BIGGLES OF THE SPECIAL AIR POLICE

by Captain W. E. Johns

V. THE CASE OF THE WHITE LION (Pages 97 – 124)

“I want you, if you will, to run out to West Africa and do a little job for me”. Air-Commodore Raymond “pushed his cigarette-case nearer to his operational chief, Air-Detective-Inspector Bigglesworth”. “What’s the worry?” asks Biggles. “The worry,” answered the Air-Commodore, “is a white lion”. Biggles’ expression did not change. “Is that the name of a pub, or club or something?” “No. I’m talking about a real lion, the well-known tawny-tinted quadruped. Its colour in this case – according to report – is white. That is on the rare occasions when it has been seen in the daylight. At night it is said to glow”. Biggles smiled faintly. “Sounds as if someone has been putting in overtime with a case of gin. Cut off the booze and Luminous Leo will disappear with the pink elephants, green snakes, and the more usual members of the alcoholic menagerie”. However, the Air-Commodore is serious about it. He says the animal has cost the country well over a million pounds and may affect the country’s supply of meat. Raymond explains the country eats more meat than it can produce and spends dollars buying it from South America. “Certain people there, knowing that we are dependent on them, have pushed the price of beef to a figure that we can’t afford”. The Government had decided to produce their own beef and wanted to do so in Africa, but disease kills the type of cattle raised in the UK. Local cattle have developed immunity. Scientists had got to work to introduce that immunity into our own cattle. The area selected for mass production of our own beef was “some extensive plains in the hinterland of Nigeria; a district called Nagoma” (Nagoma is a real place in Nigeria just over 300 miles away from the capital, Abuja). A road to the coast was built and an airstrip, as well as a bungalow to accommodate “a white manager and three assistants”. “Stores were flown in, and the calves that were to form the nucleus of the new herd. Native labour was to be employed in rounding up the cattle”. Everything was going fine until the white lion appeared. The natives didn’t mind normal lions but a ghastly ghostly one and “the whole district promptly evacuated itself of its human population, faster than if the devil himself had appeared on the scene”. The cattle have also bolted and scattered far and wide. Kirby, the manager and his assistants tried to track the white lion but it simply disappeared. Another white man who has seen the lion is Periera, a professional naturalist who collects specimens for museums. On one occasion, Periera took a shot at the beast and doesn’t know how he missed him. The story got out and did nothing to help matters. “What nationality is this chap?” asks Biggles. “I don’t know; but he isn’t British. From his name he might be Spanish or Portuguese, or even an American of that ancestry” says Raymond. Periera is still there but Kirby has come home to report. Biggles asks why not send a professional big-game hunter? Raymond says the Government doesn’t want the story to get out “or we should be the laughing-stock”. Also, with aircraft, Biggles and his team are highly mobile and they are not likely to be scared by an apparition. Biggles takes a manilla docket with all the details of the case and says “I’ll have the hide off this ignoble King of Beasts – or he’ll have mine”. (The next part of the story is prefixed with a “II”). Four days later an air-police Proctor aircraft is being unloaded by the manager’s bungalow, a simple timber-framed building, raised on piers two or three feet above the ground. The only men in sight were “Biggles himself, with air-constable Ginger Hepplethwaite, Bertie Lissie and Algy Lacey”. (Johns has spelt Ginger’s surname wrong again here! It should be Hebblethwaite with two B’s and not with two P’s. This error is in every UK edition of the book, including all the paperbacks. Strangely, the error is not in the French translation of this book ‘Huit Affaires Pour Biggles’ where the name is spelt correctly with two B’s!). Their equipment includes rifles and guns with their appropriate cartridges. When unloaded, Biggles taxis the aircraft to the middle of an abandoned native village only a hundred yards away. Biggles thinks the lion is not there but may show up now that they are there. He thinks there really is a lion somewhere and, if so, it will have to eat. They should be able to find where it has made a kill, although it is strange that Kirby and his assistants never did. Ginger says that ghosts don’t eat. “It’ll be interesting to see how this ghost behaves when he gets a four-fifty Express bullet in his ribs" says Biggles. There are a few cattle around a water hole and as darkness falls, Algy notices they seem nervous. They then hear the vibrant roar of a lion. It comes from the direction when Periera lives. Biggles needs to make up his log-books but he has left them in the aircraft. Ginger volunteers to go and fetch them and in the distance, he sees a spark of light and then it goes out. When he returns, he tells Biggles who wonders if it is