by W E Johns
Biggles strolled across the tarmac to meet the pilot. “How did that look from the ground?” asked Wilkinson, grinning, as he clambered out of the cockpit.
“It looked to me that if you were trying to strip the wings off that kite you must have jolly nearly succeeded,” replied Biggles. “Are you tired of life or something? What’s the big idea, anyway?”
“Come across to the mess and I’ll tell you,” answered Wilkinson, and together they made their way towards the ante-room.
“Now tell me this,” continued the S.E.5 pilot when they had called for drinks and made themselves comfortable; “have you ever bumped into that blue-and-yellow Boche circus that hangs out somewhere near Lille? I believe theythey are now on Aerodrome 27.”
“Too true I have,” admitted Biggles. “What about them?”
“Have you seen ‘em lately?”
“No! Come on; cough it up, laddie. Have they turned pink, or what?”
“No, they’re still blue, but they’ve got a new leader, and if you place any value at all on your young life keep out of his way, that’s all,” replied Wilkinson soberly.
“Hot stuff, eh?” inquired Biggles.
“He’s hotter than hell at twelve noon on midsummer’s day,” declared Wilkinson. “Now, let me tell you something else. First of all, as you know, these Albatroses are all painted blue, but there’s a bit of yellow on them somewhere.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” replied Biggles. “One of them has got yellow elevators, and there’s another with a yellow centre-section.”
“That’s right,” agreed Wilkinson. “They’ve all got that touch of yellow on them somewhere—that is, all except the leader. That’s what I’m told by one or two fellows who have seen him and lived to tell the tale. He’s blue all over—no yellow anywhere. Blue propeller-boss, wheeldiscs— everything, in fact. That marks him for you. The Huns call him the Blue Devil and they say he’s got thirty victories in two months—every machine he’s ever tackled. That’s pretty good going, and, if it’s true, he must be pretty smart. The most amazing thing about it is, though, they say his machine has never been touched by a bullet.”
“Who says?” inquired Biggles curiously.
“Wait a minute; don’t be in such an infernal hurry. Now, until a couple of days ago we had only heard rumours about this bloke, but last Thursday I got one of his men, an N.C.O. pilot. I met him over Passchendaele and we had a rough-house. In the end I got his engine. For once the wind was blowing our way and we had drifted a bit in the scrap. To cut a long story short, he landed under control behind our lines. He managed to set fire to his machine before anybody could get to him, but we brought him back to the mess for a drink—you know. We made a wild night of it and under the influence of alcohol he started bragging, like a Boche will when he’s had a few drinks. Among other things, he told us that this Blue Bird is going to knock down every one of our machines one after the other, just like that. Now listen to this. This Hun has got a new stunt which sounds like the Immelmann business all over again. You remember that when Immelmann first invented his turn, nobody could touch him until we rumbled it, and then McCubbin got him. Everybody does the stunt now, so it doesn’t cut much ice. Nobody knows quite what this new Hun does or how he does it. He’s tried to explain it to his own chaps, but they can’t get the hang of it, which seems funny, I’ll admit. This lad I got tried to tell me how it was done— that is, the stick and rudder movements; but I couldn’t follow how it worked. I’ve tried to do it in the air; you saw me trying just now. It’s a new sort of turn; just when you get on this fellow’s tail and kid yourself you’ve got him cold, he pivots somehow on his wing-tip and gets you. This lad of mine swore that the man who gets on his tail is cold meat—dead before he knows what’s hit him. It sounds mighty unlikely to me, but then the Immelmann turn probably sounded just as unlikely in its day. Well, that’s the story, laddie, and now you know as much about it as I do. The point is, what are we going to do about it?”
Biggles pondered for a few moments. “The thing seems to be for us to find him and see how he does it,” he observed in a flash of inspiration.
“I thought you’d get a rush of blood to the brain,” sneered Wilkinson. “You get on his tail and I’ll do the watching.”
“Funny, aren’t you?” retorted Biggles. “If I meet him do my own watching and then come back and tell you all about it. Maybe you’ll be able to earn your pay and get a Hun or two occasionally. Blue devils go pop at the end, if I remember my fireworks.”
