Biggles - Foreign Legionnaire Read online

  “Let’s catch the fish before we decide what to do with it.”

  The Air-Commodore caught Biggles’s eye. “A job in such an organization would just about suit your old opposite number, Erich von Stalhein. I hear his Iron Curtain friends have chucked him out for bungling that Inagua affair7.”

  “I hadn’t overlooked that possibility,” said Biggles dryly. “I was wondering what had become of him.”

  The Air-Commodore got up and paced the floor. “Of course, if this organization really does exist—and that’s such an appalling thought that I’m still reluctant to believe it—there can be no peace in the world until it’s buttoned up. If I let you go how are you going to tackle it?”

  “Well, it’s no use waffling round the world haphazard hoping by a lucky chance to spot one of these secret airfields. The alternative is to watch the one place from which we know the organization has drawn some of its air operatives and mechanics—to say nothing of one or two machines.”

  “You mean, you’d join the Legion?”

  “Yes, with a specially prepared log-book showing that I’m the sort of man the gang is looking for. That’s the bait. If this recruiting agent takes it I should soon hear from him. I’d ask Ginger to come with me—both of us working under assumed names, of course. Bertie and Algy could carry on here unless things should so turn out that I needed extra assistance.”

  “Are you going to ask Marcel to lift you into the Legion, to cut out some of the formalities?”

  “Not if I can manage without his help. If it were known that I had influential friends I’d be a marked man, and that would probably defeat my object.”

  The Air-Commodore returned to his desk. “I can’t say I feel very happy about this,” he muttered.

  “Neither do I, if it comes to that,” replied Biggles. “But apart from the fact that every country in the world is concerned with this affair I feel in duty bound to help Marcel if I can. It may be a long job.”

  “It’s bound to be a long job,” averred the Air-Commodore. “You’ll have to step slowly, and softly. Some of the big men in international finance have hundreds of men on their pay-rolls, from hotel waiters to high officials. One I could name has an intelligence service as efficient as our own. He has to know what goes on behind the scenes. Fortunately this man is a friend of ours and has more than once given us a useful tip. It’s a pity they aren’t all like that. Some, the cosmopolitan types, are as ruthless in big business as Hitler was in power politics. One of these may be the man you’re looking for. The question is, how are you going to find him?”

  “As I said before, I’m hoping he’ll find me.”

  “I see. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “You might let me have a list of that exclusive little coterie of high financiers who buy and sell in millions, yet are so clever in keeping out of the limelight that one never hears their names and seldom sees them in print. Photographs of them, if available, would also be helpful.”

  “I’ll do that,” promised the Air-Commodore.

  “Maybe I’ll get a line on one of them.”

  “See that one doesn’t get a line on you,” warned the Air-Commodore, pointedly.

  “I’ll keep you posted about my movements as often as I can do it with safety,” concluded Biggles, from the door.

  * * *

  1 Part of the French army, commanded by French officers, comprising volunteers from all over the world. Formed to serve in the French overseas possessions and with a notorious reputation for brutal training and tough men.

  2 An organization with its headquarters in Paris, set up to combat cross-border crime. Frequently known as ‘Interpol’.

  3 Nowadays known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

  4 Now Ethiopia.

  5 French: Squadron.

  6 An area comprising the present day countries of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

  7 See Biggles in the Blue. See Biggles Flies East for Biggles’s first meeting with von Stalhein.

  CHAPTER II

  HARD GOING

  GINGER, standing in the line of shade provided by the barrack-room in which he was quartered, gazed out across a landscape which, if appearance was any guide, had not had its features softened by rain for many a hot North African day. Although the sun had not long started its daily tour across the cloudless dome of heaven it was already lashing the sterile earth with rays unhampered by any trace of humidity.

  However, he was glad that he had at last arrived at a station where, if his information was correct, he was likely to stay for some time, for the past five weeks had been a tiresome, troublesome period of movement from London to Paris, Paris to Marseilles, thence to the Foreign Legion Headquarters at Sidi bel Abbes, and now at last to the training-centre near the little town of Zebrit. Life in the Legion was hard, but not as uncomfortable as its reputation had led him to expect.

  No obstacle had been put in the way of his, and Biggles’s, enlistment, which had been achieved without any ‘wire-pulling’ on the part of Marcel. The reason they had given for wanting to join was the one most common among the men of the several nationalities with whom they had travelled: they wanted a life of action and adventure. In this, the recruiting officer in Paris had assured them, they were not likely to be disappointed. There were no other Britishers in the party during the period of transit.

  After the scheme had been approved by the Air-Commodore, Biggles’s first step had been to contact Marcel, who made an appointment in Algiers. As ordinary tourists they had flown out, and at the café he had named, talked the matter over. Marcel said he was delighted to have their co-operation, for working on his own he was finding his task tedious, possibly because he had made no progress in his investigations. He didn’t know what to do next. His activities were curtailed because, being in the ranks, he had only a few hours off each day. He was really waiting for something to happen. The only person who knew what he was doing was Captain Joudrier of the Sureté. He had to know, in the same way that Air-Commodore Raymond would have to know.

