Another Job For Biggles

by W E Johns

  “There was more water in that reservoir than I thought,” came from Biggles, who had adopted the same posture as Ginger a couple of yards away.

  Ginger looked at him somewhat blankly. He was still suffering from shock, and a curious sense of unreality at this almost miraculous escape when all seemed lost. Not knowing what to say he said nothing.

  Biggles lit a cigarette. “Nice work!” he called to Bertie.

  Bertie raised his hat in acknowledgment.

  “He certainly made a beautiful mess,” remarked Ginger, finding his voice and gazing at the devastation around him.

  “He’ll never make a better one, or one better-timed,” replied Biggles with conviction.

  “What’s the drill now? “ asked Ginger. “If any of these wogs are left alive they’ll be really angry.”

  “I’d say most of them, if they’re still alive, have something else to think about than what we’re doing,” answered Biggles. “I don’t suppose any of them could swim— not that swimming would help them if they could. We shall have to stay where we are until the water subsides, anyway.”

  This took about ten minutes, by which time it was nearly dark. Bertie ascertained that it was safe for them to descend by wading out through a few inches of mud and puddles.

  “All right, you lads, you can stop playing monkeys,” he informed them. “I say, what a beastly mess! Look at my feet—my only decent pair of shoes, too. Disgusting!”

  Biggles dropped into the mire.

  “I suggest we get out of this while the going’s good,” said Ginger, as he dropped with a splash beside him.

  “I don’t think we’ve much to worry about now,” returned Biggles. “In any case, I’m not going until I’ve seen how much damage has been done— I mean, to the gurra plantation in particular. By the way, Bertie, how did you get here so quickly? Did you know we were here?”

  “I hadn’t an idea of it,” stated Bertie. “You told Zahar to tell me to blow up the dam. So I pushed it over. I was going to look for you afterwards. By Jove! Did my eyes pop out when I saw you standing on that beastly plank? Shook me to the wick, I can tell you.”

  “Did you walk here?”

  “No bally fear. I aviated hither in the Moth, at a maximum altitude of about six inches.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “A mile or so back. Zahar will remember the place—I hope.”

  They walked together out of the mud and silt left by the flood to the dry bank of the wadi, up which they climbed without meeting anyone or hearing a sound to suggest that anybody was left in El Moab. From the top there was just enough light left to enable them to survey the scene.

  The deluge had done even more damage than Ginger had supposed. In its first tremendous rush it must have carried everything before it, for the floor of the wadi had been practically swept clean. Not a building was left standing. All that remained of the huts was a quantity of planks and splintered wood scattered along the course of the flood. To add to the ruin, in places the water had evidently undermined the banks of the wadi, the sudden erosion causing landslides that had buried wreckage, and probably bodies, under masses of sand and shingle.

  It was clear that the plantation could not have escaped; but Biggles was determined to make sure. He asked the others to wait while he went down to examine the area where the gurra had been under cultivation. He was soon back. “Either the plants have been washed clean out of the ground— or else they are buried under tons of silt,” he reported. “At any rate, I couldn’t find any sign of them.”

  What had become of Ambrimos and his mob was in some doubt. Biggles took the view that everyone in the wadi, excluding themselves, must have been carried away, possibly for miles, before being deposited, dead or alive—probably dead. There was no time to find out. Darkness had now closed in, so anything like a real search was out of the question. As there was nothing more they could do Biggles decided to get back to the aerodrome as quickly as possible. They were all in need of food and rest.

  “I say, old boy, that poor old Moth won’t carry the four of us,” Bertie pointed out, as they set off for the place where it had been left.

  “It will, if we don’t try to get it off the floor,” argued Biggles.

  “You mean, you’re going to taxi all the way home?”

  “Why not? The chap who owned the machine won’t be needing it for a long time, I imagine. Riding is better than walking, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely, old boy, absolutely,” agreed Bertie warmly.

  And so, an hour later, the wild creatures of the desert saw the strange spectacle of an aircraft bumping across the moonlit wilderness with two figures sitting side by side on the centre-section, one of them an Arab whose gumbez fluttered like a victory flag in the slipstream of the airscrew.

  From the back seat came the sound of Bertie’s voice, uplifted in a song about a bicycle made for two.

  THE party arrived back at aerodrome 137 at about midnight, to find L.A.C. Blakey sitting very bored, and more than a trifle peeved, on the sack of hashish near the ruins of the hangar on which he had been working. He received the occupants of the Moth with mixed expressions of relief and disapproval.

  “What’s the idea?” he demanded. “It’s been no joke sitting here half the night with wild beasts howling about the place.”

  Biggles laughed. “It was only a jackal or a hyena, I imagine,” he said consolingly. “It wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “Whatever they were I don’t like ‘em,” declared the airman. “What have you all been up to? Left me stuck ‘ere with no grub and no water while you joy-ride about this perishing no-man’s-land, four up in a Moth. You won’t have done that machine no good.”

  “Doesn’t matter—it isn’t ours,” answered Biggles lightly. “How did the job go?”

  “Oh that—nothing to it. I had it all buttoned up in a couple of hours.”

  “We can get the machine out?”

  “Start her up and she’ll fly away.”

  “She doesn’t appear to be damaged?”

  “Looks all right to me.”

  “That’s fine! Sorry we had to leave you alone for a bit, but we had work to do. I’ll recommend you for a spot of leave when I get back. Meanwhile we could all do with a bite of something to eat.” Biggles went to the locker of the now free aircraft and came back with some tins of bully and sardines, biscuits and a bottle of water. “We shall have to make the best of this for the time being,” he announced. “Help yourselves.”

