by W E Johns
Tug lit a cigarette with hands that were not quite steady. It gave him an empty feeling in the pit of the stomach to think that he had actually stood there and watched Bertie walking away to his death.
“I’m puzzled about the three shots,” said Kreeze. “One should have been enough. It’s time Kisumo was back. I hope nothing went wrong. We’d better wait for a bit.”
They waited for what Tug in his state of mind judged to be an hour, although in reality it was probably not more than a quarter of that time. The black did not come. Then, suddenly, Kreeze seemed to reach a decision.
“Something must have gone wrong,” he asserted. “We’d better go and find out what’s happpened. Doctor, get some of the boys together.”
The search party when it set off numbered a dozen men, more than half of whom were blacks. The white men carried rifles. Nearly all carried an electric torch.
“Can I come along?” Tug asked Kreeze, in an offfhand way.
“Please yourself,” was the curt reply. “But for this I should have finished the letter I want you to take to Cairo. You may have to start a bit later—not that it matters.”
The party reached the edge of the forest without seeing any sign of Bertie or Kisumo, so torches were switched on and the march continued along the path that ran through the timber. A minute or two later there was an outcry from some of the blacks who were marching ahead. The rest, including Tug, increased their pace, but were soon brought to a halt by a bunch of natives who stood muttering among themselves. Torches cut a broad beam of light along the path, making the scene as light as day. Together they formed a spotlight on such a picture of carnage as Tug had not seen since the war. The place looked like a shambles.
The first object on which his horror—filled eyes alighted was the mutilated corpse of a black. It had been nearly tom in halves. Just beyond lay the body of the creature which had obviously been responsible. It was a buffalo. In the artificial light, backed by the inky shadows of the forest, it looked like some monster from another world. Gore was still dripping from its gaping mouth. There was blood on its horns. Tug moved his position and saw, just beyond the animal, another figure, and once having seen it he lost interest in the others. It was Bertie. He lay flat on his back in a welter of blood, one leg doubled under him, one arm outflung towards a rifle that lay half-trampled in the mud. Congealing blood formed a hideous gash from his forehead to his chin.
Kreeze, after a passing glance at the mangled black, went on to Bertie. He stooped over the body for a moment and then came back. “What a mess,” he muttered. “My God! What a mess.” He picked up the rifle and jerked an empty cartridge from the breech. He shrugged his shoulders and threw the weapon down again.
“It’s plain enough to see what happened,” he declared. “It’s the old story. Lissie and Kisumo must have been walking along the path when the beast charged from cover at close range. They got the buffalo, but it finished them first. It would—the devils are like that. Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’ll set a guard to keep the hyenas off till morning, then bring them in.”
Tug, fearing that his emotion would give him away, walked back a short distance down the path, so he did not hear the rest of the conversation. Presently he was overtaken by the party returning to the lodge. He followed blindly, feeling that he was in the throes of a ghastly nightmare. He had his own idea of what had happened. He recalled that there had been a short delay between the first shot and the final two. Kisumo, he felt certain, had fired the first shot, probably shooting Bertie through the back of the head. The report had disturbed the buffalo, which had attacked on sight.
Kisumo had fired two shots into it and then gone down before its charge. The buffalo, mortally wounded, had then died. One thing was certain, thought Tug, in the depths of his misery; Bertie was dead, and nothing could alter that. He wondered where Ginger was, and what he was doing.
Had he, too, met with a fatal accident? It seemed not unlikely. Nothing could be done about it, anyway. Not that he, Tug, would be allowed to remain at Kudinga, even if he so wished. It would be better, he decided, to get back to Cairo as quickly as possible and by some means let Biggles know what had happened.
When they reached the lodge Kreeze informed him that he might get his machine ready, because he would now finish the letter, which would take only a few minutes.
Actually, it was nearly half an hour before he could get off, because, although he did not know the cause, there was another delay. He got the Pacemaker out, and looking over it saw that some trophies had been put in the luggage compartment. He paid little attenntion. The truth was, he was too sick to bother about anything.
