by W E Johns
When it came he fell headlong, clutching wildly at anything he could catch, while the billowing folds of the fabric settled over him. Apart from being slightly winded by the impact he was unhurt, for which he was truly thankful, for a broken bone, or even a sprain, would have been fatal to his project. Throwing the fabric impatiently to one side, he slipped out of the harness and looked about him. To his intense satisfaction he saw that his judgement had been correct — or nearly so. He had hoped to drop into the courtyard, but instead, he had landed on the ramparts, which suited him even better, for these ramparts were, in fact, actually the flat roof over the occupied part of the fort.
In order that his position should be understood precisely, a brief description of the fort, as seen from above, becomes necessary. Like many military buildings of the late medieval period, it took the form of a hollow square. That is to say, the buildings, instead of being constructed in a solid block, were built round a central courtyard of about an acre of ground, which served the garrison as a parade ground. In other words, the buildings were really a fortified wall in the form of a square with a parapet on the outside. It was on the top of this wall that he had landed, so that a sheer drop occurred on both sides. On one hand was the outside of the fort; on the inside, the parade ground.
On this wall the snow had, of course, settled, and he examined it quickly, for footmarks would suggest that it was patrolled by a sentry; however, he found none. Then, suddenly, the snow turned to sleet, and then to rain, big heavy drops that hissed softly into the white mantle that lay over everything.
‘Snow — sleet — rain — there isn’t much else it can do,’ he told himself philosophically, crouching low as he surveyed the scene in order to locate the room in which the others were confined — unless they had been moved. This was no easy matter, for by now it was practically dark; still, the darkness served one useful purpose in that it would hide him from the eyes of anyone who happened to cross the courtyard.
The room in which they had been locked was on the inside of the rampart wall; that he knew, for the window overlooked the courtyard; from it that morning he had remarked a well, and this now gave him a line on the position of the window he was anxious to find.
Rolling the parachute into a ball, he put it under his arm and made his way cautiously towards his objective. Presently he was able to see that only one window was barred, and that told him all he wanted to know. But a new difficulty now presented itself. The window was a good six feet below the coping, and except for a narrow sill, there was nothing, no projection of any sort, by which he might descend to it. The solution of this problem was at hand, however; twisting the parachute’s shrouds into a skein, he wound the fabric round one of the projecting battlements, made it secure, and then lowered the shrouds so that they hung in front of the window. In another moment his feet were on the sill. Bending, he looked in through the window.
CHAPTER VI
Biggles Comes Back
After Biggles had gone the feelings of the others can be better imagined than described. Their confidence in their leader was tremendous, but they could not deceive themselves, and without discussing it they knew in their hearts that the task with which he was now faced, the recovery of the papers and their escape from the fort, was, on the face of it, so tremendous that it seemed fantastic even to contemplate it. So they passed a miserable day; they saw it start snowing, and were glad when darkness began to envelop the gloomy scene outside. What had become of Biggles they did not so much as conjecture, knowing it to be futile.
‘He’ll turn up,’ remarked Ginger confidently. ‘I don’t know how he manages it, but he always does.’ He started violently, peering forward in the direction of the window. ‘Great Scott!’ he went on. ‘Can you see what I see, or am I going crazy?’ His voice was so high pitched that it bordered on the hysterical.
The others both stared at the window. Neither of them spoke. Algy got up from the bed on which he had been sitting, and walked, a step at a time, towards the window. ‘It’s Biggles,’ he said in a funny voice. ‘If it isn’t, then it’s his ghost.’ He seemed bewildered, which is hardly a matter for wonder, for even if Biggles had escaped and returned to the fort, which seemed unlikely enough in all conscience, Algy could not imagine how, without wings, he had got to the window, for below there was a sheer drop of thirty feet. He reached the window just as Biggles tapped on it sharply with the file, which he had taken from his pocket.