Periera. They go to bed. (The next part of the story is prefixed with a “III”). It was sometime during the night that Ginger woke up and hears a mighty yawn. Getting up, he goes to look out of the window and is transfixed by the sight of a lion not ten yards away. “It was no ordinary lion. Reflected moonlight gleamed yellow in unwinking eyes. Around them rippled a weird, blue-white glow”. The lion yawns and walks away, revealing as it does so, a grey-white body. “Ginger’s reaction would not have qualified him for a decoration. He staggered back into the room, crying incoherently: “Look Out! It’s here! It’s here!” Ginger rushes to get a rifle as the others wake up but when he leans out the window, the lion has gone. Ginger thinks he hears several short blasts on a whistle. An annoyed Biggles asks Ginger “What the deuce do you think you’re playing at?” and when Ginger explains, Biggles asks him if he is sure he wasn’t dreaming. All four men grab weapons and go outside but there is no sign of any lion. Biggles thinks he should have mounted a guard but the last thing he expected was the lion calling on them. Biggles says they should go back to bed, but Ginger notices that Biggles just sits on the edge of his bed, smoking and deep in thought. The next morning, after breakfast Biggles decides to go and see Periera, “the only white man within fifty miles”, as he is suspicious of him. Ginger asks what could he gain? “Money,” answered Biggles. “When I’m asked to investigate a case, I’ve got into the habit of asking myself: Who stands to make money out of it?” The failure of the Government scheme to raise stock is bad news, but good news for those who stood to lose money should the scheme succeed, such as “stock-breeders on the other side of the Atlantic, whose meat we bought in the past, but whose meat we should no longer buy”. Biggles says Algy and Bertie will call on Periera, whilst Biggles and Ginger will take a look around his back yard. They will all bring guns. “We may meet the lion – you never know”. A walk of an hour brings the objective in view; a derelict looking mine. The party splits up with Biggles and Ginger heading to the rear of the buildings. They find the remains of a calf of the imported breed. “Queer that a lion should make a kill so near a building” remarks Ginger. “Still more queer that it should be able to skin and cut up its prey, with a knife,” returned Biggles pointing out knife-marks on the hide. Reaching the first building, they find the door locked, but Biggles knocks a hole through the rotten wood with the butt of his gun. They see an empty large, stoutly-built cage. The next building has a smell that reminds Ginger of the circus and it has bars on it. Inside there is a lion eating meat and its body is chalk-white. Biggles doesn’t believe Periera is a naturalist, but more likely a performing-lion exhibitor. Biggles says the lion is too old to hunt. He was probably born in captivity and comes for his dinner when he is whistled. “I imagine there wouldn’t be much difficulty in spraying a tame lion with a coat of paint and putting a few dabs of the new luminous ink on its face” says Biggles. They go and find Periera talking with Algy and Bertie and Biggles announces who he is and why he is there. “The game’s up, Periera,” he said curtly. “I’ve just had a look at your menagerie. It may save you a lot of trouble if you tell us all about it”. Periera says he has done nothing wrong in bringing his lion to Africa. “In Africa,” said Biggles coldly, “lions are not kept as pets. They’re shot. Ginger, go and shoot that one outside”. “That did the trick. Periera sprang up in genuine consternation. He seemed to be about to burst into tears. “No! Ah, no!” he cried. “Marco is my only friend. For years he worked for me at the circus. He hurts no one. He do what I say. I put my head in his mouth. He will not bite. He is too old. He has no tooth, no claw”. Periera confesses all. He is a lion tamer by profession and was working in South America when a man unknown to him offered him a big sum of money to do what he had done. The lion in its cage had been flown to Nagoma. At night, Marco the lion was let out for exercise but always returned to be fed at the sound of the whistle. Periera had been engaged for one month and the aircraft was to come and take both him and his lion back home. It never returned, leaving him stranded. “Those who deal with crooks must expect crooked deals” Biggles told him. Biggles says that Periera can be taken back to Air-Commodore Raymond by Algy and Bertie and Raymond can decide what to do with him. In the meantime, Marco can go in his cage and “we’ll send word round the district to let the natives know that the White Lion of Nagoma is on view – behind bars. That should bring them back.” Maybe arrangements can be made for Periera to fetch him later. Biggles says “I agree with Periera; it seems a shame to bump off poor old Marco. After all, it wasn’t his fault. He must hate his coat of paint as much as anybody. No doubt it was wear off in time. He’s probably a gentleman compared with some members of the human species. What will they think of next?”