he reported briefly.
"Then try to pick out something yourself," ordered Biggles. "You've got the gen." He made the same request to the others over the intercom.
As Biggles had said, they had the gen; not much, but possibly enough for recognition. The particular caves that were the final objective were at Nan-hu, an oasis lying roughly fifteen to twenty miles south of Tunhwang.
The oasis, so-called, was a strip of cultivated ground on the edge of the Gobi Desert, that followed one side of a small stream known as the Tang River. The opposite bank was a sandstone cliff in which the caves had been cut. Ginger could see nothing that looked like an oasis, the reason being, as was ascertained later, that there was no oasis in the sense that the word is understood, in Egypt. For some time, although the machine had lost a good deal of height, he could see nothing but sand or gravel and bare hills. However, he continued to search the ground. He knew as well as anyone the limitations of a map, which after all is only a piece paper on which have been printed names and conventional marks to represent the more important physical features. When these features are numerous and outstanding the map serves its purpose well enough; but over a section of the earth's surface that can show no dominant feature, or where such features as do exist are all alike, it is of little practical use. Below the aircraft, Ginger recalled, were nearly six million square miles of mostly desert, which nowhere touched a sea; a phenomenon which occurred nowhere else on earth. In other words, they were now as far removed from any ocean it was possible to be. As Biggles had so often remarked, it is one thing to look at a map, but a different matter altogether when one is faced with the same thing in reality.
The aircraft was now down to two thousand feet and Biggles began to cast around in a wide circle. "I don't want to overshoot Tunhwang and show ourselves unnecessarily," he said.
This told Ginger that they had reached their E.T.A.—the Estimated Time of Arrival. In other words, had the machine kept unswervingly on its course, according to the time they had been in the air, at their speed they should now be over the objective. This is how long-distance flights are worked out in theory, but they do not always work out that way in practice, unless, of course, the objective is something big, like a city, which can be observed from a distance of miles, enabling the pilot to make the necessary correction. There was no reason to suppose that the aircraft had deviated from its course, or that there had been an error in Biggles' calculations, so the objective should not be far away; but the trouble was, as Ginger realised, they didn't know exactly what they were looking for; or put another way, they had no indication of how it would appear from the air. In any case, it would be an object so small in such a vast area that it might easily pass unnoticed. They could be within a mile or two of it, which would be very good navigation indeed, and still not see it.
One factor at least was comforting. There appeared to be plenty of places where a landing might be effected with reasonable safety. The ground was seldom quite flat, but here, at any rate, neither the dunes nor the hills were of any great height, as was made clear by the shortness of their shadows, for the sun was still low in the sky.
CHAPTER III FENG-TAO TAKES A CHANCE
AT this critical stage of the operation there occurred two incidents which had an immediate effect on the situation. Ginger's eyes, roving ceaselessly, detected a movement on the ground for the first time. A small black object had changed its shape; and as watched it, he saw it move again. As he could think of no object that would itself be black, he decided that it must be a shadow. But only a moving object could throw a moving shadow. What was it? Staring hard, he could just distinguish a faint wavering line that disappeared at intervals where the ground was rocky. It could, he thought, be a track. The shadow was on it. By concentrating he made out the object to be two horsemen, close together.
They had stopped and were looking up at the machine. Had the horses not moved restlessly they might well have passed unnoticed, for the animals, the men's clothes, and even their faces, were the same colour as the ground under them. The only thing that stood out clearly was the shadow, much elongated while the sun was low. But even this would have escaped detection had the beasts remained still.
While Ginger was still watching, for it did not occur to him that the earth-bound travellers could have any bearing on their own enterprise, Feng-tao appeared in a state nearer to excitement than Ginger would have thought possible from the man's normal imperturbability. Talking volubly in his own language, which of course conveyed nothing, he gesticulated, pointing down again and again with a stabbing finger.
The futility of having a guide whose language they could not understand was now apparent; but it was fairly clear from his pantomime that he was directing them to go down. Whether or not he had seen the horsemen was not so clear.
With the machine still circling, Ginger discussed the matter with Biggles.
"Do you think he can see the caves, or the river because I'm dashed if I can?" asked Biggles.
"I don't think so, but we must be close. At any rate, he obviously wants us to land."
"I don't get it, but perhaps I'd better go down," decided Biggles. "It's no use having a guide if we ignore his directions. We can't go on using petrol at this rate, anyhow."
For the next few minutes, while the big machine sank slowly towards the floor of the wilderness and the details of the surface hardened in outline, Ginger sat still. This was it. On Biggles's judgment he knew he could rely, but in making a landing anywhere outside a place designed for the purpose there was always the unknown quantity to be reckoned with.
