Biggles Buries a Hatchet Page 10

  Biggles had a good look at the bridge, remarking that this would be their line of retreat should they have to retire in a hurry; and while it might be all right to cross in slow time it was as well to know where they were putting their feet should they have to take it at a run. He pointed out that several slats were missing, and the bridge itself had tilted to an angle as a result of the collapse of one of the two central supports. The bridge was a double span, and the supports were merely untrimmed wooden posts.

  They crossed over one at a time, Ginger with some trepidation, for the bridge swayed even under his slight weight. He had no fear of being drowned; the river was too narrow for that; but the thought of a plunge in the icy water, with no change of clothes, was more than somewhat disconcerting. However, they all got across safely and after a walk of about three hundred yards, there before them, bathed in cold moonlight, were the so-called workings. In broad terms they were as Pat had described them. The track leading to them from the prison, which they had seen before, passed close to the spot where they were standing. The prison itself showed as a great square mass on the skyline.

  ‘This is it,’ said Pat.

  ‘Keep your eyes open, everyone, while I have a look at this,’ requested Biggles.

  He then made a long and careful study of the landscape, moving slowly towards the workings, surveying the terrain from every angle and examining everything closely, even to the vegetation that grew on the lonely waste. He pointed to some dwarf birches, growing in lumps and following the course of the river. ‘They might come in useful for cover,’ he remarked.

  The low hill between the prison and the actual workings was found to be covered with a coarse, tight-growing mat of scrubby rhododendron which, east of the Ural Mountains, replaces the heather common to the West. Amongst it were old stumps and the dead loppings of the trees when they were cut; and this probably explained why the track from the prison made a diversion round the base of the hill rather than cross it direct, which would have been shorter. The track took a longer but easier way to avoid the obstacles.

  ‘This stuff would burn like Old Nick,’ observed Biggles, thoughtfully.

  ‘Say, you’re not thinking of setting fire to it!’ exclaimed Pat, in a startled voice.

  ‘Not at the moment, if that’s what you mean,’ answered Biggles. ‘But on a job of this sort it’s a good thing to note the possibilities of any natural features which might be used to advantage. If this hill was on fire it’d make a lovely lot of smoke.’

  They went on nearer to the actual coal face, a long black scar in the manner of a quarry extending for nearly a quarter of a mile and varying in height from ten to twenty feet. There were places where the face had collapsed, or had perhaps been blasted, to form screes by which the top could be reached. The ground at the foot of this low cliff, which marked the bottom limit of the coal, was muddy from the trampling of the workers.

  On all sides there were heaps of such unwanted stuff as soil, peat and turves, apparently the original top which could not easily be disposed of by burning until they had been thoroughly dried by the sun and winds of summer. The good coal that had been won was built into rectangular stacks, at intervals and more or less in a straight line beside a roughly laid set of rails. There also heaps of slack, or dross, where coal had screened. Wheelbarrows, picks, shovels and other tools had been piled where the labourers had finished previous day’s work. Some distance beyond the face was fir forest that had not yet been cleared.

  In short, the place looked exactly what it was, open-cast coal working such as Pat had done his best to describe.

  ‘Where exactly were you working the last time you were here?’ Biggles asked him.

  Pat pointed. ‘Over there. I was hewing coal from the face.’

  ‘And where was von Stalhein?’

  ‘There.’ Again Pat pointed.

  ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘Wheeling out the coal from that big fall and stacking it. That’s the stack he was working on, building an outside wall of the very large pieces.’

  ‘Would you have expected to continue the same jobs the next day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How could you be so sure?’

  ‘Because we were told to leave our tools where they were.’

  ‘How were the guards arranged?’

  ‘They generally walk up and down, two or three along the top of the face to prevent anyone from making a dash for the forest, and the rest behind us.’

  Biggles walked on to a big mound of turves and other rubbish, obviously the top layer of earth that had covered the coal now being mined. ‘Between that part of the coal face where you were working, and the place where von Stalhein was stacking it, I take it he would have to pass close to this heap of muck,’ he suggested.