On his way home Biggles thought a good deal about what Wilkinson had told him concerning the blue Albatros. “Sooner or later I shall meet him,” he reflected, “so I might as well decide how I am going to act. When he pulls his patent stunt he must reckon on the fellow he’s fighting doing the usual thing, making a certain move at a certain time, and up to the present the fellow has always obliged him; but if he happened to do something else, something unorthodox, it might put him off his stroke. Well, we’ll see; but it’s difficult to know what to do if you don’t know what the other fellow’s going to do. If I could see the trick once I should know, but apparently he takes care that nobody gets a second chance.”
His curiosity prompted him to spend a good deal of time in the Lille area, but his vigilance was unrewarded; of the blue circus he saw no sign. He saw Wilkinson several times, and each time he learned that the Blue Devil had claimed another victim, but the knowledge only sharpened his curiosity.
By the perversity of fate it so happened that the encounter occurred at a moment when no thought of it was in his mind. He was returning home from a lone patrol at 15,000 feet, deliberating in his mind as to whether or not he should have a shot at the new Duneville Balloon as be crossed the lines, when his ever-watchful eye saw a grey shadow flit across a cloud far below. It was only a fleeting glimpse, but it was sufficient. It was not his own shadow. What, then? More from instinct than actual thought he whirled and flung stick and rudder-bar hard over as the rattle of guns struck his ears. An Albatros screamed past him barely twenty feet away. Biggles was on its tail in a flash, and only then did he notice its colour.
It was blue! Biggles caught his breath as he ran his eyes swiftly over it, looking for a touch of yellow, but there was none. “So it’s you, is it?” he muttered, as he tore after it, trying vainly to bring his sights to bear. “Well, let’s see the trick.”
He was as cold as ice, every nerve braced, for unless rumour lied he was up against a foeman of outstanding ability, a man who had downed thirty machines in as many duels without once having his own machine touched.
Biggles knew that he was about to fight the battle of his life, where one false move would mean the end. Neither of them had ever been beaten, but now one of them must taste defeat. In a few minutes either a Camel or an Albatros would be hurtling downwards on its way to oblivion. He tightened his grip on the joystick and warmed his guns with a short burst.
Both machines were banking vertically now, one each side of a circle not a hundred feet across. Round and round they raced as if swinging on an invisible pivot, the circle slowly decreasing in size. Tighter and tighter became the spiral as each pilot tried to see the other through his sights.
The wind screamed in his wires and Biggles began to feel dizzy with the strain; he had lost all count of time and space, and of the perpendicular. His joystick was right back in his thigh as he strove to cut across a chord of the circle and place himself in a position for a shot. Always just in front of his nose was the blue tail, just out of reach; just far enough out of his field of fire to make shooting a waste of ammunition. Another few inches would do it. The ring of his sight cut across the blue tail now—oh, just for a little more— just another inch! “Come on, where’s your trick?” snarled Biggles, feeling that he was getting giddy.
He was ready for it when it happened, although just how it came about he could never afterwards tell. At one moment his sights were within a foot of the blue cockpit; he saw the Boche turn his hea
d slowly, and the next instant the blue nose was pointing at him, a double stream of scarlet flame pouring from the twin Spandau guns.
Biggles knew that he was caught—doomed. He heard bullets tearing through the fuselage behind him and the sound seemed to send him mad.
Unconsciously he did the very thing he had planned to do—the unorthodox. Instead of trying to get out of that blasting stream of lead, thereby giving himself over to certain death, he savagely shoved the stick forward and tried to ram his opponent, pressing his triggers automatically as his nose came in line with the other’s.
For perhaps one second the two machines faced each other thus, not fifty feet apart, their tracer making a glittering line between them. Biggles had a fleeting glimpse of the Albatros jerking desperately sideways; at the same instant something snatched at the side of his sidcot and a hammer-like blow smashed across his face; he slipped off on to his wing and spun. He came out of the spin tearing madly at the smashed goggles which were blinding him, spun again, and then righted the machine by sheer instinct.
