BIGGLES PRESSES ON

More Adventures of Biggles and the Special Air Police

by Captain W. E. Johns

5. THE CASE OF THE HAUNTED ISLAND (Pages 87 – 113)

“In considering the world-wide nature of the investigations which Biggles was called upon to undertake it might well be expected that strange stories would come his way; as indeed, they did. But none was more remarkable than the one that went down in the Air Police records at the Haunted Atoll (Strange that the title should be ‘The Case of the Haunted Island’ then. I wonder if the word ‘Atoll’ was changed to ‘Island’ in the title at some stage, but not in the text of the story?). It was started (as dramatic events so often are) by a rumour; a mere whisper. At the outset nothing could have been more vague. No ending could have been more conclusive, although to reach it Biggles and his crew had to cover many thousands of sea miles”. The matter started with a note from the French Colonial Office to its British counterpart that for some years there had been reports in French Oceania, notably in Papeete, Tahiti, the administrative headquarters of the Islands, of a ‘mad Englishman’ being resident on Oto-Via, a remote atoll east of the Paumotu Archipelago. Now, suddenly, for no apparent reason the small native population of the island had vanished. This had been reported by the captain of an island trading schooner who, at long intervals, had called to pick up copra and pearl shell. Raymond asks Biggles if they have any record of an aircraft missing in that part of the world and the answer is no. Biggles has looked the place up in the Admiralty Sailing Directions and in Findlay’s South Pacific Directory. (This is a real book. The second edition was published in 1863 but I don’t know when the first edition was published). Biggles says the atoll is forty miles in circumference, but nowhere more than a quarter of a mile wide. Raymond wonders if the man could be a castaway. “He may have gone off his rocker and knocked the natives about with the result that they’ve pushed off to another island”. Biggles shrugged. “I suppose that is a possibility. In the tropics a white man can do daft things, particularly if he finds himself alone”. As the islands are French, Biggles offers to ring Marcel Brissac in Paris and ask him to dig out any further information as Marcel once told him that he did his overseas service in Tahiti. In three days’ time, Marcel turns up in person with a little information. “For a long time there has been strange native stories about Oto-Via. First it is a mad Englishman there. Then the place is haunted by a spirit – perhaps many spirits”. Marcel says a Captain Dupreve, of the schooner Tarivo calls there occasionally for copra and pearl shell. The last time he called, no canoes came. He went ashore to find the village empty and even the Chinese man, Ah Song, who kept the little store, had gone. The population of the island has been around a hundred people. Marcel says “A Polynesian does not leave the island where he is born unless he is much afraid of something”. Biggles asks if a Polynesian would believe in ghosts. “Very much. He calls them tupapaku”. Biggles wonders if the “Chinaman” might give them the answer if they could find him. “My dear Beegles; there are more than a thousand islands in the Paumotus alone. At Tahiti we might find the captain of a trading schooner who has seen him somewhere. That is the only chance”, Marcel tells him. “If there is a white man on Oto-Via, now that Captain Dupreve goes no more he will stay there till he dies. It is seven hundred miles from Tahiti”, he adds. Biggles goes to see Air Commodore Raymond to give him the gist of Marcel’s report and Raymond asks Biggles to “run out and get to the bottom of this if I can get authority for the trip”. Biggles says he will take Marcel with him. “The Sunderland you used to go around those islands in the Indian Ocean would have the range” says Raymond. (This must be a reference to BIGGLES CUTS IT FINE, published in March 1954 – so written three or four years before this book - as that book is set in the Indian Ocean and Biggles flies a Sunderland. That was also an adventure that featured Marcel Brissac). Biggles returns to Marcel and the others and some two hours later, the inter-com buzzes and Biggles gets permission to go. Bertie rubbed his hands. “Jolly good, I’m all for a spot of the rolling deep. Coral islands, and what have you, thrown in. That’s me; every time a coconut”.

“Three weeks later Bertie was having his wish. He was out over the rolling deep. Very far out. For three hours, flying by dead reckoning, the Sunderland had been kicking the air behind it as it bored into the blue towards Oto-Via”. They arrive and fly over the island, but see no one. Biggles lands on the lagoon. “So clear was the water that the flying boat appeared to be floating on air”. They wade ashore and hail but there is no answer. Biggles suggests they look round the abandoned village and then they can taxi round the inside of the reef on the following day. If that produces nothing, they can then fly low over it. They thoroughly explore the part of the atoll most used by the islanders. “The little store of Ah Song looked pathetic with its empty shelves”. Biggles can’t understand why the people have left. Marcel says the only danger would be a hurricane. They turn in for the night leaving Ginger on first watch.

