Biggles in the Gobi Page 13

  But his guns were hammering before it was out of range and a trail of grey vapour told him that someone had scored a hit. Anyway, apparently the Yak had had enough, for it did not turn, but roared straight on down into the heat haze. Algy watched for it to reappear but he never saw it again. From first to last the affair had occupied not more than two seconds. That’s how things happen in air combat.

  This turned out to be the only incident worth recording on the run home.

  No more aircraft were sighted.

  Time wore on. The engines droned. The Halifax cruised on through a lonely world of its own at twenty thousand feet. The mighty white-headed peaks of Thibet crept up over the horizon. An hour later they were below.

  Another hour and they were fading away astern.

  Biggles’ voice came over the intercom. “Okay, everybody. You can stand easy now.”

  Algy sank back in his seat, sighed his relief and closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, as he did with a start when the engines abruptly changed their note, the Halifax was driving serenely into the vast purple bowl that held the plains of Pakistan.

  * * *

  There the story can end, for with the end of the journey the case was, for all practical purposes, closed. No further news has come out of the war-torn heart of Asia. A week after its return the Halifax made a night flight back to Nan-hu, as Biggles insisted that it should, to drop a bag of silver and some tins of food stuffs on the landing strip. There was no sign of life at the ancient shrine, so the bags may still be lying there to this day. Ming and Feng may have been there, and supposing the aircraft to be an enemy remained in hiding. Still, the money had been dropped. A promise had been made, and a promise had been fulfilled, so Algy had the satisfaction of knowing that he had done what he had said he would do, even though there was little likelihood of any Kirghiz surviving to know of this.

  As the Air-Commodore remarked when they were back at the Yard, they couldn’t do more, or less.

  THE END