by W E Johns
Algy watched the little upright figure disappear briskly round the corner, with a peculiar smile on his face. 'I like the way that kid walks and the way he holds his head up,' he mused, as he made his way towards the club house.
Chapter 4
In The Enemy Camp
Biggles, after Ginger had departed to fetch the car, made himself as comfortable as possible by the small fire, and prepared to wait. He was well aware that by keeping the fire alight he was taking a big risk of being found, but he had no alternative without running the risk of getting double pneumonia by sitting in soaking wet clothes for a couple of hours or more. However, he hoped that his pursuers had given up the chase. Once, shortly after Ginger's departure, he thought he heard a shout in the distance, but he was not sure. What he heard was Ginger's shout to lead the men with the car off the trail, but of course he was not to know that. With the lad out of the way he was able to arrange his coat and trousers, boots and socks, completely round the fire, while he himself crouched over it as near as he could get without actually burning himself. An hour passed slowly and he felt certain that Blackbeard and company had abandoned their search for him, so he threw the rest of the wood on to the fire, and soon had his clothes dry enough to put on. The fire died down to a heap of glowing embers, and although his twisted ankle was still giving him a good deal of pain, he dropped off into a doze.
He was awakened by a low growl from the open doorway, and looking up with a start, could just make out the head of a large animal, its eyes reflecting the glow of the embers. He knew at once that it could only be a dog, so he did the best thing he could in the circumstances; he spoke to the animal in a quiet, caressing voice, hoping to put it at its ease. 'What's the matter, old man?' he said coaxingly, but nevertheless ran his eye over the floor for a weapon in case the beast proved savage. The only answer he got was another growl, and as the dog came farther into the hut, he saw that it was a large, black Alsatian, a breed that has too much of the wolf in it to be either courageous or reliable. It growled again and showed its fangs wickedly. 'All right, have it that way if you like; get out, you brute,' snapped Biggles
Instantly there was a shout outside. 'Come on, here he is,' cried a voice. There was a low whistle, which the dog quickly obeyed, and disappeared; heavy footsteps sounded just outside the open doorway.
'Come on out of that,' said a voice.
Biggles stiffened, but made no reply. Had there been a door, he would have tried to hold the place until Ginger's return, trusting that he brought a driver who would stand by him; but as there was no door and he had no weapon, he was helpless.
'Did you hear what I said – outside!' repeated the voice venomously.
Still Biggles made no reply. The muzzle of an automatic appeared in the doorway, slowly followed by a hand and arm, and then a face; Biggles recognized the man at once for one of those he had seen in the hut with Blackbeard.
'Yes, what do you want?' he asked coldly.
'I'll show you presently,' replied the man, and then, to someone outside, 'Serge, slip up and fetch the car; never mind that tyre, get it along somehow. And you sit still till you're told to move,' he went on, nodding evilly at Biggles. 'The Boss wants a word with you.'
In two or three minutes the car came chugging down the road, with its driver cursing the faulty steering caused by the punctured tyre.
'Come on, get in,' said the man at the door. 'You can either come on your feet or be knocked on the head and carried. If I had my way I should know how to deal with you.'
'Are you an Englishman?' asked Biggles curiously.
'I was – till I did ten years at Dartmoor*.'
* High security prison located on the isolated moorland of Dartmoor, Devon.
'Well, I expect you deserved it; you'll do another ten shortly or I'm very much mistaken,' said Biggles, rising with difficulty and putting on his coat. Resistance was useless; he had no desire to add another injury to his damaged ankle, which was giving him quite enough trouble.
'Stow that gab; step out and look lively.' The man thrust the automatic roughly into Biggles' side as he limped out of the doorway. 'You do what you're told – see,' he snarled.
Biggles climbed into the back seat of the car, and the man got up beside him. 'Off you go, Serge,' he told the driver.
The jolting of the damaged car up the rough road caused Biggles excruciating agony, and he was glad when it reached the main road. Presently it turned off down a lane, or drive, and pulled up in front of a fairly large house. He was dragged roughly out of the car and hurried up two flights of stairs into a room; the door slammed behind him and he was left alone.
There was no artificial light, but sufficient starlight to see that the room was roughly furnished as a bed-room. He crossed at once to the window, but two iron bars had been screwed vertically over it, evidently in anticipation of his capture, and as far as he could make out from his limited field of view, a sheer drop of twenty or thirty feet into a courtyard lay below it. Escape, that way, particularly in his present lame condition, was out of the question, and he quickly made up his mind that all he could do was to wait for daylight to get a better idea of his position.
There were no blankets on the bed and he passed a miserable night, or such as was left of it, but when dawn came he was glad to see that the swelling of his ankle had abated slightly. He rebound it firmly, using strips of his shirt for the purpose, which brought relief. At about eight o'clock, the man with whom he had previously spoken, brought him a jug of tea and some bread and butter, and departed without a word.
