14 Biggles Goes To War

by Captain W E Johns

  The night passed slowly, and not without anxiety, for more than once cars raced up and down the road, and there were other signs, such as distant calls, which suggested that a search was proceeding. At such times the airmen got into their cockpits, fingering their self-starters, ready to take the air the moment danger threatened. This did not materialize, however, and the hours went by without any one coming into the field in which they had taken refuge. None of them slept or attempted to sleep; in the circumstances they preferred to keep awake. In the early hours of the morning the sky cleared and the moon came up, flooding the world with its pale radiance.

  Biggles looked at his watch for the hundredth time. 'It's nearly five o'clock,' he announced. 'I reckon it will start to get light within the next hour, which means that if we took off now we should only oe night-flying for about an hour or so. I feel inclined to move on.'

  'As we've waited so long why not stay until it's light?' suggested Algy.

  `Because, in thinking things over, I believe it would be wiser to get across the frontier of this country in the dark. I shouldn't be surprised if daylight saw machines in the air on the look-out for us. Kestler, or whoever it was who wired the aerodrome, seeing his plans miscarry, is almost certain to ring up the authorities and inform them that three strange military aircraft are flying over the country, and then, naturally, and quite properly, machines would be sent up to stop us.'

  `Suppose that happens, what will you do?'

  `Make a bolt for it.'

  `They may open fire on us if we refuse to go down.' 'Yes, I suppose they might.'

  'In which case you'd put up a fight, I imagine? Is that why you had the guns loaded?'

  `Great Scott, no! Don't be an ass. Do you suppose I want to start another Great War ? I was thinking of Lovitzna, which we shall have to skirt, when I had the guns loaded. I'm not shooting at any one else's machines. No fear. We'd go to jail for life if we were caught, if nothing worse. But there, I don't think we shall have any cause to worry if we leave the ground in good time. If we leave during the next half hour we shall be a long way off by the time dawn breaks.'

  'We might lose each other in the dark.'

  'I hadn't overlooked that risk. Even if that happened we should probably be able to see each other when it gets light. The course is due east. Keep above six thousand or you may run into a mountain; there's some biggish country ahead of us. Eight o'clock should see us at the River Danube, which runs pretty well at right angles across our course at the point where we ought to strike it. It's the only big river, and therefore unmistakable.

  Whoever gets to it first had better fly up and down it, over a distance of, say, ten miles, until the others join him. Ten miles should be ample allowance for any possible margin of error, I think.'

  The others agreed, and they all sat down on a low bank to wait, but they had only been sitting there about five minutes, luckily, as it happened, in silence, when two men suddenly made their appearance near the machines, which were a matter of some fifteen or twenty yards away. Where they came from the airmen did not know; they never did know, although Biggles afterwards declared that they must have come through the belt of trees, or they would have seen them earlier. They were both in uniform, which looked black in the ghostly light, and they ran forward as soon as they saw the machines.

  But Biggles was as quick. Slipping on his goggles to hide his face, he nudged the others, and then, his feet making no noise on the soft turf, he crept up swiftly behind the men, who were now talking in low, excited tones. They appeared to be arguing about their best plan of procedure, but finally came to an agreement and with one accord moved up to the nearest machine. One of them raised his foot with the obvious intention of getting into the cockpit.

  But this was more than Biggles was prepared to permit. He could not, of course, make an unwarranted attack on the two men, who, after all, were only doing their duty, but he realized that as the machines had been discovered, they themselves had nothing to gain by remaining hidden. `Halt!' he said, in a sharp, commanding voice.

  The two men sprang round as if he had fired a shot, and there was a moment of tense silence as they found themselves staring into the muzzles of the airmen's automatics.

  Biggles was the first to move. With the muzzle of his pistol he waved the men away.

  Once they understood his intention they needed no second bidding; they began walking backwards, but seeing that the airmen did not move, they soon turned and broke into a run. In a few

  seconds they had disappeared from sight, but not from sound. A loud hail rang through the still night air.

