NO REST FOR BIGGLES

by Captain W. E. Johns

II. ACCORDING TO PLAN (Pages 20 – 29)

“Five days after the conference, a Hastings aircraft, after refuelling, took off from the parched airfield at Kano and, climbing steadily for height, took up a course for Dakar, the great air junction in French Senegal on the West Coast of Africa. Biggles was at the controls. Ginger occupied the second pilot’s seat beside him. There was no one else. This was, of course, the vital stage of Biggles’s hastily prepared plan to locate the missing Hastings, now known as Operation Lex. The Air-Commodore had managed to get the aircraft Biggles wanted. He had also arranged for a communique to appear in the press to the effect that Colonel Rayle, one of Britain’s leading military engineers, was on his way from the Middle East to America, via Dakar, to attend a United Nations meeting at Washington. After working day and night to get his plan cut and dried Biggles had rushed the aircraft out to Egypt by the Mediterranean route hoping to arrive in the danger area before the enemy operatives, who were, he was convinced, behind the mystery, departed for fresh fields of activity. The only thing carried by the Hastings outside its normal equipment was an insulated compass, detachable so that it could be jettisoned to prevent it from being seen by the unknown enemy should the aircraft fall into his hands”. Both Biggles and Ginger have parachutes and Ginger has a canvas holdall containing, among other things a high frequency walkie-talkie radio. Both men carried small automatics and Biggles has taped his to his calf in case he is searched. Somewhere behind their Hastings aircraft are Algy and Bertie in the old Air Police Halifax, occasionally making contact by “code radio”. If Biggles’ plane went down, Algy would know, and thereafter use his discretion in the matter of following him up. If the Hastings should suffer structural failure, they had the parachutes; if the Hastings had to land, they would need well over one thousand yards (that is 3000 feet, and a real Handley Page Hastings would need something in the region of 6000 feet to land) and the chances of finding such a place, in nature, free from obstructions, was remote. There were however, emergency landing strips in Africa, put down during the war and Biggles had memorised those near his route. They fly on at 8,000 feet. “Below lay Africa, most of it in this area just as it was in the days when that intrepid explorer, Mungo Park (1771 – 1806. A famous explorer. Park drowned in Nigeria after his canoe was attacked by natives), had set out, alone, to cross it on foot”. After a period of time, the standard compass begins to move, indicating a reading different from the insulated compass. “Here we go,” Biggles told Ginger. “This looks like it”. They swung from a course slightly north of west to due south-west. After ten minutes the engines began to splutter. “Not one. Not two. But all of them”. “We’ve had it,” announced Biggles grimly. “The four Bristol Hercules engines seemed to be choking”. (The Handley Page Hastings was fitted with Bristol Hercules engines). Ginger asks what is the cause but Biggles says “I haven’t a clue. But as I have plenty of petrol something must be affecting the ignition”. (The picture on the cover of the book is of a four-engine plane diving, so presumably this scene, although the air-screws are illustrated with motion blur. That said there is nothing in the text to say they have stopped completely). Ginger then sees something. “My gosh!” he exclaimed (Johns publishers didn’t allow him to include swearing). “There’s a machine coming down ahead of us!” Neither Biggles nor Ginger recognise the type of machine. Biggles tells Ginger “The force must be strong, which means close, to affect the engines like this. I’ve got to go down. Warn Algy in the code. Make it quick and brief”. The unknown aircraft drifts nearer. “It was a twin-engined, low-wing monoplane of medium size, able to carry six or eight passengers. It bore no identification marks, military or civil. Its general behaviour now was that of a dog shepherding a stray sheep”. Biggles sees a strip of open ground, his attention drawn to it by a smudge of smoke at the end. As Biggles goes in to land, he skims the trees and Ginger throws the insulated compass overboard. Biggles lands and at the far end of the runway, he slews round so that the aircraft exit was on the side nearest the trees. This allows Ginger to get out and hide, taking his parachute with him, so it appears that Biggles never had a passenger. The unidentified plane them comes in to land. Ginger sees an open jeep then come racing along the side of the forest. “There were six men piled in it. All carried rifles. That, too, was not unexpected. What shook him, and shook him to the core, was the fact that they were all black. Moreover, they wore uniforms, mostly green. One was smothered in gold braid”. “Not for a moment had it been supposed that they were dealing with anyone but white men”. Ginger thinks these are French colonial troops on some sort of patrol. Biggles lights a cigarette and tosses the match aside. “The soldier in the gold braid, presumably the officer in charge of the party, strode up to him and addressed him in a manner so peremptory that Ginger frowned. His English, with a pronounced American accent, was fluent. “You’re under arrest,” he announced. (“You’re under arrest,” he announced – see page 27 – is the frontispiece illustration of the book). Biggles’s eyebrows went up. “Indeed? For what?” “For landing on Liberian soil without a permit”. “How do you know I haven’t a permit,” asked Biggles calmly. “Because one hasn’t been issued”. “So that was it, thought Ginger, swiftly. There had been a mistake. They were down in Liberia, the country on the West Coast of Africa that had been handed over to the negro slaves of America on their emancipation. He knew little about the country, and what he did know was not good. It was the blacks’ own territory, and they could do what they liked in it without interference from outside”. Biggles is told to “Tell Colonel Rayle to get out”. “Ginger could hardly believe his ears. How on earth could this overdressed popinjay (a word in use from the 14^th century that originally meant “parrot” but came to mean a vain or conceited person, especially one who dresses or behaves extravagantly). know about their alleged passenger?” “Colonel Rayle?” inquired Biggles, “Who’s he?” “Are you by your yourself?” asks the man. Biggles smiled. “Looks like it, doesn’t it?” “You’re the pilot?” “Machines don’t fly themselves”. The black’s eyes half closed. “Smart guy, eh? Well, don’t try your sass on me. What are you doing? Where are you going?” Biggles says that he was taking the machine to Dakar when all his engines suddenly died on him. Biggles is told to get aboard the jeep and he is also told “Don’t try to come back here by yourself because these woods ain’t safe for white men. There’s a lot of bad characters about who don’t like ‘em”. They drive off, leaving two men from the jeep who start to cut grass and shrubs and throw them on the upper surface of the Hastings, with the obvious intention of hiding it from air observation. Ginger sees a man at the forest fringe some distance away, “black, practically naked but carrying a spear”. The men by the aircraft shout at him and he fades into the shadows. The men finish their task and leave and Ginger, finding the insects a torment, picks up his bag and starts walking.