BIGGLES IN THE BLUE

by Captain W. E. Johns

XIII. A CLOSE FINISH (Pages 182 – 189)

With Ginger and Bertie carrying the metal box between them, they set off diagonally towards the sea, as Bertie knows from experience that is the best way. In sight of open water, they drop the box in astonishment. There is a submarine with several men on deck, staring towards the shore. “Well, blow me down!” ejaculated Bertie. “I’ve seen that submarine before, now I come to think of it,” declared Ginger. “Our first day out. It submerged when we got close to it. At least I saw a vessel and it disappeared mysteriously”. (Advance plotting by Johns had Ginger do this on page 75). They next see the Vega and realise that the yacht has radio and Zorotov has at some stage used it to call up the submarine for help. The submarine is making for the aircraft and although it dare not come right in, it does have guns. They pick up the box and run for the plane. The submarine launches a dinghy. “If it lands between us and the Otter we’ve had it” pants Ginger. “The box impeded them. Its shape made it awkward to carry single-handed, yet between them it meant that in places they had to go in single file. They dropped it several times. Scratched by thorns, and knocking themselves against projecting coral, they ran on”. It was soon clear they were going to lose the race. The Vega turns in towards them and the dinghy is going to land between them and the aircraft. Several shots are fired at them, but they are not sure from where they come. The Otter was still nearly a mile away when its engines came to life. A gun on the submarine starts firing at the plane but it is able to take off just in time. Anti-aircraft guns on the submarine spurt streams of tracer across its track. The Otter spins round on a wing tip and raced back low under the shell fire. “Look at him!” exclaimed Ginger admiringly, as the Otter started taking evasive action. “That’s flying for you!” (This is the scene depicted on the cover of the book). The Otter roars low overhead and a message streamer comes hurtling down. Ginger gets it and reads “Sink box in deep water off reef, then make for deep end of lagoon”. “He’s not risking these stinkers getting hold of it. Quite right” says Bertie. They run to the reef with the box and drag it to the far side. They hold the box half under and Ginger is thankful for the holes gashed in it that allow the water to fill it. The box begins to sink and they let go. “Down–down–down , quite slowly, went the box, into a liquid world as remote as the moon, an unknown world from which there could be no return”. (This was certainly true in 1953, but with advances in modern technology not so true today!). The dinghy lands some three hundred yards from them and Ginger and Bertie run to the cover of the nearest dunes. There on the limpid green water of the lagoon, they see the Otter, with her engines ticking over. “Reeling drunkenly as loose sand clogged their weary feet they blundered towards it”. Ginger falls over a flamingo nest and goes headlong. He gets up and grabs an egg for Evans as he goes. They both fall into the aircraft, Ginger carefully guarding the egg. Bertie, adjusting his eyeglass, looked up and said: “I say, old boy, did you ever know such a ridiculous flap?” Ginger watches flamingos’ stream in all directions. “We have only to hit one of those confounded birds and that will be our last flap ever” observes Ginger morosely. Ginger wraps his egg in paper and puts it carefully in a locker. “Pity we had to dump the box,” lamented Bertie. “We should never have got to the machine had we tried to bring it with us,” replied Ginger, adding “That box, with all the devil’s paraphernalia that was inside it, is in the best place. War is bad enough without any more horrors. And if you asked me, I’d say that’s what Biggles thought, too”. Ginger finds out where they are heading. Jamaica and then home.