52 Biggles In Australia

by Captain W E Johns

  ll come, and I'm scared stiff he'll land.'

  'My advice is, wait till you hear him,' replied Cozens. 'At present the aborigines must think they've got us cornered. When they hear another machine coming they may think twice, and push off'

  Ginger looked at Bertie. 'While we're doing nothing we might have a look round Smith's office to see what he's been up to. That was really why we came here.'

  'That's an idea,' agreed Bertie. 'This waiting is binding me rigid.'

  They found plenty of papers in Smith's office, some of them on the floor, for the natives appeared to have enjoyed making as much mess as possible; but all written matter was in code or in a language neither Ginger nor Bertie could read. They took it to be Russian.

  'The back-room boys will be able to sort this out,' predicted Ginger.

  'If we can get it to them, which at the moment appears to present difficulties, old boy —

  if you see what I mean.'

  'What's in here, I wonder,' went on Ginger, going over to a closed door.

  It was locked. He called to Cozens: 'What's in this room leading off Smith's office?'

  Cozens replied: 'I don't know. I was never allowed to see inside it. It was always kept locked.'

  'Let's unlock it,' suggested Bertie, putting a foot against the lock and throwing his weight on it.

  For a moment the door held, but when Ginger added his weight it flew open with a splintering crash.

  'Well, blow me down!' ejaculated Bertie, looking round.

  The room appeared to be both an armoury and a chemist's shop. Guns and rifles stood in racks with boxes of ammunition at their feet. On a bench were instruments, scales, bottles of chemicals, racks of test tubes and retorts. On a table was a pile of what seemed to be pieces of rock.

  'Smith wasn't going to run short of weapons,' observed Bertie.

  'He could never have intended to use all these,' declared Ginger. 'A lot of it is cheap stuff, obsolete. I'd say the idea was to dish it out to the aborigines when the time was ripe.

  That's it,' he went on confidently. 'And I'll tell you something else.

  I'd bet it was this sort of stuff that von Stalhein's ship was bringing here when it struck the willie-willie and went aground on the island.

  They'd never have got it through Customs. It would have been unloaded on the lugger and brought up the river. It all fits.'

  'That's about the English of it, laddie,' agreed Bertie. 'What's all this junk on the table?'

  'Mineral specimens. Couldn't be anything else. Smith, or one of his men, has been prospecting, probably for uranium. There have been some big finds in Australia. We found a Geiger Counter on the island. Now we know what it was for. The ship carried money, too; perhaps to pay the natives, in which case it will most likely turn out to be phoney.'

  'Absolutely,' confirmed Bertie. 'Those are the answers. What have we here?' He lifted the lid of a box. 'Bombs! by Jingo. He was all ready for the natives if they turned on him.

  No, these aren't ordinary grenades. They're tear-gas. The blighter thought of everything.'

  'They may come in useful,' said Ginger thoughtfully.

  They went back to Cozens, who was cautiously opening a window. 'I'm letting in some air,' he told them. 'This heat is killing me. This is the sort of sticky heat you get here when the wet is on the way; but it isn't due for another week or so.'

  'What's the wet,' asked Ginger.

  'The rains. You haven't seen it rain till you've seen it raining here. It buckets down, and it keeps on bucketing. Maybe that's what's affecting the aborigines. It gets on everyone's nerves. I'll tell you this: if we don't get out of here before it starts we're likely to be here for some time. With visibility nil there's no question of a plane coming for us.'

  'You're a bright and breezy bloke,' remarked Bertie. 'Think of something else to cheer us up.'

  Cozens looked critically at the sky. 'I don't like the look of that glare. Something's going to happen. How goes the time?' 'Quarter to four,' answered Ginger. 'If Biggles—'

  Cozens stopped him by holding up a hand. 'Listen!'

  At last the silence outside was broken. It was broken by the sound of voices, still some distance off, but approaching.

  'That's Smith's party,' asserted Cozens. 'I know his voice. He always talks as if everyone was deaf. Looks as if he may get caught in his own trap. We shall soon see.'

  'We can't let him do that,' objected Ginger.

  'Why not?'

  'There's something not nice about standing by doing nothing while people are speared by aborigines.'

  'That's pretty good,' sneered Cozens. 'Why, according to you he's the very man who's here to rouse the aborigines against the whites. He's roused 'em. Okay. Now let the skunk see what a good job he's made of it.

  I'm not forgetting Johnny Bates, in the next room.'

