Biggles Cuts It Fine Page 9

  “How perfectly disgusting,” murmured Bertie. He fetched a boat-hook and found he had no difficulty in breaking the ice, which turned out to be not more than an eighth of an inch thick. “Not too bad, laddie,” he observed cheerfully. “The old barge should be able to shake herself free. I bet she doesn’t like it any more than we do.”

  “It’ll get thicker all the time the frost lasts.”

  “Then let’s slide off before we’re fixed.”

  “We’re fixed already,” answered Algy. “Or are we? Let’s see. If we break the ice all round, the engines might pull us clear. But even so, we couldn’t spare the petrol to go on cruising up and down waiting for a thaw.”

  “Why waste time doing that? Why not take her off?”

  “What, in this fog?”

  Actually, Algy realised well enough that their only chance was to get off right away; but the thought of a blind take-off, knowing what was around him, turned him colder than he already was. Moreover, he wondered what effect the ice would have on the hull, for the conditions were something outside even his wide experience. Some of the ice would certainly stick to the hull, and the drag caused by it might well affect the machine’s performance. The only thing to do, he decided, was to put the matter to the test. Obviously, they couldn’t stay where they were. The possibility of being frozen in for an indefinite period didn’t bear thinking about.

  “I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” he said to Bertie. “For a start we’ll break all the ice we can reach. Then, if we can get the ship moving, we’ll use her as an ice-breaker and cut a track from one side of the lake to the other. The stuff is very thin and shouldn’t hurt her. Scrape off some paint, maybe. A track of open water would serve as a guide for direction, too. Of course, if a lot of ice sticks to the hull it’ll make her sluggish, and then we’ve had it. There’s no wave to give us a kick off, and I’ve got to clear the cliff. The dickens of it is, we’ve no way of knowing the position of the lowest part. That’s where we saw the waterfall. I’m dashed if I know where that is now.”

  “There is this about it, old boy. We’re lightly loaded.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” muttered Algy. “With anything like a load we wouldn’t have a hope. If I can get her off, I’ll put her down on the sea and let the salt water melt off any ice that sticks to her. In this still air the sea must be dead calm, so there shouldn’t be much difficulty about that.”

  “As long as we can see it. This fog doesn’t seem to be getting any thinner.”

  “I don’t think it’s likely to, either. We’re in a frost hole. Any fog that rolls in can’t get out. Coming in contact with the ice it isn’t likely to rise. I’ve got an idea that visibility may be better if only we can get out of this glorified soup bowl. Let’s get cracking. Breakfast will have to wait.”

  They started forthwith on the task of breaking the ice round the aircraft, at the same time chipping off any pieces that stuck to the hull. This took a little time although the business was simplified before the end by the aircraft, which, from the movement on board, helped to free itself. They were glad to note that the broken ice did not refreeze at once, as they were afraid it might. As soon as the machine was behaving normally, Algy started the engines, and found to his relief that once a little forward speed was gained the aircraft crunched her way through the ice without difficulty, although the noise that resulted was alarming until they became accustomed to it.

  Algy ploughed on from the position in which the machine had passed the night until the cliff loomed up in front of him. Then, turning about, he retraced his track which, as the ice was broken, could be plainly seen.

  Reaching the end of it he carried straight on, now breaking fresh ice, holding the machine as straight as possible until the opposite side of the crater appeared. He went right up to it before turning, in order to give himself the maximum run possible. As there was no wind the direction of the take-off didn’t matter.

  When the operation was complete the Sunderland was facing the track it had made, and dead in line with it. All this time Bertie sat in the second pilot’s seat. Neither spoke. There was nothing to be said. Both knew that somewhere ahead, invisible in the white fog into which the track of broken ice disappeared, rose the cliffs which, should they fail to clear them, would smash the machine to splinters. Should that happen they would disappear without trace, and neither Biggles nor anyone else would ever know what had become of them. They would join the end of the long list of unsolved air mysteries.