  `Come on,' snapped Biggles, 'it's time we went. Off you go, Ginger. You next, Algy.'

  As ordered, Ginger took off first, and got away without trouble. Algy followed, and Biggles, satisfied that he, too, was in the air, raced across the wet turf to join them. None of the machines carried navigation lights , but Biggles, turning east as soon as he was off, soon picked out one of the others by the orange blaze of its exhaust, and headed towards it. Overtaking it, he showed himself to the pilot of the other machine - for in the darkness he could not make out which one it was - and thereafter settled down to the long flight ahead. A few minutes later the two machines flying together saw the flame of another exhaust some distance in front, and this, Biggles realized, must be Ginger, since he had been the first to take off. Flying on full throttle, the two rear machines soon caught up with the first, and having made their presence known, throttled down again to cruising speed.

  Thus, they were already together when a pale glow in the sky straight ahead announced the coming of dawn, and shortly afterwards the silver ribbon of the Danube crept up over the misty horizon. Biggles now forged ahead and took up his position in the lead, and in their original formation they held on their course for the next two hours. They were now over wild, inhospitable country, rugged and gaunt, and Biggles knew that they were approaching the western frontier of Maltovia.

  By this time they were flying almost directly into the glare of the sun, which was well up, and more than once Biggles squinted long and carefully into it between the outstretched fingers of his left hand, for he did not overlook the fact that in approaching Maltovia from the west they were running along the southern frontier of Lovitzna. He did not expect trouble, but he was taking no risks, and it was as well that he did not, for he presently made out a tiny speck high up in the cloudless blue.

  He studied it long and thoughtfully, as well as the sky around it, as it headed southward on a course that would cross his own. It was much higher than they were, and as yet still so far away that it was impossible to identify the type of aircraft. Still watching it with the concentrated intentness that can only be acquired by long practice, something else caught his eye. It was only a little thing, a mere microscopic flash, gone as quickly as it had appeared, but it told him a lot. He knew that high up above the lone machine was another, possibly several more, for the flash, unmistakable to one who knew, had been the sun glinting on the wing of a banking aeroplane.

  He rocked his machine slightly and then looked back. The others were closing up, both pilots leaning out of their cockpits to watch him. Raising his left arm, he pointed with the forefinger of his gloved hand in the direction of the strange aircraft. Algy's nod told him that he, too, had seen it. This done, he altered his course slightly to the south, directly into the sun, not because he sought a combat but because he wished to avoid one.

  There was no proof, of course, that the other machines were hostile. Indeed, there was nothing to show that their pilots were concerned with them, or, for that matter, had even seen them, and he hoped that this was, in fact, the case. The last thing he wanted was to be involved in a fight before he had announced his arrival to the military authorities in Maltovia, over the frontiers of which country they should now be passing, although there was nothing to indicate it. Janovica, the capital, lay nearly fifty miles farther on, in the central plain of the little state.

  In this
wish, however, he was to be disappointed, and it was not long before he realized it. The lone machine was no longer alone. Four others had joined it, and in a rather ragged V formation the five machines had tilted their noses downward and were racing like arrows across the sky on a path that would bring them in front and above the smaller formation.

  Biggles bit his lip in vexation. In his heart he had hoped that the machines might turn out to be harmless civil aeroplanes on a cross-country flight, but there was no longer any question but that they were military aircraft, and single-seater fighters at that. Equally plain was their mission, and when, a minute or two later, Biggles made out the brown crosses of Lovitzna painted on the underside of their wings, he knew that a combat was unavoidable. Still, he did his best to escape it, turning still farther south and putting his nose down in a steep dive in a forlorn hope that he might shake the other machines off.

