Biggles and the Leopards of Zinn Read online

  CONTENTS

  SYNOPSIS

  FOREWORD

  CHAPTER 1: MURDER—OR WHAT?

  CHAPTER 2: AN UNUSUAL ASSIGNMENT

  CHAPTER 3: UNWELCOME VISITORS

  CHAPTER 4: AN ADDITION TO THE PARTY

  CHAPTER 5: GINGER TAKES A WALK

  CHAPTER 6: TROUBLE BREWING

  CHAPTER 7: BIGGLES DECIDES

  CHAPTER 8: THE NIGHT WATCH

  CHAPTER 9: FACE TO FACE

  CHAPTER 10: BIGGLES GOES HUNTING

  CHAPTER 11: SHOTS AT DAWN

  CHAPTER 12: BIGGLES COOKS SOME DIRT

  CHAPTER 13: MURDER MOST FOUL

  CHAPTER 14: A GRIM DILEMMA

  CHAPTER 15: HOW IT ENDED

  SYNOPSIS

  In his latest sortie into Central Africa Biggles reveals his two pet hates—the crocodile and trouble-making man. The four-footed enemy proved simpler to locate, but he needed all the luck he could get, aided by constant vigilance and iron nerves, before he freed the terrorized Zinns of the second and deadlier peril

  FOREWORD

  Since the dawn of history men have marched from the land of their birth into another country and claimed it for their own. Usually there was little the victims of this aggression could do about it, as was the case when the Romans came to Britain, and later, the Normans. The Romans went away but the Normans stayed. These were wars of conquest.

  Then came a time, and this not very long ago, when small parties of men, dissatisfied with conditions in their own country, or perhaps seeking wealth, would set out for some new land that took their fancy and establish themselves there regardless of how the native inhabitants might feel about it. As the new arrivals were usually armed with guns, and the local people had only bows and arrows, argument was one-sided, and more often than not the invaders stayed.

  Let us admit it. The conquerors generally came from Europe, and their victims were the coloured races that occupied most of the great land masses of the earth. This has sometimes been called The Age of Discovery.

  This sort of thing, this casual seizure of other people’s property, came to an end less than a century ago, and the coloured races, those that have managed to survive the disastrous habits and diseases introduced by the white men, are now reminding us of certain sinister facts that cannot be denied.

  Whether or not the coloured races lost by these transactions is a matter of opinion. Let us be fair. It was not all one-sided. If the black man lost his right to govern himself there were compensations, for he gained many things he would otherwise not have had.

  There are, of course, still a few native races which, by reason of their remoteness, an unhealthy climate or the sterile nature of the soil around them, have escaped molestation. Mostly they are to be found in the heart of the great continents, South America and Africa; and the heart of Africa is roughly the area where the Belgian Congo and French Equatorial Africa rub frontiers with Northern Uganda and the Southern Sudan. Here there are still tribes, mostly small ones, that live their lives as they have for centuries, and it is now a point of honour on the part of those who lay official claim to the territory to leave them alone, interfering only to help them with, for instance, food and medicines, in times of need.

  When, therefore, in this new adventure of Biggles and Co., word reached the ears of the Colonial Office in London that all was not well with a tiny inoffensive tribe called Zinns, steps had to be taken to ascertain exactly what was happening and who was responsible. Were the trouble-makers black or white? It could be either, for there are still unscrupulous white men; on the other hand there are coloured men who are not above preying on their less fortunate brethren. Who were they? What were they doing? Or were the culprits really animals?

  Speed was necessary, for death was stalking the land, and that was why Biggles, by reason of his aircraft, was given the assignment. With very little reliable information available he went with an open mind, prepared for anything.

  How he fared will be learned in the following pages.

  CHAPTER 1

  MURDER—OR WHAT?

