Biggles In Africa Page 8

  ‘Yes, I fancy it’s faulty lubrication. She started by running rough and got hot very quickly.’

  ‘If it’s nothing worse than that it shouldn’t be a very big job,’ muttered Biggles, as he brought out the tool kit. ‘Great Sam! This sun is the dickens; mind how you handle that cowling—it’s nearly red-hot.’

  None of them is likely to forget the next hour and a half. The sun, as it approached its zenith, blazed down with relentless fury, making all the metal parts of the machine so hot that the handling of them was a matter of extreme discomfort. Flies and stinging insects added to their misery. However, in the end they found the cause of the trouble—a piece of cotton waste in an oil lead—and thereafter it was only a question of time before the job was done.

  With a grunt of satisfaction Ginger screwed up the last engine-cowling bolt, and then turned to where the others were collecting the tools and replacing them in the kit. As he did so, a movement some distance beyond caught his eye, and he looked up.

  ‘Say, Chief, look what’s coming,’ he cried.

  Both Biggles and Algy sprang up and followed the direction of his eyes with their own.

  Approaching them at a fast trot, in single file, and not more than two hundred yards away, was a line of savage warriors. And they were the real thing. Nude except for a short skirt of leopard skin and a garter-like fringe of white hair bound below their knees, they fitted perfectly into the inhospitable landscape. All were armed with short-handled broad-bladed assagais, with a tuft of hair at the end, and carried oval-shaped shields of white ox-hide threaded with black strips of the same material. Above the head of the leader rose a plume of glorious ostrich feathers, held in place by an encircling band.

  ‘I don’t like the look of those gentry,’ stated Biggles, as he gazed at them steadily.

  ‘Can’t we start up and get away before they reach us?’ suggested Algy.

  Biggles shook his head. ‘Impossible,’ he said. ‘It would be fatal to try to get off without first clearing a runway, even if we knew that the engine was giving full revs, which we don’t, and shan’t until we run her up. Somehow I can’t think those fellows mean any harm, though; they must have seen plenty of white men, and most African natives have learned by this time that it pays to leave them alone. Ginger, take the rifle into the cabin and keep us covered without letting them see it. Above all, don’t look scared, anybody, but be ready for anything.’

  ‘If you don’t think they mean any harm, why do you say you don’t like the look of them?’ asked Ginger from inside the cabin.

  ‘Because I didn’t notice at first the direction they are coming from,’ replied Biggles shortly. ‘It’s the direction of Karuli, and the emergency landing-ground where you collared this machine, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is,’ answered Ginger briefly.

  ‘Well, here they are,’ continued Biggles. ‘Leave the talking to me, although as none of us knows their lingo there isn’t likely to be much.’

  The black warriors slowed down to a walk a short distance away, and then advanced in a rough half circle.

  Biggles raised his hand. ‘Stop there,’ he called loudly.

  Rather to his surprise the order was obeyed. ‘What do you want?’ he asked curtly.

  The leader raised his assagai to his forehead in a curious sort of salute. ‘What you make with my master’s aeroplane?’ he asked harshly, in an even, high-pitched voice.

  Biggles expressed no surprise at this unexpected question. ‘Who is your master?’ he asked.

  ‘My master white man.’

  ‘Yes, I’d guessed that, but what is his name?’

  ‘My master say go Insula and find aeroplane.’

  A faint smile flitted across Biggles’s face as he realized that the savage was no fool. ‘Where is your master ?’ he asked.

  The native pointed with his assagai to the east. ‘How far away?’

  ‘Two day—three day march.’

  Biggles suspected that the fellow was lying, but he had no means of proving it. ‘You go and tell your master that we’re taking his aeroplane to Insula, where he can have it just as soon as he brings my aeroplane back,’ he answered in a firm voice.

  ‘If you no give aeroplane, then we take it,’ declared the other impudently.

  Biggles’s eyes glinted and his lips came together in a tight line. ‘You insolent rascal; you talk to me like that and I’ll thrash the skin off your back. Be off, and sharp’s the word.’

