by W E Johns
Biggles took them from his pocket and laid them on the desk. 'My log book is in the machine,' he said, 'you know we came here by air.'
The secretary nodded as he glanced at the passports and handed them on to the Chief. 'We shall have to leave these with the police for the moment,' he said, 'and now, if you don't mind—'
Biggles obediently followed him to a side door into a small waiting-room.
'Now what is all this about?' began the secretary tersely, as the door closed behind them. 'Let me have the facts as quickly and concisely as you can.'
Briefly, sticking only to the main facts, yet omitting nothing of importance, Biggles recounted the events which had resulted in their present predicament.
The secretary watched him closely while he spoke, making a note from time to time in a notebook. 'Perhaps I should not say it, but it seems to me that you have done a good piece of work,' he said softly at the end. 'I have already confirmed your record, and the first part of your story—'
'Confirmed it?'
'Yes. I rang up the Air Ministry. Remember, I have already heard part of the story from that small boy of yours.'
'Of course; I had forgotten.'
'It's deuced awkward, Bigglesworth,' went on the secretary. 'If the Swedish Foreign Office get the hang of this thing, goodness knows where it will end. I have spoken to the Chief, who has already guessed that there is some funny business in the wind and made certain arrangements with him in the interests of all concerned. Nevertheless, he insists—and rightly so— that you must leave the country within twenty-four hours, but it is obviously not safe for you to leave this building at present. The Customs authorities have already gone to fetch your machine from where you left it, and they will take care of it. I will send someone who understands these things to see that the tanks are filled. In the early hours of the morning my car will fetch you, with a diplomatic pass, and take you to your machine. There my responsibility will end, but my advice to you is to get back to England as quickly as possible.'
'I will certainly do that,' declared Biggles.
'You promise?'
'On my word.'
'And you will fly a direct course to England-I ask that for special reasons?'
'I will.'
'Good. Head for the Thames and land at Hendon* –no, don't ask questions–land at Hendon. You will probably receive further instructions when you get there.'
* R.A.F. Station Hendon, North London. Now the Royal Air Force Museum and open to the public.
'It shall be as you say.'
'Then that is all, I think; we can't keep the Chief waiting any longer. In your own interests you will have to go back to your-er-room, the four of you, until the time comes for you to leave.'
'Yes, that would be safest. By the way, we have some papers-er-documents—'
'You mean those the boy had?'
'Yes. Did he tell you?'
'I have them.'
'Splendid. . It is a relief to know they are in safe hands.'
'All right, let us go back now. Follow your instructions to the letter and fly direct to England; don't forget that. You will not be really safe until you get there, but if I can do anything else to ensure your safety, you may be sure that I will do it. Please remember that this meeting is unofficial. In my official capacity I can only wash my hands of the whole thing, but the circumstances are rather unusual. Your German friends will be watched, of course, but no restraint can be placed on their movements. Naturally, the Swedish Government does not want to be involved in trouble with its neighbours.'
'I quite understand that.'
'Well, I'll just have another word with the Chief and then I must leave you. I have made arrangements that you will not want for small luxuries during the rest of the time that you will be here.'
They returned to the larger room where the others were still waiting, and after a short conversation between the secretary and the Chief, which, of course, they did not understand, the Chief pressed a button and their jailer appeared to conduct them back to their cell.
Chapter 16
A One-Sided Fight
It was cold, with a touch of frost in the air, when a knock on the door warned them that the hour for their departure had arrived. They were ready, for they had no luggage to think about, and excitement had prevented them from sleeping except in short, fitful doses.
'Tonight, if all goes well, we shall sleep in our own beds,' said Biggles quietly, 'and I for one shan't be sorry. It seems a long time since I had a full night's rest. Come on, you chaps, here's our escort.'
The door had opened, disclosing the night warden and two men in plain clothes. Not a word passed between any of them as the warden led the way through a long stone corridor, and then up some stairs, stopping at last before what was evidently a side or back door of the police station.
