by W E Johns
They were now approaching the objective, and Biggles began to hope that they might achieve their object without firing a single shot. But the atmosphere rapidly thickened, and he realized with annoyance that a blanket of mist hung over the very spot they had come so far and risked so much to view. He shut off his engine and began a gentle glide.
‘I’m going down!’ he roared to Mark, who stood up in his seat, guns ready for action, scanning the atmosphere anxiously in all directions.
At six thousand feet they sank into the billowing mist, and Biggles turned his eyes to his instruments, every nerve tense. 5,000 – 4,000 – 3,000 feet, and still there was no break, and he knew he would never be able to climb up through it again without losing control of the machine. He hoped desperately that he would find a hole, or at least a thin patch, in the cloud, after their work was accomplished. At two thousand feet he emerged into a cold, cheerless world, and looked about anxiously for the railway line. ‘There it is!’ he yelled, pointing to the right, at the same time opening up his engine and heading towards it. Mark had seen the junction at the same instant and, leaving his guns, grabbed his note-book and prepared to write.
Whoof, whoof, whoof, barked the archie; but the enemy gunners were shooting hurriedly, and the shots went wide. Other guns joined in, and the bursts began to come closer as the gunners corrected their aim. But Biggles kept the machine on even keel as he watched the sky around them, while Mark counted the railway trucks, jotting down his notes as well as his cold hands and the sometimes swaying machine would permit.
Biggles made a complete circuit around the railway junction, which was as choc-a-bloc with traffic as only a railway junction of strategical importance could be in time of war.
Four long trains were in the station itself; two others – one consisting of open trucks, carrying field artillery – stood in a siding, with steam up and ready to move. Shells were being loaded in the other from a great dump.
‘Have you finished?’ yelled Biggles.
‘Go round once more!’ bellowed Mark.
Biggles frowned, but proceeded to make another circuit, twisting and turning from time to time to dodge the ever-increasing archie and machine-gun bullets. Wish I had a bomb or two, he thought, as he eyed the great ammunition dump. But there, no doubt the bombers will arrive in due course, when we’ve made our report.
Without warning the archie stopped abruptly. Mark dropped his pencil, shoved his writing-pad into his pocket, and grabbed his gun. ‘Look out!’ he yelled.
But Biggles had already seen them – a big formation of straight-winged planes sweeping up from the east. There was no need to speculate as to their nationality.
‘What a mob!’ he muttered, and swung round for home. But an icy hand clutched his heart as he beheld yet another formation of enemy machines racing towards the spot from the direction of the Lines. They were cut off.
‘We stayed too long’, he thought bitterly. The people at the station must have rung up every squadron for miles, and they’re not going to let us get our report home if they can prevent it. ‘Well, I can’t fight that lot!’ he muttered desperately, and, turning his nose to the north-west, raced away in the only direction open to him.
Fortunately there was a lot of broken cloud on the horizon, apart from a big mass overhead, and this, he hoped, would help him to throw the wolves off his trail.
Mark suddenly crouched low behind the gun that fired backwards over the top ’plane, and began firing in short, sharp bursts. Biggles winced as a bullet bored through his instrument-board with a vicious thud. He began side-slipping gently to and fro to throw the enemy pilots off their mark – a tip that had been given him on the boat coming over. A faint rattle reached his ears above the noise of the engine. They’re overtaking us, he thought. Mark signalled frantically to him to climb. He put his nose down for an instant to gather speed, and then zoomed upwards. The cold, grey mist enveloped them like a blanket.
‘Must be twenty of ’em – Albatripesfn3!’ yelled Mark.
But Biggles was busy fighting to keep the machine on even keel. The bubble of the inclinometerfn4 was jumping from one side to the other in a most alarming way, and the needle of his compass was swinging violently. ‘It’s no use – I’ll have to go down!’ he yelled. A blast of air struck him on the side of the face, and he knew he was side-slipping; he rectified the slip, but, as usual in such cases, he overdid it, and the draught struck his other cheek. He shot out of the cloud with one wing pointing straight to the ground.
He picked the machine up while Mark clambered to his feet, searching the atmosphere behind them. Biggles, snatching a glance behind him, saw enemy machines scattered all over the sky to the south-east, still effectually barring their return. No sooner did the lone F. E. appear than they turned in its direction and began overhauling it.
‘I don’t know where we’re getting, but I can’t face that lot,’ shouted Biggles, still heading north-west. ‘We must be miles off our course.’
The black-crossed machines were closing the gap between them quickly, so he pushed his nose down and raced towards the low clouds, now only a short distance away. He reached them just as a burst of fire from the rear made the F. E. quiver from propeller-boss to tail-skid, and he plunged into the nearest mass of white, woolly vapour in something like a panic. He came out on the other side, banked vertically to the left, and plunged into another.
And so he went on, twisting and turning, sometimes through and sometimes around the clouds. He dived below them and then zoomed up again through them. He knew he was hopelessly lost, but even that, he decided, was better than facing the overwhelming odds against them.
Mark, still standing up, was examining the sky behind them; then he held up his fists, thumbs pointing upwards.
