by W E Johns
Biggles snatched a quick glance over his shoulder and saw the muzzle of a rifle pointing at him. He leapt aside just in time. With a deafening roar, intensified by the enclosed area, the weapon exploded. The reek of cordite flooded the room.
In the silence that followed the distant lapping of the waves against the wharf could be heard distinctly. But no-one noticed it. All eyes were on Mallichore. His face was ashen. For perhaps two seconds he stood erect, hand pressed to his breast, while a scarlet blot widened beyond his fingers. Then he fell headlong, with a crash that shook the room. The coin flew from his fingers and spun, a gleaming streak of gold, across the desk. Biggles whipped it up just as it was going to fall to the floor, ‘Come on,’ he snapped. “They’ll blame us for this.’
As they all made for the door the officer tried to stop them, but Algy hurled him aside. The policeman who had fired the fatal shot was too horrified to move, but another threw up his weapon. Before he could fire it Biggles’s fist had caught him on the point of the jaw and sent him spinning into a corner. ‘Don’t stop for anything,’ he snapped, as he slammed the door behind him and took the steps three at a time.
The run down the hill was something none of them will forget. The sun was now high in the sky and the heat was terrific. Occasional pedestrians stared at them, and one or two, apparently connecting them with the uproar that had broken out at police head-quarters, moved as if to stop them, but their courage failed when it came to facing the determined onslaught of the airmen.
‘Look!’ yelled Biggles exultantly, and the others, following the direction of his outstretched finger, saw the propellers of the flying-boat flashing as they ticked over in the bright sunlight.
They arrived panting. The Americans were grinning. ‘Good work, boys,’ cried the Superintendent approvingly.
‘What about the machine?’ gasped Biggles. ‘We’re in a hurry.’
‘Yeah, I noticed it. She’s an old ship, so the firm say you can have her for ten thousand bucks, or you can take her on charter at two hundred and fifty a day, you’re to pay insurance and leave five thousand deposit.’
Biggles barely heard the end of the sentence. He was writing out a cheque with his fountain-pen faster than he had ever written before, for a full score of police were pelting down the hill.
‘OK,’ said the Superintendent, glancing at the cheque.
Biggles ran to the machine. The others were already aboard. ‘What range have I got?’ he called to the chief mechanic.
‘A thousand miles.’
Biggles dropped into the pilot’s seat as a bullet whistled through the plane. There was a peculiar smile on his face as he groped for the throttle. The engines roared. The nose swung round in a smother of milky foam. The machine surged forward, cutting a clean V-shaped ripple in the water. He jerked the stick back; the keel unstuck, and the flying-boat rose gracefully into the air. ‘Phew!’ he breathed, with a sidelong glance at Algy. ‘I’m glad to be out of that hole.’
‘Same here,’ agreed Algy. ‘I don’t think we had better come back this way.’
‘We shan’t, not if I can prevent it,’ declared Biggles grimly.
* White clothes worn in the tropics.
Chapter 7
The Hurricane
The new aircraft was a pure flying-boat; that is to say, it was not fitted with a land undercarriage. It was larger than their own machine, having accommodation for eight passengers, but being designed for commercial work, the pilot’s compartment was separated from the cabin by a bulkhead, although communication could be established by means of a small doorway, the door itself having a glass panel in it through which passengers could, if they wished, see into the cockpit. All of which was, of course, orthodox design in that class of aircraft. It was not the machine Biggles would have chosen in the ordinary way, but he had had no choice, and in the circumstances he accounted himself extremely fortunate in being able to acquire an aircraft of any sort.
He set the machine on a course for the approximate position of the island, and then told Algy to take over control. ‘Keep her as she goes,’ he ordered. ‘We’ll put her down at the first decent anchorage we see and have a council of war. Keep your eyes open for the other machine. Deutch must know pretty well where the island is, although he doesn’t know the position of the wreck, so if we see our machine on the water near an island it will be fairly safe to assume that it’s the one we’re looking for.’
‘Suppose we spot it, what then?’ inquired Algy. ‘Are we going down to tackle them?’