At length Kreeze bustled up. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “I never knew such a night.”
“Why, what’s happened now?” asked Tug, consumed by curiosity.
“Those infernal niggers that I left to guard the bodies, bolted. A few minutes ago they came tearing back shouting that they had been attacked by a lion. If there are lions in the forest hyenas won’t be far away. It looks as if all we shall find in the morning will be bones—if we’re lucky.”
“What does it matter?” muttered Tug callously.
“Here’s the letter,” said Kreeze, handing him a heavily-sealed envelope. “I want you to give it to the booking clerk at Cairo. I’ve warned him by radio to wait, so you’ll find him at the office. You’ll get your next orders from him.”
Tug put the letter in his pocket. “Okay,” he said, and climbed into the cockpit.
For nearly six hours he roared through the luminous African night, and arrived in Cairo to find the booking clerk waiting for him. He handed over the letter.
“I’m going to find a bed,” he announced. “I’ve had all the flying I want for one day.”
The clerk nodded. “Please be here in good time in the morning,” he requested. “There may be something urgent.”
“Good enough,” agreed Tug, and departed. Actually, tired though he was, what he really wanted to do was get a cable or radiogram through to Biggles, although he was by no means sure of his whereabouts. Still, a message addressed to Delmar would find him, he reasoned. Biggles would make provision for that.
As he turned the corner of the airport building a figure wearing a long arab burnous sidled towards him, crying for alms.
Tug’s answer was short and not very sweet. His mood was far from charitable.
“All right, take it easy,” said a voice quietly in English. “Slip in the first alley on the left.”
Tug started violently, for the voice was Biggles’. He kept on walking. “Okay,” he said softly.
He turned into the alley, and there, a minute later, Biggles joined him.
“Sorry about this pantomime disguise business,” said Biggles as he came up. “I hate it, but I’ve been watching the Stellar office all day hoping to see you, and I daren’t risk being seen myself. I got your note and followed you out. Algy is with me. What’s the news? “
“The news is, Bertie’s dead,” said Tug grimly.
Biggles took a pace backward. “What? Say that again.”
“Bertie’s dead,” repeated Tug.
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I’m standing here,” returned Tug wearily. “I saw his body with my own eyes. He and Ginger were spotted.”
“Where’s Ginger?”
“God knows. He’s disappeared.”
“I see,” said Biggles quietly. “Algy and I have taken a room at Constantino’s Restaurant, just up the road on the left. Slip along. I’ll follow you in.”
“Good enough,” answered Tug.
Chapter 11
Ginger Climbs Down
WHEN Bertie fell in his desperate attempt to escape the bullet about to be fired by the treacherous Kisumo he thought that bis last moment had come. Indeed, so sure was be of it that his sinews went taut in expectation of the missile which at any instant must rip through him. At such moments the human brain reaches its
maximum efficiency, and one thinks at the speed of light. The shot came, yet, miraculously, Bertie felt nothing. The thought flashed through his brain that Kisumo had missed him, but even so, he could not understand why he had not heard the swish of the bullet.
He assumed, naturally, that Kisumo had fired the shot. Not for an instant did any other thought occur to him. Twisting towards a bush he snatched a glance at the black to see what he was doing. Then, for the first time, the truth struck him. Kisumo was not even looking in his direction. He had lowered the rifle although he still held it at the ready. He was looking the other way, staring into the forest. The only posssible explanation of this strange behaviour was, he had not fired. But a shot had been fired. Who had fired it? At what? There was no indication of the direction from which the sound had come. The only certain thing was, it had been close.
Bertie lay still, crouching low, hoping that he would not be seen. He dare not shift his position for fear of being heard. Slowly, his hand moved towards his hip pocket for the revolver he carried in it.
