by W E Johns
A faint smile spread over the Professor’s face. ‘You’re quite right,’ he admitted.
‘Do you realize what such an expedition would cost, quite apart from the risks?’inquired Biggles.
‘A lot of money, I expect, but Roger —’
Biggles swung round to face Maltenham. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ he observed. ‘You’re in the plot, too.’
‘I’m afraid I am,’ confessed Maltenham. ‘That is, I’m prepared to finance it, provided I can come.’
‘You’ve still got an aeroplane, Biggles, haven’t you?’ asked Dickpa.
‘Yes, I’ve still got the old “Vandal”, but I don’t think she’s up to an affair of this sort. She’s obsolete, and the engine’s getting a bit shaky, which isn’t surprising considering the number of hours it’s done. No; if we went we should need a new machine.’
‘I suppose you know what sort you’d select, if you had to get one specially for this trip?’ inquired Maltenham.
Biggles thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there’d be no difficulty about that; but aeroplanes cost a lot of money, particularly amphibians, which is the type I should use, because we could then get down on either land or water in emergency.’
‘How much would you require altogether, do you think?’
‘The machine, fuel, oil, and all the rest of the things we should need would leave no change out of thirty thousand pounds.’
‘Is that all? Then the matter becomes simple,’ declared Maltenham eagerly. ‘I have ten times that amount of money and nothing to do with it. I’m not concerned with making money out of this venture; the financial side doesn’t interest me. I’m only thinking about the good we might do. My governor always wanted me to do something big. He never had a very high opinion of me, and — well, I have a feeling that this is my opportunity.’
‘All right, if that’s how you feel about it,’ answered Biggles. ‘If I can be of some benefit to humanity I shall feel that I have done some good with my life.’
‘From what I can see of it, you’ll be lucky to have a life to do anything with by the time this business is finished,’ declared Biggles. ‘You’re thinking about the radium, of course?’
‘Nothing else. If it is there and we can get some of it, it may help to cure a million poor souls who are now dying of such ghastly diseases as cancer.’
‘Good! Then the sooner we’re out of this place the better.’
‘Then you’ll go?’
‘Of course we’ll go,’ laughed Biggles. ‘To tell you the honest truth, I was hoping for something of the sort when I came here.’
‘You rank hypocrite,’ cried the Professor.
‘You lie quiet and get yourself fit and well, Dickpa,’ Biggles told him seriously. ‘We can’t go until you’re on your feet again. And now where are we all going to sleep?’
CHAPTER 3
THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
‘THE greatest danger we have to face is not finding a landing-ground when we get there,’ said Biggles seriously, looking at each of the four members of the party in turn as if seeking confirmation of his opinion.
Six weeks had passed since the S.O.S. message had sent the three airmen post-haste to Brendenhall Manor; they were now sitting on the veranda of the rest-house at Chittagong Aerodrome, which is situated near the frontiers of Bengal, Assam, and Burma. Nothing of importance had happened at Brendenhall after the departure of the police-sergeant.
The Professor, as in duty bound, had attended the inquest on the dead native, and the others had escorted him to the court in a police car. After an interview with the Coroner, a non-committal verdict of ‘Death from Misadventure’ had been returned, and there the matter ended. Then the whole party had taken the next train to London without returning to the Hall, Dickpa deciding to leave the place in the hands of a competent agent rather than face the perils that unquestionably existed there.
In London they had sought out an obscure hotel, from where Biggles had quietly conducted the negotiations for the purchase of an aircraft and the preparations for the voyage.
After considerable thought, and long and earnest debates with Algy, they had decided upon an all-metal twin-engined ‘Gannet’ amphibian, one of a type that had recently gone into production for the Royal Air Force. It was, to all intents and purposes, a flying boat, but fitted with a wheel-landing chassis which could be raised or lowered at the will of the pilot. The two ‘Hercules’ air-cooled engines were mounted between the planes, one on either side of the hull, in accordance with orthodox design and practice. Forward were cockpits for two pilots sitting side by side, fully equipped with the latest ‘blind’ flying instruments. A low doorway gave access to the spacious cabin, which, besides having seating capacity for six passengers, contained roomy lockers for stores and equipment.
