by W E Johns
‘God! What a place to be cast away,’ breathed Biggles, in a voice low and vibrant with sympathy. ‘What a hope they had. I wonder who they were? They managed to reach land, and this was the land they reached. A lot of good it did them.’
‘Some of von Schonbeck’s victims, who managed to get away,’ suggested Ginger.
‘Quite likely.’ Biggles shrugged. ‘Well, staring at these poor bones won’t bring them back to life; we’ll leave them here to their loneliness. They should help us to remember what happens to castaways on Kerguelen.’ Striding on he led the way to the top of the rock that had been their goal.
As he breasted the final rise he uttered an exclamation that brought the others quickly to his side. By that time the glasses were at his eyes, focused.
Following the direction Ginger made out a vessel about five miles away. ‘A ship, by jingo!’ he exclaimed.
‘She looks like a whaler,’ said Biggles, without lowering the glasses. ‘It’s unlikely that any other sort of ship would have business here.’ He continued his scrutiny.
In fact, he watched the ship for so long, with a deepening expression of surprise on his face, that Ginger was constrained to ask: ‘Is it a whaler?’
‘It is,’ answered Biggles. ‘Heading south-east.’ He lowered the glasses a trifle.
‘Now what can you see?’ asked Ginger impatiently.
‘I can see what looks to me suspiciously like a trail of oil. It starts out there in the general direction of the ship and runs back towards the southern tip of this island. That means she must have been here – or else she passed pretty close.’
‘But the oil—’
‘There’s nothing remarkable about that,’ broke in Biggles. ‘A whaler, I imagine, would always leave an oil trail. Modern whalers render the blubber down on board, and I reckon a ship doing that would fairly drip oil, particularly if she had been through heavy weather. All the same...’ Biggles shifted the glasses slightly and continued to stare. ‘She certainly is losing some oil,’ he went on. At last he lowered the glasses. ‘I’d like to have a closer look at that ship,’ he said slowly. ‘After we’ve been home I think I’ll fly out and give her the once-over. There’s nothing else to be seen from here, so we may as well start back.’
As they approached the huts Algy could be seen standing outside, waiting.
‘What’s the news?’ called Biggles.
‘The air has been fairly buzzing with signals,’ answered Algy.
‘For us?’
‘No — they’re in code.’
‘The deuce they are.’ Biggles increased his pace until he came up with Algy. ‘Were these two-way signals?’
‘Yes.’
‘H’m! That’s interesting. We know the submarine is about. Von Schonbeck might use code. But who would he be talking to? What was the strength of these signals?’
‘They sounded pretty close, to me.’
‘Did you keep a record?’
Algy held out a sheet of paper.
Biggles glanced at it and shook his head. ‘No use amateurs like us trying to decode that,’ he muttered. ‘Scotland Yard could do it, no doubt. They’ve specialists trained for the job. But to get this to the Yard and wait for a reply would be too slow to be any use.’
‘Send the thing by radio,’ suggested Bertie, polishing his eyeglass.
‘And tell the people who sent out the signals that we’ve picked them up? Not on your life. If there are transmitters in the region you may be sure they’ll have operators always on duty. Von Schonbeck will know where we are, soon enough. I’m keeping off the air until it’s absolutely vital that we use it.’
‘You think von Schonbeck was behind these signals?’ suggested Algy.
‘I don’t think there’s much doubt about it,’ returned Biggles promptly. ‘There’s no need for anyone to use code now. Admittedly the Admiralty might use code, but it’s unlikely that there are any warships within a thousand miles of us. The question is, who was von Schonbeck talking to? I wonder...’ Biggles paused. ‘From the top of the hill we spotted a whaler standing away to the south-east. As soon as I have gulped a spot of lunch I’m going to have a closer look at her.’
‘But I say, old boy, there’s no need for a whaler to use code,’ protested Bertie.
‘Not when her business is catching whales,’ answered Biggles vaguely.
‘Have you any reason to suppose that this one isn’t catching whales?’ queried Ginger shrewdly.
