by W E Johns
“He got in my way. He ignored the warning. He has paid the penalty.”
“And now you’re warning me. Is that it?”
“Put it that way if you like. I am giving you the same opportunity as I gave him. I suggest it would be to the advantage of both of us if each forgot the other existed.”
“Since you have more to gain from that than I have, I’d call it a one-sided arrangement.”
“It may look like that to you, and to save time I’ll acknowledge it. For that reason to balance the account, I’m prepared to pay—shall we say, a thousand pounds.”
Biggles shook his head.
“Two thousand. And there’s more where that comes from. I could use a pilot like you.”
Biggles raised an eyebrow. “Getting scared Mitsubu might sell you out?”
“Why should he? He knows which side his bread’s buttered.”
“For the moment he may be satisfied with bread and butter, but as an enemy war pilot on the losing side he must still hate the sight of you.”
The Colonel frowned. “You needn’t concern yourself with that. I can take care of myself. Do you, or do you not, accept my offer? I’m trying to save us both trouble.”
“Why should you want to save me trouble? What you’re trying to do. Colonel, is save yourself trouble. You know I’m not so easily to be disposed of as Tidore. The answer is no. I happen to be one of those awkward people who are interested more in other things than in money.”
“You realize that by your refusal I shall have to ensure your silence by other methods?”
“You mean, you’ll try.”
“I never fail.”
“I’d call that a dangerous boast. If I thought it I wouldn’t care to say it. But no matter. There’s one thing about this meeting that puzzles me. Would you answer a question to satisfy my curiosity?”
“What is it?”
“Why did you come on this errand yourself instead of sending your entertaining lieutenant in the panama?”
“I wanted to have a look at you, to form my own opinion.”
“Even though that allowed me to have a look at you?”
“You have already seen me.”
“Where?”
“At Kutaradja.”
“Who told you that?”
“Never mind who told me. You were there yesterday when I was there. It was unwise of Vandershon to allow that to happen.” The Colonel spoke quietly, but there was something in his voice Ginger did not like.
“He had no say in the matter,” asserted Biggles. “It’s a public airport. He’d no reason to order me off.”
The Colonel got up. “I’m sorry my trip has been a failure, but no harm has been done. If you should change your mind let me know.”
Said the Count, softly, as they turned away: “But don’t be too long about it, deah man.”
Biggles sat still, watching the two men as they entered the restaurant, evidently for a meal.
Bertie strolled along and sat at an unoccupied table within speaking distance of Biggles. He said that Algy had obtained several photographs from different angles behind the palms. He had taken the spool into the town to get it developed. He hoped to get it done right away.
“Good work,” complimented Biggles. “If the photos are any good I’ll send prints home to the Air Commodore by air mail. He may be able to get this Colonel chap identified. I’m going to push along to Singapore. You can do a useful job while I’m away. Get in the Otter, take her up to the ceiling and shadow the Dakota when it leaves here. It may lead you to the island where it lives. If you don’t go all the way with it the track should give you a line on it, which comes to the same thing. Mitsubu will fly a compass course if he’s going home. Keep well clear. Don’t be seen. On the way back here you might look in at Kutaradja to see if Vandershon’s all right. I’m afraid he’s in wrong with the Colonel for what he did yesterday. Warn him to be extra careful what he says and does. I’d be very upset if anything happened to him as a result of what he did for me.”
“I get it,” said Bertie.
“What about me?” asked Ginger.
“You’ll have to wait here for Algy to come back, to tell him what’s cooking, or with everyone gone he’ll be in a flap wondering what’s happened. Keep out of dark corners. Remember what they did to Tidore.”
“I’m not likely to forget that,” promised Ginger.
“Then let’s get on with it,” concluded Biggles.
CHAPTER VIII
BERTIE HAS SOME FUN
THE short tropical twilight was fast dimming the landscape when Biggles returned from Singapore to find Algy and Ginger waiting for him. Bertie, they reported, had not yet returned, a piece of information that brought a frown to his forehead.
“How did you get on?” Ginger asked him.
“All right. I did what I went to do, thanks to a most helpful secretary in the government building. How about you?”
“No trouble at all, although I’m pretty certain I’m being watched by a shifty-eyed type who’s never far away. I don’t see how we can go on here without the enemy realizing we’re all in the same party.”
Biggles agreed. “I imagine we should be faced with the same difficulty on any airfield within reach of the Nicobars so there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re bound to talk, and if the place is stiff with spies they’ll see us wherever we go. How about the photos, Algy?”
Algy produced them. Biggles pronounced them excellent—better than he had expected. Two in particular showed the Colonel clearly, full face and profile.
“ I’ll air-mail these to the chief right away,” said Biggles. “If the Colonel is wanted for anything, cither in England or America—which wouldn’t surprise me—it could save us a heap of trouble.”
“You think he might be a professional crook, with a police record?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that. But it isn’t often that a man of the Colonel’s age and stamp goes suddenly off the rails. It’s more likely he was caught out in something discreditable, at some time or other, and having a black mark put up against him turned into a rogue. In that case there should be a file about him somewhere. It wouldn’t surprise me if what he’s doing is all part of a scheme for keeping out of sight. For that the Nicobars would be as good as anywhere. But what on earth is Bertie doing? He should have been back before now. You might order a pot of tea in the restaurant. I’ll join you there as soon as I’ve mailed these snapshots to the chief with a covering note.”