  The Gadfly, the Air Police long-range amphibious aircraft, flying by dead reckoning at an altitude of ten thousand feet, thrust sun-tortured air behind it as it bored a course above the mighty land mass that is the continent of Africa. In all directions lay the flat, mostly arid plains of the north-central plateau, dull and monotonous, with hardly a feature to serve as a landmark to be remembered. The vast dome of the sky was not the soft, pleasing cornflower blue of the temperate zones, but the hard steely-grey that results from an almost complete absence of humidity. To Ginger, sitting in the cockpit beside Biggles, the atmosphere felt dry and thin, as in fact it was, and usually is near the equator far from any of the great oceans.

  Below, the limitless panorama showed every sign of this, for it was some time since the equatorial rain-forests of the more westerly regions had slowly petered out in what appeared to be sterile earth with occasional scrub or a few solitary flat-topped acacia trees fighting a losing battle against their relentless master overhead. Without sign of life, animal or human, without anything to provide rest for the eyes, the colourless landscape was wearisome in its endless sameness. As Ginger remarked moodily to Biggles, one only begins to realize the size of what used to be the Dark Continent by flying over it for hours on end without getting anywhere. It was not so much dark as drab.

  More time passed without change of scene. Ginger took a fresh piece of gum and chewed it stubbornly.

  ‘I’ll admit it’s a bit trying on the nerves,’ admitted Biggles. ‘But,’ he added cheerfully, ‘there is this about it. Should anything go wrong there’s plenty of room to get down. According to my reckoning another hour should see us there. That pale area of sky on the horizon a little to the right should be the reflection of Lake Albert. A large area of inland water can have that effect on the sky in the same way that a Pacific atoll can throw up a greenish tinge that’s visible from a long way off. It’s the same with an oasis in the desert.’

  The Gadfly droned across the lonely waste.

  ‘I’d have thought we’d be seeing some game by now,’ remarked Ginger reflectively, after a while. ‘It looks typical lion country.’

  ‘Not without water-holes. Everything likes to be within reach of water. Where the grass-eaters go the meat-eaters follow. I doubt if you’ll see anything until we get nearer the lake. Then the beasts we shall have to look out for will be hippos. I forgot to ask if there are any in Lake Jumu, but if there is a school of ‘em, and there usually is in water of any size, they may get in our way landing and taking off. They’re harmless enough, but one might as well hit a rock as a hippo; and we couldn’t blame one for taking exception to being rammed by an aircraft.’

  ‘Jumu isn’t all that big.’

  ‘Maybe not, but hippos are one of the creatures that are on the increase, and as in some places the water is drying up one finds big concentrations of them. That’s what I’ve been told. We shall soon know if we’re likely to have any trouble in that direction.’

  ‘I can see some ostriches,’ observed Ginger presently.

  ‘They like it dry, although even they have to drink. Is that a belt of timber I see ahead? If so it may be the spur of forest which we’re told runs close to the western side of the lake.’

  ‘It’s either trees or scrub,’ answered Ginger, squinting through the shimmering heat-haze.

  Confirmation came a few minutes later when what appeared to be along slither of glass came into view ahead.

  ‘That’s water,’ declared Biggles. ‘It could be either Jumu or Lake Albert, although if we’re on course, and as I’ve seen no sign of drift we should be, I’d say it’s our objective. O
ur E.T.A.1 isn’t far out.’

  The drone of the engines faded a little as Biggles throttled back and began to lose height. ‘Tell Bertie and Algy to stand by for landing. If the water’s open I may go straight in.’

  ‘Okay.’ Ginger went aft to the cabin.

  When a few minutes later he returned to the controls, with the machine down to two thousand feet and bumping rather badly in turbulent overheated air, the lake that was the objective lay in plain view. From the information that had been provided there was no mistaking it.

  It was a long, narrow piece of water, shaped roughly like a crescent or a pair of buffalo horns. At the widest part, which was in the middle, it might have been three or four miles across, not more. In length, from the tip of one horn to the other, the distance could have been twenty miles, though this was not easy to judge because both ends petered out in extensive belts of reeds. In comparison with most African lakes it was therefore quite small. The water looked dark, lifeless, stagnant, but appeared to be free of surface weeds except near the tapering ends. For the most part the banks were flat open beaches of mud or sand.

