BIGGLES PRESSES ON

More Adventures of Biggles and the Special Air Police

by Captain W. E. Johns

2. THE CASE OF THE SUBMERGED AIRCRAFT (Pages 26 – 45)

This story was later published in OPEN-AIR ADVENTURE STORIES FOR BOYS (1965) by Odhams Press Ltd and ran from pages 87 to 107 in that book. I cannot find any differences between this reprinted version and the version in Biggles Presses On.

“Biggles took a second glance at the expression on the face of his chief, Air Commodore Raymond of the Special Air Police at Scotland Yard, as, in response to an order, he walked into the headquarters office. “Why are you looking at me like that?” inquired the Air Commodore. Biggles smiled. “I was wondering why you were looking like that”. “Sit down and I’ll tell you. What would you say if I told you there is reason to believe that an aeroplane is standing on the bottom of a Highland loch?”. “I hope the pilot finds it comfortable,” returned Biggles evenly. “What is this? Has some crank designed an aircraft for underwater aviation?” Raymond explains that he has had a phone call from an official of the Highland Hydro-Electric Board as he thought they would like to know. Raymond says that he is told there is, in the north-west corner of the Cairngorms, a sheet of water called Lochnaglash, the source of a small river called the Glash, which is a tributary of the Spey, twelve miles away. (Johns would know this area as he lived at Pitchroy Lodge right by the River Spey in Scotland. He took a six-year lease out on the Lodge in June 1947 and lived there until 1953). The loch is fourteen miles from the village of Balashlin. A man had been sent to check summer water levels and as a result of the recent drought he found the water exceptionally low. “Showing above the surface is an object that looks like the top of an aeroplane rudder”. “If it is a machine it must have been there for some time,” stated Biggles. “It must be years since we had a record of an aircraft disappearing without trace”. Raymond says it could be a relic of the war and he wants Biggles to fly up and look, suggesting he takes the Otter and lands on the lake. There weren’t any boats for the hydro-electric man to investigate further. Biggles returns to his colleagues in the office and tells them “The Loch Ness monster, sick of being ridiculed, has popped up in a place called Lochnaglash. It looks like an aircraft. We’re flying up in the Otter to catch it by the tail. We shall need the large-scale map of Banffshire and, I suppose, our bathing costumes”. They all fly up and four hours later, after three attempts to land on the long narrow loch, Biggles finally manages to land on the water “dark and sinister even under a summer sun”. Ginger can see the object. “It was the only mark to break the unruffled surface, on which the surrounding hills were reflected with the faithfulness of a mirror. Only a few inches of the object showed, some fifty yards or so from a strip of detritus, the only feature that bore any resemblance to a beach”. “There was not a soul, or a living creature, in sight, except an eagle, high overhead. Nor was there a tree, although a small clump of shrubby birch had managed to gain a foothold at one end of the beach. In a word, it was a typically remote Highland scene”. Algy says the rudder belongs to a Gipsy Moth. They pull nearer and see the upper side of the top plane some six feet down, with the plane slightly down by the nose, hence the tail showing. Ginger says he is pretty sure the seats are empty. “Thank goodness for that,” muttered Bertie. “Corpses give me the willies”. Biggles says if a pilot was in trouble he would go for the heather, not the loch. “But half a mo’, old boy,” protested Bertie. “The alternative to what you’re saying is, the pilot put the machine here deliberately. Does that make sense? “No” says Biggles, saying the only alternative would be this happening in winter when the loch was ice-bound and the aircraft sinking when the ice melted. Algy wonders if the pilot died from exposure trying to reach help. Biggles asks “How many Gipsy Moths have you in that file of missing machines, Ginger? I saw you going through it on the way up”. “I can only recall three,” answered Ginger, producing the file. “One went west on a flight to the Cape. Another, belonging to a planter flying back to Malaya, either went down in the Channel or disappeared somewhere in Europe”. “The other was the case of that man whom the police wanted to interview in connection with a murder. A fellow named Alva Murray, an ex-commando, was thought to have shot his wife. He took off in a Gipsy and was never seen again. We helped in the search for him. You decided he’d found a hideout on the Continent”. Biggles remembers the case. It must have been seven or eight years ago and it was in June, so this was not a case of landing on ice. “If ever there was a deliberately planned job that was it. Murray joined a flying club to get his “A” licence – as he said. Even then he must have known what he was going to do because while he was under instruction he drew all his money from the bank, about four thousand pounds, a few hundreds at a time. Then he shot his wife, took off in a club machine and vanished. It turned out he was a jealous type and thought she’d been playing him up. At least, that was what it looked like. What were the registration letters?” Biggles is told GB-XKL. Biggles gets into his bathing costume and swims down to check, returning to confirm it is the aircraft. They pull their own aircraft onto the small beach. Biggles thinks it is better to leave the sunken plane where it is. “I’m assuming Murray is still alive. If this story gets out he’ll hear about it and take fright. After all this time he must think he’s sitting pretty. If he learns that the machine has been found he’ll be more difficult to find than he may be at present”. Biggles says Murray must have known exactly what he was going to do and would have known the depth of the water in the loch. “His name tells us he was a Scot so he may have come from these parts. The ambition of every Highlander who leaves his home is to get back to his beloved heather”. Biggles searches around for any signs of Murray’s arrival and sees a spot where a fire was lighted and he finds a length of cord about 50 yards long attached to a pair of deflated water-wings. Biggles guesses this was used to bring his kit bag ashore with the four thousand pounds he had and the fire was to dry his clothes. Biggles thrusts the cord back into the heather. They all sit down and eat a meal with biscuits and cheese and coffee from the thermos. Ginger sees someone coming. “A powerfully built man, black-bearded, wearing a kilt of Lovat tweed, carrying in his hand a Highland cromach – a long, strong, ash stick with a crook at the end, an instrument that serves many useful purposes in such country. On his head he wore a Laggan bonnet, sometimes called a deer-stalker. With the handle of a skean-dhu, the Highland name for a dagger, showing above the top of his stocking, where it is usually carried, he fitted into the scene perfectly”. The man introduces himself as Macrae and says he saw their plane. He thought they may be after eagle’s eggs as collectors in London pay five pounds a time and up to fifty pound for a clutch. Macrae says he works for the Scottish Bird Protection Society and has done so for five years. He says “I have a wee place down the glen. In the old days it was the stalker’s hoose”. Biggles asks about another place he saw as he flew over and is told it is the old lodge, a ruin. The Government took over that place in the war and knocked the place to pieces. Macrae asks what they are doing there and Biggles says they are having a picnic. Macrae leaves and Biggles says he wants to look at the Lodge. If troops were there, it might have been a Commando Training School. Murray was a commando and that might be how he knows the place. Ginger is sent to get the torch from the plane, then they set off. “The once smart lodge, now silent and dilapidated, with rotting hutments accompanying it to ruin, presented a depressing spectacle in an atmosphere of melancholy which the interior, when Biggles opened the door and went in, did nothing to dispel”. On the wall it says “Number Seven Commando Training unit. Daily Routine Orders”. In the kitchen they find a cheap frying pan and kettle. An enamel plate, with a knife and fork are in the sink. In a corner they find a heap of long-dead heather and sardine tins, which are not army rations. Biggles guesses Murray stayed there when the search was on for him. They return to their aircraft and the rudder of the underwater aircraft has now disappeared. Bertie thinks the water is rising. Biggles goes to have another look at the cord and, taking the torch, disappears alone. When he returns, he says “That’s enough for to-day, let’s turn in”.

