Chapter 18
The last round
Over an early dinner in the quarters assigned to them, the newly arrived members of the squadron were brought up to date on events. The meal over, Biggles tossed his napkin on the table, lit a cigarette, and addressed his officers.
"Well," he said. "You all know why we're here - to put the Boche diamond mine out of business, and to sink the U-317 if we can. We have five Beaufighters at our disposal. They have wing racks for two 1,000 pound bombs. That should be ample to do the job. Tomorrow we shall go over to the diamond mine, drive the Boche out, and make the place uninhabitable for some time to come. The best way to do that is to destroy the dam the Germans have made so they can get at the diamonds in the gravel of the riverbed. If we can succeed in doing that, the resulting flood should wash away the whole of the diggings."
He continued. "On the way to the diamond mine we shall look in at Puerto Guano. If we can catch the U-boat tied up at the jetty or in shallow water steaming out of the harbour, we have a good chance of sinking her. In deeper water, we'd need torpedoes or depth charges. I'm particularly anxious to sink her at the jetty if we can; the Argentinians will have nothing to shout about in terms of infringement of neutrality if they've got to explain how a German submarine came to be moored at an Argentinian naval facility. We'll go over high up - twenty thousand feet should do it - cut our engines and glide in towards Puerto Guano. If we see the U-boat, two Beaufighters will go down after it. Algy and Angus will pilot those machines, and Tug and Henry will fly with them as spare pilots and gunners. If they can't sink a submarine with four 1,000 pound bombs it deserves to get away. The other machines, led by me, will press on to the diamond mine."
"Do we go on with you after we've sunk the U-boat?" questioned Algy.
"I don't see much point if you don't have any bombs left," replied Biggles. "And I'm not expecting any substantial opposition as the Huns are down to one Messerschmitt 109 - unless they're in a position to call up reinforcements."
"You can't leave us out of the show," stated Tug.
"Very well," agreed Biggles. "The enemy have some anti-aircraft guns in place. They've lost their two senior officers, so the air defence may be disorganised but we can't count on that. You can concentrate on keeping their pom-pom guns busy while we knock over the diamond diggings."
He went on. "We have a fair idea of where the mine is - all we have to do is follow the Brizo Sur River up from Rio Gallegos. Ginger will come with me because he's flown over the ground before and he may recognise some landmarks. Bertie and Taffy will fly the other machines and Tex and Ferocity will fly with them. Our job will be to blow the dam up."
He glanced around. "Any questions?"
Ginger asked, "Are we going to make a dummy run over the dam?"
Biggles thought for a moment. "We shall have to," he said slowly. "We don't want to drown the Argentinian labourers if we can avoid it. We'll buzz the diggings, firing a few shots over their heads. That should persuade them to move off fairly sharpish."
"What's the next move after pranging the dam, sir?" asked Taffy.
"The main objective is the dam but any left-over bombs can be dumped on the enemy camp. We may as well shoot up their camp and airstrip while we're about it. But remember that we'll be at the limit of our range so we can't afford to mess around. When I give the signal everyone is to form in behind me and head home."
Biggles tapped the ash from his cigarette and looked around again. "Right, if that's all understood you had better get to bed early tonight," he concluded. "We'll leave at four am. I want to time our arrival at Puerto Guano for the hour after dawn."
"Why not before dawn, old boy?" inquired Bertie. "Isn't that the hour that has the reputation for being the best time to catch people napping?"
"We need enough daylight to see what we're doing," Biggles pointed out with gentle sarcasm.
"By Jove! Yes, I didn't think of that," confessed Bertie.
To Ginger, it seemed that he had been asleep for only a few minutes when he was awakened by the sudden bellow of an aero engine. A second, and then a third engine, joined it. He felt Algy prodding him. "Here, snap out of it," he said.
Ginger sat up. "What, again?" he moaned.
"Quit complaining. I always did hate the hour before dawn, ever since I was dragged out to fly before it was light in the old days in France - but I've been up for half an hour. Biggles said you could sleep for a bit longer."
"What about breakfast?"
"There'll be more time for that when we get back. There's coffee and biscuits in the mess. You'd better hurry, we leave the ground in five minutes."
Ginger scrambled out of bed and hastily pulled on his uniform. He gulped his coffee and ran out to the tarmac. Biggles was there, waiting, parachute slung over his shoulder. The rest of the squadron had already dispersed to their machines. It was still completely dark, and the stars twinkled clear and bright in a cloudless sky. A steady wind was blowing from the east, and the air was chilly.
"It's beastly cold," muttered Ginger, buffing his arms.
"You don't know the meaning of the word," bantered Biggles. "You should have been with me yesterday. This is a balmy tropical night by comparison."
Ginger looked at him with surprise. Biggles seemed to have recovered completely from what he had been through on the island on which he had been marooned. His endurance, when circumstances demanded it, was still to Ginger a thing to wonder at. From his physical appearance one would not have suspected it. It could only be, thought Ginger vaguely, a matter of brain over brawn.
