Читать книгу Biggles in Mexico - W E Johns - Страница 5

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The sun blazed. It flayed the thirsty desert with bars of heat that knew no mercy, turning the arid north-west corner of Mexico into a glowing desolation. The air writhed and quivered under the relentless lash.

Over all hung an ominous calm. A sinister silence. A profound, smothering silence, as if all life had been blotted out. Nothing stirred except the heatwaves, which set some distant mountains dancing and the horizon shimmering like a restless sea.

There was no colour anywhere. All had faded in the devouring white light hurled down from a sky of burnished steel. Under it everything stood still and stark. The shadows of the saguaros,^[A] the giant cactuses which stood like the pillars of a lost civilization, were thin and pale. Some of these monstrous vegetables had lost their flesh, having had it pecked out by desperate birds of passage, so that only the skeleton remained.

[A]	See Glossary on page 184

With a blast of heat as from a furnace the fiery master overhead struck at everything without discrimination. The dull alkaline sand; the grey chaparral—the usual desert growths of mesquit, yucca, agave, cactus and sagebrush. It struck at the bleaching bones of creatures that had perished; at outcrops of sand-eroded rock; boulders and buttes; meaningless patterns of arroyos, gullies, and dried-up river beds that looked as if the tongues of stricken monsters had scoured the earth in a frenzied search for moisture.

It struck at the road that wound a sinuous course across the waste—if two ruts wriggling through the sand could be called a road. It struck at a heap of blistered wood and rusty metal, half buried in a drift of wind-blown sand, that had once been a motor-car. And it struck at a touring car which, grey with dust, crawled along the track towards the wreck.

There were two men in the car. Their faces, too, were grey with dust. Through it sweat had furrowed little lines. Even their friends would have found it hard to recognize Biggles of the Air Police, or his companion, Police Pilot Ginger Hebblethwaite.

For the most part they travelled in silence, their lips shut tight to conserve the natural saliva of their mouths. But coming to the abandoned automobile Biggles spoke. ‘This could be Tricky Adamson’s car. It’s a Ford and has a Californian number plate. It must be somewhere about here.’

‘Unless his tale was a lie.’

‘As you say, unless he lied; but I think he told the truth. The landscape conforms to what he said of it, anyway.’

‘And the heat,’ muttered Ginger.

Biggles stopped the car. They got out and walked to the wreck. As Biggles looked in the open window, with a squawk of fright a little owl flew out. Biggles made a brief inspection. ‘As one would expect, the car’s been stripped of anything worth taking. We shall find nothing here. Let’s press on.’

They returned to their own car.

As Biggles started it and moved forward Ginger said: ‘If anything goes wrong we’re likely to end up like that. We must have been out of our minds to tackle this run in a used car.’

‘You mean, I must have been,’ corrected Biggles. ‘The scheme was mine. I didn’t imagine anything like this. Maybe I should, but it’s always easy to foresee trouble after it’s happened. I allowed for a run of from two to three hours. Certainly not more than four. And, foolishly perhaps, I expected to find an occasional garage on the way. I know the map showed desert, but this track we’re on was marked as a road, as indeed it was till we got to the frontier.’

‘It’s been getting worse ever since. It looks as if it might peter out altogether. If it does we shall be in a mess. I should have gone lighter on those four bottles of mineral water we started with.’

‘We’re nearer to being in a mess than you realize,’ said Biggles, grimly.

‘I notice the radiator’s boiling.’

‘It isn’t that that worries me so much, although at the rate things are going we may need that water for drinking before we’ve finished.’

Ginger looked at Biggles face. ‘What’s the trouble?’

‘The clutch is slipping. I realized it as soon as we started on that first long hill. It’s been getting worse, fast, ever since, grinding through this infernal sand. No car could be expected to stand up to such treatment for long.’

‘What if we come to another hill?’

‘We couldn’t make it. She’d burn right out. It’s taking me all my time to keep her going on the level. I daren’t go any faster. In fact, I couldn’t. A few more miles of this and she’ll go altogether.’

‘I have a feeling we went wrong at that last fork. There was no signpost, you remember. Hadn’t we better turn back?’

‘No use.’

‘Why not?’

‘I couldn’t get her over that last hill. Our only chance now is to carry on and hope we don’t come to another.’

‘Assuming we’re on the right track, how far do you reckon we are from Eltora?’

‘Not less than thirty miles.’

