by W E Johns
‘That’s what I’m aiming to do,’ answered Biggles savagely. ‘Where’s the boat?’
Ginger faltered. ‘There isn’t one,’ he muttered miserably.
‘What do you mean—there isn’t one?’
‘It’s—it’s gone.’
‘Gone! Who took it?’
‘Nobody took it—I mean, it sort of went.’
‘Went? Have you gone crazy?’
‘An octopus took it,’ explained Ginger.
‘Don’t talk such blithering nonsense,’ snapped Biggles crossly. ‘Are you asking me to believe that an octopus got into our boat and rowed it away?’
‘No—that is, not exactly. You see—’
‘Just a minute, just a minute,’ broke in Biggles. ‘Let me get this right. The boat’s gone—is that it?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Fine!’ muttered Biggles grimly. ‘Now we know where we are. In a minute you can tell me how you came to lose it. Meantime, let’s get down to the beach, or anywhere away from here, in case these pole-cats come back.’
‘I frightened them, didn’t I?’ asked Ginger, as they hurried down to the beach.
‘No! Oh, no! Frightened isn’t the word. Supposing you were walking through a churchyard one night and a corpse pushed its tombstone over and leapt out at you with a yell—would you be frightened? I mean, you wouldn’t stop to ask it questions?’
‘No,’ declared Ginger emphatically. ‘I certainly should not.’
‘Precisely!’
‘But was that place a churchyard?’
‘What goes for one in these islands. If they buried their dead, which couldn’t be very deep on account of the primitive tools they’ve got, the crocs would dig them up. So they hoist them up in the trees. You must have found an empty grave.’
‘Like fun I did,’ snorted Ginger. ‘He was at home all right, only I didn’t see him when I first climbed up; you can bet your life on that. That yell you heard was me making his first acquaintance—ugh!’
‘I don’t wonder those fellows who were after me were scared,’ muttered Biggles, smiling at the recollection. ‘I don’t mind admitting that I was as shaken as they were, as you’d well believe if you’d seen me hoofing it as soon as I could get on my feet. But by the time I’d got down here I’d worked out what it was, and started back to fetch you. Wait a minute. I think this will do for a hide-out while we discuss what we’re going to do.’
They had reached the beach, but instead of following the water-line, they worked their way to the edge of the jungle and pulled up in the inky shade of a giant casuarina tree.
‘Now, then. Just tell me what happened,’ invited Biggles. ‘But make it short. It is known by now that there is at least one stranger on the island, and unless I’ve missed my guess, it won’t be long before search parties are on the move.’
‘They’ll never find us in this darkness,’ declared Ginger optimistically.
‘Maybe not, but they’ll watch every landing-place since they must know that whoever is here came by boat.’
‘By the way,’ asked Ginger suddenly, remembering the reason for the excursion and what he himself had seen, ‘did you see any submarines?’
Biggles looked at him sharply. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nor did I see any place where one might expect to find one.’
‘I have,’ Ginger told him.
Biggles started. ‘You’ve what?’ he gasped.
‘Seen a submarine.’
‘Where?’
‘Just along past the end of the bay—over there,’ Ginger pointed.
‘What, by that cliff!’
‘The sub came out the cliff.’
‘Came out of it—talk sense.’
‘I am. I tell you I saw a submarine come out of the cliff and put out to sea. There must be a hole there—a cave of some sort.’ Briefly, Ginger described how he had first heard and then seen the under-water craft, and followed this up by describing his adventures from the time the first decapod had dragged the boat away from the islet.
‘My gosh! You have had a night of it,’ muttered Biggles when he had finished. ‘No wonder you were getting a bit het up when you bumped into me. Well, what are we going to do? This is the place we’re looking for, there’s no doubt about that, but the information isn’t going to be much use to us unless we find a way of getting back to our rendezvous.’
‘Could we make a raft, do you think?’ suggested Ginger hopefully.
Biggles regarded him sadly. ‘Have you ever tried to make a raft?’ he asked.
‘Never.’