‘We will go down, but without weapons we’re in no case to tackle anybody. I’m hoping the island will be large enough for us to choose a mooring of our own, without our being seen. Even if they see us – or what is more likely, see the machine – there is no reason why they should assume we are in it. I think they will be more likely to take the machine for what it really is, a Pan-American airliner, on routine service.’
‘True enough,’ agreed Algy. ‘We’re doing a hundred and forty, so in about an hour or a little more we should make a landfall at the group of islands we looked at in the atlas.’
‘That’s right. I’d take her up a bit higher, I think; the higher we are the farther we shall be able to see. Level her out at around eight thousand.’
‘OK,’ acknowledged Algy. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going through to the cabin to have a look round. I asked Timms to try to get some food aboard; I hope he managed it, because if I don’t soon have something to eat I shall pass out.’
Biggles opened the bulkhead door and went through into the cabin where Ginger and Dick smiled a welcome. But he was not so interested in them as he was at what rested on the table between them. The American had not overlooked his request for food, although there was nothing particularly outstanding about it. A loaf of bread, a piece of cheese, a pot of jam, and a large bunch of bananas made up the total, and although in their hungry condition they might have wished for more, it was enough to satisfy their immediate cravings.
‘Take a banana or two out to Algy,’ Biggles told Ginger. ‘He can eat them as he flies. I’ll go and relieve him as soon as I’ve had a bite.’ He broke a piece off the loaf, cut a slice off the cheese with his penknife, and sat down in an empty seat.
‘I’m glad you managed to save my doubloon,’ said Dick, helping himself to another banana.
‘I’d forgotten all about it,’ declared Biggles, feeling in his pocket. ‘Here you are, you’d better have it.’ He took the coin from his pocket and passed it over.
As Dick stretched out his hand to take it a remarkable thing happened. The aircraft soared high, as if it had encountered a colossal up-current, and then dropped like a stone for a good two hundred feet. So violent was the bump when they struck solid air again that Biggles was thrown out of his seat, the bread going in one direction and the cheese in another. Ginger, who was just coming back into the cabin, hurtled inside as if he had been thrown in, and came to rest in a sitting position on the floor with a comical expression of surprise on his face.
‘What the dickens was that?’ he gasped.
Dick clasped his stomach. ‘Crikey!’ he breathed. ‘Another bump like that and I shall be sick. I feel as if I’ve left my inside up in the air somewhere.’
Biggles had hurried through to the cockpit. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked Algy, who threw him a mystified glance.
‘Everything’s all right as far as I can see.’
‘What caused that bump?’
‘I don’t know. There was absolutely nothing to account for it, not even a cloud. I wasn’t ready for it, and it nearly threw me out of my seat. I came to the conclusion that you were up to something in the cabin and had accidentally fouled the controls.’
‘No; I was just passing Dick’s doubloon over to him,’ asserted Biggles. A puzzled expression suddenly crossed his face, but it gave way just as quickly to a smile of derision.
‘What’s the joke?’ asked Algy.
‘No
thing much. It just struck me that Dick’s doubloon seems to be a hoodoo.’
‘Hoodoo?’
‘Well, it hasn’t been exactly lucky for the people who have owned it, has it? Every time the confounded thing comes to light something seems to happen, like that bump just now.’
‘You’re not going to ask me to believe that an old coin can have any effect on natural causes, are you?’
