by W E Johns
A smile spread slowly over Tug’s face. “I get it.”
“You may have several replies, but the only one we’re interested in is Stellar. Ignore any others. It may not come off—but it might. If you should hear from Stellar, watch your step, because if they take you on you’ll be watched. You’ll have to play your own hand. Get into the outfit and keep your eyes open. Report to me as and when you can, by any means possible. That will be your most dangerous task. If Stellar is crooked you’ll be under observation until they are sure you can be trusted—that is, until they’re convinced that you’re crooked too. Your job may not be as easy as it sounds. One slip and you’re sunk. You’ll be burnt up in a crash, or eaten by a lion, maybe. See what I mean? If I’m not here I’ll leave word where messages are to be forwarded. Feel like having a go at it?”
“You bet,” answered Tug without hesitation.
“If you find yourself in the air there’s a chance that you may see something of Ginger and Bertie,” went on Biggles. Turning to Bertie he smiled the whimsical smile they all knew. “Bertie, I’ve heard you say that you did some big game shooting in your murky past?”
Bertie started. “Why yes, rather—that is, absolutely. Jolly good fun. Deuced dangerous, by gad. I was crawling up behind a boulder one day to have a pot at an elephant when the boulder rose up and tried to horn me. Beastly rhino, by Jove! You should have seen me move.”
“ That’s fine,” asserted Biggles. “ As soon as this meeting breaks up you will push along home, collect your hunting kit, and fly straight out to Cairo. Park the machine where it will be handy should you need it again. Ginger will go with you. You will be Indian army officers on leave, out for some big game hunting. Settle the details between yourselves. You’d better stay at the United Services’ Club. As soon as convenient push along to the offices of Stellar Skyways and book seats for the first available Hunters’ Tour. Never mind what it costs. Your police passes will enable you to draw money from any British agent.”
“Any reason why we shouldn’t be R.A.F. officers?” asked Ginger.
“Yes. It would be better if you knew nothing about aviation.”
“Ah-huh.”
“Your job is to get inside this Kudinga sport-palace and see what goes on. Reporting to me is going to be difficult I’m afraid. Never on any account use my name and be careful how you word your signals. I’d better get Raymond to register a telegraphic address for me with the post office. Sporting, London, will do— it’s easy to remember.”
“We could take one of our portable radio transmitters in a suitcase,” suggested Ginger. “R.A.F. stations in Africa could be warned to listen for signals and re-transmit them to you.”
“It’s risky. Genuine big game hunters don’t carry special service radio equipment. If it was discovered you’d be in a jam. Please yourself, but be careful. If you should see Tug you won’t know him, of course. He won’t know you, either.”
“What’s the idea of starting from Cairo, old boy?” inquired Bertie. “Why not start from London?”
“London’s too close to home. In Cairo you will let it be known that you’ve just arrived from India, so Stellar agents in Egypt will be less likely to regard you with suspicion than if you started from here. They may not have been told yet that we are on the job. That’s the reason why I’m rushing things. I’m hoping to get ahead of the enemy’s intelligence.”
“And what are you and Algy going to do?” inquired Ginger.
“That’s something I haven’t settled yet. We may stay here in case we are wanted. Much depends on how you get on. There’s a chance that we may take the Old World Tour, boarding the plane somewhere in the Middle East. I don’t want to be seen by Robinson. One last warning. If Stellar are the people we’re looking for they’ll have thousands of underlings working for them—the men who are distributing the dud notes and so on. They don’t interest us. We want the Big Boss, and we’ve got to catch him with the goods on him, so to speak, or it’s no use. To curtail the company’s activities on mere suspicion, and the Air Ministry could of course do that, would be futile. The trouble would only break out again in some other place. It’s got to be a clean sweep or nothing. Okay. Those of you who are going out on operations had better get cracking.”
Chapter 5
Hunters’ Tour
WITHIN twenty-four hours of being briefed Ginger and Bertie were in Cairo, at the United Services’ Club having left their aircraft, a standard Beaufighter, at Almaza aerodrome. They were dressed for the parts they were to play—wide-brimmed hats, thick shirts under old tweed jackets, cord breeches, strong ankle boots and leggings. With them they had the usual equipment of the amateur big game hunter—rifles, guns, revolvers, cartridges, bandoliers, binoculars, compasses, field kit and other luggage. All these things had been plcked up at Bertie’s home. They had registered as Major Lissie and Captain Hebblethwaite, both of the Frontier Rifles, direct from India.
Having parked their kit at the Club they lost no time in setting about the task that had brought them to Egypt. The office of Stellar Skyways, they learned from the commissionaire, was at the airport, so to it they made their way, not knowing what they were going to find, but prepared for anything.
They were received in a small but well-appointed office by a swarthy, sleek-haired young man of doubtful nationality but obviously of oriental blood. He greeted them respectfully and listened to Bertie’s requirements with inscrutable unsmiling eyes.
“What wish you to shoot, sirs? “ he asked.
Bertie adjusted his eyeglass. “Anything—absolutely anything. The bigger the better. Rhino, hippo, buffalo—it s all the same to me. Time I shot something tougher than the mangy tigers we get in India. Feller in Quetta told me about this Jungle Tour of yours.”
