by W E Johns
There was something unnatural in the way they stared steadfastly into space without even troubling to glance in his direction.
Suddenly he fixed them with a long, penetrating stare, and then, catching his breath sharply, opened his throttle wide and raced away in the direction of the Lines.
Without warning, a furious bombardment of archie broke out around him, but he only laughed as he dodged and twisted through the pungent black smoke and twinkling stabs of orange flame.
A few minutes later he landed at Maranique, switched off his engine, and after a curt 'She's flying perfectly' to his fitter and rigger, strode quickly in the direction of the officers' mess. The five or six officers who were in the room looked up as he entered.
Biggles' eyes swept over them and came to rest on MacLaren, who, with three others, was playing bridge at a table near the far window.
'Who's in the air, Mac?' Biggles asked.
'Mahoney's out on patrol, with a couple of new men. Why?' Mac replied.
'Which way have they gone, do you know?'
'No idea, but they're due back any minute. Hark! Here they are now,' Mac added, glancing through the window to where three Camels were gliding in over the sheds.
Biggles crossed to the fireplace, lit a cigarette, and waited until the three pilots entered.
'Listen, everybody!' he called. 'There's a new kite-balloon up at Duneville. Don't anybody go near it!'
MacLaren looked at him in astonishment.
'Why?' he cried, 'what's biting you? Have you bought it, or something?'
'You'll buy it if you go near that kite!' answered Biggles grimly.
'What's wrong with it?' MacLaren demanded.
'I don't know – yet. But whatever it is, it isn't nice, you can bet your boots on that. Hold hard a minute!' Biggles walked quickly to the hall and took up the telephone.
'287 Squadron, please – and make it snappy,' he told the telephone operator. 'Oh, hallo, Freddy!' he called, a moment later. 'Is Wilks there?' Another pause, and then: 'Is that you, Wilks? Fine! Listen, laddie. There's a new kite up at Duneville. It looks like one of the old obsolete Parseval-Drachen type, so they must be running short of balloons. But there's more to it than that.
'What's that? You know all about it? I'll bet you don't. I've rung you up to tell you to keep away from it. What? No, it isn't mine, and I don't want it, either. You can have it. Serious, there is something fishy about that kite – what's that? – just gone off to get it – who did you say? Young Tom Ellis? Oh! I'll try to stop him. Cheerio!'
Biggles slammed the receiver down, and without looking to right or left ran through the ante-room and down the tarmac to where he had left his Camel.
Two minutes later he was in the air, flying back over the course by which he had returned less than a quarter of an hour earlier. He tore across the trenches at five thousand feet, and zigzagging his way through the Line archie, he raced full-out for the Duneville balloon.
Two miles away, and a mile above him, he spied the S.E.5, piloted by young Tom Ellis, which he was trying to head off, and he muttered under his breath as he realised at once that he could not catch it. From a distance of less than a mile he witnessed the whole tragedy from start to finish.
He saw the S.E flash around, put its nose down almost vertically towards the lazily floating gasbag, and then zoom up over it at the end of its dive. As the S.E. drew level with the top of the balloon there was a blinding flash of flame.
A great cloud of smoke appeared in the air where the balloon had been, and even at the distance he was from it, Biggles felt his machine rock to the 'bump' as the blast of the explosion struck it.
With staring eyes and set, white face, Biggles watched pieces of debris fall earthwards from the smoke – a wingless fuselage, wheels, broken pieces of wood and torn fabric.
He waited to see no more, but raced back again to the aerodrome. He flung the door of the squadron office open without knocking, and fixed 'Wat' Tyler, the Recording Officer, with a hostile stare.
'Where's the old man?' he snapped.
'In the mess. Why?' Tyler answered.
'Don't ask why! Give me that 'phone. 287 Squadron – and jump to it,' he told the operator tersely. 'I want Captain Wilkinson, please.' Then, a moment later: 'Hallo, is that you, Wilks? It's all over – they got him – blew the poor little beggar to dust as he went over. There must have been a ton of ammonal in that basket along with two dummy figures! Yes – see you later!'
