Chapter 8
Goodbye to the Gosling
In spite of his recently acquired knowledge that their enemies were now likely to be aware of their approximate location, nothing was further from Biggles' thoughts than hostile aircraft as he pushed forward the master throttle of the Gosling and soared into the air, heading south and climbing steeply to gain height. As a matter of detail, he was thinking over the possibility that, if the Dragon Moth was the diamond transport, the Gosling might receive a hostile reception at Puerto Guano. As he later remarked, bitterly, to Ginger, the lesson to be drawn from the subsequent events was: "Wherever you are never take it for granted that you've got the sky to yourself." Ginger may be forgiven if he was not thinking about their mission at all, but instead of Jeanette Ducoste. His reverie was broken by Biggles' voice.
"Ginger, listen in to the radio. If you pick up any signals as we come into sight of Puerto Guano, let me know."
Ginger picked up the earphones of the instrument, and began to slowly turn the tuning-in keys. Almost immediately, without the slightest warning, the whole apparatus blew up, or so it seemed to him. There was a tremendous crash and, simultaneously, a sheet of electric blue flame flashed before his eyes, while a smell of scorching filled his nostrils. Temporarily half-stunned with shock, he tore the headphones from his ringing ears, only to be thrown down as the machine heeled over in a vertical bank. A conviction took form in his mind that the aircraft had been struck by lightning, and he glanced across at Biggles, fully prepared to find him unconscious. To his astonishment he found him very much alive, crouching forward, but looking back over his shoulder with a terrible expression on his face. At the same time, above the hum of the engines, Ginger heard for the first time the unmistakable taca-taca-taca-taca of machine guns and, looking back over the tail, saw a Messerschmitt 109. Such was his surprise that for several seconds he could only stare at it unbelievingly. The Gosling began to swerve violently, and without looking he knew that it was going down.
"There's a pretty fair beach," said Biggles tersely. "I'm going down. When you feel me flatten out you'll know I'm practically on the carpet. Get the automatics out of the locker, open the hatch and get ready to jump for it. There\rquote s nothing else you can do."
The Gosling continued to descend, twisting and turning. Ginger was conscious of the sporadic grunting snarl of multiple machine guns. Then the machine levelled out. Biggles shouted "Jump!"
What happened next Ginger really did not know. He had no recollection of getting out of the machine; but he must have done so because he found himself standing on the sand, staring with utter dismay at the crumpled remains of the Gosling a hundred yards or so away further along the beach, just short of the low headland that marked the end of it.
The matter did not end there. With a sinking feeling in his stomach in his stomach Ginger watched the Messerschmitt roar down and rake its now stationary target with a long burst of fire. Then it turned away. Either by accident or design it turned towards the place where Ginger, as if rooted to the ground by horror, was standing in full view. Perceiving his folly, and having a pretty good idea of what to expect, Ginger sprinted up the beach and took cover in a jumbled mass of rocks. Nor did he stop when he reached the rocks, but scrambled through them until he could fling himself flat behind a rock the size of a small car. An instant later, through the rocks came such a shattering hail of metal that he was appalled by the din it made. Chips of stone sprang into the air. One struck the side of Ginger's face, causing a trickle of blood to run down his cheek. Hearing the Messerschmitt roar low overhead, acting under the sheer impulse of self-preservation, he reversed his position to still keep the rock between himself and the aircraft. Again came the withering blast. Ginger knew that the pilot couldn't see him, so apparently he was spraying the whole mass of rocks in the hope of killing him.
The pilot of the Messerschmitt then turned his attention again to the Gosling. He roared round, and diving, lashed it with a hail of fire as though it had done him a personal injury, and this time he was even more successful, for a tongue of flame licked hungrily along the riddled fuselage. In a minute the entire ma chine was a blazing inferno.
The Messerschmitt now made off, either because the pilot had used up all his ammunition or possibly because he thought he had done enough. It circled through the smoke, gaining altitude. Then it turned away and disappeared towards the south. In a few moments it was out of sight. As the noise of its engine receded, Ginger, white and shaken, picked himself up, and in a sort of frenzy raced towards the burning wreck of the Gosling. He was still running, dry-lipped and wild-eyed, when a voice near at hand said: "Where do you think you're going?"
Spinning round with a gasp he saw Biggles sitting on a rock, lighting a cigarette.
"Then he didn't get you after all!" cried Ginger, almost overcome with relief.
"Doesn't look like it, does it?" retorted Biggles.
