by W E Johns
‘What do you suppose you’re flying that kite for?’ It was Tug Carrington who spoke, and his voice seemed to bristle with criticism.
Lakers shrugged his shoulders. ‘To fight, I suppose.’
‘You only suppose? You won’t get many Huns if you go on like you did this morning,’ returned Tug frostily.
‘Oh, give him a chance,’ broke in Biggles. ‘He says himself he hasn’t been on the job very long. Do you really want to get a Hun?’ he went on, turning to Lakers.
‘I should say I do!’
‘Then suppose we go over together this afternoon and have a look round — that is, you, Lacey, and myself? I’ve got to do a patrol, anyway.’
‘That’s fine! But don’t let me butt in on —’
‘Oh, it’s a pleasure. We always try to do the best we can for our guests, don’t we, Algy?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Well, that suits me,’ declared Lakers. ‘Have a cigarette?’ He took a cigarette case from his pocket and offered it. Biggles took it, removed a cigarette, and examined the case with interest. It was a flat one, solid gold, slightly bent to fit the pocket. Engraved across the corner were the initials F.T.L.
‘Nice case,’ Biggles observed, handing it back to its owner. He glanced at his watch. ‘Excuse me, but I’ve got a little job to do in the office. I shan’t be long. You’d better go in and get some lunch. About this trip this afternoon — suppose we leave the ground at three?’
‘Suits me,’ agreed Lakers.
After lunch, leaving Lakers with his coffee, Biggles touched Algy on the arm and left the room.
‘What’s the idea?’ inquired Algy, as soon as they were outside.
‘I’ll show you,’ returned Biggles, and walked towards the hangars. On the way, at a point where a hedge came near to the path, he stopped to break off a thin straight ash stick, which he trimmed of its leaves as he walked along.
‘Are you going to ride a horse or something?’ inquired Algy, regarding this unusual procedure with interest.
Biggles shook his head. ‘At the moment I’m just riding a hunch,’ he replied. ‘Wait a minute and I’ll show you.’
Reaching the sheds, he went straight to the visiting Spitfire. Some mechanics were working on it, but he dismissed them. ‘Now,’ he said to Algy, as soon as the men had gone, ‘I want you to take a good look at those bullet holes near the cockpit. Can you see anything peculiar about them?’
Algy threw him a glance of frank amazement, and then examined the holes carefully.
‘No, I’m dashed if I can see anything unusual about them,’ he declared, after he had finished his scrutiny. ‘They look like good, honest bullet holes to me.’
‘Do you remember, when we were having lunch, I asked Lakers if he’d been under fire before this morning? I asked him the direct question.’
‘Yes, I remember perfectly. He said no.’
‘Then what do you make of this?’
Biggles inserted the ash stick in a hole on one side of the fuselage and pushed it on until the point rested in the corresponding hole on the opposite side, where the bullet had emerged.
‘I still don’t see what you’re getting at,’ murmured Algy.
‘Can you tell me how a bullet could pass along a path now indicated by that stick without touching the pilot? It would go through his thigh, wouldn’t it? It couldn’t possibly miss hint entirely, could it?’
‘No, it certainly could not,’ agreed Algy slowly.
‘Did you notice Lakers limping, or bleeding, or mentioning being hit? You didn’t? Well, I’m as certain as I stand here that Lakers wasn’t in the cockpit of that machine when those bullets were fired.’
‘What on earth made you spot that?’ gasped Algy.
‘You needn’t flatter me on account of my eyesight, but I’m not entirely a fool, I hope. I was looking at those holes before Lakers told his story. At first I thought he was just piling on the agony — some fellows talk like that, you know. But let us pass on. This fellow says his name is Lakers.’
‘Have you any reason to suppose that it isn’t?’
‘Yes, I have a very good reason. You see, I happen to know Lakers personally. I was talking to him in the Club only about a month ago.’
‘There might be two Lakers.’
‘There might. But it would be a thundering funny coincidence, wouldn’t it, if they both had the same initials — F.T.L. — and the same identical cigarette case, with the initials engraved in the same way in the same place?’