When he rejoined them twenty minutes later there was still no sign of Bertie.
“I didn’t have to post those photos after all,” he announced. “I happened to run into Jack Elton of B.O.A.C. He’s rushing on home with a V.I.P. and he said he’d deliver ‘em. The Air Commodore should have them inside forty-eight hours. But what the deuce can Bertie be doing? I’m getting worried. Something must have gone wrong. He couldn’t have been in the air all this time without refuelling.”
“He may have dropped in at Kutaradja, as you suggested, and stayed on there, nattering with Vandershon,” offered Ginger.
“I can’t think he’d stay out after dark from choice,” muttered Biggles. “If he busts the Otter duffing a night landing I shall have something to say about it. It’s our trump card. I hope he’s up to no nonsense. You know the outrageous risks he takes when the mood’s on him. I suppose I shouldn’t have let him go off on his own.”
It was as well for Biggles’ peace of mind that he didn’t know the answers to his questions as, having pointed out that there was nothing they could do, he drank his half-cold tea and smoked a cigarette.
Actually, Bertie had started the afternoon in good form. What had happened was this.
From a high altitude he had picked up the Dakota heading up the Malacca Strait. Keeping well away, and putting himself between it and the westering sun, he settled down to follow. For some time there was a doubt about its probable destination, for a course either for Kutaradja or the Nicobars would,
in the early stages, have been practically the same. But when the Dakota edged towards the northern tip of Sumatra he felt sure that its first objective, at all events, was going to be Kutaradja. When this supposition turned out to be correct he found himself in a quandary.
In the first place, of course, remembering Biggles’ anxiety for Vandershon following the Colonel’s veiled threat, he was concerned for the Dutchman’s safety. Secondly, there was the question of how long the Dakota would remain on the ground. If it stayed there for any length of time, and he remained in the air waiting for it, he would not have enough petrol left to track it to its base in the Nicobars if that was its destination.
The thought that Vandershon might be in trouble decided him. There was only one way of settling that. He went down, landed, taxied to the control building, switched off and got out. Telling some of the servicing staff who were standing there to top up his tanks, he made his way to the Traffic Manager’s office, knocked smartly and entered.
There were three men in the room: the Colonel, the Count, and, seated at his desk and looking rather pale, the man he assumed to be Vandershon. It was clear that he had interrupted a private conversation, for they broke off, looking at him enquiringly, and as far as the Colonel was concerned, with disfavour.
“What cheer,” greeted Bertie, screwing his monocle in his eye the better to survey the little group. “Sort of warmish, what?”
There was a brief silence. Then the Colonel said, irritably: “ What do you want?”
Bertie grinned foolishly. “Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Just pottering, you know, just pottering. Seeing the world, and all that sort of rot. Do you mind?”
“We’re busy,” snapped the Colonel.
“That’s all right,” returned Bertie cheerfully. “Go right ahead. Don’t mind me.”
“We do mind you,” said the Colonel harshly. “Are you looking for something?”
“No. Yes. By jove!—That reminds me. If you fellers happen to live here you might help me to find some.”
“Some what ?”
“Sharks’ teeth.”
“Sharks’ teeth.”
“Yes. You know. The things they bite with.”
The Colonel and the Count exchanged glances. Said the Colonel, speaking very distinctly: “ We have no sharks’ teeth.”
“Too bad,” murmured Bertie, dropping into a chair. “I don’t want the beastly things for myself, you know. After all, what would a feller do with sharks’ teeth? A girl friend of mine fancies some for a necklace, or some other piece of nonsense. You won’t believe this, but I once knew a feller who collected—”
“ We don’t want to know what he collected,” broke in the Count, coldly.
“I was told I might find some on a place called the Nicotine Islands—no, half a mo’—the Nickerbocker Islands.”
“Find what,” rasped the Colonel, whose patience was obviously running short.
“Sharks’ teeth, of course.”
The Colonel swallowed hard, and even Vandershon smiled.
“Nuts,” breathed the Count.
“No—no, not nuts. You can buy those at home—all sorts of nuts,” explained Bertie. “It’s some jolly old sharks’ teeth I’m after. Queer taste, I know, but—”
At this juncture the door opened and two Dutch pilots came in.
The Colonel rose. “Come on,” he said, to the Count. Then to Vandershon, “What’s the answer, yes or no?”
“No.”
“Have it your way.” The Colonel, followed by the Count, went out.
“Rude fellers,” opined Bertie. He took a pace nearer to Vandershon, and, very deliberately, winked. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “Bigglesworth is keeping an eye on things. So long.”
Leaving the manager staring Bertie went out. He waited for the Dakota to take off, watched it take up a course north-west, and then, in the Otter, took off and headed west. But this course he held only until he was well in the eye of the fast-sinking sun. Not until he was satisfied that those in the Dakota would not be able to see him in the glare did he turn to follow it.