  Looking back over his shoulder he saw them coming, taking advantage of their superior height to gather speed; and as he watched them a change slowly came over him. They themselves were over Maltovia; the Lovitznians were, therefore, virtually committing an act of war even before they had fired a shot. They had no right to be over Maltovia. Again, there were the people on the ground underneath to consider; they had subscribed their little savings to buy the three Lances; what would they think, if they saw them fleeing from the enemy? It might well be that their morale would suffer, with fatal consequences to the little state, and he decided that that must not happen. If the enemy wanted a fight, well, they should have it, and Ginger would have to take his chance if he hadn't enough sense to keep out of the affair.

  Half turning in his seat, he pushed up his goggles and attracted Ginger's attention.

  Vigorously he signalled to him to turn away and make for the south, and, presently, to his intense satisfaction, he saw him go. A glance over the other shoulder revealed Algy, imperturbable, sitting upright in his cockpit a few yards behind his, Biggles's, right-hand elevator. Automatically he pulled up the handle of his synchronizing gear , and fired a few shots through his double guns to make sure that they were working properly.

  At the sound of the reports a new expression crept over Biggles's face. The habitual quiet, almost placid look disappeared, to be replaced by hard, grim lines that drew his lips tight together with the corners turned down. A frosty light glinted in his eyes. His grip tightened on the joystick and he pushed it slowly forward. The nose of the machine went down and the wail of the wind in the wires became a scream. Down, down, down he roared, while the needle of his air-speed indicator quivered slowly round the dial - 250

  ... 270 ... 290 ... 300.

  Another glance over his shoulder revealed the five machines pouring down behind, one slightly in advance of

  the others. On either side of its swirling propeller tiny orange sparks seemed to be dancing, and Biggles knew that the enemy leader's guns were going, presumably trying to intimidate him, since the range was too long for effective shooting. That was what he had waited for; the enemy had fired the first shot, thus proving his intention. Slowly, but very deliberately, Biggles dragged the stick back towards his left thigh, and the Lance screamed upwards like a rocketing pheasant. Back and back he dragged the stick, left foot pressing on the rudder; then, with a swift movement, he pulled it across into his right thigh. Magically, the Lance straightened out, but not for long; a vertical bank and it was round, now behind the five machines, which had scattered in order to avoid collision as they had tried to follow him in the climbing turn. One pilot, obviously a novice to the business, had side-slipped wide, and was turning this way and that in hopeless indecision as he looked for his comrades.

  Biggles was not concerned with him; he was looking for the leader, recognizable at close quarters by small, black strut-pennants. He quickly picked him out, in the act of diving on Algy, who was already engaged with one of the others. Biggles was on his tail in a flash, and he knew at once, from the manner in which the leader skidded sideways before he could fire, that he had a war-tried warrior to deal with. He got in a short but ineffective burst as his opponent pulled up in a tight turn, and then had to swerve himself as the taca-taca-taca-taca of a machine-gun sounded unpleasantly close to his shoulder.

  He whirled round, guns blazing at the other machine as it hurtled past him, narrowly escaping collision. Some of the shots must have reached their mark, even if they did not find the pilot, for the machine zoomed wildly in a frantic effort to get clear. It was a bad zoom. The pilot held his nose up for too

  long, with the result that the machine hung on the top of its stall. Before it could recover Biggles had tilted his machine up, and taking careful aim at point-blank range, fired a long burst. The Lovitznian machine seemed to shiver. A long strip of fabric ripped off its side and went fluttering away; then its nose whipped over and down.

  There was no time to see what happened to it, for Biggles could hear shots hitting his own machine. Again he whirled round and saw that it was the enemy leader, who, in turn, had to bank steeply to avoid collision. Biggles acted with the speed that only comes from perfect coordination of brain and muscle. His Lance seemed to spin on its axis, as if an invisible cord was stretched between its nose and the tail of the leader's machine.