Algy stared. ‘The same cigarette case?’ he echoed.
‘That’s what I said. Nobody’s going to make me believe that there are two such cigarette cases in the world, both belonging to fellows named Lakers, who happen to have the same initials. There’s a limit to my imagination. It happens that today was not the first time that I have seen the case which that fellow is now flaunting. Obviously something is wrong somewhere. I don’t like mysteries — they worry me.’
‘What do you think?’ asked Algy in a low voice.
‘I’ll tell you what I think. I think that fellow who is now in the mess calling himself Lakers deliberately produced that cigarette case to prove, by suggestion, in case there should be any doubt, that his name is Lakers. I’m prepared to swear that case belonged to Frank Lakers. Why, we played bridge with it lying on the table. I even admired it, and he told me it was a twenty-first birthday present from his father.’
Algy stared. ‘Have you finished giving me shocks?’
‘Not quite. Just turn this over in your mind and see if it suggests anything to you. Frank Lakers is dead. He went out out on a patrol job near the French coast one day last week, and didn’t come back. He was seen to crash — in France — near Calais.’
‘How on earth do you know that?’
‘Because I made it my business to ring up the Air Ministry just now. That’s where I went when I disappeared just before lunch.’
‘I see. Then what do you think — now?’
‘I’ll tell you. I think that Frank Lakers is either in a German prison hospital, or else staring up at the sky through six feet of Flanders mud. What’s this fellow doing with his cigarette case? I should say he has got it as proof of identity in case the question arises; and it wouldn’t surprise me if he had letters addressed to Lakers in his pocket, too. Then what is he doing here, far away from his alleged aerodrome? Work it out for yourself.’
‘You think — he’s a spy?’
‘What else can we think? I don’t want to appear to have a spy complex, but — well, that’s what it looks like to me. Everything points to this fellow being a German agent.’
‘He speaks English well.’
‘That’s nothing to go by. There are hundreds of German-Americans who speak English as well as we do. On the other hand, of course, there’s just a chance that he is a British agent up to some game. Funny things happen in war.’
‘Can’t you ring up the Air Ministry and find out?’
‘And to be told to attend to my own business? In any case the fellow will have gone before our people can do anything, and we daren’t detain him on mere suspicion.’
‘Then what are we going to do about it? We can’t just let him go.’
‘I’m going to plant a trap,’ said Biggles. ‘If he is who and what he says he is he will come on this trip this afternoon; if he isn’t, then he won’t — at least, I can’t imagine him shooting down an enemy machine if he’s a Hun himself.’
‘What is he doing here do you suppose?’
‘I should say he’s out to collect all the information he can, using a captured machine. Having got it, he’ll try to get back to where he came from. On the table in the map-room I’ve put a map; it shows all the Fighter Command aerodromes — but not in the right places. I want you to go back to the mess and suggest to Lakers that it might be a good thing if he walked along to the map-room and ascertained the position of this aerodrome in relation to his own. Show him the room, and leave him there. He
’ll see the map, and if he’s what we think he is he’ll try to get away with it, because it would look like a first-class prize to take to Germany. If he does pinch it, his next idea will to get away as quickly as he can. In other words, if he’s on the level he’ll go back to the mess; if he isn’t he’ll make for his machine and take off.’
‘But what about you?’ asked Algy. ‘Won’t he wonder where you are and what you’re doing? What shall I tell him?’
‘Tell him that I’ve had an urgent call from Wing, and may be late back. Suggest to him that our proposed trip may have to be postponed for a little while. As a matter of fact I shall be in the air, high up, watching the aerodrome. You will watch him, and if he makes a break for it run out and wave a towel in front of the mess. That will tell me that he has left the ground. I shall be up topsides waiting for him. I shall suggest to him by certain methods that I want him to come back with me. If he doesn’t — well, it’ll be his funeral. Have you got that clear?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Good. Then I’ll get off.’
Algy watched Biggles climb into his machine and take off, and then, deep in thought, walked slowly back to the mess. Lakers was still in conversation with the officers who were not on duty.
