by W E Johns
No questions were asked, so in a few minutes the engines were started and the six machines taxied out to the open desert for the take-off. Algy and Tug Carrington took off first, and climbing steeply disappeared into the eastern sky. Bertie and Tex followed, heading north and south, respectively.
Biggles spoke to Flight-Sergeant Smyth, who was standing by. ‘Remember to smooth out our wheel tracks as soon as we’re off,’ he said. Then he called to Ginger: ‘All right, let’s get away. Make a careful note of anything that will serve as a landmark. The course is due west. We’ll fly parallel some distance apart. If you see anything suspicious, or worth investigating, come across to me and wave—I’ll follow you back to it. I shall keep you in sight; in the same way, you watch me. Let’s go.’
The machines were soon in the air, heading west, with the oasis, a tiny island in an ocean of sand, receding astern. At fifteen thousand feet Biggles levelled out, and with a wave to his partner, turned a few points towards the south. Ginger moved north until the other machine was a mere speck in the sky, when he came back to his original westerly course. Throttling back to cruising speed he settled down to survey the landscape.
At first, all he could see was an endless expanse of sand, difficult to look at on account of the glare, stretching away to the infinite distance, colourless and without outline. Nowhere was there rest for the eye. There was no definite configuration, no scene to remember, nothing to break the eternal monotony of sand except occasional patches of camel-thorn, or small outcrops of what appeared to be grey rock. Over this picture of utter desolation hung an atmosphere of brooding, overwhelming solitude. Overhead, from a sky of gleaming steel, the sun struck down with bars of white heat, causing the rarefied air to quiver and the machine to rock as though in protest.
Ginger had flown over such forbidding territory before, but even so he was not immune from the feeling of depression it creates. Assailed by a sense of loneliness, as though he alone was left in a world that had died, he was glad that the other machine was there to remind him that this was not the case. Pulling down his smoked glasses over his eyes to offset the glare he flew on, subjecting the ground, methodically, section by section, to a close scrutiny. For some time it revealed nothing, but then a strange scar appeared, a trampled line of sand that came up from the south, to disappear again in the shimmering heat of the northern horizon. He soon realised what it was. The litter of tiny white gleaming objects that accompanied the trail he knew must be bones, human bones and camel bones, polished by years of sun and wind-blown sand. ‘So that’s the old caravan road, the ancient slave trail,’ he mused. ‘Poor devils.’ It was an outstanding landmark, and he made careful note of it.
Some time later, on the fringe of an area furrowed by mightily curving dunes, as if a stormy ocean had suddenly been frozen, he saw another heap of bones — or, rather, an area of several square yards littered with them. Clearly, it marked the spot where a caravan, having left the trail, had met its fate, or perhaps had been wiped out by those fierce nomads of the desert, the veiled Toureg. Ginger marked down the spot, which formed another useful landmark in an area where landmarks were rare. He made a note of the time, to fix its position in relation to the oasis. This done, he glanced across at Biggles’s machine, and having satisfied himself that it was there, still on its course, he went on, and soon afterwards came to the fringe of country broken by more extensive outcrops of rock, between which the camel-thorn grew in thick clumps, which suggested that although the country was still a wilderness there might be water deep down in the earth. Shortly afterwards Biggles came close and flew across his nose, waving the signal for return.
On the return journey the two machines for the most part flew together, although occasionally Biggles made a brief sortie, sometimes to the north and sometimes to the south. In this way they returned to the oasis, after what, to Ginger, had been a singularly uneventful flight. Landing, they taxied in to find that the other machines were already home. The pilots were waiting in the mess tent.
Biggles took them in turn, starting with Algy.
‘See anything?’ he asked crisply.
Algy shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’
‘What about you, Bertie?’
‘I saw plenty of sand, but nothing else.’
Tex and Tug made similar negative reports.
Biggles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘We didn’t see anything, either, except the old caravan route,’ he said slowly. ‘I was hoping we should find one of the missing machines so that by examination we might discover what forced it down. Between us we must have covered thousands of square miles of country. I don’t understand it. To-morrow we’ll try north-east and north-west—perhaps one of those districts will reveal something. If we draw blank again, I shall begin to think that my calculations were at fault. It isn’t as though we were flying over wooded country; if the missing machines came down in this area we are bound to see them. It’s very odd. If they didn’t land, where did they go? Why did they leave the route? They certainly didn’t land on it, or not in the four hundred miles of it which we’ve covered this morning.’
‘They might have got off their course,’ suggested Algy.
‘I could believe that one might, but I’m dashed if I can imagine seven machines making the same mistake.’
‘We may find them all in the same sector, one of the areas we haven’t covered yet,’ put in Ginger.
‘If we do it will puzzle me still more,’ declared Biggles. ‘It will raise the question, why did seven machines leave the route at practically the same spot? Don’t ask me to believe that the Higher Command would choose for a job like this pilots who are incapable of flying a simple compass course. In fact, I know they didn’t, because Fred Gillson was flying one of the machines, a Rapide of British Overseas Airways, and he was a master pilot. No, there’s something queer about this, something I don’t understand. We’ll have a spot of lunch, and perhaps do another patrol this evening.’