‘O.K.! We’ve lost them!’ he bellowed.
Biggles breathed a sigh of relief and began to glide down through the cloud, hoping to pick up some outstanding landmark that might be recognized from his map. The F. E. emerged once more into clear air, and he looked down anxiously. He stared, blinked, and stared again as a dark green expanse of foam-lashed water met his horrified gaze.
There could be no mistake. He was looking down at the sea. The clouds, as so often happens, ended abruptly at the coast-line, which revealed itself as a white, surf-lashed line just behind him. In front of him the sky was a clear, pale blue as far as he could see.
He thought quickly, feeling for his map, guessing what had happened. In their long rush to the north-west they had actually reached the Belgian coast, so he turned to the south, knowing that sooner or later they were bound to reach France again.
Mark, too, examined his map as Biggles began following the coast-line.
‘We shall be all right if the petrol holds out, and if it doesn’t get dark before we can see where we are,’ he shouted, and then settled back in his seat, to resume the eternal task of watching the sky for enemy machines. Slowly the blue of the sky turned to misty grey with the approach of dusk, and Biggles came lower in order not to lose the coast-line.
Suddenly Mark sprang to his feet and swung his gun round to face the open sea. Biggles, following the line of the gun, saw an Albatros diving on them out of the mist. Something, it may have been pure instinct, made him glance in the opposite direction – a second Albatros was coming in on their left, the landward side. Two scouts, evidently working together, were launching a dual attack.
The events of the next thirty seconds followed each other so swiftly that they outraced Biggles’ capacity for thinking. Mark was shooting steadily at the first scout, which had now opened fire on them; Biggles was watching the second, which was also shooting. The pilots of both enemy scouts, evidently old hands at the game, thrust home their attack so closely that Biggles instinctively zoomed to avoid collision; but they both swerved at the last moment in the same direction. They met head-on just below and in front of the F. E. with a crash that made Biggles jump. At the same instant his engine cut out dead, and a pungent, almos
t overpowering stench of petrol filled his nostrils. Automatically he put his nose down towards the shore. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the fragments of the two German scouts strike the water with a terrific splash.
fn1 Derogatory term for the Germans.
fn2 Manfred Von Richthofen ‘the Red Baron’ – German ace who shot down a total of 80 Allied aircraft. Killed in April 1918.
fn3 Albatros, German single-seater fighter with two fixed machine-guns.
fn4 An instrument similar to a spirit level, for showing the angle of the aircraft relative to the ground.
In the now failing light the coast-line, although fairly close, was not much more than a dark, indistinct mass, with a strip of pale orange sand, lashed with white foam, running along the edge.
‘We shall never reach it!’ thought Biggles, as he glanced at his altimeter. It registered one thousand feet.
Mark was standing up, calmly divesting himself of his leather coat and flying-boots. He tore off the two top pages of his writing-pad and folded the precious report carefully into a leather wallet, which he thrust into his breeches pocket.
He lifted the guns off their mountings and tossed them overboard, and Biggles knew that he did this for two reasons. Firstly, to prevent them falling into the hands of the enemy, and secondly, to lighten the machine, and thus give them a better chance of reaching the shore.
Then Mark looked at Biggles, and, cupping his hands round his mouth, shouted: ‘Get your clothes off. It looks as if we shall have to swim for it!’
With some difficulty, first holding the joystick with one hand and then the other, Biggles managed to get his coat off and throw it overboard. Cap, goggles and sheepskin flying-boots followed.
At the last moment, just as he thought they might reach the beach, a slant of wind caught them and they dropped swiftly. He held the machine off as long as he could, but as it lost flying speed it wobbled and then flopped bodily into the water. A wave lifted the doomed F. E. like a feather and rushed it towards the beach; then, as it grated harshly on the sand, they jumped clear and struck out for the shore.
Half drowned, Biggles felt a wave roll him over and over. It dropped him on all fours on solid ground, and he dug his fingers into the sand as he felt the backwash sucking him back again. Mark, who was heavier, grabbed him by the collar and clung to him desperately until the wave had receded. Crawling, swaying, stumbling and falling, they managed to reach the beach, gasping and spitting out mouthfuls of sea-water.
‘My hat, isn’t it cold!’ muttered Biggles through chattering teeth.
‘Come on, get on your feet – they’ll be here any minute. They must have seen us come down!’ snapped Mark; and at a reeling gait in their water-logged clothes they hurried towards the wide sand dunes which line that part of the Belgian coast.
‘What’s the hurry?’ panted Biggles.
‘The Huns will be here any minute – we’re still the wrong side of the Lines!’
Hardly had they plunged into the bewildering valleys of the dunes than they heard the sound of harsh, guttural voices coming towards them.
‘Down!’ hissed Mark, and they flung themselves flat in the coarse, scrubby grass that grew in patches on the sand. It was now nearly dark, so there was still just a chance that they might escape observation.
Biggles clenched his teeth tightly in order to restrain their chattering, which he thought would betray them, while the voices passed not more than ten yards away and receded in the direction of the shore.
