BIGGLES AND THE PENITENT THIEF

by Captain W. E. Johns

15. INTERLUDE FOR REFLECTION (Pages 128 – 133)

“And now what?” inquired Bertie, looking at Biggles, after the sounds of the crooks’ departure had died away in a rattle of empty cans. Biggles says they can do nothing, except make themselves comfortable for the night. He asks to be told what everyone has been up to but says before they start, did Bertie get the rations he went to collect? The sack of food is produced. Ginger wonders if the gang are likely to try rushing them. Biggles doubts they will without guns. Angus has a wooden bar that he can fix to secure the door and he does so. “Bertie unloaded his sack on the table. “Help yourselves, my lucky lads,” he invited”. “A pretty sight for a starving man,” declared Biggles as everyone helped himself. Biggles asks Tommy if the crooks got the swag bag. Tommy says they didn’t when he was with them, but he had showed them the landslide and told them it was buried underneath. Tommy says “I’m sorry I had to tell ‘em anything, but with them threatening to bump me off if I didn’t talk, what else could I do?” “You couldn’t do anything else,” Biggles agreed. They decide to have a go at digging for the jewels in the morning. Biggles says they will have to get Fraser to fly to fetch some tools from Rankinton. Bertie says there should be a crow-bar and a spade lying about somewhere. “At my suggestion a coloured deck-hand – cook, he called himself – took them along to the gang. He hadn’t got ‘em when he came back, so they must have been dumped”. “He had to explain about the Negro, of whom, of course, Biggles knew nothing”. Tommy says “When that black type rolled up and said someone had sent him from the launch, I thought the gang would kill him”. Bertie explains how he “had to get rid of the fellow somehow” and then he set fire to the launch. Tommy was with the crooks at the time. “You should have heard the cursing when they saw the launch on fire. But there was nothing they could do about it. The fire was sending up a cloud of smoke that must have been seen from the mainland had there been no fog. Which reminds me; I fancy the smoke was seen by a ship”. Tommy continues by saying he saw a fishing boat, with sails down, but he could hear an engine. The gang argued about the boat and what it was going to do. “Maybe that was why they didn’t shoot me,” Tommy adds. Biggles asks him what the gang did with him. “They left me in charge of the darkie and dashed off to catch the man who had set their launch on fire. They were so mad I don’t think they knew what they were doing. It was soon after they’d gone that I bolted into the wood with the Negro after me”. Biggles wonders if the skipper of this newly seen ship might have come ashore. “This conversation had been carried on while everyone was busy on an overdue meal. “We’ll put what’s left in the cupboard; we may still need it,” Biggles said. “The discussion continued. Bertie, Ginger and Tommy all related their parts in the events of the afternoon, filling in the gaps, so to speak; so by the time the stories had been told, Biggles was up to date with the situation as it now stood”. They decide to sleep but Biggles says someone needs to stay awake in case the crooks try anything. “They might even try to set fire to the cabin just for the mischief of it”. Biggles says as everyone has been out and must be tired, he will do the first four hour shift. “The rest of you can arrange turns among yourselves”. He asks to be woked at four-thirty. In a few minutes everyone had settled down for the night, except Biggles, who remained in the chair he had occupied for so long, his pistol ready to hand on the plain wooden table beside him”.