by W E Johns
This told Biggles much. He knew that the rear gunner was new to the business, probably a beginner, or he would have held his fire; and the pilot’s swerve indicated clearly that he was nervous. Biggles acted accordingly, deliberately adding to the enemy pilot’s anxiety by firing a short burst, not so much with any real hope of hitting the bomber as to ‘rattle’ the pilot.
The Nazi responded as Biggles hoped he would—in fact, as he was almost sure he would. In a not unnatural desire to save his life, or at any rate improve his position, he abandoned his target and tried to get under the protective curtain of the 109’s. From his erratic flying it was apparent that he was flustered. A fleeting glance in his reflector showed Biggles three of the 109’s engaged with Bertie and Tex, while the other three came tearing down on his tail to save the bomber. Clearly, he would have to finish the bomber before they reached him.
At this moment the pilot of the Me. 110 made a blunder which brought a bleak smile to Biggles’ lips. He started to climb steeply towards his comrades, losing speed accordingly, and offering an easier target. Biggles was travelling at a rate that jammed his head tight against the head-rest. His zoom at the bottom of the dive brought momentary black-out, but when he could see clearly again the bomber appeared to be floating towards him, slowly, like a fish swimming lazily, so fast was he overtaking it. With cold deliberation he took it in the cross-lines of his sight, waited until he was well inside effective range, and then fired a long burst.
As the bullets struck the machine the enemy pilot turned flat at a speed that could have given his gunners no chance of returning the fire. Indeed, centrifugal force probably made it impossible for them to move at all. Biggles knew it, and seized the opportunity thus presented. Half rolling at the top of his zoom he brought his nose round and raked the bomber from airscrew to tailskid. The convulsive jerk of the machine told him that the pilot had been hit. For a moment it hung in the air, wallowing like a rolling porpoise, its airscrew clawing vainly at the super-heated atmosphere; then its nose swung down in a vicious stall which ended in a spin.
Biggles turned away from the stricken machine to meet the three Me. 109’s that had followed in his wake. He had watched them in his reflector out of the tail of his eye. Behind them another machine was plunging earthward trailing smoke and flame. Another was gliding away. He could see only one Spitfire, but there was no time to look for the other. The three oncoming Me.’s, flying abreast, were launching a flank attack, and were already within five hundred feet, so he turned to take them head-on, firing at the same time. For a split second tracers flew between the Spitfire and the Messerschmitts. All four machines were shooting, and Biggles could feel bullets smashing through his wings. With his finger still on the firing button he held his machine steady and waited for the collision that seemed inevitable. He had no intention of turning away, for the first to turn away in head-on attack admits inferiority, and one of the first traditions laid down by the Flying Corps in the early days of air combat was ‘never turn.’
At the last instant the Messerschmitts split and hurtled past on either side of him. Biggles was round with the speed of light. Choosing the centre machine, he clung to its tail, firing short bursts until a shadow falling across him made him kick out his foot and fling the joystick hard over. He was only just in time. A Messerschmitt flashed past, its tracer streaking through the spot where the Spitfire should have been but was not.
Biggles looked around, although one of the most difficult things in a dogfight is to keep in touch with events. A Messerschmitt with a Spitfire on its tail was racing towards the north. Three more Messerschmitts were scattered about the sky, converging on him— two of them from above, which he did not like. Still, he was not prepared to take the defensive, so, turning on the machine below him, he went down like a thunderbolt in a deliberate attempt to intimidate the pilot and so get him in a disadvantageous position before opening fire, for he knew he must be getting short of ammunition. He succeeded. The Messerschmitt dived, and in a desperate effort to escape the pilot pulled up and over in a terrific loop; but if by this means he hoped to throw the Spitfire off his tail he was doomed to disappointment. Biggles followed him into the loop, but at the top pulled the joystick into his stomach, so that his loop, instead of being a true circle, was cut to an oval. The Messerschmitt, completing its loop, was about to pass immediately below him. Biggles stood his machine on its nose and from a vertical position opened fire. The Messerschmitt flew straight into the stream of bullets.
