BIGGLES GETS HIS MEN

by Captain W. E. Johns

XII. HOT WORK IN COLD BLOOD (Pages 142 - 152)

"Taking a firmer grip on his automatic, making no more noise than a cloud passing over the face of the moon, he stepped inside". Ginger turns on the light and jumps to one side just as a shot is fired at the place where he was standing. Ginger fires back at an elderly man who is standing within three paces of him and the man falls to the floor. In the background stand five men with beards. "Which of you is Vale?" asks Ginger and Vale identifies himself. The man Ginger has shot is called Luntz. "We thought he was one of us, but he was a traitor" says Vale. With no time for talking, as the shots will be heard, Ginger gets the scientist out of the hut and round to the shoe pantry. The guards are now beating on their guard room door, having discovered they are locked in. There is a delay, when one of the prisoners, the American, Major Cardwell, goes to the adjacent building - a workshop - for some reason. More guards arrive and enter the prisoners hut where they stare at the man Ginger has shot. Ginger uses the keys to lock them in. Ginger gets the scientist out of the compound through the gap in the fence Biggles had made earlier. They then head for the Korean slave labour compound as that is the direction to the lignite workings and the route back. Ginger pauses to cut a hole in the wire to allow the Korean slaves to get away as well. When they are some three miles out of the enemy camp they stop to rest and there is a chance for Vale to explain that Luntz was a spy, put amongst them as a Polish research chemist. As soon as Vale had revealed to the others that he was going to file through the bars, Luntz had pulled a revolver and taken the file away. He then stunned everyone by revealing who he was. Luntz then lay in wait for the someone to return so he could shot them. Ginger then apologises to the American for speaking sharply to him when he delayed their exit. The American is a high-explosive specialist, as well as an atomic engineer and he has left a bomb in the workshop to destroy all the plans and specifications of their latest jobs. "The first guy to switch on the light in that workshop will never know what happened to him. Neither will anyone else near that enclosure". There is a huge explosion from the enemy camp and a weird blue flame leaps up. "I guess that's it", said the American quietly.