by W E Johns
For half an hour he lay and watched them, and at the end of that time they began to move off, not in any regular order, but winding like a long sinuous snake out into the desert; and he had no need to watch them for very long to guess their objective, for the direction they took would bring them within a few hours to the eastern outposts of the British army.
‘If that bunch hits the right wing of our lines of communication without warning it’ll go right through them like a knife through butter, and our fellows in the front-line trenches will be cut off from supplies and everything else,’ he muttered anxiously. ‘I shall have to let our people know somehow.’ As the tail-end of the column disappeared into the mysterious blue haze of the middle distance he glanced at the moon and made a swift calculation. ‘It must be somewhere about eleven o’clock—not later,’ he thought. ‘At an average speed of six miles an hour, and they can easily manage that, seven hours will see them ready to strike at our flank at just about dawn, which is probably the time they have fixed for the attack.’
He got up and ran back swiftly to where he had left Mayer. He was still unconscious, so he hurried round the edge of the oasis to where he had left the Halbertstadt the previous day. ‘If it’s gone, I’m sunk,’ he murmured, and then uttered a low cry of delight as his eyes fell on it, standing just as he had left it. ‘Now! what’s my best plan of action?’ he thought swiftly. ‘Shall I leave Mayer here and dash down to Kantara in the hope of getting in touch with Algy? If I do, I daren’t land, for if I did every officer on the station would know that a German machine had landed on the aerodrome, which would mean that the Germans would know it too. That’s no use. The only thing I can do is to write a message, drop it, and then signal to Algy and Major Raymond as we arranged. That’s the safest way; they would be bound to find it on the aerodrome. But what about Mayer? I can’t leave him here and risk a night landing in order to pick him up afterwards; I might run short of petrol anyway, and I don’t want to get stuck in the desert again. I shall have to take him with me. But I had better have a look at the machine.’
He found it exactly as he had left it, and thanked the lucky chance that ordained that not only should he have landed at what seemed to be the little-used end of the oasis, but amongst the trees, where the machine could not be seen from the desert. After removing the sandbag anchors he lifted up the tailskid and dragged the Halberstadt into the open, a task that presented no difficulty as the slope was slightly downhill. He climbed into the cockpit, turned on the petrol tap, and then returned to the front of the machine, where he turned the propeller round several times in order to suck the petrol gas into the cylinders. The machine was not fitted with a self-starter, so he switched on the ignition and then returned to the propellor in order to swing it. Before he did so, however, he took a leaf from his notebook, wrote a message on it, and addressed it to Algy. This done, he took off his tunic, ripped a length of material from his shirt to form a streamer, and tying the message in it with a pebble to give it weight, put it in his pocket and returned to the engine.
In the warm air it started at once, and in the stillness of the desert night the din that it made was so appalling that he started back in alarm. ‘Great Scott! what a row,’ he muttered as he climbed quickly into his seat and began to taxi carefully to the place where he had left the German. Mayer was still unconscious and lying in the same position, so he set to work on the formidable task of getting him into the rear cockpit. This he finally managed to do with no small exertion by picking him up in the ‘fireman’s grip’ and dropping him bodily over the side; the unfortunate man fell in a heap, but there was no help for it, and as Biggles observed to himself as he got him into a sitting position, in the seat, with the safety belt round his waist, ‘He’s unconscious, so it isn’t hurting him, anyway.’
Before climbing back into his cockpit he looked long and critically down the track over which he would have to take off. ‘If I hit a brick, there’s going to be a nasty mess,’ was his unspoken thought as he eased the throttle open and held the stick slightly forward. But any fears he may have had on the matter of buckling a wheel—with calamitous results—against a rock were set at rest as the machine rose gracefully into the air, and he settled down to his task with a sigh of relief and satisfaction.