The man seemed so absolutely at home, so self-possessed and natural in his speech and movements, that a sudden doubt assailed Algy. Suppose Biggles had made a mistake?
Spy scares were common in every service, he knew, but that spies operated anywhere and everywhere could not be denied, and some of them with amazing effrontery. He watched the suspected officer closely for some sign or slip that might betray him; but he watched in vain.
‘Well, there’s no point in wasting time,’ he decided, and touched Lakers on the arm.
‘Oh, Lakers,’ he said, ‘I’ve a message for you from the C.O.. He’s had to go off on a job and may late back, so this proposed show of ours may have to wait for a little while. He will probably be back not later than half-past three, but, in the meantime, he suggests that you have a look round the map-room, so that if you got separated from us during the show you’d know your way back — either to here, or to your own aerodrome.’
‘I see,’ answered Lakers. ‘That’s not a bad idea. I think I’ll follow his advice.’
He picked up his flying kit and threw it over his arm. Algy raised his eyebrows. ‘You won’t want those, will you?’
‘I may as well take them along,’ replied Lakers coolly. ‘I don’t think too much of this weather,’ he went on, looking under his hand towards the horizon where dark clouds were rising. ‘It looks to me like thunder coming up. If it comes this way I may push along home without waiting for Bigglesworth to come back. I don’t want to get hung up here for the night, and we can postpone the show until another day if necessary.’
Algy’s heart missed a beat, for it began to look as if Biggles was right.
‘O.K.,’ he said. ‘You do just as you like. I’ll show you the map-room.’
Together they walked across to the building.
‘Here we are,’ resumed Algy, glancing at the map that had been purposely left on the table. ‘I’ll stroll back to the mess if it’s all the same to you. Let me know if I can be of any help.’
‘I will — thanks.’
Algy left the room, closing the door behind him, and passed the window as if he was returning to the mess. But as soon as he was out of sight he doubled back and peeped in.
Lakers was bending over the map, studying it carefully. He made a note or calculation on the margin, folded the map, and then looked at the sky. For a little while he regarded it thoughtfully, and then, as if suddenly making up his mind, he put the map in his pocket, picked up his flying kit, and left the room.
Algy watched him walk straight to his machine. The engine started, and the Spitfire began to taxi slowly into position for a take-off.
Algy waited for no more. He rushed into the wash-house, tore a towel from its peg, then darted back into the open waving it above his head. High up in the sky he could just make out Biggles’s Spitfire, circling as it awaited the signal.
‘By gosh, he was right!’ muttered Algy, as Lakers took off and headed towards the south.
The topmost Spitfire at once banked round to follow it.
‘Is that Lakers taking off?’ said a voice at his elbow. Algy spun round on his heel and saw that it was Bertie who had spoken.
‘Yes,’ he answered quickly.
‘Bad show about his brother.’
‘Whose brother?’
‘Lakers’s brother, of course.’
Algy puckered his forehead in an effort to understand. Lakers’s brother?’ he repeated foolishly.
Bertie stared at him through his monocle. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he inquired. ‘I simply said it was a bad show about his brother being killed. He told me about it while you and Biggles were out of the room.’
Algy staggered. ‘What did he tell you?’ he gasped.
‘He said that his brother, Frank Lakers, had just been killed. They were both in the same squadron. That’s his brother’s cigarette case he’s got; he borrowed it from him the very day before he went west — that’s how he came to tell me about it. The odd thing was, he would have been with his brother, and probably gone west at the same time, but for the fact that he’d lent his machine to another fellow just before the show. He got it pretty badly shot about, too, but came off with nothing worse than a bullet through the leg. The machine hasn’t been repaired yet — hi! What’s wrong with you?’
But Algy wasn’t listening. Understanding of the whole situation flooded his brain like a spotlight, and he ran like a madman towards his machine, praying that he might be in time to prevent a tragedy.
Biggles, sitting in his cockpit ten thousand feet above the aerodrome, stiffened suddenly when he saw Algy’s signal, and his jaw set grimly as he picked out the Spitfire just leaving the aerodrome.