The next day dawns with the weather clear and fine. Biggles wants to go and talk further with Macrae. They find him at his cottage. Biggles tells him they are police officers. “I have reason to believe you are the Alva Murray who we have been anxious to interview in connection with the murder of his wife seven years ago. I must warn you that anything you say –”. Biggles gets no farther; the man whips out his skean-dhu (dagger) and says “Ye’ll never tak me alive”. He dashes into his house and slams the door. The barrels of a twelve-bore shotgun appear and he fires as Biggles and his men take cover in a dilapidated venison larder. Biggles says “He can’t get away and he must know it; but being guilty of murder he won’t care who else he kills”. “He’s armed and resisting arrest,” Bertie pointed out. “We should be justified in using our guns”. “I’d rather not” says Biggles and he sends Algy to fly south until he can contact Scotland Yard by high-frequency radio. He is then to ask for Raymond to notify the county police. The others settle down to wait. “Late in the afternoon the gun crashed again, showing that Murray was still within”. A jeep arrives with four police officers, one an inspector. Biggles warns them, but the inspector goes up to the house. “Come out of that, Murray,” he shouted. “Let’s have no nonsense”. The inspector looks in the window and then beckons the others. “Inside, on the floor, in a crumpled heap lay Murray, the gun beside him”. The inspector says, without emotion, “It’s the sort of thing I’d expect him to do when he realized he hadn’t a chance. He’d choose to die in the heather rather than be hanged in a city gaol”. Biggles sees the Otter fly past to the loch and tells the inspector he will find an aeroplane in Lochnaglash. “We’ll get along. Thanks for you help”. Back onboard their plane, Biggles tells Algy “He shot himself”. Ginger asks how Biggles knew Macrae was Murray. Biggles says that Macrae’s skean-dhu was a commando knife and that when they were at the lodge, Macrae must have swum out and pushed the aircraft rudder under water, or cut it off. Finally, Biggles said that when he went to look at the cord and water-wings again, they had gone. “Maybe I was silly to confront him as I did but I hoped the shock would cause him to give himself away, as in fact it did. I should have guessed that having been a commando he’d show fight”.

“Subsequent inquiries revealed that Murray had served at Lochnaglash Lodge during the war. He must have lived there for some time, in hiding, for it was not until some months after his arrival that he had bought the cottage from the owner, paying for it in cash. In the interval he had grown a beard and taken to wearing Highland dress. Then, feeling safe from recognition, he had made periodical visits to the village for stores, making his excuse for living far up the glen that he was an eagle-watcher for the Bird Protection Society, as in fact he was, having offered his services in a voluntary capacity – presumably as a cover. It was a clever scheme that might never have come to light had it not been for the drought which exposed the tail of the Gipsy. Weather conditions were outside the murderer’s calculations, but, as Biggles remarked, on this occasion they proved the old saying that ‘Murder will out’.