‘Then don’t. I did once. Oh, yes, I know it sounds easy in books, but don’t you believe it. Anyway, quite apart from that, I don’t fancy rafting about on an octopus-infested sea. A liner wouldn’t be too big for me after what you’ve just told me. All the same, things are not going to be too cheerful on this island now we’ve been discovered; except for that I wouldn’t mind staying and lying low for a bit. But as soon as these johnnies have recovered from their fright they’ll be back, and I don’t like the look of the weapons they carry.’
‘What sort of weapon is it?’
‘A thing called a kris — a cross between a cutlass and a cleaver. Nasty.’
‘Hadn’t they got firearms?’
‘Apparently not, or they’d have had a crack at me.’
‘What happened?’ inquired Ginger. ‘I mean how did you come to barge into them?’
In a few words Biggles described his adventure. By the time he had finished the sky was beginning to turn grey, and he peered apprehensively along the beach.
‘Look here, it’s beginning to get light,’ he muttered. ‘We’d better find a better hiding-place than this in which to spend the day. First of all, though, let’s make sure there’s no chance of getting the boat. If we can get on to that rising land farther along to the right we ought to be able to see beyond the islet. Come on, let’s go and have a dekko. Keep your eyes skinned.’
Chapter 14
Where is the Seafret?
They set off along the beach, keeping as close to the edge of the jungle as possible. Biggles broke into a steady trot as soon as he saw the coast was clear, for the day was fast dawning, and in this way they soon reached the end of the bay, where the vegetation, curving round to meet the sea, brought them to a halt.
‘Come on, we shall have to force a way through this stuff,’ muttered Biggles, plunging into the undergrowth in order to reach the top of the high ground of which he had spoken.
The going was heavy, and several times they were compelled to make detours around fallen trees with their hosts of clinging parasites; but in due course, panting and dishevelled, they reached the crest and looked down.
A cry of triumph at once broke from Biggles’s lips, and Ginger murmured his satisfaction, for there, high and dry on even keel on the sand just round the headland, where the flowing tide had apparently cast it, lay the dinghy.
‘We’d better go and get it,’ said Biggles quickly. ‘If any one comes along we shall lose it for good.’
Again they set off, this time downhill, in the direction of the boat.
‘What are we going to do with it?’ asked Ginger as they reached it, and saw with relief that it was undamaged, with the oars still in place.
Biggles thought swiftly. ‘We ought to get out behind the islet, as we arranged,’ he answered, ‘but I must say that I am tempted to go and have a look at this place where the submarine came out. There must be a cave or a hidden creek there. It’s a bit risky, but we’ve got to have a look at it sometime to see just what there is there. It’s no use trying to blow up the whole blessed island, and we might go on bombing the trees for weeks without hitting the vital spot.’
‘Well, if we’re going, no time could be better than this, I imagine,’ suggested Ginger.
‘How long will it take us to get there?’
‘About five minutes. Certainly not more than ten. It’s only just across the other side of the bay.’
‘Come
on, then, let’s have a shot at it,’ decided Biggles, well aware of the desperate nature of the enterprise. But, as he had just observed, they would have to look at it at some time or other, and they could not hope for a better opportunity than the present.
They pushed the boat into the limpid water and scrambled aboard. Biggles picked up the oars, and in a few seconds they were skimming towards their objective, keeping close in to the shore in order, as far as possible, to avoid observation.
Reaching the far side of the bay, Biggles rested on his oars while the dinghy crept forward under its own way round the rocky headland. For a moment or two he looked ahead eagerly, expectantly; but then a look of blank wonderment spread slowly over his face as he stared at a plain wall of rock. Not a cleft or a cave showed anywhere in the cliff; from the rank green vegetation fifty feet above to the turquoise ripples at their own level, the wall fell sheer without an unusual mark of any sort.
Turning, he looked at Ginger with questioning eyes.
‘Well, what do you make of it?’ he asked, a faint hint of scepticism in his voice.