‘Of course not. It does seem funny, though, doesn’t it? First of all there was the ship in which it was found. Something unpleasant happened to that, or it wouldn’t be where it is. Something unpleasant also happened to the chap in the cabin, the skeleton Dick’s father talked about in his letter. Apparently he died with his boots on. Then there was Charlie, who was with Dick’s father and Deutch on the island. He died a sudden death. Dick’s father had the coin next, and it didn’t do him much good, either. Then look at the things that happened to the ship that brought the coin to England. It cast a propeller-blade and was involved in a collision. Before the coin had been in Dick’s possession for a day he nearly shared his father’s fate, and might have done so had we not appeared on the scene. Half an hour later, with the coin in his pocket, he was nearly run over. On the way home our taxi crashes – a thing that has never happened to us before. Mallichore steals the coin from us, and gets plugged before the day is out! Call it coincidence, call it what you like, but you can’t get away from the fact that no less than four men, to our certain knowledge, who have touched the coin have all died sudden deaths. I’m not superstitious, but there is no denying that there have been cases where a sort of evil luck, or fate, has clung to certain objects, and this confounded coin seems to be one of them. Frankly, I don’t mind telling you that I shouldn’t shed any tears if we lost it. For two pins I’d make Dick throw the thing overboard; there’s no sense in taking unnecessary risks. Hang on for a bit; I’ll go back and finish my lunch and then relieve you while you have a bite yourself.’ Biggles returned to the cabin where he found Ginger and Dick regarding a pile of banana skins with considerable satisfaction. ‘Have you finished your lunch, Ginger?’ he asked.
‘I think I’ve had my share,’ admitted Ginger.
‘Then you might go through and relieve Algy for a few minutes while he comes in for his,’ Biggles said, as he prepared to resume his interrupted meal.
Ginger disappeared through the doorway, but came back almost immediately. ‘Land-ho!’ he called.
‘Good,’ replied Biggles. ‘Is Algy coming?’
‘He’s looking at something ahead; he can’t make out what it is, and I think he’s getting a bit worried. It looks to me like a storm of some sort. Maybe you’d better go and have a dekko.’
Biggles finished his bread-and-cheese quickly, tore a banana from the reduced bunch, and went back to the cockpit. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked Algy, who was staring forward through the windscreen.
‘What do you make of that?’
Biggles took one long piercing look forward and put the banana in his pocket. ‘I don’t know, but I don’t like the look of it,’ he answered shortly. ‘We’re in the hurricane belt here, don’t forget, and when it does decide to blow, things happen. You’d better let me take over. Go and snatch a mouthful of food while you can – and you’d better tell the others to get ready to hang on to something. That’s dirty weather coming if I know anything about it.’ Biggles slipped into the seat Algy had vacated and fixed his eyes ahead on what was an impressive if rather alarming spectacle.
Some twenty miles away, from out of a motionless sea that resembled nothing so much as a floor of polished steel, rose a large, crescent-shaped island that towered up to a jagged peak in the centre. Beyond it, and on either side, misty blue with distance, were others, their bases merging so softly with the sea that they appeared to float in space. But it was not this impression of dreamlike tranquillity that caused Biggles’s lips to come together in a hard line. It was a dark, indigo ridge that was rising with incredible speed above the horizon, almost as if an unseen hand was drawing a giant curtain across the blue dome overhead.
For a moment he hesitated, uncertain whether it would be better to try to get above the storm, or race for the big island in the hope of finding a sheltered anchorage in which to ride it out. Making up his mind to adopt the latter plan, he opened the master throttle to its fullest extent, and thrust the joystick forward for all the speed he could get.
Algy reappeared almost immediately. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘We’re in for a snorter,’ muttered Biggles grimly. ‘We should use up all our petrol if we ran away from it, or tried to get round it, so I am hoping to reach the island before it hits us. If we can find a cove on the leeward side we ought to be able to weather anything in a craft of this size.’
Algy nodded, satisfied with Biggles’s judgement, but a worried frown that deepened quickly to real apprehension settled on his face as he watched the ominous mass sweeping towards them. ‘I never saw anything quite like that in my life,’ he muttered. ‘Looks terrifying, doesn’t it?’
‘That stuff is travelling at a hundred miles an hour, if it’s moving an inch,’ replied Biggles tersely. ‘We shall go up in the air like a feather if it hits us. Tell the boys to stow everything and lie on the floor.’
‘Can we make the island, do you think?’
‘I’m hoping so, but it’s going to be a close thing.’
They were down to a thousand feet now, roaring over an ocean that was just beginning to stir uneasily, like a sleeping giant who senses danger.
‘The water is calm, anyway,’ observed Algy optimistically.
