BIGGLES AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

by Captain W. E. Johns

15. AND AGAIN (Pages 158 – 170)

Biggles reaches Algy somewhat out of breath. Algy asks “What’s the hurry”. Biggles explains that Ali is dead. “Dead! Ah! I get it. He turned nasty and you had to shoot him”. Biggles says “I didn’t have to do anything to him. He was dead when I found him. He was in his shelter. Someone had sliced him up with a knife. Fairly caught me on one foot, I can tell you. I didn’t have to strain anything to work out who’d killed him. There was only one other man on the island apart from ourselves. His new pal. The chap we saw get ashore”. Algy asks “Why on earth should he -?” and Biggles breaks in to say it had nothing to do with the hemp. Collingwood’s collection of opals has disappeared. They wonder where the Arab could be. This now creates new questions and problems for Biggles and Algy. Biggles says “It seems to me that our position depends on this confounded Arab now loose on the island. The snag is we don’t know how much Ali told him before he got a knife in his ribs. Unless the box of opal came to light by accident, he must have told him about it, or how would he know it existed? Did Ali say where it came from? Did he say that it was to get it that he had killed Collingwood? Did he say Collingwood had cut the hemp and that was why he had killed him? We don’t know. In fact, there’s too much we don’t know and guessing isn’t going to help us. Only the behaviour of the Arabs on the dhow may tell us how the land lies, and that may be too late to be any use to us for a guide”. Biggles enquiries about the aircraft and Algy says “I’d fly it at a pinch; but it would be safer to give her another day for the patches to get thoroughly dry”. Biggles says they have to bury Collingwood. “After all, he promised, with his usual sarcasm, to give us a Christian funeral if we came to grief here. (He did. On page 106). The least we can do is give him one. There’s something with a twist of humour in that, when you come to think about it”. There isn’t time to bury him before it gets dark so it will have to be done in the morning. Algy asks if they are going to try to stop the Arab getting back on board the dhow. Biggles says “I’d like to. Not that we could do anything with him if we caught him”. Biggles doesn’t want the opal but he doesn’t want the Arab to get away with it. Biggles stands on top of the centre-section of the fuselage to look for the Arab with binoculars. Biggles can see the dhow creeping closer all the time and there is a man half-way up the mast. Algy says he seems to be making signals to someone, then they see the Arab appear over the ridge from the direction of the huts, walking toward the far end of the reef. With the binoculars Biggles can see Collingwood’s box of opal under the Arab’s arm. Biggles and Algy decide to go and get the box. “Never mind the man. We don’t want him”. With their guns they set off and approach him from either end so the Arab is trapped between them. The Arab walks out into the lagoon and then swims towards the reef. “He used a back stroke, being hampered no doubt by the box he carried under his arm”. Biggles is about to swim after him when Algy stops him and points out a large, black, triangular fin; the unmistakable indication of a shark. “Instinctively Biggles let out a yell of warning. It was ignored”. They watch in horror as the shark approaches the man, who seeing it, still insists on swimming with one arm. “Drop the box” shouts Biggles and they watch the fin disappear. “Screaming, the Arab threw up his arms. There was a flurry of water. Then he, too, disappeared”. “Horrible,” breathed Algy, moistening his lips. “Poor devil”. Biggles says “First Collingwood. Then Ali. Now this. All the opal has brought them is sudden death. Queer, isn’t it?” Algy is pleased that the box of opal is at the bottom of the sea but Biggles says the shark may have swallowed it. Biggles says at least the Arabs on the dhow will know they were not responsible for the man’s death. “The man on the mast must have seen the whole thing”. They go back to their aircraft where Biggles plans to rest. He doesn’t think the dhow will try to get into the lagoon until the sun is up the following day. Now the question of what Ali told the Arab doesn’t arrive. “I think the chances are, when the people on the dhow discover what’s happened, they’ll come to us for information. I only hope one of ‘em can speak English because my Arabic isn’t up to much”. Biggles says he will tell the Arabs the truth about the deaths but without mentioning the opal. “They’ll have the wit to realize that people like us don’t go about stabbing people to death. We don’t carry daggers. When we have to do any rough stuff we use guns”. They will see that Ali was killed by knife wounds. Biggles says in the morning they will bury Collingwood. He thinks of something else they need to do. That is clear the runway of rubbish from the storm so that Mackay can land if he comes to collect Collingwood and they are not able to stop him before he sets off. Then they can fly to Calcutta in time to send a signal to Bertie to prevent him from coming to look for them. Biggles doesn’t think the dhow will land in the night, but even if it did, he thinks there is no need to post a guard. “We’ve done nothing, as far as they know, to hurt them. I’m not likely to volunteer the information that it was me who cut down their hemp. After all, these chaps aren’t savages. They’re civilized men from Aden, or one of the other ports along the coast where they would meet people like us. I shan’t worry about them now that none of their people is here to blame us for what has been happening. But let’s get out some grub. I’m starving”.