Ginger was nonplussed. Never in all his life had he felt so foolish. ‘I don’t know what to make of it and that’s a fact,’ he admitted.
‘You’re not going to try to persuade me that a submarine sailed straight through that chunk of rock?’
Ginger shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s solid enough. Nothing but an earthquake could shift it.’
‘Well, what’s the answer?’ inquired Biggles, a trifle coldly.
‘A lemon, by the look of it,’ smiled Ginger, weakly.
‘You’re sure this is the right place?’
‘Absolutely certain.’
‘In that case, it looks as if we’ve gone back to the age of miracles,’ declared Biggles sarcastically, dipping the oars into the water.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going back to the islet. There’s no sense in sitting here gazing at a blank wall; there’s a degree of monotony about plain rock that I find distinctly boring.’
Not another word was spoken while Biggles rowed back across the bay and took the dinghy behind the islet so that it was concealed from the main island.
‘Don’t forget that this place is alive with octopuses,’ warned Ginger.
‘Don’t you mean octopi?’ suggested Biggles.
‘What does it matter?’ protested Ginger. ‘Had you been here last night and seen them you wouldn’t have stopped to consult your pocket dictionary, I’ll bet.’
‘I think it would be safe enough during daylight.’
‘What about when it gets dark?’
‘We shall be gone by then,’ answered Biggles. ‘Let’s haul the dinghy ashore; we can forget all about it then and pass the day in the shade of that rock.’ He nodded towards the mass of rock that rose at the higher end of the islet.
The rest of the day was in the nature of a picnic. The sun shone brightly, but a little breeze from the sea tempered the heat to a pleasant temperature, while the food and water Sullivan had put into the boat staved off the pangs of hunger. For some time they talked of the mystery of the submarine. Biggles was sceptical and made no secret of it, and at the end even Ginger began to doubt himself.
‘The fact is, you didn’t see a submarine at all; you only thought you saw one,’ concluded Biggles.
After lunch they slept in turn, one keeping watch while the other rested, but not once did either of them see or hear anything of the men who they knew must be somewhere on the island.
‘I should say they were a tribe of seafaring Dyaks,’ decided Biggles at last, as the sun began to sink towards the western horizon. ‘The locals in these parts are a wild lot, I believe, and would murder anyone for a pair of boots. It begins to look to me as if we’re all at sixes and sevens, and the people we’re looking for aren’t on this island at all, but—Strewth! What’s that?’
He leapt to his feet with undignified haste as an aero engine roared—almost in their ears, it seemed. Ginger sprang round as if he had been stung, and peeping round the rock, they beheld a sight so inexplicable that for a time they could only stare speechlessly. Floating on the blue surface of the translucent water at the far end of the bay, the reflection of her silver image distorted beneath her, was a small seaplane. How it had got there without being heard or seen was a mystery that defied all logical conjecture. Not that they had time to contemplate the matter calmly, for, with a roar that sent the parrots screaming into the air, the aircraft sped across the water in a cloud of glittering spray and soared into the sky.
Biggles dragged Ginger down with him as he flung himself flat. ‘What do you know about that?’ he gasped. ‘About what?’
‘That seaplane.’
‘Seaplane! You didn’t see a seaplane—you only thought you saw one,’ mocked Ginger, getting his own back for Biggles’s gibe earlier in the day.
The machine flashed across their field of vision, climbing for height, and hardly knowing what to say, they watched it until it was a mere speck in the blue. Then the hum of the engine died away suddenly, and they saw it coming down again.
‘He’s been up for an evening reconnaissance, I should say,’ observed Biggles quietly. ‘Not a bad idea, either. The fellow in that machine would be able to see fifty miles in all directions from his altitude—a lot better than scouting about in a boat.’
‘Maybe he was looking for the junk,’ suggested Ginger.
‘Quite likely,’ agreed Biggles. ‘Look out! Keep your face down. You can see a face looking up at you easier than you can see a hundred men with their faces covered.’
