Chapter 7
Ginger Misses The Boat
Unaware of the events unfolding back at the hotel, Ginger stuck like glue to Mrs Petersen. He was helped by the fact that she seemed to like his company but it irritated him that he also seemed to attract Mary-Lou Markham like a wasp to a honey pot and try as he might, he could not shake her off. His reticence and reserve under her barrage of questions had clearly piqued her curiosity. Or perhaps, he thought, like many Americans, she was intrigued by a title. He bitterly regretted Biggles' idea of his impersonating Algy's sister.
They toured the Louvre in a large group with a guide, imbibing the cultural atmosphere and finishing by admiring the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa.
"Gee, it's kinda small," observed Mary-Lou loudly as they looked at the painting, thus somewhat unfairly reinforcing Ginger's mental stereotype of Americans on cultural tours, since it was a not uncommon reaction on first seeing the masterpiece.
When they left the museum and art gallery a coach transferred them to the quay from which the pleasure trip was to depart. Ginger was relieved to be able to get some respite from the American who was trying his patience, as for some reason best known to herself she decided to forsake him and sit at the back. He chose a seat near the front and was not worried that Greta had also moved to the back of the coach. Nothing was likely to happen while they were cooped up together like this, he thought, the danger would probably come when they were on the street, or transferring to the boat, but he tried to maintain his vigilance nonetheless. He slipped his shoes off to ease his aching feet. The heels he was wearing were not high, but they were slightly higher than he was used to and after being on his feet most of the morning he was beginning to feel the strain in his calf muscles.
On such small details do important things often depend. If Ginger had not been delayed finding his right shoe, which had worked its way under the seat in front, he would not have been close to Mary-Lou when the kidnappers struck.
As it was, he left the coach just behind the American and was about to overtake her to catch up Greta Petersen when he was pushed roughly aside by two men who seized Mary-Lou by the arms and dragged her towards a waiting car.
Startled, he leaped forward and clung on to one of the men. While they struggled Mary-Lou fought the other abductor like a demon. She was fumbling in her handbag but had it knocked out of her hands.
"Dépêchez-vous! Amenez-les, toutes les deux! Ne gaspillez pas le temps! Allez! Allez!" cried a voice from the car and Ginger found himself being bundled into the back seat along with the American. He put up only a token resistance as that suited his purpose very well. He was pushed violently onto the seat beside Mary-Lou and the second kidnapper crammed in beside him. He was short and swarthy with a livid scar on his right cheek. To Ginger's disgust, he reeked of garlic.
The doors were slammed and the car roared off. Ginger did not know Paris all that well, but he could work out that they were headed north. Several times his heart was in his mouth as they narrowly escaped collisions in the heavy traffic. Mary-Lou, after protesting loudly and being told in heavily accented English to shut up, subsided.
Ginger asked in his best French what would happen to them, but got a similar response to Mary-Lou, except that it was given in the same language as he had used to ask the question.
There was silence for some minutes before Mary-Lou soberly thanked him for trying to help and asked him tentatively what he thought would happen.
Ginger confessed frankly that he had no idea but he supposed that the kidnappers would ask for a ransom. To his dismay, Mary-Lou started to cry. "My poor Cy," she wailed. "Whatever will he do without me?"
Ginger was at a loss to answer her. Eventually she stopped sobbing, much to his relief. He tried to get his thoughts in order. Surely the wrong person had been taken, he told himself. Then it struck him that perhaps after all it was their reasoning that was at fault. If it had been sheer coincidence about Greta, Mary-Lou was the right victim after all. In that case, he pondered, Biggles would be shadowing the wrong man, just has he had concentrated on the wrong woman.
They had reached the northern périférique and were still heading generally north. Ginger tried to picture the area as he had flown over it in order to get some idea of their possible destination. He recognised the signs for Clichy and St Denis and then realised they were headed for Rouen. At first he had thought they might be making for Beauvais where he knew there was an airfield, having used it several times, but that hope was dashed as they turned off the A16. Then he remembered Boos and the small aero-club field near the Norman city.
They would have to be hidden somewhere, he thought. What better way to get them out of the country than by air, otherwise they would have stayed on the motorway and made all speed for the frontier. It would have been a simple matter to keep them quiet at the toll booths. At least one of the kidnappers was armed, he knew, having seen the handle of a pistol protruding from a holster under the armpit of the man sitting next to him, although no weapon had been brandished so far.
