by W E Johns
“Who taught you to fly?” inquired Biggie curiously.
Tony answered. “Nobody. We taught ourselves, as the pioneers did in the old days before there we such things as instructors. At first we just taxied about to get the feel of the controls. Then one day I took off by accident and had to do a circuit to land. I must admit I was in a bit of a flap for a few minutes, but once I found she handled all right I was okay. Now we take it in turns to fly. We shall sell thousands of these machines. Every chap with a motor bike will want one. That should at least take some of the traffic off the roads.”
“By putting it into the air you’re going to make life a more dangerous business than it is already,” predicted Biggles. “By the way, I notice that you haven’t bothered with such details as instruments.”
“We don’t need them,” asserted Tony airily. “I can judge my speed and height.”
“What if your engine fails?”
“I shall just come down. With a landing speed of thirty miles an hour I could get down in any field.”
“And if there wasn’t a field?”
“I’d get down somewhere.”
“On someone’s house, perhaps.”
“I keep away from houses.”
“You nearly hit the church steeple.”
“A bit of a haze blew up after I’d taken off. I saw the church in time, anyway. A miss is as good a mile.”
“The people underneath you might not agree,” countered Biggles. “But never mind that. I’d hate discourage anyone from flying but I have other people to think about and I can’t let you continue with these experiments. I’ll tell you a better idea, instead of learning by trial and error, as you are now, which wastes time, why not wait till you leave school and then take a course of aircraft engineering, then, by the time you inherit your father’s money you'll be qualified to start business seriously.”
“But we want to fly now. There’s nothing wrong with our machine. Get in and try her yourself.”
Biggles recoiled. “No thank you.”
“Don’t say you’re scared!”
“I certainly am. And if you knew as much about flying as I do so would you be. Oh yes, I know she’ll get around while everything’s going fine, but what’s going to happen when something goes wrong?”
“Why should anything go wrong?”
“Nobody knows, but it’s something that happens to every pilot sooner or later,” answered Biggles, trying to keep a straight face. “And when it does, you mark my words, you’ll wish you’d kept your feet where they really belong, on the ground. Any pilot will tell you that. And the longer he’s been flying the more he realizes it.”
Tony made a gesture of disdain. “Not me. Risk is all part of the game.”
Biggles spoke earnestly. “Listen here, Tony. Don’t fool yourself. This isn’t a game you’re playing. One day, and it may be any day, you’ll remember my words when you see an ugly old man with a grey beard sitting in the cockpit beside you. You can laugh now, but you won’t laugh then. Besides, you have your mother to consider.”
“She doesn’t mind what I do.”
“She will the day you fly into something solid. She’ll reproach herself for the rest of her life. On the ground you can make mistakes and get away with it, but in the air, unless you’re lucky, you only make one.”
“You are a cheerful Jonah, I must say.”
“I’m not going to argue with you any longer,” said Biggles firmly. “I’ll go and discuss this matter with my chief and let you know his decision. Meanwhile, you can taxi to your heart’s content, but don’t you leave the ground. That way you shouldn’t hurt anyone except yourself. Unless you promise to do that I shall immobilize this aircraft here and now.”
“All right,” agreed Tony, reluctantly. “But don’t be long. We’re all set to do an altitude test.”
Biggles glanced at the sky. “With thunder about that can well be left to another day.” He took out his notebook. “What’s your mother’s name and address.”
“Lady Hankin, Betcham Manor.”
“And yours?”
“Lord Antony Hankin—same address.”
Biggles’ lip twitched. “Very well, your lordship. Be careful what you get up to until I come back.”
As they turned away and walked over to the Auster Ginger nearly exploded with the mirth he had with difficulty suppressed.
“It has its funny side,” conceded Biggles, smiling. “But it isn’t funny, really. They’re two nice kids, and keen, and they’re probably calling me a wet blanket. I should be very sorry to see them hurt themselves, but that’s what’s going to happen if they go on, as certain as night follows day. Their mothers must be out of their minds to let them do it—but then, some mothers are like that.”