  ‘Sure. Every time. First with his barrow loaded and then back to me with it empty,’ replied Pat.

  ‘Good.’ Biggles walked slowly round the heap of rubbish examining it closely. ‘This ought to suit us,’ he decided.

  ‘Do you mean you’re going to bury yourself in that?’ asked Ginger.

  ‘Not exactly bury myself,’ answered Biggles. ‘Let us say sit inside it. As a hide it’s ready-made for the job. We can make a cavity and you can pile the turves up around us until it looks as it does now. Only we shall be inside it — that is, me and Fritz.’

  ‘To squat here, surrounded by armed guards as you will be, seems taking a frightful risk,’ murmured Ginger.

  ‘Not such a risk as trying to break into the prison,’ argued Biggles. ‘I don’t expect to be comfortable, but I can think of no better way of letting von Stalhein know we’re here.’

  ‘I guess you’re right,’ put in Pat. ‘I can’t see you getting into that pen, and if you did you’d never get out.’

  ‘Okay. Then let’s get on with the job,’ said Biggles.

  He hesitated as an icy breeze, slight but with the edge of a razor blade, came in from the direction of the sea. He looked at the sky. A thin scud was drifting across the face of the moon. ‘I’m afraid there’s going to be a change in the weather,’ he observed. ‘The wind is coming from the east, straight into the estuary. I fancy it could be rough when it’s in the mood. I had my fingers crossed for the weather to hold until we were ready to pull off. However, let’s get on.’ He turned back to the mound.

  ‘Do you want me to stay here with you?’ asked Pat, as they set to work.

  ‘No, thanks. That would make too much of a crowd. I expect we shall be a bit cramped as it is. As soon as we’re inside you go back with Ginger to the aircraft. We shall join you as soon as we can.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The task confronting them was fairly simple and it did not take long. In twenty minutes Biggles and Fritz were seated on a low heap of turves inside the mound with the others piling up more turves to enclose them completely.

  ‘Pack them as tightly as you can so that there’s no chance of them falling,’ ordered Biggles. ‘You’ll have to leave a crack or two here and there so that we can see what goes on outside.’

  Grey dawn was staining the sky by the time the job was done to Biggles’ satisfaction. A few last words and Ginger and Pat hurried off to get clear before day broke.

  Biggles reached for the vacuum flask which, with a packet of biscuits, had been put inside with them. ‘We might as well have our breakfast now,’ he suggested. ‘That will save us moving after the gang arrives.’

  CHAPTER 10

  CLOSE WORK IN COLD BLOOD

  NOTHING is more futile than to speculate on what might have happened had events gone otherwise than they did, but one of the most popular preoccupations is for people to torment themselves by saying: if I had done this, or if I hadn’t done that, this or that might never have happened. If it has happened, not all the laments in the world will alter it. A similar form of self-torture, but one which can sometimes be entertaining, is to trace what tremendous consequences have resulted in an incident so trivial in itself that not by any s
tretch of the imagination could the effect have been foreseen. The two things often go together.

  Such thoughts as these occurred to Biggles as sitting huddled inside his hide he sipped his coffee and allowed his mind to run over all that had happened since the arrival of the Otter at Sakhalin. If he had not done this, or that, he would not now be sitting, very uncomfortable, inside a heap of muddy clods, waiting for the dawn of the day that might well turn out to be his last.

  He knew from long experience that a plan, however carefully made, is liable to break down from the intrusion of factors which no amount of thought could anticipate; and once that happens things usually take their own course, leading the planner even further from his original intention. All that can then be done is to deal with each new phase as it arises and, if possible, turn it to advantage. Which was, of course, what Biggles had done.

  The position in which he now found himself did not occur in his scheme. He could not have visualized it the outset. It had been forced on him by circumstances beyond his imagination and he was trying to make the best use of them.

