by W E Johns
‘Well?’
‘Or else it offers a way of concealing the cargo they are carrying. As we know as well as anyone, an aeroplane can get about with less interference than any form of surface transport. You can take it from me that the whole thing boils down to that cargo, and when we have found out what that is we shall know everything. Harry Marton found out what it was, I’ll bet. He found out by accident, no doubt, but it put paid to his Cape record.’
‘Which means that it is something of an illicit or contraband nature?’
‘Definitely.’
‘What could it be?’
‘The only thing I can think of at the moment is slaves. There’s a big business still done in slaves between this part of Africa, the Sudan, and Arabia. Our people have tried to stop it for years; they’ve curtailed the slavers’ activities but they haven’t stopped the traffic, not by a long way.’
‘Human freight is heavy stuff. What is a slave worth—have you any idea?’
‘About a hundred pounds, I believe.’
‘By the time they’ve paid their running expenses, Stampoulos and Leroux are not going to get very fat out of that, carrying only two at a time in a Puss.’
‘True enough. But as I said just now, what these people are doing is of secondary importance to us. We’ve come to get Harry Marton. We’ve managed to get his machine, which is as much as old Mr. Marton hoped for; but in view of what we know we shall have to count the trip a failure if we don’t bring the boy back in it.’
‘And we can’t very well do that until we know where he is,’ observed Ginger tritely.
Biggles glanced up. ‘There’s an awful lot of truth in that, Ginger, my lad,’ he agreed. ‘The first thing we must do, then, is to find out where he is.’
‘And having done that, what are we going to do?’ inquired Algy dubiously. ‘Are we in a position to launch an attack on the enemy stronghold for the purpose of rescuing him?’
‘Frankly, I don’t think we are,’ admitted Biggles. ‘Quite apart from the white men, who are doubtless armed with rifles, there are those toughs we saw this morning to be considered. I’m not exactly aching to get tangled up with a bunch of assagais, and that’s a fact.’
‘Sez you,’ agreed Algy warmly. ‘What’s the programme, then?’
‘We’ve got to locate this place Karuli before we do anything else.’
‘What are you going to do—fly round and look for it?’
‘I’m not going to walk, you can bet your life on that.’
‘When are you thinking of making a start?’
‘We’d better leave it until tomorrow. It’s after two o’clock now, and we’ve got to shift this petrol yet.’
‘Then let’s get to it,’ suggested Ginger. ‘I’m nearly asleep on my feet, and the sooner the job’s done the sooner we can all hit the hay. This business is getting a lot too much like hard labour for my liking.’
‘I’ll bring a gang of navvies next time to do the rough stuff,’ Biggles promised, smiling, as he put on his hat and walked to the door. He reached it, and was about to step outside, when a movement in the distance caught his eye, and instead of going out he took a quick pace backward.
Algy snatched up the rifle and peered over his shoulder. ‘Antelopes, by jingo,’ he muttered.
Ginger joined the others, and looking out, saw a herd of long-horned animals grazing peacefully about a mile away near the eastern boundary of the landing-ground. ‘What about knocking one of them over and having steak for supper?’
‘I think it’s a rattling good idea if it can be done,’ agreed Biggles. ‘It’s worth trying, anyway. But you’d better not go wandering off, Ginger; you’re tired as it is. Algy, you take the rifle and try your hand at stalking while Ginger and I shift the petrol. If you get one there’s no need to drag the whole beast back; cut off a haunch: that will be enough. The rest would go bad before we could eat it.’
‘Good enough,’ agreed Algy enthusiastically, and with the rifle in his hand he crept out into the coppice.
‘Come on, Ginger, let’s go and find a good place to dump this petrol,’ ordered Biggles. ‘We shall have to do it quietly or we shall alarm the game.’
