Biggles Delivers the Goods

‘So I noticed.’

‘Did you know I was here, or was it an accident?’

‘We knew,’ answered Biggles. ‘I didn’t know the major was here though. Nor did I know anything about this head chopping or I should have been here earlier. It shook me when I saw what was happening, I can tell you.’

‘Not so much as it shook me, I’ll bet,’ said Algy warmly. ‘Now you know what Tamashoa does to prisoners who won’t talk.’

Biggles nodded. ‘The fellow must be an absolute swine,’ he said in a disgusted voice. ‘You can tell me all about it when we get back. Are you all right?’

‘Right enough. The major’s wounded though—had a bayonet poked through his leg.’

‘Nothing to speak of,’ interposed Marling calmly. ‘Clean forgot all about it in the excitement. Where’s that confounded boy of mine?’ He crossed the room to an open window and looked out. ‘Here, I say, come and look at this,’ he went on.

Biggles strode to the window. It overlooked the estuary. ‘The destroyers!’ he exclaimed. ‘By thunder! We’ve done it!’

‘They’ve taken on a queer sort of list, haven’t they?’ observed the major.

‘They’re aground,’ answered Biggles. ‘Good thing for us they are, too. Phew! What a target they’d make, helpless on their beam ends. There are the kabangs, too. We heard the Japanese were getting them ready to invade Elephant Island.’ He beckoned to Ayert and pointed at the small craft now lying high and dry on the mud. ‘Get your men together and tell them to knock the bottoms out of those kabangs,’ he ordered. ‘Be quick. We’ll meet you outside.’ After Ayert had gone he turned back to the others. ‘Let’s get out of this while the going’s good. No sense in overdoing it. The Japanese may come back.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Marling. ‘There weren’t many here, you know—not above forty, I should say. Some are away at Shansie and others are out on patrol.’

‘We’ll get back all the same,’ decided Biggles. ‘Bring the prisoner along, Henry. Maybe he’ll do some more talking.’

But the prisoner had ideas of his own about this. Suddenly, with the speed of despair, he took a flying leap through the open window. Ginger, who was still holding his pistol, took a snap shot at him but only succeeded in knocking a chip off the sill. Jumping to the window hoping for a second shot, looking down he saw that the wretched interpreter could not have chosen a worse moment for his attempt. Ayert and a number of his men was on their way to the kabangs and the Japanese had landed in the middle of them. His cry of fear was cut off by fierce yells of exultation. Ginger turned away quickly. There was nothing he could do about it.

‘He didn’t get far,’ he told Biggles. ‘He nearly jumped on top of Ayert. He’d have done better to jump on a tiger.’ He glanced at the major. ‘These men are savage,’ he observed.

‘Of course they’re savage my boy,’ replied the major sharply. ‘So would you be savage had you lived here and seen your friends carved up. Why, half an hour ago that infernal rascal stood calmly by and watched Melong’s son decapitated.’

From outside came a noise of banging and thumping as the commandos joyfully disposed of the invasion craft. Biggles gave them a few minutes, then went to the window and called Ayert. ‘Get your men together,’ he ordered. ‘We’re going home before those sailors on the destroyers find some way of getting ashore. Any man who stays behind will have to get home as best he can. We can’t wait.’

‘What’s the idea of the white faces?’ asked the major. Biggles told him.

‘You’ll succeed in your purpose,’ declared Marling. ‘Any Japanese who manages to get away to save his face will swear that the post was attacked by a thousand Europeans.’

‘I don’t think many will get away,’ said Lalla, who now joined the party.

After that it was largely a matter of routine. With ferocious threats and some delay Ayert managed to remuster his men, for although all resistance had ceased they seemed in no hurry to leave. A searchlight coming into action from one of the destroyers hastened them. Casualties, it was now ascertained, had been light. Only five men were missing although several were wounded. These made light of their wounds and laughingly declined medical attention. The general atmosphere was that of a picnic, and the behaviour of the wounded rather like that of children who are stung by nettles.

‘Don’t worry about them,’ advised Marling carelessly. ‘They’ll slap a lump of cowdung or a handful of bruised leaves on their wounds and be all right in a week. Don’t ask me why the wounds don’t turn septic because I don’t know.’

The march back to the Lotus was made without incident, although towards the finish the major had to accept assistance on account of his wounded leg. To Biggles’ annoyance, the unruly commandos, flushed with success, abandoned all restraint, and from time to time the forest rang with laughter as some man described a personal adventure.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Marling to Biggles. ‘Any odd Japanese who happen to be about will run the other way when they hear this din. They don’t like parangs. I do. It’s a nice weapon, particularly for jungle work, and it takes a good man to face up to one. The War Office might do worse than make an issue of them to commando troops. It’s the head they’re laughing at.’

‘Head?’ queried Biggles. ‘What head?’

‘They’ve got a head for a trophy, a souvenir of the occasion. They’re passing it round . . . great joke.’

‘What!’ For the first time Biggles really grasped what the major was talking about. ‘I’ll stop that,’ he declared.

‘I wouldn’t try—you might lose your own. They do things without thinking when they’re in this mood.’

Biggles steadied himself and walked on. ‘Who’s head is it?’

‘Apparently it belonged to that spy fellow, Pamboo.’

‘Of course, he was at Victoria Point,’ murmured Biggles. ‘I was so taken up with other things that I forgot all about him.’