Biggles had no time to watch the effect of his fire, for even while he was shooting he felt bullets hitting his own machine, and was obliged to roll out of the way. Looking round quickly for his assailant, he was just in time to see a Messerschmitt go to pieces in the air, some of the splinters narrowly missing another Me. that had evidently been keeping it company. Thoughts crowded into Biggles’ brain, although to his racing nerves the scene seemed to be moving in slow motion. He wondered why the pilot of the broken machine, who was falling like a stone, did not use his parachute. He wondered what had caused the machine to disintegrate. A moment later he knew. An aircraft flashed across his nose. It was the Defiant, the gunner in the rear seat crouching over his gun. Angus had arrived.
Biggles took a deep breath, and looking around saw that the battle was over. A Spitfire was approaching from the north, gliding down to land. Two specks in the sky, fast disappearing, were all that remained of the Messerschmitts. Only he and the Defiant remained over the oasis, so after a last survey of the atmosphere he sideslipped down and landed. He was desperately anxious to know what had happened, for he had been too occupied to keep track of things. The Defiant followed him down.
One of the first things he saw as he jumped from his machine was Tex, limping in from the desert. There was a crimson streak on his left cheek, and one sleeve of his tunic hung in rags; but his face was wreathed in smiles.
‘Suffering coyotes!’ he cried deliriously. ‘What a party!’
‘Are you all right?’ asked Biggles sharply.
‘Sure I’m all right,’ answered Tex cheerfully. ‘More or less,’ he added. ‘I’ve lost a bit of skin here and there.’
‘What about your machine?’
Tex pointed to a heap of wreckage that lay some way off, from the middle of which a crumpled tail stuck derisively into the air. ‘She’s finished, I guess. I got one guy, but his pal hit me with a ton of bricks and I lost a wing.’
Bertie taxied in and stood up in his cockpit, regarding Tex with disfavour through a glinting eyeglass. ‘I say, look here, I wish you’d look where you’re going. Really, you know, you jolly nearly scalped me,’ he said severely.
The sight of a group of figures round the Defiant took Biggles to it at a run. A hush warned him of serious trouble, and a moment later he saw it. An air gunner, a corporal unknown to him, a fair lad with a boyish face, was being lifted carefully to the sand, where his head was pillowed on a parachute. His ashen face and a spreading crimson stain on the breast of his tunic told their own dire story. Angus, looking very upset, bent over him.
Biggles pushed his way to the front and dropped on his knees beside the wounded gunner. Looking up over his shoulder at Angus he said quietly: ‘Who is it?’
‘Boy from Wadi Haifa,’ answered Angus in a broken voice. ‘He volunteered to come with me. I thought I’d better have a gunner in case I ran into trouble. I wish now—’
‘Wishing doesn’t help anybody,’ interrupted Biggles softly. ‘You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with, Angus. These things will happen in a war, you know.’
He turned to the wounded man. Grey eyes looked into his own apologetically.
‘Sorry, sir,’ came in a faint whisper from the pallid lips.
‘Sorry? What about?’ asked Biggles.
‘About giving you—this—trouble.’
‘No need to worry about that,’ replied Biggles gently. He had looked on similar scenes too often to deceive himself. He knew it was only a matter of minutes. The
re was nothing he could do—nothing anyone could do.
‘I got—one,’ whispered the dying gunner, with a twisted smile. ‘He fired first—but I got—him.’
‘Yes, you got him,’ agreed Biggles—a fact which Angus confirmed.
Nobody else spoke.
‘That’s good enough—for me,” breathed the airman. ‘Wish I could have stayed—and seen—things through. I always wanted—to be—in your squadron—sir.’
‘You’re in it,’ said Biggles, forcing a smile.
‘Reckon I’m—booked—for topsides1 —sir.’
‘I reckon we all are,’ answered Biggles grimly. ‘It’s just a matter of who goes first. Someone has to make a reconnaissance for the others.’
‘That’s right—sir.’