  Biggles agreed that he didn’t see how Marcel could do more. To go about asking questions would defeat his object. The same situation would arise in their own case. They could only wait until they were approached by the man who had induced Voss to desert. This, Biggles opined, should not be long if men with flying experience were in fact being recruited from the Legion for the secret air force.

  Marcel was anxious to facilitate their enlistment and subsequent progress by a little gentle ‘string-pulling’ in Paris, through Captain Joudrier. But Biggles would not hear of it, tempting though the offer was. It was too dangerous. The fewer the people who knew what was going on. the better. They would make their own way, even though it was the hard way. When they met, they would pretend not to know each other, so that should one of them slip up the others would not be involved. Meanwhile, for the same reason, there should be no further correspondence between them. Marcel gave them some tips about the procedure of enlistment, and these they found helpful when the time came.

  Back in England there had been much to do, getting everything cut and dried down to the last detail. When, finally, they had gone over to Paris, they carried documents which showed that as Flying Officers Biggs and Hepple they had served short-service commissions in the Royal Air Force, being discharged before the expiration of their engagements. These had been accepted without question.

  Thereafter everything had gone according to plan until they reached Zebrit. They had hoped to see Marcel at Sidi bel Abbes, but were disappointed. In accordance with their arrangement they refrained from making enquiries for him.

  The matter was explained when they reached Zebrit. By then they were afraid that they had lost touch with Marcel altogether, instead of which they found that he was now not only an officer, a sous-lieutenant, but their own company-commander. He had interviewed them briefly on arrival. As the adjutant and a sergeant were present the interview was entirely formal, Marcel giving no sign that he had ever se
en them before. Ginger had never seen Biggles so taken aback as he was by this development.

  How this strange and unexpected state of affairs had come about they still did not know, for there had been no opportunity to speak to Marcel privately. Biggles was by no means happy about it. He told Ginger he couldn’t believe that it was accidental. Marcel had, he was convinced, ‘pulled the strings’: and while the new arrangement had obvious advantages it also presented difficulties.

  As an officer, Marcel would certainly have greater freedom of movement. He would also be in a position to help them in an emergency. On the other hand, as Biggles pointed out to Ginger when they discussed the matter, contact between them would be much more difficult than if they had all been private soldiers together. This had already been proved. They saw Marcel often enough, of course, but there had been no opportunity to speak to him in private. No doubt Marcel had acted for the best, averred Biggles. There might have been a definite reason for his promotion. He might, thinking it over after he knew Biggles and Ginger were definitely going to join him, have decided that two of them in the ranks was enough, and he would be in a better position to help them if he were an officer. So far they had had no urgent reason to speak to him. The trouble would come when such an occasion arose. At the first opportunity, Biggles said, he would make an assignation with Marcel to arrange a meeting place, possibly a room in the town, where they could discuss their problem.

  As things turned out the need for discussion arose before such an arrangement could be made; yet, curiously enough, this apparent failure was to put an important card in their hand.

  They had been at Zebrit for a fortnight, still without making contact. Marcel, in passing them on the parade-ground, never gave them a second glance. This, in Biggles’s view, was as it should be. Anything looking like intimacy with an officer was bound to lead to a suspicion of favouritism and so incur the rancour of the noncommissioned officers and men with whom they had to share quarters. Marcel would, no doubt, find a way to get in touch with them should he get on the track of anything in the way of a clue. Meantime, there was no point in taking unnecessary risks by speaking to him openly.

  Ginger was getting rather bored with it all, although he did not say so. Not that he had any legitimate cause for complaint. Of the alleged brutality in the Foreign Legion he saw nothing. Most of his comrades seemed to be decent enough fellows, although some were “toughs” that he wouldn’t have chosen as companions. This could be said of any military formation. But he found the routine dull, monotonous, tiring and sometimes exhausting. The discipline when on duty was strict. Off duty the legionnaires could do pretty much as they pleased. It was significant, thought Ginger, that a British ex-Tommy1 named Graves, who was back at the Depot after being wounded in Indo-China, having completed five years service in the Legion was applying for re-enlistment. No man, he reasoned, would do that if the life was intolerable. What Graves could do, Ginger told himself as he sweated on the interminable route marches, he could do.

  For the rest, the company included in its ranks half the nationalities of Europe with a few Africans. Some were displaced persons without a country. There were several Germans who, trained under the Hitler regime, preferred the hard life to a soft job in “civvy street. In the next bed to Ginger was a fellow known to everyone as Destin from the fact that in a moment of remorse he had had the word Destin—meaning Fate—tattooed across his forehead. Banished from France for ten years after serving a prison sentence for killing a man in a brawl he had elected to work out his time in the Legion. Ginger liked him for his cheerfulness and generosity. Whatever the man had been he was now a good soldier, and sincere in his affection for the Regiment.

  Ginger’s chief worry was the fact that so far nothing had happened to indicate that they were working on the right lines, and time was passing. There was always a chance that they might suddenly find themselves posted to the war in Indo-China, where most of the Legion was serving. He had joined of his own free will, but he didn’t want to spend the next five years in it; still less did he relish the idea of finding himself in the thick of a jungle war.