It was a weird experience, flying over the moonlit desert that in the early days of history had been the scene of wars of extermination, and the pictures of many famous Biblical characters floated up in his imagination. Below him, more than twenty centuries before, Joseph had wandered in his coat of many colours, and the Prodigal Son had wasted his money in riotous living. ‘There wouldn’t be much for him to spend his money on to-day, I’m afraid,’ thought Biggles whimsically, as he surveyed the barren land that once, before the great rivers had dried up, had flowed with milk and honey. ‘Still, maybe it will regain some of its prosperity again one day when human beings come to their senses and stop fighting each other,’ he mused, as he turned his nose a little more to the north, in order to avoid being heard by the raiders, and von Stalhein in particular, who he suspected was leading them, and who would certainly recognize the drone of his Mercedes engine.
A white wavering finger suddenly probed the sky some distance ahead, and he knew he was approaching the British lines. Soon afterwards a blood-red streak of flame flashed across his vision, and he knew that the anti-aircraft gunners were at work. He was not very perturbed, for he had climbed fairly high and knew that the chances of being hit were very remote; but as the archie barrage grew more intense, he throttled back and began a long glide towards the aerodrome at Kantara. Several searchlight beams were combing the sky for him, but he avoided them easily and smiled grimly as the lights of the aerodrome came into view. ‘If I was carrying a load of bombs instead of a sick German, those fellows would soon be getting what they are asking for,’ he growled, and shut off his engine as he dived steeply towards his objective. White lines of tracer bullets were streaking upwards, but in the darkness the shooting was chiefly guesswork and none of them came near him, although he realized that this state of affairs was likely to change when he opened his engine and by so doing disclosed his whereabouts.
With one hand on the throttle and the message lying on his lap, he raced low over the aerodrome; when he reached the middle he tossed the message overboard, and opened and closed the throttle twice in quick succession. Then he pulled it wide open and zigzagged out of the vicinity, like a startled bird, as the searchlights swung round and every gun within range redoubled its efforts to hit him. But he was soon outside their field of fire and racing nose down towards the German lines. Once he glanced back to satisfy himself that Mayer was still unconscious. ‘If he’d come round just now he might well have wondered what the dickens was going on,’ he thought, ‘and he might have asked some awkward questions when we got back–or caused the Count to ask some. As it is, he’ll wonder how on earth he got home when he wakes up and finds himself in Zabala.’
The rest of the flight was simply a fight against the lassitude that overtakes all pilots after a period of flying, when they have nothing to do but fly on a straight course, for the comfortable warmth that fills the cockpit, due to the proximity of the engine, induces sleep, and the regular drone of the wind in the wires becomes a lullaby hard to resist. He found himself nodding more than once, and each time he started up and beat his hands on the side of the cockpit, and held his face outside the shield of the windscreen to allow the cool slipstream to play on his weary eyes.
The scattered lights of Zabala came into sight at last, and he glided down without waiting for landing lights to be put out. There was no wind, so he was able to land directly towards the sheds, and finished his run within a few yards of them. He switched off the engine and sat quite still, for now that his task was finished, and the need for mental and physical energy no longer required, he let himself go, and his aching nerves collapsed like a piece of taut elastic when it is cut in the middle.
As in a queer sort of dream h
e heard voices calling, and brisk words of command; but they seemed to be far away and barely penetrated his rapidly failing consciousness, and he paid no attention to them. He blinked owlishly as a flashlight was turned on his face, and felt arms lifting him to the ground. ‘Mayer . . . get Mayer . . . mind his leg,’ he muttered weakly. Then darkness surged up and around him as he fell into a sleep of utter exhaustion.
II
When he awoke the sun was throwing oblique shafts of yellow light through the gaps in the half-drawn curtains of his room. For a little while he saw them without understanding what they were, but as wakefulness cast out the last vestiges of sleep, he sat up with a yawn and stretched.
‘So here we are again,’ he thought, glancing round and noting that nothing appeared to have been touched. His hand came in contact with his chin and he started, but then smiled as he rubbed the stubble ruefully. He jumped out of bed, threw back the blinds, and surveyed himself in the mirror. ‘Very pretty,’ he muttered. ‘A comely youth withal. Gosh! what a scallywag I look. I’m no oil painting at any time, but goodness me! I didn’t think I could look quite such a scarecrow.’
