BIGGLES AND THE LITTLE GREEN GOD

by Captain W. E. Johns

15. A STRANGER INTERVENES (Pages 151 – 161)

“Biggles and Algy arrived back at the Merlin to find Pepe and Conchita in a state of acute anxiety”. Biggles explains that nothing has happened. Conchita asks if the Indians will stay in the forest. “That, dear lady, is something I don’t know,” Biggles answered patiently. “We can only wait and see”. Algy prepares a simple meal from the emergency store locker. “Conchita helped him, a task for which, as an air hostess, she was qualified”. Biggles checks on the weather and notes the sky is clearing. Algy takes the first watch and Biggles tells him to wake him up at midnight. The plan is to depart at dawn. “Algy went to the open door and took up a position on the step. The others selected seats and made themselves as comfortable as the situation allowed; which was, in fact, in the roomy cabin, fairly comfortable. Silence fell. Biggles was soon asleep”. He is roused by pressure on his shoulder and Algy whispers it is his watch. Biggles steps outside into the starlight. “Even with the moon absent they gave sufficient light for the plateau to be bathed in a cold luminosity not of this earth. The gorge below the plateau was a bottomless well filled with mysterious shadows”. Time passed. A long time. Biggles thinks over the situation and concludes that whoever put the bomb in the Caravana, it was certainly not Pallimo, because he had been thousands of miles away, in England, when the aircraft had taken off on the last stage of its journey to Santiago. Biggles then hears a cry. A voice had called, in Spanish: “Hello there”. Presently the call is repeated, followed this time by “Where are you?”. Biggles doesn’t answer, but he derives some comfort from the fact that this was not a stealthy approach. Biggles thinks it might be the Captain of the Caravana, or his second pilot. Eventually Biggles answers, “Hello! Over here”. When the man was within twenty paces he said curtly, unthinkingly, or perhaps naturally, in his own language: “That’s close enough”. The man speaks with a strong North American accent but says he is Chilean. Algy comes out, apparently awakened by the talking. The man says he is Estiban Huerta from Santiago and he asks for a drink. He says he has just got away from the Indians and that he can speak their language, more or less. Pepe and Conchita are now both awake and the man comes into the cabin. “He was a man perhaps in the early thirties with a lean figure and a sun-tanned face, lined from exposure or possibly recurrent fever. His hair was black, long and matted; his chin unshaven, showing the beginning of a beard”. Estiban says he is a prospector and a bit of an explorer. “That came from reading too many adventure books when I was a boy”. (Johns must have written that with a wry smile). He studied in the United States, taking a degree in metallurgy. He set off to look for precious metals in the mountains and make a living collecting chinchilla pelts. That is what bought him into contact with the Indians and they got to know each other. He learned their languages. “The Indians here are an offshoot of the Araucanians. They never go near civilization”. Estiban was able to give learned societies information about the Indians and that bought him into contact with Pallimo. “In fact, it was he who sent me here”. “To do what?” asks Biggles. “Well, it seems he’d heard that someone was spreading a rumour among the Indians that one of their ancient gods was coming back to them, to help them” is the reply. “Are you talking about a god named Atu-Hua?” asked Biggles quietly, much to Estiban’s surprise. Biggles says he came on a similar errand and Atu-Hua did come back. “Like hell he did?” is the response. “What’s that suppose to mean?” asks Biggles, who says that Atu-Hua is in the plane now. Estiban says “Someone has sold you a pup. I’ve seen what you’ve got. It’s a fake. A copy. Not a very good one, either. The thing you’ve got is a lump of carved soapstone with a piece of cut read glass stuck in his face”. It was Biggles’ turn to stare. “How did you know it was a fake?” Estiban says “I didn’t. But the Indians knew. Don’t ask me how they knew. But the headman of the tribe was never in any doubt about it. That’s what started the trouble. In the ordinary way these people are quiet enough. But they were expecting the real thing. Now they think it’s another trick by the white men to fool them like their ancestors were fooled. They even turned on me”. Biggles caught Algy’s eye. “At last we seem to be getting somewhere,” he murmured.