Читать книгу Biggles of the Special Air Police - W E Johns - Страница 5

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The following morning, with the mystery of the gauntlet still unsolved, Biggles was back at the studios, for this was the day scheduled for the final all-important combat sequence. There was a good deal of activity on the tarmac. The Moth which was to serve as the camera-plane was standing near the Spitfire and the Messerschmitt that were to do the “fighting”. Two black camera-trucks, looking like futuristic ray-guns, manoeuvred experimentally. A fire-tender and ambulance stood by, engines already ticking over. Everything looked real—uncomfortably so, thought Biggles. Even the cans of films that technicians were handling looked like drums of ammunition.

Gainsforth came bustling up, using strong language.

“Now what’s the matter?” inquired Biggles.

“It’s Petersen.”

“What about him?”

“He hasn’t turned up. What can the fool be doing?”

“I wouldn’t know. Have you tried his hotel?”

“Of course. He isn’t there. They don’t know where he is. They say someone phoned him up late last night. He went out and hasn’t been seen since.” Gainsforth groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. He pointed at the sky. “Here come the clouds. The Met. people at the Air Ministry say the weather may break any time now. If we don’t finish the job this morning, we shall miss the entry date for the Festival.”

“You’ll have to get a substitute pilot,” suggested Biggles.

“There’s no time for that. It would mean more rehearsals. Besides, he would have to be insured, and all that sort of thing. I gave Petersen everything he asked for; now he leaves me high and dry. Curse the fellow!” Gainsforth started, and looked at Biggles as if an idea had just struck him. “I wonder....”

Biggles knew what was coming. He looked at Gainsforth suspiciously. “Go on, finish it,” he invited sarcastically.

“I was wondering if you’d help me out of the jam by flying in Petersen’s place. You know just what we’ve got to do.”

“Why should I risk my neck for a strip of celluloid?” inquired Biggles coldly.

“Risk your neck!” Gainsforth looked incredulous. “Don’t say you’re losing your nerve!”

Biggles did not reply to the taunt. He was thinking fast.

A voice behind broke in “Nerves? What is this talk? No one would question the famous Bigglesworth’s courage.” Thea Hertz walked up.

Biggles dropped his cigarette and put his foot on it. He did not like the trend of the conversation, but still he said nothing.

The film-star shrugged her shoulders. “If we do not finish today someone will have to take my place in the Messerschmitt,” she told Gainsforth. “I have to fill another contract in Germany in two days. You knew that from the beginning, yet you let the picture get behind schedule.”

“Okay—okay,” cried Gainsforth desperately. “Don’t rub it in. I was just asking Bigglesworth——”

“But why should he bother? What is so important to us means nothing to him.”

They were standing near the Messerschmitt. Thea Hertz leaned against the fuselage and allowed a casual finger to follow the lines of the black gauntlet.

Biggles stared. The curious thought struck him that the mystery of the gauntlet was on the point of being solved. He couldn’t imagine how. But he would soon settle the matter.

“All right,” he said curtly. “I’ll fly the Spitfire.”

“Thanks a million, old boy.” Gainsforth wrung his hand.

The film-star inclined her head in a little formal bow of acknowledgment.

While Biggles was getting into Petersen’s flying kit Gainsforth ran over the final technical arrangements. “You’ll be in touch with Thea by two-way radio,” he explained. “She thought it would be a good idea. Your guns are loaded with dummy tracer that leave a vapour trail which the cameras will pick up. It’s quite harmless. Don’t forget the camera-plane above you and don’t forget to switch on your own cameras. They’re mounted under your guns and are automatic. I hope you’ll get close enough to each other for the telephotos to register the expressions on your faces.”

“I’ll get close enough,” promised Biggles, in a curious voice.

From outside came the familiar hum and clatter of aircraft engines warming up.

In a few minutes all three machines were in the air. At five thousand feet Biggles flattened out and looked around. Just above him was the Moth, bristling with cameras, still climbing sluggishly. The Messerschmitt, with its Swastika-decorated wings, was coming up below him. A faint smile crossed Biggles’ face as he found himself instinctively taking counter-action, and then realised that this battle, unlike the others in his experience, would not begin until both pilots were ready.

The film-star’s voice, coming over the radio, broke into his thoughts. “Are you ready?”

“Okay,” answered Biggles, and switched on his cameras.

Again came the voice of the Messerschmitt pilot; and at the words it spoke the smile of anticipation on Biggles’ face froze into a mask.

“You remember the black gauntlet, Herr Bigglesworth?” came the cold, dispassionate voice. “It belonged to my brother. I saw you shoot him down. I, too, was working on the American aerodrome that day—for the Führer.”

“Now listen—wait a minute——” Biggles started to protest, but the voice interrupted.