For a little while there was silence, while the sun sank behind the oasis in a sea of gold, causing the palms to throw out long shadows like arms towards the little group. The boy muttered once or twice as his mind wandered, while the light faded from his eyes, serenely, as it faded from the sky. Then with a little sigh his head dropped into Biggles’ arms.
Biggles laid the head gently on the parachute and stood up.
‘That’s all,’ he said.
‘I shouldn’t ha’ brought the lad,’ blurted Angus.
‘Forget it,’ Biggles told him calmly. ‘This is war, not kindergarten. To-day it was the boy’s bad luck. To-morrow it may be me—or you. You know that. He didn’t bleat about it. Neither, I hope, shall we, when our turn comes.’ He turned to the flight-sergeant. ‘All right,’ he said in a normal voice. ‘Carry him in. We’ll bury him to-night. All ranks will attend. By the way, what happened to the bomber?’
‘Went into the ground with the engine full on, sir. Everyone in it must have been killed.’
Biggles nodded. ‘Better bring in the enemy casualties. They can be buried at the same time. I want all officers in the mess tent, please. We’ll have a check up. You’d better come along, too, Flight-Sergeant, when you’ve given your orders.’
Through the quickly-fading twilight, Biggles, with the others following, led the way to the tent.
* * *
1 Slang: heaven.
Chapter 13
Biggles Takes His Turn
When they were inside the tent Tex was the first to speak. ‘How about von Zoyton?’ he asked. ‘Was he among the people we shot down?’
‘No,’ answered Biggles, shortly.
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I fancy that had von Zoyton been over some of us might not now be here. I’ve seen him fly, and there was nothing like his tactics in this evening’s affair. You’ll find he didn’t come. He was probably exhausted after his night in the desert. He’ll be over soon, though, now he knows how short we are of machines.’
‘How can he know we are short?’ demanded Bertie.
‘Because we only put up three Spitfires against seven hostile machines this afternoon. Von Zoyton isn’t a fool. Obviously, he will know perfectly well that if we had had more we should have used them.’
‘Of course—absolutely—I didn’t think of that,’ muttered Bertie. ‘Good thing you’re here to do the thinking.’
Biggles pulled out a camp chair ‘Sit down, everybody, and we’ll see how things look. I still don’t know exactly how the show finished. All I know is we’re down to two Spitfires, and they both need patching—at least, mine does. The tail looks like a sieve. Von Zoyton can’t have many machines left, either. He’ll have still fewer, I hope, when we’ve had our innings.’
The check-up, to which the flight sergeant largely contributed, for he had watched the whole thing from the ground, revealed that the battle had been won at really very small cost. They had lost only one man killed, the volunteer gunner of the Defiant. Tex had been slightly hurt. A cannon shell had exploded in his cockpit tearing a nasty gash in his face; he had also wrenched the muscles of a leg when landing by parachute. His machine was destroyed. The two other Spitfires had been damaged, but both were serviceable. On the German side the bomber had been destroyed and its three occupants killed. Three Messerschmitt 109’s had also been destroyed for certain, all the pilots being killed. One, apparently, had baled out, but his parachute had not opened. Another 109, the one that had been chased by Bertie, had been damaged, and might not have reached its base. Bertie had abandoned the pursuit when he had run out of ammunition. The two remaining Messerschmitts had presumably got home. If von Zoyton had come on the show he must have been in one of these, for his body was not among the Nazi dead; Biggles was convinced, however, that he had not been with the attacking formation.
‘It comes to this,’ he said, at the end of the summing up. ‘We’re down to the two Spitfires and the Defiant. Von Zoyton has lost more than we have, but he started with more; at this moment he must be short of machines—unless, of course, he is in a position to call up reinforcements. He won’t hesitate to do that if he can get some. One of the outstanding Nazi characteristics is vanity, and it would be gall and wormwood for him to have to admit that we got the better of him. He’ll do anything rather than allow that to happen.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’ asked Algy. ‘Two Spitfires and a Defiant isn’t much of a striking force.’