Biggles looked sharply at the tent entrance as Flight-Sergeant Smyth appeared. ‘Yes, flight-sergeant, what is it?’ he asked.
‘A signal, sir, just in. I’ve decoded it.’ The flight-sergeant passed a slip of paper.
Biggles looked at it. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘This may give us a line. One of our machines, a Dragon1, wearing the identification letters GB-ZXL, left the West Coast at seven this morning. It must be well on its way by now, and should pass over here inside a couple of hours. General Demaurice is among the passengers; he’s coming out to take over a contingent of the Free French2, so there will be trouble if the machine doesn’t get through. We can escort it through this area. Ginger, come with me. We’ll go to meet it. We’ll take the same course as we did this morning, although we may have to fly a bit farther apart so that it won’t slip by without our spotting it. Don’t go far from the route, though. Algy, you stand by with Bertie; when you hear the Dragon coming, whether we are with it or not, take off and escort it over the eastern sector as far as your petrol will allow you to go. Flight-sergeant, you stand by the radio in case another message comes through. Come on, Ginger, we’ve no time to lose.’
In a few minutes the two machines were in the air again, climbing steeply for height and taking precisely the same course as they had taken earlier in the day except that Ginger went slightly farther to the north, and Biggles to the south, an arrangement which enabled the two machines to watch the air, not only on the exact route, but for several miles on either side of it, in case the Dragon should have deviated slightly from its compass course.
As he flew, Biggles kept his eyes on the atmosphere ahead for the oncoming machine. Occasionally, for the first half-hour, he saw Ginger in the distance, but from then on he saw no more of him. This did not perturb him, for it was now about noon, and although it could not be seen he knew that the usual deceptive heat-haze was affecting visibility.
Time passed, but still there was no sign of the Dragon, and Biggles’ anxiety increased with each passing minute. Where could
the machine be? He made fresh mental calculations, which only proved that his earlier ones had been right. If the Dragon had kept on its course at its normal cruising speed he should have met it before this.
When an hour had passed he knew beyond all shadow of doubt that one of two things must have happened. Either the Dragon had slipped past him in the haze, or, for some reason unknown, it had not reached the area of his patrol. He realised that there was a chance that Ginger had picked it up, and turned back to escort it, a possibility that was to some extent confirmed by the fact that there was no sign of Ginger’s machine.
Perceiving that he was already running his petrol supply to fine limits Biggles turned for home, and in doing so had a good look at the ground. Instantly his nerves tingled with shock as he found himself staring at a wide outcrop of rock which he had not seen on his earlier flight, although had the rock been there he could not have failed to notice it. How could such a state of affairs have come about? There was only one answer to that question. He was not flying over the same course as he had flown earlier in the day. But according to his compass he was flying over the same course; he had never deviated more than a mile or two from it, a negligible distance in a country of such immense size.
Biggles thought swiftly. Obviously, something was wrong. He could not believe that his compass was at fault because compasses rarely go wrong, and, moreover, he had boxed3 it carefully before starting for the oasis. Yet if his compass was right, how did he come to be flying over country that he had never seen before? This was a problem for which he could find no answer. The sun was of very little use to help him fix his position for it was practically overhead, so he took the only course left open to him, which was to climb higher in the hope of picking up a landmark which he had noted on his first flight.
By this time he was flying back over his course, or as near to it as he could judge without relying on his compass, but even so, it was not until he had climbed to twenty thousand feet that, with genuine relief, he saw, far away to the south-east, the caravan road. How it came to be where it was, or how he came to be so far away from it, he could not imagine. For the moment he was content to make for it, and from it get a rough idea of his position. The road ran due north and south. By cutting across it at right angles he would at least be on an easterly course, which was the one he desired to take him back to the oasis. And so it worked out. Half an hour later the oasis came into sight, and soon afterwards he was on the ground, shouting urgently for Algy as he jumped down.
Algy, and the others, came out at a run.
‘Have you seen the Dragon?’ asked Biggles crisply.
‘Not a sign of it,’ answered Algy. ‘We’ve been standing here waiting for it ever since you took off.’
Biggles moistened his sun-dried lips. ‘Ginger is back, of course?’
‘No,’ declared Algy, alarm in his voice. ‘We haven’t seen anything of him.’
Biggles stared. ‘This is serious,’ he said. ‘I cut my petrol pretty fine. If Ginger isn’t back inside ten minutes he’ll be out of juice.’
‘What can have happened to him—it isn’t like him to do anything daft,’ put in Tex.
‘I’ve got an idea what’s happened to him,’ answered Biggles grimly. ‘Let’s get into the shade and I’ll tell you. Flight-sergeant, check up my compass, will you, and report to me in the mess tent.’
‘An extraordinary thing happened to me this morning,’ went on Biggles, when the officers had assembled in the tent. ‘I lost my way, or rather, my compass took me to one place this morning, and at noon, although it registered the same course, to a different place. I ended up miles north of where I thought I was.’
‘Your compass must be out of order—if you see what I mean,’ remarked Bertie.
‘Obviously,’ returned Biggles.
