THE
CRUISE OF THE CONDOR
A BIGGLES STORY
by W. E. Johns
First published
August 1933
CONTENTS – Page 5
List of illustrations – Page 6
(Frontispiece and four plates all by Howard Leigh. The plates are facing pages 86, 136, 150 and
236)
I. BIGGLES
GETS A SHOCK (Pages
7 – 23)
“The trouble about civil life is that
nothing ever seems to happen. What
interest people got out of it before the War I can’t imagine; it must have been
deadly dull. Even peace-time flying is
so tame that I can’t get a kick out of it.
No Archie, no Huns, no nothing – just fly from here to there, and there
you are” say Biggles in the opening lines of the book. He is speaking to Algy and is introduced as
“Major James Bigglesworth, D.S.O., M.C., popularly known as Biggles, who in
October 1918 had commanded No. 266 Squadron in France. Victor of thirty-five confirmed combats and
many others unclaimed, he was known, at least by reputation, from Belgium to
the Swiss frontier”. (Johns has got this
wrong as Biggles never commanded 266 Squadron.
Major Mullen commanded the Squadron and it is only in the last story of “The Camels are Coming” that Biggles is
promoted to Major and given the command of his own Squadron, 319, Home Establishment
– a command he never takes up as the war ends). Biggles and Algy are on the way to visit
Biggles’ Uncle Dickpa, following receipt of a
telegram that he is back in the country.
Biggles explains that “I used to call my guvnor ‘Pa’ when I was a
toddler, and when his brother Dick came down to see him
I just naturally called him Dickpa. I’ve never called him anything else”. Dickpa is an
explorer and seldom in the country. As
Biggles and Algy walk up the long drive of his old, red-bricked Elizabethan
house, they are held up at gunpoint by a man with an American accent. Biggles deals with him by throwing a large
piece of stone in his face. When Algy
says he hopes Biggles hasn’t killed him, Biggles replies “If, after spending my
precious youth fighting the King’s enemies, I can’t fight one of my own, it’s a
pity”. Coming under fire, Biggles and
Algy make it into Dickpa’s house and discover he is a
man under siege, all alone, in his own home.
Dickpa explains that he has been exploring the
Matto Grosso in Brazil and thinks he has found Atahuallpha’s treasure.
Atahuallpha was the last Inca King captured
and murdered by Pizarro, the Spaniard. Dickpa shows Biggles and Algy some gold he has found and
says he had four porters, “a negro, two half-breed negro-Brazilians, and a
half-breed Indian-Brazilian named Philippe Nunez. He was the worst of the lot; a coward, a
thief, and a liar. He is outside in the
park somewhere at this moment”. Biggles
wants to go and shoot him but Dickpa tells him it
would be murder. Dickpa
explains that his porters abandoned him, leaving him to die of starvation,
until he was found by a rubber collector and taken to Manaos
where he found a new expedition about to set off to look for the treasure led
by Philippe Nunez and an American wastrel named Silas Blattner. Whilst Dickpa was
recovering, the expedition returned unsuccessful, and then they tried to kidnap
Dickpa to force him to divulge his secret. Dickpa had to flee
Brazil to save his life. Back at home, Dickpa was astonished to see Blattner and Nunez in the park
and now he finds himself under siege in his own home. “I can only say I am glad we’ve rolled up to
lend a hand. We shall even things up a
bit, I hope” says Biggles although he cautions Dickpa
against going to look for the treasure.
“I should feel inclined to leave it alone if I were you,” advised
Biggles. “After all, you have plenty of
money. Why risk a knife in the back to
get more?” Dickpa
says “It isn’t altogether the monetary value of the treasure that appeals to
me; it is the historical value of what I know exists there”. Biggles asks him if he has thought about
flying? They take their coffees into the
smoke-room to discuss the matter further.