BIGGLES' SECOND CASE

by Captain W. E. Johns

XII. GINGER STARTS SOMETHING (Pages 123 - 136)

Ginger tries desperately to get out of the cabin when he is left behind but his efforts are futile. Suddenly, the door of the cabin is opened and a friendly Norwegian sailor helps him to escape. On the deck, Ginger sees the drama being played out on the shore and sees Biggles and the assembled firing squad. Grabbing the whaler's harpoon, Gingers gets the Norwegian sailor to load it and he quickly fires it at roughly at the party on the shore. It actually hits the conning tower of the submarine and glances off and then hits Thom. The trailing rope, coiling like a snake throws the firing party into complete confusion. "From then on the affair was chaotic. Shots were fired. By whom, who at, and from where, Ginger had no idea". In fact, Algy is attacking on the shore with the rescued Norwegian sailors. On the whaler, the Norwegian sailors rebel against their German captors and a free fight starts. Suddenly, their aircraft arrives, being flown by Bertie, and a whistle sounds on shore. The German sailors rush back to their U-boat and it sets off underway to get out into the open sea. Bertie drops a depth charge and then a second but he misses the submarine and it gets to the open sea and dives. Ginger is able to get to shore and meets with Biggles. Bertie lands and joins them at the same time as Algy and our four heroes are able to exchange their respective stories. Biggles thinks the depth charges were close enough to loosen the plates on the submarine. The dead and wounded are noted and Biggles notes how much the Nazi crew have been shrinking. The German prisoners captured will be left on Corbie Island until Biggles can arrange their collection via Air Commodore Raymond. The Norwegian whaler is to sail with it's reduced crew to Kerguelen and then refit as much a possible before sailing on to Oslo in Norway. This then left Biggles and Co. free to pursue the U-boat in the remaining aircraft. Biggles plans to follow any oil trail until they catch the U-boat on the surface, although he doesn't want to sink it with the gold on board if that can be avoided. They take off to fly to Kerguelen to refuel.