At this juncture the picture, which had been as static as a photographic print, sprang to life. There was a tremendous crashing in the undergrowth and into the open burst a buffalo, coughing blood. It appeared to be mad with pain and fury. It saw Kisumo standing in the path and hated him on sight. With a choking bellow of rage the beast charged.
As the mountain of bovine fury thundered towards him Kisumo fired two shots in quick succession. Then the instinct of self-preservation swamped all others and he turned to run. Although at such short range it was almost impossible to miss, the bullets had no effect, much less did they check the charge. The wretched black might as well have fired at a runaway tank.
From the bush in which he was crouching Bertie saw the whole thing. Overtaking the man the buffalo tossed him high into the air. Spinning, he fell on the path. The buffalo rushed at him again, and kneeling on him gored him with its horns. Then, with a shuddering sigh, it rolled over on its side. A few spasmodic jerks of its legs and it lay still. Kisumo did not move.
For a minute Bertie did not move either. He was shocked by the dreadful thing he had just seen. Then he crept out, and treading softly picked up the rifle. Again he stood still, watching the beast until he was satisfied that it was dead. Then a rustle in the bushes brought him around, and he came within an ace of shooting Ginger, who now appeared on the track.
“Here, I say,” said Bertie, in a curiously high-pitched voice, “what are you playing at?”
“Playing!” exclaimed Ginger incredulously. “Did you say playing?”
Bertie pointed. “Did you start this bally bull on the rampage?”
“I shot it, if that’s what you mean,” answered Ginger grimly. “The brute had me treed the whole afternoon. About half an hour ago it moved off and I decided to try to get out. But he was waiting, the cunning old devil. I saw him watching me from behind a bush so I let him have it. He came on, put I dodged behind a tree and he roared past. That was the last I saw of him. I didn’t know anything about you being here. Thank God he didn’t get you.”
“He’s made a beastly mess of Kisumo,” said Bertie. “Not that I’m going to shed any tears at that. No bally fear. The rascal was just going to shoot me when you fired.”
“He was going to do what?”
“Bump me off, as they say in the classics. But of course you don’t know. I’ve been back to camp. Tug’s there.”
“Tug!”
“Yes. And do you know what he brought?”
“You tell me.”
“Photographs. Photographs of us, standing outside the Yard. Kreeze knows we’re cops.”
“Tug couldn’t have known about the photos,” declared Ginger.
“Of course not. They were in a letter. But the upshot of it was, Kreeze sent me out ostensibly to look for you, but in reality to be liquidated by Kisumo. As it happened, Kisumo got all the bumping that was going. He won’t do any more—no, by Jove! It’ll take some time to pick up the pieces.”
Standing there on the bank Bertie told Ginger all that had happened. When he had finished Ginger told him the result of his own reconnaissance, and explained why he had been unable to return to the meeting place.
“We seem to be getting things in a deuce of a mess,” said Bertie when he had finished. “What do we do next?”
“That’s something that will need a bit of thinking about,” asserted Ginger. “Obviously we can’t go back to the lodge. Kreeze would make a better job of this murder business if we did.”
“We ought to try to get in touch with Tug, somehow,” suggested Bertie, cleaning his eyeglass with his handkerchief.
Ginger agreed. “That would be fine. But Kreeze may be watching him, and if we were seen talking to him, apart from anything that might happen to us we should give Tug away. It’s no use doing anything in a hurry. Let’s think it over.”
Ginger found a not very comfortable seat on the stump of a fallen tree. Bertie, incongruously, used the buffalo’s head for the same purpose.
“It’s time Biggles was here,” resumed Ginger. “I’m dashed if I can see how we’re going to get out of this jam. We can’t go back to the lodge without the risk of being bumped off and we can’t stay here without the risk of being chewed up by wild animals. We should soon starve to death, anyway. The question is, have we got enough evidence to round up this outfit—but that’s something Biggles would have to decide. What’s he up to, I wonder? Our only chance of getting in touch with him now is through Tug. It would be worth taking a chance to do that. No doubt he’ll be going back to Cairo tomorrow—or pretty soon.”