Ignoring Tyler's 'What was it, Biggles?' he walked slowly down the tarmac to the ante-room. All eyes were turned on him as he entered. Major Mullen took one look at his face, flashed a quick glance at MacLaren, then dropped his eyes again to the newspaper he was reading.
Biggles picked up a tumbler from a card-table as he passed, looked at it intently for a minute, and then hurled it with all his force at the fireplace. It struck the chimney-piece with a crash. Splinters of glass flew in all directions. No one moved. No one spoke. Major Mullen did not even look up.
Biggles kicked the table out of his way with a snarl that was half a sob, flicked a pack of cards into the air with a vicious sweep of his gloves, crossed to the fireplace, and, resting his head on his arms, stared with unseeing eyes into the grate.
'I hear 207 are getting Snipes,' observed the major casually to MacLaren.
'Good! Maybe we'll get 'em soon,' replied MacLaren. 'Have a drink, Biggles?' he added, reaching for the bell.
'Not for me,' replied Biggles in a low voice, and then, after a short pause: 'They've got young Tom Ellis. I was with the kid in Amiens last night – Well, why don't you say something, somebody?' he cried loudly, looking around aggressively.
'They blew him to bits with a load of high explosive,' he went on, through set teeth. 'They couldn't get him any other way, the dirty, underhanded hounds – ' His voice rose to a shrill crescendo and he stamped his foot on the floor. He broke off suddenly and started towards the door.
'Hold hard, I'm coming!' cried Algy.
'Stay where you are!' snarled Biggles, thrusting him aside. He went out and slammed the door.
'What's he going to do, sir?' asked Algy, white-faced, turning to the C.O.
Major Mullen ignored the question. 'Which way has he gone, Mac?' he asked quickly, hurrying towards the window.
'Down to the sheds,' replied the flight-commander.
'What's he going to do, sir?' cried Algy again, his lips trembling.
'I'll tell you what he's going to do,' answered the major heavily, going back to his chair and picking up the newspaper he had dropped. 'He's going over the German Lines, and he'll shoot at everything that moves on legs, wheels, or wings. His machine will probably be a "write-off" when he comes back – if he does. The odds are about ten to one he doesn't.
'But it's no use trying to stop a man in that state. He's stark, staring, fighting mad. I've seen it before. If he kills somebody and doesn't get killed himself, he'll be as right as rain when he comes back.'
'I see, sir,' said Algy slowly, edging off towards the door.
'Stay where you are! Nobody will take the air until he comes back,' continued the major sharply. 'I don't want to finish off the day with only two serviceable machines in the squadron. I know what will happen if you try to follow him!' he added knowingly.
Biggles' mechanics eyed him in silent apprehension as he climbed into the cockpit of his Camel. His face was chalk-white, and his eyes blazed with the inward fire that was consuming him. He was deadly calm. Pulling his goggles down over his eyes, he waved the chocks away, and, without another glance at the wide-eyed mechanics, thrust his throttle open and raced across the turf like a bullet.
'Well, that's the last we shall see of him!' observed Smyth, the flight-sergeant, gloomily. He had been in France three years, and knew the symptoms only too well – nerves stretched taut under the strain of continually facing the prospect of sudden death, until they reached the stage where it only needed a touch to snap them, leaving the owner a nervous wr
eck.
'Not 'im,' muttered Biggles' Cockney fitter proudly. ''E'll get 'ome all right. The 'Un ain't born as could – '
'What do you know about it?' roared the flight-sergeant. 'Get to your work, all of you!' he yelled, revealing that his own nerves were not what they once were.
Meanwhile, Biggles eyed the enemy trenches in a cold stare of hatred. They had killed Tom Ellis, poor little Tom, the lovable lad with whom he had spent the previous evening. The sight of the disaster had appalled him. It had shaken his nerves as nothing had ever done before, and although he did not know it he was perilously near a breakdown. They had killed Tommy.
Well, someone else was going to be killed now. Whether he himself was killed or not was beside the point. He did not even think about that.
The faint stammer of a gun came to his ears, and he looked down, frowning. The crew of a machine-gun on the ground had pulled their weapon out of its emplacement and were spouting a stream of lead up at him.
