by W E Johns
Biggles was watching through his glasses. ‘Right on it,’ he reported.
‘Here comes the next lot,’ said Tug, in a voice slightly more hoarse from excitement.
Again the earth erupted in columns of smoke and flame. Again came the wind, and the roar.
‘What a packet!’ breathed Tex.
‘Yes, I don’t think you’ll be troubled by those destroyers any more,’ said the Air Commodore quietly, watching the Fortresses turn for home.
‘We’re likely to be troubled by those, though,’ said Ferocity, pointing down the strait to the south, where two big ships had emerged suddenly from a distant belt of haze.
‘I don’t think so,’ answered the Air Commodore. ‘Let’s wait a little while and see.’
Biggles took out his cigarette case. ‘Cigarette, sir?’
‘No thanks. I’ll smoke my pipe.’ The Air Commodore filled his pipe, watching the transports. ‘I don’t see any air cover, do you, Bigglesworth? They must be pretty sure of themselves.’
‘No, I can’t see any aircraft,’ answered Biggles, exploring the sky with his glasses. ‘Apparently they thought they could do without.’
‘That’s a mistake that will cost them dearly,’ returned the Air Commodore, looking again at his watch.
‘You’re expecting something, sir?’ prompted Biggles.
‘Matter of fact I’m expecting a friend of yours – Squadron Leader Crisp. He should be here in two minutes.’
‘But I understood Johnny was flying Beaufighters, and Beaus haven’t the range?’ asserted Biggles.
‘For the purpose of this operation they are carrier-borne,’ explained the Air Commodore. ‘Sounds like them coming now.’
Drowning the drone of the Fortresses came the strident bellow of low-flying machines.
‘Yes, here they come,’ confirmed Biggles, again raising his glasses.
‘The Japanese call the Beau “The Whispering Death”,’ remarked Henry.
‘If that’s their idea of a whisper they must be deaf,’ declared Tug, grinning, as with a shattering roar twelve Beaufighters, each with a torpedo slung below its fuselage, swept over Elephant Island and raced on towards the transports. A few puffs of flak3 appeared, most of it well above the aircraft.
‘That’s nervous shooting,’ observed Biggles.
‘Do you wonder,’ said the Air Commodore drily. ‘The gunners can see what’s coming.’
The Beaufighters changed their position to line ahead. The ships were too far off for detail to be seen, but the Beaufighters appeared to dip a little; and following this, first one transport, then the other, was enveloped in smoke. When it cleared, the ships were no longer there. The Beaufighters zoomed, reformed, and headed back over their course.
‘Well, that’s that.’ The Air Commodore tapped out his pipe and moved towards the slope of the hill. ‘I’ll be pushing along back,’ he announced. ‘I’ve a lot to do. Think you’ll be able to manage the rubber?’
‘It should be easy – now,’ returned Biggles, smiling.
‘That’s what I thought.’
The party walked down the hill. Li Chi departed to speak to Ayert. The Air Commodore took off and the duty Liberators followed soon afterwards. After seeing them out of sight Biggles turned to those who were staying. ‘Now, thanks to the Higher Command, we can relax,’ he decided.
The rest of the story of Elephant Island is no more than a report of a routine operation. In the month that followed the bombing of Victoria Point and the sinking of the enemy transports all the rubber immediately available was shipped to India. As there was then no reason for remaining on Elephant Island, Biggles’ squadron was recalled to Home Establishment.4
Up to that time no further offensive action had been taken by the enemy, although it was learned by Intelligence that Tokyo was making preparations for a major assault on the island, being under the impression that Allied forces were being concentrated there for an attack on Lower Burma. This, as Air Commodore Raymond asserted later, was all to the good, for it demanded the employment of enemy troops that were badly needed elsewhere. Neutral correspondents in Japan reported that Admiral Tamashoa had been killed in action in the Mergui Archipelago. Tokyo said nothing, presumably still trying to save the Admiral’s ‘face’; but British authorities did not doubt the truth of the report, for it was known that Tamashoa had been picked up by the transports at Penang before they were sunk by Johnny Crisp’s ‘Whispering Deaths’. And there were no survivors. Refugee Chinamen and Malays hiding on the islands saw to that.