  Algy knew there could be no question of a trial run. Either the machine would clear the cliff or it would not. If it wouldn’t, nothing was to be gained by waiting. His sensations were those of a diver on a high board. The sooner the ordeal was over the better, he resolved. Gently, but deliberately, he opened all four engines wide. The Sunderland surged forward, gathering speed, faster—faster—faster, rushing as it seemed to destruction. There could be no stopping. Nothing could be seen except about thirty yards of track, at which distance it merged into the fog.

  Algy was conscious chiefly of noise. Above the bellow of the engines, to which he was of course accustomed, arose such a din of cracking and splintering as might have been made by a thousand panes of breaking glass. Particles of ice struck the aircraft like a hail of machine-gun bullets. Ice and spray together whirled past the side windows. But the terrifying noise, he realised in a subconscious sort of way, came from the whole frozen surface of the lake breaking as it was up lifted by waves made by the passage of the aircraft through the water. He hadn’t thought of that.

  His face was expressionless as his eyes stared down the track. He was mentally counting the passing seconds, the only means he had of judging the distance he had covered. His lips became a thin tight line as he eased the control column back a little. The aircraft raised herself a trifle but did not unstick. The noise of breaking ice diminished somewhat. Still counting, he knew that he had reached the limit of his run. He could still see nothing but he knew that he must be near the cliff. He didn’t want to see it, for that would mean that he had left it too late. It was now or never.

  With a sudden movement he dragged the control column back into his stomach. The nose came up. The noise of breaking ice ended abruptly. Only the engines roared as the airscrews clawed their way towards the unseen sky.

  For a full minute Algy continued to climb as steeply as he dared. Then his straining nerves relaxed. Knowing that he must have cleared the cliffs he levelled out. He never saw them. Neither, it transpired presently, did Bertie, which could only mean that they had cleared them by a good margin.

  “Jolly good show, old boy,” said Bertie calmly. He patted the side of the cockpit as if it might have been a horse. “Well done, old lady.”

  Below, now, the sea could be seen through a faint mist, and Algy observed, with still more relief, that his prediction had been correct. Outside the crater the fog was nothing like as thick as it had been inside. The water was as near dead calm as he had ever seen it in that stormy region.

  “I’m going down,” he announced. “Salt water should clear away any ice left on the keel. It won’t go while I cruise about. Besides, I don’t want to bump into one of the other islands. I don’t really know where they are, and I shan’t know until this stuff clears a bit.” He smiled. “What do you think of that take-off? Wasn’t it a shocker?” With his engines idling, Algy began gliding towards the water.

  “Don’t ever mention that take-off again,” requested Bertie, affecting a shudder. Suddenly he started up. “Look out!” he cried. “There’s that beastly sub!”

  Algy just caught a glimpse of the submarine straight ahead, deck awash, apparently in the act of submerging, as he put the machine in a steep turn away from it. In a flash it had been swallowed up in the fog. “I’d say they heard us, and were trying to escape being seen,” he remarked.

  “That’s about it,” agreed Bertie.

  “I’m glad we spotted it,” said Algy. “Now we know she’s left Hog Island we can get
in the bay—that’s if we can find it.” Going on down he made a perfect landing on the smooth water and the flying-boat came quietly to rest. “Well, we’re down, anyway,” he resumed, sitting back and taking a deep breath. “Phew! I shan’t forget that take-off in a hurry.”

  “Same as you, old boy, same as you,” murmured Bertie. “What about a cuppa while we’re waiting for this stuff to clear? I think there’s a Thermos left.”

  “Then let’s have it,” assented Algy. “I need something after that spot of lunatic aviation. If this fog doesn’t clear we shall have to go home and come back tomorrow. There’s nothing we can do while it lasts. I’ve no idea of the direction of Hog, and I don’t feel inclined to waffle about looking for it in a district where one can bump into rocks up to five thousand feet.”

