by W E Johns
The thrust went home. The German scowled. ‘This is not a good moment to remind me of that,’ he rasped. ‘When this affair is over there will be one damned Britisher the less, anyhow.’ Von Schonbeck paused, and with an effort checked his rising temper. ‘But to argue about things that are past at a time like this is folly,’ he went on. ‘Now then, as one officer and gentleman to another—’
Biggles looked incredulous. ‘As what? An officer and gentleman? God save us. Von Schonbeck, you’re just a cheap, cold-blooded murderer, high on the list of war criminals. Very soon every newspaper in the world will carry the story of your crimes, your butchery of helpless women and unarmed seamen. You may shoot me, and since a hyena can’t change its coat I’m sure that was always your intention; but, believe me, I’d sooner go out here and now than live another twenty years with a reputation like yours. They’ll put your photo in the papers, and every decent seaman between the Arctic and the Antarctic will spit when he looks at it. That should leave you in no doubt as to what I think of you.’
Thom took a swift pace forward and struck Biggles across the face with his open hand.
Von Schonbeck, whose face had flamed scarlet, laughed harshly. ‘What you think of me is of no importance,’ he grated. ‘It is what I am going to do to you that will count.’
‘Go ahead,’ invited Biggles.
Von Schonbeck barked an order. Two men seized Biggles by the arms and jostled him forward a little way until he stood with his back against a face of rock. Another order and the firing party lined up in front of him.
Another order and they came to attention.
‘Would you like a bandage over your eyes?’ sneered von Schonbeck.
‘No,’ answered Biggles evenly. ‘There’s nothing a Nazi can give me that I can’t take.’
Von Schonbeck raised his hand.
‘Take aim,’ Thom ordered his men.
The rifles of the firing party came to their shoulders.
The crash of an explosion shattered the silence.
Biggles stumbled and fell flat.
CHAPTER XII
Ginger Starts Something
Now while Biggles was taking what he had good reason to suppose would be his last view of the earth from the inhospitable rock of the island, Ginger, still secure in the whaler, was nearer than ever before to panic. Watching through the porthole he saw Biggles taken ashore, saw von Schonbeck standing there, saw the firing squad and guessed its purpose. Yet there was nothing he could do. Absolutely nothing. He tried to do something, of course. In sheer despair he wrenched at the door handle, kicked the door and tore at the metal frame of the porthole, although he knew that these efforts were silly and futile. His only comfort — a poor crumb of comfort indeed — was the thought: ‘I shall be next.’
At this juncture, while he was still staring ashen-faced through the porthole, a sudden noise behind him brought him round with a nervous start, in such a state of agitation was he. He saw that the door had been opened. A face, a leathery, weather-beaten face, alert with apprehension and anxiety, was peering into the cabin. The eyes met Ginger’s. After a furtive glance along the corridor behind him the man made a swift beckoning movement with his hand.
Ginger felt intuitively that this man was a friend. Indeed, his attitude and manner almost proved it. So the question he asked was really automatic. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘I friend,’ was the terse reply. ‘Come. Come quick. We go.’
‘Go where?’
The man made a gesture of urgency. ‘Hide. Germans shoot.’
The man’s English was limited, but the words he did use were pregnant with significance.
In any case Ginger was in no state to be particular. He was prepared to go anywhere, do anything, if only to get out of the cabin. ‘Are you a Norwegian?’ he queried, although here again he was pretty sure of his ground.
‘Yes, me Norwegian,’ was the quick rejoinder. The man laid a finger on his lips. ‘Come. Not any noise,’ he warned.
Still without knowing exactly what the man intended beyond the obvious fact that he proposed deserting the ship, Ginger followed his new acquaintance into the corridor, along which they passed swiftly to a flight of steps which, as it soon turned out, gave access to the deck near the bows. From this point Ginger made a lightning survey of the ship for possible danger. There were several sailors in sight. All were lining the rail overlooking the shore where a drama was being enacted, their attention riveted on it, as was natural. Ginger’s guide, impatient at the brief delay, plucked him by the sleeve, and lifting aside the camouflage netting indicated that they should climb the low cliff against which the ship was moored. But in this simple manner of escape — for it was evident that the Norwegian did not look beyond that — Ginger was not prepared to participate.
