by W E Johns
‘We’ve only just started,’ asserted Biggles. ‘Come on over to the tent.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Fine – well enough to clean up Wadi Umbo. When that’s done you can sleep for a week if you like.’
Biggles walked over to the mess tent, where he found the officers assembling. Addressing them he said, ‘What’s the idea, everyone going to sleep in the middle of a job?’
‘But I say, old centurion, I thought we’d finished,’ protested Bertie, adjusting his monocle.
‘You mean – you got von Zoyton?’
‘Well – er – no. ’Fraid we didn’t quite do that.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He gathered his warriors around him and departed for a less strenuous locality – if you see what I mean.’
Biggles turned to Algy. ‘Let’s have the facts. What happened after I came down? The last thing I remember – I must admit I couldn’t see very clearly – was the four Karga Spitfires about to pass the time of day with what remained of the Messerschmitts.’
‘They just pushed off home,’ announced Algy. ‘We followed them some way, and then, as I didn’t know what had happened here, I thought we’d better come back.’
‘So they got away?’
‘Yes.’
Biggles turned to Flight-Sergeant Smythe, who was standing by. ‘What’s the state of our aircraft?’
‘Five Spitfires, sir, including your own, which has been damaged by gunshots, although it’s still serviceable.’
Biggles nodded. ‘That should be enough.’
‘Enough for what?’ asked Algy.
‘Enough for a show-down.’
‘What’s the hurry?’
‘None, except that this squadron doesn’t leave a job half done. Anyway, I don’t feel like sitting here panting in this heat while von Zoyton sends for replacements and remusters his forces. Never leave your enemy while he’s reeling sore; either depart or finish him off, or he’ll come back and get you. That’s what my first C.O. taught me, and I’ve always found it to be good policy. We can’t leave here without orders, so we must go to Wadi Umbo, drive von Zoyton out, and make the place uninhabitable for some time to come. Not until we’ve done that can we report the route safe.’
‘How can we destroy an oasis?’
‘By putting the water hole out of commission.’
‘When are you going?’
‘Now. I’m going to wipe out the rest of von Zoyton’s machines, either on the ground or in the air – he can have it which way he likes. You’d better toss up to see who’s going to fly the other four machines. Don’t fight over it. It won’t be a picnic. Von Zoyton has just imported a nice line in pom-poms. Someone will have to stay in charge here, but the rest, those who are not flying, can make a sortie in the direction of Wadi Umbo in the car. We’d better get a move on, or it will be dark.’
Ten minutes later the five Spitfires took off in V-formation and headed north-west. Behind Biggles were Algy, Bertie, Henry Harcourt and Ginger. Angus remained in charge at Salima; the others were following in the car.
This time Biggles did not climb for height. The five machines, rocking in the intense heat flung up by the tortured earth, annihilated space as they raced low over rock and sand and stunted camel-thorn. With his head newly bandaged, Biggles did not beat about the arid atmosphere; he went as straight as an arrow for Wadi Umbo, and inside half an hour, just as the sun was falling like a golden ball beyond its ragged fringe of palms, he was striking at the oasis with everything his guns had in them.
When the Spitfires arrived Biggles caught the flash of an airscrew in the clearing that was used by the enemy as an aircraft park. Whether the machine had just come in, or was just going off on a mission, he did not know. He never knew. He gave it a long burst as he dived, and watched his tracer shells curving languidly towards the stationary aircraft. Skimming over the treetops he saw something else, something that filled him with savage glee. There was quite a number of men about. Most of them were dashing for their battle stations, but he did not trouble about them. In a small bay of the clearing he saw a Messerschmitt 109. Men were working on it, hauling in a serpentine pipe-line which seemed to connect it with the ground. The machine was being refuelled with a hand pump. This told him something he did not know before – the position of the fuel dump.
Zooming, and banking steeply, he saw that the first dive of the five Spitfires had not been without effect. Two of the Messerschmitts were burning fiercely; another was so close that it was in imminent danger of catching fire. Men were dragging it away, but a burst from Biggles’ guns sent them running pell-mell for cover.
