29 Biggles Fails to Return

by Captain W E Johns

  When the twin engines came to life the noise, after the silence, was shattering. Biggles sat with one hand on the master throttle and the other on the control column, giving the motors a chance to warm up, until the searchlight swept back and came to rest on the machine, flooding it with radiance. Looking out of a side window, just beyond the beam, Ginger could see people running about on the quay.

  ‘I think it’s time we were moving,’ he remarked.

  ‘Our engines have sort of stirred things up.’

  ‘I rather expected they would,’ replied Biggles, smiling. ‘Stil , I don’t think they dare to do much shooting here for fear of hitting the other machines.

  Al the same, we’d better be getting along.’

  He eased the throttle open. His face was expressionless as his eyes focused on the narrow harbour entrance beyond which lay the open sea.

  The flying-boat began to surge forward, increasing its speed as he advanced the throttle. Fifty yards from the harbour entrance it was skimming the water, flinging clouds of spray on either side.

  water, flinging clouds of spray on either side.

  ‘We’ve done it!’ shouted Ginger triumphantly.

  Biggles did not answer. His body suddenly went rigid. With a quick movement he leaned forward to bring his face nearer to the windscreen.

  Dazzled by the light, which was playing on the side of the machine, for a moment Ginger could see nothing; then he made out a black bulk, seeming to fil the opening through which they must pass. He realized at once what it was. High masts left him in no doubt. A vessel of some sort was coming in.

  Instantly he understood the commotion on the quay.

  The ship had been signal ed, and arrangements were being made for its reception. From their low position they had been unable to see it. He went cold with shock. In the tricky light he found it impossible to tel just how far away the ship actual y was, but it looked horribly close.

  Biggles thrust the throttle wide open. The engines bel owed. Spray flew. The hul quivered. The aircraft tore on to what seemed certain destruction. Ginger sat stil , petrified. There was nothing he could do. He stared at the black silhouette as though it had mesmerized him.

  ‘Unexpected snag number two,’ said Biggles, through set teeth.

  Now it had seemed to Ginger, when he first saw the vessel, that it was actual y coming into the harbour, but as the aircraft raced on he perceived that this was not the case. It was close, but, natural y, so near the harbour, it was travel ing dead slow. The impression that it was travel ing fast was created by the high speed of the aircraft, and as it turned out, the destroyer—as the vessel now revealed itself to be—was stil a cable’s length*1 from the entrance.

  Biggles could not turn, of course, until he was out of the harbour, otherwise he must have col ided with the sea wal . Neither could he take off, for the machine, running on a flat surface without a wave to give it a ‘kick’ into the air, was only just beginning to lift. He might have cut the throttle, in which case the machine would have slowed up, so that the force of impact, when the col ision occurred, would have been trivial. But that would have ended any chance of escape. So he raced on, stil on ful throttle, and as he shot through the harbour mouth he kicked on ful right rudder. There was nothing else for it, for by this time the black hul was towering above them. Even time the black hul was towering above them. Even so, it was a desperate expedient. The aircraft yawed so violently that Ginger clutched at the side, thinking they were going right over. The port wing came down on the water with a smack, flinging up a cloud of spray that blotted everything from sight. He braced himself for the shock of col ision which he stil thought was unavoidable. Instead, the aircraft righted itself; the spray disappeared aft, and the machine, on a new course, shot past the destroyer with a few feet to spare.

  He had another shock when he saw that there were three ships—two destroyers, and what he took to be a tanker. The fact that they were in line ahead had prevented the two rear vessels from being seen.

  For the same reason there was no risk of col ision with them, for the aircraft was now travel ing diagonal y away from them. Ginger let out his pent-up breath with a gasp, but stil he did not speak. A sidelong glance revealed Biggles stil sitting as though nothing untoward had happened.

  But the incident was not yet over. From the leading destroyer a searchlight stabbed the night. It found them at once. The shore searchlight joined in, and the aircraft, and the water round it, were transformed to polished silver. A moment later al vibration ceased, and Ginger knew they were airborne.

