Biggles and the Poor Rich Boy

by W E Johns

  ‘Carlo!’ yelled Biggles.

  The boy took no notice.

  ‘Carlo, listen,’ shouted Biggles, with his hands cupped round his mouth.

  The boy must have heard him, for he shouted back: ‘Go away. What are you trying to do — make me lose my fish?’ He slipped and nearly fell.

  ‘It’s no use,’ said Biggles, helplessly, already drenched and with water pouring off him. ‘He’ll neither look nor listen till he kills that fish — if the fish doesn’t kill him. We shall have to go back to the bridge to get to the other side. There’s no question of trying to get across any other way. Look at the water.’

  Already discoloured as a hundred peaty rivulets discharged storm water into it the river was rising. Its note became more shrill. The foam that had been white was now the colour of the froth on stout.

  ‘There may be shallows just above the fall,’ suggested Ginger. ‘Shall I go and look?’

  ‘Please yourself but don’t take any chances. It isn’t the depth of the water that matters. It’s the force of it. If you fell you’d never get on your feet again.’

  ‘I’ll go with him,’ offered Bertie.

  They hurried off, leaving Biggles and Eddie watching the boy who, unmindful of their presence, continued to play his fish, which was taking him steadily downstream as it tired and went with the current. They could now see him clearly, for already the force of the storm had been spent and the rain had dwindled to a drizzle. But the mischief had been done, and the river was in roaring spate.

  ‘They’ll never get across while she’s like this,’ Biggles told Eddie. ‘We were mad to think they might.’

  ‘How long will it take to go down?’

  ‘Not long, perhaps, but too long for us to stand here doing nothing. We might as well have started for the bridge straightaway. That’s the only thing to do. But we’d better wait for the others.’ In spite of himself Biggles was taking an interest in Carlo’s battle with the fish, obviously a heavy one. He made no attempt to speak to him, realizing that it would be futile to attempt to explain a situation that would have been difficult in the best of circumstances. The noise of the water would probably make conversation impossible, anyway.

  Presently Ginger and Bertie could be seen coming back.

  ‘No use,’ said Ginger, laconically, as he ran up.

  ‘Let’s go down to the bridge,’ decided Biggles.

  They started, but they had gone less than a hundred yards when Ginger, looking down the river, cried out: ‘Here comes the Viper.’

  Biggles stopped. It was true. Striding up the river bank came the Viper and his associate. They were on the other side; that is, the same side of the river as Carlo.

  For a moment Eddie, in his desperation, looked as if he would jump into the river, regardless; but he thought better of it. ‘What can we do?’ he said, in an agonized voice. ‘It’ll take us half an hour to go round by the bridge.’

  They looked back at Carlo. Still coming downstream he was only fifty yards away, but he might as well have been fifty miles for all the hope there was of getting to him. He was now on the last of the rocks, and having brought the exhausted fish close in immediately below him was trying vainly to reach it with the gaff. Then, even as they watched, what Ginger had half expected all along, happened. He slipped on the wet rock. His legs flew from under him and he went headlong in the water on top of the fish. In an instant he was being swept down the river.

  Biggles ran to the water’s edge and started in, apparently in a wild hope of intercepting the boy, now whirling down the middle of the stream fending himself off, and sometimes clutching at, the rocks as he came to them. It was all to no purpose. Biggles himself was nearly carried off his feet as Carlo was swept past him.

  All they could do now was run along the bank keeping level with the boy, but even this was not easy. Carlo’s head was above water, which answered Biggles’ mental question about his ability to swim; and that he could see them was plain, for he was making desperate efforts to reach the bank they were on. Biggles, on his part, was tearing along looking for a place where there would be a reasonable chance of getting out to the boy. Twice he went in, the others hanging on to him by linking hands; but each time the boy was swept past out of reach by the swirling water.

  Ginger was trying to watch the Viper at the same time. They had drawn level with him and he and his companion, Mack, were keeping pace along the opposite bank watching the proceedings. They made no attempt to interfere, apparently seeing no purpose in doing so. At such short range they could probably have shot the boy; or they could have shot those attempting to rescue him; but they left their guns in their pockets, still hoping, perhaps, to get the boy alive. He was obviously no use to them dead. Biggles, on his side, took no notice of them, accepting the truce forced upon both parties by the circumstances. Ginger was wondering what would happen if one side or the other succeeded in getting hold of the boy.