“I have waited a long time for today, Herr Bigglesworth. What you did to him I’m going to do to you—and this silly, childish film. When I have finished with you I shall drop my incendiaries on the studios and fly to my friends in Eastern Germany. I’ll admit I have a slight advantage over you. The bullets in my guns are real ones. That’s all.” There was a click and the voice plugged out.

With the mystery banished and the situation in plain view Biggles’ reactions inclined more to sorrow than anger; sorrow that the woman should have nursed her hatred for an event that had occurred in the normal course of war. He was sorry, too, that she had cut the radio, or he could have pleaded for sanity. For a brief moment he entertained the thought that she did not mean what she said; that she was only trying to scare him; but when he saw the nose of the Messerschmitt swing round to get on his tail, he decided to take no chances.

He was not particularly alarmed; at least, not on his own account; for he could not believe that the combat experience of his opponent was equal to his own. What he feared most was the loss of life that would result if bombs were dropped on the studios. Tragedy of some sort seemed inevitable. And the curious thing was, he could not see that it would have made any difference had his own guns been loaded with live cartridges; for even in these circumstances he would not have used them against a woman. The question was, how long could he go on taking evading action without being hit? He knew he could not outfly the Messerschmitt in the matter of speed or height, for in these respects its performance was rather better than that of his early type of Spitfire. In the matter of endurance, too, the Messerschmitt probably held the advantage, for if the woman intended going on to Germany she would have seen that her tanks were filled to capacity.

The combat proceeded on more or less orthodox lines, and it was soon revealed, as he suspected, that the girl was not so adept at the game as she may have supposed. Test pilotage was one thing; combat-flying was another matter altogether. In the real thing, the Messerschmitt could have been shot down a dozen times; and Biggles tried to make this apparent, hoping that the woman would perceive the folly of what she was doing. But no. Round and round they waltzed, with the white chalk-lines made by the tracer-bullets cutting geometrical patterns against the blue sky. Biggles could imagine the spectators on the ground applauding the realism of the duel.

It is not to be supposed that Biggles found this being hunted about the atmosphere to his liking. Diving, zooming, banking, jinking, his concern began to give way to irritation. There was this about it, he thought grimly. Gainsforth would have a good picture—if the Spitfire, with its cameras, survived.

Once, after an upward roll, Biggles dived on the Messerschmitt from above and behind while the woman was still looking down for him. His airscrew was only a matter of yards from her tail. As his shadow fell across her she looked back and at the expression of thwarted fury on her face he was shocked and amazed. Such hatred was something beyond his understanding. His muscles set and his lips came together in a hard line. “All right, my fine lady,” he muttered. “If that’s how you want it, come on.” He threw the Spitfire on its side and sideslipped earthward like a stone. In his reflector he could see the Messerschmitt following.

There was a stampede on the ground as the Spitfire tore low across the airfield and shot between the hangars. Behind were some isolated poplars. He passed between them, turned about in his own length, and came back. Again he was behind his opponent while she was still looking for him. When she did see him, however, she spun round in a turn so reckless that for a moment collision seemed inevitable. Biggles’ lips went dry as he realised that the woman, in her raging fury, was prepared to kill herself if she could kill him at the same time.

In a way, this thought was responsible for the end of the affair. He had no intention of allowing his tail to be chewed off by the Messerschmitt’s airscrew. Jinking almost at ground level to confuse the woman as to the course he intended taking, he suddenly found himself confronted by a line of telegraph-wires. He went straight on under them, and then, coming round in a climbing turn, was just in time to see the end.

The Messerschmitt behaved as though the wires did not exist, which convinced him, as he afterwards asserted, that the pilot never saw them; or, if she did, it was too late to do anything about it. She was, he thought, looking at him at the time. In any event, the Messerschmitt hit the wires. Exactly what happened was not easy to observe, but it appeared that the aircraft started to zoom, with the result that it missed the wires with its nose, but caught them under one of its elevators. It staggered, snapping off two posts, came down on a wing-tip and cartwheeled. By a miracle it came to rest right side up.

Biggles sideslipped down, made one of the riskiest landings of his career, and raced tail up for the spot. Jumping down he ran on wildly, for a cloud of vapour, caused as he knew by petrol running over the hot engine, told him what was likely to happen. One spark would be enough.

He was only a few yards away when the crumpled figure in the cockpit came to life. Two things were photographed on his brain: narrow, carmine-painted lips, and the black circle of a pistol-barrel.

“Don’t shoot!” he yelled, and flung himself flat, knowing what must happen if she did.

A split-second later the vicious whoof of exploding petrol half drowned the report of the pistol. With his hands over his face Biggles backed away from the fearful heat. There was nothing he could do. The fire-tender and ambulance raced up. There was nothing they could do, either.

Sick at heart, Biggles turned and walked away.