NO REST FOR BIGGLES

by Captain W. E. Johns

X. BIGGLES GOES ALONE (Pages 101 – 111)

(Johns must have liked this chapter title. He used it for the title of a Biggles book published in January 1962).

“A quarter of an hour passed without any change in the situation. Everyone seemed to be waiting. A little crowd stood in front of the opening in the trees that gave access to the hangar. The only sounds were the distant drone of aircraft, a low murmur of conversation, and once, for a brief spell, far away, the roaring of two lions. Then an aircraft could be heard coming back”. It is Christophe’s machine. Biggles says “If I can’t get the machine I’ll burn the whole works. The General said it wouldn’t matter if the weapon was destroyed. That would at least prevent the enemy getting his hands on it and would put an end to Christophe’s racket here”. “You don’t think he’s a genuine patriot?” murmured Bertie. “I doubt it. Money or power, or both, are usually at the bottom of this sort of set-up. Christophe’s on a good thing”. They watch Christophe’s aircraft come in for a difficult landing in the dark and the wheels do not touch until the aircraft is half-way down the landing strip. The pilot, presumably Dessalines, tries to turn to avoid running into the trees. “One thing a landing chassis, designed to go forward, will not do, is go sideways. There was a grinding crunch; the machine pulled up as if caught by arresting gear and came to rest with its tail cocked in the air”. The plane is damaged. Biggles is annoyed. “If this has upset Christophe’s apple-cart, it’s upset ours as well”. He adds “Confound his ham-fisted pilot for a clumsy twit. Well, I’m not leaving without the weapon or without destroying it. Just a minute. Let me think about this”. “Listen,” said Biggles, reaching a decision. “Without an aircraft Christophe’s sunk, and he must know it. The only way he can get the weapon into the air is by repairing the machine or installing it in another aircraft, and I can’t believe he’s got the technicians here to do either. If I’m right, then he’ll have to call on his outside pals, as he calls them. These, I imagine, are also von Stalhein’s pals. If they come here we’ve lost the game, because even if they don’t get away with the weapon they’ll see enough of it to tell them all they want to know”. Biggles concludes they have got to stop Christophe or von Stalhein from getting in touch with the people outside, which means putting the radio out of action. Biggles says that Ginger is dead on his feet as he has already been up all of the previous night. He must sleep. Bertie needs to stay with him. Biggles says “I’ll go on my own and wreck that radio”. Arranging to met back where they are now, Biggles sets off. Ginger immediately goes to sleep at the foot of a tree. Biggles knows that with the wire cutters he can enter and leave the compound at any point that suits him. Biggles also feels sure that Christophe will think they have all gone off in the Hastings, even though von Stalhein would know better. “He would know that he, Biggles, would not leave the district without having achieved his object”. “Christophe’s own position was not as invulnerable as he probably imagined. The people he had outsmarted, and von Stalhein was one of them, would liquidate him without the slightest hesitation if it was in their interests to do so. At the moment they needed him; and he needed them”. Biggles gets to the track that leads to the camp well ahead of the party coming in from the airfield. There is a sentry at the gate. Biggles’ plan is to get to the huts where the radio is believed to he housed and then cut through the wire. Cutting the bottom two or three strands will let him crawl through. Biggles reaches the fence with its bordering footpath. The sentry lets the jeep through and closes the gates. The “negro at the gate” yawns, lights a cigarette and leans his rifle against the wire. “Biggles, his military training revolting at such behaviour, gave way to a whimsical impulse. The fellow needed a lesson. Retracing his steps he put a hand through the wire, took the rifle, and walked away with it. He didn’t want it, so, before he had gone far, he thrust it into a bush”. As Biggles advances down the outside of the wire towards Christophe’s headquarter, he can hear voices raised in argument. Biggles cuts through the wire at this point in order to listen to what is going on. “What youse afraid of?” demanded Christophe. “De man’s gone. He ain’t mad. He don come back here no more”. “If you knew the man as well as I do you’d realize the most likely place for him to be at this moment is outside this hut listening to what you’re saying”. Christophe guffawed. Biggles smiled. “More or less in line with the big hut, farther along, were five similar ones. What their purpose was he did not know, except that one of them was reputed to be the radio room”. Biggles thinks Christophe is likely to go there very soon. Christophe’s door opens and “In the path of yellow light from the open door appeared a grotesque figure wrapped in a leopard skin from which dangled sundry ornaments and – judging from the noise made when the man moved – ironmongery. The man was obviously a chief or a witch-doctor, Biggles decided, with command over the outside natives, brought in probably in connexion with the escape and the action to be taken when daylight made a pursuit possible”. Biggles goes outside the wire and moves along to a lighted hut, before cutting four strands of wire to come back into the camp. He looks in the window. “One glance told him all he needed to know. It was the radio station. In a chair, leaning back on two legs against the reception table on which stood a paraffin lamp, was one of Christophe’s soldiers, earphones not over his ears but round his neck. He was asleep. No weapon could be seen”. Biggles walks into the room with his gun in hand. The operator opens his eyes and Biggles tells him to “Sit still”. The operator’s chair falls backwards and Biggles tells him to stay on the floor and he won’t be hurt. “Then he went to work ripping out connections and sweeping valves to splinters of glass with the butt of his automatic. Then, to make quite sure, he unscrewed the filling cap of the lamp and poured the paraffin over the instrument. Tearing leaves from a message pad he threw them in the paraffin and with a flick of his lighter set them on fire”. Biggles goes to leave and sees a group of men coming from the direction of Christophe’s headquarters. Realizing that he can’t get back to his hole in the wire, Biggles goes the other way and breaks into a run. Going to the fence he is able to cut his way out and get back on the outer path. “A whimsical thought made him wonder how hard von Stalhein was kicking himself for his folly in producing the one tool that had made so much trouble possible – the wire cutters”. The roof of the radio room is now alight and casts a lurid glow. Biggles can’t go back down the path towards the gate so he has to go the other way. “He carried on along the wire”.