BIGGLES IN THE BLUE

by Captain W. E. Johns

XII. HEAVY ODDS (Pages 173 – 181)

“Ginger had been right in his supposition that something serious had happened to delay Biggles’s return. Not only had things happened, they were continuing to happen”. Biggles and Bertie race towards the bay and are just in time to see “Zorotov, with von Stalhein and the negro, running towards the far side, which was the direction of the mangroves and, of course, the yacht”. Zorotov fires at them. Biggles guesses they were returning to their yacht when they saw the aircraft return and they fired upon it when it landed, in an attempt to put it out of action and so strand them. Biggles stared at the receding Otter and watched the aircraft sideslip a little “in a manner which, with an experienced pilot at the controls, could not be attributed to carelessness or lack of ability”. The Otter makes a slow turn back. “There’s something wrong there. Either Algy or the machine, has been hit” says Biggles. They scramble up to higher ground and see the Otter lower its wheels and land on a broad strip of sand some two miles away. Biggles and Bertie run to assist, but it takes them nearly an hour to reach the aircraft. They find Algy in the cockpit, wounded in the thigh. A bullet has also either holed a tank or cut the petrol lead and it was the smell and loss of petrol that caused Algy to land. “I was scared of passing out before I could get her on the carpet. I felt a bit sick at first but I’m OK now” he says. Biggles gets the first aid kit. “I’ll do what I can here and then get you to a doctor. I should be able to fix the petrol leak”. Biggles tells Bertie to “Hoof it back to Ginger as fast as you can go. Bring him along, and the box. By the time you’ve done that we should be ready to move off”. Algy is pleased to hear they have got the stuff. Bertie spoke. “If I see the skunks who did that, do you mind if I shoot them?” He put the question to Biggles. “As long as you don’t waste time or get yourself shot in the effort” is the reply. “It was that infernal negro who got me,” said Algy. “He was nearly in the machine before I saw him”. “That’s just want I wanted to know, old boy,” said Bertie, who sets off “as fast as it was possible to travel over the rough ground, in the heat, without risk of injury or complete exhaustion”. Breathing heavily, his face streaming perspiration and followed by a cloud of flies, he is almost where he left Ginger when he hears gun shots. Bertie makes one final effort. From a distance of ten yards he is just in time to see Ginger go over backwards with Morgan almost on top of him. “Jerking out his gun he snapped a shot at the negro. At such a range it was hardly possible to miss”. Morgan falls on Ginger. Bertie looks at Morgan and seeing where the bullet has struck, shakes his head. “He’s had it”. Bertie then explains that Morgan had shot Algy in the thigh and updates Ginger on what has happened. Ginger asks “What are you going to do about this?” and points at Morgan. “Leave him where he is. What else can we do? I mean to say we’ve no time to dig holes. Nothing to dig with either. His pals can do that. They’ll find him”. Ginger says “Let’s get to Biggles and leave him to decide what to do about it. Maybe he’ll drop a message to von Stalhein”. They set off.