'Der passborts,' was all he said, as he handed Biggles the four slim, blue books, bearing the Royal Arms, in gold, on the front. He opened the door quietly.
'Thank you,' replied Biggles, and followed the two plain-clothes men into a narrow street where a large saloon car was waiting. Without speaking, they took their places, and in a moment were speeding through silent, deserted streets. It was only a short drive to the waterfront, and the car soon pulled up before two massive wooden gates where a policeman stood on duty. He stood aside at a single word from the driver, who indicated to the passengers that the time had come for them to leave the car, and led the way through a small wicket gate into a large, gloomy building, open at the sides, and lighted by a few dingy electric light bulbs. They went straight through it with-out stopping and emerged on a concrete wharf to which several small motor-boats were moored.
Biggles gave a low exclamation of pleasure as he saw the Vandal, intact and undamaged, amongst them.
'Take a quick look round and see that nothing has been tampered with, and make sure the tanks are full,' he told Smyth in a low voice.
The memory of the gloomy wharf, with its inky water and sombre buildings, was to remain in their memory for a long time. The two plain-clothes men were joined by two night watchmen, and the four of them stood in a little group, silently watching the airmen preparing for their voyage. It was an eerie scene in which every sound was magnified a hundredfold.
The sky was already turning grey by the time they were satisfied with their inspection, and they cast off the mooring rope that held the machine to the wharf. Biggles took his place at the controls.
'We shall kick up a dickens of a din when we start up,' he told Algy quietly. 'If Blackbeard is about he is bound to hear us, but I am afraid that cannot be avoided. The engine will warm up as we taxi out. All right, start up,' he went on more loudly to Smyth, who was standing by the propeller.
The noise, as Biggles had prophesied, was appalling in the restricted area, and the group on the quay put their hands over their ears as they stepped back out of the slipstream as the Vandal swung slowly round to face the wide gates that gave access to the open sea. Biggles waved his hand in silent farewell to the four watchers of their departure, a signal that was acknowledged by a nod from the man who had driven the car; then, giving the engine the throttle in short, sharp bursts, he surged towards the opening.
As they passed the barrier into open water he looked quickly to right and left, and in the dim light saw a small motor-boat shoot out from the shelter of the high sea-wall. It was instinct more than actual thought that made him push the throttle wide open, and it was well that he did so, for even as the Vandal leapt forward under the full power of the propeller, a shot, quickly followed by another, rang out above the noise of the engine. The vicious impact of a bullet somewhere in the tail of the machine reached his ears. He did not pause or even look back, but held the machine, now rapidly gathering flying speed, on its course. At that moment, a weather-stained tramp, with the Russian hammer-and-sickle ensign hanging limply from its peak, churning up a creamy whirlpool of foam under its stern, began to swing round across their path. There w
as no time to turn. To stop was impossible, for if the pilot throttled back, the impetus of the machine would inevitably carry it nose on into the iron side of the tramp, so he took the only course left open. He jerked the joystick back and literally dragged the Vandal off the water. For one dreadful moment he thought she was going to stall, for she wobbled unsteadily. Had the engine missed at that moment, the end would have been certain, but its rhythmic roar never faltered, and the machine, picking up flying speed, roared over the nose of the steamer, its wing-tips missing the foremast by inches.
Looking down he had a fleeting vision of upturned faces staring at them, and then the danger was passed. He moistened his lips and looked at Algy's white face with a curious smile. 'Closish,' he smiled, as he brought the machine to even keel.
Algy could only nod grimly.
Biggles leaned out of the cockpit and looked behind and below at the fast-receding harbour, still dim in the half light, and saw a motor-boat cutting a white streak of foam across its calm surface. He tried to pick out Blackbeard's machine, but he could not see it, so he turned again and settled down for the long flight that lay before them.
