go and see if Cozens is all right.’
Ginger went through the bulkhead door to the cabin to find Cozens sitting in a pool of water taking a tot of brandy that Bertie had given him from the medicine cabinet. He looked as if he needed it.
‘Are you raving mad, jumping into a river full of crocodiles?’ asked Ginger.
‘Rather that than stay on a ship manned by a gang of cold-blooded murderers,’ rasped Cozens viciously.
‘Oh, so you discovered that, did you?’
‘Yes; but don’t you worry, pal; I’ll get even with ‘em if it’s the last thing I do. Pushing me around in my own country with a gun poking in my ribs.’ Cozens’s chief emotion seemed to be anger.
‘You can tell us about it presently,’ said Ginger. ‘We’re making for Darwin.’
He returned to the cockpit. ‘He’s all right,’ he told Algy. ‘But he seems properly steamed up. On the boil, in fact.’
‘He’s lucky he isn’t stone cold,’ answered Algy, briefly.
Half an hour later, at the airport, Cozens, in borrowed clothes — for his own were of course soaking wet — was telling his story to three attentive listeners. Not that there was much to tell. It appeared that the previous night, as he walked away with von Stalhein and Ivan, even before he had reached the airfield boundary a pistol had been pushed into his back. Finding that protests were useless, and perceiving that his life was hanging on a thread, he had been forced to go to the harbour and board the Matilda, which had at once set sail. The reason why he had not been killed out of hand, he said, was because he had refused to divulge what he had told Algy, and what Algy had told him. This information had been radioed to Smith at Daly Flats. Smith had given orders for him to be taken there so that he could be questioned. He had been told by Boller that Smith would find means to make him speak. ‘They must have been mighty anxious to know what had passed between us,’ he concluded. ‘As you can imagine, I was feeling pretty sick when you blew along in this kite, and as it was obvious that I was to be bumped off anyway it seemed I had nothing to lose by going overboard. I’m a pretty good swimmer, but I don’t mind admitting now, in the excitement of seeing you, and in my haste to get off that lugger, for the moment I clean forgot about the crocs. I remembered them all right when I saw them sliding off that mudbank. Not that it would have made any difference. I’d have gone overboard anyway, if only because those swine were sure I wouldn’t. We’d seen crocs on the way up. They’d been pointed out to me. The estuary was swarming with the brutes. Pah! Forget it. Thanks for picking me up. I must say that spot of flying was pretty to watch.’
‘It was hair-raising to be in,’ alleged Ginger, smiling.
‘What are you going to do now,’ Algy asked Cozens.
‘I’m going to Daly Flats, of course,’ was the staggering reply.
Algy started. ‘You’re what?’
‘Going to Daly F
lats.’
‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘Certainly not. My kit’s there. You don’t think I’m going to leave that behind, do you? Besides, these crooks owe me a month’s pay. They’re not getting away with that, either.’
Algy looked at the others with an expression of startled despair on his face. ‘Hark at him!’ he said sadly. ‘The Voice of Young Australia.’ He turned to Cozens. ‘We, having been to some trouble to snatch you out of the lions’ den, now have the pleasure of watching you leap back into it. Pretty good. How do you reckon to get there?’
‘In the Auster, of course.’
‘You can’t. It’s grounded. Or it was when we took off this morning.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ declared Cozens grimly. ‘Grounded or not, I’m going. At the moment, with hardly anybody there, I’ve got a chance. When that mob on the lugger arrives I shall have lost it.’
‘He’s got something there, old boy,’ chipped in Bertie. ‘That goes for us, too. Now’s the time. Now or never, as they say.’
Algy shook his head. ‘This sounds like stark lunacy to me.’ He looked at Cozens. ‘What time do you reckon the Matilda will get to Daly Flats?’
‘About three this afternoon, or soon after.’
‘As quickly as that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how long would it take you to get there in the Auster?’
‘Half an hour — not more.’
Bertie looked at Algy. ‘How about having a smack at it?’
‘You mean, go with him?’
‘Of course.’
‘What about Biggles?’