  'There's nothing we can do, anyway,' put in Bertie.

  'Of course there isn't,' argued Cozens. 'You fellers can do what you like, but I'm not risking a spear in my neck to save a thug who would have bumped me off, and who's about due for hanging, anyway.

  'We could at least shout, to give them a chance,' suggested Ginger.

  'Okay. Shout if you like. But if it happens that the natives have gone you'll see what Smith'll do to us — if he can.'

  Ginger went to the window. Ton Stalhein,' he shouted.

  'That's the way from the river. There's a track, over there,' said Cozens, pointing.

  Ton Stalhein,' yelled Ginger.

  The voices stopped. Silence fell. Beads of sweat trickled down Ginger's face. 'Go back,'

  he shouted. The aborigines are on the warpath.'

  The warning did not achieve its object. What happened would probably have happened in any case. Ginger's shout may merely have expedited things.

  Smith, actuated more by curiosity than fear, did the most natural thing, as might have been expected.

  'There he is. That's Smith,' said Cozens, as a heavily built man appeared from the path he had pointed out. With him was Ivan, another white man, and two natives carrying parcels. They hurried forward, looking about them, apparently for the owner of the voice that had called.

  Ginger watched for the crew of the lugger to appear — and, of course, von Stalhein.

  However, they had not shown up by the time the storm broke.

  On seeing the burnt out remains of the aircraft Smith stopped, pointed, said something to the others and hastened towards it. The two natives put down their parcels and waited.

  There was not a movement in the jungle and Ginger decided that the natives must have gone.

  But Cozens must have seen something that aroused his suspicions; or it may have been the very absence of movement that told him what was about to happen; at all events, from the open door towards which they had all moved, he suddenly shouted: 'Look out!'

  He was too late. In an instant the air was full of flying spears, thrown by aborigines who had appeared from nowhere, as the saying is.

  Ivan and his companion, being behind Smith, fell at once. They hadn't a chance even to draw their guns. Smith ran towards the house.

  By this time those in the doorway were shooting; two or three aborigines fell, and it may have been as a result of this that Smith got as far as he did. With only ten yards to go he sprawled forward with a spear between his shoulder blades, hurled by a native who had raced after him.

  Ginger could see what was going to happen; but Smith and the native were in line, and none of them dare shoot for fear of hitting the wrong man.

  As Smith collapsed the aborigine also went down, hit perhaps by three bullets, for everyone fired at him.

  Of the two natives who had been carrying the parcels, one turned at the first indication of trouble and fled up the path, never to be seen again.

  The other made for the house and succeeded in reaching it with a spear trailing from his thigh. He fell inside, gasping.

  The main body of aborigines were now busy retrieving their wea
pons, regardless of the sniping that continued from the doorway. At this juncture Ginger remembered something. The tear-gas bombs. Dashing to the box he filled his pockets and returned with one in each hand. Running into the open he threw them all in quick succession as far as he could.

  What effect they had could not be discerned, for the natives were enveloped in the fast-spreading white vapour of the gas. He turned back to the house to see Cozens

  and Bertie trying to carry Smith into the house, not very successfully, for he was a heavy man, and the spear got in the way. Cozens, ashen, pulled it out, and then said it was no use. The man was already dead. The spear had reached his heart.

  As if affairs were not sufficiently hectic more confusion was now caused by the drone of a plane, and looking up Ginger saw the Otter burst into view, flying low over the treetops.

  'Here's Biggles,' he cried. 'Are we going to let him land?'

  Actually, they had no say in the matter, for the Otter's wheels were down and it was already coming in.

  'Let's throw some more gas,' shouted Cozens. 'Where did you get it?'

  Ginger told him, and a rush was made for the box. A minute later all three of them were hurling bombs into the scrub into which the natives had withdrawn. That the gas was having the desired effect was made clear by the uproar in the bushes.

  By now the Otter was on the ground. It rolled to a stop thirty yards away and men began to jump down. First out was Biggles, pale and red-eyed from want of sleep. He did not look too pleased as he snapped: 'What on earth's going on here?'

  'The natives have gone mad,' Ginger told him tersely. 'Hark at 'em!

  They've killed I don't know how many people. We've just driven them back with Smith's tear-gas grenades.'

  'Where is Smith.'

  Ginger pointed. 'There he is. Dead. Speared.'

  Bertie and Cozens came up. From the other side came four men unknown to Ginger.

  Algy stood by the machine.

