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”.