'Well, if you want trouble, you can have it!' grated Biggles, through set teeth. 'See how you like this!' He flung the Camel on to its nose with such a lightning dive that the machine-gunners had no time to get back to cover. A double line of tracer bullets poured into them in a continual stream from two blazing fountains on the nose of a meteor that thundered down out of the blue.
The German who was firing the other gun rose to his feet, then plunged forward like a swimmer in deep water, and lay still. Two others fell across him, and the rest flung themselves into their dugouts. But one was too late. He spun like a top, then fell in a crumpled heap across the doorway.
Biggles pulled up in a steep, climbing turn, and as he did so something detached itself from his bomb-rack– and the emplacement went up in a shower of earth, concrete, and corrugated iron.
Looking over his shoulder, Biggles regarded the result of his handiwork coldly. Something spanged against the engine cowling, and several blows like lashes from a whip struck the fuselage behind him.
Shifting his glance, he became aware that a trench was full of grey-coated figures with their rifles aimed at him, and he tore down at the trench in a fresh blaze of fury.
Straight along the trench he roared, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, and then, without looking back, he raced low along a track that led back towards the German reserve trenches.
Rat-tat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat-tat – stuttered his guns as he sped along almost on the ground, shooting at every living thing he saw. A ruined village came into view, and behind it a battery of enemy field-guns, with the gunners lying resting in front of the gun-pits. His arrival created a panic that was almost comical.
With one accord the gunners sprang to their feet and made a wild dash for cover as Biggles' guns tore the earth around them. Again he pulled the bomb-toggle as he swept over the gun-pits, and without waiting to see the result he flung the Camel at a staff car that was bumping slowly along the shell-pocked road.
Neither the driver nor the officers in the back seat looked around until the rattle of Biggles' guns warned them that the low-flying machine was not one of their own. The pilot held his fire until his undercarriage wheels almost grazed the car, and as he swept over it he looked back, smiling grimly. The car was upside down in the ditch that bordered the road!
Already he was feeling better. A squadron of Uhlans* watering their horses offered the next target, but for the sake of the horses he held his fire and satisfied himself by zooming low over them. The last he saw of them was loose horses galloping wildly in all directions.
* German cavalrymen.
Narrowly missing the telegraph wires that ran along the side of the railway line, he turned, and grinned with satisfaction as a train came into view, steaming in the direction of the Lines. Twice he raked it from end to end with his guns before he swept round again with his hand on the bomb-toggle.
The first two bombs missed their mark, but the third caught the train fairly and squarely just behind the engine tender. The damaged coach left the rails, and the rest of the train piled up on top of it.
He chased the engine until the occupants abandoned their charge and leapt for their lives down the embankment. The loose locomotive raced on with increasing speed and ran into the siding of a small station, where it collided with the end of a stationary train which burst into flames that quickly spread to the goods yard.
The appalling scene of destruction shook even the madly angry Biggles, and for the first time since he had crossed the Lines he zoomed up and looked about him to ascertain his position.
For the first time, too, he noticed that his course was marked by a long, unbroken line of black and yellow smoke, and realised, with something of a shock, that every enemy gun within range was turned on him. He passed a critical eye over his Camel, and got another shock.
In two or three places strips of fabric were trailing out behind his planes. A flying-wire had been cut, and was vibrating against his shell-torn fuselage.
'I must be crazy!' he told himself angrily, coming to his senses with a rush, and raced back towards the Lines. A Fokker D.VII* appeared from nowhere, and he grabbed his gun-lever. Rat-tat! Two shots flashed out, that was all. Furiously he struck the cocking-handles of the guns to clear the supposed jam. And then he tried them again. Nothing happened, and he knew that he had run through all his ammunition!
* Very efficient German single-seater biplane fighter with two forward-firing guns.
Twisting and dodging like a snipe, he zigzagged towards the Lines, with the Fokker in hot pursuit.
'I must be off my rocker!' he told himself again as a burst of bullets whipped through the skylight in the centre section of the Camel. 'If I get away with this, I'll give up flying and join the R.A.M.C.**!' he muttered, in a fright.
