by W E Johns
Biggles looked; and came back. ‘Thanks,’ he acknowledged. ‘I didn’t notice that.’
On the still slightly ruffled water of the lagoon had appeared a large, black, triangular fin; the unmistakable indication of a shark. It was moving slowly but steadily towards the Arab who, unconscious of his danger, was still paddling comfortably on his back towards the outer perimeter of the reef. Instinctively Biggles let out a yell of warning. It was ignored.
Biggles and Algy could only stand and watch. ‘So that beauty is still around,’ muttered Biggles.
The shark did not go straight to its intended victim; but it must have seen or heard him, for the sinister fin made a slow circle round him. Then, of course, the Arab saw his peril. He splashed furiously. This caused the shark to retire a little way, which suggested it might not be a man-eater after all. But it came back and did another circle, this time contracting. The wretched man in the water now struck out with a powerful overarm stroke towards the nearest point of the reef, still using only one arm.
‘Why doesn’t the fool drop the box and use both arms?’ muttered Biggles. ‘If he did he might have a chance. He’s got a dagger.’ Raising his voice he yelled: ‘Drop the box!’
For a second or two it looked as if the Arab might escape the dreadful fate which threatened. Helpless to do anything, Biggles and Algy could only stand and stare. Neither spoke. Then the fin disappeared. ‘That’s it,’ muttered Biggles. ‘He’s had it. A shark attacks from below.’
He was right. Screaming, the Arab threw up his arms. There was a flurry of water. Then he, too, disappeared.
Nothing broke the surface. ‘Horrible,’ breathed Algy, moistening his lips. ‘Poor devil. As you remarked, Biggles, this is no bathing pool for kids.’
‘Nor anyone else.’ Biggles lit a cigarette. Then, flicking away the dead matchstick, speaking with slow deliberation he said: ‘You know, chaps, if this sort of thing goes on, I shall have to revise my opinion that this talk of opal being an unlucky stone is a lot of hooey. First Collingwood. Then Ali. Now this. All the opal has brought them is sudden death. Queer, isn’t it?’
‘There is this about it,’ stated Algy. ‘The curse can’t go on any longer. The stuff that wretched Collingwood turned himself into a Crusoe to find is now at the bottom of the sea; and as far as I’m concerned it can stay there.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Where else could the box be?’
‘In the shark’s belly. Funny things have been found in a shark’s stomach.’
‘But a shark wouldn’t swallow a wooden box!’
‘They say a shark will swallow anything. Old sailors say a shark will even swallow its own entrails after being disembowelled and thrown back into the sea.’
‘Charming thought.’
‘If this one has swallowed a whole box of opal, if there is anything in the curse it should soon be having a belly-ache. Its dead body should provide a nice little haul, and a surprising one, for the lucky person who finds it thrown up on a beach somewhere.’
‘Did you say lucky person? I’d say it would be the worst day’s work he ever did. I wouldn’t touch the stuff with a barge pole.’
‘Let’s not argue about it,’ Biggles said. ‘Our next problem will arise if the dhow gets into the lagoon and makes a landing before we can get off.’
‘At least they’ll know we weren’t responsible for that Arab’s death. The man on the mast must have seen the whole thing. He’s gone down now. No doubt he’ll be telling the others all about it.’
‘Let’s get back to the machine,’ Biggles said curtly. ‘What we’ve just seen wasn’t pretty.’
With the sun sinking fast towards the horizon they made their way back along the beach to the aircraft.
‘What next?’ asked Algy.
Biggles answered. ‘I’m going to have something substantial to eat, and take my time over it. Then I hope to have a nice long rest. I’m tired.’
‘What if the dhow comes in?’
‘We can’t stop it. We’ll see how they shape. I don’t think it’ll try to get in tonight. It’s a dangerous reef. Most coral reefs are. The entrance to the lagoon isn’t very wide. It’s my guess the man in charge will wait till morning when, with the sun well up, he’ll be better able to see what he’s doing. The sea should have calmed down a little more by then, too. You realize that the fate of that miserable Arab has put an entirely different complexion on the set-up here. He was unlucky; let’s admit it. Neither he nor anyone else would expect a man-eater to be in a lagoon of this size.’
