BIGGLES - CHARTER PILOT

by Captain W. E. Johns

IX THE ADVENTURE OF THE LUMINOUS LILY (Pages 81 - 90)

“Flying-Officer Ginger Hebblethwaite, of Biggles’s Squadron, looked up from his breakfast herring as “Doc” Lorton, the station Medical Officer, came in, and pulled out a chair opposite him”. The Doc says he has just been listening to the eight o’clock news (on the radio) and “The Japs have landed troops in Indo-China”. That prompts Ginger to say “I wish ‘em luck. I landed there once – but I was mighty glad to take-off again”. Flight-Lieutenant Bertie Lissie asks “Dr. Duck was with you, I presume?” and Ginger is asked to tell the story of his experiences there. Ginger refuses and when asked why says “Because it strains the credulity beyond reasonable limits”. He goes on to say “Although I’ve told you some pretty tall yarns in connection with our association with Dr. Duck, they have all, or nearly all, been supported by reliable testimony”. Pressed to tell, he adds “I’ll give you the facts. After all, Biggles and Algy will confirm the tale if you find it hard to swallow – as you probably will”. And this is the story he told:

In the heart of a jungle in Indo-China there is a lake, the approximate position known to Dr. Duck and in the lake, there is an island. On this island is said to be a lily that glows in the dark. “Phosphorescence is a common phenomenon in nature. We can see it abroad in the firefly, and, in this country, in the glow-worm. It occurs in the gaseous discharges from bogs, and in the putrefying remains of vegetation”. Ginger says they had a bit of job to find the lake. “The natives, soaked in superstition – as natives usually are – wouldn’t help us”. The nearer they got to the lake, the more silent and sullen they became. “By using their attitude as a sort of “hot and cold” clue, we eventually reached a lake where there were no natives at all”. Travelling to the island in the lake, Ginger and his comrades spend the best part of a day hacking a path to an old ruined temple in the centre. There is a nasty smell but they can’t see any lilies. “Donald” Duck says that the obvious time to look for anything of a luminous nature would be after dark. They wait until dark and return to the ruined temple, where they find it surrounded by a score of luminous lilies. “Imagine an ordinary white Madonna lily about five feet high, but instead of a cluster of flowers at the head of the stalk, one big massive bloom. Now imagine that this flower is artificial, made say, of white, opaque porcelain, and illuminated from the inside by a pale green electric bulb. Every petal gave off the same ghostly radiance, and as we couldn’t see the stalks, the flowers appeared to float in space”. The smell given off by these plants is like rotten eggs, causing Dr. Duck to be sick. Dr. Duck snaps off a lily and the light goes out as though an electric circuit has been disconnected. His hands are covered by a thick, gluey, red blood like sap. Algy and Dr. Duck go back to the aircraft to fetch a spade and when they return Dr. Duck digs down to try to get some bulbs, but instead, he find thousands, indeed millions of worms, filled with energy and leaping and bending like jungle leeches. A tide of these worms pour out of the hole Dr. Duck has dug like lava out of a volcano and our heroes have to urgently retreat to their aircraft. “We set off down the path at full pelt, and believe it or not, these worms came after us, also at full pelt”. They reach the Wanderer, their aircraft, and taxy away from the island to see what happens. The worms stop at the water-mark “like a lot of red seaweed”. On their way home, they tell a Government official who used to be a Resident Magistrate in the relevant district about their experiences. He tells our heroes that priests who lived in the temple on the island had trapped loads of crocodiles in a pit there and when the crocodiles had died, the stench was terrible, so the priests had to move to a healthier spot. “Donald told us that corruption can produce phosphorus, and this, he thought, must have erupted out of the ground in the form of fungi, taking the shape of lilies. There was no doubt that the lilies grew on the very spot where the crocodiles had been buried. And in the same way, the putrefying mass must have generated the worms”. “Well, that’s the story.” Ginger glanced at the window. “But the weather seems to be taking up – we’d better get outside in case we’re wanted”.