  A fair-sized rock split the water in the middle of the river. A branch brought down by the spate had lodged across it. Carlo caught the branch and hanging on to it reached the rock, to which he clung. This could not be more than a temporary relief. His face was chalk white and it was clear that he was near the end of his endurance.

  ‘It’s got to be now,’ said Biggles, tersely. ‘Stand by.’ He ran a little way upstream to allow for drift and plunging into the water struck out for the rock. He reached it, and grabbing the boy by the collar of his jacket kicked out in a back stroke for the shore. He was of course instantly carried downstream, but the others, anticipating this, had made a human chain with Eddie at the outer end. He managed to catch Biggles’s hand as he went past and in another minute they were carrying the boy up the bank where they laid him on the heather. He was unconscious.

  ‘Watch the Viper doesn’t try anything,’ said Biggles, as he applied artificial respiration.

  ‘He’s had a crack on the skull,’ observed Eddie, who had noticed a trickle of blood on Carlo’s face.

  ‘I’d say he’ll have several bruises from colliding with those rocks,’ said Biggles. ‘He’s lucky to be alive. If we hadn’t come along when we did he’d have had it.’

  ‘Look out,’ warned Ginger. ‘The Viper’s pulled his gun.’

  ‘Cover us, Eddie, while we get the boy out of sight,’ requested Biggles.

  As Carlo was lifted and carried into a slight hollow beyond the top of the bank there came the crack of a pistol shot.

  ‘Who’s that shooting?’ asked Biggles, resuming work on Carlo.

  Ginger answered: ‘The Viper.’

  ‘Is he shooting at us?’

  Ginger hesitated. ‘He’s— No, by gosh, it’s Cornelli!’

  ‘So now we’re all here,’ returned Biggles, grimly.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE PAY-OFF

  ACTUALLY, as things turned out, in his last remark Biggles was speaking a little before his time; the full muster was to come later; but he was correct in what he had in mind.

  Meanwhile, Ginger, lying flat and peering through a fringe of heather at the opposite bank, witnessed a spectacle which by no stretch of the imagination could he have visualized in the Highlands of Scotland — a gun battle between rival American gangsters. Eddie watched too, gun in hand, ready to take part should it become necessary. It did not.

  The affair did not last long. Cornelli was the first to fall, hit, or pretending to be hit, it was not clear which; for as the Viper hurried up to finish what he had begun Cornelli raised himself on an elbow and at close range shot him dead. At least, from the way the Viper went down Ginger had little doubt of this. Mack, standing behind a tree, then opened up on Cornelli, firing several shots. One must have found its mark for Cornelli did not move again. Mack then hurried away down the river and was soon lost to sight behind a line of alders.

  ‘That’s swell,’ asserted Eddie, cheerfully. ‘That’s the way I like to see the skunks go out.’

  They turned to find that Carlo had recovered conscious
ness. At all events his eyes were open although he still looked dazed, as he had every reason to be.

  Said Biggles: ‘Somehow we shall have to get him to hospital to check up that he hasn’t injured his inside by being banged against those rocks.’

  ‘What’s going on here? What’s all this shooting about?’ demanded a voice angrily.

  It was Major Grey, who had come across the heather from behind. He carried a fishing rod. With him was his gillie, holding a gaff.

  ‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it later,’ answered Biggles, standing up. ‘The first thing is to get this boy to hospital.’

  ‘What’s the matter with him? Has he been shot?’

  ‘No. He fell in the river trying to gaff a fish.’

  ‘The young fool. I told him not to go near that run alone.’

  ‘He’s an American—’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘But you may not know he’d been kidnapped by the man who pretended to be his father. The shooting you heard was pistol shots as he and some other gangsters fought on the far bank. I think there are some casualties, but I’m not concerned with them at the moment. I’m afraid this lad has been hurt by being thrown against the rocks. Where’s the nearest hospital? We ought to get him there. My name by the way is Bigglesworth. I’m a police officer from Scotland Yard. Here with me is Mr Ross of the United States police.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ The Major grasped the situation instantly. ‘I’ll go and fetch my car. We’ll take the boy to Grantown. My man will help you to get him across to the track. It isn’t far.’ He hurried off towards the Lodge.

  Carlo was carried carefully to the road. After a little while the Rolls appeared. The boy was lifted into it. Eddie got in with him, and so, at Biggles’s request, did Bertie, to bring their own car along to the Lodge when the gate was unlocked. Biggles said he and Ginger would meet it there. Meanwhile, they would cross the bridge to find out what had happened on the far side of the river. This being arranged the car went off, and Biggles, with Ginger and the gillie, hurried up the river to ascertain the condition of the gangsters.