‘The gap in the reef must have been responsible for that.’
‘Of course. But I was about to say, the question of what the Arab would have told them doesn’t arise. The men on the dhow won’t know a thing about what’s happened here. They don’t know Collingwood is dead, or how he died. They’re not to know Ali is dead or who killed him. They know nothing about the opal. They don’t know their precious hemp has been blitzed. In a word, they’ll expect to find everything here as they left it. When they come ashore they’ll have a few shocks.’
‘So shall we, I imagine.’
‘I don’t see why. I think the chances are, when the people on the dhow discover what’s happened, they’ll come to us for information. I only hope one of ‘em can speak English because my Arabic isn’t up to much.’
‘They may think we did the killing.’
‘I shall deny that. I shall tell them the truth; exactly what happened; without of course saying anything about the opal that was the cause of the trouble. Our tale should be supported by the fact that they knew Ali was alive when they got here. They must have seen him on the reef when the boat was clawed under by the decapod — or whatever the thing was. From the dhow they would see one of the crew get ashore and go off with Ali. Why, then, should they suppose we had anything to do with Ali’s death? What reason had we to kill him? They’ll have the wit to realize that people like us don’t go about stabbing people to death. We don’t carry daggers. When we have to do any rough stuff we use guns. When they come ashore, not seeing Ali here to meet them, they’ll go along to have a look at their hemp. That’s when they’ll find Ali’s body. I didn’t touch it. They’ll see he was killed by knife wounds. Then they’ll come to us to see if we know what happened.’
‘What will you tell ‘em?’
‘We can talk about that when the time comes. Leave it to me. In the morning, whether or not the dhow is in the lagoon, we’ll go to the hut and bury Collingwood’s body. We must do that. Then we’ll test the machine and if she behaves properly we’ll talk about starting for home. With luck we should get to Calcutta in time to prevent Bertie from coming to look for us. I told him to give us a week before doing anything. I said: “When we’re back at Calcutta I’ll send a radio signal. If you get no signal, come on to the island.” That was clear enough. Come to think of it there’s one other thing we ought to do before we leave here.’
Algy looked pained. ‘Haven’t we enough to do without thinking up anything else? What is it now?’
‘I think we should clear the worst of that rubbish the storm left on the landing strip. It shouldn’t take long. We owe it to a brother pilot; Collingwood’s pal Mackay. He knows nothing about what’s happened here. Sooner or later he’ll come here, as he promised, to see how Collingwood is doing or to pick him up. It’d be tragic if in trying to land he bent his undercart and got stuck here. We might see him in Calcutta, in which case we could save him making the trip. But we can’t rely on that. We might miss him. It’s up to us to make it safe for him to land if he should fly out.’
Algy agreed. ‘Now let’s see about something to eat,’ Biggles concluded as they reached the aircraft.
‘Talking about getting a good sleep, aren’t we going to mount a guard?’ queried Algy.
‘I don’t think that’s necessary. There’s nobody on the island except ourselves.’
‘What if the dhow should come in?’
‘As I said, I don’t
think it will try before morning. There’s still a bit of a sea running outside. If they did come in I can’t see why they should interfere with us. We’ve done nothing, as far as they know, to hurt them. I’m not likely to volunteer the information that it was me who cut down their hemp. After all, these chaps aren’t savages. They’re civilized men from Aden, or one of the other ports along the coast where they would meet people like us. I shan’t worry about them now that none of their people is here to blame us for what has been happening. But let’s get out some grub. I’m starving.’