Algy opened the window, which was only fastened by a simple latch, the frames opening inwards because of the bars. ‘So here you are,’ he said in a dazed voice. It seemed a silly thing to say, but he could think of nothing else.
‘As you remark, here I am,’ answered Biggles cheerfully. ‘Now listen. Here’s a file. One of you stay near the door so that you aren’t caught in the act, while the others get to work on these bars. You’ll have to cut one of them clean out. It’s half-inch iron, but it should be fairly soft and shouldn’t take you more than an hour. I daren’t stay here in case anyone comes into the courtyard and looks up, so I’m going back on the ramparts. I shall stay handy, so as soon as you’re through give a low whistle. There’s no time for explanations now.’
‘Okay,’ agreed Algy eagerly, and took the file, while Biggles’s dangling legs disappeared upward as he dragged himself back to the ramparts.
The others had all heard what Biggles had said, so there was no need to waste time in bartering words. Ginger went to the door, while Smyth, who was the handiest man with a file, set to work on the centre bar. He went at it with a will, and the steel fairly bit into the rusty iron.
Biggles squatted on the ramparts in no small discomfort, for it was bitterly cold and he had no protection from the rain. However, there was nothing he could do except blow on his hands to prevent them from becoming numb, as he listened to the file rasping into the iron. In this way nearly an hour passed. Nothing happened to interrupt the work. Occasional sounds below suggested that guards were being changed, but no sentry came to the ramparts.
Biggles lay down and peered over the edge of the wall. ‘How are you getting on?’ he whispered hoarsely.
‘Fine! We’re through the bottom and nearly through the top. ‘Ten minutes should do it,’ answered Algy.
Biggles lay still, waiting. The filing ceased. A moment later there was a soft snap as the iron parted.
‘We’re through’ came Algy’s voice. ‘How do we get up?’
‘I’ll lower a rope’ answered Biggles. ‘It’s a bunch of parachute shrouds. Grab the lot and I’ll pull you up. It’s no use going down into the courtyard because we may not be able to get out. We’ve got to get down the outside of the wall. As far as I can see it’s about thirty feet, and ends on some rocks.’
In a few minutes they were all on the ramparts; Algy was last up, having closed the window behind him. ‘I’d like to see von Stalhein’s face when he calls and finds the room empty,’ he chuckled.
‘Let’s save the laughter until we’re the other side of the frontier,’ suggested Biggles. ‘I’ve got those confounded papers on me and they give me the heebie-jeebies. I’m scared stiff at the thought of being caught with them.’
‘Where did you get this brolly?’
‘Borrowed it,’ returned Biggles tersely, as he pulled up the shrouds and lowered them again on the outer side of the ramparts. He peered down, but although the rain had nearly stopped, it was too dark to see anything distinctly. ‘You’d better go first Algy’ he said. ‘Let us know if it’s all clear.’
Algy took the shrouds in a bundle in his hands, and forcing his feet against the wall in the manner of a rock climber, went down backwards. His voice, low and vibrant, floated up: ‘All right – come on.’
The others descended in turn, and found themselves on a narrow ledge about a hundred feet above the village. The ledge appeared to follow the walls of the fort, but there were several places where a descent was possible.
‘What about the brolly?’ asked Ginger. It was
still hanging on the wall.
‘Leave it where it is,’ decided Biggles. It’s too bulky to carry about and I don’t think we shall need it again. It won’t be seen until it gets light, and by that time we ought to be clear away.’
After scrambling down the rock to the level ground below, Biggles instinctively headed for the hangars, hoping to find an aircraft outside, but, no doubt on account of the weather, they had all been taken in. What was even more disturbing, there seemed to be a good deal of activity; lights glowed dimly through the canvas walls of the hangars, and men, singly and in parties, moved about them. Biggles backed away into the shadows.
‘It’s going to be a dangerous business trying to get one of these kites,’ he muttered anxiously. ‘They’re all big machines – too big for just the four of us to handle on the ground. The ground staff here use tractors to haul them about – I’ve heard them. It’s difficult—’
‘Gosh! It’s a long walk home if that’s what you’re thinking,’ whispered Ginger.