CHAPTER X
ALGY’S ANTELOPE HUNT
ALLY soon covered half the distance that separated him from his quarry, for he had plenty of cover, but thereafter the going became more difficult. He knew that it was hopeless to attempt to get within range of the wary beasts by going across the open aerodrome, and the country on either side was nearly as bare. After he had left the coppice on the edge of which the aerodrome buildings were situated, he had been able to advance by keeping a large clump of bushes between himself and the herd, but he had now reached the end of the bushes, and from there on the ground, in a direct line with the animals, offered no concealment of any sort. He estimated his distance from them to be about eight hundred yards, although in the clear atmosphere it looked considerably less, and he could see them distinctly.
Thinking that it might be possible to achieve success with a long shot, he slipped his rear sight up to the eight hundred mark and raised the rifle; but he lowered it again immediately, for the heat-soaked air rippled and quivered like disturbed water, making it quite impossible to take steady aim.
‘I shall have to get a lot nearer than this,’ he mused, and casting about for another way of approach, he saw something that had previously escaped his notice. It was a shallow gully, presumably a dried-up watercourse judging by the dry reeds that lined its banks; it meandered across the landscape, passing within two hundred yards of the antelopes at its nearest point. He remembered seeing it from the air.
Lying flat in the grass, for in order to reach it he had to pass for some distance in full view of the animals, he wormed his way towards the gully, and managed to reach it without alarming the game. He waited for a minute or two to recover his composure, for in the heat of the sun the method of progress he had been compelled to employ was exhausting, and then set off down the gully, picking his way with great care, knowing well that the slightest noise would be fatal to his object.
He was some time gaining his vantage point, for here and there the gully was very shallow, and in such places he had to crawl; but in the end he reached it and wormed his way into the reeds that lined the bank in order to reach the brink and thus command a view of the antelopes.
Slowly and with infinite pains he drew himself level with the top and peeped over. There was not an animal in sight. Dumbfounded, for he was convinced that the antelopes could not have seen him, he could only lie and stare. But his quarry might have dissolved into thin air for all the sign there was of them. Then, in the far distance, he saw a tiny cloud of dust slowly settling, and it told him which way the beasts had gone.
‘Well, dash my wig!’ he muttered, in a tone of mixed disappointment and astonishment. ‘That’s good-bye to our supper.’ Slowly he slid back down through the reeds, and with all need for concealment gone, was about to rise to his feet when he saw something that made him gasp, and sent him squirming into the thickest part of the rushes, where he lay motionless.
Coming up the gully was a line of armed savages, the same, judging by their attire, as they had seen that morning when they had been at work on the Puss Moth. But now, at their head, in an open shirt, shorts, with a solar topee on his head and a rifle crooked in his left arm, marched a white man. No longer was there any mystery about the antelopes’ disappearance, and Algy saw at once that to attempt to move would be folly, for to do so without being seen was out of the question; so he could only lie still and hope for the best, although, lying in the thick reeds as he was, he felt it was unlikely that he would be discovered. Nor would he have been except for an extraordinary unlucky chance that completely upset his calculations, and in a few seconds altered every possible aspect of the situation.
The warriors, with the white man striding along in front, held steadily and silently on their way towards the aerodrome buildings which, Algy had no dou
bt, was their objective, and they were only a few yards away from him when it happened. Without warning, from out of the dry reeds on the opposite bank came a leopard and two cubs, all yawning and stretching like domestic cats that have been asleep on the hearth. Algy nearly froze with horror when he realized that they must have been there all the time, and that during his stalk down the gully he must have passed within a dozen yards of them. However, there was no time to dwell on his narrow escape, for the leopard, looking up, saw the party just below. Its sleepiness disappeared in a flash. With a vicious snarl it crouched low, the very embodiment of feline fury. Another second and it would have charged, but at that moment the white man fired. That the bullet had gone home Algy knew, for he distinctly heard the soft phut of the lead striking flesh, and the creature’s behaviour proved it. With a frightful roar it leapt high into the air, tearing at its side with its teeth; then, as it struck the earth again, it twisted, and with a single bound sprang straight into the reeds where Algy lay hidden.