‘I don’t know,’ answered Biggles thoughtfully. ‘A whaler would be a very useful parent ship for a submarine — for refuelling, and so on. I had a good look at that ship this morning.’
‘So I noticed,’ put in Ginger.
‘She was too far off for me to make out the flag she was flying, but there was something about her behaviour that struck me as odd.’
‘What was it?’
Biggles took out a cigarette and tapped it on the back of his hand. ‘It was this. A few miles to the east of that ship there was a school of whales. The look-out must have seen them. The business of a whaler is to kill whales, so one would have thought that the ship would have turned towards them. As far as I could make out it took not the slightest notice of them.’
‘Perhaps it already had a full load?’ suggested Algy.
‘In that case why was it heading south-east, when it should have set a course for Europe or North America?’
‘I see what you mean,’ said Algy softly.
‘We know the U-517 is in the vicinity — within, say, a couple of hundred miles at the very outside,’ resumed Biggles. ‘That being the case you may wonder why I haven’t started a systematic combing of the ocean, looking for her. The answer is I want von Schonbeck to reassure himself that all is well. After he sank the Tern and heard us coming — if in fact he did hear us — he would dive, and stay submerged. It would be some hours before he surfaced. He would feel pretty safe last night, but with the coming of daylight he would certainly be on the alert. By giving him a rest we may catch him napping. In view of what we have seen today there seems a chance that the whaler is a German ship working with him. It may have a rendezvous with him. Let’s have a look at the map to get an idea of where the whaler is making for. Speaking from memory there’s nothing in that direction but water.’
Sitting on a packing-case Biggles opened the chart and looked at it. ‘We needn’t waste time on this,’ he went on. ‘If the whaler holds on the course it was making when we last saw her it will touch nothing till it comes to the polar ice-pack. The nearest land is here, this island to the east, although there’s a doubt about that.’ He pointed to a remote speck that carried the name Corbie Island (E.D.). ‘Corbie Island, even if it exists, is two hundred miles away to the east of the whaler’s last known position. It’s a long way from here, but we’ll have a look at it sometime. Meanwhile, let’s eat. After lunch I’ll take Ginger with me and have a look at these whale-hunters. You, Algy, and Bertie, will stand by for radio signals, and be prepared to fly the spare machine if it is needed.’
The meal did not take long, for Biggles, when busy, occupied no more time with food than was necessary to support life. As soon as it was over he donned his flying-kit and strode down to the mooring. Ginger followed.
In a few minutes the aircraft was in the air, climbing towards the leaden cloudbank that still covered the sky.
CHAPTER V
The Whaler
At two thousand feet, just below the ceiling, Biggles levelled out and turned to the south-east. To Ginger he said: ‘Keep your eyes mobile. The U-boat may be about. Watch the creeks and inlets for oil tracks. The wind seems to be freshening again, so I’m afraid we shan’t see much.’
Looking down Ginger regarded the surface of the globe, or as much as he could see of it, with morbid curiosity. Most of the island was now in view. The only part hidden was the southern tip where haze restricted visibility. As far as the land was concerned the spectacle offered nothing new; it was merely an extended version
of what had been seen from ground level — an expanse of colourless wilderness, bleak and desolate in the extreme, with drab green areas marking the low-lying portions. These, he assumed, were the bogs referred to in the Admiralty description. The coastline was as irregular as the outside of an unfinished jigsaw puzzle. The sea offered even less to the eye. On every side it rolled away to pitiless distances, unbroken by any object except far to the south, where a line of icebergs and floes marked the outer defences of the polar regions. Of the submarine there was no sign, nor was the whaler in sight. The oil trail that Biggles had observed was still there, a sinuous grey mark across the surface of the ocean, narrow at the head and widening towards the tail where it swung round in a mighty curve towards the southern tip of the island.
‘I fancy the wind has veered,’ remarked Biggles. ‘That trail is not as clear as it was. If a sea gets up it will soon be wiped out altogether; but it’s still clear enough to give us the general direction taken by the whaler. Hello! There are the whales, just breaking surface. The whaler doesn’t appear to have interfered with them.’