“You mean the Hunters’ Tour, sir?”
“That’s it. Hunters’ Tour. Same thing—what?”
“Yes, sirs, but certainly,” said the clerk suavely. “You are lucky. We have a plane leaving in one hour if that is not too soon for you?”
“That’s top hole—suit us fine.”
“Shall I book two seats for you?”
“Absolutely,” declared Bertie. “The luck’s in, by Jove! We’ll fetch our kits.” He turned away, but the clerk recalled him.
“There are two small formalities first, sirs,” said he in the same even tone. “I regret I must ask payment for the tickets.”
“Of course. Clean forgot.” Bertie took out his wallet. “How much?”
“Five hundred pounds for each ticket, sirs,” was the bland request.
Bertie started. “Here, I say, that’s a deuce of a lot of boodle, isn’t it?”
“The charge is inclusive of travel and accommodation and we guarantee good sport.”
“I should jolly well think so,” muttered Bertie. “I haven’t got that much in cash. I shall have to give you a cheque on my bank.”
The clerk bowed. “But certainly. That is as good as money. You understand that if the cheque was not honoured you would find it a long walk back from Kudinga?”
Bertie frowned. “Don’t you threaten me, my lad.”
“No threat, sir, only a warning. We have to make strict rules.” Actually, there was nothing in the clerk’s manner to which exception could be taken.
Bertie wrote the cheque.
“And now, sirs, if you will be kind enough to complete these forms.” The clerk handed out two fairly large sheets of paper.
“Here, I say, what’s all this about?” demanded Bertie, after a glance at the long list of questions set out. “This is worse than the bally passport form.”
“From the time our plane sets out, sirs, you will be the responsibility of the company,” explained the clerk. “Also I must say that our club at Kudinga is exclusive. In the interests of our clients only the best people are permitted to enter.”
Ginger studied his form and saw that although the questions were entirely personal there were none that could not be filled in although it mea
nt evasion. Obviously he could not give his correct address and occupation. After a glance at Bertie he filled in the form. Bertie did the same.
“Anyone else going on this trip?” asked Ginger as he handed back the paper.
“Yes, sir. You will have travelling companions,” was the vague answer.
“Well, we’ll fetch our kit along,” said Ginger. “Shall we park it here?”
“In compliance with regulations it will have to be weighed, sirs.”
“Quite so. All right. We’ll be back.”
Ginger and Bertie returned to the Club, and from the reception office sent a carefully worded cablegram to Biggles under the prearranged telegraphic address. It merely said that all was going according to plan and that they were moving on south that day. Biggles, they knew, would understand the meaning of the word south. They then collected their kits, and arrived back at the booking office having been absent nearly fifty minutes. A Pacemaker, bearing the Stellar insignia, was ticking over quietly on the tarmac. Automatically Ginger’s eyes went to the registration letters, and as he read them his nerves tingled.
“Take a look,” he muttered tersely to Bertie. “That’s the machine shown in the photo.”
“By gad! So it is.”
“You realize what that means?”
“Well,—er—not exactly. Haven’t thought about it.”
“It isn’t certain, but the chances are that the photo in Biggles’ possession was exposed within the last couple of days, coming as it does immediately in front of those taken by the paper—seller in Mount Street. If that is so then it means that this machine was in England at that time—either that or the fellow with the camera was out of the country.”
Further conversation was prevented by the arrival of the booking clerk. “Please to go aboard, sirs,” he requested. “There is your plane. It is ready. Your luggage will follow immediately, as soon as it has been weighed.”
Leaving the pile of luggage Bertie and Ginger strolled on to the aIrcraft, Ginger more than a little interested to see who their travelling companions were to be. A steward showed them to their seats. The Pacemaker was, he knew, normally an eight-seater, but he doubted if the machine would carry that number of hunters with their heavy equipment through the thin desert air.
As they sat down he saw at a glance that his supposition about the seating accommodation was correct. The seats had been rearranged and reduced to six. A small stool was provided presumably for the steward. Four of the seats were already occupied, which meant that with their arrival the aircraft was loaded to capacity. He scrutinized the passengers.
This he was easily able to do because he and Bertie occupied the two rear seats, on either side of a narrow gangway.
The inspection did not take long. Immediately in front of him was an elderly, robust man, with a sun-tanned skin, dressed in well-worn tweeds, as characteristic an example of a Britisher of the sporting type as would be possible to imagine. He was reading the Times newspaper. Ginger put him down as a senior army officer probably retired. The next two men were of a different type. One was quite young, the other middle aged. Both were dressed in dark lounge suits. There was nothing remarkable about them. At home they might have been commercial travellers. Ginger noticed the tips of the fingers of the right hand of the younger man were stained, as if by ink, or some dark dye.
His eyes passed on to the last man, who was sprawled as though he were asleep in one of the two forward seats. A shock was in store, one that made his nerves tingle. He had seen the man only once before, but there was no possibility of mistake. It was Robinson. He dare not speak to Bertie for fear of being overheard; he tried to catch his eye; but Bertie had settled down in his seat and looking slightly bored was watching the scene outside through the cabin window.