In point of fact escape was the last thing in his mind. The thought dominant in his brain was how to help Biggles. His eyes were on the shore and he could see clearly enough what was about to happen. The question was, how to stop it, and this was not so clear.
The Norwegian was still hanging on the cliff; waiting, so Ginger ran to him and asked him if he had a pistol. Just what he would have done with this weapon had it been available is a matter for conjecture. It seems likely that he would have launched, from long range, a single-handed attack on the firing party, and lost his life for his pains. However, this did not occur for the simple reason that the Norwegian had no pistol. Indeed, he had no weapon of any sort, as he explained by eloquent gestures. Ginger, by this time in a fever of consternation, turned away, and in doing so collided with a weapon the like of which he had never seen before although his common sense told him what it was. It was the heavy harpoon gun, mounted in the bows, by which the whaler slew the great sea beasts for which it was designed. The massive point of a steel harpoon, with hinged barbs, a fearful-looking instrument, projected from the muzzle.
Ginger caught his breath as he realised the possibilities. He had an insane desire to laugh.
‘Is this loaded?’ he demanded of his companion, who by signs was still imploring him to escape while the opportunity offered.
The man shook his head.
‘Where are the shells?’ demanded Ginger. ‘Quick!’
The man pointed at a stoutly-built wooden box, almost the size of a chest, clamped to the deck near the gun.
Ginger threw open the lid and saw rows of enormous cartridges. ‘How do you load this thing?’ he asked in a hoarse whisper.
The man joined him. ‘Are you mad?’ he asked with some agitation.
‘Yes,’ answered Ginger frankly. ‘How do I load it?’
The man started to explain, but Ginger, unable to follow his instructions, broke in impatiently. ‘Load it.’
The Norwegian, with a deftness obviously the result of long experience, slipped a cartridge into the breech and closed it. ‘She is ready,’ he said simply. ‘She fire when you pull trigger.’
With a sort of delirious joy Ginger grabbed the weapon, swung the muzzle round — for it moved on well-oiled bearings — and took rough aim at the party on the shore. To his horror he saw that the sailors had raised their rifles. His finger coiled round the trigger. With a vicious jerk he pulled it, and then stepped back to watch the result.
There was a violent explosion, much louder than he expected. The harpoon, glinting as it caught the light, flashed a graceful curve through the grey atmosphere. Behind it, sagging slightly, trailed the line to which it was attached. Until this moment Ginger knew nothing of the line. Not that it made any difference.
The harpoon missed the target at which it was aimed by a fairly wide margin, although that is no matter for wonder. It hit the conning tower of the submarine with a metallic clang, glanced off, and spinning wildly whirled on towards the group assembled behind it. Ginger saw Biggles fall flat and for a ghastly moment thought that the harpoon had hit him. Thom spun a good dozen yards and went down, screaming. The rope, coiling like a snake in convulsions, threw the firing pa
rty into confusion. In actual fact Ginger was not at all sure of what had happened. One thing, however, was certain. He had interrupted the proceedings. Satisfied with his efforts so far he turned to reload the weapon, but the Norwegian clutched him by the arm and shouted to him to run. This, really, was sound advice, but Ginger was in no mood to listen to advice, good or bad.
From then on the affair was chaotic. Shots were fired. By whom, who at, and from where, Ginger had no idea. There was shouting. The old Norwegian was yelling in his own language. The sailors who had been lining the rail had turned, and they, too, shouted as they ran towards the gun, some in German and some in what Ginger supposed to be Norwegian. What is commonly called a free fight started. The old Norwegian picked up an iron spike that lay near the gun and threw it. It struck the leading German in the face and knocked him down. Ginger closed with the second. He went down under his man, who was a good deal heavier, and was getting the worst of it when the body pressing on him went limp. Pulling himself clear he saw a Norwegian swinging a wooden mallet in a sort of frenzy. Everywhere men were fighting, wrestling, some standing, some falling. It was evident that now the revolt had started, now that the Norwegians had turned on their captors, they were wiping out old scores and doing it with gusto.
