by W E Johns
After that it was everyone for himself. It was impossible to maintain any kind of order. Between bursts of fire and the crash of bombs Ginger sprinted for his life to a tall outcrop of rock, and flung himself at the base. Somebody was already there. It was the German driver of the car. Ginger ignored him; at that moment he was not concerned with prisoners. The noise was appalling; bombs exploded and machine guns crackled against a background of aircraft engines. There was obviously more than one machine now, and looking up Ginger could see three, circling low and turning to fire at the stationary car. What with the noise, and the glittering lines of tracer shells and bullets, the place was an inferno. The air was full of sand, which made breathing difficult. Where the others were, and what they were doing, he had no idea, but he was terribly afraid that casualties were going to be heavy unless they had got well clear of the car.
Suddenly the roar of engines increased to a terrifying crescendo, and the air seemed to be full of machines. Ginger could count six, and at first he thought they were all Messerschmitts; then one swept low over him and he could see from the silhouette of its wings that it was a Spitfire. He could only suppose that Algy, or Ferocity, or Henry, or all three, had arrived from Salima. The machines began to shoot at each other, and Ginger watched spellbound the firework display thus provided. It gave some relief to those on the ground, for as they fought, the opposing machines climbed. In one respect Ginger thought, the Spitfires held the advantage. The Germans must have used up most of their ammunition before the British machines had arrived on the scene. An aircraft – Spitfire or Messerschmitt he could not tell – burst into flames, and crashing among the rocks gave a finishing touch to the lurid scene. Then for a little while the noise of engines receded, presently to increase again in volume as three machines – all Spitfires – came tearing back. Ginger knew then it could only be Algy, Ferocity and Henry.
For a minute or two the machines circled and then departed in a south-easterly direction. Ginger saw a figure stand up not far away and recognised Biggles. He ran over to him.
‘They’re going home,’ he said, pointing to the Spitfires.
‘Yes. They were quite right not to risk a night landing at a place like this,’ answered Biggles. ‘Gosh! What a party! I think it’s all over. Where’s everybody?’ Cupping his hands round his mouth he shouted, ‘Hi! Where are you?’
Dark figures, some near and some far, began to appear out of the settling sand. Bertie arrived first.
‘I say, you fellows,’ he said in a worried voice, ‘have you seen my bally eyeglass – I’ve lost it?’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ snapped Biggles, ‘it’s in your eye.’
‘Well I’m dashed! Do you know, I never thought of looking there,’ murmured Bertie, apologetically.
Taffy came, limping. He had been wounded in the leg by a bullet, but he said it was only a scratch.
The General came, brushing sand off his uniform and muttering his opinion of the Nazis in a low voice. He had lost his cap.
Biggles spotted a body lying in a grotesque position on the ground, and ran to it to discover that it was the German driver. He was stone dead, shot through the head. Tug came, staggering. He had, he said, been flung against a rock by blast, and knocked out. He was all right now. Tex came running from the desert.
‘I’ve lost the prisoners,’ he said.
Biggles pointed to the dead man. ‘There’s one,’ he observed. ‘What happened to the rest?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ admitted Tex. ‘I was close to them when a bomb smothered us with sand. When it cleared they weren’t in sight.’
‘It doesn’t matter, except that I should have liked to keep von Zoyton,’ muttered Biggles. ‘Naturally, he’d grab the chance to get away. I’m glad things are no worse. That was a Messerschmitt that crashed – we can’t do anything about it. Let’s go and look at the car.’
It had not, after all, received a direct hit from a bomb, although there were several craters near it, and as well as being half smothered with sand it was tilted on one side. Their combined efforts were required to right it. The plating had been pierced by several cannon shells.
‘Good thing we didn’t stay in it,’ observed Biggles, dryly. ‘The thing that really matters is the engine. Get in, Taffy, and try it. If the engine works the car will still be serviceable, and I’d rather ride than walk. We’re a long way from home.’
The engine started without any trouble at all, much to Biggles’ satisfaction.
‘All right, we’ll see about getting home,’ he announced. ‘The Messerschmitts will be out after us again as soon as it gets light. They’ll probably come here first, and seeing the car gone will know we’ve got away. They’ll follow our tracks, no doubt, but that can’t be prevented.’
‘What about having a look round for von Zoyton?’ suggested Ginger.
‘We can’t stop to look for him now – not that we’d ever find him in the dark amongst all this rock. His people will pick him up in the morning.’
They all got into the car which, with Taffy still at the wheel, resumed its journey across the desert.
‘Our jolly little plan seems to have come unstuck this time,’ murmured Bertie.
‘You mean my plan,’ answered Biggles. ‘I get the credit when things go right, so I’ll take the kicks when they go wrong. This time it didn’t work out. Plans don’t always work out, you know. If mine never went wrong I shouldn’t be a man, I’d be a magician; and, moreover, I should have won the war long ago. Actually, the thing hasn’t worked out as badly as it might have done. It was that skunk Hymann bolting that upset the apple cart. How did he get away, Ginger?’
Ginger told the story of the Nazi’s escape.
‘Well, he didn’t get far,’ remarked Biggles. ‘He’d have done better to have kept his parole.’
‘What happened to you when I shot you down over the enemy aerodrome?’ inquired Ginger. ‘I have a rough idea because I heard the German sentries talking, but I’d be interested to hear the details.’
‘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 Boche 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, loo
king 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 him 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 Gennan – 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 Twln-engined German lighter-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 incandescent 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 habooh 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 Zoylon 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 t
hrough 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.’
