Chapter 24
Slow Progress
When Biggles left Algy to go back to the quarry floor, he had no fixed plan in mind. His appearance did not elicit any undue attention from the other guards so he surmised that the man he was replacing had been in the habit of sloping off, probably for an illicit smoke, from time to time.
Biggles worked his way across to where the professor was hammering a feather and wedge into a block of stone to split it.
"Don't look round," he warned the scientist, "I have come to take you back to England."
The professor stiffened for a moment at the shock of being addressed in English. Then the import of the message penetrated his brain. "What!" he exclaimed in the same language.
"Keep working," Biggles warned him. "Don't attract attention to yourself."
The professor swung his sledgehammer once more. As the metal wedge was driven into the stone, he glanced across at the man who had addressed him. His brow wrinkled in puzzlement when he saw it was a guard. "Who are you?" he asked as he worked. "How did you get here?"
"My name is Bigglesworth; I've been sent from London to get you away."
The professor's shoulders drooped and he sighed. "You are a brave man, Herr Bigglesworth, but you are wasting your time. I cannot abandon my family. The Nazis have taken them. I do not know where they are, but I know they are hostages. The Nazis are using them to try to force me to continue my work."
"That isn't true," Biggles assured him, "your wife and daughter are both safe with my colleagues. I intend to get you away from here when we go back to the camp at the end of the day and then you will all be reunited."
"Naomi? Becca?" the professor queried. "They are well?"
Biggles reassured him that they were.
"When they told me that my family was in custody," the professor informed him, his voice shaking with emotion. "I wanted to die. They have tried to force me to work for them, but I will not see my engines used by these beasts. I have refused – that is why I am here in the quarry. They hope it will break my spirit."
"They lied to you," averred Biggles. "My partner managed to get them both away before the SD came for them. They are both safe and will accompany us to England."
"How can I believe you?" the professor asked dejectedly as the stone finally split under a despairing blow. "There are so many lies told it is impossible to sort the truth from the falsehoods."
Biggles acknowledged the truth of the situation. "I can only prove to you I have spoken to your daughter," he confessed. "She told my colleague that she wanted to study law at university but she was not allowed to do so because of the Race Laws and that this would be a way of convincing you."
The professor gathered together the stones he had broken then nodded. "Only our family knew that," he admitted before asking, "how can I trust you? It could be a trick."
Biggles sighed with exasperation, but he could not blame the man for being sceptical.
"What have you got to lose?"
The professor considered this for a moment. He looked at Biggles and made up his mind. "I think you are telling the truth," he concluded. "You do not look like a man who will lie easily." He picked up the metal tools and inserted them into another block of stone. "How will you do this?" he queried. "The guards are armed."
"So am I," countered Biggles. "They won't be expecting trouble," he continued, "and I am not acting on my own; I have two comrades working their way to the top of the cliff as we speak. Your daughter is with them. I also have an aeroplane hidden waiting to fly you back home. Your wife is safe there with my mechanic."
The professor stopped for a moment and put his head in his hands. "I cannot believe it," he whispered. "It has been a nightmare." Straightening up, he took up the sledgehammer once more and swung it at the slab of stone. "They threatened to do dreadful things to my family if I did not co-operate," he told Biggles with anguish in his voice, "but I could not see my work used to further their ends."
While this conversation had been taking place, Biggles had continued to survey the quarry floor. There was a continual flow of prisoners breaking stones and hauling them up the steep pathway that climbed the face of the cliff. The guards strolled about, occasionally striking a prisoner for no more apparent reason than as a means of spurring him to greater effort. One in particular, a fat square-headed brute, seemed to take particular delight in this diversion. Biggles watched him, his eyes like flint, and vowed that he would make the man regret his cruelty as soon as he got the opportunity.
From time to time, a bottleneck formed. The prisoners who had stopped hewing stone formed a long line, queuing up to carry the large blocks up the steps to the top of the cliff. As far as Biggles could make out, the guards took it in turns to supervise the heart-bursting journey up the hundred odd steps and it became obvious to him that if he were to avoid suspicion, he would have to take his turn. If he was sickened by the effort imposed on the malnourished inmates, he was more distressed by the inhuman treatment his fellow guards meted out on that punishing climb. His mouth grew grim and he forced himself to keep a tight rein on his feelings. He ruthlessly suppressed the burning desire to give the men a taste of their own medicine as he witnessed the brutal beatings the prisoners were subjected to, consoling himself with the knowledge that their time would come.
Biggles looked at his watch. It was almost time for a return to the camp, he estimated. The others should have been able to get into position unless they had met with some unforeseen setback. As he had no way of knowing if they had, he decided his only option was to proceed as planned.
His eyes still on the activity on the quarry floor, he warned the professor it was time to start making his way up the staircase.
"I will stay as close to you as I can," murmured Biggles, "but I may not be able to protect you from the other guards."
"I am used to it," the professor told him as he shouldered a lump of rock. "I shall try to keep away from Bauer. He is the worst."
"He's the square-headed Prussian at the foot of the pathway?" asked Biggles.
The professor followed his gaze and confirmed it was. "He is a nasty piece of work," he told Biggles in a low voice. "He has been responsible for many deaths already."
"I'll remember that," vowed Biggles quietly as he followed the professor to the end of the line of prisoners.
Bauer was towards the head of the line, strutting past the prisoners, lashing out as the whim took him. The crocodile of human flotsam moved forward in a slow shuffle with the professor and Biggles bringing up the rear. Biggles could feel the strain on his muscles as he climbed and he was carrying nothing heavier than the sub-machine gun. What the effect on the prisoners was, laden with stone, he could only guess. Ahead there were occasional shouts and the sound of blows as a prisoner collapsed. The stream of cowed humanity wound its way inexorably upward. Just before Biggles breasted the summit, a bundle of rags flew past him into space, flung from the top of the cliff. He watched its flight, as it turned over and over. His puzzlement turned into revulsion as he realised it was a body.
"Good grief!" he muttered through clenched teeth. "What sort of men are these?"
"They are Nazis," the professor panted. "Sometimes they force people to jump. It is called the Angel's Leap."
"It may be a leap," observed Biggles trenchantly, "but there are no angels here."
"I fear you are right," agreed the professor sadly as they emerged onto the plateau at the top of the steps.
