BIGGLES FLIES NORTH

by Captain W. E. Johns

X. A DESPERATE MEETING (Pages 115 – 125)

After walking some three miles, Biggles judges the hills must still be some ten miles away. Biggles thinks the stars have gone darker and that snow is on its way. When they reach their objective “it was darker than when they had started; the world was bathed in a sort of cold blue twilight, dim, yet sufficient to reveal the silent crags that rose straight up from the frozen sea, and formed the coast-line of the solitary island. The silence was unnerving”. They follow a cliff to a gigantic gorge and see tracks. Biggles guesses it must be the two polar bears they saw earlier. Snow starts to fall. Biggles takes out his automatic and fires three bullets in the air, making an incredible noise. Biggles and Ginger see a large polar bear approach. Biggles speculates it is the father of the cub they saw. “If he comes for us then we shall have to use our pistols – not that they’ll be much use against that brute”. The polar bear scents them and moves towards them and when it sees them it charges them. Biggles shoots it with his automatic and slips in the snow. “In a flash the bear was over him”. (In a flash the bear was over him - is the illustration on page 123). Ginger trusts his automatic in the fur behind the animal’s ear and shoots it – but then the bear is attacking him. There is a deafening roar and the bear falls lifeless on Ginger. It is Angus Stirling and he has shot the bear, just in time. Biggles asks to go to Angus’s shack so he can tell him why they are there.