** Royal Army Medical Corps.
The British trenches came into sight, and, with his wheels nearly touching the ground, he roared across so low that only a quick swerve saved him from crashing into the barbed-wire entanglements. He waved cheerfully to the Tommies who had watched his approach with breathless excitement, and then zoomed high into the air.
'Well, that's that!' he muttered wearily as he turned towards Maranique.
Algy paced disconsolately up and down the tarmac in front of the temporary hangars. From time to time he stopped, and stared anxiously into the rapidly darkening eastern sky.
A tiny speck, far off, caught his eye, and after staring hard at it for a moment, he quickened his pace and made a signal to half a dozen air-mechanics who were lounging at the door of a hangar.
'Here he comes!' he said briskly.
'I told you 'e would, Flight,' Biggles' fitter remarked to the flight-sergeant. 'They can't get 'im. I'd like to know 'ow many 'Uns he's shot up to-day, but I bet as 'ow 'e doesn't tell us. I'll betcher there ain't a round of ammunition left in 'is guns.'
The lone Camel landed, and taxied in quickly. Algy strolled towards it, and waved cheerfully to the figure that had perched itself on the hump behind the pilot's seat.
'Good heavens!' gasped Algy, staring first at the machine and then at the pilot. 'You hurt, Biggles?' he asked quickly, noting a trickle of blood on the pilot's cheek.
'Hurt? No. Why should I be?' grinned Biggles.
'What did that to your face?' asked Algy.
'Ssh – not a word!' whispered Biggles confidentially. 'It was a mosquito. It landed on my centre section and did that.' He pointed to a gaping tear in the fabric. 'Then it sprang straight for my face. And then, because I beat it off, it went over there and did that.' Biggles pointed to an inter-plane strut that was splintered for three parts of its length. 'Then it jumped on to the lower plane and did that with its feet.' The pilot pointed to a row of neat holes. 'Then – '
'Oh, don't be a fool, Biggles!' grinned Algy. 'Come and have some tea.'
Biggles leapt lightly to the ground.
'Have this machine ready for dawn to-morrow,' he told the waiting mechanics.
'It will mean working all night, sir,'
observed the flight-sergeant doubtfully.
'Well, that's all right! Work all night,' replied Biggles brightly. 'There's no sense in sleeping while there's a good war like this on. I shall be working all night, too.'
'What are you talking about – working all night?' asked Algy, as they made their way to the mess.
'You wait and see,' replied Biggles darkly. 'Now, listen, Algy. If anybody wants to know where I am to-night, say you don't know. If it's anything urgent, though, you'll find me at the R.E.* Depot over at St Olave. To-morrow morning get Mac or Mahoney to take you over to Duneville – say I said so – and you'll see something you won't forget in a hurry!
* Royal engineers.
'Those dirty dogs at the balloon winch think they're clever. They'll be laughing like fun to-night about the way they got young Tom Ellis. But by this time tomorrow they'll be somewhere where they can't laugh. And that won't be so funny.
'You be there at six-thirty, and wait for me to come. Push any Huns who try to interfere into the floor!'
From ten thousand feet above Duneville, Algy turned for the tenth time to stare in the direction of the Lines. He glanced at his watch. It was six twenty-five. Another five minutes and Biggles should be here, he reflected, as he edged a little nearer to Mahoney, who was leading.
'Ah, here he comes now!' Mahoney had raised his right arm and pointed down to a gleaming speck that was skimming apparently just over the ground, although he realised that the Camel was probably at two, or even three, thousand feet.
'What the dickens is he up to?' mused Algy. 'He must be crazy, flying into this archie at that height!' He saw Mahoney staring hard at the machine below them, and was not surprised when the leader dropped quickly towards the Camel.
Algy's puzzled frown gave way to an expression of extreme anxiety as the archie began to work its way closer to the low machine, although the pilot twisted and turned like a wounded bird to evade it.
The Camel was stunting now, doing a succession of half-rolls that brought it nearer and nearer to the balloon winch – the very centre of the German anti-aircraft batteries.