  The position in which Algy found himself needs little explanation. He knew that he must still be among the islands of the Crozet group, so it would have been a fairly simple matter to set a course for Cape Town. But not knowing his position in the group, with visibility limited to a few hundred yards, he couldn’t hope to locate any particular island without a risk of colliding with one of them. Had the islands been low in the water it would have been a very different matter. The danger lay in the abnormal height they rose—for small islands—above sea level, and the fact that the tops would be heavily shrouded in mist. Clouds and fog will always cling to high ground until a wind rises to tear them away. Having so recently escaped one peril he had no desire to engage in another.

  He joined Bertie in the cabin and gulped two or three cups of tea thankfully. They also had a meal of biscuits and sardines.

  It was noon before the mist had cleared sufficiently to give a reasonable chance of finding Hog Island without colliding with any of its neighbours. Visibility appeared to be about half a mile, although with nothing tangible in view it was not easy to assess it exactly. Algy did not think it would get any better, and might easily get worse as the sun began to go down.

  Wherefore he resolved to make his bid to get in touch with the others without further loss of time. That they must by this time be in a bad way from cold and hunger, he did not doubt.

  He cruised round for about ten minutes before he spotted a mass of rock which he recognised as East Island, one of the four largest. This gave him a line, and in a few minutes the Sunderland was circumnavigating Hog Island looking for Deliverance Bay.

  Having found it, the familiar figures of Ginger and Marcel could be seen on the shelving rocks, waving furiously.

  “They seem to be mighty glad to see us,” remarked Algy, smiling at the antics of those on the ground.

  “They seem to have gone off their rockers,” observed Bertie. “No doubt they’re overjoyed to see us, and all that, but it isn’t like either of them to throw handsprings about it. Just having fun, I suppose—if you see what I mean.”

  Algy brought the big machine round slowly for its approach, heading directly into the bay and concentrating on what he was doing; but out of the corner of his eye he could still see Ginger and Marcel indulging in what seemed the wildest transports of delight.

  Ginger was waving his handkerchief with what seemed an unnecessary amount of energy. Only at the last moment did it occur to Algy that there might be some purpose in this unusual display, but there was no time to think about it. That there was any definite danger threatening never crossed his mind. Possibly the presence of Ginger and Marcel standing in plain view had something to do with that. Anyway, even had his suspicions been aroused it is unlikely that he would have guessed the truth, or acted differently from what he did.

  The Sunderland went right in, engines idling. The keel kissed the water, recoiled a little, touched again... again... and then skimmed on to complete what Algy had every reason to suppose was going to be a well judged landing. And so it would have been had nothing occurred to interrupt it.

  The information that something was wrong was conveyed in a tremendous explosion somewhere behind the flying-boat. That, really, was all Algy knew about it, and thereafter the control of the aircraft was out of his hands. A blast of air, or a wave of water, or both, struck the machine from behind with such force that had she not been on the water she might well have somersaulted. As it was, her tail was lifted and she struck her nose so deep that Algy thought they were going straight under. Maybe the machine’s inherent buoyancy saved her, but not before Algy’s view had been blotted out by a cloud of spray that for a moment smothered the cabin windows. Then, before he had time to begin to wonder what had happened, the aircraft was lifted by an unseen force and carried on by it towards the sloping shelves of rock on which Ginger and Marcel were standing.

  Algy saw them turn and run for their lives. Seeing what was going to happen, all he could do was switch off and brace himself for the shock of collision. Actually, when it came, it was not as bad as he expected it to be. For a moment he experienced the dreadful sensation of landing a flying-boat on dry land. Then the wave on which the machine was riding collapsed in a welter of foam, depositing the aircraft, as if it had been an empty packing-case, on the formations of rock which earlier they had casually called a natural slipway.

  There was a sickening jolt as the Sunderland grounded, to be followed immediately by a series of scraping bumps as it was dragged back a little way by the receding wave. Then it was all over. White and dazed, Algy looked to left and right to see that the machine had finished on even keel, and if not literally high and dry, certainly out of the water.

  Ginger and Marcel came racing back.