Out of the corners of their eyes they watched the machine glide in, saw its long floats kiss the water and run to a stop not fifty yards from the cliff. There was a bellow of sound as the engine roared again and the machine disappeared behind the headland. The noise of the engine ceased, and they waited for it to start again, but in vain. Once more silence settled over the scene, now mauve-tinted with the approach of twilight.
Biggles started collecting the belongings that were scattered about at their feet.
‘What’s the programme?’ asked Ginger.
‘I’m moving off,’ said Biggles quietly.
‘That suits me,’ declared Ginger warmly. ‘It’s getting near octopus time.’
As is usual in the tropics, night closed in around them swiftly, and by the time they were ready to depart it was nearly dark.
‘Which way?’ asked Ginger, taking his seat in the boat.
‘I’m going to have another look at that cliff ‘ announced Biggles.
‘You won’t be able to see much in this darkness.’
‘Enough, I fancy.’
Just what he expected to find Biggles did not say, but he expressed no surprise when the dinghy rounded the headland and the secret of the seaplane’s disappearance was explained—as was the case of the submarine. Gaping in the face of the cliff, low down on the waterline, was a great black hole like the mouth of a tunnel.
‘Fancy not thinking of that! Why, a half-wit would have spotted it,’ grunted Biggles disgustedly.
‘Spotted what?’
‘That there was a cave, exposed at low water, but submerged at high tide. It was high water when we came round here this morning.’
‘Pretty good,’ was Ginger’s vague reply. Whether he was referring to Biggles’s solution of the problem or the cave itself was not clear. ‘Are you going to have a peep in?’ he added.
‘No. I’d like to,’ confessed Biggles, ‘but I don’t think it would be good generalship. We’ve got the secret now, and it’s up to us to pass it back to Sullivan before we take any more risks, so that he can send the information back to the people at home in case anything unpleasant happens to us. After we’ve done that we’ll certainly come back and have a snoop round, because then our precious lives won’t be of such vital importance if we get into a jam.’
‘You speak for yourself,’ growled Ginger.
Biggles la
ughed softly as he pulled on the oars, and the island faded into the dark background.
‘Are you going to look for Sullivan?’ asked Ginger.
‘I am,’ declared Biggles tersely.
‘We shall be a bit early.’
‘No matter. It’s no use blinking at the fact that we’ve had a bit of luck in spotting this dug-out, and I’m itching to get the information off my chest before anything happens to upset our apple-cart.’
‘What can happen?’
‘Don’t ask riddles. How do I know? But it’s time you knew that on these jaunts of ours something usually does happen at the crucial moment to throw things out of gear.’
Ginger said no more, but prepared to make himself as comfortable as possible during the wait.
In the pitch darkness, with nothing to do once they had reached the rendezvous, the time seemed to pass slowly.
‘Time he was here,’ muttered Biggles at last, staring into the gloom to seaward.
Another quarter of an hour passed and Biggles stirred uneasily. ‘Funny,’ he said, as if to himself. ‘I suppose we couldn’t by any chance have missed him?’
Ginger said nothing. Biggles had expressed his own thoughts and he had nothing to add.
The next half-hour was the longest either of them could ever remember. ‘Begins to look as if I was right,’ Biggles observed dispassionately, at last.
‘How so?’
‘About things going wrong.’
‘But surely nothing could go wrong with the destroyer?’
‘Then why isn’t it here?’
‘That, I admit, is something I can’t answer,’ was Ginger’s only comment.
Another half-hour or so elapsed, and Biggles roused himself from the listening position in which he had been sitting. ‘I don’t think it’s much use waiting here any longer,’ he announced bitterly. ‘Sullivan isn’t coming, or he’d be here by now.’
Ginger barely heard the last part of the sentence. He had crouched forward in a rigid attitude, listening tensely. ‘Hark!’ he said softly. ‘I can hear something. What is it?’
From somewhere far away out to sea a deep drone pulsed through the night; for a moment or two it persisted, rising to a crescendo, and then died away. A moment later the sound was repeated, and then again, slightly louder.
