BIGGLES IN THE SOUTH SEAS

by Captain W. E. Johns

XII. DISASTER (Pages 181 – 192)

Eventually Ginger falls asleep. His head hurts and he is depressed “for the whole expedition, which had started so well, had suddenly gone to pieces”. Even the cockroaches that swarm over him don’t prevent him sinking into a sleep of exhaustion. He is awoken by uproar on the deck and “Castanelli cursing like a maniac”. Ginger is taken by two Solomon Island boys up to the deck. Castanelli wants to know who else was on the island with him. Who has stolen his dinghy? Castanelli strikes Ginger a blow which sends him reeling. “To attempt to conceal the truth was futile, and Ginger realised it. Obviously, some one had been with him or the dinghy could not have been stolen”. Ginger says “Shell-Breaker” and he has gone to Rutuona. “If he started early, he should be nearly there by now”. Ginger knows that as there was not a breath of wind, the schooner can’t overtake him. Taking Ginger by the throat, Castanelli forces him back against the mainmast and draws his knife. “I show you my way wiz puppies”. Ginger knew he was within an ace of death but he does not lose his head. He says “Kill me and you will never find the pearl-bed”. Castanelli knows this is true. Castanelli has Ginger put in the longboat with him and six natives row them ashore. The natives start collecting the shell that lays strewn about on the beach. Castanelli searches about in the camp and by chance clears seaweed from the coral where the pearls had been hidden. Sticking up out of the sand is the top half of a tin. This is the biscuit-tin with the pearls in and Ginger recognises it instantly. The waves have washed most of the sand away and partly uncovered it. Castanelli sees the tin and throws it on a pile of other items, but the lid flies off and pearls go everywhere. Castanelli’s shouts out and his eyes bulge in their sockets. In a moment he is down on his knees, picking up the pearls with trembling fingers and putting them back into the tin. His crew run up “and gave vent to their feelings in a series of staccato ejaculations”. Ginger cannot believe how the pearls can have been left behind. “It was unbelievable, incredible, and he could have wept with mortification”. The shell is loaded onto the schooner. “Ginger marvelled at the mentality of a man who, with a fortune already in his pocket, could bother about a few hundreds of pounds extra”. Castanelli asks Ginger why he didn’t tell him the pearls were still there. Ginger says he didn’t know himself. Castanelli is happy and laughing and he tosses Ginger a coconut. Ginger drinks the milk with relish as his throat is parched. The sun touches the horizon and Ginger is told to go back onto the boat. Wind ripples the lagoon and Ginger knows that with a fair wind the schooner would be a hundred miles away by the next day. Castanelli says to Ginger, “I tink you best stay here” and continues “But perhaps you talk too much – I am very sorry, but I tink you talk no more”. With a nod to his crew, one of the Solomon Islanders ties a length of rope round Ginger’s waist and attaches the loose end to a piece of rusty iron piping. Ginger struggles violently but he is thrown overboard and the iron drags him down to the bottom of the lagoon.