  They found them both lying in the heather where they had fallen. Cornelli was dead, and the Viper breathed his last soon afterwards as they knelt beside him.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ said Biggles, philosophically, as he got up. ‘What fools some men are. These two came all this way to shoot each other. Well, I suppose they asked for what they’ve got. They’ll have to stay here for the moment. I’ll get in touch with the local police. They can take care of this. Let’s get back to the Lodge. Keep your eyes open for Mack. I imagine what has happened has taken the sting out of him and he’ll be on his way home.’

  ‘He managed to get a gun from somewhere,’ observed Ginger.

  ‘Crooks seem always able to get guns.’

  They saw no sign of Mack on the return journey to the Lodge, where they found Bertie waiting with the car. Standing talking to him was the water bailiff who, as he admitted, had thought there was something strange about their behaviour and had come along to see what was going on. Bertie had already given him a broad outline of the facts. He was offered a lift as far as the main road, which he accepted, and left them saying he would contact the local police constable.

  Biggles, Ginger and Bertie, went on to Grantown, where they found the Rolls, with Major Grey and Eddie beside it, standing outside the hospital.

  ‘How’s the boy?’ inquired Biggles, as he joined them.

  Eddie answered. ‘Not too bad. He’s got some nasty bruises with slight concussion, but the doctor says he’s suffering chiefly from shock. He’ll be okay.’

  ‘Have you told him anything?’

  ‘Not yet. The doctor said better not. But I’ve rung up his pop in London and told him what has happened. He’s coming up. Said he’d try to charter a plane, if possible a ‘copter, to drop him off as close as possible.’

  ‘I shall have to have a word with my chief and tell him it’s all over bar the tidying up,’ said Biggles. ‘He can tell Gaskin.’

  Major Grey went on: ‘Of course I hadn’t the remotest idea of who the boy was. I saw him on the road when I was on my way to Inverness to get some tackle and asked him if he wanted a lift. It ended with him coming with me. He told me his father was away — at least, he said it was his father. Finding him a nice, well-mannered sort of lad, I asked him if he’d care to cast a fly on the Tromie for a day or two with me until his father came back. That was how he came to be with me, and that, really, is all I know about it.’

  ‘Lucky for him,’ said Biggles, seriously. ‘Your Rolls gave us the clue we needed.’

  ‘But you fellows must have got pretty wet,’ continued Major Grey, looking them up and down. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t like to come back with me to dry off?’

  ‘Thanks all the same, but running about in the sun since the storm has got us fairly dry, I think. In any case I must be getting back to London.’

  ‘Then if it’s all the same to you I’ll be getting back to my fishing. If you’d care for a day on the river any time look me up.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you. We’ll remember it.’

  The Major got back in his car and drove off, and that was the last they saw of him.

  As a matter of detail Biggles and his friends stayed in Grantown until Mr Salvatore arrived, when over a meal at his invitation they told him the whole story. He had by then seen his son, who was nearly back to normal but had been advised to stay in hospital for a day or two until it was certain there would be no complications arising from the shock he had suffered.

  Mr Salvatore was naturally profuse in his thanks. In fact, he was almost overcome, having given his son up for lost. ‘I don’t know how to repay you,’ he said. ‘If there is anything I can do for you now or at any time you have only to name it.’ He smiled sadly. ‘As you may know, I have the misfortune to be a rich man: I say misfortune because all my money has brought me has been anxiety and grief.’

  Biggles smiled. ‘And your son has the misfortune to be a poor little rich boy. We are amply rewarded by being able to return him to you.’

  Mr Salvatore looked at Eddie. ‘In America I am not without influence, and when I get home my first business will be to see that you get the credit for what you have done.’

  Eddie jerked a thumb at Biggles. ‘Here’s the man who deserves the credit,’ he asserted generously. ‘Without him and the British police I’d have got nowhere.’

  Biggles rose. ‘Now I really must be getting back to London, where I’m more likely to get kicks than ha’pence from my chief for being away for so long. The car will have to go back to Inverness, after which I shall press straight on to Dalcross and fly down. Ginger can take the Auster. Are you coming with us, Eddie, or are you staying here?’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ decided Eddie. ‘My boss will want to know what’s happening, too.’

  And that is how it all ended. It only remains to be said that Mack was picked up a few days later and taken to gaol to await extradition to the United States on several charges, one of which was murder in the first degree, as Eddie would bear witness.

  THE END