BIGGLES HITS THE TRAIL

by Captain W. E. Johns

VII. ANGUS TELLS HIS STORY (Pages 114 – 127)

“In the light of the sinking sun Angus McAllister told his story, slowly and haltingly, like a man who speaks a language to which he is unaccustomed”. He starts by saying that he will die soon after sunset as he has been inoculated with a drug for so long that he had to have it. “That’s how they kept me prisoner”. Malty says there isn’t a drug without an antidote and takes a blood specimen from Angus. He says he will work on it while Angus tells the others his story. Angus says he was taken by Chinese pirates for the Chungs as he was a chief engineer, “the others they killed”. Angus says the Chungs are “the oldest race in the world, originally an off-shoot of one of the big Chinese mandarin families, thousands and thousands of years ago”. People never get ill and live extremely long lives on this strange mountain. The mountain is “the greatest source of power in the world” but “these people are absolute fools in many respects. They don’t understand mechanical things, not really, and they never will”. The Chungs have had tons of machine parts brought up from Shanghai but they needed a western engineer. After Angus had been a prisoner about twenty years, they captured another engineer, an Irishman named O’Connor, but he learned what the game was and refused to help them. He was flung into a pit with the centipedes. The Chungs had created the creatures for defence. The electricity in the ground doesn’t affect the Chungs as they have an insulating liquid. Daily they dip the soles of their shoes and their hands in the liquid, a habit like washing. They also have a liquid that makes them invisible but it takes years of preparation to do it. As the liquid begins to wear off, they look like shadows. When they are invisible, they are as brittle as glass and can be smashed like bottles. Angus says the Chungs plan to take over the world by expanding out in all directions from the mountain. Their rays affect anything electrical, including the magnetos of aircraft. Angus gives Biggles a bottle of the insulating liquid and tells him to put some on their electrical gear. The leader of the Chungs is called Ho Ling Feng and Angus says that he reckons the Chungs will be able to start operations in a couple of weeks. The only way to stop them is to smash up the main power station. Malty returns crying “I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” (“I’ve got it, I’ve got it! he cried exultantly - is the illustration on page 125). “It’s a concoction of opium, that’s all”. “I’ve mixed some dope that will kick it out of you. I’m afraid it may make you feel a bit queer at first, but I think it will work”. Malty then injects Angus in the arm and Angus passes out. Biggles says to everyone how about a bit of food? “Afterwards we’ll see about knocking a few chunks off the Chungs”.