‘As much as that! How do we go for petrol?’

‘All being well we might just do it. We started with ample—as I thought; but in this sort of going we’re doing less than ten to the gallon.’

After a short silence Ginger went on. ‘You know, there’s something ironic about this. We took Tricky’s tale about being lost in the desert with a pinch of salt. Now it begins to look more and more as if he was telling the truth. How else could he have known what sort of country this is?’

‘He wouldn’t get the information from a map, which is what I went on.’

‘We should have flown in.’

‘There were arguments against that, as I explained before we left home. A car seemed more in line for what we had to do. But it’s no use talking about that now.’

‘Hadn’t we better stop to let her cool down a bit?’

‘That would mean staying here half the night. How could she cool under this blistering sun? If we stop she may never start again.’

Suddenly the car lurched. The clutch whined. The engine stopped.

Without a word Biggles opened the door and got out. He walked round, looked at the wheels and came back.

‘We’re in soft sand,’ he announced, grimly. ‘The near-side wheel is in up to the axle. My fault. Talking, I let her wander out of the rut. That’s the only place where the sand’s hard.’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Ginger, as he got down.

‘Obviously, we shall have to try to get her out. What else can we do? Go behind and shove for all you’re worth when I accelerate.’

Ginger went to the back of the car and put a shoulder against it. ‘Okay. I’m ready,’ he called.

Biggles returned to his seat and started the engine. Three times he revved up. Sand flew from the spinning wheels, the clutch screaming in protest. But the car didn’t move forward an inch.

‘No use,’ said Biggles, getting out again. ‘I’m only digging the wheels farther in.’ He went round, and dropping on his knees clawed away much of the soft sand. Seeing what he was doing Ginger helped him. The cavities thus made they filled with stones and small pieces of rock.

‘Let’s try again,’ said Biggles.

Positions were resumed. The clutch screamed again, smoking. The wheels flung the stones out. The car refused to budge.

‘Hunt around for some brushwood,’ ordered Biggles.

With sweat streaming down his face Ginger went to a clump of withered sagebrush. A harsh rattle caused him to sidestep with alacrity.

‘What’s that?’ called Biggles.

‘Rattler.’

‘Be careful. In the mess we’re in if you got bitten you wouldn’t have a hope.’

‘You needn’t tell me,’ answered Ginger, caustically.

He watched the deadly snake glide away and then, collecting an armful of dead stuff returned to the car. He helped Biggles to tuck it under the wheels. Biggles fetched his mackintosh from the boot and pushed that under the wheel most deeply in, remarking sarcastically: ‘It doesn’t look as if I’m likely to need this.’

Ginger took up his position again at the back of the car.

‘Now,’ shouted Biggles.

The sticks flew out. The mac was torn to shreds. Blue smoke appeared. The air was full of the smell of hot oil. The car quivered, but remained stationary. Biggles switched off again.

‘No use,’ he said, getting out. ‘At this game we shall soon have no tyres left. This sand will cut through hot rubber like a file through butter.’ He sat on the running board and lit a cigarette.

Ginger mopped sweat from his face and joined him. ‘If some people I know could see us they’d laugh,’ he remarked, smiling.

Biggles smiled, too. ‘It isn’t really funny,’ he said. ‘It looks as if we have a thirty-mile walk in front of us. I’m nothing for walking at any time, but in this heat—’ he broke off, staring along the track in front of them. ‘Here comes someone,’ he went on. ‘If he’s a local maybe he can suggest something.’

The man, riding a weary-looking horse, came on, and presently drew level. He turned out to be a Mexican Indian, a sombrero on the back of his head. The ends of a red handkerchief, tied round his neck, dangled on a check shirt. A long thin cigar drooped from his lips. He carried a quirt. A lariat hung from his saddle. He stopped, looked at the car, smiled cynically and greeted the travellers in Spanish.

A rather difficult conversation ensued. Biggles explained the situation. Not that it needed much explaining. What had happened to the car was too obvious. He learned that the track would take them to Eltora, which was only about twenty miles on.

‘Twenty miles,’ groaned Ginger, still thinking of walking.

‘Seco, seco,’ said the Mexican, waving a hand towards the south.

‘We can see it’s dry, brother,’ murmured Ginger.

The man dismounted and quietly examined the car. Then he unhooked the coil of rope from his saddle, leaving one end fastened, and attached the other end to the front of the car. Remounting, he urged the horse forward until the rope was taut and then struck the animal a sharp blow on the flank with his quirt. The horse strained, and with a crunch of stones and twigs the car came clear.

