BIGGLES IN AUSTRALIA

by Captain W. E. Johns

XIV. GOOD-BYE TO THE AUSTER (Pages 164 – 174)

“In spite of Bertie’s carefree attitude towards the projected raid on Daly Flats, Ginger knew that he was well aware of the dangerous nature of the undertaking. That was merely Bertie’s way. Ginger himself had no delusions about it”. Cozens was merely indignant at his treatment by “a bunch of Reds” as he called them. “Another detail that now emerged concerned the Daly Flats aborigines. According to Cozens they were Arnhem Landers of the worst type. How Smith kept control of them he did not know. There were usually some about, and while not openly hostile they were a surly lot, to say the best of them”. “A black had been known to pick up a gun and for no reason at all shoot a white man who had just befriended him. What could you do with people like that, pondered Ginger. He put these questions to Cozens”. “Don’t ask me,” replied the pilot. “All I know is, no white man in his right mind would trust some of these black fellas behind him. They don’t know what they’re doing half the time. People who find excuses for them say they act on impulse. The sight of a gun is enough to make ‘em want to shoot somebody and they can’t resist the temptation. They don’t care who they shoot”. (This passage appears in all versions of the book). Cozens happens to mention a police officer called Johnny Bates who has been chasing after a black man who tried to knife somebody and then bolted into the bush. Bates has been gone a week or more and nothing further has been heard from him. The aircraft arrives over Daly Flats, a cluster of corrugated-iron-roofed buildings on one side of an area that had been cleared of bush. Cozens makes a neat landing but says “Queer there’s nobody about. Smith will probably have gone to the river to meet the lugger”. “The word queer, Ginger thought, was the right one. Even allowing for the drone of the engine that had for some time filled their ears, the silence that hung over the place was unnatural. The air was heavy. The heat was sultry, with rank unhealthy smells. The whole atmosphere, he felt, as his eyes made a swift reconnaissance, was sombre with a foreboding of evil. A sensation crept over him as of waiting for a bomb to explode”. They walk towards a shed and find a black man lying dead. Cozens says the man was “one of the houseboys”. The find a second body as well. The walk towards the door of the house and see another dead body of a man, this time a white man. Cozens recognises him as Bates, the missing policeman. “He must have followed his man here” says Cozens. “Shot in the head, from behind”. “But surely the people in the house wouldn’t have been so mad as to shoot a policeman,” opined Ginger. They decide to find out what has happened to the white people in the house. “They were dead, killed by spear thrusts; the clerk in his office, the cook in the kitchen and another houseboy in a passage. Everywhere things had been smashed, or lay about in disorder”. Ginger wonders what has started things off”. “Bates. He was after one of them. They killed him, and the sight of blood was all that was necessary to send them crazy. They’re like that”. Ginger looks out at the plane and sees what looks like a tree stump near to it. He doesn’t remember that being there when they landed. Then he looks again and there are two tree stumps. Before he knows it, the stumps come to life and two spears are thrown at them. The plan to leave with the body of Bates is abandoned. Under attack from the Aborigines, Ginger, Bertie and Cozens are forced back to the house. “Spears struck the ground along their path”. “As they took up positions at the windows a strangled cry broke from Ginger’s lips. There was no need for him to explain. The Auster was on fire”.