  The savage did not move a muscle.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ cried Biggles, in a voice that cut through the air like the crack of a whip.

  The savage stood his ground. He did not answer, but some of the others began to mutter amongst themselves.

  ‘Give me that rifle, Ginger,’ ordered Biggles quickly.

  Ginger leapt out and put the weapon into Biggles’s hands.

  ‘Now!’ snapped Biggles. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard it said that Englishmen always keep their word. Think hard on that, because in one minute by my watch I’m going to shoot at any one I see within spear-throw.’

  Some of the savages began to back away instantly, while the leader, clearly torn by indecision, looked at them and the white men in turn. Finally, finding himself alone, he turned and followed the others in the slow, insolent, provocative manner sometimes employed by small children when made to do something against their will.

  Biggles’s eyes narrowed. ‘You cheeky swine,’ he snarled, and throwing up the rifle, sent a shot whistling in the direction of the cause of his ire.

  The native’s pose of indifference disappeared in a flash. Bending low and zigzagging like a snipe, he ran for his life until he disappeared from view behind a slight rise in the ground a quarter of a mile away.

  ‘Start up, Ginger,’ snapped Biggles. ‘Algy, come and help me choose the best path to get off. There’s no wind, so the direction doesn’t matter.’ He started off at a run, but pulled up again with a jerk. ‘Hark!’ he cried.

  From afar off came the low, powerful hum of aero engines.

  Algy threw up his arm, and with finger outstretched pointed to a tiny speck in the east. ‘There he is,’ he cried. ‘It’s the Dragon, and it’s coming this way.’

  ‘Come on,’ yelled Biggles. ‘If he catches us on the ground we’re done.’

  The next few minutes can only be described as hectic. With perspiration streaming down their faces, Biggles and Algy ran along the least obstructed fairway, flinging aside large stones, trampling down small ant-hills, and examining the ground for holes which might spell disaster if the fast-moving wheels of the Puss struck them during the take-off. Then, satisfied that they had a fairly clear run, they raced back to where the machine was ticking over.

  ‘Run her up,’ shouted Biggles to Ginger, and running round to the rear of the fuselage, he threw himself across it to keep the tail down while Ginger opened the throttle. The blast of the slipstream as it struck him was as refreshing as a cold shower-bath, and while it lasted he revelled in it. Then, as the roar subsided suddenly, he dashed up to the cockpit. ‘How does she go?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s O.K.,’ answered Ginger crisply.

  ‘Then let me have her. In you get, Algy; make it snappy,’ ordered Biggles, as the roar of the twin-engined machine suddenly increased in volume. Glancing up, he saw the blunt nose tilted down towards them. As he jumped in and slammed the cabin door behind him, something struck the engine-cowling with a metallic zip. It was a spear; the point had pierced the thin sheet-metal cowling, and remained impaled, the haft sticking out at right-angles. There was no time to remove it, for glancing through the window he saw the savages closing in on the machine in a wild charge.

  ‘Hold tight,’ he yelled, and shoved the throttle open.

  The actual take-off, for the few seconds while it lasted, was a hair-raising affair. Twice the machine was thrown into the air by tufts of grass before it had reached flying speed, and each time, as the wheels returned to earth with a terrifying rumble, they all t
hought that the machine must break into halves. How it stood up to the strain Biggles could not imagine, but it did, and he sank back with a pathetic smile, shaking his head sadly as the machine finally lifted.

  ‘A little more of this sort of thing and I shall be ripe for a madhouse,’ he yelled, as he held the nose down for a moment to get a reserve of speed, and then zoomed high into the air, looking to right and left for the Dragon.

  For a moment he could not see it, but as he turned slowly it swung suddenly into his field of view. To his surprise it was two or three miles away, flying in a northerly direction, steadily, as if the pilot intended maintaining his course.

  ‘What’s his idea?’ shouted Algy, who had also seen it.

  ‘Goodness knows,’ replied Biggles. ‘I thought he intended going for us.’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘Maybe he was, but changed his mind when he saw us take off.’

