BIGGLES GETS HIS MEN

by Captain W. E. Johns

III. ALL SET (Pages 33 - 42)

"Far beyond the wild Sikhota-Alin Mountains of Manchuria, out and across the great Ussurian Plains" Biggles and Mayne have arrived. They are clad in cotton white shirts and faded blue linen trousers and they have olive-yellow skin. Their aeroplane is a two-seat single engined American type Birada Trainer, a marine aircraft, and it is heavily camouflaged in the reeds. A month has passed since the conference at Scotland Yard and the enterprise has been officially designated "Operation Rescue". Biggles and Mayne are waiting for Algy to arrive flying the big transport, which is also an American type, a twin-engined "Ranger" - a converted ocean-patrol bomber. Biggles and Mayne have gone on two days in advance to find a suitable base about thirty miles from where the supposed position of the place where the abducted scientists were being held. Each member of the party had had a close hair-cut and a bath in a solution provided by Mayne, which gave the skin the required tint. There would be many dangers on this operation, but one that Mayne particularly mentioned was to do with the native way of killing big game. This was done by digging pitfalls along the jungle tracks used by game; deep pits, artfully concealed, with pointed stakes in the bottom on which a trapped beast would be impaled by its own weight.

Biggles is expecting Algy to arrive tomorrow morning.