NO REST FOR BIGGLES

by Captain W. E. Johns

IV. AN UNWELCOME INTRUDER (Pages 62 – 69)

“Ginger, marching north on his compass course, made good time, or as good as could be expected, for he had to advance in the manner of a scout, spying the country in front of him, and, with even closer attention, the ground behind”. “Men were the real danger. With regard to the animals it is true he had a pistol; but he also had the sense to realize that it would not be much use against a big beast in a nasty mood”. “As a matter of detail he saw quite a lot of game, mostly at a distance, chiefly antelopes of one sort or another. He saw zebra, giraffe, and once a skulking hyena. These bothered him not at all”. A small herd of zebra gallop towards him and Ginger backs into a prickly shrub. A party of about a dozen spear-armed blacks pass by in single file, heading south. Reckoning he has covered two miles, Ginger looks for somewhere to pass the night. With no trees around, he sits on the crumbling remains of a dead anthill. Night falls. There is no question of sleep. He sits with his ears strained and his pistol in his hand for company. Once or twice, he hears a lion and a hyena. He can’t light a fire as it will be seen. Just after midnight the full moon soars up and floods the scene with pale blue radiance. This cheers him a lot. Ginger decides he might as well walk as sit and sets off, walking for some two hours, until he feels sure he has reached the place Bertie described. Ginger sits down and makes an early breakfast of biscuits and sardines. It is bitterly cold just before dawn and that gives rise to a slight mist. Ginger examines the ground for obstructions. “There was none of any importance, although as a landing field the place was not as good as Algy had seemed to think”. Ginger marks the rough patches and humps with sticks to which he tied strips of material cut from the bottom of his shirt. This done he sat down again and made ready to contact Algy as soon as he heard him coming. This happened half an hour later, by which time the mist had lifted. Ginger is able to tell Bertie about his marking sticks via radio. There is a good straight run between them. “Even as he said this he saw, to his fury and consternation, a rhinoceros walking slowly towards the very spot had had just described. Reaching the middle of the runway, almost as if it knew what it was doing, it stopped and started grazing”. Ginger raged. The beast would have to choose that particular spot at that particular moment. Ginger fires his gun at the rhino and even though he doesn’t hit it, “the beast sprang round to face each point of the compass in quick succession, seeking the cause of the noise”. Then it resumes its grazing. Ginger fires again and misses. The Halifax is now circling, waiting for the rhine to move. Ginger fires two shots and one hits the beast as he hears the smack of the bullet. “The rhino snorted, squealed with rage, and then set off at such a gallop that Ginger would not have thought possible. At first it travelled at an angle that would miss him by a comfortable margin; but then it must have winded him, or seen the bushes, and as there was nothing else to charge made for them like a runaway locomotive”. Ginger stands still and the beast crashes though the bushes like a bulldozer within ten yards of him and keeps on going into the distance. The Halifax is able to land and Bertie jumps down saying “By Jove, old boy, you certainly put the breeze up that big boy who was standing on the runway”. Algy joins them and says “Give us the gen”. Ginger tells them all that had happened from the time the Hastings’ compass had taken the machine off its course. Ginger says there are two or three things they need to do. He suggests they need to let the Air-Commodore know what’s happening, try to contact Biggles and also find out where the unknown machine is parked and “have a dekko at the weapon that can cut engines in the air”. Algy says the Halifax is too big for the job and they need an Auster instead. Algy suggests leaving Bertie with Ginger. Algy will fly to Dakar and leave the Halifax there. He can then “push on home in the regular service”. “I’ll report to the Air-Commodore and come back in the Auster. We should then have both types available”. Algy thinks he can be back at their current location in three or four days. “Today’s Tuesday. With most of the day in front of me I’ll aim to be back Friday at the latest”. Ginger gets food and ammunition out of the Halifax. They then hear the aircraft “that was hanging about us when the engines cut” and looking south, they see it flying up and down in parallel lines, as if photographing or looking for something. Algy decides to fly off now before his aircraft is seen. He takes off and is soon out of sight. Picking up their baggage, Bertie and Ginger start walking, keeping an eye on the still questing aircraft.