Biggles Sweeps The Desert

by W E Johns

  ‘Yes, tell us,’ prompted Tex.

  ‘It isn’t much of a story,’ replied Biggles. Then he burst out laughing. ‘I’ll tell you something that’ll make you smile. When I saw Ginger roaring up in the Spitfire—although, of course, I didn’t know it was him at the time—I went to meet him. Believe it or not, I clean forgot I was flying a Messerschmitt. I behaved as though I was flying my own machine, but fortunately I remembered just in time. When the Spitfire made the opening moves I wondered for a moment who the fellow in it was going to attack. I imagined there must be another machine behind me. It wasn’t until it came straight at me that I remembered that I was flying a Messerschmitt. You should have seen me get out of the way! The position was a bit difficult because I couldn’t shoot back, and had I simply bolted the Spit would have had a sitting target. While I was circling, wondering how I could let the Spit know that I was in the Messer, he made a sieve of my tail unit, and I had to bale out in a hurry. As I floated down it suddenly occurred to me that the Boches might make the same mistake. They must have seen what happened, and would naturally suppose that it was von Zoyton in the blue-nosed aircraft.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, they did think it was von Zoyton,’ put in Ginger.

  ‘So I gather,’ continued Biggles. ‘Before I touched down I had decided to hide if I could find a place. My idea was to wait until dark and then try to get home. I thought I might be able to get hold of another Messerschmitt, or, failing that, pinch a camel from a line which I could see at the far end of the oasis. But it didn’t come to that. By what at first I took to be a rotten bit of luck my brolly2 hooked up in the top of a palm. There are some tall ones, sixty or seventy feet high, for a guess, at Wadi Umbo— that’s the name of the German camp, by the way. As I say, I got hooked up, and there I hung. Then I saw that really this would be a slice of pie if I could climb up the shrouds of my brolly to the top of the palm. Somehow I managed it, and I’d just pulled the fabric together when the Nazis arrived, looking for me—or rather, for von Zoyton. I sat in the top of the palm like a caterpillar in a cabbage, listening to the Nazis talking underneath. Was it hot! I chewed a date or two and passed the time knotting the shrouds together so that I could get down without breaking my neck when the Nazis got tired of playing hide and seek.’

  ‘No wonder they couldn’t make out what had happened to you,’ grinned Ginger.

  ‘Yes, it must have seemed odd. Remember, I didn’t touch the ground, so there wasn’t even a footprint. Nobody ever did the disappearing trick better. Well, I sat there until it got dark; then I made my way to the camp, which, as a matter of detail, was fairly easy, because everybody was out looking for me—or, as they supposed, for von Zoyton. It struck me that it would be a good thing if I could carry away a mental picture of the place, for future use, which I did, making a note of what machines they had, where they were parked, where the dumps were and so on. They’ve a mobile wireless station. Incidentally, they’ve got a Rapide there, all complete, as far as I could make out. It must have landed intact. I didn’t try to get away in it because that would have been a bit too much of a job single handed. It then occurred to me that as the general is an important officer I ought to try to get them home. I found the so-called prison hut, and was lying at the back waiting for a chance to crack the sentry on the skull, when what I took to be an Arab came stalking along. I couldn’t make out what his game was. Of course, it was Ginger, who seems to have developed a knack of turning up at unexpected places, but I didn’t know that then. He prowled about for a bit, and then started running along the back of the hut as though he was in a hurry to get somewhere.

  ‘I was,’ interposed Ginger. ‘I was making for the far end of the hut, hoping to find out what was inside.’

  ‘Instead of which you put your heel in my mouth,’ said Biggles, amid another shout of laughter. ‘We had a beautiful wrestle there, all to ourselves. I got the best of it, and was pulling a bunch of stinking rags off my Arab to make a gag when I saw the uniform underneath. And there, as large as life, was Ginger, looking scared stiff, with his face all covered with sand. It takes a lot to shake me, but I don’t mind admitting that when I saw Ginger’s face I nearly passed out. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I thought I’d grabbed one. Naturally, I thought it was Ginger in the Spit that crashed—we all did. But for a ghost this one seemed pretty solid. Moreover, it spluttered.’