Biggles was thankful for the food, for he was almost famished, and after eating it was about to make another survey of his prison, when the sound of a car outside took him to the window, which he now saw overlooked some outbuildings and a grass-grown drive, up which a powerful car was approaching. He watched it curiously until it swung out of sight round a corner of the house, where he heard it stop. Almost immediately afterwards, heavy footsteps sounded on the uncarpeted stairs and the key of his room rattled in the lock.
The door was pushed open and three men entered; one, who treated the others with deference, was the man who had been responsible for Biggles' capture; the other two were strangers, and that they were both foreigners was obvious at a glance. One, who seemed to be the senior, was an elderly, stoutly-built man with a grey beard, high cheekbones, and piercing eyes. He wore a dark overcoat with an astrakhan collar. The other was lean, swarthy, with black hair and a drooping black moustache; his expression was cold and cruel, and he instantly reminded Biggles of someone he had seen on the films, a professional killer in a gangster picture.
The elderly man sat on the edge of the bed and regarded Biggles for some moments without speaking. Then, rising to his feet and facing him squarely, he said, slowly and deliberately, 'What were you doing in that aeroplane?'
'Whatever I was doing does not authorize you to take the law into your own hands,' Biggles told him shortly.
'Answer my question.'
'What do you suppose I was doing – trying to get a free flight? That I was on it in the creek where your fellows found me I'll not deny, but it was by accident. It was either that or be drowned. My one idea was to get off it as quickly as possible, as you must realize if you have all the facts before you; otherwise, why should I be such a fool as to come ashore as I did?'
'Where did you board it?'
'On the water of course, where else? Don't ask me to name the place because I can't. I suspect we are in Northumberland, but I am by no means sure.' Biggles spoke the literal truth, and said the words with conviction.
His interrogator changed the subject. 'Your name is Bigglesworth, is it not?'
'It is.'
'Not by any chance the Major Bigglesworth who acquired a reputation during the War?'
'I served during the War, if that is what you mean, and, I hope, not entirely without success.'
The man exchanged glances with his companions and nodded slowly. 'And now you are
in the British Intelligence Service, eh?' he asked quietly.
Biggles laughed; he could not help it. 'I am not,' he said. 'I have been abroad until recently*, but at present I am doing nothing. I am not in any way connected with any branch of either the intelligence or regular services.'
* See Biggles: The Cruise of the Condor (published by Red Fox).
'Do you expect us to believe it was by accident that you were on our flying boat last night?'
'I do not, it sounds much too unlikely,' admitted Biggles, 'but I can only assure you that at this time yesterday I had not the remotest idea that such a craft existed.'
'But unfortunately for yourself you know now.'
'Why unfortunately? From what I saw of it it was an extremely interesting-looking machine, and I should like to see more of it.' Biggles spoke lightly, but he did not deceive himself as to the other's meaning.
'Perhaps you will, my young friend, perhaps you will,' the man assured him. 'You may see more of it than you wish.'
'May I inquire the purpose of this conversation, and how much longer you propose to continue this outrage?' asked Biggles coldly.
'The answer to the first part of your question is that I wished to satisfy myself as to your identity, and possibly ascertain why you were so ill-advised to meddle in matters that do not concern you. The answer to the second I cannot for the moment furnish. I am very much afraid I shall have to take you for a long flight, Major Bigglesworth. You are not by any chance seeking employment?'
'Not with you.'
'And it would be too much to expect you to give your word of honour that if I released you, you would forget the existence of the flying boat and what you have seen?'
'You are quite right, it would.'
'Ah! I was afraid so. In that case your fate is in your own hands; you will return as a passenger in the machine the next time she visits this coast. After that—' The man shrugged his shoulders, and followed by the others left the room without another word. Presently Biggles saw the car departing down the drive.
'This is a bigger thing than I imagined,' he soliloquised, 'and that fellow, I fancy, is the boss. They must have got in touch with him at once after last night's affair, and he made a special journey to see me. Well, I should like to know where his headquarters are. I wonder what the dickens poor old Algy is thinking by this time.'
As if in answer, the low drone of an aeroplane engine reached his ears; at first he paid little attention to it, thinking it was some club machine on a cross-country flight, or joyride, but when the deep bellow of the Napier Lion became recognizable he jumped to the window, and stared up eagerly. It was the Vandal!
To say that he was surprised would be to put it mildly, and for the moment he could not imagine how on earth Algy had learned where he was. He had taken it for granted that Ginger, on returning to the hut and finding he had disappeared, would proceed on his way to London, the richer for the change out of the money he had given him. 'Ginger must have got in touch with him somehow or other; there's no other possible solution,' he mused. 'Good for him. I mentioned Brooklands now I come to think of it; he must have fetched Algy up here. Smart lad, that.'
The arrival of Algy on the scene put a different complexion on matters, although on further consideration, it was hard to see how he could help him. Had he been able to signal to the machine, still circling above, something might be done to effect his rescue, but as it was there was no way of letting them know just where he was. Algy could hardly be expected to know the actual house in which he was confined, and there would certainly be other houses about, he reflected. He was glad to see the machine however, for its presence was a link with Algy, and he was half sorry when it presently drifted out of sight and the noise of the engine faded into silence.