“I don’t think this blighter Kreeze is likely to leave us floating about loose, if we don’t go back to camp,” said Bertie.
“I think you’re right,” answered Ginger thoughtfully. “ He’s bound to try to find out what’s happened to us and Kisumo—when he doesn’t turn up. Let’s apply Biggles’ method and say, what is Kreeze most likely to do when Kisumo doesn’t return? Those three shots that were fired must have been heard at the lodge. As far as Kreeze was concerned, one ought to have been enough. When Kisumo fails to put in an appearance he’ll know that something has come unstuck. The chances are he’ll come out to see what’s happened. I wonder could we pull a fast one on him?”
“Have you had a brainwave?” inquired Bertie.
“I wouldn’t call it that,” answered Ginger. “But let us assume that a search party will come out to see what the shots were about. When Kreeze observes this mess the balloon will go up to a considerable altitude. He’ll know you’ve escaped, in which case he’ll turn out every black he’s got to look for you. To save all that, I was wondering if it wouldn’t be better to lead him to think that you did get bumped off by Kisumo before the buffalo took a hand. Three shots were fired. He’ll work it out that the first shot was Kisumo shooting you. The next two shots were fired by Kisumo at the buffalo. Actually, that’s pretty well what did happen, and all the evidence here will point that way—the dead buffalo, your rifle lying there, and so on.”
“To fit in with that my body should also be wallowing in the gore,” Bertie pointed out.
“Is there any reason why it shouldn’t be?” inquired Ginger.
Bertie started. “Here, I say, go easy,” he protested. “I wouldn’t joke about things like that, you know.”
“I’m not joking,” Ginger told him seriously. “It wouldn’t call for much effort for you to dab a spot of blood on your forehead as if a bullet had gone through it, and then arrange yourself like a corpse on the path. I’d take up a position in the bushes and watch what happens.”
“I don’t like this corpse idea,” stated Bertie coldly. “If we stay here I’m likely to be one soon enough.”
“But if it came off it would be a winner,” argued Ginger.
“Suppose they decided to carry my poor old body back to the lodge? How could I come back to life, if you see what I mean?”
“The chances are they’ll wait till morn
ing,” declared Ginger. “They won’t feel like cleaning up this butcher’s shop in the dark.”
“And what’s going to happen in the morning?”
“You won’t be here.”
“I should jolly well think not,” asserted Bertie with some warmth. “But isn’t that going to look a bit odd? I mean, won’t Kreeze and his merry men wonder how I came to life—if you get my meaning?”
“They’ll think your body was carried off by a lion, or a hyena. We could arrange things to look like that.”
“ How?”
“By dragging you through the bushes and splashing blood about.”
“Dash that for a tale,” protested Bertie. “I don’t like all this talk about blood and death. Can’t you think of some other way?”
“There’s no other way, if we want to lead Kreeze to believe that you’ve gone for a Burton.1 If we work it this way he won’t even bother to look for your body.”
“All right. I’ll try it, if you’re sure there’s no other way,” agreed Bertie without enthusiasm. “But it all sounds a mucky business to me. Incidentally, what will they think has happened to you?”
“They can think what they like. It might be a good thing to get them guessing.”
“And what do we do after Kreeze has been here to inspect the jolly old shambles?”
“We’ll creep up to the lodge and try to get in touch with Tug, so that when he gets back to Cairo he can pass our information on to Biggles. But if we’re going through with this thing we’d better get cracking. Kreeze or his toughs might arrive here at any time now.”
Bertie regarded the gruesome spectacle on the path with disgust. “Just where do you think I’d better arrange myself in this cat’s breakfast?” he inquired, rising. And then, before Ginger could answer, he slipped in a pool of buffalo blood and sat down with a squelch. Gore splashed in all directions and he collected a fair amount of it.
