by W E Johns
In spite of their serious predicament Ginger buried his face in his hands and sobbed with laughter at the expression on Bertie’s face as he picked himself up.
“That,” said Bertie with icy calm, “is the finish. I’m going home. I’ve had enough—absolutely enough. Kreeze or no Kreeze I am going to the lodge for a bath. If you think I’m going to walk about Africa in a pair of bloodstained breeches—”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Ginger, struggling to stifle his mirth. “You’ll make an absolutely perfect corpse as you are now. Moreover, you needn’t be afraid of getting in a mess when you lie down. Just a minute—what’s this coming?” He stared down the path. Through the trees he could see a cluster of lights advancing. “Here they come,” he said tersely. “Get weaving. Lie down—anywhere.”
Bertie sat down beside the dead buffalo. “Don’t you go too far away in case a hyena takes a fancy to my pants,” he requested curtly.
“I shall be handy,” promised Ginger.
“What about my rifle?”
“Leave it where it is. That’s all part of the arrangement. You’ll have to lie flat. Corpses don’t sit up.”
“Face up or down? “
“Please yourself.”
Bertie lay back, face upwards, arm out flung, one leg doubled under him.
“ That’s perfect,” Ginger told him. “All you have to do now is lie still. I’m moving off.” He crept away into the bushes, found a comfortable position about a dozen yards from the track, and settled down to watch.
In two or three minutes a group of figures could be seen advancing towards the spot. Ginger made out Kreeze, Robinson, the Doctor, and two other white men whom he did not know, and several blacks. Nearly all carried torches, and it was perhaps due to the glare of these that he did not at first see another man, a white man, who tailed along in the rear of the party. When he did see him, and recognized him, he held his breath with shock, and not a little shame. It was Tug. That Tug might be in the search party was a possibility that had not occurred to him. He realized instantly what it meant. Tug would be taken in with the rest of them. What his feelings would be when he saw Bertie’s bloodstained body was something Ginger preferred not to think about. He was intensely sorry for him but there was nothing he could do about it now. The grim game would have to be played out.
The search party hurried forward when it saw the horrid spectacle, and then halted. Their combined torches made a spotlight on a scene that horrified even Ginger, although he knew that it was not so bad as it appeared to be. The natives drew in breath with a sharp hissing sound.
Kreeze, who now advanced alone, was the first to speak. “What a mess,” he muttered in a shocked voice, as he surveyed the scene.
The blacks seemed inclined to back away.
Kreeze walked up and down, looking at everything.
He picked up Bertie’s rifle, jerked the empty cartridge out of the breech, and threw the weapon down again. Then he said, almost to a word, what Ginger had predicted.
“It’s plain enough to see what happened here,” he told Robinson and the Doctor in a voice that was low, but loud enough for Ginger to hear. “Kisumo did his job; the buffalo must have been in the timber, and charged; he fired two shots at it. And he hit it, too, but it must have been too close for him to stop it. The brute got him. We’d better leave things as they are until everyone that matters has seen this. We shall need witnesses. Dupray will make a good one. No one will doubt his word. We’ll get some photographs in the morning to show to the authorities if they start asking questions. We’ll bring stretchers along at the same time and take the bodies back to the lodge for burial. We’ll put Lissie beside Carding. A few graves will do no harm—teach people to do as they’re told.”
“What’s happened to the other one—Hebblethwaite—do you suppose?” asked Robinson.
“He can’t be far away. He may have had an accident, too. He wouldn’t be such a fool as to stay out all night in this sort of country if he was able to get in. We’ll attend to him in the morning. Well, there’s no point in hanging about here; we may as well get back.”
“You’ll have to leave someone on guard or the hyenas will mess things up before you can get the photos,” observed Robinson.
“Yes, that’s right.” Kreeze beckoned to a tall native. “Kolo, you stay here and keep the hyenas off.”
From the way Kolo started to protest it was evident that he did not relish the job.