His actions during the next two seconds were prompted far more by sheer instinct of self-preservation than lucid thought. The leopard landed almost on top of him. It saw him at once and turned like lightning, teeth flashing and claws bared, a picture that was to remain clear in his mind for a long time to come. With a convulsive movement he jerked up the rifle, shoved the muzzle almost into the beast’s mouth and pulled the trigger. Then, not waiting to see the result, still clutching the rifle, he flung himself over the bank and ran like a hare towards the bungalow.
As he ran two thoughts flashed into his whirling brain. The first was that Biggles would take no notice of the shot, thinking that he had fired at the antelopes, and the second was that the man he had left standing in the gully might shoot at him, for the fact that he was with the natives more than suggested that he was the ‘master’ to whom the leader had referred that morning during the altercation near the Puss. With this new fear in his mind he crouched low and swerved ; and it was a good thing that he did so, for a moment later a bullet tore up the ground close to his feet and zipped away into the air. He swerved again, expecting another shot to be fired, but it did not come, and in a detached way he wondered why. He noticed that the unknown man’s rifle was of a heavier calibre than his own, and the report much deeper. Would Biggles hear it? Yes! Algy saw him run out of the trees with Ginger, stand staring for a moment, and then make a dash towards the hangar where the Puss Moth was housed.
Still no shot came from behind, so he risked a glance over his shoulder, and the sight that met his gaze explained why. Strung out along his path of flight, in a direct line between him and the white man and therefore obstructing his view, were the savages, running; but any relief he experienced from the fact that he was no longer under fire was more than counterbalanced by the proximity of the nearest savage, who, evidently a faster runner than his companions, was well out in front of them and only a short distance behind Algy. What was worse, his speed was terrific and he was rapidly closing the distance.
Algy saw at once that he could not hope to reach the bungalow before he was caught, and his back twitched at the thought of the assagai which might pierce it at any moment. There was only one thing to be done and he did it, for the nearer the fellow with the spear got to him the more desperate was his danger.
Still running, he jerked the empty shell out of the breach of his rifle and reloaded. Then he whipped round, dropped on to his knee and took aim. He saw the brawny arm go up, the spear flashing in the sunlight, and he knew that he could not afford to miss—not that he was likely to at such close range. As he glanced along the sights his war-training came to his aid, and his manner changed. Coolly and deliberately he drew a bead on the shining black chest of his would-be slayer, and squeezed the trigger. At the report the savage sprawled headlong, the spear plunging into the ground, where it remained with the haft pointing towards its owner.
Algy looked at the others, now perilously close; but a rapidly increasing roar made him swing round. The Puss, with the cabin door flapping open, was taxiing tail-up towards him. He needed no invitation to join the others inside. He fired two quick shots at the savages, causing one to fall and the others to stop, and then raced to meet the machine. A bullet smacked through it somewhere as he literally tumbled aboard, and then lay, with his head on Ginger’s knees, panting for breath. For a few seconds the wheels bumped over the rough ground; then the floor seemed to press upwards into him and he knew they were off.
‘Thank goodness for that,’ he muttered fervently.
‘Where’s that antelope steak?’ growled Ginger.
Algy glared. ‘I’ll knock your block off if you talk to me about antelopes,’ he snarled. ‘I’ll let you go next time. Where are we making for?’
‘Goodness knows—I don’t,’ replied Ginger frankly. ‘We hadn’t thought as far ahead as that when we saw you making a bee-line for home.’
‘Then I hope it’s to England,’ declared Algy. ‘These wide open spaces may be he-man’s country, but they’re not mine—not by a long shot.’
CHAPTER XI
CRASHED BY A RHINO
As soon as he had recovered his breath Algy tapped Biggles on the shoulder. ‘Where are you making for?’ he asked.
‘Karuli,’ answered Biggles without hesitation.
‘Are you crazy?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Haven’t we had enough trouble already without shoving our heads into the lion’s mouth?’
‘We aren’t going to shove our heads into anything of the sort.’
‘Sounds like it to me.’