Back at Scotland Yard Biggles explained the situation to Air Commodore Raymond.
“They’ll have to be stopped,” decided the Air Commodore. “They’re a danger to themselves and everyone else. If they care to clip their wings they can trundle about on the ground as much as they like. I’d rather not make a court order to stop them if it can be avoided. I’ll speak to Lady Hankin on the phone about it. Wait a minute.”
He put through a call to Betcham Manor and had a long talk with Tony’s mother. When he hung up he looked at Biggles sadly. “She says she’s terrified, but she can’t stop them. Tony’s mad about flying. She talked a lot of nonsense about him being a problem child.”
“The boy looked normal enough to me,” stated Biggles. “The fact is, I imagine, he’s always been allowed to have anything he wants.”
“Well, he can’t have an aeroplane,” said the Air Commodore, definitely. “He’s too young. If he won’t promise to stay on the ground we shall have to take that dangerous toy away from him. Go and tell him so. Make him see that we’re thinking of his own good, and his mother.”
“I’ll try, but it may not be easy,” promised Biggles.
With Ginger in the Auster he flew back to Betcham Manor through weather that was fast deteriorating, necessitating detours to avoid thunderstorms.
“Good thing you told those kids to stay on the carpet,” remarked Ginger, as they flew low through a heavy shower of rain and hail.
Having landed, they found Cliff sitting on a chock just inside the barn looking a picture of dejection. The Skylark was not to be seen.
“Where’s Tony?” asked Biggles, curtly.
“I wish I knew,” was the disconsolate reply.
“Do you mean he’s in the air?”
“Yes—or he was. He can’t be, now.”
“What do you mean?”
“He took off over an hour ago and the Skylark has only an endurance of half an hour. We fitted only a small tank to keep the weight down. I’m afraid something must have happened to him.”
Biggles turned to Ginger. “Come on. We’d better start looking for him.”
Just as they reached the Auster a yell from Cliff brought them both round. He was pointing. “Here he comes,” he shouted, joyfully.
Ginger looked in the direction indicated. Trudging wearily across the marsh through a drizzle of rain was a limping, bedraggled figure which, in spite of a bloodstained handkerchief tied round its forehead, he recognized as the missing airman.
Biggles returned to the barn. “I thought I told you not to leave the ground,” he said sternly, as Tony limped in and sank down on an oil drum.
“I’d no intention of doing so,” stated Tony miserably, removing the soaking handkerchief to reveal a nasty cut on his forehead. “It was an accident,” he went on. “I’ll admit I was taxiing rather fast to get in before the storm broke. A sudden gust of wind lifted me and then I had to go on or I’d have crashed into the hangar. Before I could get round the rain came down and I couldn’t see a thing.”
“Nasty feeling, isn’t it?”
“Frightful. When hail started hammering me on the head I was as blind as a bat. I’d no idea of where I was. Every second I expected to hit a tree or a house or
something. Every time I tried to get down I saw things whizzing past me. I remembered what you said about Death riding in the cockpit and I’d have given anything just to see the ground. I nearly landed in a lake. Another time I missed a top-decker bus on a road. If the driver hadn’t swerved I’d have hit him. It was like a nightmare. When my engine packed up I thought I’d had it. I think my heart stopped as well. I finished up in a pasture—I don’t know where. I should have been all right, even though I bounced a bit, if there hadn’t been a barbed-wire fence across the field.”
“What happened?”
“I ran slap into it and the poor old Skylark folded up round me in a tangle of wire. As I struggled to get out I thought of planes catching fire, and...”
“Flying didn’t seem so good,” suggested Biggles.
“No.”
“How badly are you hurt?”
“Nothing serious. I gave my leg a bang and tore my face on the wire in my hurry to get free. I shall be all right when I’ve had a rest and a clean up. I see now what you mean about flying being all right while everything goes all right.”