Ginger took no further part in this particular affair. The mêlée was too confused, and although for the moment the Norwegians appeared to be more than holding their own, in his heart he felt sure that in the long run they would lose, because they were outnumbered. He was thinking, of course, of the Nazi crew on the U-boat, who, he was certain, would soon be aboard to quell the rising. And thinking on these lines he could find time to be sorry for the disaster which, he supposed, he had brought upon the unarmed whalers. He was anxious, desperately anxious, to learn what had happened to Biggles, and in the hope of ascertaining this he made his way to the rail which commanded a view of the scene ashore. There, an unexpected sight met his gaze. As far as he had been aware there had been no Norwegians on the island; so if there was any fighting at all, he assumed that it would be Biggles against the rest. But this was not so.
Another battle, a battle in which firearms were being used, was being waged ashore.
Perhaps ‘battle’ is not the right word. It appeared that a small party of men, Biggles amongst them, was making a fighting withdrawal towards the interior of the island. From here, too, shots were being fired. Ginger could not understand it at all. Not that he tried very hard. His chief concern was that Biggles was still on his feet, and seemed to have found some unexpected allies. Where these had come from he could not imagine. It was all very puzzling.
A new factor now appeared on the scene — or rather, over the scene. In a vague sort of way Ginger connected it with the happenings ashore without being able to reach anything definite in the way of understanding. It was the aircraft. It appeared suddenly over the crest of a hill some distance away. Ginger shouted from sheer excitement. A whistle shrilled on the shore, and the Germans who had been pursuing Biggles and his unknown friends began running back to the U-boat. Biggles and his party now turned back and pursued the Germans, who, in response to von Schonbeck’s frantic shouting, converged on the U-boat and dived into the conning tower.
The aircraft came on. It still had some distance to travel, however, to the scene of hostilities; and when it did reach them it circled as if the pilot was undecided as to what course to take. This Ginger could well understand. A newcomer to the scene, he realised, would find it hard to sort out the combatants. The result of this hesitation was that by the time the machine reached the cove the submarine was under way, nosing towards the passage to the open sea. From the behaviour of the aircraft Ginger thought that the pilot — Algy or Bertie, he knew not which — had only just spotted the U-boat; but when the pilot did see it he came straight on. A depth-charge came sailing down. Ginger ducked, for the missile seemed to be coming uncomfortably close to the whaler. There was a thundering explosion. Ginger jumped up and saw that the depth-charge, obviously aimed at the U-boat, had missed its mark. It had fallen some distance astern. A quick-firing gun on the deck of the submarine started pouring up flak, forcing the aircraft to take evading action. Nevertheless, dashing in it sent a second depth-charge hurtling down. Again Ginger ducked, for this one, dropped in haste, looked like coming nearer.
Again an explosion thundered, flinging columns of water sky-high. Again Ginger popped up, in time to observe that the shot was another miss. He groaned with disappointment.
Then he remembered that the gold was on board the U-boat, a fact of which the pilot of the aircraft must be unaware, and he was glad, in a way, that the submarine looked like getting clear. He had no idea of the depth of the water in the cove, but should it be very deep, and it might well be, there was a good chance that the gold would have been lost for ever.
The U-boat, after rocking dangerously in the tremendous swell set up by the explosion, moved on towards the entrance. The whaler rocked too, so that Ginger was hard put to keep his feet. Spitting flak the U-boat held on, followed by the aircraft, still taking evading action, the only sensible thing to do in the circumstances, as Ginger realised. The machine took no further offensive action because there was nothing more it could do. It carried no more depth-charges, nor, for that matter, any other weapon powerful enough to impede the progress of the submarine. The Tarpon’s machine-guns were no use against a steel hull, so the submarine ran on through the channel to the open sea where, after the gunners had retired, it submerged and was lost to view. Not forgetting the gold, Ginger was conscious of a sense of frustration and disappointment.
