"Good work," exclaimed Dickpa enthusiastically as the nose of the canoe grounded. " You were gone rather a long time, though, and gave us a rare fright."
"Nothing to the fright I gave myself," Biggles assured him, pleased with the success of his mission.
"What happened?"
"I'll tell you about it some other time," answered Biggles. "If I talk about it now I shall have the heebie-jeebies. We've no time to lose, anyway. I've been thinking of our best plan as I paddled across, and this, I think, is it. If you can think of a better one, say so."
"Go ahead," invited Dickpa.
"Righto. Now, Silas & Co. are somewhere down-stream
",
"Are you sure of that?"
"Pretty well sure. There were several nice landing-places below us—we passed them on the way up—but there are only one or two rather risky places above us. They came up the river looking for us, and spotted the machine right away, as they were almost certain to. They landed and found no one at home. Fine. What did they do? They simply took the Condor in tow and pushed off to a place which would suit them as a base while they were looking for us. Now we've two things in our favour. In the first place, they will probably think we shall be away two or three days at least, and, secondly, they'll fancy themselves quite safe if they moor up on the opposite side of the river, because they will not imagine for a moment that we have any means of getting across. That's where they've boobed. They won't be expecting us, and may not even keep a watch. Right! Our first business is to locate them, and that's got to be done before morning, before they set out to locate us. Having found them, we split up, one party to make a feint attack from the shore while the others cut out the machine. Algy and I will have a go for the machine; that's automatic, because we're pilots, and if one of us gets hurt the other can carry on.
"You, Dickpa, and Smyth, make up the shore party. When we've spotted the machine, we'll pull into the bank and let you land. Algy and I will cross over to the other side, creep along the bank, and try to slip across without being spotted. We'll synchronise our watches, and at a certain time, which we'll fix, Algy and I will board the Condor and cut her loose. If we can do that and drift away without being discovered, well and good, but if we're spotted you will open fire from a position commanding their camp, which you will have already taken up. Get that clear, because in a show of this sort perfect timing and absolute adherence to plan is necessary. Zero hour will depend on what time we find them, provided, of course, we do find them. We can make twelve or fourteen miles before dawn, although they should not be all that far away. At the time we fix, Algy, and I will board the Condor. If an alarm is given, you must kick up the biggest row you can. In the confusion we shall cut and run for it. Speed will be everything. If the engines start easily, we might even get away before they grasp what is going on, and if you keep up a fairly rapid fire that will keep them under cover. We may get a chance to damage their machine, but I shan't take any risks to do it; our job is to get our own. If we succeed in doing that, they won't see us for dust and small pebbles, Well, how does that sound to you?"
"I don't think I can better it," admitted Dickpa. "Surprise is the most valuable asset in any attack, and we have that in our favour. Assuming that you get the Condor, what is the next move? What about Smyth and me?"
"We shall taxi the Condor up the river, and, assuming that all goes well, pick you up where we put you ashore. You may be pursued—or so may we, if it comes to that—but we shall have to leave that to Chance. We
shall keep a look-out for you on the bank; I don't think we can fix anything more definite than that. What do you think about it, Algy? Can you think of anything we've overlooked, or you, Smyth?"
"What about weapons?" asked Algy.
"What have we got? The 12-bore and the rifle. Dickpa and Smyth will have to take those, of course. We shan't need any—or at least I don't think so. If the thing ends in a pitched battle at close range, the machine will be knocked about for a certainty, and we must avoid that at all costs. I expect we shall come in for a warm time if they spot us, and if they do we shall simply have to bolt for it. Anything else?" The final question was greeted with silence, so Biggles turned in the direction of the canoe. "All aboard, then," he said. Without further ado they took their places in the dead negro's canoe. It carried them comfortably, for, although its crew had normally consisted of one member, it was designed to carry a fairly large cargo of rubber, which weighs heavily. So the canoe, while low in the water, accommodated them well. Biggles, with the rifle across his knees, took the lookout post in front, whilst Dickpa, on account of his long experience in handling such craft, took the paddle. The others sat between them, Algy watching the left bank and Smyth the right. Like a shadow they slipped out of the backwater, and, keeping in the heavy shade near the bank, were soon gliding swiftly downstream.