Biggles was a little while making up his mind. He made several trial runs very low over several sections of the stony plain before deciding. Then he came round on what was obviously to be the attempt. Ginger held his breath when the wheels touched; but the aircraft ran on with hardly a bump to as smooth a landing as it had ever made. Ginger, relaxing, saw the horsemen looking in their direction, about two hundred yards away.
They did not move.
There were now some seconds of confusion. Feng-tao talked, smiled, nodded, waved his arms and did more pointing.
"I think he wants to get out," said Biggles.
They let him out. In fact, they all got out, glad of an opportunity to stretch their legs.
"What's he up to?" said Biggles frowning, as Feng-tao ran over to the horsemen.
"Asking them the way, maybe," answered Algy. He said this really as a joke, but it turned out to be true. There was more arm waving and pointing; then the Chinaman, looking pleased with himself, came back.
Walking up to Biggles he pointed to the east and opened and closed the fingers of his right hand seven times. "Li," he said, and repeated the finger business. He need not have done so, for his meaning was plain.
"Thirty-five Li," said Biggles, in a queer tone of voice. "That's about thirteen or fourteen miles. For heaven's sake! "
Ginger could have struck the satisfied grin from the yellow face. Feng-tao had meant well, of course. Seeing the horsemen, blissfully unaware of the dangers attending such a landing, he had decided to ask the way, a custom common in all desert countries, where the usual greeting is:
"Where are you going?" or "Where are you from? " But when Ginger thought of the risks they had taken, for very little purpose as far as he could see, he nearly choked.
"What are you going to do, old boy?" enquired Bertie, casually polishing his eye-glass.
"Fourteen miles is too far to walk," answered Biggles. "We aren't equipped for a route march over this sort of country. It'll be as hot as hades presently. We might lose our way. Besides, it would take too long.
I daren't risk it. Nor am I prepared to risk the machine by taxying over an unknown surface. We shall have to find a landing-place nearer than this. We know the direction of the place we're looking for—at least, I hope that's what he's trying to tell us. What I don't like is, Feng must have told those blokes where we were going in order to find out the way."
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They all turned to look at the horsemen, who had now moved nearer. They were a wild-looking pair; not that there was anything remarkable about that, considering where they were. Both were dressed alike in bright-coloured pointed caps trimmed with lambskin, fur coats and high boots with high heels.
"Kirghiz," said Feng-tao, observing the object of their interest.
Biggles shrugged. The word meant little. "Let's get back in the machine,"
he said. They returned to their places and the machine took off on its short trip to the Caves—as they hoped.
"Fourteen miles at the end of a twelve hundred mile trip, and a night flight at that, is pretty good," said Ginger, aware that the longer a cross-country flight the greater is the possible margin of error.
There is no doubt that the simplicity of this first landing lured everyone into the belief that it could be repeated nearer to the objective. Had they known what they were presently to discover, that this was not the case, they might have been more concerned about the two horsemen who were now making off at full gallop. As it was, the men were hardly given another thought. Ginger did say to Biggles: "I hope those blokes won't talk about what they've seen." To which Biggles replied: "
They probably will: in fact they are sure to gossip about an event so unusual. It doesn't matter if they do. We ought to be away long before they can do any harm. From the direction they took they're making for Tunhwang, and that's some distance."
By this time, with the machine flying low, they were able to observe with growing concern that the terrain was becoming more and more broken. For the most part it was now typical desert country—sand dunes, or low hills with shallow basins between them, some large, some small, but all filled with sand, stones, loose rocks and an occasional dead shrub of some sort.
"I don't think much of this," remarked Biggles, eyeing the ground with misgiving.
Then, suddenly, as they skimmed over a bluff, there before them was a stream and an oasis; a trickle of water fringed with green so neatly tucked under a low cliff that Ginger was not surprised that they had failed to spot it. It was narrow and still in shadow, so it could have been seen from nowhere except immediately overhead.
Feng-tao, his face wreathed in smiles, shouted "Nanhu!"
"Good, we're here," said Biggles, and swinging the machine round began looking for the best place to get down. His circles became wider as he sought in vain. Ten minutes sufficed to show that such a place did not exist. In fact, ironically enough, they could find nowhere nearer than the spot on which they had already landed. It was maddening, but from that very point the terrain had begun to change. There were depressions quite close to the oasis that would have been plenty large enough for their purpose had they not been cluttered with obstructions such as pieces of rock, and dead, wind-warped, shrubby trees.
Biggles examined each depression closely for a possible chance, but at the finish he shook his head and said: "No use."
"Would you believe it?" muttered Ginger savagely. "Easily," answered Biggles, smiling sadly.
"So near and yet so far."
"Platitudes won't help."
"What are you going to do?"