  The airman produced his jack knife and removed the lids of the tins with a dexterity born of experience. “How long are we staying here?” he wanted to know.

  “Only till it gets light,” Biggles told him. “Anybody who wants to sleep can go ahead. I’m not tired, so I’ll mount guard.”

  The night passed without alarm, and at the first streak of dawn Biggles had everyone on the move.

  “What are we going to do with the Moth?” asked Ginger.

  “Leave it where it is,” answered Biggles. “We’ll take the hashish with us, though. “We’ll dump it at Aden and let the Narcotics Bureau know about it. If they want the Moth, they can fetch it. It may have been the property of Ambrimos, or it may not. We don’t want someone to send us a bill for a stolen aircraft. No doubt the authorities will be able to trace ownership, and find out the name of the fellow who was flying it.”

  Biggles’s machine was taxied out of the hangar in which it had been imprisoned, and after it had been examined for possible damage Biggles divided the party between the two aircraft now available. He took Ginger and Zahar with him. Bertie took Blakey. The bag of hashish was put into Biggles’s machine and after the Moth had been wheeled into the one more or less serviceable hangar, the two aircraft left the ground together.

  Biggles did not fly straight back to Aden. Keeping low he made a detour that took him over El Moab—or what remained of it. This was not very much. As Ginger observed, the place looked like a battlefield. The area that had been under cu
ltivation appeared to be washed clean to the bedrock. It seemed that there were some survivors after all. At any rate, a number of natives were seen in the vicinity, some rounding up stray animals and others delving amongst the ruins, although to what purpose was not clear. Zahar said they were searching for loot before returning to their homes, which was probably true. As he remarked, there was no longer any reason for them to remain at El Moab. Anyway, the fight had gone out of them, for on the arrival of the aircraft most of them sought cover or tried to hide.

  “I don’t think they’ll trouble anyone for some time,” observed Biggles, as he turned away and took up a course for Aden. “I’d like to know what happened to Ambrimos. He was the real villain of the piece. That man was dangerous. The trouble with his sort is, they are not content with making money. Having got it, it goes to their heads, and they start getting big ideas about how the world should be run. Ambrimos was a fool. He’d made his pile. Had he the wit to go straight, as I suggested to him, he could have slept on velvet for the rest of his days. Instead of which it rather looks as if he’s going to sleep for a long time in the sand. If he is still alive I don’t think he’ll dare to show his face in Aden again, or anywhere else in the Middle East, knowing that I shall have a few things to say about him in my report. That means he’s lost his business and everything else, even if he hasn’t lost his life. It was sheer greed that tripped him up. He wasn’t content simply to sell gurra. He wanted a monopoly of it and committed murder to get it.”

  “There is no God but God,” put in Zahar, who was listening.

  “We’ll see about getting back home right away to set the Air Commodore’s mind at rest,” concluded Biggles.

  The return flight to Aden was merely a matter of routine, and as Biggles was anxious to make a verbal report of the affair to Air Commodore Raymond, he stayed only as long as was necessary to fulfil certain obligations. Immediately on landing, Zahar was suitably rewarded for his services with a sum of money that brought a smile to his taciturn face.

  “Wallah! God is great,” he cried. “May he be glorified! and long may you live, Sahib! With this money I shall buy a she-camel and her offspring will make me rich.”

  “As long as she makes you happy, it doesn’t matter about the riches,” Biggles told him smiling. “Play fair and fight fair from now on, remembering that for your part in avenging the death of Kuatim your name will be spoken with honour in every menzil from Mosul to Muscat.”

  As a matter of detail, later on, in view of the recommendation contained in Biggles’s report, he was taken into Government service and with a caravan of camels now supplies the needs of outlying airstrips in Southern Arabia.

  After a bath, a square meal and a rest, Biggles went down to see Norman, to thank him for his assistance and to tell him in confidence what had happened in the desert. Then, having thanked the Station Commander for his helpful cooperation, and fulfilled his promise to recommend L.A.C. Blakey for leave, he started on the first leg of the journey back to London.

  This again was merely a matter of routine and in due course the two Proctors touched down on their own airfield. Within an hour Air Commodore Raymond was listening with no small astonishment to the tale that Biggles had to tell.

  Some weeks later, when the affair was half-forgotten, Biggles was reminded of it when he received a letter from Captain Norman, in which was narrated the local, unofficial version of the incident. He opened it in his office and read it aloud to the others—including Algy, who, by this time, had got over his chagrin at being left out of the adventure.

  Rumours of what had happened, said Norman, were now trickling through from the other side of the Red Sea, but no one seemed to be quite sure of the facts, as Ambrimos and his native assistants had disappeared. One thing seemed certain, however. Nicolo Ambrimos, known up and down the Red Sea as the Sultan, dealer in frankincense, dates, and other less commendable commodities, had ended his career at El Moab, either by drowning or by suffocation under the collapsing walls of the wadi. At all events, he had not returned to Aden, nor had he been seen at any other ports from which he conducted his questionable enterprises. Of his native helpers who had survived, none seemed to know what had caused the explosion.

  At this point, Bertie, polishing his monocle, remarked: “As the worthy Zahar would say, it must have been the will of God.”

  Biggles nodded. “Only a fool would dispute that,” he said softly.

  THE END