"How on earth did you get away with it?"
"I jumped out just behind you. By the time our friend in the Messerschmitt could bring his guns to bear, I'd dived into the rocks."
"Same here," said Ginger, with feeling. He found a seat besides Biggles on the rock, for now that reaction had set in his legs were a trifle shaky. He looked at the smoking remains of the Gosling. "What a mess," he muttered. "But there is this about it. Puerto Guano must be the place that von Stalhein is using as a diamond dump, or he wouldn't have been so anxious to stop us having a look at it."
"That's true," agreed Biggles, pensively. "That Messerschmitt turned south, and it may have landed at Puerto Guano."
"Just a minute," said Ginger in a curious voice. "Did you notice the blue nose on that Messerschmitt? I saw a Messerschmitt with a blue nose in Buenos Aires, the morning that we left. I swear it wasn't there the day before, when we arrived."
"By thunder, you're right," replied Biggles. "I remember seeing a Messerschmitt with a blue nose at Buenos Aires."
He thought for a moment, then continued, slowly, "I wonder if that blue-nosed Messerschmitt could be von Stalhein's own kite. He might have flown up to Buenos Aires in it."
Ginger looked startled.
"You mean - he was in that Messerschmitt?"
Biggles shrugged. "He might have been. If Puerto Guano is the diamond dump the mine can't be too far away and that presumably is where von Stalhein is hiding out. The mine must be in radio contact with Buenos Aires. As soon as he knew that the Gosling had been sighted at Vicuna, he could have jumped straight into his machine and come hunting for us. Knowing von Stalhein, I'd hazard a guess that his next move will be to send out a search party to look at us if we're dead, or find us if we're alive. As no corpses are available for inspection, he'll know that we've escaped, in which case he'll soon be after us."
"I only hope that von Stalhein is the first to show up – I've got a little present for him," replied Ginger coldly, producing the two automatics he had taken from the Gosling's locker.
Biggles took one, and glanced at his watch. "It's about four o'clock now. I'd say we've got less than half an hour before the ground party turns up. We can't be any more than five miles from Puerto Guano at the most, and the remains of the Gosling will smoke for hours. They won't have any difficulty fixing our position. We'd better set about finding somewhere to hide until it gets dark. Then we'll strike out west until we hit the road that runs down the coast, and head for Puerto Guano."
Ginger stared. "Puerto Guano? Are you kidding?" Trust Biggles, he thought, to do the unexpected.
A ghost of smile hovered over Biggles' lips. "No. We may be able to pinch a car, and use it to get back to Vicuna. Better still, if there's an aircraft there, we might be able to get our hands on that."
"Okay," agreed Ginger. "Where are we going to hide?"
Biggles looked around. On the other side of the jumble of rocks the ground sloped steeply upwards to a ridge. The slope was covered with the usual sort of coastal vegetation, weeds, shrubs, stunted trees and the like.
"What's wrong with under a nice thick bush? As a hiding place it isn't exactly an original notion, but it's still a good one."
They fixed on a position amongst some scrub on a knoll which commanded a view through a leafy screen of the burn-out wreck of the machine. However, they had been there hardly five minutes when Ginger leapt to his feet with a cry of disgust. He showed Biggles a half dozen flat, grey, crab-shaped insects crawling on his left arm. "What are these revolting things?"
"Carrapatos," replied Biggles briefly. "Ticks. This place must be infested with them. I didn't know they were a pest this far south. The horrible little brutes hide in the vegetation and drop on any warm blooded creature that's unfortunate enough to pass by. They're poisonous, too. A big tick can kill a dog or make a man pretty sick after a few hours."
He indicated an outcrop of rock a little further along. "We should be all right in amongst those rocks."
Biggles and Ginger were to be glad that the carrapatos had driven them from their original hiding place, for reasons shortly to be explained.
Biggles was right in his prediction that a search party would be sent out to examine the crashed aircraft. The two airmen had no sooner settled into a shallow recess in the rocks when, abruptly, a group of men appeared at the far end of the beach.
"Where the dickens did those fellows come from so suddenly?" exclaimed Ginger.
"I'd say there's a track leading down to the beach, probably made by local people coming here to fish," opined Biggles.
As the party came closer, it could be seen that it comprised five uniformed men. Four carried rifles, and two, to Ginger's surprise, also carried what appeared to be petrol cans. There was no mistaking the tall, lithe, military figure of the leader of the party.
"Argentinian troops," Biggles stated calmly. "Von Stalhein is with them."