  First there had been the meeting with Miskoff, a Russian whose hatred of his own people was such he was now prepared to help their enemies. There nothing unique about this. Such revulsions of feeling have happened often enough, and will doubtless continue to happen while men inflict injustice on each other. That they should encounter such a strange creature so soon after their arrival was a factor outside reasonable expectation.

  Then there was Pat. It was known that the American pilot might be on the island although there was evidence of this; but that they should meet him in manner so dramatic could never seriously have been contemplated. Both these men were now involved in the operation, whether for better or worse remained to be seen. So far so good. Both had served a useful purpose, offset to some extent by the fact that the prison authorities were now on the alert.

  What, Biggles wondered, would be the next unexpected factor to raise its head to switch his plan in a different direction?

  He was soon to know. And it was revealed by sound before it came into sight.

  They were watching for the gang to appear out of the cold morning light when to Biggles’ ears came a noise which, while vaguely familiar, he could not at first identify. He thought, and hoped, it had nothing to do with his programme. But when the head of the column of prisoners came into sight he saw at once from the way the men walked what had happened. He recognized the sound for what it was. The rattle of chains.

  ‘Spare my days!’ he breathed. ‘They’ve been shackled. What a blow! I’m afraid that’s torn it.’

  ‘To prevent any more escapes,’ said Fritz, bitterly. ‘A man can’t run with chains on his legs.’

  Biggles fell silent. Here was the unexpected with a vengeance. What Fritz had said was true. They couldn’t hope to get von Stalhein away while his ankles were joined with eighteen inches of chain. Admittedly he could walk, but he certainly wouldn’t be able to run. Nonplussed, Biggles could only stare through his selected aperture between the turves. He could see only six guards. Two went to the top of the coal face, from where they could look down on the prisoners. The other four remained below, spaced at fairly wide intervals.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s happened,’ guessed Biggles. ‘Every guard that can be spared has been turned out to search for Pat. With a reduced number on duty here they’re afraid more prisoners would make a dash for it, so they’ve shackled them. A man trying his luck wouldn’t have a hope in leg irons.’

  ‘How can they work like that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose they’ll have to try. But that’s beside the point. All that matters is, your uncle is chains, and that presents a problem I see no way of solving at the moment.’

  ‘Here he comes now,’ muttered Fritz. ‘Mein Gott!’ he went on, in his emotion lapsing into his own tongue. ‘Look at him! I ask you to look at him!’

  Biggles was already staring at the man who had for so long been his enemy. To say that he was shocked at the change, now that he could observe him closely, would be to say little. Compassion banished enmity. Had he not known von Stalhein was there he would not have recognized him. His hair was grey, long and matted; his face, unshaven, thin and drawn in deep lines. His normally erect figure was bent and emaciated. His rags of clothes were filthy, as were the hands that now closed on the wheelbarrow. His appearance revealed more clearly than words could have done what he had been through, and was still going through.

  Biggles looked at Fritz with an expression that conveyed not only horror and sympathy, but amazement. ‘Heavens above!’ he grated, tight-lipped, ‘What sort of devils do they have in that prison to treat a man like that, no matter what he’s done?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Fritz, simply, with tears in his eyes. ‘They are all bad men. That’s why they are sent here. This place has the reputation of being worse than Siberia, and no one willingly goes there.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Fritz. We’ll get him out,’ declared Biggles, in a voice that had iron in it.

  The prisoners, under orders shouted by the guards, were now taking up their working positions, and greatly to Biggles’ relief, for his great fear now was that there might be a change, von Stalhein went on with his previous task as Pat had predicted. Resting the wheelbarrow he began loading it from a heap of loose coal at the scree from which it had fallen.

  ‘Don’t try to speak to him while he’s there,’ warned Biggles. ‘He wouldn’t hear you unless you spoke loudly enough for others to hear. Wait till he comes past.’

  ‘Will you speak first or shall I?’ asked Fritz.

  ‘You speak.’

  ‘The first time he passes?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t try to say too much. Just let him know you’re here. That should give him hope, if nothing more. I’ll warn you if a guard comes dangerously close.’

