by W E Johns
‘He’s testing her now,’ put in Biggles, as the noise of the engine rose to a crescendo, and then died away again as it was throttled back.
‘It doesn’t sound too good to me,’ declared Ginger, with his head on one side.
‘She’s giving her revs, anyway, or he wouldn’t be so crazy as to try to take off,’ returned Biggles. ‘There he goes.’
The Platypus was racing across the flat part of the rock, apparently to certain destruction.
Fifty yards from the jagged teeth that barred its path the wheels had not lifted.
‘He’s deliberately holding her down,’ said Biggles, whose face was deathly white.
Twenty yards from the edge of the cliff the Platypus jerked into the air, its wheels missing the rocks with a foot to spare.
Ginger wiped imaginary perspiration from his brow. ‘Phew,’ he gasped, ‘I can’t stand much of that. I—’ He broke off suddenly and started to his feet.
Biggles, too, sprang up, his lips in a straight line. Comment was unnecessary. The engine was spluttering. There came the explosion of a backfire. The engine picked up again, but only for a moment. Another splutter, and it cut out dead.
As soon as the engine had started missing, the nose of the machine had tilted down. Now it went into a glide, and began a flat turn back towards the rock, about a hundred yards behind it.
‘He’ll never do it,’ said Biggles in a dull voice. ‘He can’t get back. It’s impossible. He’ll go nose first into the cliff if he tries.’
What he had said was obviously so true that Ginger did not answer. He was incapable of speech. With his muscles as taut as if he were flying the machine himself, he could only watch. He saw the machine turn away from the island as Algy, too, realized that he was attempting the impossible. A moment later the Platypus disappeared from sight below the level of the cliff.
‘He’s going down on the sea—it’s all he can do,’ snapped Biggles, and started off down towards the place where the machine had disappeared, jumping from rock to rock in a manner that was little short of suicidal. The Flight-Sergeant, Briny, and Roy were also racing towards the place. With his heart in his mouth, Ginger followed Biggles.
Breathless, they arrived at the edge of the cliff just as the snow began to fall again, although it was not yet too thick to prevent them from seeing the machine land heavily on the water. But the captain of the destroyer had also realized what was happening, and now the long grey hull, flinging a bow wave high into the air, came racing towards the helpless aircraft.
‘I’m afraid it’s all over bar the shouting,’ said Biggles heavily. ‘He hasn’t a chance.’
‘He seems to be mighty busy doing something,’ observed Ginger, staring at Algy, who was now standing up in his cockpit. ‘What’s he doing?’
‘I know what he’s doing,’ said Biggles bitterly. ‘He’s tearing the British code-book to pieces so that he can set fire to them.’
‘What! In the machine! He’ll have the whole thing in flames in a couple of minutes. If his tank catches fire he’ll blow himself up.’
‘He’ll risk that as long as he destroys the book,’ declared Biggles. ‘Confound the snow,’ he added viciously, as the blizzard suddenly thickened and blotted out the sea. They could not even see the water.
For a minute the watchers on the cliff stood still, listening, vainly straining their eyes.
‘I thought I heard a shout,’ muttered Ginger.
The words had hardly left his lips when a violent explosion again shook the rock, although the noise was muffled somewhat by the snow. A moment later came the sound of debris falling into the water.
‘That’s his tank gone up.’ Ginger’s voice was little more than a whisper.
Biggles said nothing. With his chin cupped in the palm of his hand he sat staring, white-faced, into the driving snow.
CHAPTER XIX
MAROONED ON THE ROCK
FOR some time nobody spoke. The only sound was the chugging of an invisible motorboat somewhere on the sea below.
At last Ginger tapped Biggles on the shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s no sense in sitting here getting smothered with snow. If we don’t soon get back to the cave we may not be able to find it.’
Biggles got up. ‘I was trying to work out a way of getting that code-book back, but it’s got me stumped,’ he said despondently. ‘However, as you remark, it’s no use sitting up here in the snow, unable to see a blessed thing; we may as well have a look at the cave—if it’s still there. If it isn’t—well, it’ll be interesting to see how they propose to get us off this rock. They won’t just sail off and leave us here, that’s certain.’