  ‘Are you going to follow him?’

  ‘What’s the use? According to Ginger we haven’t more than an hour’s petrol. I’ll bet he’s got a full load. If we followed him for more than half an hour we should find ourselves down in the jungle with empty tanks, so that would be a crazy thing to do. We’d better get to Insula and fill up; then we’ll do a spot of quick thinking.’

  ‘I’m getting sick of the sight of Insula,’ muttered Ginger.

  ‘So am I,’ Biggles told him shortly, ‘but it’s the only port we’ve got in this perishing wilderness.’

  ‘What about that landing-ground at the repair depot where I pinched the Moth?’

  Biggles started. Then he nodded towards the ground where the savages, clustered together, were staring upwards. ‘They came from that direction, and I fancy they’ll go back that way, otherwise I’d consider it,’ he said. ‘In any case, though, to be on the safe side we ought to go to Insula first and fill up our tanks, in case anything has happened to the fuel you saw at the repair depot. We should look fools to arrive there and find that the stuff had all been taken away. Keep your eye on those niggers and see which way they go when they move off. I’m going to Insula.’

  CHAPTER IX

  BIGGLES SUMS UP

  ‘WHAT happened to those niggers at the finish?’ asked Biggles as the machine ran to a standstill on Insula aerodrome.

  ‘The last I saw of them they were walking away in single file, just as they arrived,’ replied Algy.

  ‘Which way did they go ?’

  ‘East—back to where they came from, presumably.’

  ‘We mustn’t forget they’re about if ever we have to land in that district,’ declared Biggles. ‘I’ve no desire to finish this crazy business with one of these skewers in my ribs,’ he added, pulling out the assagai that had stuck in the engine-cowling.

  ‘Well, now we’re here, what’s going to be done about it?’ asked Ginger.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that on the way,’ answered Biggles thoughtfully. ‘It’s a bit of a problem. There’s one thing we must do, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Collect everything that’s likely to be useful to us and hide it—make a cache somewhere. What I have particularly in mind is the petrol and oil.’

  ‘Why is it necessary to move it?’

  ‘Because I think it’s an absolute certainty that sooner or later some sort of attack will be made on this place. Leroux and his crowd are aware that we have got the Puss, and they must know perfectly well that this is our only depot for supplies. They’ll realize, unless they are bigger fools than I take them for, that the quickest and surest way to put us out of action would be to remove or destroy this supply of fuel here. That would put the tin hat on things as far as we’re concerned, wouldn’t it? Immobile, as we should then be, we should be helpless. In fact, I’m not altogether sure that we should even be able to get back to civilization; Malakal and Juba are our nearest points, and they are both a long way away. It may sound pessimistic, but from what I’ve heard about Africa I doubt very much if we could carry enough food and water to last us the journey if we had to walk, and it would be fatal to start without enough because, barring a lucky shot which might produce fresh meat for us, there is no food to be had. To set out in the hope of living on our rifle would be folly, but in an emergency we might have to do that. That’s why I say I should feel happier if we had a secret dump somewhere. Moreover, by removing the fuel it is more than likely that we should make things awkward for Leroux. In the past he has had to rely on a supply of fuel here, or it wouldn’t be here; so if he lands and finds it gone he might be in a mess.’

  ‘Yes, I see that,’ put in Algy. ‘It will be a bit of a sweat, though, won’t it—moving it, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t think so; there isn’t as much as all that, and we needn’t take it far away.’

  ‘I feel inclined to raze the place to the ground,’ continued Biggles, as they walked towards the bungalow. ‘Leave it like the Bosche left some of the French villages when they retired in 1918—you remember? That would make Leroux and Co. scratch their heads, I’ll warrant. It’s always a good plan to get your enemies guessing; it’s far more disconcerting than knowing the truth, even when the truth is bad news. We played that game for all it was worth during the War, particularly over the submarine question. Bosche submarines used to put out and just disappear into the blue; never came back. Did we shout to the world that we’d caught them in a trap and sent them to the bottom? Not likely. We did the Brer Rabbit trick; lay low and kept on saying nothing. Do you wonder that the Bosche submarine crews got all jumpy? I don’t. No doubt they could have heard without turning a hair that their pals had gone to Davy Jones, but the dreadful uncertainty as to their fate got ‘ern guessing, and the guessing got ‘em groggy. When Leroux and Co. turn up here to find out what has happened to Sarda, as they are bound to do before very long, and find the place deserted, stores gone and all the rest of it, they’ll get all hot and bothered, particularly when they work it out that we must still be somewhere in the offing.’