‘Hooray,’ cried Ginger, huskily, through his dry lips.

‘Gracias. Muchas gracias, señor,’ acknowledged Biggles.

The Mexican smiled, flashing white teeth. He removed his lariat from the car, coiled it, and returning it to its place on the saddle, remounted. Raising his sombrero he murmured: ‘Buenos días, señors,’ and went on his way.

‘That’s better,’ said Biggles, getting into his seat.

‘Bit of luck for us he came along,’ answered Ginger, thankfully.

‘I’d call it more than a bit,’ returned Biggles. ‘It was a nice big slice. We’ll push on, anyhow for as far as she’ll take us. Every mile helps.’

He started the car, let in the clutch gently, and they proceeded on their way, slowly, Biggles keeping the wheels in the ruts and coaxing the car along to save the weakening clutch as much as possible.

‘I suppose I could be blamed for buying a second-hand car,’ he remarked, after a time, as they crawled along, leaving behind them a cloud of pale blue vapour. ‘As you know, I did it to save dollars. There didn’t seem any point in spending a lot of money on a brand-new car which we should only need for a short time. I tried this one and it seemed all right; but that, of course, was on a macadam road, a very different matter from this. I wasn’t expecting anything quite as rural. However, it’s done, so saying what we should have done won’t help matters.’

‘We’re doing fine,’ declared Ginger. ‘If that instrument is reliable we’ve covered close on ten miles since we stuck.’

There was another long silence. The sun still blazed from a sky now turning the colour of copper. The landscape remained unchanged except that Ginger thought he could see some rising ground ahead. He regarded it with misgivings. The car, with its clutch often complaining, slowly ate its way through the miles.

‘If that fellow who helped us knew what he was talking about we should soon be in Eltora,’ remarked Ginger, cheerfully.

‘We’ve done twenty miles since then, but as you can see for yourself there’s nothing in sight except more desert. He probably meant well, but I suspect his idea of mileage was a bit wide of the mark. Is it my imagination or does the ground begin to slope up in front of us? It’s hard to see in this dazzle.’

Ginger stared ahead. ‘It’s a hill, but it doesn’t look very steep.’

‘It may be too steep for us. This old crock won’t take much more. Hark at her! She’ll need a new set of gears by the time we get to Eltora. Even if there is a garage it’s unlikely they’ll stock spare parts.’

They came to the foot of a long, gentle slope. Ginger grimaced at the noise the car was making. He looked back. ‘She’s smoking like stink,’ he informed Biggles. ‘She’ll go on fire if you keep on.’

Biggles didn’t answer. He did all he knew, but it was no use. Half-way up the slope, on a rather steep section, the screaming clutch packed up. The car stopped. Biggles switched off and mopped his perspiring face. ‘That’s it,’ he announced laconically.

There was a short silence.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Ginger.

‘That’s easy to answer,’ returned Biggles. ‘We can sit here or we can get out and walk.’

‘Walk! In this heat? With the luggage?’

‘If you decide to walk you’d better forget about the luggage. Eltora isn’t even in sight.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Stay here. It’ll be dark presently.’

‘That means it will at least be cooler.’

‘It also means that if you got off this track you might never find it again. In that case you’ll have had it; make no mistake about that. You couldn’t last a day, on your feet, in this desert.’

‘If we stay we’re here for the night.’

‘We should still be on the track in the morning. Somebody may come along.’

‘We’ve done some trips in our time but this is one I shall remember,’ murmured Ginger.

Biggles lit a cigarette.

Sitting on the running board they watched the sun sink behind the distant mountains, filling the world with a crimson unreality. The moon, a gigantic yellow orb, soared into view.

‘A thought has just occurred to me,’ said Ginger.

‘What is it?’

‘If that fellow was wrong about the distance to Eltora he might just as well be wrong about the road. This may lead nowhere.’

‘That,’ said Biggles, getting up and putting his foot on an enormous black spider that was trying to get into the car, ‘would be just too bad.’ Suddenly he laughed softly.

‘What’s the joke?’ asked Ginger, surprised.

‘If you remember, when the chief sent for me to discuss this affair, you were fancying yourself in the Wild West.’

‘Well?’

‘Now you’re there I hope you’re enjoying it, that’s all,’ said Biggles.