An hour passed slowly. No one spoke; the steady swish of the paddle was the only sound that marked their progress. Each bend, as they approached it, was taken slowly and cautiously, Biggles straining his eyes forward into the gloom for signs of their enemies. A quarter of an hour later he uttered a warning "Hist!" and raised his hand above his head. Dickpa twisted the paddle deep in the water and pulled the canoe up in its own length, edging in towards the shore.
"Easy all," breathed Biggles. "There they are."
"About half a mile away, I should judge," observed Dickpa quietly, with his eyes fixed on a fire on the opposite bank. It was only a small camp fire, but against the pitch-black silhouette of the forest it showed up like a beacon.
"What's the time by your watch, Dickpa?" asked 'Biggles.
"Twelve thirty-four."
"Good. I'll set mine the same. How will one-thirty a.m. suit for zero hour? That should give you ample time to reach them. You may have time to spare, but that's better than underdoing it. I suppose you can find your way through the forest?"
"I never move without my compass," replied Dickpa shortly. "One-thirty is the time, then."
"Righto! We all know what we have to do. Straight across to the other bank, Dickpa." Five minutes later the canoe scraped her nose on the sandy bank of a bend, which afforded a good landing-place out of sight of the enemy camp. Like many South American rivers, this one had sand or mud beaches on alternative sides at bends, due to silt being brought down in time of floods.
An almost inaudible "Cheerio—good luck!" came from the bank, and then Dickpa and Smyth were swallowed up in the Stygian darkness of the forest belt. For some minutes Biggles and Algy were silent.
"No hurry," said Biggles at last. "We must give them a good start. They're bound to be a lot longer getting down than we shall. It's better to hang about here than lower down, where we might be seen. My word, isn't it hot?"
"I don't mind the heat so much; it's the mosquitoes that get me down," groaned Algy. " They're tearing me to pieces."
Again silence fell. Occasionally a noise reached them from farther down the river of firewood being cut, or the rattle of a tin can or plate. The waiting, as is always the case, was a weary and nerve-trying period, and Algy was thankful when Biggles at last announced that it was time they were moving.
They backed the canoe high enough up the river to ensure that it could not be seen from the enemy camp as they crossed over to the opposite bank, and then began stealthily edging along in the deepest shadows. They were soon in line with the now smouldering embers of the camp fire, and they pointed the nose of the canoe towards it. They were half-way over before the dim outlines of two aeroplanes became dimly visible, and Biggles rested on his paddle to study the position of the enemy camp. The fire had been built on a flat, sandy beach, and around it were four recumbent human forms. A fifth, who had evidently been left on guard, was sitting upright with a gun across his knees; as they watched, he added a handful of fuel to the fire, which caused it to burn up brightly and cast a ruddy glow over the scene, across which danced fantastic flickering shadows. Near the group was a pile of stores, and a litt
le farther away a good-sized stack of familiar, square petrol-tins.
About ten yards from the shore a four-engined flying-boat was moored, the one they had seen in the air and which could now be identified as an American. Near it, so close that their wing-tips almost touched, was the Condor. The sentry was obviously not keeping a very good look-out, which did not surprise them, for the enemy had little reason to suppose that they had anything to fear from the stranded treasure-seekers. Nevertheless, the pilots realised that in the dead silence of the tropic night the slightest sound could not fail to be heard.