There was only one event to break the monotony of flying between the archipelago and India before the withdrawal of the transport team. One night, a fortnight after the bombing of Victoria Point, who should turn up at Elephant Island, in a canoe, but Lalla. He reported that his father’s guerilla forces, to which hundreds of tribesmen had flocked, had made life so precarious for the Japanese at Shansie that they had abandoned the post. It was now possible for an aeroplane to land there. A considerable quantity of rubber was available should it be required. The High Command decided that it was required, and Biggles was to fetch it. It was expected that there would be some trouble over this, but little opposition was encountered, and the Liberators, escorted by Lightnings, brought the rubber across without any adventure worth recording.
Major Marling was still at Shansie when the squadron left Elephant Island, and there, presumably, he remains, the father of his people. Lalla accompanied the squadron to India, having obtained his father’s consent to join the R.A.F. He took with him a valuable collection of rubies, which were to be sold and the proceeds handed to the Red Cross – a contribution, as his father put it, from loyal friends in Burma.
Li Chi and his supporters, unwilling to change their way of life, elected to remain in the archipelago. Apart from wishing to finish the junk for post-war work (and here Li Chi smiled his subtle smile) they would best help the Allied cause, he asserted, by collecting more rubber for shipment at a later date. It was possible, he added naively, glancing at Ayert, who was singing quietly as he sharpened his parang, that they might collect a few more Japanese heads at the same time. Biggles told him that if he would send word to India when the rubber was ready he would come and fetch it – but not the heads.
And with that they left their strange allies: one, a self-exiled Englishman, and the other a Chinese adventurer, two men poles apart who had been brought together by a common cause.
‘As Li Chi says,’ remarked Biggles, as the Mergui Achipelago faded astern, ‘it takes all sorts to make a war. There are probably thousands of men like Marling and Li Chi each fighting the war his own way. Some we shall never hear of. They may not deal the enemy a mortal wound, but they can set up a nasty irritation. They may not win big battles, but they may make it possible for others to win them.’
‘Absolutely, old boy – absolutely,’ agreed Bertie.
1 A twin-engined American medium bomber with a crew of six, top speed 305 m.p.h. and able to carry 4000lb of bombs. It was armed with twelve machine-guns.
2 American-made Boeing Fortress, a four-engined heavy bomber with a crew of up to eight with thirteen machine guns for defence. It could carry 12800lb of bombs.
3 Anti-aircraft fire.
4 Posted back to the UK.
CHAPTER 1
A DESERT RENDEZVOUS
SO SLOWLY AS to be almost imperceptible the stars began to fade. The flickering rays of another day swept up from the eastern horizon and shed a mysterious twilight over the desert that rolled away on all sides as far as the eye could see. Silence reigned, the tense expectant hush that precedes the dawn, as if all living things were waiting, watching, holding their breath.
Suddenly a beam of light, tinged with crimson, began to paint the sky with pink, and simultaneously, as though it were a signal, from the north-east came the deep, vibrant drone of aircraft. Six specks appeared, growing swiftly larger, and soon resolved themselves into Spitfires1 flying in V-formation.
From th
e cockpit of the leading machine Squadron-Leader Bigglesworth, better known in the R.A.F. as Biggles, surveyed the wilderness that lay beneath, a desolate, barren expanse of pebbly clay and sand, sometimes flat, sometimes rippling, dotted with camel-thorn bushes, and sometimes broken by long rolling dunes that cast curious blue-grey shadows.
The rim of the sun, glowing like molten metal, showed above the horizon. With it came the dawn-wind, and almost at once the aircraft began to rise and fall, slowly, like ships riding an invisible swell. The sky turned to the colour of polished steel, and the desert to streaming gold, yet still the planes roared on. Once Biggles toyed with the flap of his radio transmitter, but remembering his own order for wireless silence, allowed it to fall back. Instead, he glanced at his reflector to make sure that the machines behind him were still in place.
The rocking of the planes became more noticeable as the sun climbed up and began its weary toil across the heavens, driving its glittering lances into a waterless chaos of rock and sand, sand and rock, and still more sand. But Biggles was looking at the watch on his instrument panel now more often, and the frown of concentration that lined his forehead dissolved as an oasis came into view, a little island of palms, as lonely as an atoll in a tropic sea. His hand moved to the throttle, and as the defiant roar of the aircraft dropped to a deep-throated growl, its sleek nose tilted downwards. Soon the six machines were circling low over the nodding palms, from which now appeared half a dozen men in khaki shirts and shorts, and wide-brimmed sun helmets.