A few minutes later the Beaufighters were in the air. In loose formation, always climbing, they headed west. Having climbed to twenty thousand feet, they levelled out and roared on through an empty sky. The atmosphere, although dark, was crystal clear, and Ginger surveyed it with the methodical thoroughness that is the result of long experience. The distance from Port Stanley to where he guessed the diamond mine to be, so far as he could ascertain from the map, was at least seven hundred miles. He expected that the Beaufighters, even at the steady cruising speed at which they were flying, would reach Puerto Guano in not much more than two hours time, and be at the diamond mine an hour or so later. He knew that Biggles had judged their time in order to arrive at the coast as soon after dawn as the light would permit good visibility.
Whichever way he looked, Ginger could see nothing but water. The water was unmarked by the wake of a single ship. Ginger thought that very few ships would be seen in these lonely waters in normal times, and wondered to what extent the war was responsible for sweeping the sea clean of shipping. Moodily, he contemplated the sea below. The thought struck him that it was the fourth time that he had crossed that desolate stretch of water in the past forty-eight hours.
Dawn was breaking in an extravagant flood of pink and gold when the Argentinian coastline came into sight. The five Beaufighters continued to roar on towards the land that now entirely filled the horizon ahead.
Ginger glanced to one side. Algy's machine swam into view. His mouth was opening and shutting as though he was gasping for breath and Ginger realised with amusement that he was singing. He looked to the other side and saw Bertie, his monocle still in his eye. Bertie caught his eye and made a funny face. The remaining two Beaufighters trailed behind, too far away for him to see the pilots'. He wondered if Angus was wearing his old regimental glengarry. Ginger decided that he was, simply because he always did. Oh well, he mused, it takes all sorts to make a war.
His attention was returned to the business at hand with a jolt as Biggles put his machine into a dive, not too steep, but enough to send the speed indicator soaring. The roar of the engines faded to a purr.
Biggles spoke quietly through the inter-communication telephone. "We may not deal the enemy a mortal wound today, but let's hope it sets up a nasty irritation."
Ginger looked about him with renewed interest as Rio Gallegos came into view, across a wide bay, and then Puerto Guano, a little further up the wide mouth of the Brizo Sur River.
"By gosh! There's the sub!" cried Ginger suddenly. "She's there, on the surface, steaming out of the port! We've got her!"
Biggles said nothing. The need did not arise, for he could see clearly the object that had provoked Ginger's exclamations. It was the submarine - or a submarine; and there could only be one under-water craft in the region of Puerto Guano.
Biggles spoke to the others over the radio. "Algy, Angus; down you go. We may as well stay and watch the fun." He turned away in a wide circle as Algy and Angus forged past, steepening their dives.
The two Beaufighters went down like a thunderbolt towards the sinister grey cigar-shaped vessel. Down - down - down they roared, with Algy in the lead. Not until he was within a few hundred feet of the water did he begin to pull out, in line with the length of the submarine. Ginger could see the gun crew feverishly loading the heavy gun on the bows of the submarine. Algy's guns blazed. Tracer bullets streaked like sparks of white fire, and the blazing balls that marked the trajectory of cannon shells followed them to the target. Several men fell, and the survivors abandoned their weapon and bundled into the conning-tower. The top closed and the U-boat began to submerge.
By this time Algy was over it. His bombs hurtled down, and the machine zoomed away swiftly. The U-boat had disappeared in a swirl of foam. Ginger saw a sheet of flame hurl a pillar of water high into the air, but well away from the spot where the U-boat had vanished beneath the water.
"A miss!" he muttered. "She's got away."
He spoke too soon. The other Beaufighter was sweeping in, low over the patch of swirling water that marked the place where the U-boat had submerged. Angus released his bombs and two great columns of smoke and spray shot upwards.
When the spray cleared the nose of the submarine, at right angles to the water and sliding down, was just disappearing. Ginger's heart beat a tattoo of excitement as he saw a tidal wave was leaping towards the shore and behind it a great flat patch of oil was spreading over the dark water. But for the evil looking oil stains there was nothing to show that, a minute or two before, a vessel had been there.
"What a show!" exclaimed Ginger triumphantly. "She must have been blown in halves."
"Short, but not very sweet," observed Biggles over the telephone. "Ah, well, that's war. That's what they've been handing out to unarmed merchant ships so they could hardly complain."
With a final glance at the wide patch of oil that marked the last resting-place of the U-boat, Biggles turned away, following the course of the Brizo Sur River. The other machines followed. Algy and Angus climbed up to join them.
The Beaufighters bored steadily west at cruising speed. Below, there was no sign of life or human habitation, apart from the occasional flock of sheep. A little to the north, the Brizo Sur lay like a silver ribbon across the brown of the pampas.
Presently Biggles spoke over the telephone again. "Do you recognise any land marks, Ginger?" he inquired.
Peering ahead, Ginger recognised a peak that rose like a blue tooth on the horizon. A yellowish puff of smoke rose from its summit at regular intervals. Looking down, he saw that the terrain had become rougher. "Yes," he replied. "Do you see that volcano? Head straight for it."