Still somewhat dazed by the speed of events, and aware that the pandemonium behind him had subsided, he turned to see what had happened. A litter of bodies on the whaler’s deck revealed at a glance the fury of the struggle that had been waged. It was equally clear that the whalers had won, for all those still on their feet were Norwegians. The old man with the leathery face — now bloodstained but twisted in a grin of triumph — was there.
Now that the affair on the whaler was over Ginger had no time to spare for it. He was more anxious to make contact with Biggles. So with a shout of congratulations and thanks to the Norwegians he went back to the rail, nearly being hit by a bullet as he did so. Realising that those ashore must be unaware of what had happened on the ship, and that they would naturally suppose it to be in enemy hands, he jumped up and waved his arms, at the same time shouting to call attention to his presence. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the aircraft coming in to land from the direction of the sea; but his attention was really on the shore, where a little knot of men stood together, one of them bending over something that lay on the ground. Biggles was amongst them. He looked across the water at Ginger and waved. He spoke to the men around him, with a result that two of them got into the little boat that had taken him ashore and rowed out to the ship.
Five minutes later Ginger was on the island talking to Biggles. The object on the ground turned out to be Thom. He was not a pretty sight, for the harpoon had gone clean through him.
Ginger shuddered. ‘Did I do that?’ he asked aghast.
‘It was a good shot whoever did it,’ declared Biggles. ‘Did you fire the gun?’
‘I did,’ admitted Ginger.
‘With more practice you’ll be able to go in for whaling when you get too old to fly,’ said Biggles. Then he became serious. ‘You were just about in time, although at first I thought the harpoon was going to get me. I saw it coming and went flat. But let’s get the situation straightened out. What’s happened on the ship?’
‘The Norwegians took a hand and cleaned up the Nazis,’ explained Ginger. ‘Where the deuce did these other fellows come from?’ He pointed at three more men coming towards the scene. One of them was Algy. ‘That means Bertie must have been flying the aircraft,’ he concluded.
‘Evidently,’ replied Biggles. ‘I’m still not clear as to what has happened, except that an attack on the Nazi camp was launched just a
bout the time you fired the gun. But here comes Bertie. No doubt he’ll tell us all about it.’
The aircraft had taxied up to the rock and Bertie had jumped ashore. He reached the party at the same time as Algy, who was plastered with mud and breathing heavily.
Bertie started when his eyes fell on the mangled remains of Thom. Adjusting his monocle he regarded the spectacle with disgust. ‘Here, I say, you know, who made that beastly mess?’ he inquired weakly.
‘Never mind that,’ answered Biggles. ‘We’re waiting to hear your end of the story.’
‘Ask Algy,’ pleaded Bertie. ‘I’m still all of a dither. Did you see that bally submarine shooting at me? No joke, I can tell you.’
‘You needn’t tell me,’ said Biggles curtly. ‘I’ve had some. Go ahead, Algy.’
Algy explained how he and Bertie had picked up the Norwegians marooned on the ice, had landed at the far end of the island during the hours of darkness, and were getting into position to attack the Nazi camp when the firing of the gun had upset their plan.
However, they had pressed on the attack, after which Biggles knew as much about it as they did.
‘Well, it seems to have worked out all right,’ said Biggles at the finish.
‘You’re not forgetting that von Schonbeck has got away?’ Ginger pointed out bitterly.
‘And I’m not forgetting that we’ve got away, either,’ returned Biggles. ‘An hour ago I wouldn’t have given an empty petrol can for our chance. Von Schonbeck has gone and he’s got the gold with him, but he’s not home yet; with any luck we’ll catch up with him before he gets there. Those cookies1 of yours, Bertie, were pretty close, and if they haven’t loosened some plates I shall be surprised. The best thing we can do is get back to base and talk the thing over. Before we do that, though, we’d better see what we have on our hands here.’
‘How about chasing the sub?’ suggested Ginger.
Biggles shook his head. ‘Not a hope. Von Schonbeck will stay under water for as long as he dare, knowing there’s a hostile aircraft about. Not that it would make any difference if we did spot him. We’ve nothing to hit with.’