These lockers were important; normally, in Service machines, they were intended for spare parts, in order that the machines could operate at sea as units independent of shore assistance, but they now formed handy receptables for the compact stowage of the large quantity of food that the uncertain duration of the voyage demanded.
There had been some little trouble over ‘carnets’— the documents without which, in accordance with International Air Regulations, no aircraft may travel abroad — because, naturally, Biggles found it difficult to state his destination. Ultimately he had overcome this obstacle by stating that the amphibian was bound for a pleasure cruise down the Australian route, but covered himself against the inquiries that would inevitably result when the aircraft ‘disappeared’, by saying that the party might make local excursions en route. He decided that if difficult questions were asked on their return to civilization, he would have to say that they had got off the track, or had been delayed at an out-of-the-way spot by bad weather.
Finally, the great day came when the Explorer — as the amphibian had been appropriately named — had left Brooklands on the first stage of her long journey. Thereafter they has followed the main trunk route to Karachi, across India, and then on to Chittagong, which had been selected as the jumping-off place for the unknown, because it was the nearest aerodrome to their final destination. They had arrived on the previous day, and were now engaged in a last council of war.
‘Frankly, this question of finding a landing-ground is the only thing that worries me,’ continued Biggles. ‘You see, in the first place, it isn’t as though we knew exactly where we are going. We don’t, not to within a hundred miles or more. According to Dickpa’s field notes, read in conjunction with such maps of western China as exist, the distance to the approximate position of the mountain, in a straight line, is about eight hundred miles. By jettisoning some of our stores we could carry enough petrol in the tanks to fly there, look round, and if we found nothing, fly back. But I daren’t cut down the stores, in case we do find something and want to stay there. Then again, it isn’t as if we had to fly over ordinary country. We’ve got to climb to fourteen or fifteen thousand feet to get over the mountains, and remain at that height over the plateau when we get there. This high-altitude flying means loss of efficiency; it means that we shall have to fly most of the time on full throttle, or nearly full throttle, when at lower altitudes we should cruise on half-throttle; consequently, we shall want every drop of petrol we can carry to get us there and back. We’re got to carry petrol with us, in drums, apart from what we can get in our tanks, including the extra tank I had installed. So we shall be all right as long as we can find a landing-place, because then we can go down, fill our tanks from the reserve supply, scrap the empty drums — which will be so much less weight to carry — and have a reasonably safe margin for getting back. But if we can’t find a landing-place we shan’t be able to refuel, in which case we may find ourselves in the cart. It boils down to this: we can’t get there and back without landing. I thought I’d better warn you.’
‘But surely we shall find a place big enough to land in, in all this vast country?’ put in the Professor.
‘Not necess
arily. You said yourself that in all your journey on foot you did not see a single place that might be regarded as an aerodrome. A flat patch is no use if there are rocks and things sticking out. I for one don’t want to have to walk home; walking isn’t in my line: it’s too slow. Water is our best chance. If we can find a lake we shall be O.K., although we may have a job to take off at such a high altitude if the water is dead calm, and it is almost certain to be. In case you don’t know, a marine aircraft of any sort, but a flying boat especially, needs a wave to provide the kick that sends it into the air –particularly if it is heavily loaded, as we shall be. But there, it’s no use looking for trouble. As I said before, I thought I’d better tell you just how we stand, so that if anyone thinks better of it there is still time to drop out.’
There was a chorus of protest and Biggles smiled. ‘That’s that, then,’ he observed. ‘We leave the ground tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn.’
‘How long will it take us to reach this place?’ asked Malty, as Maltenham was now called by everyone.
‘Eight hours. I could do it in less, but I want to nurse my engines. We’ve got to go a long way up, remember.’
