BIGGLES AND THE PENITENT THIEF

by Captain W. E. Johns

9. UNWELCOME VISITORS (Pages 78 – 86) (This chapter is unnumbered in the first edition of the book)

“After drawing on his cigarette while considering the chaos, Biggles said: “Can you form any idea at all, Tommy, of where the foxhole was?” Tommy thinks he can. Biggles says it looks as if they are in for “a spot of navvy work”. They haven’t time to start today. Biggles looks at his watch and says it is time they get back to the rendezvous with Fraser. “Let’s hope he can get here, old boy,” says Bertie. Rolling in from the sea is a great blanket of white fog. Biggles moved quickly. “Let’s get cracking,” he said tersely, but it is no good. Within five minutes the advance waves of clammy moisture overruns them. “Let’s try to get to the cabin and shut this stuff outside, or we’ll soon be as wet as scrubbers. Fraser will realize how we’re fixed. He’ll be over as soon as it’s possible” says Biggles. With Tommy taking the lead, they set off, walking slowly in single file, each man with a hand resting on the shoulder of the man in front of him. Tommy is a good guide and they soon reach the litter around the cabin. Getting inside, they light some logs and get a fire going to keep them warm. Bertie complains about the lack of food. “Sorry; my fault,” growled Biggles. “I should have had more sense than to come on a jaunt like this without emergency rations”. Time passes and overcome by boredom; Tommy suggests he goes back to the landslide to see if he can find anything he noticed when he hid the jewels. Biggles tells him he will never find the place in the fog, but is persuaded to let him try. When he has gone, Biggles tells the others that finding the bag means more to Tommy than any of them because his future depends on it. An hour passes and then two hours and Tommy does not return. Ginger thinks he has got himself lost in the fog. They hear a muffled gunshot, but as far as they are aware, Tommy never had a gun. The door bursts open and Tommy rushes in, stumbles and falls. “His face was chalk white and there was a smear of blood on it”. “Raulstein,” he gasped wildly as he picked himself up. “He’s here”. Raulstein has shot at Tommy and the bullet has grazed his face. Tommy was at the landslide when three people with guns have approached him from behind. Raulstein said he thought Tommy would be back and demanded to know where he had put the jewels. Tommy ran into the fog and somebody fired. He didn’t stop until he got back to the cabin. Biggles says that after the launch picked up Raulstein at Cooper’s Creek it must have then gone to the island. “Any further discussion was cut short by a slight noise in the direction of the door. Everyone in the room looked round. A dark shadow stood framed against the fog in the open doorway. A man. He held a revolver half raised. No one needed to be told who he was. Vague shadows moved behind. No one in the room moved”.