Biggles landed first, and taxied swiftly towards them. The others followed in turn, and in a short while had joined the leading machine, which had trundled on into a narrow aisle that had been cleared between the trees.
Biggles jumped down swiftly, stretched his cramped limbs, and spoke to a flight-sergeant who, having saluted, stood waiting; and an observer would have noted from their manner that each enjoyed the confidence of the other, a confidence that springs from years of association – and, incidentally, one that is peculiar to the commissioned and non-commissioned ranks of British military forces. Amounting to comradeship and sympathetic understanding, the original backbone of discipline was in no way relaxed, a paradoxical state of affairs that has ever been a source of wonder to other European nations. The N.C.O.2 was, in fact, Flight-Sergeant Smythe, who had been Biggles’ fitter on more than one desperate enterprise in civil as well as military aviation.
‘Is everything all right, flight-sergeant?’ inquired Biggles.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did the stores arrive as arranged?’
‘Yes, sir. Flight Lieutenant Mackail brought most of the stuff over in the Whitley.3 He has flown the machine back to Karga. He told me to say that everything is okay there, and he will be on hand if you want him.’
Biggles nodded. ‘Good. Get the machines under cover. Fit dust sheets over the engines and spread the camouflage nets. Send some fellows out to smooth our wheel tracks with palm fronds. I hope they understand that no one is to set foot outside the oasis without orders?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve told them about the risks of getting lost in the dunes.’
‘That’s right; moreover, we don’t want footprints left about. Is there some coffee going?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve put up the officers’ mess4 tent near the spring. It’s a little farther on, in the middle of the palms.’
‘Did you bring that boy of yours with you?’
‘Yes, he’s here, sir. He’s got the radio fixed up, and someone is always on duty, day and night, listening.’
‘What about petrol?’
‘It’s all here, sir, in the usual four-gallon cans. I didn’t dump it all in one place. I had half a dozen pits dug, in different parts of the oasis – in case of accidents.’
‘Good work, flight-sergeant. I’ll have another word with you later.’
As the flight-sergeant moved off Biggles turned to the five officers who were standing by. ‘Let’s go and get some breakfast,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll tell you what this is all about.’
In the mess tent, over coffee and a cigarette, he considered his pilots reflectively. There was Flight-Lieutenant Algy Lacey, Flight-Lieutenant Lord Bertie Lissie, and Flying-Officers Ginger Hebblethwaite, Tug Carrington, and Tex O’Hara, all of whom had fought under him during the Battle of Britain.
‘All right, you fellows,’ he said at last. ‘Let’s get down to business. No doubt you are all wondering why the dickens we have come to a sun-baked, out-of-the-way spot like this, and I congratulate you on your restraint for not asking questions while we were on our way. My orders were definite. I was not allowed to tell anyone our destination until we were installed at Salima Oasis, which, for your information, is the name of this particular clump of long-necked cabbages that in this part of the world pass for trees. Even now, all I can tell you about our position is that it is somewhere near the junction of the Sudan, Libya, and French Equatorial Africa5.’ Biggles broke off to sip his coffee.
‘As most of you know,’ he continued, ‘a fair amount of traffic, both British and American, is passing from the West Coast of Africa to the Middle East. Most of it is airborne, and it is that with which we are concerned. This oasis happens to lie practically on the air route between the West Coast and Egypt. Over this route is being flown urgent stores, dispatches, important Government officials travelling between home and the eastern battlefields, and occasionally senior officers. It is quicker than the sea route, and – until lately – a lot safer. The route is about two thousand miles long, and the machines that fly it are fitted with long-range tanks to make the run in one hop. We are sitting about midway between the western and eastern termini – which means that we are a thousand miles from either end. For a time, after the route was established, everything went smoothly, but lately a number of machines have unaccountably failed to arrive at their destinations. They disappeared somewhere on the route. No one knows what became of them.’ Biggles lit a fresh cigarette.
