BIGGLES GOES TO WAR

by Captain W. E. Johns

XIV. FRESH DANGERS (Pages 165 – 174)

Biggles tell the Count how it is funny the one thing you don’t think of so often happens to trip you up. They make their way to the main square where Ginger sees them coming and slips inside the nearest car and gets the engine running. Ginger tells Biggles the cars had been going and he was worried; he had originally chosen a Mercedes. They drive off back to Algy and the aircraft but they are worried about the snow. The Count says they could use the bridge; Biggles informs him otherwise. In a little over an hour they are back at the landing-field by which time the snow is almost blinding in its intensity. Biggles gets out of the car and the snow is up to his knees. Algy has already gone, which is what Biggles had expected. The Count knows the area from his childhood and remembers an old mill some distance down the stream. They used to keep a boat there. They set off on foot and find a tow-path by the river. They reach the site of the old mill, but it has been burnt down and there is no boat there. They hear the howling of wolves, which have come down from Siberia, driven by cold and hunger. They see the creatures slinking through the trees and so Biggles, Ginger and the Count take refuge in the ruin of the old mill. They go up some tottering steps to the remains of a first floor and decide to wait until daylight. Soon they are surrounded by thirty or forty grey wolves. Ginger moans that this is what comes of leaving good old England. “Well, you said you were craving for some excitement. You’re getting it, so I don’t see what you’ve got the grumble about” Biggles told him.