Half dazed, he wiped the blood from his eyes and looked around for the machine which he knew must be coming in for the coup-de-grâce. It was nowhere in sight. It was some seconds before he picked it out, half-way to the ground, spinning viciously.
Biggles leaned back in his cockpit for a moment, sick and faint from shock and reaction. When he looked down again the black-crossed machine was a flattened wreck on the ground. Gently he turned the torn and tattered Camel for home. “That was closish,” he muttered to himself, “closish. I shall have to be more careful. I wonder how he did that stunt? Pity Wilks wasn’t watching!”
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CAMOUFLAGE
FROM his elevated position in the cockpit of a Camel, Biggles surveyed the scene below him dispassionately. An intricate tracery of thin white lines marked the trench system where half a million men were locked in a life-and-death struggle, and a line of tiny white puffs, looking ridiculously harmless from the distance, showed the extent of the artillery barrage of flame and steel.
He turned eastward into enemy country and subjected every inch of the sky to a searching scrutiny. For a few minutes he flew thus, keeping a watchful eye upwards and occasionally glancing downwards to check his landmarks. During one of these periodical inspections of the country below something caught his eye which caused him to prolong his examination; he tilted his wing to see more clearly.
“Well, I’m dashed,” he muttered to himself; “funny I’ve never noticed that before.”
The object that had excited his curiosity was commonplace enough; it was simply a small church on a slight eminence. His eye followed the winding road to where it crossed the main Lille road and thence to the small hamlet of Bonvillier, which the church was evidently intended to serve.
“I could have sworn the church was in the middle of the village,” he thought. “So it is,” he said aloud, as his eye fell on a square-towered building in the market-place. “Two churches, eh? They must have religious mania. I expect the other is a chapel; funny I’ve never noticed it before. It’s plain enough to see, in all conscience.”
He turned back towards the lines, and after another penetrating examination of the surrounding atmosphere glanced at his map to pin-point the chapel. It was not shown. He made a wide circle, wing down, sideslipping to lose height quickly, and ignoring the inevitable salvo of archie took a closer look at the building which had intrigued him. Pretty old place, he commented, as he picked out the details of the ivy-covered masonry, the crumbling tombstones and the neat flower-beds that bordered the curé’s residence.
An exceptionally close burst of archie reminded him that he was dangerously low over the enemy lines, and as he was at the end of his patrol he dived for home, emptying his guns into the Boche support-trenches as he passed over them.
Arriving back at the aerodrome, he landed and made his way slowly to the Squadron Office. Colonel Raymond, of Wing Headquarters, who was in earnest conversation with Major Mullen, the C.O., broke off to nod a greeting.
“Morning, Bigglesworth,” he called cheerfully.
“Good morning, sir,” replied Biggles. “No more packets for me to fetch, I hope,” he added with a grin.
“No,” responded the Colonel seriously. “But I’m a bit worried, all the same. We can’t locate that heavy gun the Boche are using against our rest-camps. I’ve had every likely area photographed, but we can’t find the blaze1 anywhere. Haven’t seen a loose gun about, I suppose?”
Biggles shook his head. “I haven’t seen a thing the whole morning,” he replied bitterly, “except a church I didn’t know existed.” He took a pencil off the Major’s desk and marked the position carefully on his map.
The Colonel, glancing over his shoulder, smiled with superior wisdom. “You’ve got that wrong,” he said; “there’s no church there.”
Mahoney and several other officers entered the room to write their combat reports, but Biggles heeded them not.
“What do you mean, sir?” he asked, a trifle nettled. “I know a church when I see one.”
“What sort of a church is it?” asked Colonel Raymond.
Biggles described it briefly.
“Why, that’s the church on the hill at Berniet,” smiled the Colonel.
“Berniet!” cried Biggles. “But I haven’t been near Berniet this morning. I beg your pardon, sir, but I saw that church here,” and he indicated the position at Bonvillier, emphatically, with the point of a pencil.
Colonel Raymond shook his head. “Look,” he said suddenly, and, selecting a photograph from a folio on the table, passed it across. “These photos were taken yesterday. There is Bonvillier, there are the crossroads— there’s no church, as you can see.”