  Actually, at this juncture the nearest guard, rifle under his arm, had stopped by a group of prisoners some twenty-five or thirty yards away. The men, using picks and shovels, were making a fair amount of noise, which was all to the good. Another guard was strolling along the top of the face, a strip from which the top soil had been removed.

  The work proceeded. Von Stalhein, his barrow full of coal, took it by the handles and began to push it, not without difficulty for the iron wheel sank into the soft earth, towards a long, squared-up stack of large coal some distance from the face. In passing he would at the nearest point be almost within touching distance of the heap of turves. His course was clearly marked by the grooves cut by the wheel on previous journeys to and fro.

  Von Stalhein came on. Biggles, watching the guards, heard Fritz say in his own language: ‘Don’t stop, Uncle Erich. It’s me, Fritz. Friends are near. I will speak again next time you pass.’

  After von Stalhein had gone on Fritz said in a whisper to Biggles: ‘He must have heard me, but he didn’t pause; or falter.’

  ‘Knowing him I wouldn’t expect him to,’ answered! Biggles. ‘Speak again as he goes back for another load. The guards are safe. I’m watching them.’

  ‘What shall I say?’

  ‘Tell him I’m with you. He’ll have to know sooner or later.’ Biggles smiled curiously in the gloom of his recess. ‘See how he takes that. If that doesn’t shake him nothing will.’

  As von Stalhein made his return journey Fritz said: ‘Bigglesworth is with me. He brought me here in a plane. We’ve come to take you away, but not today.’

  This time, after a glance to make sure the guards hadn’t moved. Biggles was watching, and he saw von Stalhein’s head jerk up a little at the mention of his name.

  ‘Your uncle is a stubborn man,’ he told Fritz after von Stalhein had gone on. ‘I don’t think it pleased him to know I was here.’

  ‘He must know I couldn’t have got here by myself. What else shall I say?’

  ‘Ask him if it is intended to keep the prisoners shackled, and whether they are iron or steel.’

  The question was put. Von Sta
lhein said the chains were iron. He did not know how long they were to be worn.

  ‘What next?’ asked Fritz.

  ‘Tell him that if conditions are right we may make the escape attempt tomorrow. I don’t know what time it will be, so he must hold himself in readiness to obey orders instantly they are given. You can tell him also that Manton got clear and is now with us.’

  In due course this information was conveyed, and von Stalhein answered: ‘I would rather not accept help from Bigglesworth.’

  ‘I was expecting that,’ said Biggles, after von Stalhein had gone on. ‘Tell him to swallow his pride until we’re in a position to talk freely. He can then please himself what he does. If he won’t co-operate we are wasting time here, and may end by losing our lives for nothing. That wouldn’t be fair to you.’ The message was passed on, and to it von Stalhein replied: ‘Go home. You can do nothing while I wear this chain.’

  Biggles spoke. ‘Leave that to me,’ he said, curtly.

  This strange method of conversation was carried on for some time, ceasing only when a patrolling guard happened to be near. On one occasion there were some anxious minutes when a guard came along to examine and criticize in bullying tones the stack von Stalhein was building. He then stood with his back to the mound to watch. He was so close that Biggles could have touched him. The most anxious moment of all came when the guard lit a cigarette, and throwing down the match without making sure it was out, set on fire some herbage right against the mound. The danger passed when he stamped it out, although the hollow heap shook as if it might collapse. Then a whistle blew and the man moved on. Biggles, with a reassuring smile at Fritz, returned to his pocket the pistol he had drawn to use should they be discovered. The whistle turned out to be a signal for the prisoners to muster for their midday rations which, as far as could be seen, consisted of a piece of black bread and a strip of dried fish. This was eaten standing, after which the prisoners returned to their respective tasks so that the same conditions prevailed. During the half hour interval the prisoners had been allowed for their meal Biggles had sat with his forehead furrowed by concentrated thought. ‘What worries me is those shackles,’ he remarked once to Fritz. ‘I wasn’t prepared for that. Somehow we must get them off your uncle before we try to leave here.’