Biggles glanced at his wristwatch. "Ten minutes to go," he breathed in Algy's ear, manoeuvring the canoe so that the aeroplanes came between the sentry's line of vision and themselves. Very slowly, and with hardly a ripple, they crept nearer, until at last the canoe gently touched the side of the Condor. Algy, who had already removed his boots and hung them round his neck by the laces, crept aboard. Biggles looked again at his watch; the time was one twenty-nine, one minute to zero hour. With infinite patience he began edging the canoe towards the nose of the amphibian, and, reaching it he quietly sawed through the rope by which it was moored. Then, still keeping on the off side from the sentry, he crept like a wraith into the cockpit. A fleeting glance showed the abandoned canoe, clear of the hull, drifting slowly down the stream. For perhaps a couple of minutes Biggles thought they were going to float away unobserved without a shot being fired, but in this he was doomed to disappointment. Just as they were almost clear of the other flying-boat a stray slant of wind swung them round slightly, so that the wing-tip touched the elevators of the other machine. The noise made was negligible, merely a scraping jar that ended in a soft splash as the other machine righted itself, but it was sufficient to bring the sentry to his feet. For an instant he stared at the amphibian, now moving perceptibly as it felt the current, and then he let out a wild yell. He flung up his gun, and its report blended with two others that roared out from the pitch-black forest wall. Simultaneously pandemonium broke loose. Above a shrill medley of sounds punctuated with the crashing reports of guns and the clanging of metal as some bullets struck the stack of petrol-tins, Biggles heard Algy's sharp, "Contact!" He pressed the self-starter and the engines came to life with a bellow of sound that added to the frightful uproar.
The men on the bank, awakened from a deep sleep, and clearly at a loss to know exactly what was happening except that they were obviously being attacked from the land, now turned their attention to this new development. A volley of shots now -rang out, and one or two bullets ripped through the fabric of the Condor.
But Biggles was taxi-ing now, swinging round in a wide circle to face upstream. Rat-tattat-tat-tat-tat-tat tat—he' caught himself flinching as a machine-gun started its erratic stutter, spraying the amphibian and the surrounding water with a shower of lead. He opened the throttles a little wider, racing as fast as he dared without actually leaving the water, to escape the leaden hail. With his eyes fixed intently ahead, he caught his breath as they fell upon a big, black object lying right across their path. A broken, jagged arm flung itself upwards, and he knew it was a great tree turning slowly over and over as it floated towards the sea. He knew that to strike such an obstacle at the rate they were travelling would tear the keel out of the amphibian as if it were so much tissue paper. Stop he could not, neither was there time to turn to avoid it. Automatically he took the only course open to him; he thrust the throttles wide open and, as the machine leapt forward, jerked the joystick back into his stomach. The threshing smother of foam dropped away below and astern as the Condor soared upwards like a bird into the starry tropic sky.
At a thousand feet Biggles flattened out and looked about him. Below lay the river, gleaming in the silvery radiance of the moon. On both sides, stretching away into the infinite distance, was the forest, black and forbidding. Below he could see the camp with the fire shining like a red star that had fallen upon the beach. He glanced round at the low door that communicated with the cabin, wondering why Algy did not join him, at the same time heading for their old landing-place higher up the river. He was anxious to put the machine down as quickly as possible, not because there was any particular danger in staying aloft, but because he wished to pick up Dickpa and Smyth, and in any case they could not afford to go on using petrol. Their only
real danger lay in the landing, which, without flares, would have been difficult enough at night in a land plane; but in the present circumstances called for much greater skill and judgment. Presently he saw their old landing-place about two miles ahead, and started to side-slip down. Near the water he throttled back and flattened out over the lagoon. The keel swished lightly over the surface, and Biggles breathed freely again. It had been ticklish work in the dark, but the luck had been with him.
"Now where are Dickpa and Smyth?" said Algy.
"My word, yes, we shall have to go back for them. The show went off all right, but, as usual, the unforeseen happened. I didn't reckon on tree-trunks."
"Tree-trunk, was it? I couldn't think what you were up to when we shot into the air. I thought you'd gone balmy."
"I nearly did, and so would you. We seem to have had a merry evening, one way and another."
"But what had we better do about the others?" "There's only one thing we can do—taxi slowly down
the bank looking for them. What's the matter?"
Algy, who was sniffing the air, looked around slowly.
"Can you smell petrol?" he asked anxiously.
Biggles started. "I can," he said briefly. "There's a leak somewhere. Confound it! That's going to be awkward."
A few minutes' search disclosed the trouble; a bullet had passed clean through the main tank. frantically they began plugging the hole, but presently gave it up, realising it was too late to do any good; the precious liquid had gone beyond recovery, leaving the tank dry.