  ‘You nearly choked me,’ said Ginger indignantly, amid more titters of mirth.

  ‘You don’t know how right you are,’ replied Biggles warmly. ‘I was feeling sort of peeved at the time.’ He turned to Taffy. ‘How are we getting on?’

  ‘Pretty good.’

  ‘Keep going. It must be nearly dawn. I’ll—’ Biggles broke off short as from somewhere near at hand came the staccato buzzing of Morse. His eyes followed the sound to its source, and with a quick movement he flung open a panel in the side of the car. ‘Radio, by japers!’ he cried. ‘Two-way radio, at that. I should have known that a car like this would be fitted with it.’ He snatched up a pencil from the pad that lay beside the instrument and jotted down the signal as it came through. Half a minute later it stopped abruptly, and he smiled lugubriously at a meaningless jumble of letters that he had written.

  ‘It’s in code,’ he said ruefully. ‘It might be British, it might be German—we’ve no means of knowing. In any case, without the key it would take an expert to decode it.’

  ‘Doesn’t it mean anything to you?’ asked Ginger.

  ‘Not a thing. It may be nothing to do with us. The message was not intended for the car, that’s certain, because the Nazis know we’ve got it; we just happened to intercept it. I’ll go upstairs and see where we are.’ Leaving the radio panel open, he mounted the turret.

  * * *

  1 Twin-engined German fighter-bomber with a crew of three.

  2 Slang: parachute.

  Chapter 10

  The Haboob

  The car was travelling over gentle undulations of sand from the top of which occasionally broke through, like rotten teeth, boulders of bleached rock. The fiery rays of the remorseless sun were just shooting up over the eastern horizon, edging the rocks with a curious incan-descent glow and casting weird, elongated shadows behind them. Sky and desert were both the same colour, a dull, venomous red. A hot wind was blowing, carrying little eddies of sand before it.

  Even as Biggles watched, a strong gust shook the car, and the sky, instead of becoming lighter, darkened. He had seen the phenomenon before, and knew what was coming—the dreaded haboob of the African deserts. His face was grave as he dropped back into the car and faced the others, who, seeing from his face that something was wrong, looked at him questioningly.

  ‘How much water have we?’ asked Biggles.

  A quick search was made. ‘None,’ answered Ginger. Biggles frowned. ‘Surely this car didn’t start off without water?’

  ‘As a matter of fact there was a can,’ explained Ginger. ‘But I took it out and left it with the others when Bertie and I went off to look for you at Wadi Umbo. What with the bombing and one thing and another, it must have been left behind. I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘You will be,’ promised Biggles grimly. ‘A haboob is on the way. It may hit us at any moment. Taffy, keep the car going as long as you can.’

  ‘Do you mean this haboob thing can stop a car?’ said Tex wonderingly. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘You will,’ replied Biggles. ‘Get some rag to tie over your faces—use your shirts if there’s nothing else. Keep the mouth and nose covered.’ Biggles went to the radio and dropped his right hand on the transmitting key.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Ginger in surprise.

  ‘Send a signal to Wadi Umbo.’

  ‘To—the Nazis?’ cried Ginger incredulously.

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Why, in the name of goodness?’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten we left our prisoners in the desert?’

  ‘But they bolted.�
�

  ‘That may be, but we are responsible for planting them there. They can’t have got back yet. In fact, I doubt if they’d try. They’d wait for help. Wadi Umbo may not have seen what’s coming. I’m going to tell them to pick up von Zoyton and the others.’

  ‘Why bother?’ snorted Tex.

  ‘Because it’s one thing to shoot a man in a scrap, but a horse of a different colour to drop him in the sand and leave him to the mercy of a haboob. Only a skunk would do a thing like that.’

  ‘I reckon a Nazi would do it,’ sneered Tex.

  ‘Possibly,’ agreed Biggles coldly. ‘But it happens that I’m not a Nazi.’

  His hand began to move, tapping out the message. With curious eyes the others watched, reading the signal as he sent it out:

  From officer commanding R.A.F. to officer commanding Luftwaffe, Wadi Umbo. Haboob coming your way. Pick up four prisoners lost at point approximately thirty miles south-east your position. Prisoners include von Zoyton and Pallini. Confirm signal received. Message ends.