  The traitorous recruiting agent, assuming that such a man existed, must have seen their records by now. Why didn’t he give a sign that he was aware of their flying experience?

  Ginger was about to return to Biggles, whom he had left cleaning his rifle, when a man came strolling towards him. He knew nothing about him except that his name was Voudron, that he was a sergeant in the orderly-room, and spoke French with a curious accent. He was a big, blond, good-looking fellow; but his looks, as far as Ginger was concerned, belied his nature. He was the one man on the station who he really disliked, for not only was his manner harsh and overbearing, but for some reason not apparent he seemed to have picked on them as particular subjects for persecution. It was, Biggles thought, because they were English.

  Ginger didn’t expect him to stop. Indeed, he hoped he wouldn’t, for if he did it would only be to make a remark calculated to irritate him to insubordination. What was Ginger’s surprise, therefore, when the sergeant not only stopped, but smiled; and then, to cap all, he offered a cigarette from the popular paper packet.

  “Bonjour, mon camerade,2” greeted Voudron cordially.

  “Bonjour, mon sergent,” returned Ginger civilly, marvelling at this sudden change of face and wondering what was coming next.

  “Tell me, now you have had a taste of it, how do you like it here?” questioned Voudron casually, straightening his cigarette.

  “I like it very well,” replied Ginger.

  This answer seemed to surprise Voudron. “After a few marches in the sun, most recruits wish they were anywhere but here,” he averred, smiling.

  “It suits me,” stated Ginger simply. “I was never so fit in my life,” he added, truthfully.

  “That’s the spirit, mon enfant.”

  “Why did you ask, monsieur? Do I look miserable?” enquired Ginger.

  “Mais non,” Voudron hastened to assure him. He hesitated, his eyes on the horizon. “Me, I would have thought you would have hated this eternal marching after sitting in a comfortable seat, flying an aeroplane.”

  Nearly caught off his guard, Ginger felt his muscles stiffen, and he lit his cigarette to hide his face lest it should reveal what was passing in his mind.

  Before he could answer Voudron went on: “You joined with Biggs, didn’t you?”

  Ginger admitted that this was so.

  “You knew each other in the British Air Force, hein?”

  “Oui, mon sergent.”

  Voudron half closed an eye knowingly. “Why did they throw you out before you had finished your time? Oh, you needn’t be afraid to tell me,” he went on breezily. “Few of us here have always been as good as we might have been.”

  Ginger forced a smile, flicking the ash off his cigarette. “Why talk of the things we come here to forget? I look forward, not back.”

  “And so you come to this dust-smitten wilderness to forget, mon petit. Me, I would have thought it easier to forget, with less discomfiture, in the clouds.”

  “Perhaps,” answered Ginger, who had resolved to choose his words carefully, and not appear too eager. “Unfortunately, the clouds are not easy to reach.”

  “But a man who can fly aeroplanes can always get work.”

  “If his service record is as good as it should be, mon sergent. But what is the use of talking about that now?”

  “Who knows? The world is full of surprises. But I’ll tell you this, my chicken. If I could fly planes I wouldn’t be here, sweating for enough francs to buy myself a glass of wine once a week. La-la. Wait till you find yourself in the deep desert, my friend, with the sun scorching your eyeballs, and Le Cafard3 eating into your brain. Alors! You’ll wish you’d gone to prison instead.”

  “Since we are talking of this, mon sergent, what would you do if you could fly planes,” asked Ginger naively.

  “One day, when I have more time, I’ll tell you,” replie
d Voudron smoothly. “But I wouldn’t burn the soles off my feet for anyone. Nor would I risk being eaten alive by leeches in any jungle.” He half turned to go. “How about your friend Biggs? Does he like it here?”

  “You’d better ask him that yourself,” returned Ginger cautiously.

  The ‘coffee’ bugle blew. Voudron tossed the stub of his cigarette away and strode off, leaving Ginger following slowly, but thinking fast. There was plenty to think about. Why this sudden change of face on the part of the sergeant? What was the purpose of his questions? There must have been a purpose, and a definite one. Had he put out a feeler to pave the way for a more concrete suggestion later or was this all part of a recruit’s training, to ascertain how he was taking the hard life? These questions would, Ginger did not doubt, be answered in due course. Voudron wouldn’t leave the discussion as it stood. He would return to it when his words had had time to sink in.

  The significant factor was, Voudron must have seen his papers, and those of Biggles too, or how could he have learned that they had been pilots in the R.A.F.? They had never given a hint of that in public. But, of course, the sergeant was in the orderly-room. He would learn a lot of things there.

  Another thought struck Ginger. Had Voudron been trying deliberately to make their lives miserable so that they would be in a receptive mood for suggestions about desertion? Was it for the same reason that he had painted life in the Legion in the worst possible colours? He had certainly done that, and unless it was part of his official duties, that alone made him unfit for the rank he held. Had it not been for that one doubt, that Voudron was testing him officially, Ginger would have been sure that the sergeant was the man they were looking for.

  Seeing Biggles walking over to the mess-room he made haste to join him. “I think I may have struck the trail at last,” he said quietly.