A MESSAGE FROM OVER THE SEA
"
GINGER" HEBBLETHWAITE looked up from the album in which he was mounting stamps as a footfall sounded in the hall outside. He glanced in turn at Algy Lacey and Bertie Lissie, who occupied arm-chairs on either side of the fire, and then resumed his occupation.
"That sounds like Biggles now," he observed. "He told me he wasn't going out. Air Commodore Raymond has been prodding him to finish the handbook he's doing on '
Crime And The Aeroplane' for the new Air Police Service. From what I can see he's done nothing more to it, so he must have been out for some time. It looks as if something happened while we were at the flicks."
The door opened and Biggles entered. Walking over to the fire he stood with his back to it, warming his hands. "It's kind of chilly outside," he remarked.
"I thought you weren't going out ? " Ginger reminded him.
"I thought so, too," confirmed Biggles. "Somebody decided otherwise."
"Who was it—the Chief ? " Ginger closed his album and slipped unused mounts into their envelope.
"No, strange to relate, on this occasion it was not." Biggles pulled up a chair, reached for the cigarette box and made himself comfortable.
"Who was it—if I'm not being nosy ? " inquired Bertie.
Biggles tossed the spill from which he had lighted his cigarette into the fire. "As a matter of fact, it was the Matron of the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases."
Bertie dropped his eyeglass but caught it neatly. "Well, blow me down " he ejaculated. "I should never have guessed that one."
"What's wrong—somebody got a dose of malaria ? " prompted Algy.
"There was a man there with blackwater fever, which is worse," went on Biggles. "I had never seen him before, and, if it comes to that, I shall never see him again. He died while I was there. The Matron must have known that the end was not far off ; she 'phoned me and asked me to come down right away."
"Why should she ask you to come down to see a man you didn't know ? "questioned Ginger.
"She was speaking for her patient. He had a message for me."
Ginger joined the circle at the fire. "But why—?"
"If you'll stop firing questions at me like a lot of quiz masters I'll tell you all about it,"
interrupted Biggles. "None of you will have forgotten our old friend Angus Mackail, I think. Well, this fellow I saw today—his name, by the way, was Linton—has been with Angus for the past twelve months."
"Where's Angus now ? " demanded Algy. "I took a dim view of him dropping us as if we were a bunch of lepers. He said he would keep in touch."
"He couldn't," returned Biggles evenly. "There were no postmen operating where he was."
"And where was that ? "
"Apparently somewhere in the middle of South America."
"But when he was invalided on account of that crash he had in Burma* he told me he thought of going in for farming," asserted Ginger.
"That's just what he did—or what he tried to do," returned Biggles. "He didn't necessarily mean that he intended to stay in this country. But if you'll give me time to get my breath I'll tell you the story of what happened to Angus as this fellow Linton told it to me. It's a queer tale, so queer that it takes a bit of swallowing ; but as a dying man would have no reason to concoct such a story it must be true."
Biggles settled a little lower in his chair.
"When I saw Linton he was just about all in, and I fancy he knew it," continued Biggles.
"I've seen some scarecrows in my time but I never saw anything quite like this one. He looked ghastly. He was skin and bone, and his skin wasn't very pretty, either. It was yellow, and the bones were pushing through. Only his eyes were alive, and they glowed like a couple of landing beacons—horrible. That was the fever of course, burning him up.
He had a tale to tell me, and if you'll listen, so that I can keep the thing in order, I'll tell it to you. As he told it—well, it was. a bit disjointed, incoherent in places, as considering the condition he was in it was bound to be. I'll try to straighten it out as I go along."
Biggles drew thoughtfully at his cigarette.
"The story begins in the spring of 1946," he resumed. "Linton had been a soldier, a captain in the First Airborne Division. He was captured at Arnheim, later repatriated, and being a farmer in civil life he got an early discharge. He drew his gratuity and looked around. The first thing to do was find a farm, and that, apparently, was not easy. Looking down at the advertisement columns of a farming paper one day a notice caught his eye. It invited people with a little capital to take up land in a new international colony that had been established in South America. A glowing account of the place was given, so the prospects, to a man out of a job, looked pretty good. Personally, I should have thought they sounded a bit too good—but there, maybe I'm suspicious by nature of things that sound all bright and beautiful. In this case, all you had to do was go to South America, to Buenos Aires to be precise, where a man would meet you, hand over your cash and then make a nice easy fortune in the most attractive surroundings."
"And I suppose it was all lies from beginning to end ? " put in Bertie simply.
"Not entirely," demurred Biggles. "The place was there all right."
"If I remember my geography, South America is a biggish place," Ginger pointed out. "
Where exactly was this get-rich-quick set-up ? "
Biggles smiled wanly. "There seems to be a little doubt about that. The State boundaries of some of the South American Republics run through jungles not properly explored, much less surveyed. They may look clearly defined on the map, but in fact, when you get to the spot there is nothing to indicate whose territory you are standing on, for which reason the countries concerned occasionally have a private war to decide on the ownership of a piece of ground that's no use to anyone, anyway. But that's no concern of ours. Paradise Valley, the name under which this colony advertises itself, seems to be somewhere in the region where the boundaries of Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia meet, which, if my memory serves me, is just about slap in the middle of the continent. Linton was obviously in some doubt about it, as he was bound to be, having been taken to the place by a man who carefully avoided any reference to the actual site. Linton admitted frankly that Paradise Valley might be in any one of the three countries I have mentioned, or possibly a little bit in all of them. He wasn't concerned overmuch as to the actual locality. Neither need we be. What I've told you is near enough for our purpose.