  Biggles, a faint smile on his face, waited. A minute later the instrument buzzed the answer in English.

  Officer commanding Luftwaffe, Libyan Desert Patrol, to officer commanding R.A.F. Confirming message received... confirming message received. Message ends.

  Bertie looked pained. ‘Rude feller.’

  Tex grunted. ‘Didn’t this guy von Zoyton ever have a mother to teach him to say thank you?’

  ‘Von Zoyton didn’t send that signal,’ answered Biggles. ‘He’s still out in the desert. Keep going, Taffy. We may find ourselves in a jam if we can’t get through.’

  ‘I say, old boy, you don’t seriously mean that a jolly old dust storm can stop a locomotive like this?’ inquired Bertie.

  ‘That’s just what I do jolly well mean,’ answered Biggles sarcastically. ‘Even with water that would be serious. Without it—well, things may be grim.’

  Biggles sat down and peered through the letter-box slit that gave the driver a view ahead.

  The sky grew darker, and in a few minutes the car was running through a howling chaos of wind that tore up whirling clouds of sand in its fury. Everything was moving. Sandhills disappeared before the eyes and piled up in another place. Sand poured along the ground in waves, like a rolling sea, crests smoking. Against them the car made little progress. Sand was everywhere. It poured in through the slit and trickled through the roof. Taffy, choking, clung to the wheel with dogged ferocity, but presently the car gave a jolt and stopped.

  ‘That’s it.’ There was a note of resignation in Biggles’ voice. ‘We’ve hit a heap of sand, or jammed in a trough.’

  The others looked at him. They did not speak, for to open the mouth was to have it filled with sand. Already the sand gritted in Ginger’s teeth. Sand was in his eyes, his ears. It ran down his neck in little streams. He could see it trickling in through the joints of the armour plating. The heat was unbelievable. He remembered that he still had his goggles, so he put them on and looked through the slit. He caught his breath at the sight that met his eyes. The whole landscape was heaving. Above it hung the sun, brown, blurred, swollen, horrible. Wind screamed. Eddies rushed along the ground, whirling upwards, twisting, writhing, piling sand against the car. Dunes rose and fell like a storm-tossed ocean, the tops tumbling and smoking like miniature volcanos. It was no longer possible to see the actual ground. The heat increased until it seemed to be beyond human endurance. It was as though a mighty furnace had burst and set the earth on fire.

  Ginger turned away. His face felt raw, his nostrils smarted, his skin itched, and his eyes were dry and sore.

  ‘We’re being buried,’ he told Biggles in a choking voice. ‘The sand is piling up on the car.’

  ‘I was afraid of it,’ said Biggles, who had tied a handkerchief over the lower part of his face. ‘The car is filling with sand, too.’

  ‘Is there nothing we can do about it?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just one of those things... fortunately, the door is on the leeward side, so we may be able to open it when the storm has passed. There will be tons of sand piled on the windward side.’

  ‘Gosh! I could do with a drink,’ panted Tex. ‘My tongue’s like a file.’

  ‘Don’t talk about that,’ muttered Biggles curtly. ‘If you start thinking about a drink you’ll go crazy.’

  After that nothing more was said for what seemed an eternity of time, although Biggles knew from his watch that it was really only just over two hours. Then the noise outside began to subside.

  ‘It’s passing,’ he announced.

  Yet not for another half-hour did they attempt to open the door, and then it was only opened with diff-culty. One thing was immediately clear. The car would take them no farther. Sand was piled high all round it; on the windward side it reached to the roof.

  Spades would be required before the car could be freed of its gritty bed. Sand was still settling on it. If the heat inside had been bad, outside it was intolerable. It was obvious that everyone was suffering from thirst, but no one mentioned it.

  ‘I guess we may as well start walking,’ suggested Tex.

  Biggles did not answer. He was thinking. He was by no means sure of where they were, for the whole face of the desert had altered, but he knew they must still be some distance from the oasis. Of one thing he was certain. If they tried to reach the oasis on foot, without water, they would perish. The end would be the same whether they stayed or went on, he reflected, and had just decided to walk on and meet death rather than wait for it when the buzzer started tapping out a message.