From time to time during the next hour he looked back, but sea and sky were clear and he decided that no pursuit had been attempted. Heading south-west, the Vandal passed over Zeeland and the maze of islands around it. A Heinkel seaplane, bearing the red and white markings of the Royal Danish Air Service, came up and looked at them as they passed over Jutland, but the pilot, after a cheerful wave, which Biggles returned, turned and disappeared into the distance as the cold grey waters of the North Sea loomed up ahead. For a long time they could see the North German and Dutch coastlines in the far distance over their port bow as they struck off on a slightly more southerly course for the mouth of the Thames, but presently they were lost to view as the Vandal stood out over the open sea for England.
The day wore on, and the sun climbed higher and higher into the blue sky, but still the Vandal sped on, the engine purring with the steady beat of a well-oiled sewing machine.
Suddenly Algy, who had been gazing around, touched Biggles lightly on the arm and pointed backward over the tail.
Biggles turned and caught his breath sharply, for dead in line behind them were four aeroplanes. One, which was some distance in front of the other three, was unmistakable; it was Blackbeard's seaplane. It was about three miles away, but after watching it for a few minutes, Biggles knew that it was gaining, as were the other three, which now assumed a military formation.
He looked at Algy with a wry smile, for according to his calculations they were still a good seventy or eighty miles from the English coast. He looked below, but the sea was clear of shipping except for two lonely trawlers which they had already passed, and a smudge of smoke on the far horizon.
Algy raised his eyebrows inquiringly, but Biggles only shrugged his shoulders. There was little he could do except keep straight on, for there was not a cloud in the sky in which they might take cover.
Algy leaned forward until his mouth was near Biggles' ear. 'Where did those other three come from?' he yelled.
'Blackbeard called 'em up by wireless, I expect!' roared Biggles in reply. 'We might have expected it-we had to pass near Germany!'
Algy nodded and turned again to watch the pursuing machines. The formation of three had now caught up with Blackbeard's seaplane and the four of them were not more than a mile behind. 'They'll catch us in about ten minutes,' was his mental note as he sat back in his seat.
The minutes passed slowly. Biggles racked his brain for a solution to the problem, but could find no answer; in the air or on the water, they were completely at the mercy of their opponents. The chatter of a machine-gun made him look round quickly. One of the three machines had outdistanced the others, and, gathering a little altitude, was now coming down on his tail with two long fingers of orange flame spurting from its engine cowling.
Biggles's eyes narrowed. 'You dirty dog,' he thought, 'you'd shoot at an unarmed machine, would you? By James, if I had a gun I'd show you something.' The range was still too long for effective shooting, but there was always a chance of a stray bullet hitting one or the other of them, or disabling the machine. Presently, when the range became shorter, they would certainly be hit if he continued to fly straight, yet his only hope of escape lay in reaching the coast; to land on the open sea would simply provide their enemies with a stationary target at which they could shoot until the machine was sunk or its crew killed. He pushed the joystick forward, determined to hold out as long as possible, and when the worst came to the worst, treat the gunners to a few of the tricks he had learnt in the grim school of war. He took out his revolver and passed it to Algy, not that he expected him to do any serious damage with it, for a revolver against a machine-gun might be compared with a pea-shooter against a rifle. Still, it was better than nothing. He leaned out of the cockpit and saw the leading machine closing in on him. With all his old-time cool-ness, he watched the gunner's head move forward to peer through the sights, and kicked his rudder bar at the precise moment that the German fired. He smiled grimly as a stream of tracer bullets swept past his wing tip, and the gunner's head jerked up again to discover how his target had vanished so suddenly from his sights.
The distance lessened between them, and the loss of speed occasioned by the manœuvre enabled the other machines to come nearer, one of which went down in a steep dive with the apparent intention of coming up under the Vandal's keel.