For twenty minutes or more they lay while dark figures loomed around them, going towards or returning from the beach. One party came so close that Biggles held his breath, expecting to feel a heavy boot in the small of his back at any moment.
‘What are we going to do? I shall freeze to death if we stay here much longer!’ he whispered as the footsteps receded.
‘So shall I if it comes to that,’ muttered Mark. ‘I’m dead from the feet up. But our only chance is to lie still and hope that they’ll think we were drowned. They must have seen the two Albatripes attack us, and for all they know we might have been wounded. There are bound to be people on the beach for some time watching for the bodies of those two Boche pilots. We shall have to put up with the cold for a minute or two while people are moving about. When it gets a bit darker we’ll crawl to the top of a dune and see if we can see what’s going on.’
Another quarter of an hour passed, and at last it was really dark, except for the feeble light of a crescent moon low in the sky. With a whispered ‘Come on!’ Mark began crawling up the sloping side of the nearest sand dune, and Biggles followed, glad to be moving at last. Side by side they reached the top, and, raising their heads slowly, peered round. Not a soul was in sight except on the beach, where a small group of figures could just be made out watching the remains of the F. E being pounded to pieces by the surf. Some debris had evidently been salvaged, for it lay in a pile just beyond the reach of the waves.
‘They must think we were drowned or there’d be more activity,’ breathed Mark. ‘Our only chance now is to work our way along the coast. It might be better if we waited a bit longer, but we can’t do that or we shall be frozen to death. Anyway, we’ve got to be round the wire before morning or we shall certainly be spotted.’
‘Wire – what wire?’ asked Biggles.
‘The barbed wire between the Lines. I’m not absolutely certain but I think I saw it as we came down; I was on the look-out for it. If I’m right, it’s only about a mile farther along. Confound those two Huns; in another five minutes we should have been well over the Lines.’
‘Shall we be able to get through the wire, do you think?’ asked Biggles.
‘We shall not. I hear they have tightened things up a good deal along here lately, owing to escaped prisoners working their way back along the coast. Somebody told me they’ve got little bells hung all along the wire, and you can’t touch it without ringing them. In any case, we should need rubber gloves because the Huns are electrifying their wire. No, I’m afraid we shall have to go round it.’
‘Round it!’
‘Yes, by swimming round it. It’s been done before and it’s our only chance.’
Biggles groaned. ‘Fancy having to get into that water again! I’d sooner face the biggest formation of Huns that ever took the air. I had no idea water could be so cold. I nearly joined the Navy once; I’m thundering glad I didn’t!’ he grumbled.
‘Don’t grouse – we’re lucky to be alive!’ muttered Mark. ‘Come on, now, no noise!’
Crouching and crawling, they began to wind their way through the dunes, taking a peep over the top whenever an opportunity presented itself in order to keep direction, which lay parallel to the shore. Sometimes they were able to walk a few yards, but on other occasions they had to worm their way like snakes across open spaces. Once they had to lie flat as a squad of troops, evidently a working party, passed within a few yards of them.
At last Mark raised himself up and peered forward. ‘I think I can see the wire just ahead,’ he breathed, ‘but we can’t get any farther along here. There must be a trench just in front, because I can hear people talking. We’d better get down to the water.’
‘Lead on,’ breathed Biggles. ‘I can’t be any colder than I am already!’
Dragging themselves along on their stomachs, often stopping to listen, they wormed their way to the water’s edge.
‘How far can you swim?’ whispered Mark.
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Biggles. ‘I’ve never found it necessary to find out.’
‘You’ll have to chance it, then. I can swim pretty well any distance, but not when it’s as cold as this. I was brought up by the sea. If you feel your strength giving out, hang on to my collar and we’ll get round – or sink together. We shall have to get out just beyond the breakers, and then swim parallel to the coast. As soon as we see our own wire we’ll come ashore. If we don’t see it, we’ll swim as far as we can. But the Lines can’t be very far apart – come on!
’
They plunged into the icy water and struck out through. the blinding spray. Biggles paid little or no attention to the direction, but simply fixed his eyes on the black head bobbing in front of him and followed it.
How long they swam he did not know, but it seemed to be an eternity and he was just about to call out that he could go no farther when Mark turned shorewards. Biggles made one last despairing dash through the surf, and then lay panting and gasping like a stranded fish.
Mark seized him by the collar and dragged him out of the reach of the waves. ‘Get up!’ he snapped.
‘Wait – a minute – let me – get – breath!’ panted Biggles.
Mark dragged him roughly to his feet. ‘Run!’ he said. ‘We shall have to start our blood moving, or we shall both be down with pneumonia. I think we’re round both lots of wire; if we aren’t then we’re unstuck, that’s all about it.’
Without waiting for any more he set off at a steady trot along the sand, Biggles reeling behind him, their clothes squelching and discharging water at every step.
‘Halte lafn1!’
They pulled up with a jerk as the challenge rang out.
‘Friend – ami!’ yelled Biggles desperately, but joyfully, for he knew the language was not German.