“Dawn bought a cloudless day, but still the rollers growled and thundered on the reef”. Biggles starts the engines of their machine and they taxi round. Eventually, rather more than an hour later, the flying-boat was back at its starting point, having discovered nothing. They then fly around the island and Ginger lets out a yell, having spotted the deck of a ship, a vessel of some size, wedged in a deep split in the coral. Biggles lands and they taxi to a shelf and the aircraft is made fast. “With the masts down and the funnel flat I’d say she was a wreck before she arrived here,” observed Algy. Bertie wonders how it got over the reef. Marcel says a Pacific hurricane with waves forty or fifty feet high would toss it like a matchbox. They stare at the vessel. “It would have been hard to imagine a vessel in such a state. A typical small deep-sea tramp, she was still in the water, but resting on the bottom on even keel, having apparently crushed the brittle coral by her weight so that the deck was more or less level with the rock on each side. The masts were down, and covered the smashed upper works, including the funnel, with a tangle of rigging from which hung pieces of wind-blown seaweed, palm fronds and other debris. The davits were outboard but the lifeboats had gone. Seams in the hull gaped wide open. Plates had crumpled like tissue paper. The paint, blistered and peeling, was all colours. Streams of red rust ran down her sides”. “What a sight to give a sailor the horrors,” murmured Biggles. “She must have been close on a thousand tons”. With some difficulty they see the name on the stern. ‘Belinda, London’. They go onboard and head for the bridge. The fittings have all gone. “We’re not the first people here,” says Biggles. “These screws didn’t unscrew themselves”. Biggles asks Marcel if this is the work of natives, but he says no, this is the work of a white man. Ginger looks over the side and sees loads of empty tin cans. Somebody must have lived on the ship for some time after she was here. The notice the hatches to the hold are off. When they come to the captain’s cabin, they find him still there. “On the floor. Dead. And he had been dead for some time”. Near an outstretched hand lay a revolver. Biggles examines it and determines it has not been fired. Biggles examines the corpse. “This man was murdered. It looks as if he died defending his ship, but was clouted from behind with something heavy before he could use his gun”. Ginger finds a short length of pipe lying nearby. Biggles picks it up with his handkerchief and keeps it, in case there are any fingerprints on it. Marcel says “I only know the people who lived here would not do this. The Polynesian is not a murderer”. Biggles wonders if this was the rumoured madman, or was the madman the one who killed him. They search for the ship’s log, but find nothing. They can’t find the Bill of Lading either, so they don’t know what the ship was carrying. They explore the holds but find them empty. Biggles says “Ah Song, the Chinaman,” is the man they want as he’ll know what happened. At least he’ll know why the people fled. They return to the aircraft and fly back to Tahiti where Biggles can cable Air Commodore Raymond for particulars of the Belinda. Whilst they are waiting for a reply, Marcel can make inquiries on the waterfront. This they do and for three days there is no news. Then they get both a reply from London and a report from Marcel that he had met the skipper of a trading schooner who had seen Ah Song recently at Atuona, on one of the Marquesas Islands, some eight hundred miles away from Tahiti and two hundred miles north of Oto-Via. The Cable from the Air Commodore read as follows:

‘S.S. Belinda, 1,200 tons. Captain Macdonald, master. Lost with all hands in big hurricane of Jan 1952 outward bound London to Wellington, N.Z., via Panama. Mixed cargo, canned goods and cereals. Insurance paid’.