" Very well then. Linton got permission to emigrate, put his money—about five hundred pounds—in his pocket, and set sail for Buenos Aires, at which port the agent was to meet him. On the boat he met Angus who, it turned out, had also seen the advertisement, and was bound for the same destination. That's how they got together. Having both been in the war they compared notes, and that was how Linton first heard about us. Incidentally, Angus took the best part of a thousand pounds with him. By the time they got to Buenos Aires they were good friends.
"The first part of the journey overland was not too bad, according to Linton ; but the finish, when they had gone too far to turn back, it was complete and utter hell—at any rate, that's how Linton described it to me and I see no reason to doubt it. First, after leaving the railhead, which itself is not so civilised as to be noticeable, there was a ride in a ramshackle truck, cross-country, mostly over cactus desert, for about three hundred miles to a fair sized river called the Palito. I've never heard of it—but there are plenty of rivers in South America that few people outside the country have heard of. All Linton could tell was, its course is generally northward, so it is probably a tributary of the Amazon. Anyway, on arrival at the river a boat was waiting, a
steam launch with its furnace adapted for wood burning. This craft belongs, as does the truck, to the boss of Paradise Valley—I'll tell you more about him presently. A fortnight's journey of still more hell, now through steaming swamp and jungle, took our ill-advised emigrants to their destination."
"Why on earth didn't they turn back ? " interposed Algy.
Biggles shrugged. "Would you have turned back after you'd parted with your money ? "
"No, I suppose not," admitted Algy reluctantly.
"Of course not," averred Biggles warmly. "Having started on a big enterprise any man with blood in his veins tries to see it through. But let me go on. The place was, said Linton, a valley ; he admitted that ; but that was where any relation with the name ended.
A more appropriate title would have been The Valley of Hades. There was not a redeeming feature. The valley is, Linton assured me, a bug-ridden, snake-invested area of sun-blistered red mud that would not of itself support a family of aboriginal Indians.
During the dry season the mud becomes dust. On this insolubrious slice of the earth's surface live—or rather, exist—in unspeakable squalor and misery, more than seventy wretched victims of the lying advertisement, in wooden huts not fit for swine. There is no proper water supply, no sanitation, no furniture apart from what the people make themselves, and that is eaten almost as soon as it's made by those destructive little beasts, white ants. This, then, was the unsavoury mess in which Angus and Linton found themselves, and it didn't take them long to see how neatly they'd been tricked."
"But surely it didn't take them long, either, to decide that it was no place for them ? "said Ginger.
"That is exactly what they did decide," continued Biggles. "Naturally, they wondered why anybody stayed, and it was only after they had walked round and spoken to some of the so-called farmers that they learned the full extent of the pitfall into which they had so casually jumped with both feet. For the first two or three hundred miles the only way out is through sheer jungle. The only highway is the river. There's only one boat and it belongs to the boss. Get the idea ? He doesn't try to prevent you from leaving, but he points out that the Indians who live in the jungle, who are little better than animals, do not like white men, and should one fall into their hands, well, he's had it, and in a not very nice manner. The boss is sorry he can't lend you the boat because he's using it himself. He's also sorry he can't let you have any food. Actually, Linton said, there is good reason to suppose that the savages are really in the boss's pay ; at any rate, he gives them food when they bring in anyone who tries to escape. And even if you survive the jungle, how are you going to cross the cactus desert without a compass, without water, or anything to carry water in ? Yes, the boss has got it all worked out very nicely. As I have said, there are no bars or bolts, or anything like that ; there is nothing to prevent you going home if you feel like it, but few people have the nerve to try. The fact is, without help from the man who brought you in you can't get out, and that's all there is to it. The alternative is to stay—and work."
"I wouldn't work for the swine I" declared Ginger hotly.
"In that case you would simply starve to death,"
Biggles pointed out. "You see, the boss is the only man with any grub. When you first get there you have to buy it, because, as he says, he can't afford to give it away. So while you have any money you buy the stuff that keeps you alive, at the blackest of black market rates, from his canteen. When your money is finished you either work or starve."
"What sort of work ? "inquired Algy curiously.
"Farming. You till the soil. If you work really hard for about sixteen hours a day it is possible, apparently, to raise a small crop of maize or lentils. The rats get most of it.