CHAPTER 16
STRANGER THAN FICTION
BIGGLES was wrong. At least in one respect. When he awoke the following morning — or rather, when he was awakened by Algy — to another fine day, it was to see the dhow, sail furled, riding at anchor in the middle of the lagoon. He was surprised because the sea outside had not yet really settled. From time to time a heavy swell, accompanied by a gust of wind, aftermaths of the storm, would surge against the reef and pour through the gap like a small tidal wave to set the surface of the lagoon gently heaving. The backwash would rush back just as furiously. He could only conclude that these conditions must have arisen recently, probably just before sunrise, or the dhow would not have risked damage to her wooden hull on the jagged edges of the coral which above the waterline were as hard as granite. However, there was the dhow, safe and sound.
His other opinion, that the crew would not interfere with them, appeared to have been correct, for while there was considerable activity on deck, no notice was being taken of them.
‘Let’s have some breakfast and press on with what we have to do,’ Biggles told Algy, who was obviously a little startled to see the Arab craft so close to them. ‘Our best ploy will be to behave as if we’ve nothing to be afraid of, and in fact have no interest whatever in what they’re doing. I don’t think they can have been in the lagoon very long.’
While they were having their coffee, and ration of Quaker Oats with condensed milk, their mainstay on long hauls where no fresh food was available, it was also revealed that Biggles had been mistaken when he had said the dhow was not likely to have a second lifeboat. It had; a rough-looking dinghy; for they now saw it put on the water with the apparent intention of taking a party ashore.
‘There seems to be plenty of ‘em,’ remarked Algy, with a touch of apprehension. ‘We couldn’t do much against that mob if they turned nasty. How many hands do these dhows normally carry?’
‘I’ve never counted, but those I’ve seen seem to have about twenty.’
‘Good lor! As many as that! Where do they all sleep?’
‘Anywhere. They don’t waste space with cabins. They just doss down anywhere they can find room; but I believe there’s some rule about each man sticking to his own pitch, where he eats, sleeps, and does his cooking if there’s anything to cook. Fish, I’ve been told, is the regular diet. Fish and dates or dried figs and tomatoes. Not to worry. They won’t bother with us.’
The lifeboat, if it could be so called, looking dangerously overloaded with five men in it, one standing in the stern operating a long oar as a rudder, was now on its way to the island beach. In spite of what Biggles had said, for they were a ferocious-looking lot, it was an anxious moment when they stepped out into shallow water and hauled their boat high and dry. But the anxiety did not last long. The aircraft was completely ignored. It might not have been there. For a brief period the men stood looking around, probably for Ali; then they all moved off in the direction of the far end of the island, either to find him or look at the crop of hemp, or both.
‘They’re going to have a surprise of considerable dimensions when they find their hashish gone and Ali looking like a stuck pig,’ murmured Biggles. ‘If we’re going to have any trouble that’s when it will come. Let’s carry on.’
First they went to the landing strip and removed any of the larger obstructions that might have made a landing dangerous. But it was mostly light stuff, the spines of palm fronds and the like, so it did not take long. This done they went on to the Nissen huts to do a more disagreeable task. Algy fetched the spade from the unused hut where they had seen it and they set to work to dig a grave. Fortunately, the ground being sandy, no great effort was needed; and as Biggles remarked, there was no purpose in digging deep. They had just done all that Biggles considered necessary when the party of Arabs could be seen approaching hurriedly along the runway.
‘Here we go. Here comes trouble,’ sighed Algy.
‘I wish you wouldn’t be so pessimistic,’ complained Biggles. ‘We should be able to talk ourselves out of this.’
They waited. The Arabs came up, every man with a sheathed dagger hanging from his waist. One, apparently the leader, stepped forward. He was a tall, fine figure of a man, with dark flashing eyes and a nose like an eagle’s beak, which gave him a fierce expression. He looked like, and may have been, a tribal chief of some sort. There was no preamble. He came straight to the point. And so began one of the most bizarre conversations Algy in all his experience had ever heard.
‘You English mans?’ he challenged harshly.
‘Yes, English,’ Biggles answered calmly.
‘Why you kill Ali?’
‘No kill Ali.’
‘Who kill?’
‘Your man who came ashore.’
The chief looked as if he didn’t believe this. ‘Why he kill Ali?’
‘Because Ali kills Collingwood. You know him, the man who lived here?’