Both machines were now flying towards the Nicobars, although as the Archipelago covers a considerable area from north to south this was not yet enough to indicate the actual island for which the Dakota was bound. It was the best part of an hour before, by checking its course with the map, Bertie could get an idea of it. But still he held on to make quite sure.
In this, he was presently to realize, he went too far. He also suspected that in spite of his efforts to remain unobserved he had been seen. This was brought to his notice in a way as unexpected as it was startling. The Dakota had turned sharply and was side-slipping steeply towards one of the several small islands that had crept up over the horizon a few minutes earlier. This told Bertie all he wanted to know, and after a good look at its general shape, in order to be able to recognize it again, he began to turn away with the intention of retiring when a shadow flashing across him caused him to look up sharply; for he knew that such a shadow could only be cast by another aircraft passing between him and the sun, and the Dakota was now far below him.
His war-trained eyes picked up the machine instantly, and he identified it as a Nakajima single-seat Japanese fighter. It was coming straight towards him in a manner that told him it could only mean business. And even though the Jap was a war-time model he knew that in the matter of performance he hadn’t a hope of escape if an attack was intended.
He could think of no other reason why it should be there. Whether it was there as a normal precaution, or whether the Dakota, having seen him, had called it up by radio, was of no importance. It was there: and since to wait for it to reveal its purpose might be fatal he lost no time in taking the only course open to him.
Putting the Otter in a slow turn, he, too, began side-slipping towards the island on which the Dakota was now landing, the only one on which he could expect to find room to get down. He could, of course, have landed on the sea, but not knowing what the surface was like he did not feel inclined to risk it. It looked smooth enough ; but for all he knew there might be a heavy swell. In any case, even if he did get down on the water he would offer himself as a sitting target should the fighter really mean business. In a word, the island seemed the lesser risk.
As he lost height his eyes were busy surveying the ground, particularly the coastline. Not that there was much of it, for the island, he judged, was less than two miles long by half a mile wide at the broadest point. He noticed a yacht moored by a rock shelf in a snug little cove. A Chinese junk, under sail, the only other vessel in sight, was beating up slowly towards the same spot. In his reflector he could see the Nakajima following him down, as a dog might bring home a stray sheep. That alone made it clear that its presence there was not a matter of chance.
With a faint smile on his face Bertie lowered his wheels, landed, and taxied on to where the Dakota had come to a stop, with the Colonel, the Count and the pilot, standing beside it. He switched off, jumped down, and adjusting his eyeglass walked up to them. “What ho again,” he greeted them brightly. “Where the deuce are we? I mean to say, what’s the name of this jolly little island?”
The Colonel’s face was expressionless. “Do you mean—you don’t know?”
Bertie feigned astonishment. “How would I know? With the whole bally sea absolutely littered with islands how would anyone know? There are too many islands if you asked me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” said the Colonel, shortly. “Have you been following us?”
“Rather.”
“What’s the idea?”
“To make sure of getting to Penang. My navigation gets a bit cock-eye at times. Never was any good at figures.”
“What are you yammering about—Penang.”
“Well, that’s where you said you were going so I thought you could give me a lead.”
“I didn’t say anything about Penang!”
Bertie looked puzzled. “Didn’t you? Now what could have given me that idea? I must be going queer in the topknot.”
“Going?” sneered the Count. “You’ve gone.”
“But good lor’! If we aren’t at Penang where are we?”
The Count tilted back his panama and lit a cigar. “You’re on one of the South Sea islands and this is a private aerodrome, deah man.”
Bertie affected embarrassment. “Oh I say! I am most awfully sorry, and all that. But how was I to know? But now I’m here, would you mind most awfully if I had a look round for some?”
“Some what?” barked the Colonel.
“Sharks’ teeth—what else?”
The Colonel spoke slowly, with an awful patience. “The only teeth you’ll find here, my dumb friend, are the sort that bite.”
Bertie laughed. “Jolly good. I must remember that one.” He turned to the pilot of the Nakajima, a Japanese, who, having landed, now joined the party.
“Hello, laddie. Where have you suddenly popped up from? Are you by any chance on your way to Penang?”
The man stared at him, then at the Colonel, but said nothing.
From a low building on the edge of the airstrip, topped by a wireless aerial, now appeared another man. In his hand he carried a slip of paper, and from the urgency with which he advanced it was clear that he was the bearer of a message. Feeling that it might concern him, or the Otter, Bertie decided it was time to go.
“I’m sorry to have been such a beastly nuisance, chaps. If you’ll give me a rough idea of the direction of Penang I’ll toddle along.”
The Count pointed to the west, where lay eight hundred miles of Indian Ocean without a landfall. “That’s the nearest way, deah man.”
“Thanks a lot.” Bertie pointed vaguely to the north. “Funny. I thought the bally place was somewhere in that direction. Not that it really matters. Bound to hit land somewhere, eh? One place is as good as another. That’s what I always say, so why worry. Ah well. Thanks a lot. I’ll press on.” He took a pace or two towards the Otter, then looked back—really to see how near was the messenger. “If you hear of any you might let me know,” he called.