‘The only thing they could do would be to shoot us up from the air with machine-guns.’
Biggles reached for their own gun. ‘Two can play at that game,’ he said grimly. ‘Poor old Algy; if only he could have got away with those books I shouldn’t have minded so much what happened here. Ah well! I suppose it was bound to come to this sooner or later. Let’s get back to the cave.’
They all made their way through the drifting snow to the edge of the cliff.
‘The ledge is still there, anyway,’ observed Biggles, looking over the top as he tied the rope round his waist. ‘Let me down first.’
With the gun in his hands he was lowered to the ledge. The others followed, Ginger, who came last, scrambling down at the end of a running line, with the rope looped round a projecting piece of rock at the top of the cliff.
Entering the cave, they saw at once that the lake was no longer there. Where the water had been yawned a wide black crater, but the passage across it offered no great difficulty. At the far side they found that the rock that had dammed the water had been shattered by the explosion; beyond it, the fissure was almost choked with debris, and Biggles looked at it dubiously before he advanced.
‘Take it quietly everybody, or we may have the whole place down on our heads,’ he warned the others.
Moving with extreme caution, taking care not to disturb loose rocks, they went on, noting the results of the escaping flood.
It was Ginger who saw the new exit first. Biggles had just pulled up with a cry of warning—or it may have been dismay—for they had reached a place where the fissure was almost completely blocked with pieces of loose rock, jammed together by the colossal weight of the water. All their torches were on, and it was no doubt due to this that the grey light which entered the cave from the left at first passed unnoticed.
Ginger, happening to look that way, let out a shout. ‘Here, what’s this?’ he cried. ‘It looks like a hole. It must be the place where the water burst through the side of the cliff.’
As quickly as they dared they made their way to the spot, and soon saw that what Ginger had surmised was indeed the case. A large portion of the side of the cliff had been forced out by the sudden weight of the released water, leaving an enormous cavity into which the snow now drifted.
Biggles made his way cautiously to the edge and looked down. ‘I can just see the cove,’ he announced. ‘I should say it’s about eighty feet below us.’
‘Is there anybody about?’ inquired Ginger. ‘I can’t see anybody.’
‘Then they must be back in the cave, trying to get up to us.’
‘I don’t think they’ll get past that mass of rock —the place where we were held up.’
‘If they can’t get up, it also means that we can’t get down.’
‘I’m by no means anxious to get down—just yet, anyway,’ said Biggles slowly. ‘I think the snow is getting thinner. Let’s sit here for a bit until it clears. We’d better see what’s happening below before we do anything else.’
Resting the gun against a boulder, Biggles sat down to wait. Ginger squatted beside him, and the others leaned against the rock. As Biggles had remarked, the snowstorm was passing, and presently it was possible to see most of the cove.
‘Where the dickens has everybody gone?’ muttered Ginger, scanning the scene below in search
of the Germans whom he fully expected to see there.
‘Don’t ask me,’ replied Biggles. ‘I can only think that the second destroyer must have picked them up.’
‘But it was making for Algy’s machine. Surely it wouldn’t have tried to get back into the cove through all that snow. Visibility must have been zero.’
‘There’s the destroyer, and the drifter, at any rate,’ observed Biggles, as visibility improved and it became possible to see the two vessels, still locked together against the spit. The destroyer had sunk by the stern, with her bows still in the drifter’s hull. Both appeared to be deserted.
‘This has got me whacked,’ went on Biggles, with a puzzled expression on his face. ‘Where the dickens have the crews gone?’
‘The lifeboats aren’t there,’ the Flight-Sergeant pointed out. ‘They must have taken to the boats when the destroyer started to founder.’
‘But where could they go? Why can’t we see them? You’d have thought they’d have come ashore.’
Briny stepped forward. ‘Excuse me, sir, I didn’t like to mention it before, but when you was a’sittin’ on the top there, just after Mr. Lacey flopped down in the ditch, I thought I ‘eard a motor-boat. I’ve got a pretty good ear for engines, and I said to myself, I said, if that ain’t the blooming motor-boat wot let me down, then I never ‘eard it.’