Ginger’s brain wrestled with this new and unexpected development. So Robinson was on his way to Kudinga, he pondered. He must have started at about the same time as themselves, or as soon as possible after his unprofitable visit to Mount Street. Clearly, his business was urgent, and it might reasonably be connected with them. The link-up with the photograph showing the Stellar plane began to take shape. As he had suspected, the Pacemaker had just been to England. The photograph had been taken there. The machine had been flown straight out to Egypt and was now going on to Kudinga. It might, or might not, be the regular Hunters’ Tour plane, flying to schedule. The booking clerk knew that there were spare seats in it anyway. One thing was certain. This was practical confirmation that Robinson was tied up with Stellar Skyways. It could be assumed, therefore, that Stellar was not what it purported to be.
Ginger wished desperately that he could let Biggles have this significant information right away; but there was no time for that now, for the pilot had climbed into his cockpit and was now in the act of running up his engines. The roar of them died abruptly as he throttled back. The steward closed the cabin door and a moment later the aircraft began to move.
Ginger had caught a glimpse of the pilot as he got aboard. He was a stranger, a European, with hard, clean-cut features and fair hair. Who he was or what his nationality might be Ginger could not hazard a guess. Biggles had learned that most, if not all, of the Stellar pilots were foreigners, so presumably this fellow was one.
By this time the aircraft was in the air, levelling out for a run which Ginger had worked out from the map could not be less than eighteen hundred miles. Granting the Pacemaker a cruising speed of three hundred miles an hour in still air, that meant a six hour trip. In the event the journey occupied a trifle under that time.
Ginger knew the course fairly well. For a long time it practically followed the Imperial Route down the Nile Valley—Assiut, Aswan, Khartoum, and then the four hundred miles of dreary swamp known as the Sud. Somewhere near the western extremity of Abyssinia, however, the pilot swung away a little to the west, over practically sheer wilderness.
Towards the finish, though, the terrain began to change, the desert giving way to endless plains, scarred by deep depressions in which grew reeds, scrub, and occasionally timber. This, Ginger was aware, was some of the finest big game country left in Africa, and more than once he saw herds of giraffe, zebra, wildebeest and antelope, a few elephant and an occasional solitary rhino. Once he caught a glimpse of buffalo in a reed bed fringing some timber. All this was quite interesting, but he was glad when the engines were cut and the nose of the machine tilted down, indicating that the journey was nearly at an end.
During the entire trip no one had spoken. With the exception of the elderly sportsman everyone appeared to doze or sleep. From this Ginger inferred that it was the old man’s first visit, but the others had done the trip before or they could not have failed to take some interest in what lay below.
As the machine glided down Ginger surveyed the ground with renewed interest, and with a definite purrpose. This, undoubtedly, would be his best opporrtunity for getting the lie of the land. What he saw was this: on all sides stretched undulating plains, rolling away and away to fade at last into mysterious distances. For the most part they were dry, the earth being clad only in yellowish, sun-dried grass, with here and there a tangle of flat-topped acacia trees. In a few places only were there extensive belts of forest; but there were places where small groups of trees gave the impression of English parkland. From all sides the land rose gently to a central eminence, towards which the aircraft was now gliding. This was the most conspicuous feature in a colourless panorama and its origin was apparent. It was a long extinct volcano, of no great height, but of considerable extent. The depression that had long ago been the crater could not, Ginger judged, be less than twelve miles across. The erosion of ages had rounded the contours in the manner of the Sussex Downs. Grass and scrub covered what at one time must have been naked rock, providing both food and cover for the herds of animals that occupied the region. At one point a belt of heavy timber swept up from the plain, to run over the lip of the crater and spread down the inside, terminating in a bamboo swamp of some size.
The centre of this was occupied by the only water in sight—a black, sinister-looking lake.
At no great distance from the edge of this forest, standing in a commanding position overlooking the plains, was the only sign of human activity—the hunting lodge.
Ginger was astonished by the size of it. It comprised, not one single building, but a number of buildings, although one, presumably the lodge itself, far exceeded the others in importance. The place might have been a military depot, an impression that was enhanced by what appeared to be a surrounding stockade, or boundary fence. Two buildings only stood outside this fence. One was well down the inner slope of the crater, inside the bamboo swamp and close to the lake. The other was on the same level as the lodge, but to one side of it, and consisted of a long, low barn open on one side for its entire length. From the fact that a number of black figures were lounging about this shed —for it was little more than that—Ginger took it to be, correctly as it turned out, the quarters of the natives who were employed by the company as hunters, porters, gun bearers and the like.
By the time Ginger had noted these things the machine was touching down on a level area of turf, free from obstructions, in front of the lodge. It taxied on to a double gate in the fence, which was as near as it could get to the bungalow, a matter of perhaps twenty yards, where, under a verandah, a little group of white men stood waiting. There was no permanent hangar, Ginger noticed, only a large canvas one and a mobile flood-light for night landings. The engines were switched off. The steward opened the cabin door. “Kudinga!” he called. “Your luggage will be brought to your rooms, gentlemen.”