He now concentrated on the fuel dump to the exclusion of all else. Three bursts he fired as he tore down, and at the end of the third he saw what he hoped to see – a burst of flame spurting from the ground. Then he had to pull out to avoid hitting the trees.
Surveying the scene as he banked he saw that what was happening was what he had feared might happen at Salima. Under the hammering of five converging Spitfires the oasis was already half hidden behind a curtain of smoke through which leapt orange flames. A vast cloud of oily black smoke rising sluggishly into the air from the clearing told him that the oil was alight. The hut that had housed the prisoners, roofed as it was of tinder-dry palm fronds, was a roaring bonfire from which erupted pieces of blazing thatch that set fire to what they fell upon – the dry grass, tents and stores.
The pom-pom gunners had no chance. Streams of shells soared upwards, but the flak1 came nowhere near the aircraft, and Biggles knew that the gunners were simply shooting blindly through the pall of smoke. Men appeared, running out of the inferno, some beating their jackets, which were alight, on the ground.
With the whole oasis hidden under the rolling smoke there was nothing more Biggles could do. Like the others, who had stopped shooting for the same reason, he started circling. And presently, as he watched, he saw a lorry emerge from the smoke and head north. He could just see it through the murk. Presently another lorry, followed by a car, emerged, and he knew that the oasis was being evacuated.
From the beginning or the affair he had not seen the 109 F., so he could only assume that it had been burnt, and that von Zoyton was moving off in one of the surface vehicles. There was nothing more to be done, so, well satisfied with the result of the raid, he cruised a little to the north to count the departing vehicles before returning to Salima. As he flew towards the drifting smoke which by this time had been carried high by the heat-created up-currents, he thought he saw a grey shadow flit across a thin patch. He watched the spot closely, but not seeing anything concluded that he had been mistaken, and went on through the smoke to get in a position from which he would be able to count the surface craft. Presently he saw them. Five vehicles and a line of camels were racing towards the north. He watched them for a moment or two, tempted to shoot them up; and it is an odd fact that had he done so, as he realized an instant later, he would have regretted using what little ammunition remained in his guns. As it was, giving way to a quixotic and perhaps misplaced chivalry, he refrained from making the plight of the desert-bound refugees more perilous than it was. So he turned away, leisurely, and was still turning when a movement in his reflector caused him to move so fast that it seemed impossible that he could have found time to think. Kicking out his foot and flinging the joystick over on the same side, he spun round in a wild bank while a stream of tracer flashed past his wing tip. His mouth went dry at the narrowness of his escape. A split-second later and the bullets, fired from close range, must have riddled his machine. A Messerschmitt 109 F., travelling at tremendous speed, howled past in the wake of its bullets, and Biggles’ lips curled in a sneer of self-contempt for so nearly allowing himself to be caught napping.
That von Zoyton was in the Messerschmitt he knew from the way it was being handled. The shadow in the smoke was now explained. The Nazi had been stalking him for some minutes. There was nothing wrong with that. It was al
l in the game, for in air combat there are no rules. All is fair. There is no question of hitting below the belt. There are no rounds. The formula is simple – get your man. How, when and where, doesn’t matter as long as you get him.
The Messerschmitt was turning on the top of its zoom, obviously with the idea of renewing the attack, and Biggles smiled at the thought of how annoyed the Nazi would be at having lost the supreme advantage of surprise. The other Spitfires were out of sight behind the ever-rising cloud of smoke. Biggles was glad they were. He hoped they would remain there. It would simplify matters. He would not have to identify a machine before shooting at it and the question of collision could not arise, as it might if too many machines became involved. He and von Zoyton had the field to themselves; that suited him, and it would no doubt suit the Nazi.
The two machines were now both at the same height. Both were banking, each striving to get behind the other. Biggles, remembering the stunt which, according to rumour, had helped von Zoyton to pile up his big score, watched his opponent with a sense of alert curiosity. His hand tightened on the control column. He knew that he had a redoubtable opponent, and that could only mean a battle to the death, a battle in which one false move would have fatal results. Neither he nor the Nazi had ever been beaten; now one of them must taste defeat. Within a few minutes either the Spitfire or the Messerschmitt would lie, a crumpled wreck, upon the desert sand.