  Simultaneously his guns blazed. The Lovitznian soared vertically, turned on to its side, and then plunged downward in a spin. Biggles, taking a quick glance around, caught his breath as he saw a long feather of black smoke across the blue. He looked down, but before he could identify the machine that was falling in flames shots again compelled him to swerve. One of the enemy, with a Lance apparently fastened to its tail, roared past. Its dive became steeper and steeper until it became almost vertical, and Biggles knew that Algy had got his man. Or rather, that is what he assumed, but on looking up he was amazed to see another Lance banking round to join him. Even then it did not occur to him that the newcomer was any one but Ginger, but the imprecation that he was about to mutter at his return died away as the Lance pilot, pushing up his goggles revealed Algy, slightly pale but smiling. 'Great heaven!' thought Biggles as he realized with a shock that the pilot of the Lance which had driven the enemy machine off his tail must have been Ginger. Swiftly he looked down. One of the machines was a crumpled heap on a hillside; the other was climbing back up into the dogfight. It was a Lance.

  Biggles shook his head as one who doesn't know what to think, and then examined the sky. The survivors of the enemy formation had disappeared, but presently he made them out, three of them, all heading northward, one much lower than the others and still losing height. Two of the enemy were on the ground, one a twisted heap of wood and canvas, the other a blazing pyre. 'Well, we've announced our arrival all right,' he thought with mixed feelings as he turned his nose eastward, throttling back to allow the others to overtake him.

  Ten minutes later Janovica, the City of the Plains, came into view. Skirting it, he made for the southern extremity, where the Count had told him that a landing-ground was being prepared. He saw the customary white circle at once, and, in a corner of the same field, a large white marquee, evidently the hangar that was to house the machines. Four or five figures stood near it.

  As he glided down Biggles examined their new aerodrome and its surroundings. In size it was plenty large enough for their requirements, and it lay less than a mile from the nearest part of the city; to the east the ground was open, but on the southern boundary began a forest that rolled away as far as he could see. So much he was able to observe before he flattened out, and a second or two later his wheels touched the short turf. As soon as the machine had finished its run he taxied on towards the tent in order to give the others plenty of room to land; from a safe distance he watched them come in, and when they had joined him, the three machines together continued their way to where a small party awaited them.

  Two figures detached themselves from the group and ran out to meet the machines, taking up positions at each

  of Biggles's wing-tips.
They were Smyth and Carter. Biggles gave them a wave of greeting before moving on slowly to the front of the hangar, where he switched off, and jumping lightly to the ground, walked over to where Ginger was preparing to dismount.

  `Didn't you understand my signal that you were to keep out of the dogfight?' he inquired coldly.

  'Well, I ... yes, I ... of course I ...' stammered Ginger. `Why did you come back into it?'

  Ì thought I might be of some use. After all, I've got to start sometime, haven't I?'

  Biggles smiled faintly. 'Yes, I suppose you have,' he admitted reluctantly, 'but in future you had better leave these decisions to me. Come on; come on, Algy, let's go and see what's happening here.'

  Chapter 5

  Doubts and Difficulties

  Besides Smyth and Carter there were three people standing in front of the improvised hangar. All were in uniform. One was a tall man, rather past middle age, with a commanding figure and a powerful face in which were set keen grey eyes. He carried a cavalry sabre, and his hands rested on the hilt as he watched with an expressionless face the approach of the three airmen. Judging by the amount of gold braid on his uniform, he was an officer of senior rank. Next to him stood a slim young man, little more than a youth, with a pale, rather delicate face adorned with a tiny black moustache. He alone of the three was smiling a welcome. He also was an officer, but, clearly, a subaltern .

  Behind these, at a respectful distance, stood the other, a private soldier. On the road that formed the boundary on this side of the aerodrome a number of civilians had gathered to watch the scene.

  Biggles marched smartly up to the senior officer. 'My name is Bigglesworth, sir,' he said.

  'These are my friends, Lacey and Hebblethwaite. You were expecting us, I think?'

  `Yes,' was the rather curt reply. 'We were expecting you. I understand from the telephone that you have begun to make war already - yes?'

  `Yes, that is correct,' confessed Biggles.

  'Why do you do this?' was the next rather surprising question. 'Do you seek to get my country into war with her neighbours, which we are so anxious to avoid?'