“Two of the others can stay with you,” Kreeze told him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing will come near while you’re here.”
Kolo said no more, but if his expression was anything to go by he was far from happy. There was some argument as to who should stay with him, but at length it was decided and the rest of the party set off back down the track.
From first to last, Ginger noticed, Tug had said nothing. Not that there was much that he could say. Up to a point, Ginger mused, everything had gone well; but apart from Tug’s arrival on the spot there was one development which he had not foreseen. This was the guard that had been left over the bodies. Well, there was only one answer to that. They would have to be got rid of in order that Bertie might remove himself from a position which, to put it mildly, was not very nice. How this was to be done was not immediately apparent, but thinking the problem over he soon worked out a plan, a plan which was based on the nervous attitude of the guards. When he put it into action it succeeded so well that it nearly had fatal consequences.
First, he attempted to get into a better position. This, as he realized an instant too late, was a mistake, for his hand fell on a piece of dead wood and it snapped under the pressure. In a flash the three blacks had spun round to stare in the direction of the sound.
Ginger saw that his only hope was to proceed with the plan. This he did. Cupping his hands round his mouth he gave his best imitation of a lion’s growl. It may have been a good imitation or it may have been a bad one. It may have been that the natives were not in the mood to be critical. Anyway, it worked. Kolo and his companions, according to Ginger’s plan, should have bolted for their lives; and this in fact they did; but before leaving the spot Kolo hurled the spear that he carried into the bushes. Fortunately for Ginger that was the limit of his courage, for the spear zipped through his bush, passing so close to him that in his fright he fell back, making a good deal of noise. Aware of what he had done he dropped flat, expecting another spear; but Kolo had had enough. With a yell of terror he fled down the track along which his comrades were already pelting. Nor did they look back, which was a fortunate thing, or they would have seen the supposed corpse of Bertie getting up with alacrity. As he told Ginger presently with some heat, it was bad enough to have to wallow in gore, but that he should be expected to remain in that position with a lion roaring up and down was ridiculous. Ginger protested that he had not roared. Bertie said he thought it was a lion, anyway, which came to the same thing. He concluded by saying that he had had enough of the business.
Ginger told him that he had no desire to linger. Everything had gone off fine with the exception of Tug’s presence in the search party. This, of course, Bertie knew nothing about. He agreed with Ginger that it was tough on Tug, but nothing could be done about it.
“We’ll toddle along and see him presently, and put things right,” said Bertie.
Ginger reminded him that they had not quite finished the deception. There was Bertie’s body to dispose of, as if it had been dragged away by a lion. There was no great difficulty about this. They trampled down the undergrowth for some distance into the forest, at the same time splashing the trail with a bunch of twigs that had been dipped into buffalo blood. Ginger said that this would bear out the story the natives would certainly tell to explain why they had deserted their post—that they had been attacked by a lion.
“What happens if they follow the trail and fail to find the mangled remains of my poor old body at the end of it?” asked Bertie.
“They won’t follow
the trail,” declared Ginger confidently. “No-one but a madman follows a man-eater into thick cover.”
“And what’s the next move in this disgusting pantomime?” inquired Bertie, wiping his eyeglass carefully with his handkerchief. “I’m all in favour of having a bath.”
“That’ll have to wait,” replied Ginger. “We’ve got to make contact with Tug and let him know how things stand. It’s time Biggles knew.”
“That means we’ve got to go back to the lodge.”
“There’s no other way,” averred Ginger. “We might as well make a start.”
They walked back down the track to the open country to find the world bathed in blue moonlight. With more caution now they kept on towards the lodge; but before they had reached half way they stopped by common consent as a sudden outburst of noise set the air quivering. It was the sound of an aircraft being started up.
Ginger looked at Bertie with startled eyes. “There’s only one machine here and that’s Tug’s,” he asserted. “What’s he doing? He’d hardly be testing at this time of night.”
“Surely he couldn’t be going back?” replied Bertie; but his voice lacked conviction.