Both aircraft had now tightened the turn until they were in vertical bank, one on each side of a circle perhaps three hundred feet across. Both were flying on full throttle. Biggles’s joystick was right back; so, he knew, was von Zoyton’s. Neither could turn much faster. The circle might tighten a little, that was all. After that the end would probably depend upon sheer speed combined with manoeuvrability. The machine that could overtake the other would get in the first burst. If von Zoyton was going to pull his trick, it would come, must come, within the next few seconds.
Round and round tore the two machines as though braced on an invisible pivot. Tighter and tighter became the circle as each pilot tried to get the other in his sights. Engines roared, their slipstreams howling over the sleek fuselages. Biggles’s face and lips were bloodless, for the strain was tremendous. He lost count of space, and time, and of the perpendicular. His eyes never left his opponent. It was no use shooting, for the blue tail was always just a little in front of his sights, in the same way that his own tail was just in front of von Zoyton’s sights. He knew that the Nazi was undergoing just the same strain, as he, too, strove to pull in that little extra that would bring the Spitfire before his guns. Biggles could see his opponent clearly. He could feel his eyes on him.
He was beginning to wonder if the story of the trick was, after all, only a rumour, when it happened. He was ready. He had been ready all the time. But even then he could not understand how the Messerschmitt managed to cut across the diameter of the circle. All he knew was that the blue airscrew boss was pointing at him, guns streaming flame. He could hear the bullets ripping through his fuselage. At that moment he thought – no, he was convinced – that the Nazi had him cold, and his reaction was one not uncommon with air fighters. If he was going to crash he would take his opponent with him. Turning at a speed that would have torn the wings off a less robust aircraft, he whirled round in a second turn so flat that centrifugal force clamped him in his seat. But he was straight in the track of his enemy, facing him head-on. His thumb came down viciously on the firing button.
For a fleeting instant the air was filled with tracer as the two machines, travelling at top speed, faced each other across a distance of under two hundred feet. It seemed that nothing could prevent collision. Both pilots fired simultaneously as they came in line. In that tremendous moment Biggles could see his shells and bullets streaming like living sparks into the blue nose, and ripping splinters off the slim fuselage. He was suffering the same punishment. Pieces of metal were leaping from his engine cowling. Splinters flew. Instruments burst, spurting glass. His compass seemed to explode, flinging liquid in his face. Some went into his eyes, and he gasped at the pain. He flew on blindly, trying desperately to see. He felt, rather than heard, the roar of von Zoyton’s machine, and braced himself for the shock of collision. It did not come.
When he was able to see again he found himself spinning, dangerously near the ground. Pulling out, he had to swerve wildly to miss a parachute that was falling across his nose. Below, the Messerschmitt, with broken wings, lay crumpled on the sand.
By the time he had turned von Zoyton was on the ground, shaking off his harness. This done, he looked up and raised his right arm in the Nazi salute. Biggles, a curious smile on his pale face, flew past him very low, and banking so that he could be seen, lifted his hand in a parting signal. He could see the German cars, a quarter of a mile away, heading for the spot, so, satisfied that the vanquished pilot would not be left to die of thirst, he climbed up through the smoke to find the four Spitfires still circling, evidently waiting. They converged on him at once and took up formation, while Biggles, feeling suddenly weary, set a course for Salima.
When, in the swiftly fading desert twilight, he got back to the base, he was not a little surprised to see a Lysander standing in the lengthening shadows of the palms on the edge of the landing ground. After landing he taxied over to it, and jumped down to meet a drill-clad figure wearing the badges of rank of a Group Captain. He recognized one of the senior Operations officers of R.A.F. Headquarters, Middle East.
Biggles saluted. ‘Good evening, sir.’
The Group Captain returned the salute. ‘Evening, Bigglesworth. I’ve just run down to see how you’re getting on. The Air Vice-Marshal is getting a bit worried about his route. He has just learned that von Zayton and his staffel are somewhere in this region.’