  ‘But if you think they’re likely to turn up here why not wait for them, and when they arrive, shoot them up?’ suggested Algy belligerently.

  ‘For two very good reasons,’ replied Biggles promptly. ‘The first is that we don’t know how long we should have to wait. It might be days, and while we were waiting our nerves would get on edge, particularly as we should have to mount a very strict guard day and night to prevent ourselves from being taken by surprise. I can’t think that they’d be such fools as to just stroll on the aerodrome, or land on it, supposing—as they must — that we are here. We might find ourselves besieged by a mob of savages; we know there are at least a score in their pay, and if they have a score they might well have a whole tribe. And the second reason is that, even if we caught them at a disadvantage, we couldn’t just open fire and shoot them down or we might find ourselves in court on a charge of murder.’

  ‘But surely they’ve given us cause enough—’

  ‘Of course they have. We know that, but how could we prove it?’

  ‘What about the snake in the cockpit? And the way they doped us, and stole our machine, and—’

  ‘Told in a court of law that would all sound like a wonderful fairy tale,’ declared Biggles, shaking his head. ‘No, when we step up to a judge with our story we’ve got to be able to trot out proof. Nothing counts for anything at law without that. And what about young Marton? Have you forgotten him? As his father is paying for all this, and it looks like costing him a tidy penny, Harry’s rescue must be our first consideration. The bringing of his abductors to justice is a secondary affair, although, naturally, we shall do that if we can. Open a couple of tins of bully and some biscuits, Ginger; we might as well eat while we’ve got the chance.’

  ‘What beats me is what the whole thing is about,’ remarked Algy presently, digging into a tin of bully with his penknife.

  Biggles shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve thought quite a bit about that,’ he said. ‘A lot of things have happened sin
ce we turned up here, but when you come to examine them you’ll find that they haven’t provided much information beyond the fact that Harry Marton is alive and someone is using his machine. This is the position in a nutshell, as I see it now. Marton landed here on his way to the Cape. For reasons not yet ascertained he was abducted, held prisoner, and his machine confiscated. My own opinion is that it was because he discovered something—accidentally, no doubt —about this place, or Leroux, or the people who are running Insula. Very well! We arrive on the scene and start nosing round. As soon as it became known in the enemy camp that we were going to stay at Insula steps were taken to cause us to remove ourselves; failing that, to remove us. Sarda tried to put us off in the first place by talking of fever and so on, but when he saw that we intended staying he rang up his headquarters and told them what was happening; whereupon without any loss of time things began to hum. Within a few hours an attempt was made to murder us, which proves how desperately anxious these people must be to get us out of the way. The question is, why? Ostensibly they are running a tobacco plantation. That that is merely a blind to cloak their real activities is certain, for no one is likely to stop them growing tobacco. Just what they are up to—but let’s leave that for the moment. The point is, it is perfectly clear that transport plays a vital part in their operations.’

  ‘Why are you so sure about that?’ asked Algy, reaching for the biscuits.

  ‘Dash it all, man, look at the trouble they’ve been at to establish aerodromes and fit them up. They must have at least three.’

  ‘How three ?’

  ‘Insula is one, the place where Ginger found the Puss is another, and the one at their headquarters. Obviously they must have got one there. Then there’s the telephone connecting them up. All these things have meant a pretty heavy expenditure of cash, from which we can reasonably infer that the business, whatever it is, is a highly profitable one. They’re using air transport remember, which again is by no means cheap. That suggests to me that either speed is very important, or else—’