  Algy looked at Bertie. “What the deuce was that?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever it was, it was a dirty trick,” answered Bertie in a voice pitched high with indignation. Then a smile spread slowly over his face. “I say, you know, what a day we’re having.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid this jolly old flying game isn’t what it used to be. But then, everything’s going to pot.”

  Algy threw off his safety belt. “Never mind everything going to pot,” he returned bitterly. “We seem to be doing our best to knock a perfectly good aircraft to bits.”

  X

  AVIATION THE HARD WAY

  A FEW minutes crisp conversation with Ginger was enough for Algy to grasp what must have happened.

  “Did you know that mine was there?” he demanded, realising that the explosion could not have been caused by anything else.

  “I didn’t know it, but I thought the submarine had been up to some devilment. I suspected mines.”

  “I saw nothing,” declared Algy. “There wasn’t a speck on the water when I came in, or I must have seen it. I certainly didn’t touch anything.”

  “We couldn’t see anything on the water, either. We looked.” Ginger made a gesture of resignation. “We did all we could to warn you to keep clear in case anything was wrong, but you took no notice.”

  “Couldn’t you have made some sort of signal?”

  Ginger’s voice rose a tone. “Make a signal? I was Morsing as hard as I could with my nose rag. I’d nothing else to use.”

  “All right, take it easy. I’m not blaming you,” replied Algy. “How was I to guess what you were doing? Mines were the last thing I would be likely to think about.”

  “We thought you were dancing for joy, old boy,” Bertie told Ginger, polishing his monocle.

  “Joy! Well there’s been precious little joy on this heaven-forsaken dump, I can tell you,” asserted Ginger bitterly.

  “I can’t make out why I didn’t see that mine,” said Algy, shaking his head.

  “The tide’s flowing,” Ginger pointed out. “The mine would naturally be moored, and if it was laid at low water it would probably be covered at high tide.”

  Enlightenment dawned in Algy’s eyes. “What are we arguing about? I’ve got the answer. Those dirty dogs must have laid a string of magnetic mines on the bottom, across the mouth of the only harbour here, to stop anyone else from getting in.”

  “But mines would stop them from
using the place, too,” put in Bertie.

  “Not necessarily. After all, they’d know where they had put the infernal things. The sickening part of it all is, there was really no need for me to come into the bay. With the sea as it is, I could have picked you up anywhere. Magnetic mines! I’m sure that’s it. It would explain why I got away with it instead of being blown sky-high. I must have been travelling fairly fast when I went over the one I set off, and the few seconds delay before it actually exploded gave me time to get clear. The wave it made overtook me and did this.” He nodded towards the machine. “It’s time we had a look to see how much damage has been done.”

  “We shall never get her back on the water, anyway—at least, not without someone or something to tow her off,” asserted Ginger.

  “I don’t know about that,” answered Algy. “There may be a way. This pumice stone stuff isn’t very hard.” He struck it with his heel to prove it. “No doubt it’s dented the hull a bit and perhaps scraped the metal skin up, but I don’t think it’s made a hole. Full flood tide might reach her, and even if it didn’t float her off, might lift her enough for us to get rollers under her.”

  “ Rollers? Where are you going to get rollers from here?” asked Ginger, mildly sarcastic. “There isn’t a tree on the island.”

  The question remained unanswered, for at this juncture a warning exclamation from Marcel caused all heads to turn the way he was looking.

  The bearded man in the blue jersey was standing on the ridge looking at them. Seeing that he was observed, he turned on his heel and disappeared.

  “Who on earth was that?” cried Algy, in a voice stiff with astonishment.

  Ginger told him.

  Up to this time the conversation had naturally been confined entirely to the aircraft and the cause of the disaster. Ginger now related all he knew about the man, which provided sound reasons for supposing that he was acting in the manner of a resident caretaker. “We pinched some of his grub,” said Ginger grinning. “He had more than he needed. He’s fixed up very comfortably with wireless and everything.”