That may have been taking rather a hard view, but his appearance was certainly anything but prepossessing. Two days’ growth of sparse bristles on his chin formed a fitting background for a nasty cut in his lower lip, which was badly swollen, while his right eye was surrounded by a pale greenish-blue halo that did nothing to improve matters. A scratch across the forehead on which the blood had dried completed the melancholy picture. ‘I’d better start work on myself,’ he thought, reaching for his razor.
An orderly appeared while he was in the bath, and finding he was up, speedily returned with breakfast on a tray, and a broad smile which suggested to Biggles that he was in the Squadron’s good books.
The Count arrived, beaming, while he was dressing, and after congratulating him on his rescue of Mayer, startled him by announcing in a grandiose voice that he had recommended him for the Iron Cross.
‘It was not worth such an honour,’ protested Biggles uncomfortably, for the idea of being decorated by the enemy did not fill him with enthusiasm. ‘How is Mayer, by the way?’
‘As well as one might expect, considering everything. The wound in his head is nothing, but his leg will take some time to get right. He has been awake a long time, and I have been with him; he had to wait for the ambulance to take him to the hospital in Jerusalem. While we waited he told me the story of what happened, or as much as he knows of it. How did you come to be taken prisoner in the first place?’
‘I ran into a sandstorm and was forced down,’ replied Biggles truthfully. ‘I waited for the storm to pass, and was just getting back into my machine when a party of Arabs turned up and carted me off to the nearest British post, where they held me to ransom, or sold me—or something of the sort.’
The Count frowned. ‘They’re unreliable these Arabs,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t trust them an inch. They betray either side for a handful of piastres and would cut the throat of every white man in the country if they could, or if they dared. Von Stalhein thinks a lot of them though, perhaps because he was out here before the war and knows their habits and language. That’s why he’s here now. Between ourselves, he’s got a big show on at this very moment which—which—’ He broke off abruptly as if he realized suddenly that he was saying too much. ‘Come along down to the Mess as soon as you’re ready,’ he continued, changing the subject, as he moved towards the door. ‘I want you to meet Kurt Hess.’
‘Kurt Hess? I seem to have heard the name. Who is he?’
‘He’s our crack pilot in the East. He has scored twenty-six victories and is very proud of it, which is pardonable. He arrived this morning; he’s only here for a few days, and between ourselves—’ the Count dropped his voice to a confidential whisper—‘he’s not very pleased because every one is talking about you, and your exploit with Mayer. Perhaps he thinks, not unnaturally, that they should be talking about him.’
‘I see,’ answered Biggles as he brushed his tunic, and made a mental note that if he knew anything about German character he would find a ready-made enemy in the German Ace. ‘I shall be proud to meet him,’ he went on slowly, wondering what the Count would say if he knew that his own bag of enemy machines exceeded that of the German’s.
‘See you presently, then,’ concluded the Count, as he went out and closed the door.
‘So von Stalhein is leading the Arabs,’ thought Biggles, ‘and he isn’t back yet. Well, I hope he gets it in the neck; it would save me a lot of trouble.’ But even as the thought crossed his mind there was a roar overhead and a Halberstadt side-slipped steeply to a clever landing; it swung round and raced tail up towards the sheds. Before it had stopped, von Stalhein, in German uniform, had climbed out of the back seat and was limping quickly towards headqarters.
‘It looks to me as if we might soon be hearing some interesting news,’ mused Biggles, with a thrill of anticipation, as he went out and strolled towards the Mess.