What's left you give to the boss in return for clothes, tools, and so on, otherwise you would go naked, in which case the sun would blister the hide off your back. Get the idea
? This smart guy of a boss gets you all ways. In the end most people give up trying. The climate, and the fever from which everyone suffers, would soon induce that state of mind, no doubt. If you can't stand it you just lie down and die, your place being taken by the next victim who steps into the trap. When he arrives he is given the choice of taking over a strip of uncleared ground, or, by paying through the nose for it, he can have a piece made vacant by the death of the former tenant. As I told you just now, when Linton was there the colony was occupied by about seventy people, young and old, representing most of the nations of Europe, with one or two Americans thrown in. Some fellows, poor devils, took their wives out with them. Some have kids. That's the most hellish part of it. There they are, and there they are likely to stay. They try to help each other, particularly those who fall sick, or go crazy, as some do. About the only thing you get free is medical attention—that's the way Linton put it."
"But listen here, old warrior," put in Bertie. "There's an angle to this I don't get. If there are seventy people, why don't they pull together and knock the block off this infernal ruffian, biff him on the boko—if you see what I mean ? "
"That's the queer part of it," admitted Biggles. "One would think that would be a natural reaction. Angus was all for it. When he and Linton got the situation sized up they went to the boss to tell him a few home truths about his precious Paradise. What happened ? I'll tell you. The boss was graciousness itself. He invited them in to dinner, did them proud, and then played Chopin on the piano. Believe it or not, they went home feeling like a couple of cads for doubting the man's good intentions. They were fiat out to help him make a little paradise of the place, far away from the noise and crookedness of a wicked civilization. Others had precisely the same experience. Don't ask me how it's done.
Linton couldn't tell me. He swore that the man has some sort of mesmeric power, and that's not impossible, bearing in mind that by the time people get rebellious they are in a weak physical condition, in which case they might bow to a powerful personality."
Biggles lit another cigarette.
"I'll tell you more about him, while Linton's narrative is still fresh in my mind," he went on. "His nationality is a mystery. Some say he's a German, some an Austrian, some a Czech, some a Russian. The fact is, nobody knows except the man himself, and he doesn'
t talk about it. He calls himself Doctor Liebgarten, which sounds German enough, but is probably an assumed name. However, it may provide a clue to the man's real character—
I'll come back to that presently. He speaks English, Spanish, French, German and Italian with equal fluency, to say nothing of local dialects, which means that he must have been in the country for a long time. That's worth bearing in mind. His appearance is striking, and his clothes immaculate, although that may be largely a matter of comparison with the miserable people he controls. He's a tall, well-built man of between fifty and sixty, good-looking in a way, dignified, with a gentle benevolent smile. He's always the same. No one has ever seen him angry, although that in my opinion is a bad sign. I don't like people who have such an iron grip on their emotions that you don't know what they're really thinking. They're usually pretty cold-blooded inside. Liebgarten is a scholar of the first order ; the books in his library, which Linton saw, are sufficient proof of that. He is also a brilliant pianist. He has a grand piano, although goodness knows how he got it there.
But the most unusual thing about him is his teeth. If he is to be believed he made them himself. They are dentures, but they are not ivory. They're made of some sort of metal, some say steel, others duralumin. Anyway, they give him a somewhat sinister appearance when he shows them, as he does when he smiles. His voice is soft and low, like the purring of a contented cat—that was how Linton put it. He has never been known to use force—not that there's any need if he can get all he wants with his persuasive tongue.
The curse of it is, in order to keep in his good books there are a few among his victims who are ready to squeal on the rest, for which reason no man dare speak his mind for fear of being reported and having his ration
s cut off. I can't help feeling that there's a touch of the old Nazi methods there. Anyway, this amiable, accommodating, hypercritical devil knows everything that goes on."
"Does he live with the rest of them ? " asked Bertie, polishing his eyeglass thoughtfully.
"Oh no, nothing like that," returned Biggles grimly. "He lives in a magnificent house, built in early Spanish Colonial style, set in a delightful garden. Here he lives in luxury, eating epicurean food and drinking choice wines like a medieval tyrant. You can't easily get to him because the whole place is surrounded by what appears to be a hedge of flowering cacti, but is in fact an impenetrable barrier several feet thick. There is one gate, apparently unguarded, but there is reason to suppose that it's always watched by one of several negroes who form a sort of bodyguard."
"Does he live alone ? "inquired Algy.
"As far as is known he lives in the house with one or two servants, including a secretary, a steward and a chef.
Other people have been seen in the garden, but nobody seems to know who they are or just what they are doing there. I forgot to mention that there is another building in the garden, a long, low bungalow which stands some distance back. No one has any idea of what's inside it, for the simple reason that no one has ever been allowed to go near it.
Obviously, it's there for a purpose, and we must assume that it is occupied by somebody.
Well, that's the set-up, and for novelty it would be hard to beat. Thinking about it on the way home I rather suspect that the bungalow may hide the real secret of the place."
"What sort of secret—if you see what I mean ? " murmured Bertie.
Biggles extended his hands. "How could I know ? I asked Linton if this man Liebgarten was sane or crazy—an obvious question. He said he wasn't sure, but he was inclined to think that he was sane. I asked him if he thought this farming racket was genuine. That is to say, is this doctor chap really trying to make a little paradise of the place, or is he just a crook out for the money his victims bring with them."
"I should say he's just a cheap crook," declared Ginger emphatically.
35 Biggles Takes A Holiday Page 1