Biggles stared at the photographs in comical amazement, and then frowned.
“You’re wrong, Biggles; there’s no church there,” broke in Mahoney.
Biggles wheeled round in a flash. “Are you telling me that I can’t read a map, or that I don’t know where I am when I’m flying?” he snapped.
“Looks like it,” grinned the other Flight-Commander, frankly, amid laughter.
Biggles sprang to his feet, white with anger. “Funny, aren’t you?” he sneered. “All right; we’ll see who’s right.” He went out and slammed the door behind him.
II
On a dawn patrol the following morning he flew straight to Bonvillier and looked down confidently for the church. His eye picked out the white ribbon of road. “There’s the cross-roads— the village— well, I’m dashed!” He stared as if fascinated at the spot where, the day before, he thought he had located the sacred building. He pushed up his goggles and examined both sides of the road minutely, but only empty fields met his gaze. “I’m going crazy,” he told himself bitterly. “I’ll soon be for H.E.2 at this rate; I’m beginning to see things. Well, it isn’t there. Let’s have a look at Berniet.”
Ten minutes later he was circling high above the other village looking for the church, but in vain. Suddenly he laughed. “Pretty good; we’re all wrong; it isn’t here, either.” Suddenly he became serious. “If it isn’t here, where the deuce is it?” he mused. “There must be a church, because others have seen it; the thing can’t walk, not complete with churchyard, ivy and gardens.” He was puzzled, and his eyes took on a thoughtful frown.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this if it takes me all day,” he promised himself, and settled down for the search.
For an hour or more he flew up and down the line systematically examining the ground, and was about to abandon his self-appointed task when he came upon it suddenly, and the discovery gave him something of a shock. He was studying a wood, far over the line, which he suspected concealed an archie battery that was worrying him, when his eyes fell on the well-remembered ivy-clad walls, crumbling tombstones and well-kept rectory gardens. It nestled snugly by the edge of the wood, half a mile from a row of tumbledown cottages.
“So there you are,” he mu
ttered grimly. “I’ll have a closer look at you and then I’ll know you next time I see you.” He shoved the stick forward and tore down in a long, screaming dive that brought him to within 1,000 feet of his objective. As he flattened out, his eyes still on the church, he caught his breath suddenly and swerved away. The Camel lurched drunkenly as a stabbing flame split the air and a billow of black smoke blossomed out not thirty yards away. Another appeared in front of him and something smashed through his left wing not a foot from the fuselage. In a moment the air about him was full of vicious jabs of flame and swirling smoke.
“Strewth!” grunted Biggles, as he twisted like a wounded bird in a sea of flying steel and high explosive. “What have I barged into?” He put his nose down until the needle of the speed-indicator rested against the pin, and then, thirty feet from the ground, sped out of the vicinity like a startled snipe.
“Good Lor’!” he said, weakly, as the fusillade died away behind him. “What a mazurka!” He tore across the lines amid a hail of machine-gun bullets, and landing on the aerodrome ran swiftly to the Squadron Office. The C.O., he was told, was in the air. He seized the telephone and called Wing-Headquarters, asking for Colonel Raymond.
“I’ve found the church, sir,” he called, as the Colonel’s voice came over the phone. “What about it? I’ll tell you. It isn’t at Berniet—I beg your pardon, sir— I didn’t mean to be impertinent, but it’s a fact. It isn’t at Bonvillier, either. I spent the morning looking for it and finally ran it to earth on the edge of the oblong-shaped wood just east of Morslede. Funny, did you say, sir? Yes, it’s funny; but I’ve got something still funnier to tell you. That fake tabernacle’s on wheels; it moves about after dark—and the gun you’re looking for is inside it. Just a moment, sir; I’ll give you the pin-point. What’s that, sir? Shoot! Good! I’ll go and watch the fireworks.”
Twenty minutes later, from a safe altitude, he watched with marked approval salvo after salvo of shells, hurled by half a dozen batteries of howitzers, tearing the surface off the earth and pounding the “church” and its contents to mangled pulp. An R.E.8 circled above, doing the “shoot”, keeping the gunners on their mark.