‘Is the machine all ready?’ asked Dickpa.
‘Absolutely on the top line ready for the word go,’ replied Biggles. ‘Algy and Ginger and I have spent the day looking over her, as you know.’
‘Very well, then I’m going to turn in. I am looking forward to tomorrow. I feel it will be one of the high spots in my life.’
‘In more senses than one,’ grinned Biggles, as the party rose to prepare for bed.
The stars were paling in an opal sky the following morning as the Explorer taxied out across the aerodrome into position to take off on her great adventure.
Biggles swung round slowly into the wind, eased the throttle open, and the amphibian raced across the sunbaked earth, leaving a swirling cloud of dust high in the air behind her. His face was set and grim, for the slightest swerve in such a heavily loaded machine might tear a wheel off, with disastrous results. The machine took a long run to ‘unstick’, but once in the air she climbed steadily and smoothly, and Biggles brought her round gently on a course to the North-North-East.
Below them lay the virgin jungle, stretching away in all directions as far as the eye could see; away to the left, the distant delta of the Ganges lay like a skein of carelessly dropped grey threads. An hour passed, and the landscape remained unchanged except that straight in front a line of jagged white teeth now rose high into the sky like a mighty wall. It was a wall, in truth; a fourteen thousand feet high wall that through the ages has formed an impassable barrier across the neck of the Indian Peninsula, and held the Chinese hordes in check. In recent years one or two white men have made the journey from China to India on foot, but very few, and those that have got through have had little time to examine the inhospitable country on either side of them.
‘How far are they away?’ asked Algy, nodding towards the distant mountains.
‘The best part of two hundred miles,’ replied Biggles tersely, easing back the joystick as he continued to climb for height in order to surmount the mighty range that lay athwart their path, at the same time watching the towering summits with brooding eyes, for he knew that, as in other mountains, mist forms easily and quickly in the Himalayas, and he had no desire to fly ‘blind’ through the menacing peaks.
The sun rose higher as the day wore on, but with the needle of the altimeter now on the fourteen thousand feet mark, they were too high to feel the heat. Below, the great Brahmaputra river wound a slow, sinuous course towards the Bay of Bengal, as if weary of the titanic struggle in which it had battered its way through the mountains, to fall at last through unfathomable gorges into the plains beneath.
The mountains seemed to be very close now, but Biggles, as his eyes probed the serrated edge for a pass, knew that they were still some distance away, and he continued to climb, glancing from time to time at his engine-revolution indicator. Slowly they drew nearer, and the details of the most awe-inspiring scenery in the world became visible; but Biggles gazed across the scene of stupendous grandeur unmoved. As far as he, as an airman, was concerned, the range was merely an obstacle that had to be overcome, a natural physical feature which he, by his skill and experience, must conquer.
Nevertheless, a faint smile played around the corners of his mouth as he caught Algy’s eye after gazing down into a gorge that dropped sheer away below them to a point so deep that its bed was lost in dark, purple shadows. They were among the peaks now, tier after tier of them in a world of snow and ice, like sentinels guarding a new world.
The smile was suddenly replaced by a frown, however, as he caught sight of a white, wraith-like streamer curling away from one of the nearest peaks.
At first he thought it might be snow being blown away by the wind, but a second glance confirmed his suspicions. It was fog, and in a few moments several of the other peaks were half hidden. He looked around anxiously and saw that the mist was not coming from anywhere; it was forming on the mountains themselves; the very atmosphere was becoming opaque, due possibly to a sudden change in the temperature. He glanced to the right and saw that the sun had disappeared.
At that moment he was a good thousand feet above the highest peaks and flying on full throttle, so he eased the stick forward for more speed in the hope of getting clear of the mountains before the mist enshrouded them in its clammy folds. The machine roared on over the silent desolation, but one by one the peaks disappeared from view until only the nearest were visible, and they were but cold white spectres that loomed eerily in the gathering murk.
