BIGGLES SEES IT THROUGH

by Captain W. E. Johns

IX. ‘GROUNDED’ (Pages 128 – 138)

Biggles flies straight back to the lake on full throttle and lands. When his wheels touch the lake he is unprepared for the cloud of spray that shoots into the air. He judges there are four inches of water on the ice. Biggles realises the snow is thawing and running down onto the frozen lake. He taxes to the side of the lake by the site of the avalanche, which is now rock, trees and dirty slush. Biggles starts looking for the papers, digging only round trees in the branches of which the jacket might have been caught. Darkness closes in and he is forced to desist. Rather than stay cramped up in the cockpit of the Gladiator, Biggles goes to spend the night in the big fuselage of the crashed Blenheim. “A more depressing spot would have been hard to find. Inside the cabin it was practically dark, and he dare not risk a light for fear it might be seen by a wandering enemy scout. All around lay the water, still, silent, black, and forbidding, with the sombre firs clustered like a frozen army on the sloping banks”. Unable to sleep, he Biggles sits and smokes the occasional cigarette, waiting for dawn. When he gets up, he finds six inches of water in the cabin and he realises the water over the icy lake could not be less than a foot deep. Biggles realises the Gladiator will not be able to take off in that amount of water. Biggles makes his way to the bank and feels the fast-melting ice rocking under him. He fully expects it to collapse at any moment and let him through. Approaching the avalanche site, the snow has now all melted and he sees his jacket tangled up in a small branch about fifty yards from the shore. The branch is sinking under the weight and he only just gets there in time. The packet is still in the breast pocket and he transfers it to the pocket of the flying jacket he has borrowed from Eddie. Biggles gets into the Gladiator and tries to take off, but there is far too much surface water. He runs the machine up onto the bank, high and dry and abandons it as it is of no more use to him. Biggles prepares to walk home but realises that he cannot leave the lake as one of his comrades will come out and try to land with fatal results. From the air, the water would look like ice. Biggles gets the signalling pistol from the Gladiator and loads it with a red cartridge. He also prepares to light a fire to send smoke up. Biggles waits and in due course hears a shout or a laugh. Then he sees a column of men marching over the brow of a hill – Russian soldiers making straight towards the lake.