‘It must be getting on for fifty miles to the lake where I crashed the Blenheim, and then a fair distance to the frontier.’ Biggles seemed to be speaking his thoughts aloud.
‘We should never make it without grub,’ declared Algy. ‘There’s food in the Blenheim.’
‘But that’s nearly fifty miles away!’
‘Still, it would help us on our way if we could get to it. We’ve got to try. As far as I can see we’ve no choice.’
They crouched back from the narrow track that passed behind the hangars as a sound could be heard approaching. Presently a sledge drawn by a pony went past.
‘By Jove! If we could get hold of that —’ whispered Algy.
‘We’ll follow it,’ decided Biggles instantly. ‘It’s ten to one that it will stop in the village, and the fellow may leave it to make a call.’
Keeping at a safe distance, they followed the sledge to the outskirts of the village, where, as Biggles had predicted, the driver stopped outside a house; boisterous conversation and the clinking of glasses suggested that it was a tavern. Leaving the vehicle, the driver went in. Yellow light flashed on the road as he opened the door, and was cut off again as it closed behind him.
‘Stay here!’ Biggles’s voice was crisp. He glanced quickly up and down the road; there was nobody about. Walking quietly up to the pony, he took the bridle in his hand and led the animal back to where the others were standing. ‘The next thing is to get on the lake,’ he announced. ‘If we can do that we can make a bee-line due west.’
It took them some minutes before they found a lane descending to the lakeside. On the way they had to pass several houses, or rather hovels, and they had a bad moment when the door of one of them opened and a man came out. However, he appeared to see nothing unusual in the sledge, for he said nothing, and disappeared into the gloom in the direction of the tavern.
As soon as they were on the ice Biggles climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘Get aboard’ he ordered, and the others scrambled up on what turned out to be a load of hay. Biggles took a bearing from the stars, which here and there flickered mistily through breaks in the clouds, and shook the reins. The pony walked a few paces and then broke into a trot.
What none of them expected, having had no experience of this mode of travel, was the noise made by the sledge-runners on the ice. They hummed like circular saws as they cut through the layer of rain-softened snow into the hard ice underneath, and Biggles looked apprehensively in the direction of the hangars, which were only about a hundred yards away. However, having started there was no going back, and he drew a deep breath of relief as the lights gradually faded into the darkness behind them. He realized that the snow was both a blessing and a curse, for while it gave grip to the pony’s hooves, it marked a track that could not be missed. All around lay a flat, seemingly endless expanse of greyish snow, with coal-black patches of sheer ice where, for some reason not apparent, the snow had melted. Such patches were as slippery as glass, as Biggles soon discovered when the pony ran on the first one and nearly fell, so thereafter he avoided them. He called Algy up beside him, and as he did so a searchlight stabbed the sky behind them. For a moment it flung its beam towards the stars; then it swooped swiftly down and began playing on the ice, sweeping the surface like a white sword.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Algy sharply.
‘I imagine it means that our escape has been discovered,’ replied Biggles quietly. ‘The owner of the sledge may have missed it, or the Commandant of the fort has discovered the room empty. The hunt is on.’
‘They’ll spot our tracks, even if they don’t see us.’
‘I’m afraid you’re right.’
‘Shouldn’t we abandon the sledge?’
‘Not yet — this is a lot better than walking.’
As he spoke, Biggles flicked the pony with the whip; it broke into a gallop, and they went flying over the ice with the runners fairly singing. Twice the searchlight nearly caught them in its dazzling beam, but, as if it sensed the danger, the pony tore on, and soon they were beyond the reach of the blinding radiance, a tiny black speck in a world of utter desolation.
