BIGGLES IN AUSTRALIA

by Captain W. E. Johns

XIII. DESPERATE MEASURES (Pages 151 – 163)

“The Otter was soon in the air, heading south-west for the river which, while of no great size as continental rivers go, has a notorious record of death and disaster out of proportion with its length. The ferocity of its native population, its crocodiles and mosquitoes and its sudden spates, combined for years to discourage visitors”. Algy flies to the broad mouth of the Daly and flies inland. In due course, Ginger sees the lugger, Matilda. They glide in to try and see if Cozens is on the deck. Ginger is keeping observation. “That black-bearded ruffian of a skipper is at the wheel. Von Stalhein is with him. Quite a bunch of blacks aft. By gosh! I believe I can see Cozens!” Algy agrees. They see Cozens jump up from where he is sitting on a coil of rope. What he does next, takes them all by surprise. He jumps the rail and dives overboard! (This is the scene depicted on the cover of the Armada paperback editions of the book published in the 1970s. Unfortunately, the artist has the name of the lugger as “Matilda, Durban” whereas the story tells us that the lugger ‘Matilda’ was registered at Darwin and not in South Africa!). “Ginger, remembering the crocodiles, let out a cry of horror”. “Boller, raced to the stern of the ship and opened fire with a revolver, blazing shot after shot at the head bobbing in the water”. Algy comes down low, missing a tall palm by so narrow a margin that Ginger clapped his hands over his face. Algy lands half a mile down the river with a view to catching the swimmer as he is swept down by the current. The Matilda turns and comes back down the river, helped by the current, at alarming speed. Crocodiles are now in the water after Cozens but he is able to grab the hull of the amphibian aircraft and Bertie grabs him and hauls him onboard. Algy turns and takes off downstream, under a hail of machine gun fire from the Matilda, but they are able to get off safely and head back to Darwin. “Are you raving mad, jumping into a river full of crocodiles?” Ginger asks Cozens. “Rather that than stay on a ship manned by a gang of cold-blooded murderers,” rasped Cozens viciously, who goes on to make threats of getting even with the men he had previously worked for. Ginger reports back to Algy that Cozens is all right. “But he seems proper steamed up. On the boil, in fact”. “He’s lucky he isn’t stone cold,” answered Algy briefly. Cozens, is given dry clothes and says that as he walked away with Ivan and von Stalhein the night before, a gun was pulled on him and pushed into his back. He had refused to say what information he had given to Algy’s party and so was put on the Matilda to be taken back to Smith to be questioned. The crocodiles had been pointed out to him as the lugger went up the river, but he had forgotten when he took the decision to jump overboard. Cozens says he intends to go to Daly Flats to get his kit and the month’s pay he is owed. Algy says “We, having been to some trouble to snatch you out of the lions’ den, now have the pleasure of watching you leap back into it”. Cozens is planning to go in the Auster before the Matilda gets back to Daly Flats. Bertie suggests they go with Cozens in the Auster. It will be their best chance to get to search for any duplicate list of agents and Cozens knows exactly where the landing strip is. Algy agrees. “That’s the stuff,” asserted Bertie. “Smite while the jolly old iron’s hot. That’s me, every time”. Algy, Bertie and Ginger toss coins to decide who will remain with the Otter and inform Biggles of where the others had gone, when he gets back. Algy was the odd man out in the coin toss. Algy gives Cozens a spare gun. “You’d better put this in your pocket. I’ve a feeling you may need it”. “And he was right”.