‘Why worry?’ said the major carelessly. ‘Nothing like removing a man’s head from his body to prevent him from causing further mischief.’

Biggles smiled wanly. ‘I can’t argue against that.’

‘Everybody fights a war his own way,’ asserted Marling. ‘That’s the Malay way. This is their theatre as much as ours, so who are we to quibble?’

‘There’s something in that,’ acknowledged Biggles. ‘But I don’t like loose heads about.’ He marched on.

Everybody was in good heart when the Lotus was reached, for the expedition had been a complete success. Under Biggles’ firm orders embarkation proceeded quietly. When all were aboard Ayert took the wheel and the launch crept away into the night as noiselessly as it had appeared.

Rather more than an hour later, with a crescent moon rising out of the sea, after cruising down the western coast of the island the Lotus turned into the little cove that had provided so secure a berth. An instant later a shout, shrill with alarm, came from the look-out. It brought the officers, who had been resting on the deck, to their feet, swaying as the Lotus yawed when Ayert spun the wheel to avoid collision with a big dark shape that loomed suddenly ahead.

Biggles reached the rail in a stride. ‘Watch out!’ he exclaimed, in a voice brittle with alarm. ‘It’s the Sumatran.’

This dramatic announcement was followed by a brief period not far removed from consternation. It was assumed naturally that the ship was in enemy hands. Even Biggles did not question this foregone conclusion, and remembering that the Sumatran carried deck armament he was shouting to Ayert for full speed out of the vicinity when a hail came floating across the water to bring him round in a posture of incredulity.

‘That was Li Chi’s voice,’ he asserted wonderingly.

The hail came again.

‘It is Li Chi,’ vowed Ginger.

‘What the deuce . . . !’ For once Biggles was completely at a loss. He stared at the larger craft apprehensively, as if suspecting a trap; but he answered the hail and asked Ayert to close with the ship. In a minute or two after a cautious approach they were alongside.

‘What are you doing?’ called Biggles, above a babble of excited conversation.

‘Waiting for you,’ came the answer in Li Chi’s voice.

‘What’s gone wrong?’

‘Nothing. For once things have gone right,’ stated Li Chi, who could now be seen looking down from the rail. ‘Come aboard and I’ll tell you about it.’

‘I still don’t understand it,’ muttered Biggles, as he accepted the invitation, having told Ayert to proceed to the shore when they were aboard.

In a few words, with his hands tucked into his sleeves, Li Chi explained, and Biggles no longer wondered why he had failed to guess the reason for the Sumatran’s return. Things had happened that were hardly to be expected.

‘I was just getting out of the danger zone, as I thought, when we sighted a big ship hull down over our port bow,’ said Li Chi. ‘I turned away, but she quickly overhauled us and made a signal that we were to heave to. We had no choice but to obey. Then, as she came up, I saw with joy and amazement that she was flying the white ensign. She was the Lochavon Castle, an armed merchantman, out from Perth, West Australia, for Calcutta. At the point where she intercepted us she was off her course, but her skipper told me that he had received a radio signal from the Admiralty to pick us up. And do you know for what purpose?’

‘I couldn’t guess,’ murmured Biggles.

‘To take over our rubber and proceed direct to England with it.’

‘Well, I’ll go hopping,’ breathed Tug.

A smile broke slowly over Biggles’ face. ‘Good for the navy,’ he observed. ‘Somebody has done some quick thinking—but then, the navy’s good at that. What about you, Li Chi?’

‘There were no orders. I fancy it was supposed that I would take the ship to India. The captain thought that was the intention. But as I say, there were no orders, so I decided to come back for another load of rubber—why not?’

‘That was noble of you,’ commended Biggles. ‘What did the skipper say about that?’

‘He said the Sumatran was my ship and I could do what I liked with her. He wouldn’t be looking whichever way I went. So I handed over the rubber. He went on. I came back,’ concluded Li Chi simply.

‘This is the biggest slice of cake we’ve had so far,’ asserted Biggles. ‘If we can shift another thousand tons of rubber we shall be half way home. We could never have got the job finished otherwise. We’ve sort of stirred things up on the mainland.’

‘Ah,’ breathed Li Chi. ‘The raid was a success?’

‘Couldn’t have been better.’ Biggles gave a short account of the landing, and the rescue of Algy and Major Marling—who stood listening. ‘Time is what we’re up against now,’ he went on. ‘We always were, of course, but after this things are going to buzz. Tamashoa will be really sore. Singapore, and perhaps even Tokyo, will sit up and take notice when they hear about it. They’ll attack us by land, sea or air—perhaps a combined operation. It may take them a day or two to organize, but we’ve got to get really busy. I suggest, if you are willing, that you load up again with rubber and push off before the fireworks start.’

Li Chi agreed that this was obviously the thing to do. He said he would get the work in hand forthwith.

‘We’ll have another conference presently when we’ve had a clean up and a rest,’ said Biggles, and with the others, went ashore in one of the Sumatran’s boats.

The Liberators should start coming in tomorrow morning,’ he resumed, as they walked up the hill. ‘From dawn we’ll start one hour patrols in a Lightning to take care of the Sumatran and see the Liberators safely in. The other Lightning can stand at ready in case it is required. I’ll take first shift. Until then we’d better put in some blanket drill.’^*1