Biggles and the Rescue Flight

by W E Johns

  ‘Tired, I expect.’

  ‘I see. All right. You’ll find us in the office.’

  When Thirty rejoined the others a few minutes later they were sitting in the Flight Office, their flying-kit discarded. He flung his on its usual peg and pulled out a chair from under the small deal table on which lay their log-books.

  ‘Well, I think I’ll be getting along,’ announced Forsyth.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ asked Thirty quietly.

  ‘Oh, anxious to get back, you know. My C.O. will be pleased to see me.’

  ‘I’d sit still if I were you,’ went on Thirty evenly, his eyes on the other’s face. There was such a curious inflexion in his voice that Biggles stared at him.

  ‘No; if it’s all the same to you, I’ll push along,’ mused Forsyth.

  ‘It isn’t all the same to me,’ said Thirty in a voice that was as brittle as ice.

  Forsyth turned sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ll sit where you are, that’s what I mean,’ grated Thirty.

  There was dead silence. Every one in the room stiffened. In Thirty’s hand was an automatic, its muzzle pointing unwaveringly at Forsyth’s chest.

  Chapter 17

  A Life for a Life

  The silence persisted for a full half-minute, during which time Thirty’s eyes never left Forsyth’s face. He saw the expression of cheerful carelessness fade, to be replaced by one of cold resignation.

  ‘What the—?’ Biggles’s eyes went from the weapon in Thirty’s hand to the mark at which it was levelled. He seemed to be at a loss for words.

  ‘Biggles,’ said Thirty, speaking very distinctly, ‘a very curious thing happened at the landing-ground this morning. I did not understand it at the time, but I do now. But first let me direct your attention to the uniform the man who calls himself Forsyth is wearing. Coming home I sat very close to him, so close that I was able to perceive by the smell of his tunic that it has just been chemically cleaned. Since when have the Germans started cleaning their prisoners’ uniforms for them, I should like to know? I know why this one was cleaned, though. If you will examine the front of that tunic very closely you will see that a small hole has been repaired. It isn’t easy to see because it has been carefully done. It is just over the . . . heart. Just the sort of hole you might expect to be made by a . . . bullet. A bullet did go through that tunic—and it went through the heart of the man who was wearing it. I expect it was . . . Forsyth. Forsyth of the 9th Buffs. It made an ugly stain, that bullet . . . a stain that had to be rubbed hard with chemicals to remove it. But you can just see the edge of it.’

  Thirty’s voice went on inexorably. ‘When I was waiting at the landing-ground I walked slap into a Boche. He gave me no more than a passing glance—a very different reception from what a British officer in enemy country might expect. Do you know why? I’ll tell you. The Boche troops who were there knew that a . . . man . . . in a British officer’s uniform, was waiting there, or due to arrive there, to be picked up.’

  Thirty’s eyes, cold and hard, stared into those of the man who called himself Forsyth. ‘Am I right?’ he asked.

  The other did not answer.

  ‘Am I right?’ Thirty’s eyes suddenly blazed, and the words left his lips with a vehemence that made the listeners jump.

  The man he addressed drew a deep breath. He moistened his lips with his tongue. The muscles of his now ashen face twitched. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. A ghost of a smile flitted over his face. ‘Since we have passed the stage where denial might be of service, I might as well admit that—you are quite right.’

  ‘You are a spy?’

  The German moved his shoulders an inch. ‘And what, sir, are you?’ he asked softly.

  Thirty caught his breath. ‘That has nothing to do with it,’ he answered icily.

  Biggles broke in. ‘Go and turn out the guard,’ he ordered Rip, curtly.

  ‘Wait!’ cried Thirty.

  Biggles raised his eyebrows. ‘I am in command here,’ he said, evenly.

  ‘Yes . . . I’m sorry.’

  Algy spoke for the first time. ‘I think I know what Thirty means,’ he said, quietly. ‘The game is up. The Boche has tried to turn the tables on us. The landing-ground—for us—is now a trap.’

