Captain W.E. Johns - Biggles - Charter Pilot

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED

ISLAND

" THE nauseating part of living at a time like this, is that you can believe nothing you read and nothing you hearabsolutely nothing," remarked Flying-Officer Henry Harcourt gloomily, tossing aside the newspaper he had been reading.

Flying-Officer " Ginger " Hebblethwaite regarded the speaker sympathetically. "On the contrary, my poor cynical comrade," he observed, "the fascinating part of living at a time like this is to believe anything and everything."

" Do you believe anything?"

"I do, within the limits of possibility," answered Ginger. "And if you'd knocked around a bit instead of knocking a fives ball about at school, so would you."

Most of the officers of Number 666 (Fighter) Squadron, sometimes known in the Royal Air Force as Biggles's Squadron, were present, lounging round the mess fire. Dinner was over. The weather was bad, so although the squadron was at "ready ", there seemed little chance of it being called out.

The C.O., Squadron-Leader Bigglesworth, D.S.O., better known as Biggles ", sat in a tub chair, coffee at his elbow. Near him, lounging on the settee, were his flight-commanders, Flight-Lieutenants Algy Lacey, Lord Bertie Lissie, and Angus Mackail. Also there were

" Tug, " Carrington, " Tex" O'Hara " Ferocity " Ferris, and " Taffy " Hughes. "Toddy ", the station Adjutant, was twiddling the knobs of the radio.

Henry considered Ginger with affected disfavour. "So you'd believe anything?" he said sarcastically. "I think a statement like that needs qualifying. Just what have you seen that inclines you to such a pleasant state of mind ? "

"Oh, I've seen things," returned Ginger mysteriously. "Such as ? " insisted Henry.

Ginger thought for a moment. "Well, you've seen the C.O. knock down thins, but what would you say if I told you that I once saw him knock down a crab five feet across? "

Bertie Lissie started. "Five feet ! Here, young feller, I mean to say... Five feet ? "

Henry laughed raucously.

Ginger shrugged his shoulders. "There you are, you see." He appealed to Biggles with an air of injured dignity. "Do I speak the truth, sir ? " he inquired.

Biggles smiled, sipping his coffee. "Absolutely. Algy Lacey was there, too. He'll confirm it."

Ginger looked at Henry triumphantly. "There you are ! "

Henry still looked dubious. "That sounds a pretty tall tale to me. Suppose you tell us about it ? "

"Yes, come on," came in a chorus from the others. Ginger looked at Biggles inquiringly.

"Shall I tell them ? "

"If you like."

"All right," agreed Ginger. "But before I start, I don't ask anyone to believe this tale if he doesn't want to. I'll just state the facts. Biggles and Algy can pull me up if I overstep the mark."

" Shoot, " invited Toddy, joining the party.

Ginger settled down in his chair, and this is the story he told : As most of you know, Biggles taught me all I know about flying. We did a lot of shows together, mostly civil flying, before the war. Between times we shared the same flat, but we always had a machine parked somewhere in case anything turned up. Once, during a slack period, Biggles put an advertisement in the newspapers offering to do charter work, anywhere, for anybody. At the time we had an old amphibian named the Wanderer moored on the water at Hamble.

Well, the morning after the advertisement appeared we had our first client. He was the very last person on earth

you would expect. If I hadn't been so fascinated by him I should have laughed. He was a little old fellow with an enormous head and gold-rimmed spectacles balanced on the end of his nose. He wore a frock coat that must have been out of date before most of us were born, striped trousers, and buttoned boots with cloth tops. He carried a top hat in his hand, and a whacking great umbrella hung on his arm. His agewell, it might have been anything, but if we say sixty we shan't be far wrong. But, except for a few eccentricities, and an irritating habit of absent-mindedness, he was wide awake. There were no flies on Dr. Augustus Duck. That was his name, although naturally behind his back we called him "Donald ". It turned out that he was a biologist, which, for the benefit of those who don't know what it means, is a fellow who studies the science of lifebirds, plants, and so on.

Donald came to us with an idea. He was agog with excitement because a new island had just popped up in the Atlantic. Apparently this is not such an unusual thing as you might suppose, and he gave us instances of where it had happened before; only these islands had always disappeared again before anyone could have a really good look at them. The new island, and its position, had been reported by radio from a ship, which happened to be a fast mail packet, and for that reason couldn't stop to investigate. The Admiralty had sent off a survey cutter to have a look at the new arrival, but Donald was anxious to get there first and so take credit for any discoveries that were going. He was afraid, too, that the island might disappear before the cutter got to it. There is no doubt that he was genuinely interested from the scientific point of view. All that was known about the island was that it was roughly three miles long and a mile wide.

Donald didn't look worth half a crown, and I imagine it was for that reason that Biggles told him right away that flying was an expensive business. Did that worry him? Not a bit.

He told us that money was no object. He'd got more than he knew what to do with. That settled the only difficulty, and we soon had the necessary arrange-ments made. He was to meet us at dawn the following morning, at Hamble.

He arrived in a taxi, complete with umbrella, still wearing his top hat and frock coat.

You'd have thought he was going to a funeral instead of on an exploring trip. You never saw such a pile of junk as he brought with him cases, crates, bags, fishing-nets, and goodness knows what else. This, it turned out, was his scientific paraphernalia

instruments, preserving bottles, and the like.

After we had got everything packed in the cabin he discovered that he had mislaid his glasses. He thought he must have dropped them on the floor, so we had to unpack again.

Then he found them in ids pocket. He was always losing his glasses. I don't want to give you the impression that he was a mere crank. On the contrary, he was a brilliant scholar, but the fact is he was so absorbed in his work that anything not connected with it was trivial. He had plenty of nerve, too. Well, we got away eventually and headed for the island, which, according to the position given by the ship, and the speed of the Wanderer, meant a flight of about six hours.

It turned out that this was Donald's first flight, but it was plain to see that he wasn't interested in flying. He was only concerned with getting there. He didn't once look out of the window; he squatted on a crate and read a book. But when the island came into sight he produced an enormous telescope and made me hold up the big end while he squinted through it. I had a look at the island, but there wasn't much to see. It was, in fact, just what you would expect of something that had come up from the bottom of the seaa mass of seaweed-covered boulders with pools of water between. There was no question of landing on it because there wasn't a flat patch anywhere. Fortunately the sea was calm, so Biggles brought the machine down on the water and taxied to a convenient promontory where we made fast.

Donald, not forgetting his umbrella, was the first to land. He fairly danced with excitement. " Enchanting ", was all he could say. "Positively enchanting." Personally, I couldn't see anything enchanting about it. It was just a dirty slimy mass. Anyway, there we were,