‘Our job,’ he resumed, ‘is to find out what happened to them, and that doesn’t just mean looking for them – or what remains of them. There is a mystery about it. Had one machine, or even two, disappeared, we might reasonably suppose that the pilot lost his way, or was forced down by structural failure or weather conditions; but during the past month no fewer than seven machines have failed to get through, and the Highest Command – rightly, I think – cannot accept the view that these disappearances are to be accounted for by normal flying risks. They believe – and I agree with them – that the machines were intercepted by hostile aircraft. After all, there would be nothing remarkable in that. It would be optimistic to suppose that an important air route like this could operate indefinitely without word of it reaching the ears of the enemy. Naturally, they would do their utmost to prevent the machines from getting through. There is no proof that such a thing is happening, but it is a possibility – I might say probability.’
Here Algy interposed. ‘Suppose enemy machines are cutting in on the route; surely it’s a long trip down to here from the enemy-occupied aerodromes in North Africa?’
‘You’ve put your finger on something there,’ agreed Biggles. ‘My personal opinion is that the Nazis, or Italians6, have detailed a squadron or a special unit to take up its position near the route in order to patrol it and destroy any Allied machine it meets. You will now realise why we are here. The machines that fly over this route must go through, and our job is to see that they go through. If an enemy squadron is operating down here, then we must find it and wipe it out of the sky. They will get an unpleasant surprise when they discover that someone else is playing their own game. At the moment we hold the important element of surprise. Assuming that enemy aircraft are operating in this district, they do not know we are here, and I am anxious that they should not know. That’s why I forbade the use of radio on the way. Ears are listening everywhere, even in the desert. One message intercepted by the enemy might be enough to give our game away, and even enable him to lo
cate us. Well, that briefly is the general line-up, but there are a few points that I must raise.’ Biggles paused to pour himself another cup of coffee.
‘We are out here in the blue absolutely on our own, to do as we like, a freelance unit. The rest of the squadron is at Karga Oasis, nearer to the Nile. I sent them there to be in reserve, as well as to form a connecting link with the Air Officer commanding the Middle East. I thought six of us here should be enough. Spare machines, stores and replacements are at Karga; they include a Whitley, converted into a freight carrier, for transport purposes. There is also a Defiant7. I thought a two-seater might be useful on occasion, and the Air Ministry very kindly allowed me to make my own arrangements. Angus Mackail is in charge at Karga. He has with him Taffy Hughes, Ferocity Ferris and Harcourt. Flight-Sergeant Smythe is here, as you saw, with a section of good mechanics to look after us. That son of his, young Corporal Roy Smythe, who did so well with us up in the Baltic8, is in charge of the radio, which, however, will be used only for receiving signals.’
Biggles finished his coffee.
‘The first thing I want to impress upon you all is this,’ he continued. ‘We are in the desert – never forget that. To get lost is to perish miserably from thirst. The sun is your worst enemy, as it is the enemy of every living creature in the desert. The sun dries your body. While you can drink you can make up for the loss of moisture, but the moment you are denied water thirst has you by the throat. Twenty-four hours at the outside – less in the open sand – is as long as you could hope to survive without a drink, and death from thirst is not an ending one would choose. Every machine will therefore carry a special desert-box, with food, water, and anti-thirst tablets, in case of a forced landing. No one will move without a water-bottle. That’s an order. If you break that order, any of you, you won’t have to answer to me; as sure as fate the sun will turn on you and shrivel you up like an autumn leaf. Don’t ever say that I haven’t warned you. And, believe it or not, it is the easiest thing in the world to get lost. On the ground, you could get hopelessly lost within a mile of the oasis. As far as possible we shall operate in pairs, so that one can watch the other; but there will, of course, be times when we shan’t be able to do that. There’s another reason why I don’t want people to wander about outside the oasis. Footprints and wheel tracks show up in the sand, and we don’t want to advertise our presence to the enemy. If they discover us we shall soon know about it; we shall have callers, but instead of leaving visiting cards they’ll leave bombs. Everyone will wear a sun helmet. Keep in the shade as far as possible. Expose yourself, and the sun will blister the skin off you; the glare will sear your eyeballs and the heat will get on your nerves till you think you’re going crazy. Apart from the sun, we have another enemy in the haboob, or sandstorm. Algy and Ginger have been in the desert before, and they know what it means, but the rest of you are new to it – that’s why I’m going to some trouble right away to make sure that you understand what you are up against. That’s all for the moment, unless anyone has any questions to ask?’