  ‘I’m not thinking about the landing-ground,’ cried Thirty, almost hysterically. ‘Haven’t you realized yet what this means? They’ve got Forty. They’ll shoot him. They’ll—’

  ‘All right, pull yourself together,’ broke in Biggles sharply. He turned to the prisoner. ‘May I assume it is correct that your people have arrested Captain Smithson for espionage?’

  ‘You may assume what you like,’ was the calm reply.

  Thirty handed his automatic to Biggles. ‘Will you allow me to ask the prisoner—my prisoner—a few questions?’ he demanded.

  ‘Can it serve a useful purpose? This matter is now outside our hands.’

  ‘It may,’ returned Thirty. ‘Nobody knows about this prisoner—yet.’ He turned to the German, who was regarding him stolidly. ‘You know that after you are handed over it will only be a matter of hours before you are shot?’ he inquired, sharply.

  ‘Of course. People who undertake our work must be prepared for that.’

  Thirty ignored the oblique reference to his own activities. ‘You would, I imagine, be interested in saving your life?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ demanded Biggles.

  ‘Please,’ implored Thirty. He returned to the prisoner. ‘I was thinking we might exchange a life for—a life,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘You mean—exchange this fellow’s life for Forty’s?’ asked Biggles.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you can’t do that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’d do anything to save my brother—anything,’ declared Thirty passionately.

  The German started slightly at the words ‘my brother’. ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed softly.

  ‘You’ll get yourself shot before you’re through—in fact, all of us,’ Biggles told Thirty grimly.

  ‘Nothing of the sort. No one need know of this.’ Thirty again addressed the prisoner. ‘If we are going through with this we must understand each other,’ he said. ‘I am not asking you to betray your side. You need say no more than is necessary for me to save my brother’s life. Neither side would gain anything if you both died; they would gain an advantage if you both lived. Is my brother a prisoner?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘No one knows. He escaped.’

  ‘Did he know that his reason for being in your country was known to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you don’t know where he is now?’

  ‘We assume that he will make for the landing-ground where I was picked up.’

  ‘And that is why the soldiers are there—to arrest him when he comes.’

  ‘So.’

  ‘And what part were you to play in this?’

  ‘None. A means was provided for the department for which I work to place a man within your lines. I was chosen. The choice was not mine. I was a tutor of English at Heidelberg University. Also, I am able to fly.’

  Thirty thought swiftly. It struck him that the man standing before him could not be known to the soldiers, or he, Thirty, would have been taken for an escaped prisoner when he came face to face with the German by the hedge. He realized now that the German soldier was prepared to see a British officer there, but could not recognize him personally. He proceeded to confirm it.

  ‘The troops at the landing-ground do not know you by sight?’

  ‘They have never seen me. I have never seen them.’

  ‘They mistook me for you?’

  ‘That is what occurred to me at once when you reported that you had seen a German soldier at close quarters, and he ignored you.’

  ‘They were expecting you?’

  ‘They had been warned, of course, that a man wearing a British
uniform would be there, or would shortly arrive; otherwise my life would have been in danger.’

  Thirty could now understand the whole situation. He went on swiftly.

  ‘Were they told to expect one only, or how many?’

  ‘I do not know that.’

  Thirty felt that the man was speaking the truth.

  ‘You say they are waiting for my brother. He will be in British uniform. How were they to know which was you, and which was him? Why did they not take me for him?’

  ‘I can only suppose that when they saw a man strolling along the hedge in broad daylight they did not imagine that it was an escaped prisoner. Therefore it must be me. They know now that I have gone. When another comes, perhaps creeping up the hedge, they will know it is the man they seek.’

  ‘Ah! I understand. Do you know of the other landing-grounds?’

  ‘We know everything. Your brother was suspected. A valuable British officer was placed in his cell with him—also a microphone was hidden in the wall.’

  Thirty caught Biggles’s eyes. ‘We were afraid of that.’