‘So he’s making a bolt for it, is he?’ he mused. ‘I’m afraid he’s got a shock coming to him.’
He swung round, following the same course as the lower Spitfire, which was now climbing towards the south.
But a haze was forming under the atmospheric pressure of the advancing storm, and the lower machine was no more than an indistinct grey shadow. Biggles, suddenly aware that he might lose his man after all, pushed the joystick forward and raced down in pursuit.
The drone of his engine became a shrill wail as the whirling airscrew bit into the air. The distance between the two machines closed rapidly.
At five thousand feet Biggles flattened out, only a few hundred feet above and behind his quarry, which was still heading towards the south. He could see the pilot’s head clearly; he appeared to be looking at the ground, first over one side of his machine and then over the other. Not once did he look behind him, and Biggles smiled grimly as he went nearer, intending to cut the Spitfire off and force it to return. If Lakers refused — well, it was going to be just too bad.
At that moment Lakers looked back over his shoulder.
For one fleeting instant Biggles stared into his face, and then moved like lightning, for the Spitfire had spun round, its nose tilted upwards, and sent a stream of bullets glittering past Biggles’s wing-tip.
Biggles kicked out his right foot and flung the control-stick over in a frantic turn. The attack was unexpected, but he did not lose his head. Nor did he take his eyes off Lakers for a moment. As quick as thought he brought his machine back on its course, and took the other Spitfire in his sights.
At that moment Lakers was within an ace of death; but Biggles did not fire. As his hand touched the button for the fatal burst his head jerked up as something flashed across his sights between him and his target. It was a Messerschmitt. From its fuselage a streamer of orange flame swirled aft.
For the next three seconds events moved more swiftly than they can be described; they moved as quickly as Biggles’s brain could act and adjust itself to a new set of conditions, co
nditions that completely revolutionized his preconceived ideas. After the first shock of seeing the Messerschmitt he looked up in the direction whence it had come, and saw five more machines of the same type pouring down in a ragged formation.
He realized instantly that Lakers had not fired at him, as he had at first supposed, but at the leader of the Nazi planes, and had got him, by brilliant shooting, at the first burst.
Lakers had shot down a Hun!
It meant that something was wrong somewhere, but there was no time to work it out now. Where was Lakers? He found him, actually in front of him, nose tilted upwards, taking the diving Huns head-on.
Biggles roared up alongside, and his lips parted in a smile as he saw something else.
Roaring down behind the enemy machines, at a speed that threatened to take its wings off, was another Spitfire.
For perhaps two seconds the machines held their relative positions — the two lower Spitfires side by side, facing the five diving Huns, and the other Spitfire coming down like an arrow behind them. Then, in a flash, the whole thing collapsed into a whirling dogfight, a milling vortex, as the
Messerschmitts pulled out of their dive; that is, all except the last one, which continued its dive straight into the ground. The odds were now three against four. Biggles smiled grimly.
It is almost impossible to recall the actual moves made in an aerial dogfight; the whole thing resolves itself into a series of disjointed impressions. Biggles took one of the dark machines in his sights, fired and swerved as he heard bullets hitting his own machine. He felt, rather than saw, the wheels of another machine whiz past his head, but whether friend or foe he did not know. A Messerschmitt, with a Spitfire apparently tied to its tail by an invisible cord, tore across his nose. Another Spitfire was going down in a steep side-slip with white vapour streaming from its engine. Another Messerschmitt floated into his sights; he fired again, and saw it jerk upwards, an almost certain sign that the pilot had been hit. There was no time to watch it; instead, he snatched a swift glance over his shoulder for danger, but the air was clear. Turning, he was just in time to see two Messerschmitts vanishing into the haze. Below, two ghastly bonfires, towards which people were running, poured clouds of smoke into the air. Near them was a Spitfire, cocked up on its nose; some troops were already helping the pilot from his seat. Another Spitfire was circling low down; it climbed to meet him, and he confirmed, as he already suspected, that it was Algy’s machine.