Biggles stared, trying to grasp the significance of what Briny had said.
‘Just a minute,’ put in Ginger sharply, turning to Biggles. ‘Didn’t you say that the drifter had picked up the motor-boat? If so, it might have brought it here.’
‘That’s right,’ conceded Biggles.
‘Then they might have cleared off in the motorboat—or taken the lifeboats in tow.’
‘Even so, that doesn’t explain why they should suddenly rush off, knowing that we were on the island.’
‘They may have gone to the other destroyer.’
‘Yes, but where is the other destroyer ?’ cried Biggles, indicating the open sea, for the snow had now practically stopped, and it was possible to see for two or three miles.
‘Great Scott! Look! There’s Algy’s machine,’ shouted Ginger suddenly.
Biggles stared as if he could not believe his eyes; but there was no possibility of mistake.
The Platypus had drifted into sight, close to the rocks below them. It seemed to be in an undamaged condition, but of Algy there was no sign.
‘He must be in the water—unless he managed to get ashore,’ ventured Roy.
‘Hark!’ said Biggles suddenly.
Over the water came a hail. ‘Ahoy there!’
‘What the dickens! That wasn’t Algy’s voice,’ swore Biggles.
‘It certainly wasn’t,’ agreed Ginger emphatically.
Then to their ears came the muffled beat of an engine, and they all stared at the shoulder of rock from beyond which the sound seemed to come. And as they stared, moving very slowly, a long, sleek body came into sight, just above the surface of the water.
‘Look out! It’s a U-boat,’ snapped Biggles, grabbing the gun. Then he stopped, staring incredulously as the rest of the steel deck came into sight. On the deck was a gun, and behind it stood a crew of British bluejackets. Nobody spoke as the conning-tower came into view, and then Ginger let out a yell, for standing talking to two British officers was Algy. The submarine forged on, its white ensign fluttering.
‘Ahoy there!’ yelled Ginger, nearly going over the cliff in his excitement.
They saw Algy look up and point, and in a moment a dozen faces were staring at the hole in the rock.
‘Talk about fairy godmothers, they aren’t in it,’ declared Biggles, a flush on his pale face.
‘Where have you sprung from?’ he shouted.
‘We’ve come for that code-book!’ shouted the submarine commander.
Biggles remembered his signal to Colonel Raymond and understood what had happened.
The Admiralty had sent for the valuable document. ‘Watch out!’ he roared. ‘There’s a Boche destroyer about somewhere.’
‘It won’t worry us,’ answered the naval officer. ‘It’s—’ He jabbed his thumb downwards.
‘That must have been the bang we heard,’ said Ginger. ‘It wasn’t Algy’s tank; it was a mouldy hitting the destroyer.’
‘Come down—I’ve got to get back. I daren’t hang about here!’ shouted the submarine commander. ‘Where are the people off that other destroyer?’
‘They must have seen you and pushed off in their lifeboats. They had a motor-boat with them.’
‘I see. Come on down.’
‘Stand fast. We’re not sure that we can get down.’
Biggles made his way quickly to the cave, but it did not take him long to ascertain that any idea of getting down that way was out of the question. How far the blockage extended it was impossible to say. At some risk he dragged a few small pieces of rock aside, only to reveal more rock, apart from which he nearly brought the roof down on his head. ‘It would take weeks to clear a way through here,’ he told Ginger, who had followed him.
‘But that means that we can’t get down at all.’
‘It begins to look like that,’ admitted Biggles. ‘Maddening, isn’t it, with the submarine so close.’
‘Perhaps they can get a line up to us?’ suggested Ginger.
‘We’ll ask them.’
They hurried back to the opening and informed the naval officer of the position. ‘Can you get a line up to us?’ concluded Biggles.
The submarine commander conferred with his officers. ‘No!’ he shouted up. ‘We haven’t a line long enough. Even if we had we couldn’t get it up to you.’