  Biggles shook his head. ‘Really, Thirty, you can’t go on with this,’ he said. ‘It’s against all—’

  ‘I don’t care what it’s against. Do you want to see Forty shot?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘If no one ever knew about this, don’t you think it would be a fair exchange?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Thirty again turned to the German. ‘It will save you the indignity of being searched if you will tell me truthfully whether you have any documents on you to prove your identity.’

  The German smiled faintly. ‘And me coming into the British lines? No.’

  ‘A password, perhaps?’

  The German hesitated.

  ‘To withhold it will mean your death, and the death of another.’

  ‘The password is—Vorgehen.’

  ‘Advance?’

  ‘So.’

  Thirty turned to Biggles. ‘That’s all I want to know.’

  ‘But what are you going to do, in heaven’s name?’

  ‘I’m going back to the landing-ground.’

  ‘But it’s trapped! It’s stiff with soldiers.’

  ‘I am quite aware of it. If I’m not back here in three hours you must take any steps you think proper. Look after the prisoner for me during that time. Maybe he will give you his parole.’

  ‘And then?’

  Thirty looked Biggles straight in the eyes. ‘If I manage to get back here with Forty I shall allow Captain Forsyth to take a flight in the machine I come back in—which will be one of the F.E.’s.’

  ‘You’ll let him go?’

  ‘What else?’

  Biggles raised his hands, palms outward. ‘I’ve nothing more to say,’ he said in tones of resignation. ‘I shall be the one who is shot before this affair is finished.’

  Another thought came into Thirty’s mind. ‘How did you propose to get back to your side of the lines when you had done what you came to do?’

  ‘I hoped to be able to borrow an aeroplane.’

  ‘Didn’t you fear that you would be shot down by your own machines?’

  ‘My headquarters were not likely to overlook such an elementary point,’ was the calm reply.

  ‘What were you to do?’

  The German took a large yellow silk handkerchief from his pocket. ‘I should have tied that on the tail of the machine,’ he explained.

  ‘Your Jagdstaffeln* know that mark?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘By gosh! That’s worth knowing,’ put in Algy.

  The German shook his head. ‘The knowledge is of little service to you, otherwise I should not have told you. The colour and the position from which it is exposed are changed every week.’

  Thirty took the handkerchief. ‘I’m going now,’ he said.

  ‘Well, good luck,’ replied Biggles.

  ‘Aren’t you going to take me?’ cried Rip.

  ‘No.’ Thirty walked towards the door. As he did so it opened and Major Raymond came in.

  ‘Ah! Here you all are,’ he said cheerfully. His eyes swept the room and came to rest on the stranger.

  Thirty felt that the room was spinning round him. He could think of nothing to say.

  Biggles came to his rescue. ‘Allow me to introduce a friend of mine,’ he said, casually. ‘Captain Forsyth of the Buffs.’

  Chapter 18

  Thirty Goes Back

  To Thirty’s unutterable relief the major merely nodded. “Morning, Forsyth,’ he said. Then, to Thirty, ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘I’m just going to see what I can do with a Fee, sir,’ answered Thirty, truthfully.

  ‘I see. Well, don’t let me stop you. I was just passing, so I thought I’d look in. You’ve nothing to add to what you told me on the telephone this morning?’

  ‘No, sir. Everything went off all right.’

  ‘Well, from a conversation I have just had on the telephone’ (the major’s voice took on a meaning tone), ‘I should hardly say that. But all’s well that ends well, that’s the chief thing.’

  ‘You don’t want me again for anything, sir?’

  ‘No—not at present.’

  ‘Then I’ll be getting off in case the Fees are wanted.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be getting along, too. Just one thing. Will you fellows dine with me at Wing Headquarters tonight?’

  Biggles answered for all of them. ‘Thanks very much, sir, we’d like to.’

  ‘Fine; then that’s settled. See you later.’ The major hurried away.

  Biggles wiped imaginary perspiration from his brow. ‘These shocks will be the death of me,’ he declared, sadly.