Biggles kept them all in view, and as the lower machine came up he flung the Vandal round on its axis and charged straight back through the middle of the formation. The rear machine got in a fleeting shot at him as he passed, and a bullet whanged against the Vandal's engine cowling, but it did no damage. Algy had fired, too, but without visible result. Again Biggles turned, and, thrusting the stick hard forward, snatched a lead of nearly a quarter of a mile before the other pilots had grasped his intention. He knew it was only postponing the end, for such manœuvres could not go on indefinitely, and he could not hope to be successful every time, yet it was better than doing nothing.
The gunners, with their greatly superior speed, were on him again almost at once, like a pack of wolves on the trail of a wounded doe, and again he had to swerve wildly to dodge the leaden hail. It cost him a certain amount of valuable height, but it was unavoidable. His lips became a straight line as the gunners, gaining experience by their previous failures, opened out and prepared to come in from each side and below at the same time, and he held the stick tightly, determined that if the Vandal was hit in a vital place, he would at least take one of them crashing down to oblivion with him.
Something—it may have been a flash of his old wartime intuition—made him look up, and he stiffened, staring unbelievingly. He jabbed Algy in the ribs with his elbow and pointed. Six all-metal Nimrods*, bearing the red, white and blue insignia of the Royal Air Force, their gleaming cowlings half hidden behind the whirling discs of their propellers, were screaming down in a wing-tip to wing-tip dive. As they neared the Vandal the formation broke like a bursting rocket and the separate machines took up positions around the travel-stained amphibian. Biggles looked at them wonderingly, marvelling at their sudden appearance. Then he saw and understood. Far away, almost on the horizon, was the squat, ugly outline of an aircraft-carrier heading towards them at full speed, two great feathers of spray leaping from her knife-like bows. Something told him that its appearance had not been simply a lucky fluke. What was it Hesterley had said? 'If I can do anything more to ensure your safety, I will.' He must have rung up the Air Ministry on the telephone, or got in touch with them by wireless, and the carrier was the answer.
* Hawker Nimrod, a single seat biplane fighter, armed with 2 machine guns, used by the Royal Navy in the early 1930s.
He looked behind, but Blackbeard and his three companions were already mere specks in the distance, racing nose down for home. The Nimrods had made no attempt to pursue them; the safety of the British machine
was their only consideration. He caught Algy's eye and grinned, and then waved to the pilot of the nearest machine, who had pushed up his goggles, disclosing the smiling face of a lad of about eighteen. 'Good old England,' he thought soberly, 'you certainly turned up trumps at the crucial moment that time.'
A dark, low-lying shadow appeared on the skyline, and he knew that it was the English coast.
The Nimrods stayed with them until the estuary of the Thames opened out below, and then, reverting to their flight formation, dived a parting salute and disappeared in the direction of their parent ship which had been left far behind. Half an hour later the Vandal's wheels rumbled over the famous Royal Air Force aerodrome at Hendon and rolled to a stand-still in front of the hangars. An N.C.O.* in slate-blue uniform detached himself from a little group of mechanics and hurried towards it.
* Non-commissioned Officer i.e. a Sergeant or a Corporal.
'Major Bigglesworth, sir?' he asked Biggles, who was stiffly removing his flying cap.
'Yes?'
'Would you be good enough to come with me, sir-to the Air Ministry? I have a car waiting.'
'Do you want us all to come?'
'Nothing was said about anyone else, sir. There's a party here to take charge of the machine,' he added, glancing critically at the dirtiest aeroplane he had ever seen in his life.
'She looks as if a wash and brush up wouldn't do her any harm,' smiled Biggles as he jumped down from the cockpit.
'That's what I was thinking, sir,' laughed the N.C.O.
'Just give me a minute and I'll be with you,' Biggles told him, and then to Algy, 'I suppose the Air Ministry wants a full report of the whole thing, and one of us will be sufficient. You'd better take Smyth and Ginger along to your rooms, and I'll join you as soon as I can get away. We'll leave the machine here for the present.'