  Biggles, who had approached at right angles, cruised on, still losing height, across the widest part, midway between the tips of the horns.

  ‘I can see the government rest-house, straight ahead,’ said Ginger.

  ‘And there are the hippos,’ returned Biggles, indicating with a nod a number of black, shapeless objects, from which rolled out a succession of concentric ripples. ‘If that’s their usual position they shouldn’t be in our way, nor we in theirs. I can see crocs, too, on the flats, so we’d better think twice about bathing.’

  There were plenty of birds, mostly long-legged waders, along the fringe of the water, but not enough, Biggles thought, to cause them any concern in landing or taking off.

  ‘Confound those stinking crocs,’ complained Ginger. ‘I was looking forward to a bathe.’

  ‘I imagine they’ll be fish-eaters. Apparently there are plenty of fish. I’m told Nile perch have been caught weighing up to fifty pounds. They’re the staple diet of the natives. Where are they, by the way? There should be some about. I can’t see a soul.’

  ‘What’s that towards the far end of the lake? I can see something moving. Antelope?’

  ‘Probably water buck.’

  ‘I can see what looks like a village, but there’s no one about,’ went on Ginger, his eyes still exploring the bank they were now approaching.

  ‘We’ll look for them later,’ decided Biggles. ‘I’m tired, so I shall go straight in.’ He held on towards a small, dilapidated-looking structure, forlorn and lonely, that stood back a short distance from the waveless edge of the black water. It stood on sandy soil near a solitary leafless tree that provided a perch for several hunchbacked vultures.

  ‘I thought someone was to be here to meet us,’ said Ginger.

  ‘That was the arrangement,’ answered Biggles, in a curious voice.

  Ginger looked at him. ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘I don’t see anyone.’

  ‘He may not have got here yet.’

  ‘Those vultures have got here,’ said Biggles, significantly. ‘I don’t like the look of things. There’s the spur of forest we were told about,’ he added, nodding towards a straggling belt of trees.

  ‘Not much of a forest, compared with what we flew over earlier in the day. Most of the trees look half dead.’

  ‘I suppose they called it forest to mark the difference between that area and the open ground round the lake.’

  Broadly speaking, the ground round the lake was more or less open, although there were occasional clumps of scrub and one or two of the flat-topped trees that are a feature of central Africa.

  An old dug-out canoe lying on the shore was still the only sign of human activity. Biggles made a trial run at a height of only a few feet over his proposed landing area, the water directly in front of the rest-house, to confirm there were no obstructions, dead or alive. This also served the purpose of clearing the bank of birds and crocodiles. This done he put the machine down without difficulty or mishap, although not, it appeared, without a certain amount of risk; for as it finished its run and floated, rocking slightly on the placid surface of the lake, an enormous head with bulging eyes surfaced slowly thirty or forty yards away. The hippo, probably a solitary old bull, looked at the aircraft, yawned, snorted and submerged.

  ‘That’s the trouble with hippos,’ muttered Biggles. ‘You never know where and when one is going to pop up.’

  ‘You could have landed on the shore,’ Ginger pointed out, as Biggles brought the nose of the aircraft towards it.

  ‘I was afraid it might turn out to be soft mud. To get bogged down seemed a bigger risk than bumping into a hippo. Besides, that old canoe is lying foul of the fairway. We’ll shift it later for dry landings if the hippos look like getting in our way.’

  A touch of throttle urged the machine gently towards the low shelving beach of what turned out to be dry sandy earth.

  Bertie appeared, to regard the place with frank disfavour.

  ‘I say, chaps, this isn’t my idea of a tropical paradise,’ he said in a disappointed voice.

  ‘What did you expect?’ inquired Biggles.

  ‘I thought there might be a few bananas and what-have-you knocking about.’

  ‘Had there been any bananas here the hippos would have had ‘em.’

  Bertie sighed. ‘Pity. You know how I adore bananas.’

  ‘So do hippos. Forget your fruity appetite for a bit and concentrate on what we’re here for. This never looked like a luxury cruise to me. If I know anything these mud flats stink of mosquitoes, and mosquitoes mean malaria, so it’s five grains of quinine a day for everyone while we’re here. That stagnant water looks pretty poisonous, too. We shall have to boil every drop before we drink it.’

