Captain W.E. Johns - Biggles in Borneo

CHAPTER 1

INVITATION TO SUICIDE

" GOOD morning, Bigglesworth. Come right in." Biggles's old chief, Air Commodore Raymond,

of Air Intelligence, rose from his desk with a smile, hand extended, to greet Squadron Leader James Bigglesworth, better known in the R.A.F. as " Biggles of Biggles Squadron."

" I want you to meet Captain Rex Larrymore," he went on, indicating a small, keen-faced, sun-burned man whose most outstanding features were a head of close-clipped red hair, and bright, almost brilliant blue eyes. Their colour may have been emphasized by the hair, but Biggles thought he had never seen eyes so piercingly blue.

" Larrymore," continued the Air Commodore, " this is Squadron Leader Bigglesworth, the officer I told you about. If there is a man in the service capable of weighing up the pros and cons of your proposition it is he. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that if my opinion counts for anything, the final decision of the Air Council as to whether this enterprise should be undertaken or not will depend upon what he thinks. Take a seat, Bigglesworth, and I'll tell you what this is all about. Have a cigarette ? "

" Thanks." Biggles lit his cigarette and pulled up a chair.

" The story, briefly, is this," resumed the Air Commodore. " Captain Larrymore has come to us with an idea. As an idea it has much to recommend it, but as a practical propositionwell, presently I'll ask for

your opinion. I had better tell you right away that Larrymore was a pilot in the last war ; he still holds an ' A ' Licence, having until recently had a light plane of his own, so from the technical angle he knows what he is talking about. Apparently, some years ago he decided that the only interesting way to earn a living was to do something unusual. He became a prospector, specializing in gold and diamonds. He soon discovered, however, that all the territory within reasonable reach of civilization had been thoroughly combed, so he made up his mind to break new ground. This is usually a long and tedious way of working, so, as he was a pilot, it was not unnatural that his mind should turn to aeroplanes. In short, to reach places hitherto regarded as inaccessible to white men he determined to use a light aircraft. For a location he chose the big and wild island of Borneo. I will now ask Larrymore to carry on." The Air Commodore turned to his red-haired visitor. "Please continue."

Captain Larrymore stubbed his cigarette. "For a time," he began, looking at Biggles, "I didn't have much luck. My difficulty, as you will readily appreciate, was to find suitable landing-grounds. Eventually, however, I discovered one that suited my purpose admir-ably. It was in mountain country, near Mount Mulu, which runs up to eight thousand feet.

My aerodrome is lower than thatat about four thousand. Mind you, this spot would not be everybody's choice. It is surrounded by a sixty-mile belt of sheer forest, real untamed jungle. Outside that, at the foot of the hills, there is a thirty-mile belt of bamboo swamp through which no white man has ever made his way. Indeed, as far as I know, no one has ever tried to get through it. I doubt if it's possible. Just as no one has ever been able to get in, no one could get out, so the chief worry with my landing-ground was this : if I had a crack-up, by landing badly on my aerodrome for instance, I should be there for good.

"The aerodromewe'll call it thatis a queer place. On account of its altitude it is on the fringe of the moss forest. As perhaps you know, in Borneo, when you climb up out of the main jungle, you strike these amazing moss foreststhe moss being due, I suppose, to the humidity and the heavy rainfall. My discovery of the landing ground was a fluke, and I'll tell you how it happened. One day my engine packed up. I thought I was for it.

The only place I could see where a crack-up was not absolutely inevitable was what I took to be a lake. To my amazement it was not a lake at all. It had been one, I think, but the water had gone, leaving a short bluish moss which from the air looks exactly like water."

"That seems queer," put in Biggles. "Why doesn't vegetation grow at this particular spot

? "

"Because there is practically no soil. It must have been washed away by the water. You'

re right on the bedrock. You can see the cracks where the water ran outdue, I imagine, to volcanic disturbance at some time."

Biggles nodded. "I see. Carry on."

"Well, I put my motor right, and then had a look round. It didn't take me long to discover that I'd had a wonderful stroke of luck. In places the cracks were full of silt, which I soon ascertained was diamondiferous gravel. I flew down to Brunei, in Sarawak, and loaded up with stores to last me for a month. Then I went back to my dry lake and started work."

"On your own ? " queried Biggles.

"Yes, absolutely by myself. I preferred to work alone."

" I see."

Captain Larrymore continued. "My first job was to clear up a really safe runway ; as you would expect, there were a number of rocks and old tree-trunks lying about. I don't know why I didn't think of natives, but I didn't. I hadn't seen a sign of any on my first landing.

On my second day, however, I looked up to find that I was being watched by as wild a gang of Punansthat's the tribeas you could imagine. I was some way from my machine, so I thought it was all up. There's only one thing to do in a case like that.

Fighting is out of the question, so I strolled over to the wild men, casually, and saluted. It was a nasty moment."

Biggles grinned. " I'll bet it was."

Captain Larrymore nodded. "As it happened, my luck held. I spotted that one of them, a big fellow whom I took to be a chief, had an arm bandaged with a lot of dirty leaves. In dead silence I unwrapped it and had a look at the wound. My gosh ! You never saw such a mess as his arm was in. Someone had run a spear into it and it was a mass of pus. Still without speaking, I fetched the medical outfit I always carry and dressed the wound.

Well, that was that. My head didn't go into the tribal collection. These people aren't cannibals, but they're head-hunters in a big way. With them head-hunting is a sportit occupies much the same position as football does here. Their favourite weapon is the sumpitthat's the Malay word for blowpipe. They carry a nice line in poisoned darts. I got the chief's arm well and we became good friends. Indeed, Subathat's the chief's namegot his boys to help me with my work when I needed labour. That was two years ago. Now I'll come to the point.

"During the next two years I established a very snug little aerodrome. I built a house and a hangar out of Mipas palms, and generally made myself corn fortable. Me and the Punans were like that." Captain Larrymore crossed his fingers. "I got to know most of them by name. There are about five hundred of them, and you can get an idea of how wild they are when I tell you that I was the firstin fact, the only white man they have ever seen."

"You were still on your own ? " interposed Biggles.

"You bet your life I was," declared Larrymore. " Prospectors don't share their secrets with anyone. I was finding some nice diamondsnothing big, you understand, but useful

; and there was always a chance that any day I might make a real strike. Another thing I must tell you is this. Every time I flew down to Brunei for stores I brought back with me, in cans, more petrol and oil than I needed, and in that way I built up a useful dump against a rainy day. That's how things were when the war started in the Far East. Of course, I didn't know anything about the Japs landing in Borneo until I made one of my periodical trips to Brunei. I was nearly caught. In fact, I should have been if they hadn't fired at me, for I was just going to land. I guessed then what had happened. Back I went to my private aerodrome. I told Suba about it, but he wasn't particularly upset. There was no reason why he should behe always imagined he was dead safe from outside interference. I wasn't so sure about it, so I loaded up to capacity with petrol, and with my parcel of diamonds in my pocket I flew across to Surabaya, in Java. I just had time to fill up again with petrol when the Japs landed there, so I pushed on to Australia. From there I came back to England. I got back last week."