Chapter 12
A New Pilot—And a Mission
I
There was no need to wonder which of the assembled officers was Hess. Holding the floor in the centre of an admiring group was a tall, slim, middle-aged man from whose throat hung the coveted Pour le Mérite, the highest award for valour in the German Imperial Forces. His manner and tone of voice were at once so haughty—one might say imperious—and supercilious, that Biggles, although he was half prepared for something of the sort, instinctively recoiled. ‘What amazing people the Huns are,’ he thought, as he watched the swaggering gestures of the Ace. ‘Fancy any one of our fellows behaving like that and getting away with it. Why, he’d be slung out on his ear into the nearest pig-trough, and quite right, too. What an impossible sort of skunk he must be; yet here are all these fellows kowtowing to him as if he were an object for reverence just because he has had the luck to shoot down a few British machines. I doubt if he has ever run up against any one really hot; he’d soon get the dust knocked out of his pants if he was sent to France, I’ll warrant.’
He walked across and stood on the outskirts of the group, listening respectfully, but the conversation was, of course, in German, so he could not follow it very well. He picked up a word or two here and there, however, sufficient for him to judge that the German was enlarging upon the simplicity of killing Englishmen when once one had the knack, for they had neither courage nor ability.
In spite of himself Biggles was amused at the man’s overweening conceit, and his thoughts must have found expression on his face, for the German suddenly broke off in the middle of a sentence and scowled in a manner so puerile and affected that it was all Biggles could do to prevent himself from laughing out loud.
With the air of a king accepting homage from minions, the Ace moved slowly through the group until he stood face to face with the object of his disapproval; then with his lip curled in a sneer he said something quickly in German that Biggles did not understand. That it was something unpleasant he could feel from the embarrassed manner of the other Germans present.
Biggles glanced around the group calmly. ‘Will some gentleman kindly tell him that I do not understand?’ he said quietly in English.
But an interpreter was unnecessary. ‘So!’ said the Ace, in the same language, with affected surprise. ‘What have we here—an Engländer?’
‘He is of the Intelligence Staff,’ put in Schmidt, who was Mayer’s usual observer, and may have been prompted by a feeling of gratitude for what Biggles had done for his pilot. ‘He’s the officer who brought Mayer back last night.’
‘So!’ sneered Hess, with a gesture so insolent that Biggles itched to strike him. ‘We know what to do with Engländers, we of the Hess Jagdstaffel*1 Perhaps you would like to hear how I make them sizzle in their seats,’ he continued, addressing Biggles directly. ‘I myself have shot down twenty-six—twenty-six—’ he repeated the number, presumably to make sure that there could be no mistake—‘like this.’ He
went through what was intended to be a graphic demonstration of the art of air fighting, but to Biggles it was merely comical. ‘Twenty-six,’ said Hess yet again, ‘and by to-night it will be twenty-seven,’ he added, ‘for to-day is my birthday, and I have sworn not to sleep until I have sent another down like roast beef in his own oven.’
Biggles was finding it hard to keep his temper, for he knew that to fall out with the German idol would mean serious trouble. ‘Excellent, mein Hauptmann,’ he said, ‘but take care you don’t meet one that turns your own “box” into a coffin instead, for what would the Fatherland do without you?’ The sarcasm which he could not veil was quite lost on the German, but it was not overlooked by one or two of the others, who stirred uncomfortably.
The Ace drew himself up to his full height and struck a pose. ‘Do you suggest that an Engländer might shoot me down?’ he inquired haughtily.
‘There’s just a chance, you know,’ replied Biggles easily, clenching and unclenching his hands in his pockets. ‘The English have some good fighters in France, and one may come out here one day. After all, were not Immelmann and Boelcke—’
‘Zut! they were foolish,’ broke in the Ace, with a movement of his arm that was probably intended to convey regret, but at the same time a suggestion of contempt, as if they were not in the same category as Kurt Hess.
Just where the matter would have ended it is impossible to say, but fortunately at that moment the Count, accompanied by von Stalhein, came into the room. One glance at their faces told Biggles all that he wanted to know about the Arab attack. That it had failed was certain, for the Count looked worried, while von Stalhein was pale under his tan and wore a bandage on his left hand.
