BIGGLES HITS THE TRAIL

 

by Captain W. E. Johns

 

 

VIII.                 AN ANXIOUS NIGHT  (Pages 128 – 148)

 

As the sun sinks “an eerie light crept over the landscape, flooding everything with a ghastly blue luminosity.  The peak was clearly visible from the plateau”.  Biggles, Algy and Ginger put the varnish on the magnetos.  Algy suggests flying back to India to get some bombs.  “And get clapped into jail for our pains.  People don’t sell bombs, or give them away, without knowing what they’re wanted for.  But we shall mighty soon have to be doing something”.  “Why, what’s the hurry?” asks Algy.  “Because you can bet your life that the Chings, Changs, Chungs, or whatnot’s are busy at this moment putting the works in order.  When it’s running on full power again they’ll try to do something unpleasant to us – or to the machine.  I don’t know about you, but I find this prospect of invisible rays tinkering with the engines a trifle unnerving”.  Without bombs, Biggles discusses the possibility of dropping boulders on the Chungs.  “Ay, that would be fine,” said McAllister eagerly.  “People who don’t want boulders dropping on them shouldn’t live in glass houses,” he added, with a chuckle.  Angus explains that their houses of make of yellow opaque glass.  There is no metal here other than radium.  Ginger had been over by the rock door and returns to say that something is going on.  He thinks he can hear drilling.  Angus says they have “drills with radium-hardened points that will go through steel as if it were a piece of cheese”.  Biggles goes to see and takes the Lewis machine gun with him.  When the Chung’s drill through, Biggles points the machine gun into the hole and opens fire.  After fifty rounds or so, all is quiet.  They now have to man guard over the hole and Ginger is left to watch it.  “It’s war to the knife now, then,” murmured the Professor.  “It always was, wasn’t it? replied Biggles harshly.  “They started the rough stuff.  All we wanted was to be friends and go home with a parcel of radium, which they could quite well have spared, anyway.  Dash it, they’ve got a whole mountain of the stuff”.  Ginger returns to report he can hear talking through the hole.  Angus is awake and willing to go and interpret.  The language is more of a chirp than speech.  Biggles declines an invitation to go to Ho Ling Feng’s palace and talk things over.  “If Tingaling wants to talk to me, tell him to come and whisper through the keyhole.  I don’t fancy my chance as centipede fodder”.  Biggles is worried about the peaks that tower over the plateau and asks Angus about the range of the blue ray.  Angus isn’t sure but says it’s a fair distance.  If a ray was shone on the metal it would cause the metal to crumple like a biscuit in an hour or two.  Angus asks if there is any metal in their aeroplane.  “Biggles stared at him horror-stricken.  “Great Goodness!” he gasped.  “Why, the machine’s all metal”.  McAllister looked startled.  “That’s awkward,” he said uncomfortably.  “Awkward!  By the waxen sandals of Icarus, that’s putting it mildly”.  Suddenly a blue beam is shone at the plateau and creeps towards them.  Biggles opens fire at it, in an attempt to put it out.  “At the fifth shot the light went out as if it had been switched off.  “How’s that?” he cried jubilantly.  “Not out,” answered Ginger promptly, as the light reappeared.  “I’ll clip your ear for you, you impudent brat,” snarled Biggles.  “Well, you asked – didn’t he? Inquired Ginger, in a hurt tone”.  Two more beams spring up and Biggles realises that he would use up all their ammunition trying to put them all out.  Angus says they have hundreds of the big rays and thousands of little ones, “pocket size, as you might say”.  Angus says there is a two-hundred-foot dam built across the gorge, forming a lake where they get their water from.  There is a path up to it.  Biggles asks Algy to get in the aircraft and taxi it about to try and keep it out of the rays.  At dawn, Algy is to take off and fly up and land on the lake.  In the meantime, Biggles and Ginger will go and try and put the rays out by attacking the Chungs.  If they can hold the path to the lake, they can meet in the morning.  They have three hundred feet of silk line and plan to climb down to the gorge.  Angus, who Biggles calls Mac, tells them where the path is.  Before they go, they use the varnish on their feet and hands.  Biggles comments on how he doesn’t feel tired.  “You won’t, not up here,” Mac told him.  “You can go without sleep for weeks at a time; it’s something to do with the mountain”.  Biggles and Ginger climb down to the gorge and the machine-gun and twelve-bore are lowered down to them.  “Come on,” said Biggles softly.  “This way”.