  Thirty took a last look round the room. In his heart he did not expect to see any of the faces again. But he did not say so. With a brief ‘Look after Forsyth’ he turned on his heel and walked quickly to the nearest Fee, which the mechanics had just finished refuelling. He tied the handkerchief to the tail and then climbed into the cockpit.

  His face was set in hard lines as he took off. He felt that he had reached the limit of something—he was not sure what. The crucial moment of his life was at hand. The next hour would decide his fate, and Forty’s fate. That was all that concerned him. Hitherto he had regarded the war as something impersonal; something which was best regarded in the abstract. Now the war meant him and Forty. For the first time he began to perceive what war really meant; he felt the relentlessness of it—the ruthlessness, the waste, the cruelty, the incredible folly of it. It gave him a shock to realize that he did not really know what everybody was fighting for. Something about Belgium . . . Freedom. He pictured the face of the man who had called himself Forsyth; he was quite young, not much older than himself; he did not look as if he wanted to make a slave of anybody; a few months ago he was probably playing rugger; to-morrow he might be riddled with bullets. Yet only a short while before he, Thirty, had been impatient to get to the war. How silly it all was. A wave of despondency swept over him.

  He was, of course, tired; more tired than he knew; yet, strangely enough, he was not conscious of it; on the contrary, he felt curiously alert. His brain thought clearly, intensely. It seemed to be racing inside his head. Every nerve in his body was keyed up, quivering like a taut wire in a gale. He could almost feel them vibrating. They made his hands tremble.

  He found a piece of chewing-gum tucked into a slot in the instrument-board. He chewed it gratefully; there was something comforting about it, reminding him of school, and the things he knew and understood.

  He started as a crimson Fokker triplane dropped out of the sky and whirled round him, banking steeply. The pilot raised his hand, and the machine swept away in a climbing turn, beautiful to watch as the sun flashed on its wings.

  Thirty half smiled to himself. The yellow handkerchief was acting like a magic banner. He realized suddenly that he was not being archied, and again he knew the reason, finding time to admire the enemy’s organization. A
single order, a stroke of a pen, and an enemy machine was allowed to fly unmolested through skies that bristled with death. Amazing!

  He flew on. One by one the landmarks that he had learnt to recognize slipped away behind him. A two-seater, camouflaged in a fantastic pattern of green and brown, which almost concealed the black Maltese cross on its side, passed him, going the other way; the leather-clad observer was leaning against his gun, his goggled eyes on the British machine. He did not move. The machine swept past and in a few moments was a speck in the distance.

  Thirty leaned over the side of his cockpit and stared steadily ahead. He picked out Belville, a mere cluster of houses set in the green fields. He saw the church, and the silver ribbon that was the river on which, only a few hours before, he had floated on a barge with a woman whom he would never see again. What a strange thing war was, he reflected.

  The wood which marked the position of the landing-field appeared out of the haze that shrouded the horizon. He regarded it calmly, although he knew that in a few minutes, when he landed beside it, his life would hang in the balance. He was mildly surprised to find that he felt no fear, although he had every reason for being afraid. For a moment he wondered why, but only vaguely; he was not really interested.

  From a distance of not more than a quarter of a mile he subjected the field to an intense scrutiny. Not a soul was in sight. The wood, the fields around it, the hedges, revealed no sign of life. At some distance to the north a small herd of cattle was browsing in the shade of a spreading chestnut tree; otherwise the landscape was without movement as it basked in the summer sunshine. But Thirty was not deceived; he knew that within rifleshot many pairs of eyes were watching him. The watchers had not yet seen the yellow signal attached to his tail; nose on to the wood, it would be, of course, impossible, so he made an S turn with the deliberate intention of allowing them to see it. He also watched the hedges closely, thinking that he might see Forty, but no such figure could be seen, so, steeling himself to the perilous task ahead, he throttled back and glided in to a smooth landing.

  Without waiting for the machine to run to a stop he opened the throttle again slightly and taxied towards the edge of the wood, swinging round so that the nose of the machine was pointing towards the open field.