Ginger gazed with curiosity at the sea-monsters, looking from the air rather like a line of torpedoes floating on the surface of the water. ‘What are you going to do first?’ he asked. ‘Are you going to follow the oil trail to the ship or to the island?’
‘For a start I’m going to have a close look at the ship,’ answered Biggles. ‘Then we’ll come back and check up on where the oil starts from.’
‘You said you’d expect a whaler to leak oil,’ reminded Ginger.
‘Yes, I know,’ returned Biggles. ‘But to leave a trail like that I reckon a ship would have to be losing more oil than seems reasonable. If it goes on, by the time she gets to port her tanks will be dry. Of course, it’s always on the boards that she has been lying in the lee of the island refining blubber, in which case she would get pretty dirty. I’d like to spot the U-boat. She’ll travel on the surface while she thinks she’s safe.’
‘With a snappy look-out on the watch for danger,’ put in Ginger. ‘No doubt.’
Ginger said no more. Biggles flew on, and soon afterwards his questing eyes picked up the whaler, hull down, over the starboard bow. ‘There she is,’ he said. ‘Check up on her course.’
‘I make it a point or two east of south-east,’ declared Ginger a few minutes later.
‘That’s about it,’ agreed Biggles. ‘I wonder where she’s making for — if she isn’t hunting whales? Her present course won’t take her to Corbie Island — at least, not if the island is anywhere near the position shown on the map. Of course, the island may not exist. The letters E.D. give us fair warning of that, so we can’t blame the Admiralty if it isn’t there.’
‘This looking for an island that may not exist is an unsatisfactory business,’ opined Ginger. ‘I should have thought that by this time the Admiralty would have pinned down every square yard of dry ground between the Poles.’
‘They’ll do it now no doubt, now that we have aircraft with a range of thousands of miles,’ answered Biggles. ‘It would have been a long and tedious business to do it with surface-craft. There wasn’t much point in it to justify the expense. No one wanted these islands, anyway. Air transportation has now given remote islands a new value, as refuelling stations for trans-ocean runs.’ As he finished speaking Biggles cut the throttle and began to glide towards the whaler, now in full view some three or four miles distant. ‘Hello! Did you notice that?’ he asked sharply.
‘She’s changed course — if that’s what you mean,’ replied Ginger. ‘You can tell that by the wake. She’s heading pretty nearly due east now.’
‘Quite right. She’s only just spotted us. I wonder why she changed course? And come to think of it, that vessel must have been travelling flat out to cover as much water as she has since we last saw her. What was the reason for that?’
‘Maybe she’s a modern ship.’
‘She must be, to travel at that rate.’
The aircraft dropped lower, rapidly overhauling the object of the conversation. Men could be seen on the deck, looking up. One waved. A flag fluttered to the peak.
‘She’s Norwegian!’ cried Ginger.
‘Say she’s flying the Norwegian flag,’ corrected Biggles. ‘It isn’t quite the same thing. A dishonest ship can fly any flag. Still, I believe Norway has the biggest whaling fleet afloat, so there would be nothing remarkable if she was Norwegian. Pity we can’t make out her name, but we shan’t be able to see it from the air.’ He made a circle round the ship, which held on her course.
‘Let’s try being friendly,’ suggested Biggles. He opened a side panel and waved.
The men on the deck of the ship, seven or eight of them, waved back.
‘Can we speak to them?’ asked Ginger.
‘No,’ answered Biggles. ‘If we ask them who they are and what they are doing they might tell us anything, and we should have no means of checking up on it. If she is a consort of the U-boat we should merely reveal that we were suspicious of her without gaining anything.’
‘Then there’s nothing else we can do,’ said Ginger.
‘Nothing. We may as well go back. No use wasting petrol. We shan’t learn anything more here.’ Biggles turned away and started back over his course, keeping parallel with the oil trail. ‘I still say that ship is losing more oil than she should,’ he murmured pensively.
He did not speak again until Kerguelen was almost under their keel. Then he said: ‘There’s the end of the oil trail, plain enough. The ship must have been lying in that cove.’ He pointed. ‘I think we’ll go down and have a look round.’