"That's dear Erich all right, the dirty hound," snarled Ginger. "How about having a shot at him?"
"No use," said Biggles. "You'd never hit him at that distance. Save your bullets. You may need them before we're home."
Reluctantly, Ginger put his gun away.
As the party approached the burnt-out remains of the Gosling, von Stalhein held up a hand in a peremptory gesture. The men halted. The petrol cans were placed on the sand. At that moment another man appeared, hurrying around the low headland at the north of the beach. He ran straight up to the smouldering wreck of the Gosling, ignoring the little group standing close by. As he reached the wreckage, he staggered backward and flung his hands up in a curious gesture of despair.
Von Stalhein gave an order to his men, inaudible to the watchers, and two of them ran forward and seized the new arrival by the arms. Von Stalhein stepped closer to the captive, and apparently said something to him. The man turned to face him, a few more words appeared to be exchanged, and then handcuffs were placed on the man's wrists.
Biggles turned to Ginger and said, "Tell me, am I imagining things, or does that fellow look uncommonly like Algy?"
"If I wasn't sure it couldn't be Algy I'd say that was him," said Ginger.
Said Biggles, calmly: "Don't let's fool ourselves. It is Algy."
Ginger felt the blood drain from his face. His muscles seemed to go stiff. For a few seconds he could not move. Then, impulsively, he leap to his feet and opened his mouth to shout. With a panther-like bound Biggles sprang at him and bore him to the ground, his hand over his mouth. "Quiet, you young fool," he hissed. "Do you want to get us both killed? We can't take on rifles with automatics at this range."
"But von Stalhein will shoot Algy with no more qualms than if he was a rabbit," protested Ginger.
"I doubt it. He'll use him to bait a trap. He knows by now that if he finds one of us it's only a question of time before the others turn up," muttered Biggles. "This is a case of more haste less speed. We can do nothing but watch - for the moment."
"But how did Algy get here - and where's Bertie?"
"How the devil would I know?" answered Biggles irritably. "Use your head. Maybe Algy stayed at the rendezvous waiting for us to turn up. If he had, he would have seen the Gosling go down. Naturally he'd hot-foot it to the crash."
"If he'd got here ten minutes earlier ..."
"He didn't," rejoined Biggles curtly.
There was no more conversation. In silence, Biggles and Ginger watched events unfold on the beach. Cautiously, no doubt due to the heat which still imbued the metal skeleton of the Gosling, von Stalhein made his way along the fuselage to the cockpit area. For a couple of minutes, he could be seen carefully examining the wreckage. Then he walked slowly back along the beach the way that he had come, examining the sand between the track of the Gosling's undercarriage and the rocks and brush which marked the landward side of the beach. Having completed his survey, he returned to his men, who had remained standing in a close group around their prisoner.
"Do you think von Stalhein will set this lot to look for us?" asked Ginger.
"From the way they're standing there I'd say no," answered Biggles.
"Why not?"
"We might be anywhere. But you can be sure he's got some scheme on. You never know what he's going to pull out of the hat," replied Biggles, little guessing what it was and how soon it was to be exposed.
Two of the men picked up the petrol tins and walked towards the landward side of the beach. They promptly disappeared from sight, screened by the vegetation. Ten minutes or so passed.
"What d'you think they're up to?" asked Ginger, nervously.
Before Biggles could respond, the answer to Ginger's question was provided by the sudden appearance of wisps of smoke in a long line along the beach.
"So that's it," said Biggles grimly. "Fire. They've given it a flying start by spreading petrol in a line along the beach, and this kind of coastal scrub will burn like Old Nick when it's dry. With the wind behind the blaze, this place will be an inferno in a minute. Get down and hold your handkerchief over your face, Ginger."
Moments later, Biggles and Ginger caught the first whiff of smoke. Then clouds of smoke came sweeping along on the wind. Not only smoke, but smuts and particles of burning matter. From no great distance away came a harsh crackling noise. Birds were tearing past, screaming. Small animals dashed past, amongst them several cavies, those curious little South American animals that are half-rabbit and half-guinea pig. Flaming debris was being flung high and already Ginger could feel the heat on his face. It was not only the heat that swept up the slope in front of the fire, although it was scorching. It was the acrid, pungent smoke, which brought tears to their eyes and almost blinded them. It bit into their lungs and kept them coughing without respite.
A long low yellow wall of flame came leaping up the hill towards them. It looked as if the world was on fire.