“What about the Skylark?”
“I’m afraid it’s done for. Just a heap of wreckage mixed up with barbed wire. I sat on it for a bit and howled like a kid.”
“But the ground felt pretty good, eh?”
“Wonderful. I could hardly believe I was on it in one piece. The farmer came along. He was pretty annoyed. Said I’d scared his cows.”
“What did you say?”
“I said if his cows were as scared as I was he was lucky they were still alive. He calmed down when I told him I’d pay for the damage. I gave him my name and address.” Tony smiled bleakly. “I suppose I’m lucky to be here.”
“A pilot who can walk away from a crash must always reckon himself lucky,” answered Biggles. “I’m sorry in a way about the Skylark after all the work you must have put into it, but this is about the best thing that could have happened to it. You can now try a new angle of aviation by going out and clearing up the mess. That’s what pupils had to do in my early days. But no one minded that because we reckoned we were lucky to be alive to do it. And that goes for you, my lad. I take it you’ve finished flying for the time being?”
Tony smiled ruefully. “For some time, I’m afraid.”
“Then there’s nothing more to be said,” returned Biggles. “Now you trot along home and show yourself to your mother. No doubt she’ll have a doctor along to have a look at you. Here’s my card. Let me know how you get on. If you want any more advice you know where to come. Goodbye for now.”
“Goodbye, and thanks a lot for being so decent about all this,” was Tony’s last word as Biggles and Ginger walked back to the Auster.
[Back to Contents]
HORACE TAKES A HAND
FOLLOWING a rap on the door of the Air Police head-quarters a uniformed constable entered. Looking at Biggles he announced: “There’s a lad below, sir, asking to see you.”
Biggles looked up from his desk. “Didn’t you tell him I was busy?”
“I did, sir. But he says it’s important.”
“Wouldn’t he tell you what it was about?”
“No, sir. He says it’s a matter for you, personally.”
Biggles sighed. “All right. Bring him up. Warn him if he’s wasting my time...”
“I understand, sir.” The officer went out to return a few minutes later with a youth of about fifteen whose general appearance caused Ginger, who with Algy was working at the filing cabinets, to turn away to hide a smile.
He might have been a character from a funny school story, although this was offset by an air of quiet self-confidence. He was fair, pale, small in stature but neatly dressed and well-groomed apart from a fringe of lank hair which, hanging over his forehead, made him look rather like a prize poodle. Blue eyes gazed at Biggles through large, steel-rimmed spectacles, without the slightest trace of nervousness as he advanced to the desk.
“Good morning, sir,” he began, in a clear well-spoken voice. “I hoped you would see me. You may be sure I would not have disturbed you had I not been in possession of certain information which will, I think, be of interest to you.”
“Take a seat and tell me about it,” requested Biggles. “Please be as brief as possible.”
“Certainly, sir. Here are the facts. My name is Horace Wilberton and my home is Woolsden Hall, Glensden, which is a small village in Devon on the fringe of Dartmoor. I live with my mother. My father, who is in the Diplomatic Service, happens to be abroad, or I would have spoken to him before troubling you. My hobby is entomology. In the pursuit of variants of our local butterflies and moths I do a considerable amount of walking. On one such occasion recently I saw an aircraft and its pilot behaving in a curious manner. When the machine landed my first assumption was that it had been forced to do so by a mechanical defect, but subsequent events caused me to change my mind.”
Biggles was smiling faintly. “What happened?”
“The machine landed on an expanse of short heather near a small wood. The pilot got out carrying what was obviously a fairly heavy parcel wrapped in either a mackintosh or a waterproof sheet. With this he disappeared into the wood. He was in it for half an hour. He then came out, cautiously as it seemed to me from the way he studied the landscape, and flew off.”
“Did he see you?”
“No. I was sitting just inside the wood eating my lunch sandwiches.”