‘Yes.’ The chief was looking as if he found this even harder to believe. ‘Why Ali kill Collswood?’
‘Collingwood rich. Has money in box. Ali kills him. Takes money. Your man who comes ashore. Sees money. Kills Ali. He swims in lagoon with box. Meets shark. You see this.’ Biggles spoke simply the more easily to be understood. ‘He swims like this.’ Biggles went through the motions of a man swimming with one arm, the other held against his side. ‘You see this?’
‘Yes.’
‘He has money box under arm,’ explained Biggles.
It is not to be supposed that this extraordinary conversation was conducted as easily as it may appear. It was accompanied by gestures, pauses and translations into Arabic for the benefit of those who apparently knew no English. The men crowded round, staring, sometimes uncomprehendingly. The chief never took his eyes from Biggles’ face.
‘Why you come here?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘We look for lost plane. Think here on island perhaps. You understand? Plane. Lost.’
‘What you do now?’
‘We bury Collingwood. Then we go home.’ So far, Algy noticed, neither hemp nor hashish had been mentioned. No doubt the Arab thought it wise to keep off the subject and Biggles certainly had no reason to mention it.
‘Where Collswood?’ asked the chief, as if seeking confirmation of what Biggles had said. Only he knew what he was thinking.
Biggles pointed to the hut.
The chief strode in, his men crowding in behind him.
Biggles took the opportunity to speak quietly to Algy. ‘I think it’s okay. But they’re finding this a bit hard to swallow.’
‘I can understand that,’ replied Algy. ‘So am I.’
The Arabs trooped out of the hut. The chief gave Biggles a long penetrating stare. ‘Now you go home?’
‘Yes.’
‘No come back?’
‘No come back,’ echoed Biggles. ‘This place no good.’
Without another word the chief turned about and walked away, followed by his men babbling excitedly in Arabic.
Algy breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Let’s get this miserable business over and done with,’ said Biggles shortly.
Collingwood’s body, still in its blanket, was carried out and put in its grave. Biggles uttered the few words of the burial service that he could remember. The grave was filled in and they returned in sombre silence to the aircraft. By the time they reached it the Arabs were climbing back on board the dhow.
�
��What will they do now, do you suppose?’ Algy said.
Biggles shrugged. ‘I hope they’ll push off. But I think it’s more likely they’ll wait till we’ve gone and then plant another lot of hemp.’
‘They must have seen the first lot had been cut. Why didn’t they mention it?’
Biggles shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t know. Don’t ask me to tell you what they think. For a guess I’d say they thought it better to keep their mouths shut in case we didn’t know what they’d been doing here. To raise hashish is illegal, anyway on British Crown property, as they must know only too well. They may have thought Collingwood cut the stuff and that was why Ali killed him. That was murder. They must know that, too, so they kept off the subject.’
‘Good. Well, I suggest we make for home in case they should change their minds.’
‘Unfortunately we can’t do that for the moment.’
‘Why not?’
‘Look at the dhow. Stuck in the middle of the fairway. The only straight run long enough in the lagoon for the machine to come unstuck on flat water.’
‘Couldn’t we ask them to move their confounded boat somewhere else?’
‘I suppose we could, but I think it would be better to leave well alone. They won’t stay here long. We’re in no great hurry now. Let’s have a drink and a cigarette while we’re waiting. After such a morning I need a tonic.’
Algy went on. ‘I’ve got a feeling the chief took your story about Collingwood having money with a pinch of salt. Why should he bring money where he couldn’t spend it?’
‘I had to say something; provide a motive for the murder. I didn’t feel like complicating matters by introducing opal. That might have led to trouble. It might have been a temptation to them to bump us off to look for the source of the opal if it was to be found on the island. Money meant practically the same thing, but safer for us. They won’t trouble to dig for money.’
‘What the dickens are they doing now?’ Algy was looking at the dhow, where there was now a lot of activity with three men getting back into the lifeboat. They pushed off clear but seemed to be trailing a rope.