Biggles altered course a trifle to follow Ginger's instructions. Obediently, the other machines swung around to follow him.
Suddenly, the nose of the Beaufighter pointed down. Ginger did not have to look tw ice to see why. Below lay a silvery thread of water - a tributary of the Brizo Sur. Not far ahead it swelled into a larger body of water. A straight line indicated the dam wall.
Biggles spoke in the radio. "Tally-ho, boys! Tally-ho! There it is. Here we go! I'll have a shot at the dam. Bertie, Taffy - hang back and come in if I miss."
The Beaufighters roared down. Suddenly, short stabbing yellow flames appeared at several points and lines of white fire streamed upwards, but the shooting was only sporadic and came nowhere near the aircraft. Out of the corner of his eye Ginger saw Algy and Angus turn away from the formation and dive away towards the points where the flames had appeared.
Ginger's attention was fixed on the regular lines of trenches in the bed of the river below the dam and a couple of buildings that had been constructed near them. The ant-like figures of men could be seen scrambling out of the trenches and running out of the buildings. Biggles levelled out and flashed over the diggings, firing a short burst from his guns. The figures ran incontinently in different directions. Biggles circled to gain height and then, satisfied that most if not all of the Argentinian workers had fled the diggings, dived towards the dam. The aircraft seemed to jump an invisible object as its bombs hurtled downwards.
Ginger heard the roar of the explosion above the noise of the engines, he felt the machine surge upwards like a lift under its pressure, but for a moment he could see nothing owing to the cloud of spray that rose high in the air. Then, as it cleared, a cry of triumph broke from his lips.
"We've got it," he yelled exultantly.
The dam was no longer there. A twenty foot high wall of swirling foam was sweeping down the dry river bed. It toppled over as the pressure on its flanks was released, and spread itself out in a sea of tossing brown waves and coiling whirlpools.
The other Beaufighters were turning their attention to the nearby German camp and airstrip. The canvas hangars were in flames and there was no sign of the one remaining Messerschmitt 109. Ginger supposed that it had either not returned to the diamond mine, or that it had been destroyed on the ground. A pall of smoke was also rising from the camp buildings. The machines were diving through the smoke, their guns grunting. Men were running pell-mell for cover, some beating their jackets, which were alight, on the ground.
Ginger turned his eyes back to the site of the diamond diggings. The deluge had done even more damage than he had thought possible. In its first tremendous rush, it must have carried everything before it, for the river bed had been practically washed clean. Not a building was left standing. A quantity of planks and splintered wood had been scattered along the course of the flood. To add to the ruin, in places the water had evidently undermined the river banks, the sudden erosion causing landslides of masses of dirt and shingle.
Biggles called his machines together. "It's all buttoned up!" he shouted into the radio. "Time to go home."
The other Beaufighters converged on him at once and took up formation. Biggles climbed for height and set a course straight for Port Stanley. He proceeded on the return journey at what was, comparatively speaking, a leisurely pace. There was no need to work the engines hard when there was no immediate hurry. They reached the coast without incident and satisfied that all was well, Ginger relaxed and settled himself in his seat. Two hours later, with Port Stanley in view, Biggles gave the order for independent landing and one by one the Beaufighters glided down, in time for a late lunch.
That, really, is the end of the story. There is little more to tell beyond one or two details about which the reader may be curious. Within the week 666 Squadron was back at Rawlham, undertaking its regular duties. Biggles reported to Air Commodore Raymond of the Air Ministry, who congratulated him and his officers on the successful outcome of the mission. The Air Commodore also told him that arrangements were being made for compensation to be paid to the British & Imperial Pastoral Company for the loss of their Dragon and to the family of the Argentinian mechanic, Pedro, who had been killed at Vicuna. The terms of the charter of the Gosling that had been shot down governed the position with regard to its American owners.
"I hope there won't be any diplomatic repercussions," commented Biggles when he had finished his report. " The Argentines must be sore at losing so many of their machines. Their own fault, of course, for letting them get mixed up in a Nazi scheme, but they may not see it that way."
Raymond looked puzzled. "Don't you read the newspapers?"
"When I have time," replied Biggles.
"Then you should know what's going on."
"Why don't you tell me, sir, to save time?" suggested Biggles.
"On the same day that you destroyed the diamond mine, a pro-Nazi plot was uncovered in Argentina. Several influential people have gone to prison over it, and the Air Minister, Joachim del Vargos, has been forced to resign. Our Embassy in Buenos Aires hasn't heard a peep from the Argentinian government and they don't expect that they will."
"Well, that all seems entirely satisfactory," remarked Biggles, as he rose to his feet to make his departure. "Goodbye, sir."
"Goodbye, Bigglesworth - until next time."
As he reached the door Biggles hesitated for a moment. "Do our agents in Argentina have any news of Erich von Stalhein?" he asked.
The Air Commodore looked up from some papers on his desk that he had started to examine.
"No; and as he has been a headache to us for years I hope that we don't hear anything more of the fellow," he replied. "Why do you ask?"
Biggles shrugged. "No reason in particular, just curious," he replied vaguely.