W.E. Johns - Biggles Flies Again

As THE tropic sun sunk slowly in the west, a thin miasma of mist began to curl upward from the still, silent pool around which the mangroves lifted their gnarled trunks on fantastic stilt-like roots from the slime of the swamp. At one spot, in vivid contrast to the sombre desolation around, a spray of orchids sprang like a flame from a gaunt, lowhanging branch, and mirrored their scarlet beauty in the ebony surface of the water below. Nothing moved; the scene was as lifeless as a picture. Even the air, heavy with the stench of decay and corruption, was still; it hung like a tangible substance over the place and endowed its primeval loneliness with an atmosphere of sinister foreboding. In the deep shade at the edge of the lagoon, its nose almost touching a rank growth of purple-blotched fungus, an aircraft floated motionless on its own inverted image. At first glance it appeared to be a flying-boat, but mud-coated wheels, now raised high into the wings near the weather-soiled hull, revealed it to be of the amphibian class. A gunshot split the sun-drenched silence from somewhere near at hand, and, as if in answer, a figure rose

slowly from the pilot's seat and stared in the direction from which the sound had come. Simultaneously, as if they were connected in some unseen way, several pieces of what appeared to be bark, floating on the water, sank swiftly, leaving faint ripples to mark their going.

"I wonder what he's got today," said the pilot to someone inside the cabin. The voice echoed eerily over the water.

The person to whom he had spoken emerged from the cabin and seated himself on the edge of the hull near the other.

"I'll tell you, Algy," said the newcomer in a tone of voice which left no possible room for doubt; "it'll be another warty lizard. Maybe it will have a blue belly, for a change, but that makes no difference to the flavour; yellow, red, greenthey all taste alike. Smyth will come to the edge of the water, just there"he pointed to the tiny promontory of mud beside which the machine was moored"and he'll say, 'Sorry, sir, but this is the best I can do today! ' "

"Well, that'll be better than alligator," replied the first speaker. "I'm about sick of alligator. I never want to eat another."

James Bigglesworth, late R.A.F., eyed his companion grimly. "You've only to slip into the water here, once, and they'll do the eating, for a change," he observed dryly., "This place swarms with the brutes."

The mud-stained figure of a third man appeared, picking his way carefully to the edge of the trees. In his right

hand he held a gun; in the left he carried a large lizard by the tail.

"Sorry, sir," he said, "but this is the best I can do today."

"That's not so bad. What did you expect to get, a brace of partridges ?" grinned Bigglesworth, more often known to his friends as "Biggles". "Get a fire going; it will be time to grouse when we have to eat them raw. I've only one or two matches left."

"I'm eating no raw lizzies," muttered Algernon Montgomery Lacey, Biggies's war-time comrade-at-arms, with conviction. "If the boat doesn't show up by dawn tomorrow, I'm through, and the Oil Investment Company of British Guiana can buzz off and do its own flying," he added viciously, picking up the lizard's tail which Smyth had skinned, and throwing it into a soot-corroded frying-pan.

Biggles nodded. "I'm with you. She's over a month late; there's something wrong somewhere. We'll go down to Georgetown tomorrow and see what it is. I'm all against leaving a job in the middle, but they can't expect us to go on without stores or petrol. We'

ve just about enough left to get to Georgetown; I'm not going to use that up here and walk back. It will evaporate if we sit still, so we might as well go down the coast. If the Agent starts a song and dance about us using the Company's precious petrol, I'll tell him to produce my pay-cheque and do his own aviating."

Actually, the pilot of the three airmen was serious. Biggles had followed up an advertisement which led to his employment by the Oil Investment Company of British Guiana as a pilot, with the task of photographing from the air likely oil-bearing terrain in the hinterland of north-east tropical America.

The Company had allowed him to choose his own equipment and crew, with the result that he had sought out Algy Montgomery Lacey, formerly of his squadron, as second pilot, and Smyth, his late flight-sergeant-fitter, as general mechanic. And so it came about that six months later they were pursuing their task in a Vickers "Vandal" Amphibian, which they were able to land on the rivers and lagoons among the mangrove swamps near the coast.

Their present rendezvous had been established as a base at which they were to be supplied with stores, oil, and petrol by special boat from Georgetown, and to which they were to hand their reports and the plates they had exposed.

For six months all went well, and the boat had arrived regularly according to plan. Then came a long delay in which they had been reduced to starvation rations before the boat had belatedly put in an appearance with considerably less than the usual stock of provisions Further, their pay-cheques had not been delivered for endorsement, as hitherto, in order that they might be paid into the bank at Georgetown, by the Company's Agent. That was more than two months ago, and they were now reduced to the desperate expedient of living by their gun in a land where, apparently, only reptiles and insects existed. With a philosophy born of war-time experience they made the best of a bad job, daily expecting the arrival of the boat, and, although they had not discussed the reason of its

failure to bring the badly-needed supplies, a shrewd suspicion was rapidly forming in Biggles's mind.

II

It did not greatly surprise him therefore when, the following evening, the Agent confirmed it.

"Yes, Bigglesworth," he said, "the Company went into liquidation more than three months agoand that is all there is to say," he added, with an air of finality.

"Is it?" said Biggles, eyeing the little pock-marked . mulatto grimly. "Who told you it was? What about our pay?"

The man made a gesture more eloquent than words.

"I see," said Biggles slowly; "the money dried up, eh? You knew that; you knew that we were stranded up on that hell-bound, fever-smitten coast, yet you hadn't the decency to send word that you were not sending a boat."

"You would hardly expect me to stand the expense of that myself

"

"No. Having seen you, I wouldn't," replied Biggles, breathing heavily. "Did you pay our last cheques into the bank?"

"Yes, but"

"Come on; but what?"

"Unfortunately there was not sufficient credit at the bank to meet them. They were returned; I have them here."

"What about your ownwas that met?"

"Well, yes; you see, being on the spot"

"You were able to keep ours back until yours was cleared, eh? Well, what are you going to do about it?" "Do about it?"

"Don't pretend you're a blooming parrot; there's enough outside; you heard what I said. How are we going to get home?"

"I guess that's your own affair," replied the Agent brusquely, turning to some papers on his desk as if the interview was closed.

"Then you're a darn bad guesser," snarled Biggles, taking off his jacket.

"What are you going to do?" cried the Agent, in alarm, turning pale under his yellow skin.

"That's what I asked you," said Biggles harshly. "What do you want me to do?"

"As far as I can see there's only one thing you can do," replied Biggles through his teeth, taking a pace forward, "and that is to make over that machine in the harbour to us in lieu of pay."