BIGGLES IN THE GOBI

by Captain W. E. Johns

VI. GINGER WINS AN ARGUMENT (Pages 69 – 76)

“It was some minutes before anyone spoke again. Consternation or dejection was written on every face round the little oil lamp that had been lighted. It seemed to be taken for granted that nothing could be done, that any hope of saving the prisoners could now be abandoned. As for Ginger, he wished fervently that Biggles was there. He would at least have attempted something. He had a saying, there’s always a way if you can find it”. Ginger asks Ritzen the distance to Tunhwang and he is told that it is the best part of twenty miles and Ansi is over a hundred miles further on. Algy thinks they ought to do something and it has to be that night. Ritzen says it is hopeless Ginger going to Tunhwang. “You don’t know the way. You can’t speak the language. You couldn’t walk”. Ginger says he could go by horse and either Ming or Feng could act as guide. Ming says the prisoners will almost certainly travel by covered cart, guarded by up to half a dozen armed soldiers. Ginger has a brainwave and asks if they could employ the Kirghiz. “The British Government has never jibbed at paying for service, and as all the world knows it has never failed to pay its debts. If we got safely home, I’d undertake to fly back here and drop a bag of money – whatever we promised”. Ritzen says the most widely accepted currency is a lump of silver called a tael and it is worth a bit under two shillings. Algy says a thousand taels would be roughly a hundred pounds. (Pre-decimalisation, they were 12 pennies to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound. 10 tael would be roughly 20 shillings, or one pound and therefore 1000 tael would be roughly 100 pounds). Ritzen said it would be a fortune here where people work for a penny a day. (There were 240 pennies to the pound, so 100 pounds is 24,000 pennies, or over 65 years pay at a penny a day). Ginger asks Ritzen to have a word with the Kirghiz “and find out how the idea of being millionaires appeals to them”. Algy adds if they won’t come themselves, Ritzen is to ask if they can have the spare horses. Ritzen reports back that they will go. Ginger and Algy both offer to go but Ginger says to Algy “You’ve plenty on your plate here”. Ginger will go and the others will look after the wounded Kirghiz. There are only eight horses, including those of the three dead Chinese soldiers. There are four Kirghiz and Ginger to ride out and only three spare horses to bring back five prisoners. Ginger says they can borrow the horses pulling the prisoner’s cart if necessary. “But time is precious. If our wild and woolly allies are ready, let’s get off”. Before they set off, Feng lends Ginger a loose Chinese robe to put over his clothes both as camouflage and as an extra garment in the cold night air.