  Biggles made some brief introductions. The newcomers turned out to be Colonel MacEwan, the Security Officer, and his personal assistant, and two police officials.

  'Who started all this?' Biggles, looking worried, wanted to know. Algy told us what happened last night and this morning, and why you came on here.'

  'We didn't start it you may be sure,' answered Ginger vehemently. 'It had started when we got here. Bates, the policeman from Darwin, had been murdered, and so had everyone else in the house. We walked right into it, and got to the house by the skin of our teeth, whereupon the natives set fire to the Austen'

  Ginger, Cozens and Bertie then took turns to narrate in more detail the sequence of events.

  'How many aborigines are there in this mob?' inquired Colonel MacEwan, nodding towards the jungle, now silent.

  'There's about a score left,' answered Cozens.

  'We should be able to handle them if they come back, which I doubt,'

  replied the Colonel.

  'Now we'll have a look at things.'

  From this point the Australian authorities took over.

  'I waited at Darwin for a bit, for you to come back,' Biggles told Ginger and Bertie, Cozens having gone to the house with his superiors. 'When you didn't show up I guessed you'd come unstuck and pressed on to see what had happened. This place was due to be raided, anyway. That's why Colonel MacEwan came back with me. By the way, where's von Stalhein?'

  'He isn't here,' informed Ginger. 'I don't think any of the people on the lugger came back with Smith from the river. Maybe there was a row about Cozens escaping. I don't know.'

  Biggles nodded. Ton Stalhein usually manages to slip away when Old Man Death's about. No matter. The police will pick up the lugger, no doubt, when it tries to get out of the river — if not before.'

  It may be said here that this did not happen, in spite of strenuous efforts to catch the Matilda. What saved it was the early arrival of the

  'wet', which destroyed visibility for days and must have given the lugger a lucky chance to slip out of the river undetected. Ginger, remembering Smith's native servant who had bolted back down the path when the natives had attacked, thought this man must have reached the river and given the alarm. At all events, his body was not found in the general clean-up.

  Some weeks later, wreckage thrown up on one of the Melville Islands was believed to be that of the lugger. But this was not proved, and the police are still on the lookout for Boller and his crew.

  There is little more to be said. It was only necessary for Colonel MacEwan to walk through the house to satisfy himself of the truth of Biggles's allegations. The Otter went at once to Darwin with a mass of papers, and returned, with the Halifax, bringing a force of police sufficient to prevent any further interference on the part of the aborigines, who, as a matter of detail, when sanity returned must have realized what they had done, for they quietly faded away into their jungle retreats.

  Papers revealing the names of enemy agents operating in Australia, including those who had landed in the lifeboat with von Stalhein, were found, and the entire plot exposed, although for security reasons the soft pedal was kept on the story. The native servant who had reached the house with a spear in his thigh recovered, and gave some valuable evidence.

  The scheme was much as it had been visualized. The plan was to spread a network of agents and operatives all over the continent both to spy on secret experimental work with atomic and guided missiles, and undermine the country's economy by the infiltration of agitators into the native settlements as had been done elsewhere. When the trouble started certain selected aborigines were to be provided with firearms. Behind the background of disorder scientists were to explore the outback for minerals useful in nuclear research. It was some of these people, with their weapons and equipment, who were on board the ship which was to have met the Matilda by appointment, and transferring to it, gone on up the Daly. It was not a matter of bad luck that this failed. Someone blundered in attempting to do it not only in the season of willie-willies, which in North-West Australia can occur at any moment between November and April, but in the most notorious zone of all, between Exmouth Gulf and Eighty Mile Beach.

  Biggles and his party returned to Darwin at sundown having handed over to Colonel MacEwan. They never saw Daly Flats again, having no reason, and certainly no desire, to do so. After a rest, during which time Biggles made a full report of his part of the affair for the authorities, they paid a courtesy visit to Bill Gilson at Broome, and then made a leisurely run back to London. They learned later that Bill had received promotion for his handling of the Tarracooma business, which resulted in long prison sentences for his prisoners.

  Cozens soon got another job and is now flying a Quantas Constellation.

  Not only was no action taken over his violation of the regulations with regard to the Auster, which, as had been supposed, Biggles had caused to be grounded, but in view of the part he had played, he was awarded compensation for what he had lost.

  So, taking things all round, the only people who came to any harm from Biggles's visit to Australia were those whose sinister conspiracy had taken him there.

  Which was as it should be.

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