‘We discovered that too, sir,’ answered Biggles, smiling. ‘But I think we can use the past tense. The last time I saw von Zoyton, less than an hour ago, he was standing on a sand dune near Oasis Wadi Umbo, looking fed up to the teeth.’
The Group Captain stared. ‘You mean – you’ve actually seen him?’
Biggles grinned. ‘You bet we have. And he’s seen us – hasn’t he, chaps?’ Biggles glanced round the circle of officers, all of whom had now returned to the oasis.
Understanding began to dawn in the Group Captain’s expression. His eyes twinkled. ‘What was von Zoyton fed up about?’ he inquired.
Biggles lit a cigarette. ‘Well, in the first place, we had just had a spot of argument, and he got the worst of it. On top of that my boys had made a bonny bonfire of his base. I don’t think he’ll be using it again for some time; in fact, I don’t think anybody will. The survivors have pulled out in what remained of their surface craft, heading north. You can tell the Air Vice-Marshall that as far as hostile aircraft are concerned his blistering route is okay.’
‘Good work!’
‘It was hot work – in more senses than one,’ returned Biggles, dryly.
‘And you left von Zoyton standing in the desert?’
‘I did, sir.’
‘You might have had a shot at him.’
Biggles made a gesture of annoyance. ‘So I might! Do you know, sir, I clean forgot.’
The Group Captain laughed. ‘Same old spirit. Well, there’s something to be said for it. You’re a funny fellow, Biggles.’
‘Maybe you’re right, sir,’ returned Biggles. ‘But if you don’t mind me saying so, this hell’s kitchen is fast ruining my sense of humour. Now the job’s done, perhaps the Air Vice-Marshal will find us a station where the grass grows green and the fruit doesn’t come out of cans.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ declared the Group Captain.
‘In that case, sir, you won’t mind if we throw a little celebration? If you’re not in a hurry to get back, how about being our guest?’
The Group Captain looked round the ring of weary, grimy, suntanned faces.
‘The honour’s mine,’ he said.
1 Exploding anti-aircraf
t shells.
CHAPTER 1
WHERE IS BIGGLES?
FLIGHT LIEUTENANT ALGY Lacey, D.F.C., looked up as Flying-Officer ‘Ginger’ Hebblethwaite entered the squadron office and saluted.
‘Hello, Ginger – sit down,’ invited Algy in a dull voice.
Ginger groped for a chair – groped because his eyes were on Algy’s face. It was pale, and wore such an expression as he had never before seen on it.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked wonderingly.
Before Algy could answer there was an interruption from the door. It was opened, and the effeminate face of Flight-Lieutenant Lord ‘Bertie’ Lissie grinned a greeting into the room.
‘What cheer, how goes it, and all that?’ he murmured.
Algy did not smile. ‘Stop fooling. Either come in or push off,’ he said curtly.
Bertie threw a glance at Ginger and came in.
‘I wasn’t going to mention this to you, Bertie, but as you’re here you might as well listen to what I have to say,’ resumed Algy.
‘Go ahead,’ said Ginger impatiently. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘I’m very much afraid that something serious has happened to Biggles.’
There was silence while the clock on the mantelpiece ticked out ten seconds and threw them into the past.
‘Is this – official?’ asked Ginger.
‘No.’
‘Then what put the idea into your head?’
‘This,’ answered Algy, picking up a flimsy, buff-coloured slip of paper that lay on his desk. ‘I’m promoted to Squadron Leader with effect from today, and . . . I am now in command of this squadron.’
‘Which can only mean that Biggles isn’t coming back?’ breathed Ginger.
‘That’s how I figure it.’
‘And you had no suspicion, before this order came in, that—’
‘Yes and no,’ broke in Algy. ‘That is to say, I was not consciously alarmed, but as soon as I read that chit I knew that I had been uneasy in my mind for some days. Now, looking back, I can remember several things which make me wonder why I wasn’t suspicious before.’