At that moment the flight-sergeant appeared in the doorway. ‘Your compass is in perfect order, sir,’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’ Biggles’ voice was pitched high with incredulity.
‘Certain, sir, I checked it myself.’
For a few seconds Biggles looked astounded; then the light of understanding dawned in his eyes. ‘By thunder!’ he cried. ‘I’ve got it! Someone is putting a magnetic beam up, to distort compass needles. It’s been done before. It was put up to-day to upset the Dragon and take the pilot off his course. I’ll bet he was lured off his course in the same direction as the other seven. Ginger and I ran into the beam and our compasses were affected at the same time. That’s why I went astray. Now the beam is off, my compass is okay again.’
‘If the beam has been turned off we can assume that the Dragon is a casualty,’ put in Algy slowly.
Biggles drew a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid you’re right, but I’m not thinking only of that. If this compass business is really happening it introduces another new factor.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look at it like this. Early this morning there was no interference. A machine then left the West Coast. Shortly afterwards the magnetic influence was switched on. That’s too much like clockwork to be accidental. It looks as if the Messerschmitts don’t have to patrol; they know where and when they can find an aircraft on the route. They couldn’t know that unless someone, somewhere, is tipping them off, probably with a shortwave radio. A person doing that needn’t necessarily be at the terminus—he might be anywhere along the route. There is this about it. I now have a pretty good idea of the direction in which the missing machines disappeared—I can judge that from the error of my own compass. We shall probably find Ginger in the same locality, unless he discovered in time what was happening and tried to get back. There’s just a chance that he landed to look at something, although I don’t think that’s likely. After I’ve had a bite of lunch I shall have to go out and look for him.’
‘Alone?’ queried Algy.
‘Yes,’ answered Biggles shortly. ‘I don’t feel like risking too many machines until we know for certain what is happening, and therefore what to expect. Someone will have to stay here to carry on in case I don’t come back, which is always on the boards.’
‘Why not let me go?’ suggested Algy.
‘No.’ Biggles was definite. ‘I’ve been out in that direction and you haven’t.’
‘Where shall we look for you, if for any reason you don’t get back?’
Biggles thought for a moment. ‘I fancy Ginger is somewhere in the area north-west from here, between a hundred and two hundred miles distant. Your best plan would be to fly due west until you come to the caravan road; cross it, and then turn north. That’s the way I shall go. You’ll see a big outcrop of rock. I don’t know how far it stretches—I didn’t wait to see; but that, as near as I can tell you, is where I expect to find Ginger. If I’m not back in two hours you’ll know I’m down, but give me until tomorrow morning before you start a search because I might land voluntarily, for some reason or other. I might have to go down to Ginger if I see him on the ground, or possibly the Dragon, although I shall await official confirmation that it has failed to arrive before I organize a serious search for it.’ Biggles turned to Flight-Sergeant Smyth who was still waiting for instructions. ‘Get my machine refuelled,’ he ordered. ‘Tell the mess waiter he can serve lunch. That’s all.’
Over lunch, a frugal affair of bully beef, biscuits, tinned peaches and coffee, the matter was discussed in all its aspects, without any new light being thrown on the mystery. Ginger failed to put in an appearance. When, at four o’clock, there was still no sign of him, Biggles took off and headed west. The sun, long past its zenith, was sinking in the same direction.
Reaching the broken country beyond the caravan road Biggles turned sharply north, to find that the rocks grew bolder, sometimes running up to small, jagged hills, with gullies filled with drift sand between them. This sand he eyed with deep suspicion, for experience had taught him its peculiar properties. In some places, he knew, the grains of sand would have packed down like concrete, hard enough to carry a heavy vehicl
e; in other places it would be as soft as liquid mud, a death trap to any vehicle that tried to cross it—a phenomenon due to the force and direction of the wind when the sand was deposited. Barren and desolate, worse country would have been hard to imagine, and Biggles had to fly low in order to distinguish details.
He was following a smooth, sandy gully, hemmed in by gaunt, sun-scorched rocks, rising in places to a fair height, when he came suddenly upon the object of his quest. There, in the middle of the gully, stood the Spitfire, apparently undamaged, and abandoned. There was no sign of movement. The airscrew was stationary.
Biggles was amazed. Although he was looking for the aircraft, and expected to find it, he had not supposed that he would discover it in such peculiar circumstances. He would not have been surprised to find that it had crashed, nor would he have been astonished had Ginger been standing beside it. What he could not understand was why, if the machine was in order, as it appeared to be, it had been abandoned. The sand seemed to be firm enough, judging from the shallow wheel tracks.
With the fear of soft sand still in his mind he did not land at once, but circled the stationary machine at a height of not more than fifty feet, to make sure that the wheels were fully visible—that they had not sunk into the sand. Satisfied that they had not, he landed, and taxied to the deserted aircraft.
Jumping down from his own machine he ran over to it. He had a horror that he might find Ginger dead, or seriously hurt, in the cockpit, but it was empty. For a moment he started at it blankly, not knowing what to think. He could not find a bullet hole, or a mark of any sort, to account for the landing. The petrol gauge revealed that the tank was still half full. He even tried the engine, and finding it in perfect order, switched off again.