  As the Savoia started to climb more searchlights thrust long white fingers into the starlit sky. Lines of tracer bul ets*2 glittered in the beams. Bursting shel s began to tear the sky with flame. Biggles pushed the control column forward for speed, and then zoomed high, leaving the searchlights below him. For a few minutes he flew on, turning first one way then another to mislead the gunners. Then, suddenly, he laughed aloud.

  ‘By gosh! I thought we were into that leading destroyer. We can’t grumble, but it was foul luck. It shows how the best scheme can come unstuck—

  one can’t make al owances for that sort of thing. Just imagine it. I don’t think there has been a ship in that harbour for days, yet those blighters had to come in at the very moment we chose to go out. Had they been one minute earlier, or we a minute later, there would have been an almighty splash.’

  ‘You’re tel ing me,’ muttered Ginger.

  Biggles chuckled. ‘I’l bet that skipper’s using some language.’

  some language.’

  ‘He was probably struck dumb, like I was,’ growled Ginger. ‘By the way, where are we going?’

  ‘I’m trying to lead those sharpshooters to believe that we’re heading out to sea,’ returned Biggles. ‘I daren’t turn too soon or they’d know we were coming back. I think it’s al right now.’

  He turned in a wide half circle. The roar of the motors faded, and the flying boat settled down in a steady glide towards the nearest point of land—the tip of Cap Martin, now visible in the light of the moon some miles to the north. Ginger did not fail to notice the wisdom of Biggles’s choice in the matter of time.

  They had worked under cover of darkness when they most needed it; now they had the light of the moon to enable them to pick up François’ boat.

  ‘Have you noticed the petrol gauges?’ inquired Biggles.

  Ginger admitted that he had not.

  ‘Take a look.’

  Not knowing quite what Biggles meant, but aware that there must be a reason for the remark, Ginger looked at the instrument panel. Then he understood.

  The tanks were less than quarter ful .

  ‘What a mob,’ he muttered, in a voice heavy with disgust. ‘Fancy being in port al that time and not fil ing up.’

  ‘Perhaps they couldn’t,’ replied Biggles drily.

  ‘Maybe it was because they were short of juice that they put in at Monaco. Since the machines were due to leave in the morning, obviously they were expecting to refuel before then. If that were so it would answer several questions. That was a tanker just gone in. I’d say that’s what they were waiting for

  —hence the activity on the Quai de Commerce. It didn’t occur to me to look to see if anything was coming, but the Italians were evidently expecting the ships. Not that it matters now. Can you see the boat?’

  Away to the left searchlights were stil quartering the sky, seeking the aircraft, but Ginger wasted no time on them. Concentrating his attention on the sea off Cap Martin he made out a smal black speck.

  ‘There she is!’ he cried. ‘They’ve made it.’

  Biggles did not answer, but devoted himself to the difficult task of putting the flying-boat on the water in moonlight made deceptive by the waving arms of searchlights. Ginger said no more, knowing that it was no time for talking. He sat quite stil , his eyes on the little boat that grew steadily larger and more definite in outline. Occasional y the water reflected a distant burst of f
lak, and he wondered vaguely what the Italians were shooting at. He had a curious sensation that this was not real y happening—that he was watching a film.

  They were now low enough for the shimmer on the water to break up into isolated ripples, and the conical hil s behind Cap Martin rose ever higher as the flying-boat continued to lose height. As it neared the sea its nose lifted a little, and then, as Biggles flattened out, François’ boat was hidden behind the sweeping bows. There came a splash. Spray flew.

  Another splash that was drawn out into a long hiss.

  Powerful brakes seemed to hold the Savoia back.

  Rocking a little it came to rest.

  ‘Get the door open,’ ordered Biggles crisply. ‘Ask Algy for my uniform—I’m none too warm.’

  Ginger opened the door. A searchlight was groping dangerously close, and in the reflection of its light he saw the Bluebird skimming over the dancing ripples towards the machine, leaving a creamy wake to mark its course and reveal that it was running under power. It was about a hundred yards away.

  Ginger waited, keeping an anxious eye on the questing beams, some of which were now raking the water. He supposed that the machine had been picked up by the sound-detectors—or it might have been the throb of the Bluebird’s powerful engine.

  The motor-boat surged alongside.

  ‘Nice work,’ cal ed Algy.