‘Maybe, but I believe that at the moment the lion—as you call him—is on Insula aerodrome.’
‘You mean, you think that tall fellow with the sallow face and black moustache who fired at me is Stampoulos?’
‘Either him or his head man. He looks Greek enough, anyway. While he and his dusky cutthroats are at Insula seems to me to be the right moment to go to Karuli.’
‘To try to rescue Marton?’
‘You don’t suppose I’m going there for my health, or for the sake of somewhere to go, do you? What happened to your antelope hunt? It seemed to go wrong somewhere.’
‘It certainly did,’ agreed Algy emphatically. ‘First I bumped into Stampoulos and his crowd of stiffs, and while I was wondering which way to go a leopard bumped into me. Between the lot of us it was quite a merry party while it lasted.’
‘What happened?’
‘I let drive at the leopard and Stampoulos let drive at me.’
‘You scored and Stampoulos missed, eh?’
‘That’s about it.’
‘And then you decided it was about time to go home.’
‘I did, and without stopping to pick flowers on the way. That bunch of niggers with flattened-out bill-hooks settled all doubt in my mind about that. What happened to them after I got aboard, did you see?’
‘The last I saw of them Stampoulos had joined them and they were all marching towards the bungalow, carrying two of their number, as they say in story books.’
‘I expect they’ll look for Sarda.’
‘In which case I hope they’ll find him—and plant him. I wasn’t looking forward to the job. But the point is, they’re a tidy step from home, and as far as I can see they’ve got to walk, whereas we’re getting a ride. With luck we ought to be at Karuli first.’
‘You’re not so optimistic as to expect to find the place deserted?’
‘No, but with the big boy absent, the people in charge—whoever they may be—may not know how to act. If we find the place at all I shall be satisfied.’
‘By the way, did you hide the petrol at Insula?’
‘We hid pretty nearly everything portable; we’d just finished and loaded the kit-bags in the machine when your gun-shot announced that the hunt was over; although from what you tell us it was only just beginning.’
‘We shall have to get a move on if we’re going to find this place before dark,’ observed Algy, gla
ncing through the window at the sun, which was sinking fast towards the horizon. ‘Don’t you think it would be a better plan to land at this repair depot place Ginger talks about, to re-fuel, and hide the stuff in the same way as you did at Insula? That would give us two bases where we could get petrol in an emergency, and at the same time put another one of Leroux’s landing-grounds out of action. If we go on nobbling his fuel I shouldn’t be surprised if he finds himself walking presently, instead of swanking about in our Dragon.’
A furrow creased Biggles’s forehead as he considered the proposition. ‘I’m inclined to think you’re right,’ he said at last. ‘Quite apart from the points you’ve raised, we’re all tired and it’s getting a bit close to sundown for operations. We don’t want to get benighted on the open veldt.’
‘No, by James, that we don’t,’ agreed Ginger warmly. ‘I’ve already had one go at it and that was one too many. If I’ve got to look at lions I prefer to see them through nice thick cast-iron bars; or better still, behind a sheet of plate-glass in a museum.’
‘Don’t talk so much,’ interrupted Biggles. ‘Just keep your eyes open for this repair establishment; remember, I haven’t seen it yet.’
‘You can’t make any mistake,’ declared Ginger. ‘It’s on the south side of a large wood, or forest; I don’t know how far it extends because I didn’t stop to look when I was there, but it’s the first wood you come to.’
‘Then that must be it—straight ahead.’
Ginger peered forward through the windscreen. ‘That’s the one,’ he exclaimed. ‘It will probably be difficult to see the hut from the air because it’s just on the edge of the trees, but the landing-ground is on the south side.’
Biggles throttled back and began a long glide towards the objective, and on reaching it circled twice, both to make sure nobody was about and to pick out the best runway. Then, satisfied that all was well, he landed and taxied slowly towards the hut, which he could now see on the edge of the forest. A trio of ant-hills prevented him from going right up to it, so he switched off, and picking up the rifle, jumped out, watching the door suspiciously. The others followed him.