‘That means we’re stuck here,’ declared Biggles, looking round the horizon which, now that the snow had cleared, could be seen. His eyes fell on a line of lifeboats heading southward, and the mystery of the abandoned ships was explained. He realized that von Stalhein must have seen the destroyer torpedoed, and had promptly fled in the motorboat. Biggles’s roving eyes picked out something else, a smudge of smoke far beyond the boats. ‘What’s this coming!’ he shouted, pointing towards it.
The submarine commander studied the distant hull with his binoculars. ‘It’s a German cruiser,’ he announced. ‘If you’re coming with me you’ll have to buck up. I daren’t risk my ship by staying here.’
Biggles thought desperately, but he could find no way out of their quandary. ‘All right skipper,’ he shouted at last, ‘you get off and take the code-books. We shall have to take our luck.’
‘Sorry—but you can see how it is.’
Biggles waved good-bye.
Suddenly Algy cried, ‘Can you get back to the top?’
‘Yes,’ Biggles told him, whereupon Algy spoke rapidly to the naval officer, at the same time pointing towards the German flying-boat, which was still drifting about half a mile away. Then he looked up.
‘Get back to the top of the rock,’ he bellowed. ‘You’ll have to buck up.’
‘I don’t know what he’s thinking of doing, but we’d better do as he says,’ declared Biggles. ‘It’s no use staying here, anyway.’
A parting wave and they were on their way back to the summit of the island. Panting with exertion, they made their way across the empty reservoir to the ledge, and then, by means of the rope, to the top.
‘I’ve got it,’ said Ginger, as they ran across to a position from which they could look down on the submarine. ‘He’s going to fetch the flying-boat.’
‘But he can’t land a boat up here,’ protested Biggles, as they reached their immediate objective and scanned the sea for the submarine. But it had gone. The German cruiser was still coming at full speed, and was now not more than five or six miles away. The Platypus was a smouldering wreck, burnt to water-level. The big flying-boat was racing over the sea towards the island.
‘He must have set fire to the Platypus to prevent it from falling into the enemy’s hands, so he must be pretty confident of getting away,’ declared
Biggles.
A moment later the aircraft left the water and roared up towards the top of the rock. Five pairs of eyes watched it anxiously as it climbed rather higher than the island, and then swept round with the obvious intention of flying straight over them. As it passed over the level area a bulky object fell from it and plunged downward. Another followed, and another. There was no time for more, for by this time the machine had overshot the island; but it banked steeply and retraced its course. Two more objects detached themselves to bounce on the rock.
‘I’ve got it!’ yelled Biggles. ‘They’re brollies.’
Ginger stared aghast. ‘Does he think we’re going to jump off the top of this place?’ he gasped.
‘That’s it. There’s no other way.’ Biggles ran forward to retrieve the parachutes, the others following him.
By the time they had each picked one up the flying-boat had cut its engines and was gliding down. It landed, and taxied nearly—but not quite—under the overhanging ledge, which, fortunately, happened to be on the side farthest from the cruiser.
Algy’s voice floated up. ‘Come on!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll pick you up. Get a move on. It’s that or nothing.’
‘Where’s the submarine?’ called Biggles.
‘Gone.’
‘Has it got the code-books?’
‘Yes.’
Biggles gave a sigh of relief and started getting into his harness. Ginger and the Flight-Sergeant were doing the same thing. Afterwards they helped Briny and Roy, neither of whom had ever made a parachute jump.
Biggles looked down, and judged the distance to be a little over four hundred feet. ‘We shall have to pull the ring as we jump,’ he announced. ‘Jump out as far as possible to get clear of the rocks.’
Briny’s face was ashen. ‘You don’t mean to say, sir, that I’ve got to go over there?’ he whispered plaintively.
‘That’s just what I do mean,’ answered Biggles firmly.
‘I daren’t do it, sir, s’welp me, I daren’t.’
‘Be a man, Briny. Think what a tale you’ll have to tell when you get home. Think of how you’ll be able to start your stories : “I remember the day I jumped off the top of Bergen Ait—”’