  They all stiffened, listening. Biggles took a pace nearer.

  ‘It’s in English,’ he said, as he heard the first word. ‘That means it’s for us.’

  Letter by letter the message came through:

  Hauptmann von Zoyton, Oasis Wadi Umbo, to Squadron Leader Bigglesworth, in Luftwaffe car Z 4421. If you need water there is reserve tank in rear section. Tap under medical chest. I look forward to shooting you. Message ends.

  Biggles ran into the car, and dragging aside a seat under the Red Cross cabinet, exposed to view a small metal tap. He turned it, and smelt the liquid that gushed out. ‘It’s water,’ he told the others. ‘Help yourselves, but don’t overdo it. Empty the bottles in the medicine chest and fill them with water. Fill every vessel you can find.’

  He went to the radio transmitter and tapped out a signal:

  Squadron Leader Bigglesworth, operating Luftwaffe car Z 4421, to Hauptmann von Zoyton. Message received. Have your guns ready. Will be calling shortly. Message ends.

  He turned to the others, who had paused in their drinking to watch him. ‘You’ll sometimes find,’ he averred, ‘that if you throw a crust of bread on the water you get a slice back. Without this water we were all dead men. If we hadn’t saved von Zoyton he couldn’t have saved us. Evidently he has reached Wadi Umbo and learned that we gave his squadron his position. Fill up these bottles and let’s get along.’

  Having drunk their fill, and carrying a good supply of water in bottles, they struck off across the burning wilderness.

  For a little while they were tortured by sand that still hung in the air; then, as it settled, and the sky cleared, the sun flamed down as if to blind them with its rays. The ground threw up a heat so fierce that it created a sensation of wading through liquid rather than air. They trudged on mechanically, in silence, realising that without constant sips of water they could not have lived.

  There were many places where the desert had completely changed. Sometimes the sand had been piled up in fantastic dunes; sometimes it had been torn away, leaving the bedrock exposed. Once they had to stumble over a ridge of volcanic clinker that crunched beneath their feet with a noise of breaking crockery, throwing up an acrid dust.

  They had covered some miles, and Biggles was sure that they could be no great distance from the oasis, when the unmistakable drone of aircraft was heard behind them. He turned and looked, but as yet he could see nothing.
/>
  ‘Coming from that direction they must be Messerschmitts,’ he said. ‘They’re probably looking for the car.’

  Presently they saw an aircraft, too small for the type to be recognised, although as it came from the north-west they knew it must be an enemy machine. Flying at a tremendous height it passed right over.

  ‘Funny he didn’t see us,’ remarked Ginger.

  ‘We may not notice it, but there’s still enough sand in the air to affect visibility,’ explained Biggles.

  ‘If they see Salima Oasis they’ll guess that’s where we came from.’

  ‘They’ve probably worked that out by now, anyway,’ asserted Biggles. ‘The oasis is shown on the map. They will know we must be at an oasis, and there aren’t many around here. Salima is one of the best—that’s why I chose it.’ He glanced up. ‘That sounds like more machines coming.’

  For some while they walked on in silence, with the drone of high flying aircraft in their ears.

  ‘I should say that first machine spotted the oasis and has called up the others,’ opined Biggles.

  ‘If they find it they’ll shoot it up,’ said Ginger.

  ‘Of course they will.’

  ‘In that case I imagine we shall shoot them up?’

  ‘That’s just the trouble, we can’t,’ disputed Biggles. ‘There happens to be a number of British prisoners at Wadi Umbo. We daren’t risk blitzing our own people.’

  From far ahead came the grunting of machine guns, punctuated with the heavier explosions of cannon.

  ‘They’re either shooting up Salima now, or else Algy has spotted them and gone out to meet them,’ said Biggles. He strode on, his eyes on the sky ahead.

  ‘There’s somebody going down—look!’ cried Ginger suddenly, as a plume of black smoke fell diagonally across the sky.

  Biggles did not answer. He walked on, with the others trailing behind him. Slowly the noise of aircraft died away and silence fell. Soon afterwards the palms of the oasis came into sight. Wearily they strode towards it.