  ‘Oh I say, have a heart,’ protested Bertie. ‘Why do you always think of the nasty things?’

  ‘Maybe it’s a good thing for you I do,’ returned Biggles, lightly. Speaking more seriously he added, ‘You might remember what has happened in that shanty which is politely called a rest-house.’

  ‘I must admit the bally place isn’t exactly bristling with hospitality,’ conceded Bertie. ‘Is that piece of rag hanging on the pole supposed to be a Union Jack?’

  ‘What’s left of one, I imagine. Don’t worry. We’ll soon brighten the place up.’

  ‘With what?’ inquired Algy, cynically. ‘I don’t notice any roses round the door.”

  ‘It looks a sinister sort of dump to me,’ asserted Ginger. ‘Do we have to live in it?’

  ‘You don’t have to. You can sleep on the ground outside if you don’t mind being torn to pieces by mosquitoes. Stop grousing. We’re lucky to have a roof over our heads.’

  ‘Where are these Africans we were told about?’ queried Algy. ‘I don’t see any rushing to greet us.’

  They’ll be around,’ replied Biggles confidently. ‘That’s why the government put a rest-house here, to provide a shake-down for the District Officer when he comes up once in a while to see how the local lads are getting along.’

  ‘Then why haven’t they shown up? There can’t be so many aircraft in these parts that they’re tired of looking at ‘em.’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘And what about the bloke who was supposed to meet us here to act as interpreter?’ put in Bertie. ‘Why hasn’t he arrived?’

  ‘Maybe he’s on his way from the Resident Magistrate’s Headquarters at Nabula,’ returned Biggles, shortly. ‘Remember, it’s over two hundred miles away, and it would take a little while for him to cover the ground on foot. Now for goodness’ sake stop asking questions. Let’s get the place shipshape before we rattle our brains with too many whys and wherefores. Given time they’ll sort themselves out.’

  While this conversation had been going on, the aircraft, its wheels lowered, had been moved to the shore and brought to rest conveniently near the rest-house.


  ‘There’s no sign of any wind so she should be all right there,’ said Biggles, after a glance round the sky. ‘Our time’s our own so I shan’t do any more flying to-day. By the time we’ve had a bite to eat, unloaded stores and kit, it’ll be getting on towards sundown. Tomorrow morning it shouldn’t take more than an hour to make a close reconnaissance of the district. I’m not much for working on foot but we shall have to go light on fuel and oil. The first job will be to locate the Zinns, so as to be all ready for this interpreter chap when he arrives.’

  After a quick, rather scratch meal, taken on the beach rather than in the rest-house, which was crawling with flies and other insects, the work of unloading began, Ginger taking on the task of spraying the inside of the building with an efficient insecticide which not only floored the uninvited occupants but gave the place a more healthy aroma.

  The rest-house, put up for visiting officials, was a simple single-storeyed affair of light timber and palm thatch, the thatch in front overhanging a duckboard verandah that ran the full length of the main building. This comprised two compartments, a living room and sleeping accommodation divided by a light bamboo screen. This, of course, was for the white officer in charge of the visiting party. Adjacent to it was what might be called a compound for his escort and bearers. This was simply an extension of the walls: actually a fence of thorn scrub about eight feet high, open in front but roofed round the sides against inclement weather. Oblong in shape, it formed an enclosed area to which access could only be gained through a twelve-foot-wide opening in the front. On the far side, standing by itself, was a small, stable-like compartment, presumably for the use of the N.C.O. in charge of the coloured members of the party. In a word, it was typical of hundreds of the temporary quarters scattered throughout the length and breadth of Africa.

  Into the house itself were carried camp kit and several boxes of stores—enough, Biggles had reckoned, to last a week even if they were unable to augment the pot with fresh meat or fish procured on the spot. A dozen jerry-cans of aviation spirit and a drum of oil, an emergency measure, were stacked outside.