“At last we seem to be getting somewhere,” said Biggles. “But we’ve still some questions to answer. The most important is, who killed Captain Macdonald? Obviously he stuck to his ship after the crew had taken to the boats and were subsequently lost. The next question is, who lifted the cargo? It would be worth money. It would be reasonable to assume it was the man who killed the captain”. Biggles asks Algy to set a course to Atuona so they can hear what Ah Song has to say about it. The following afternoon, the Sunderland lands at Atuona and they find that Ah Song has taken charge of a store while its Chinese owner is away at Tahiti on business. “At first he was reluctant to speak, but when Marcel told him sternly that he might find himself accused of complicity in a murder, he recovered the use of his tongue. And this, in his quaint pidgin English, is the story he told”. “The ship, the Belinda, came over the reef in a hurricane and was thrown into the position in which it remained. When the storm had abated and the canoes had gone over to it from the village, only one man was seen on board. He behaved as if out of his mind. He refused to leave his ship, and, brandishing a revolver, threatened to shoot anyone who tried to come on board. This state of affairs persisted for some time – Ah Song could not say how long, but it was many months. Anyway, the islanders soon learned to keep away from the ship and its belligerent captain. They decided he was mad”. “Did you believe that?” asked Biggles. “No. I think he dlunk”, answered the Chinese blandly. “Dlink, dlink, all time dlink. I tink bimeby he die”. Ah Song continued. One day another trading schooner, the Mahina, called to see if there was any copra. Captain Clark, the owner, who sailed with a native crew, was told of the wreck. He took his schooner close and landed. It remained there for some days. One night, hearing a noise, an islander had paddled across in his canoe to see what was happening. He saw the crew of the Mahina carrying heavy loads from the Belinda”. The crew were dark, says Song, and he thought they might be from Malaita, in the Soloman Islands. Captain Clark then came and told the islanders that there was no one on the ship. The mad Englishman had killed himself and so the lagoon would be haunted by his ghost. They would be wise to leave the place, which would now have nothing but bad luck. Clark then said he would take the women and children and the men could follow in their canoes. He said that if ever they spoke of this they would die. Song thought that Clark meant that he would kill them. “He was a savage man”. Song went with Clark to Paumotus and later moved to Atuona. Song said it was now well known that there was a glut of trade goods about the islands, which had caused prices to drop. There was much canned salmon, corned beef, rice and beans. No one knew where these came from. Biggles and Marcel both believe the story they were told by Song. They fly back to Tahiti to make inquiries about Clark and Marcel is told “that Captain Nat Clark had sold his schooner, the Mahina, and had sailed for England ten days ago, in a freighter named Esperence, due to dock at Southampton in about forty days from the time of departure from Tahiti. A Captain Hay had bought the schooner and he sailed for Tongariva, one of the nearest Paumotus, about three hundred miles away. Biggles resolves to go and speak to him. “You know, old boy, somebody’s going to get a kick in the pants when your bills for petrol come in,” remarked Bertie cheerfully, polishing his eyeglass. “That’s his worry,” returned Biggles evenly. “I was sent to do a job and I’m doing it. This aircraft won’t fly without fuel and oil. That’s why I was given an official carnet for as much as I needed”. The following day they touch down on the lagoon at Tongariva and the Mahina is at anchor. Biggles asks for permission to go aboard and both he and Marcel go and speak with the Scottish Captain Hay. Biggles says they are police officers and that Captain Clark is suspected of murder. “Would the name of this man by any chance be David Macdonald?” asks Hay. Hay has bought a sextant off Clark with the initials D. M. on the wooden case. He also bought a chronometer. Hay says he turned down a gold watch that he was offered. On the back it said ‘To Captain David Macdonald, from the Company, on completion of forty years’ service’. Clark had told Hay that he had bought it at a pawnbrokers and had it for years. “I’m sorry, Captain Hay,” said Biggles, “but I shall have to take these things for evidence. I’ll give you a receipt, of course, and see that you’re refunded the money you paid for them”. Hay says he also bought forty tons of food, at valuation, with the ship. Biggles says that Hay had better sell it and keep an account. “It would have gone for salvage, anyway, so that insurance people should give you an ample discount”. Biggles asks to have a word with the ‘head boy’ of the native crew. “The native was bought in and questioned. He described how he and the crew had carried the cargo of the Belinda to the Mahina. They had been back several times after the first load. It had been sold to traders on the islands. It was obvious that he saw nothing wrong in this. He was paid to obey orders and to him it was just another job”. He said he knew nothing of the captain of the Belinda being killed, and Biggles was inclined to believe him. Biggles prepared a statement for Captain Hay’s signature, which Marcel and Algy witness, Algy being brought aboard for that purpose. They return to the Sunderland and Ginger asks what they found. “Enough, I fancy, to put a rope round the neck of a scoundrel,” Biggles told him, in a hard voice. They fly back to Tahiti, and then on home.

“With nine thousand miles of ocean between him and the scene of his crime it is unlikely that any criminal received a more devastating shock than did Captain Nathaniel Clark, when, after his ship docked at Southampton, he stepped off the gangway to find regular police officers from Scotland Yard waiting to take him into custody”. In his baggage is found Captain Macdonald’s gold watch and in due course his fingerprints are found on the murder weapon. “This, incidentally, was one of the few cases in which Biggles and Marcel had to go to Court to give evidence. The prisoner must have listened aghast as surely and inexorably Biggles put the rope round his neck as he told of the long trail across the Pacific in search or evidence and posed questions to which there could be only one answer, the truth. And it must have been with justifiable satisfaction that Biggles heard the judge say, at the conclusion of his summing up: ‘The arm of the law has always had the reputation of being long, but today, as we see, aviation enables it to reach out half-way across the globe’. The charge was murder, and the verdict, guilty”.