“He might,” said Ginger slowly. A moment later, as the noise of engines rose to a crescendo, he added, “He is. That machine is taking off.”
Of this there was no possible room for doubt. Speechless, they stood still while the machine took off. In fact, neither spoke again until the drone of engines faded into the silence of the African night. Somewhere in the far distance a lion roared.
“He’s gone,” muttered Ginger. “Would you believe it?”
“I’d believe anything,” answered Bertie philosophically. “Absolutely anything.”
* * *
1 “Gone for a Burton.” R.A.F. slang meaning killed.
Chapter 12
Biggles Takes A Turn
TUG had no difficulty in finding Constantino’s Restauurant, a rather sordid eating-house in the Greek style with a few bedrooms available. Here, in a small private sitting-room, he found Algy, asleep. As Algy sat up, staring, Biggles came in. With an impatient gesture he threw off the clumsy burnous that he had worn over his ordinary clothes.
“I don’t think you were shadowed,” he told Tug. “Have you said anything to Algy...?”
“Not yet.”
Looking at Algy, Biggles said: “Tug says Bertie’s gone for a Burton.”
Algy started, an expression of consternation leaping into his eyes. “What! No—not Bertie?”
“‘Fraid so,” murmured Tug disconsolately.
Biggles dropped into a rickety basket chair and lit a cigarette. “Tell us about it,” he ordered.
“I haven’t had a chance to send you a report since I left England, but this is the lay-out as I see it,” began Tug. “Stellar are the people you’re after, or they’ve got a big hand in it. The show is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. They contacted me in London and in the first conversation offered me more than double what I asked for if I’d carry what they practically told me was contraband freight—without asking questions. They also warned me that they had no compunction about bumping off pilots who tried to squeal—they had, in fact, bumped off two recently. Stellar wasn’t mentioned at this time, but in the morning I found myself in a Stellar machine bound for Cairo. I told you in my note that I was going. Is that what brought you out here?”
“Partly,” answered Biggles. “You didn’t mention Stellar, apparently because you weren’t sure about it yourself then; but you said you were briefed for Cairo. I had a signal from Bertie and Ginger, from here, to say that they’d booked the Stellar tour to Kudinga. That was enough for me. I reckoned that if I kept an eye on the airport, and the Stellar office in particular, I should see one or the other of you. But carry on.”
“I’ve been to Kudinga, but I didn’t get a chance to speak to either Bertie or Ginger,” resumed Tug. “As far as I can make out what happened was this. They got to Kudinga all right, posing as Indian Army officers, like you said. I was sent down to Kudmga wIth a letter for a feller named Kreeze—he seems to be the big noise at Kudinga. I handed him the letter. Imagine how I felt when he opened it in front of me and out fell photos of all of you. The shots were taken outside the Yard—I’ll tell you more about that later. It so happpened that Bertie and Ginger had gone out shooting. Bertie came back alone. He told Kreeze that Ginger had sprained an ankle and had been left behind. How true that was I don’t know, but that’s what Bertie said. I was sent out of the office so I didn’t see all that happened after that; but I do know this. Kreeze sent Bertie out with a black hunter named Kisumo to find Ginger—at least, that was the excuse. Actually, Kreeze sent Bertie out with the deliberate intention of having him bumped off by this nasty piece of work, Kisumo. There were shots and neither of them came back. Kreeze got worried and took a party out to find them. I went along. We found a dead buffalo and two dead men—Bertie and Kisumo. Just what happened nobody knows for sure. It’s unlikely we shall ever know. Kisumo may have shot Bertie before the buffalo charged. Anyway, the buffalo had the last word. Kisumo was smashed to pulp. Bertie wasn’t much better—he was blood from head to foot. By this time it was dark and nothing could be done. Kreeze put a guard over the bodies with the idea of bringing them in for burial in the morning. But the guard bolted—said they were attacked by lions. That’s all I know. I couldn’t stay to find out any more because Kreeze sent me back here with a letter.”