‘You’re right; it isn’t. I’d like to get the four Spits that are at Karga over here right away, but I’m not clear as to how it can be done.’
‘We could use the Defiant to take people to Karga—’
‘Yes, I know,’ interrupted Biggles, ‘but I wanted the Defiant for another purpose. You see, even if we got the four Spitfires here it wouldn’t prevent the Nazis from putting up their magnetic disturbance in the morning and throwing the air liner off its course. As a matter of fact, I had formed a plan when the Nazis came over this afternoon, and I feel inclined to go on with it.’ Biggles lit a cigarette before continuing.
‘This is my idea. The scheme has for its first objective the destruction of the Nazi electrical equipment. If we can do that we not only put an end to this compass juggling, but we silence von Zoyton’s radio. If that part of the programme was successful, and conditions were favourable, I should strike right away at a second objective. As I told you, the Nazis are holding a Rapide which they forced down intact while it was flying over the route. I should try to get the Rapide, and collecting the prisoners at the same time bring them home in it. That would not only remove the handicap which prevents us from shooting up von Zoyton’s base, but would provide us with a transport machine which we need badly. Then, with the prisoners out of the way, and the Karga Spitfires here, we could keep Wadi Umbo on the jump, and at the same time keep the air clear over the route. Make no mistake, as things stand, now von Zoyton knows where we are, Salima is going to be anything but a health resort. I’m sorry to be so long-winded about all this, but I always try to ensure that everyone knows how things are going. Now we know what we want, let us consider ways and means of putting it over.
‘We can’t shoot up the Nazis for reasons which I have already explained. That means the job has to be done on the ground. I propose to do it myself, not because I don’t think any of you could do it, but because I know just where the lorries are parked. This is the programme as I’ve mapped it out in my mind. If anyone sees a weak spot, say so. Zero hour will be twelve midnight. At eleven o’clock Algy will fly the Defiant to a point near Wadi Umbo where Ginger and I will bale out. Algy will then return home. At twelve midnight the show will open with Bertie and Tug, in the two Spitfires, shooting up Wadi Umbo aerodrome but keeping away from the southern end of the oasis to avoid hitting the prisoners. They will make as much noise as possible. Under cover of the confusion that should result from this effort, Ginger and I will slip into the oasis. I shall tackle the lorries. Ginger will go to the Rapide and get ready to start up when I arrive. If I see a chance I shall collect the prisoners before joining Ginger in the Rapide, which will take off and fly to Salima. When the two Spitfires see the Rapide take off they also will return
home. The Rapide will land here, and as soon as convenient fly on to Karga, taking four pilots to bring back the Spitfires. That’s a broad outline of the scheme. Of course, it has one weak point. If Ginger and I can’t get the Rapide we shan’t be able to fly home, but as far as I can see there’s no alternative. We daren’t risk a night landing in the Defiant, in unknown country, with rock all over the place. The Nazis have cleared an area for an aerodrome, but we could hardly use that. Any questions?’
‘But what about the rest of us, look you?’ cried Taffy, in a pained voice. ‘Don’t we get in the game whatsoever?’
‘Angus can’t come because he’ll have to remain in charge here. Someone will have to stay, and I say Angus because he had been in the air most of the day and must be dead beat. Tex, with a wounded head and a game leg, is in no condition to fly.’
‘That still leaves me, Ferocity and Henry,’ Taffy pointed out. ‘Can’t we do something useful?’
‘You can form three of the party to go to Karga in the Rapide to fetch the Spitfires,’ suggested Biggles.
‘We could do that anyway,’ complained Taffy. ‘I was thinking about the big show.’
‘All right. I’ll tell you what you can do,’ offered Biggles. ‘Walk to the armoured car, taking a working party, and dig it out. If you can’t get it out, or if the engine is dud, you’ll have a nice stroll home again in the moonlight. If it’s all right you can patrol between here and Wadi Umbo in case anyone has to make a forced landing. If you start right away you should have the car dear before midnight.’