  ‘Nice work yourself,’ answered Ginger. ‘Make it snappy—we’ve sort of stirred up things where we’ve come from. If one of those beams hits us the Italians wil start throwing things.’

  Chapter 19

  Farewell To France

  As if to confirm Ginger’s prediction a deflected beam swept over them, halted, came back, and then held them in a flood of blinding radiance.

  ‘Biggles wants his kit!’ shouted Ginger. ‘He’s flying in his pants.’

  ‘Coming up.’ Algy threw a bundle aboard, and Ginger, with a shout to Biggles, tossed it into the cabin.

  The passengers fol owed. First, Henri was lifted in.

  He was fol owed by his mother, sister, and the princess. Biggles, who had managed to get into his slacks, appeared, cal ing for François.

  ‘If you’l take my advice, François,’ he said, as the others came aboard, ‘you’l run that boat into Mentone. Say you were lobstering when the row started and you made for land to get out of the way. If they question you you can tel them that you saw a flying-boat pick up a party of people from Cap Martin. Adieu. I’l see that your good work is put on record.’

  ‘Come back after the war!’ shouted François. ‘ Au revoir. Au revoir, milord, et bon voyage*1.’ With its propel er churning, the motor-boat backed away, turned, and sped like an arrow towards the land.

  As Ginger slammed the door a shel screamed overhead and flung up a plume of water a hundred yards beyond. He hurried through to the cockpit and saw that Biggles was back in his seat. Glancing out of a side window he observed little tongues of fire spurting from the sombre mass of Mont Agel. More shel s screamed.

  ‘Let’s get out of this,’ he told Biggles.

  The motors roared; the aircraft raced seaward, tearing a long white scar across the face of the water.

  Ginger waited for the aircraft to lift before he spoke again. ‘It’s annoying to be so short of juice,’

  he remarked. ‘Where are you making for?’

  ‘Algeria.’

  Ginger started. ‘Strewth! Why Algeria?’

  ‘Our chaps are there—or at least I hope they are.

  There’s nowhere else within range of our petrol. I’m by no means sure that we shal get to Algeria, if it by no means sure that we shal get to Algeria, if it comes to that. If we make it, we ought to arrive about dawn. Take over while I get into my tunic.’

  Biggles finished dressing.

  ‘Okay,’ he went on. ‘Now go aft and warn Bertie and Algy to get in the gun turrets and keep an eye open for hostile aircraft—and by hostile I mean our own. We’re flying under false colours, but our boys are not to know it.’

  Ginger glanced through the window and saw that the rugged outline of the famous Azure Coast was already far behind. The searchlights were stil waving, but they were mere matchstalks of light. He went back into the cabin and had a few words with the others, who had arranged themselves as comfortably as circumstances permitted. Mario, looking rather frightened, was squatting on the floor.

  Henri, pale but conscious, lay on the bunk. He was wel enough to give Ginger a smile. Ginger received a similar greeting from Jeanette.

  ‘Biggles wants you to man the turrets and watch for any of our lads who happen to be out looking for trouble,’ he said, addressing Algy and Bertie.

  ‘I say, that’s a bit of a bore,’ answered Bertie. ‘By the way, why are we heading south? That isn’t the way home.’

  ‘It’s the way we’ve got to go,’ reported Ginger.

  ‘We’re short of juice. Biggles is making for the Algerian coast. He reckons we might just do it, but it’s going to be a close thing. That’s al . I’m going for’ard—see you later.’ Ginger returned to the cockpit.

  For more than two hours the Savoia roared its trackless way across a lonely moonlit sea. The islands of Corsica and Sardinia with their needle crags had long been left behind. No aircraft was seen. The only marine craft was a destroyer, or light cruiser, off the south-west coast of Sardinia.

  ‘How about cal ing up our people on the radio and tel ing them we’re on the way?’ suggested Ginger once, in a moment of absent-mindedness.

  ‘And cal up a bunch of Italian fighters at the same time?’ answered Biggles sarcastical y. ‘Leave it alone. I’ve had al the trouble I want for a little while.’