Biggles sat for some minutes, smoking, deep in thought, before he spoke.
“What sort of place is this Kudinga?” he asked at last.
Tug gave a brief description.
“Have you noticed any place near Kudinga where one could put a machine down with a reasonable hope of getting it off again?” inquired Biggles.
“I reckon there are plenty of places where you could get down without hurting yourself,” answered Tug. “In fact, you could get down almost anywhere on the plains. But whether you would get off again is another matter. I didn’t really get a chance to see what the surface of the ground is like.”
“I just wondered if you knew of a place.”
“No. I’ve hardly been off the landing area. If you landed anywhere else you might have a job to get to the lodge without being spotted. With the exception of a bit of forest where Bertie was killed it’s all open country, and the lodge stands on a hill overlooking it.”
Algy looked at Biggles. “What have you got in mind?” he asked.
“If Bertie’s gone topsides there’s nothing we can do about it,” replied Biggles quietly. “I’m worried about Ginger. ‘He’s down there on his own, with wild beasts outside the fence and a gang of cold-blooded thugs inside. He has no means of getting away. From what you say, Tug, he doesn’t even know about the photos, and that this rat Kreeze knows who we are.”
“I don’t see how he could possibly know,” said Tug moodily.
Again Biggles thought for a moment. Then he went on. “The first thing that arises out of all this is, we ve got to think fast and move fast. Kreeze, and the man behind him, must know that the police are suspicious. His first move will be to put the soft pedal on the racket even if he doesn’t close it down altogether for the time being. He’ll realize that there are likely to be questions asked about Bertie. He can’t keep that dark. You can’t kill a police officer and get away with it.”
“Why not cast the net and pick up the whole bunch?” asked Algy viciously. “We know—”
“It isn’t what we know, it’s what we can prove that matters,” interrupted Biggles. “What do we know? Tug was engaged in circumstances that were defimtely shady, but what has that amounted to? He hasn’t been asked to break the law—yet. Bertie may, or may not, have been killed by a buffalo. This fellow Kreeze will say that he was, and all the evidence points that way. No, we’ve really got nothing on these people yet. To jump in prematurely would result in them all slipping through the net.”
“Kreeze as good as admitted to me th
at they had bumped off two pilots,” reminded Tug.
“He could just as easily deny it. These people are experts at faking accidents. Where is the alleged contraband? No one has seen it. We don’t know where it is or what it is. Another point: Kudinga isn’t the beginning and end of this business. It must have links all over Europe. We don’t know how far the ramifications go. We ourselves are not in a position to make hundreds, perhaps thousands, of arrests. When the time comes to strike that will be a job for the Air Commodore and his continental colleagues. It will take some organizing if the entire Stellar show is to be roped in. Still, I think our investigations have advanced far enough for me to make a full report to the Air Commmodore. After that the initiative will lie with him. He can please himself what he does about it. We’ll carry on. I’ll let him know that I’m going down to Kudinga.”
“You’ve decided to go?” Algy asked the question.
“Of course. I’m not leaving Ginger there.”
“What about me?” inquired Tug. “What do I do?”
“They don’t suspect you so you might as well carry on with your job. What are you supposed to be doing now?”
“My instructions are to stand by for orders. That’s what the booking clerk said when I gave him the letter I brought up.”
“I should like to know what was in that letter,” said Biggles softly.
“I hadn’t a chance to open it. It was sealed, anyway. The booking clerk was waiting when I landed. I’ve got an idea that smug little guy is something more than a booking clerk.”
“Did you notice who the letter was addressed to?”
“Yes. It was addressed to a Mr. White, care of Stellar Skyways, Cairo.”
“What else did you bring up—anything?”
“Only some fancy trophies.”
“Such as?”
“Heads and horns and skins. They’d been loaded into the luggage compartment of my machine when I brought it out to fly back. Kreeze told me he had some to go up.”