‘How wide is this lake?’ asked Algy
‘I don’t know exactly, but from what I saw of it from the ‘plane this morning it must be pretty wide — not less than forty miles I reckon. We’ve got to be off it before dawn, though, or those bombers will be on us like a ton of bricks. They’d be bound to see us, when they could please themselves whether they landed and picked us up, or just bombed the ice so that we fell in.’
‘Gosh,’ muttered Algy, ‘what a cheerful bloke you are!’
‘The clouds are our salvation so far,’ resumed Biggles. ‘They make it just too dark for safe flying. The moment they go it will start to get lighter. What we really want is a spot of snow to keep the bombers out of the air.’
‘What I want,’ returned Algy bitingly, ‘is a hot drink and a fur coat. Jumping rattlesnakes! Isn’t it cold?’
‘We’ve got to stick it for a bit,’ Biggles told him. ‘When we get to the other side and start running we shall be warm enough. We shall have to watch out that we don’t bump into von Stalhein. I left him out here this morning with a bunch of Russians, but I fancy he’s a bit to the north of us.’ Biggles gave the others a brief account of his adventures earlier in the day, and after that they fell silent. The pony, tiring, steadied its pace. The only sound was the hollow thud of its hooves and the whine of the runners on the ice. Ginger and Smyth, deep down in the hay, dozed uneasily. Biggles, his face expressionless, stared into the gloom ahead.
CHAPTER VII
The Avalanche
Dawn saw the rim of a hazy red sun peeping over the horizon behind them, throwing a strange pinky glow over the flat surface of the lake. After the darkness it was a relief to have the light, for it enabled the weary travellers to see where they were, although Biggles several times looked anxiously to the rear.
They could now see the edge of the lake in two directions, to the north and to the west, in which direction they were moving — moving slowly, for the pony was near the end of its endurance. To the north the land showed as low, snow-covered hills. Ahead, at a distance of perhaps four miles, a barrier of steeper hills rose sharply and formed a jagged skyline, with dark patches of rock showing where the rain had washed away the snow. Sweeping forests of spruce and fir, which had also shed much of their white mantle, could be seen.
Biggles urged the pony on, not without a qualm of conscience, for it had proved a willing little beast and had served them well; but out on the ice as they were, he knew that they were as conspicuous as a fly on a white ceiling. Once they reached the trees they would find cover, both from above and from the surrounding country, so that was the first consideration. Gradually the forest for which Biggles was heading drew nearer, but the pace had dropped to a walk, for the pony could obviously do no more. Twice aircraft could be heard behind them, and Biggles wondered why the pilots did not strike the trail and fo
llow it — until Ginger called attention to what none of them had noticed; a sharp thaw had set in, causing the snow to start melting, and thus obliterate the trail except for a short distance behind them. Indeed, the snow was now soft and slushy, and as soon as he realized it Biggles got down, made the others do the same, and ran beside the sledge. Relieved of their weight, the pony put on a spurt, and reached the edge of the lake just as a bomber appeared in the distance.
Biggles led the stout little animal in amongst the trees where he thought they would be safe, unharnessed it, and flung the hay out on the snow. ‘There you are, laddie,’ he said, patting its neck. ‘That ought to keep you going till the snow melts.’
He insisted on remaining under cover until the bomber, whose circling progress left them in no doubt as to its mission, passed on; then he turned to the ridge of hills which, running from north to south, lay across their path. ‘This is where we start walking,’ he announced.
‘D’you know where we are?’ inquired Ginger.
‘No, but as long as we keep heading westwards we ought to be all right. From the ridge in front of us we should be able to see the lake where we crashed the Blenheim. I made a note of it yesterday from the air. I’m aiming to strike the Blenheim in order to pick up some food.’
The climb up the steep, snow-covered slope was a severe one, particularly as the thaw was now perceptible; indeed, after the intense cold the air seemed muggy, and they were soon perspiring freely. A steamy mist began to form.
‘Phew, take it easy’ muttered Algy, taking off his jacket and sitting down on a rock to rest. ‘There’s no need for us to break our necks.’
