THE RESCUE FLIGHT

by Captain W. E. Johns

XVIII. THIRTY GOES BACK (Pages 223 – 234)

Raymond asks Thirty where he is off to. “I’m just going to see what I can with a Fee, sir,” answered Thirty truthfully”. Raymond asks if they will all dine with him at Wing Headquarters that night, an invitation which Biggles is glad to accept. Thirty ties the handkerchief to the tail of the Fee and then takes off. “For the first time he began to perceive what war really meant; he felt the relentlessness of it – the ruthlessness, the waste, the cruelty, the incredible folly of it. It gave him a shock to realize that he did not really know what everybody was fighting for. Something about Belgium …” A crimson Fokker triplane drops out of the sky but the pilot merely raises his hand and sweeps away. Thirty arrives at his destination and looks down at Belville. “He saw the church, and the silver ribbon that was the river on which, only a few hours before, he had floated on a barge with a woman whom he would never see again. What a strange thing war was, he reflected”. Finding the relevant field and seeing nothing suspicious, Thirty lands, but he knows the Germans are there. Thirty “hallooed loudly” and gets out and speaks with a German officer, a Leutnant, who has stepped out of the bush. With him are two or three soldiers, one of whom was the one he saw eating his breakfast sausage earlier in the day. “The presence of the man whom he had already seen gave him an unexpected opportunity of establishing his bona fides, which he was not slow in seizing. “Finished your sausage?” he called, cheerfully”. The German officer seems suspicious and asks Thirty why he is there. Thirty says he is there to pick someone up. The German officer asks for the password and Thirty gives it. Thirty says he is waiting for a man who will be known as Captain Smithson where they are going. He asks for some beer and is shocked when he is taken inside the wood and sees Forty sitting on a fallen tree. Thirty bluffs it out, saying this is the man who he is to collect and pretends to be angry when he hears Forty is under arrest. Forty joins in the bluff and says the reason he didn’t say who he was, was because he was “sick of these jobs”. A German Colonel named Thonberg arrives. Thirty tells the Leutnant it would be better for all of them if the Leutnant says nothing to his superior officer. Thirty and Forty run to the aircraft and start it up. Above, a formation of Albatros Scouts are gliding in. “A sudden outcry behind Thirty brings him to his senses. Snatching a glance over his shoulder, he saw the German staff officer, followed by a crowd of soldiers, burst out of the wood”. Thirty takes off under fire and manages to stop Forty from firing the machine gun in the gunner’s cockpit in front of him, because Forty knows nothing about the yellow signal handkerchief that should protect them. One of the German Albatros planes lands in the field and Thirty realises he will be told what has happened. Thirty bellows in Forty’s ear “They’ll come after us”. “And they’ll catch us”, answers Forty.