He settled back to watch the road and eventually his conjecture was confirmed as they turned in through the white-painted wire mesh gates that led to the small airfield and drove up to a hangar.
"Get out!" ordered the man in the front passenger seat, gesturing with a small automatic.
They complied and stood next to the car. The driver remained in his seat. The taller of the two kidnappers, the man who had been sitting in the front passenger seat, looked at his watch. "Merde!" he exclaimed, which Ginger took to mean either that he was expecting someone who had not yet turned up or that they had taken much longer to get to their destination than expected. Judging by the speed at which they had travelled, he thought the former supposition more likely.
"Ils sont en retard," remarked the man with the scar, which confirmed for Ginger that they were indeed waiting for others to turn up, but whether the expected party would arrive by land or air he had no way of knowing. He wondered how long they would be kept standing around and whether there might be any opportunity of getting a message to Biggles.
He looked round. The airfield seemed to be deserted. In the hangar by which they were standing he could just glimpse a small single-engined monoplane. With the distinctive V angle of its tail planes he recognised it as a Beechcraft Bonanza. He was just about to ask if he could go inside, although he knew it was unlikely that he would be allowed to, when the sound of a car being hard driven reached their ears. He also thought he heard the far-off clatter of rotors, but although he looked up, he could not see anything.
"Enfin!" exclaimed the taller kidnapper and walked forward to meet the Peugeot that raced through the gates. After the car had screeched to a halt there was a rapid discussion in French which Ginger had difficulty following, but which he thought had something to do with his unexpected presence on the scene. He got the distinct impression that the newcomers were not pleased to find an extra captive as it threw out their calculations, while his abductors were justifying their actions in terms of extra ransom and the exigencies of the circumstances at the time of the snatch. He watched with interest to see which way the balance swung.
If they were not greedy enough to want the extra ransom he represented, he thought, he could be disposed of quite easily in the back of the hangar and dropped out of the Bonanza over the sea. After much argument and shrugging of shoulders, the verdict seemed to go his way. 'Thank heavens for greed,' he thought. He still fancied he could hear rotor blades and scanned the sky quickly. Far away, he saw a helicopter, low down on the horizon, that seemed to be making for Le Havre.
The occupants all got out of the Peugeot. When Professor Markham heaved himself out, his wife yelled, "Cy!" and rushed over to hug him. He seemed equally glad to see her and gave her a bear hug in return.
One of the new arrivals, a broad-shouldered man with a dapper moustache walked over to the hangar and started opening the doors. Ginger wondered if he was the pilot.
He watched as the aircraft was wheeled out and the man with the moustache did the visual pre-flight checks. Ginger thought it would be interesting to say the least if the pilot had not done much flying in a heavily laden Bonanza before. He looked at Professor and Mrs Markham and estimated that they each weighed at least 170lbs. The pilot looked about 150lbs and he himself weighed just under 130. He knew that the fuel was in front of the empty centre of gravity and the loaded CG would burn aft. In theory, therefore, the two people who should be sitting in the back seats were the only ones who knew how to pilot the plane - unless the Professor and his wife had a licence. It left him with a dilemma. Should he say nothing and allow a potentially lethal situation to develop, or should he protest and reveal that he could fly? He decided to say nothing for the moment and see how things developed.
It was the professor, actually a rocket specialist but like many Americans familiar with light aircraft although not a pilot himself, who provided the solution to the problem by commenting that one of his friends had a machine like that. "Chuck won't take four people in it," he pointed out. "He says it makes the balance go crazy. He told me it's to do with the shape of the tail. How are they going to manage the three of us and the pilot? Hey buddy!" he called to the pilot. "You done your calculations? You know how much we all weigh?"
Just to make sure the message got home, Ginger translated it into French. Clearly the pilot had not appreciated the situation before, because when it had been pointed out to him and the weight and gravity problem became apparent, there was a rapid consultation among the gang. Opinion seemed to be sharply divided. Ginger thought ironically as they argued amongst themselves that he was the one person whom it would not be any advantage to leave behind, as he was the lightest.
