BIGGLES
FLIES AGAIN
by W. E. Johns
XII. YELLOW
FREIGHT (Pages
199 – 213)
Biggles and Algy are just walking to the
‘Vandal’ at Heliopolis, when Biggles is asked to go and speak to Colonel Grivin in the office of the Nile and North African Aviation
Company. Biggles remembers the Colonel’s
name from when he was at Wing H.Q. back in the war. The Colonel offers Biggles whisky (Johns
uses the Scottish spelling of whisky without an “e”. The Irish and Americans both spell whiskey
with an ‘e’). “Not for me, it’s a
bit too early,” replied Biggles quickly, “but you go ahead, don’t mind
us”. The Colonel poured out a stiff
whisky, drank it at a gulp and then settled himself back in his chair. “I needed that” he said half apologetically,
“I’m in the devil of a jam”. The Colonel
tells Biggles that two pilots, Trevor Dawlish and Bert Makins,
have both been killed trying to fly gold to Paris. They crashed at Karouma,
the first emergency landing ground on the run.
“Bad show” says Biggles. “The
Colonel’s jaw set grimly. “It’s worse
than that, Bigglesworth,” he said in a strained voice. “Poor Trevor and Bert were murdered”. The Colonel asks Biggles to fly the next
shipment. “If it doesn’t go, the
Company’s broke, busted wide open, and that’s that. Apart from that, if there is any man I know who might get to the bottom of what’s going on,
it’s you”. Biggles looks over the radial-engined
cabin monoplane that is ready for the trip.
Biggles decides he will fly the plane, loaded with scrap lead instead of
gold, and he asks Algy to go and buy him two white mice in a small cage. Biggles flies over the Mediterranean and
suspects that his cabin is slowly being filled with one of the most deadly gases in the world: monoxide. “An insidious poison, invisible, odourless,
but deadly; presently it would induce unconquerable sleepiness that would
quickly become a coma that could only end in death”. The mice both die and Biggles puts on a gas
mask. Karouma
lays below and Biggles sees two horsemen waiting. He fakes a bad landing and then feigns
death. The supposedly precious cargo is
removed. The men then set the throttle
to full so the plane will crash whilst on the ground and jump out. Biggles gets back in the pilot’s seat and
takes off and then sends out a message in Morse code. Four planes arrive. The ‘Vandal’, two Service Atlas’s, and a
Vickers Victoria Troop Carrier. The Victoria
lands and the troops arrest the men.
Biggles explains to the Colonel how a faulty manifold connection let
poisonous gas into the cabin. Algy has
the real gold on the ‘Vandal’. Biggles
says “Good! Then we’ll be moving
on. If there is any doubt about those
two crooks hanging let us know and we’ll slip back and give evidence”.