Dropping lower, the aircraft passed over a narrow neck of water, not more than a hundred feet wide, with precipitous sides, and found herself over an almost circular cove of some size. As a harbour it was perfect, as perfect as anything an architect could design, yet from the sea its existence would not have been suspected.
‘Spare my days!’ exclaimed Biggles. ‘Look at the oil! That whaler must have burst a tank to make all that mess. I don’t like the look of it. Keep your eyes skinned for anybody or anything moving. This is just the sort of place von Schonbeck would choose for a hide-out.’ He put the machine in a turn and held it so until they had made three complete circuits at a height of less than a hundred feet. ‘Of course, this may be a bona fide whaling depot,’ he went on. ‘It’s a depot of some sort, there’s no doubt of that, and the place has been used recently. That’s a camp down there.’
‘I don’t see any camp,’ said Ginger.
‘Look again,’ invited Biggles. ‘Look beyond that strip of shingle beach at the inner extremity of the cove. Those lumps are too square and regular to be natural rock formations.’
‘Ah,’ breathed Ginger. ‘I get you.’
‘We’ll go in,’ decided Biggles. ‘If you see a movement, yell. I’ve got a feeling we’re on the track of something.’
For a moment or two Ginger could see no movement of any sort, and he said so; then he cried out tersely: ‘Steady! What’s that between the rocks? There’s something moving. It’s a—’
He was cut off by a blinding flash followed a split second later by an explosion so violent that the blast, striking the under-surfaces of the aircraft, caused it to yaw wildly.
Biggles slammed on full throttle and zoomed. ‘What the deuce!’
Ginger looked about him in no small alarm, fully expecting to see the smoke of a shell-burst, for he thought, naturally, that they had been shot at. But the sky was clear. The only smoke was a grey cloud that drifted across the cove from the point where the explosion had occurred. He continued to watch. Biggles continued to fly round, taking evading action.
‘What in thunder was it?’ he questioned, wonderingly.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Ginger, in an astonished voice. ‘I was just going to say that the thing I saw moving was a pig.’
‘A pig! Ah. It must have been one of the wild hogs. So what? Hogs don’t handle guns.’
‘It may not have been a gun,’ suggested Ginger.
‘I think you’ve got something there,’ returned Biggles in a curious voice. ‘Let’s try again.’
He throttled back and put the machine in a new glide towards the anchorage. Nothing happened. The only sound was the gentle sighing of wind over the planes. On the ground nothing moved. The machine went on down, Biggles flying with one hand on the stick and the other on the throttle ready for instant action. Still nothing happened, and presently the machine landed, to run to a standstill near the beach, a position from which signs of human occupation ashore were at once evident. The keel of the aircraft grated gently on the shingle, where several gulls with oil-smeared wings tried in vain to take flight. Some lay dead.
‘This place has a suspicious smell about it,’ said Biggles quietly. ‘But the smell I can smell isn’t whales. It’s machine oil.’ For a minute or two longer he sat still, eyes active, hand on the throttle ready for a quick move; but nothing happened, and presently, satisfied, he relaxed. ‘Let’s go ashore,’ he suggested.
Ginger went forward, dropped the anchor and stepped down into two feet of oil-coated water. Biggles joined him, and together they walked slowly up the beach towards three small rock buildings that Biggles had observed from the air. Ginger was quickening his pace when Biggles laid a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Just a minute,’ he said in a tense voice. ‘Take a look at that.’ He pointed.
Ginger stared with startled eyes at the object towards which Biggles had directed a finger. At first he could not make out what it was, although it had a sinister look about it.
It appeared to be a red stain, surrounded by red splashes. Some loose, soft-looking fragments lay on it. ‘My gosh!’ he exclaimed in a horrified voice. ‘It’s blood.’
‘It couldn’t be anything else,’ said Biggles.
‘What do you make of it?’
‘I don’t make anything of it — except that somebody, or something, has just met with a nasty accident. That blood’s fresh.’ Biggles spoke, but he did not move. The muscles of his face were tense. His eyes were never still for a moment; they went from point to point, always returning to the gruesome stain.
