BIGGLES AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

by Captain W. E. Johns

4. NIGHT ALARM (Pages 44 – 54)

“They found the aircraft just as they had left it”. Biggles says they need to find safer mooring if they are going to stay for a while and he suggests running the aircraft up onto the beach and pegging her down, but they don’t do it immediately. Algy wonders why Collingwood wished them joy when they said they were staying on the lagoon. Biggles shrugged. “Just being sarcastic, I suppose”. Biggles strips off “until he stood only in his short underpants. He did not take off his light canvas shoes”. He intends to have a quick dip in the water. Algy points out a big swirl of ripples and says it might be a shark. Biggles says they would see a dorsal fin if there was a shark and dives in. Biggles then gets out and walks round the reef. On the extreme outside edge you look over into nothingness. “It was like looking over the edge of a sheer cliff, with this difference: here there was no visible bottom. It was like looking into space. In the crystal atmosphere the water might not have been there. First there was pale blue light; but it became darker, darker, darker, to merge into the deepest indigo. Then nothingness”. Walking on, Biggles sees there is a definite break in the reef, wide enough to permit the passage of a ship of fair size. It isn’t a natural break as Biggles can see the bore holes where the explosive charges had been put in. Biggles tells Algy it is too recent to be from the war and it confirms Biggles opinion “that something’s going on here – or has been going on”. They have a meal and drink tea, while the sun sinks over the ocean. “A full moon, huge, white and shining like burnished metal, soared into view, to throw a trail of gleaming quicksilver on the gently heaving waters beyond the reef. A million stars sparkled like diamonds in the sky. For a time Biggles and Algy sat in silence, entranced by the strange beauty of the scene”. Biggles says “Peace and quiet is what half the world is looking for, but it gets harder and harder to find. If Collingwood hadn’t been so snooty with us I’d be tempted to fly straight home and say there was nothing here to report”. “If you feel like that why not do it?” asks Algy. “Because when a man is rude to me some streak of cussedness makes me look for something to cause him to regret it” says Biggles. He gets a seat cushion from the aircraft and goes to sleep on the sand. Algy is unable to settle. He sits up and sees a pinpoint of light on the rock close to him. At first, he thinks it might be a luminous insect such as a firefly or glo-worm, but it doesn’t move. Getting up to examine it, he finds it is the piece of hard mud or stone which Biggles had picked up and put there. A tiny vein of something running through it glows. Settling down again on the sand, he sees something else. A piece of the coral reef moves. Algy stands up and looks carefully. There is something on it moving; “a dark bulky object which, with a curious rolling motion, was coming nearer to the island. There as something horribly sinister about the silent, deliberate approach. He observed that if it continued it would arrive near him, and the aircraft, floating on the water like a sleeping duck”. Waking Biggles, Algy says “There’s something I think you should see” and he points. Biggles looks. “At that moment a clue presented itself. For an instant an object like a serpent was clearly outlined against the moon-drenched sky”. “Strewth!” gasped Algy. “That was a tentacle. It’s an octopus, and a whopper”. “I don’t think it’s an octopus,” Biggles said. “It’s too big. I fancy it must be a decapod; the sort I believe is called a cephalopod. I’ve never seen a live one, (Hasn’t he? Aren’t they in loads of Biggles books? Or is that just decapods?) but there’s a model of one in the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco. It’s as long as the hall it’s displayed in. Enormous. It has eight arms and two tentacles, which can be up to forty feet long. They’re thought sometimes to come ashore at night. There are records of them seizing a canoe loaded with natives and dragging it under”. “Perhaps this is what Collingwood had in mind when he wished us joy,” Algy said pointedly. “If I thought he let us park ourselves here, knowing these monsters were in the habit of coming ashore, I’d knock his block off,” muttered Biggles savagely. Algy gets two automatic pistols from the aircraft and Biggles goes to within fifty feet of the monster and shoots it. The shot appears to have no effect. He fires twice more. “The creature threw up two great tentacles, waving, and let out a cry so mournful that to Algy it was like a current of cold air. Then it fell off the reef with a splash, fortunately on the deep water side”. Biggles doesn’t know if he has killed it or not, but he aimed between the eyes. “You can bet I shall think twice before I do any more swimming,” returned Biggles, seriously. Algy shows Biggles the piece of alleged phosphate. “It’s luminous. Now what do you make of it?” Algy wonders whether it could be pitch-blende (also known as uraninite); “The stuff that yields radium”. “No use asking me,” says Biggles. “I’ve never seen any”. Algy says “Collingwood is here for something. Could this be it?” “I suppose it could be. But this is guessing” says Biggles, adding that he intends to see Collingwood again in the morning. Biggles suggests it would be wise to mount guard and as he has had a nap, he'll take first watch. “In the event, with their brains active after what had happened, there was little sleep for either of them, and dawn rose out of the ocean to find them unrefreshed”.