"That's just about torn it," observed Biggles calmly. "I've been flying on the special tank, so there can't be much left in it. There may be enough in the gravity tank for half an hour'
s flying, and there is a little in the tins in the cabin. It's better than nothing, but it isn't enough—not half enough—to get us back."
Algy did not speak.
"Never mind; it can't be helped," went on Biggles. "Let's settle one thing at a time. Before we do anything else we must find Dickpa and Smyth. We'll settle what we're going to do afterwards."
They turned the machine and taxied quickly but carefully down the river. Presently Biggles throttled back and cruised more slowly, while Algy watched the bank closely.
"There they are!" he called suddenly.
The Condor swung round almost in its own length and nosed in towards the bank, where two figures were gesticulating frantically. They ceased when they saw the machine standing in towards them, and a minute later Dickpa and Smyth clambered over the side. Without waiting for explanations, Biggles turned again and taxied upstream as quickly as he dared to their original landing-place, taking care to moor on the bank opposite to the one where the Indians had made their unexpected attack.
"Well, here we are," announced Biggles. "Are you all right, Dickpa—and you, Smyth?"
"Right as rain," came the reply. "We had no trouble at all. You seem to have had all the fun."
"Fun!" cried Biggles incredulously. "Fun, you call it! If you call aviating in the middle of the night across an unknown forest fun, you've got a queer sense of humour." Briefly he related all that had happened. "I don't know about you," he concluded, "but before I can do anything else I must have some sleep. I'm about all in. Smyth, you'd better see about repairing the hole in the tank at the crack of dawn." Smyth nodded.
"We'd better sleep on board as best we can," observed Dickpa, "and we shall have to take turns to keep watch. We can't afford to take any more chances with those gentry down the river."
CHAPTER X
THE RAID
BIGGLES was awakened at the first streak of dawn by Smyth working on the damag
ed tank. He felt a different man after the rest, and assisted the mechanic in his work, which was finished to their satisfaction by the time the others were moving. The spare petrol was brought from the cabin and poured into the tank and the empty tins sunk in the river.
"What's the next move?" asked Dickpa crisply, as they made a substantial breakfast of bacon and biscuits from their stores.
"To get out of the way as soon as we can," replied Biggles. "They'll come up the river looking for us as soon as it's light enough, and as they have a machine-gun they are likely to make things awkward. We can't hide on the river—they're bound to find us—which means that we've got to find somewhere else. The thing that worries me is this shortage of petrol."
"I've never heard of anything so absurd as this in my life," snorted Dickpa. "Could you imagine anything more utterly impossible than two aeroplanes chasing each other up and down an unknown river in the heart of Central America?"
"I can do more than imagine," grunted Biggles, making for the cockpit. "I can hear 'em—
or at least one of 'em. Hark!"
Far away, the unmistakable sound of an aero engine could be heard, gradually drawing nearer. Biggles listened intently, with his head on one side, for a moment. "That machine isn't in the air; it's running on about quarter throttle. They're taxi-ing up the river to make sure of finding us. What do you say, Smyth?" "They're taxi-ing all right," agreed the mechanic instantly, to whom the sound of an aero engine was familiar music.
"And that's where they're making a mistake," returned Biggles at once. "They won't hear us for the noise of their own engine. By Jove
"
"Well, what is it?" enquired Algy.
"I was wondering if it might not be a good moment to solve this petrol problem."
"How?"
"They've got plenty on the beach. They will all be on the machine, or most of them will. By Jingo, it's worth trying!"
"But how "
"I'll show you," replied Biggles promptly, "but we've no time to lose. Come on!" The others took their places. "Contact!" Smyth called, and stepped down into the cabin. The engines started easily, and Biggles throttled back until they were ticking over musically to allow them to warm up. Then he taxied out to the middle of the stream and, after a careful survey for floating trees or other obstructions, opened the throttles. The Condor raced across the water and then soared into the air.
Biggles In The Cruise Of The Condor (02) Page 9