‘It won’t be in a minute,’ retorted Biggles grimly. ‘The wind that’s coming will blow up such a sea as I’ve no desire to be on. It’s going to be touch and go. We—’
‘Look out! Mind you don’t hit that bird,’ interrupted Algy.
Biggles altered his course slightly to keep clear of a great white albatross that came swerving across their bows, outspread wings vibrating, like those of a rook trying to reach a cornfield in the teeth of a gale.
‘Look out!’ Algy’s warning cry rose to a shrill crescendo.
Biggles did not really need the warning. He could see the bird clearly enough. Watching it, he saw it swerve again and come tearing towards them like a piece of tissue paper in a high wind. He did his best to avoid it but it almost seemed as if the bird deliberately charged the aircraft. At the last second Algy flung up an arm to protect his face. Biggles flinched.
There was a splintering crash as the bird struck the machine. Algy, when he had seen that a collision was unavoidable, had ducked below the level of the windscreen. At the crash of the impact he turned a white, startled face upwards. The roar of the engines ceased abruptly.
‘It flew slap into the port prop! Smashed it to pieces!’ yelled Biggles, wiping a spatter of blood from his face. ‘Look!’
Algy got up and saw that only the boss remained on the shaft of the port engine. Of the propeller itself there was no sign, but a nasty red mess of blood and feathers jammed against the splintered windscreen told its own story. ‘Good heavens!’ he muttered through dry lips, as the starboard engine came to life again when Biggles opened the throttle. ‘Can we hold our height on one engine?’
Biggles, who had cut both engines in his anxiety, looked at the island through the fast approaching murk. The sun had disappeared and the black curtain was almost overhead. The sea was glassy. ‘We might,’ he said simply. ‘We can only try.’
As he spoke, a white ruffle shimmered across the water beneath them, and the flying-boat soared like a ship riding a big roller. ‘Here she comes,’ he said grimly, and took a fresh grip of the joystick. The island, now white-fringed with breakers, was not more than two miles away.
The ruffle on the sea died away, but Biggles was not deceived. He knew that the lull would not last for more than a few seconds, after which the full force of the hurricane would strike them. ‘Hang on,’ he said crisply. ‘She’
ll buck like a wild horse when we hit the next lot. Look at the island.’
Algy was already looking at it, and his lips parted with anxiety at what he saw. The jungle with which it was covered was writhing until the whole island seemed to shake like a jelly. Palm fronds and debris whirled high into the air and sped away before the wind like smoke.
Biggles jammed the stick still further forward as he spied a little sheltered cove, protected on the seaward side by a coral reef, now half buried under a smother of foam.
At that moment the hurricane struck them.
The flying-boat rocketed like a wounded pheasant, and half turned over, but Biggles fought it back to even keel, and then put the nose down in a dive that was not far short of vertical. Quivering, twisting, and vibrating like a live thing, the machine crept slowly nearer to the lagoon. The needle of the air-speed indicator rested on the one hundred and forty mark, but the speed at which they approached their objective could not have been more than thirty or forty miles an hour, which meant a wind velocity of a hundred miles an hour. Still, they continued to make way towards the reef, now a swirling, seething, churning line of milk-white foam and spray less than a hundred feet below.
‘We shall do it,’ shouted Algy exultantly, and at that moment their remaining engine cut out dead.
Apart from a tightening of his jaw muscles, Biggles’s expression did not change. He slammed the joystick forward viciously and held it with both hands, his one idea now being to reach dry land regardless of what happened to the machine. He knew only too well that if they were forced down on the water the seas that would follow the wind would swamp them within five minutes. He threw a fleeting glance at Algy. ‘Get ready to swim!’ he yelled. ‘I’m going to try to reach those rocks over there, but I don’t think we shall quite manage it. It will have to be every one for himself when she strikes. Tell the boys to get their clothes off and jump for it if we get close enough.’
‘But what about the machine?’ shouted Algy aghast.
‘Let it go hang. If we can save our lives we shall be lucky,’ answered Biggles desperately.
