BIGGLES IN AUSTRALIA

by Captain W. E. Johns

VI. FORESTALLED (Pages 61 – 74)

“The following morning the Otter left Broome on the hour, and just before seven the Island without a Name crept up over the horizon. Bill Gilson (He was William Gilson in the previous chapter and Bill is short for William. Of course the author, William Earl Johns was known as Bill to his friends as well) “– for in the easy going Australian manner they were now calling each other by their Christian names –” was posing questions to which, so far, there were no answers. Biggles says “What I see now is a widespread organisation that will not only keep the Iron Curtain countries informed of technical developments here, but might, by fomenting strikes and the like, upset your entire economy”. Biggles says this about his old enemy. “Of course, there are some who go Red in order to work off a grudge. Von Stalhein is a case in point. With him it’s a (sic) personal. He hates us because Hitler lost the war. When he was a Nazi he hated Communism, and I’d wager he still does. But he’ll work for the Iron Curtain brigade because it offers him a way to have another crack at us. For that he has sacrificed his sense of humour, and any pleasure he might have got out of life”. “I gather he’s pretty tough” says Gilson. “Tough?” Biggles smiled wanly. “He’s so tough that if you hit him in the face with a stone the stone would go to pieces”. As they come within gliding distance of the island, Biggles cuts the engine. They then see a lugger moored within the reef. Ginger says he can see people on the island “blacks as well as whites”. “Most luggers carry coloured crews,” said Bill. Biggles lands near the lugger and they see the name on the vessel’s stern, “Matilda, Darwin” (On the cover of the Armada paperback edition of this book, the boat is incorrectly illustrated with “Matilda, Durban” on the stern!). A big man with a black beard observes them. Bill calls over “Hello, there! Are you all right?” (“Hello, there! Are you all right?” - is the illustration opposite page 63). The answer is “Yes” and the man says they are “Picking up a few fresh nuts”. Biggles is concerned as he notices the two skeletons on the beach have gone. He and Bill go ashore and Ginger is left to watch the aircraft. Ginger sees a party of ten men returning with spades and shovels and they hurry towards a dinghy on the beach. Ginger is concerned about being so close to the lugger, only twenty yards away, and wishes he was moored further away. He then recognises one of the men in the dinghy as Erich von Stalhein. “Recognition, he knew, was largely a matter of time and place” and not expecting him there, he hadn’t recognised him earlier. Ginger decides to move the machine well clear of the lugger and hauls in the anchor. The dinghy arrives at the lugger and Ginger starts the Otter’s engines just as the lugger starts her engines. The lugger tries to back into the tail unit of the aircraft and a collision “would crumple his tail like tissue paper”. Ginger is able to get clear just in time. The lugger makes for the open sea. Biggles and Bill run back. Ginger tells Biggles that von Stalhein was on the island and is now on the lugger. He explains that they tried to ram him and that would have left them all stranded on the island. Biggles tells Ginger that Wada’s body has disappeared. Von Stalhein has come back to clean the place up. Bill wants to arrest von Stalhein when the lugger gets to port, but Biggles is cautious, saying that “we may do more harm than good by going off at half cock”. Biggles decides to search the island to see if anything has been missed, but three hours yields nothing of interest. Bill says there is one piece of evidence that is hard to explain. The boat on Eighty Mile Beach. Bill wants to see it and Biggles says he will fly him there. When they fly there and land, they find the lifeboat burnt. Nearby is a six-foot wheel track in the sand, made by another aircraft, which could have been an Auster. The Auster only has a six hundred mile range, so if they check up where it may have refuelled, assuming it did refuel, they may get a line on the direction it came from. “They took their places in the Otter and headed for Broome”.