“Did you recognize the machine?”
“Indeed I did. It was an Auster, registration letters G-AOSL. I should say that I paid no particular interest at the time. It was when the incident was repeated in precisely the same conditions a week later that I became suspicious.”
“What were the conditions?”
“There was an unbroken cloud cover at about a thousand feet, as near as I could judge, for I do not profess to be an expert in such matters. That leads me to think the pilot must have known the landing possibilities were there, because for miles around the ground is very rough and broken. I should also explain that this is a lonely spot, miles from any house or road and therefore seldom visited except by a naturalist like myself.”
“What was it that struck you as suspicious about this operation?”
“In the first place, I think, the behaviour of the pilot. He surveyed the landscape thoroughly before producing the parcel and taking it into the wood. And that he should do the same thing at least twice to my knowledge. I was under the impression that aircraft, except in case of emergency, are only allowed to land at official aerodromes.”
“That is not entirely so. A pupil under instruction might practice forced landings. A machine having been abroad would of course have to land at a Customs airport.”
“The pilot I saw was certainly not in need of practice. He must also have known that particular piece of ground was safe to land on. And surely a novice would choose a fine day, not a cloudy one, to practice forced landings? And why carry a parcel? Why leave it there?”
“Did you look for it?”
“Not seriously. I called the place a wood but it is really a dell-hole about a hundred yards long so packed with trees and scrub, mostly gorse, that it’s hard to get into. The old shepherd who first showed it to me called it the Foxholes because foxes have their earths there.”
“There’s no building in it?”
“Only a heap of stones and rocks. There’s a local legend about a hermit who lived there, ages ago. I saw the place once. It’s so overgrown with ivy and thorn bushes that you can’t see much. I never went again. I searched the dead trees and old stumps round the outside for grubs and other specimens.”
“How do you know the plane didn’t land there on fine days?”
“I don’t know, except that I’ve been hunting in the district for the past month. There were many cloudless days but I didn’t see the plane on those occasions.”
“Why do you think this pilot came on cloudy days?”
“Because he didn
’t want to be seen. That’s only my opinion.”
“How far is this place from the nearest road?”
“There’s an old cart track about four miles away, but to the nearest motor road must be a good seven miles.”
Biggles smiled. “Thank you, Horace. You are, I perceive, an observant fellow. I suppose you didn’t make a note of the dates on which you saw this aircraft?”
“Oh yes. I noted them in my diary. They were the eighteenth and twenty-fourth of August.”
“Capital! Algy, make a note of those dates.” Turning back to Horace Biggles went on: “Why didn’t you report this to your local policeman?”
“Frankly, while he’s a likeable man and efficient enough on routine matters I was afraid he might not take my story seriously.”
“How did you get here?”
“By train.”
“And you intend going home the same way?”
“Of course.”
“How would you like to fly down to Devon with me?”
Horace opened his eyes wide. “That would be an enchanting experience. I’ve never yet been up in an aeroplane.”
“I haven’t time to wander about the moor looking for this place. If I flew you down you could show me the exact spot. That would save me a lot of time and trouble. I take it you could find your way home if I dropped you off there?”
“Easily. I go there often. Then you do think my story worth investigating?”
“Definitely. If the public would realize it they could help the police by reporting anything unusual. We can’t be everywhere. You have given us the registration of this machine. What colour was it?”
“Blue and silver.”
Biggles turned. “Ginger, you had better come with us in case I need help. Algy, ring the Ops room and order the Proctor to be ready in half an hour. Then check the ownership of this Auster, ascertain where it’s kept, and should it turn out to be a club machine get from the secretary the hours it has been in the air lately, particularly on the two dates Horace has mentioned. The logbook should tell us where it went—or where it was supposed to go. Come on, Horace, let’s get along and I’ll show you Dartmoor from up topsides. The prison should be a good landmark. By-the-way, do you live near it?”