  Biggles was now flying with one eye on the petrol gauge and the other on the southern horizon—so to speak. Fuel was getting low. At a quarter to six a pink glow in the east heralded the approach of another day, and when, a few minutes later, a purple smudge materialized across the horizon Biggles announced his relief.

  ‘Just in time,’ he observed. ‘We’re down to our last pint. Keep your eyes skinned. Our only danger now is from our own aircraft.’

  ‘That would be a pity,’ murmured Ginger.

  In ten minutes, under a sky aflame with colour and the disc of the sun coming up like a enormous toy bal oon, the smudge had crystal ized into a sandy coastline backed by sloping cliffs whose faces had been scarred and grooved by centuries of sun and wind and rain. The land ran east and west until it final y merged into the indefinite distance.

  ‘Africa,’ said Ginger quietly.

  ‘Algeria—I hope,’ rejoined Biggles. ‘This is where we shal have to watch our step.’

  Hardly had the words left his lips when the port motor choked; the other did the same, and after a few backfires they both cut out dead. By that time Biggles had pushed the control column forward, putting the aircraft into a shal ow glide towards the land.

  ‘We shal just about do it,’ he observed.

  Bertie appeared. ‘I say, chaps, get a move on,’ he requested. ‘There are three Hurricanes coming up astern.’ As he spoke, from somewhere not far away came the snarling grunt of multiple machine guns.

  Biggles threw the Savoia into a steep sideslip. To Bertie he shouted, ‘Get out on the hul and put your hands up!’

  Ginger looked down at a sea where white-capped breakers were flinging themselves on a foam-fringed beach. ‘You’l never get down there,’ he asserted.

  ‘I’ve got to,’ answered Biggles grimly.

  ‘She’l swamp.’

  ‘I intend her to—in shal ow water,’ said Biggles crisply. ‘I’m afraid if we did manage to land our lads would shoot us up. I’m going to try to run in with the surf and beach her. There’s nothing else for it. You’d better get aft and warn everybody to be ready for a crash-landing. You and Algy stand by Henri.’

  Ginger went aft—no easy matter considering the angle of the aircraft—to find Bertie in the main gun-turret making frantic signals to the pursuing pilots, who
were probably finding it difficult to bring their sights to bear on a target which, as Biggles intended by his sideslip, was travel ing on a deceptive course.

  by his sideslip, was travel ing on a deceptive course.

  ‘It’l be al right,’ announced Ginger, with a confidence he certainly did not feel. ‘We may have to crash-land on the sand. Be ready to get out quickly.’

  He

  caught

  Jeanette’s

  eyes

  and

  smiled

  encouragement, and then clutched at a seat as the aircraft came to even keel. Through a window he could see breakers curling for their rush at the beach. The aircraft was travel ing in the same direction. Then spray blotted out the scene.

  The machine raced on, overtaking waves that slapped like giant clappers at the skimming keel.

  Then came a shuddering jar that flung everybody forward. The door burst open. Water poured in and swirled along the floor. Shingle pattered like hail.

  With a final crash the aircraft came to rest, listing a little to one side.

  Sliding to the door Ginger saw that they were on the beach, on the fringe of the sea where lacy foam made scal oped patterns on the sand. Somewhere near an engine howled. ‘Look after Henri!’ he shouted, and running up the shelving beach lifted his arms as a sign of surrender. He was just in time. A diving Hurricane lifted its nose, and instead of firing, as had clearly been the pilot’s intention, zoomed high. For an instant the noise of its motor drowned al other sounds. Al three Hurricanes went into a tight circle over the flying-boat.

  Ginger turned to find Bertie and Algy coming ashore with Henri, and the others fol owing. Biggles brought up the rear. Walking up the dry sand they stood in a little group. Biggles waved to the Hurricanes, and then, with the broad side of an oyster shel , wrote in huge letters on the smooth wet sand, the one word, ‘British’. A Hurricane came in low, wing down, and then, banking steeply, raced along the beach towards the west.

  ‘Do you know where we are?’ Ginger asked Biggles.

  ‘Not exactly, but I reckon we’re somewhere east of Algiers,’ answered Biggles. ‘That looks like a vehicle coming along the coast road. Perhaps the driver wil give us our position. Let’s go up.’