Biggles turned his eyes to his instruments. ‘Did you see anything ahead that looked as if it were above us?’ he shouted.
‘No, I think we’re over the highest,’ replied Algy, with an assurance he did not feel, for he knew that the lives of the whole party now rested on the engines. If either of them should fail, not all the skill and airmanship in the world could save them.
Biggles grunted and played for safety. Speed could not help them now, so he eased the throttle back a little and started to climb again, very, very slowly. At sixteen thousand feet he was satisfied that he was safe from striking an obstruction, but nevertheless he breathed a sigh of relief when a few minutes later the machine shot out into clear air under a steely blue sky. Below, the mist lay flat, like a white blanket of snow; to the east and west it stretched to the infinite distance, but a few miles ahead it broke off abruptly as if it had been cut with a knife. The phenomenon was not new to him, but he had never before observed it with so much satisfaction.
‘Pass me a sandwich, Algy, will you?’ he said. ‘I think the worst is over.’
And so it proved, for twenty minutes later the earth again came into view, and the white peril drifted away astern. Thank goodness,’ he muttered thankfully, as he looked down with interest on a landscape that he knew had never before been looked upon by Europeans. It was not a pleasant sight. Grim, stark, and utterly lifeless, it was a land of tortured rock; of jagged knife-like ridges and deep forbidding gorges. ‘I hope there isn’t too much of this,’ he shouted, as he gazed below. ‘My goodness, did you ever see such a place! No wonder nobody’s ever tried to conquer the country.’
But his fears were groundless, for the rocky terrain slowly gave way to open plain, a vast wind-swept expanse of sand and shingle dotted here and there with sparse, grey-green herbage. First one extreme and then the other.
‘This looks like the world’s biggest aerodrome,’ observed Biggles, as he gazed across the monotonous waste.
For another two hours they flew on without change of scene. Once they passed a slowly moving line of men, driving heavy, bovine yaks, the animals that are used as beasts of burden on the great plateau; the men threw themselves on the ground as the machine sped over them. It was the first time either Biggles or Algy had seen natives behave in such a fashion, and the incident was sufficient to show that they had never seen an aeroplane be
fore. They could see the details of the strange scene clearly, for although the altimeter registered fifteen thousand feet, Biggles reckoned that they were not more than a thousand feet above the ground. On another occasion they saw, in the distance, a small village of square, stone or mud houses, with thatched roofs; above it, on a slight rise in the ground, a large fort-like structure, built in the Chinese fashion with long overhanging eaves, appeared to be watching over it. They did not circle to examine it, but held on their course over the plain that was now giving way to broken country again. Low rocky hills appeared; they were divided by deep gorges, through which streams rushed in white-lashed, pent-up torrents, while some distance ahead gaunt, grey peaks reared their heads far above the inhospitable vista.
Beyond the peaks a great mass of rock rose in a series of steppes to a group of formidable mountains. Biggles felt a sudden sense of disappointment. How on earth were they going to tell which one of them was the Mountain of Light – even supposing that the mountain they sought was in the group? The old saying, ‘looking for a needle in a haystack’, came into his mind. At home the difficulty had seemed trivial, but now, confronted by cold reality, the matter assumed a totally different aspect. Glancing at the watch on the instrument board, he saw that they had been in the air a few minutes less than eight hours. He beckoned to Algy. ‘Take over for a bit,’ he said. ‘I’m going to speak to Dickpa about landing. I don’t feel inclined to face that stuff ahead; we had better come down this side of it.’
Leaving Algy in charge, he went through into the cabin, where he found the three passengers gazing out of the window. The Professor and Malty were in earnest conversation, but they smiled when they saw him. He seated himself next to Dickpa and nodded towards the mountains. ‘I’m going to land this side of them,’ he shouted, above the noise of the engines. ‘We shall never find a landing-place among them, and goodness knows what is on the other side. We’ll fly up close to them, have a good look round, and then come down this side of them to refuel.’