A frugal lunch was brought in about one o'clock by the same man who had brought his breakfast.
'When's the flying boat coming over here again?' Biggles asked him as he was about to leave the room without speaking.
'It'll be soon enough for you,' the man assured him truculently.
'What a nice cheerful cove you are,' muttered Biggles as the fellow went out and slammed the door behind him.
The afternoon passed slowly, and as the daylight began to fade he grew irritated at his enforced inaction. 'I shall go crazy if they keep me here long, doing nothing,' he growled, and examined the room for the hundredth time. Every article that might have been used as an instrument to prise open or break down the door or window, had been removed. The door admittedly did not look very strong, being of an ordinary, cheap sort, but it refused to give in the slightest degree to the pressure of his shoulder, and as he knew that more forcible methods could not be employed without a good deal of noise, he turned again to the window.
It was now nearly dark, but a slight movement caught his eye, a movement that from his elevated position was quite plain, but which would be invisible from the ground floor. He peered forward through the glass and saw a small figure creeping stealthily along the side of the old-fashioned coach house, keeping close to the brickwork. He watched it breathlessly as it reached a corner, straightened, and looked up, eyes roving slowly over the house. As the face turned towards the window through which Biggles was staring, he saw that it was Ginger. The boy saw him at the same moment. He raised his hand to show that he had seen him, and then disappeared. His departure was so swift and unexpected that at first Biggles could not believe that he was no longer there, and he continued to stare at the spot, aware that his heart was beating furiously. He watched the place where Ginger had disappeared until it was quite dark, half expecting some signal to be made, but none came. 'Well, at least they know where I am,' he thought jubilantly.
Chapter 5
Rescue
When Ginger had disappeared, he had merely dropped flat and then wormed his way on his stomach, like a snake, to the rear of the building. On reaching it he glanced quickly to right and left and then darted into an evergreen shrubbery just beyond it. Five minutes later he arose, filthy and begrimed, from a ditch a good hundred yards away from the house. He doubled down a hedge to the road, paused for an instant to listen, and then, crossing it swiftly, made his way down the hedge on the far side, and presently broke into a trot which he kept up until he came to a coppice, nearly a quarter of a mile away. Even there he did not relax his caution, but moved through the trees with no more noise than a shadow, and with unerring instinct struck his object at the first attempt. It was a motor car, parked just inside the coppice which adjoined the road.
Algy was standing by the radiator in a listening attitude, but he started violently as Ginger rose up, out of the ground as it were, by his side. 'Great Scot! You made me jump,' he ejaculated. 'It looks to me as if you were right,' he added, referring to Ginger's insistence that he, not Algy, should take the first scouting expedition from the rendezvous they had established that evening after leaving the aerodrome as arranged. Algy, not unnaturally, had been in favour of leaving Ginger with the car, but Ginger would not hear of it. 'For one thing,' he had said, 'you are twice as big as I am, which means that you stand double the chance of being spotted; and for another, I'm used to this sort of thing and you're not.'
Algy did not ask him how it was that he was 'used to that sort of thing,' but he eyed him suspiciously.
'Well, he's there,' said Ginger casually.
'How do you know?' asked Algy quickly.
'I saw him.'
'Where?'
'At a window; he's right up the top of the house.'
For a moment Algy stared at him; 'You ought to have been an Indian,' he told him.
'I should say I ought,' replied Ginger in his best American drawl. 'Well, I guess we'd better go and get him,' he added.
'I think I ought to go and fetch the police.'
'That's a bright idea. I can see them handling this job; by the time they had got a search warrant and all the rest of it Biggles would be anywhere but in that house. Even now they might shift him at any minute.
Pretty fools we should look if we went to the police and then came back and found the place empty.'
'Perhaps you're right.'
'There's no perhaps about it.'
'Well, I'm an amateur at housebreaking so I shall have to go and have a look round before I decide on a plan. We haven't a weapon between us and these fellows are certain to be armed. I wonder how many there are of them?'
'I didn't see anybody except Biggles, but I knew he was there before I saw him.'
'How?'
'I found the car with the burst tyre. I crawled all round the house, staring at every window, before I spotted him; then I gave him the OK and came back.
'I'd better go and have a look at that window.'
'I shouldn't; you might be spotted. The next time we go up there will be to fetch Biggles. I've got an idea.'
'Well, what is it?'
'The first thing to do is to get the other people out of the house.'
'And how do you propose to do that – go up and ask them if they'd kindly step outside while—'
'Shucks! I could think of a dozen ways to get them out. I'll fetch them out, don't you worry. Now this is my scheme. First of all we cut a couple of good cudgels.'
'I haven't a knife—'
'You ought to carry one. I never move without mine. I was saying, we cut a couple of cudgels and take that spare can of petrol—'
'You're not going to set the place on fire!'
'I didn't say I was; I wish you'd give me a chance to finish. What was I saying? Oh yes, the petrol. Now this is the racket. We go up to the house together. When we get there I'll show you the tool shed where you get an axe; I know there's one there because I've seen it.'