"That's what I'm trying to work out."
"How about dropping a message asking the people below to clear that big depression?"
"Hopeless. It would take days. The job would have to be done properly or it would merely become a trap."
"How about going back to the place where we landed?"
"The arguments against it still apply."
"So what?"
"We shall have to fall back on the alternative scheme."
"We came prepared for it."
"You mean, me and Algy drop in?"
"I can't see anything else for it."
"How about me going down, getting the people together, and marching them to the place where we landed?"
"That would probably take longer than us marching to them," answered Biggles. "Even if all these people are fit, which seems doubtful, they couldn't make more than a mile an hour over the country we've just covered. You know what soft sand dunes are like. It would be brutal to take some and leave others behind. Even if they could do the distance, I don't like the idea of sitting in the open all day so near the track to Tunhwang. If we were spotted, instead of rescuing these people, we might do them more harm than good."
Ginger did not answer.
"I'll take the machine home with Bertie," went on Biggles. "You go down with Algy and fix up a landing strip. I don't see any great difficulty about that. I'll come back a week to-day. That should give you plenty of time. I'm making allowance for the job being tougher than it looks. One can't tell from up here."
"Fair enough," agreed Ginger.
"Take the radio with you, but don't use it unless you have to. Push the stores out—you'll need them. See that Feng gets his harness on properly."
"Leave it to me."
Biggles told Algy over the inter-com what he had decided to do, and then, while preparations were being made, climbed into position at a suitable height.
On the first run three heavy containers of stores were parachuted down.
On the next run Feng-tao stepped out into space. He got down all right, but nearly gave Ginger a heart attack by making a dangerously long delayed drop. It looked as if he had forgotten to pull his ring. On the final run Algy and Ginger went down at close intervals, and five minutes later, on firm ground, having waved okay to the machine, they were helping Feng out of his harness.
With the drone of the engines fading they got the three containers together and then sat down on their brollies to await the arrival of the people from the oasis to help them carry the stuff in. This, they were sure, could not long be delayed, for they were only a matter of two hundred yards or so from the brink of the cliff, although a low dune intervened.
Ten minutes passed. The sun struck down, and the heat on the open sand was becoming unbearable.
Algy remarked, casually: "They're a long time."
Feng, watching the top of the dune, seemed puzzled by the delay.
Another ten minutes passed. "They can't be coming," declared Ginger.
"Maybe they take us for enemies. Let's get out of this sun. I'm being fried."
"Yes, I think we'd better walk over," agreed Algy. "We can take our brollies and come back for the other stuff later."
Ginger assented.
The intervening dune was only a shallow one, but it was enough to prove how right Biggles had been in his decision not to attempt any long marches. The wind-blown sand was light, flimsy stuff, into which they sank above the ankles and then slipped back for half the stride. In the dry, scorching heat, every step was an effort. They slipped most of the way down the reverse slope, which was steeper. However, they got to the bottom and walked onto the edge of the cliff. There was nothing formidable about it. Nowhere was it more than sixty feet high.
It was not until this moment, when he looked down, that there dawned in Ginger's mind an uneasy suspicion that all was not well. Not only was there not a soul in sight but an unnatural hush hung over the place. The guest-house, on the edge of a pathetic-looking little orchard almost immediately below them, had that forlorn and desolate look which an unoccupied building soon acquires. The small cultivated patches of ground where
crops had been grown were trampled flat. A faint, unpleasant smell was perceptible. Ginger's lips dried suddenly for he had smelt corruption before.
"There's something wrong here," said Algy. His voice was low and strained. His eyes were active. Ginger glanced at Feng, who was staring down. His lower jaw had sagged, and there was an expression on his face that Ginger did not like at all.
"Let's go down," said Algy shortly.
"We may be stepping into something."
"There's nobody here," replied Algy. "We shall have to go down anyway. We can't sit up here for a week. Let's get it over."
They soon found the narrow path that traversed the cave-pitted face of the
cliff. Ignoring the placid-faced Buddhas that had kept long and silent watch over the scene, they went on to the bottom and walked quickly towards the one building the place boasted. On their way the evil smell became more pronounced and they saw a dead horse which someone had made an unsuccessful effort to cover with sand.
Going on, Algy stooped and picked something from the ground. He held it up. It was a brass cartridge case. "It's no use trying to kid ourselves any longer," he said quietly, tossing the case aside. "We've come too late."
CHAPTER IV TRAGEDY AT NAN-HU
SLOWLY now, looking to left and right as if fearful of what they might find next, they went on to the guesthouse, a mud-brick building comprising a single hall with small cubicles leading off it. The hall was silent and deserted. There were ominous stains on the uncovered floor.
46 Biggles in the Gobi Page 3
