Читать книгу Biggles Flies Again - W E Johns - Страница 6

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Biggles, dreaming that he had been seized by an alligator, sat bolt upright under the wing of the machine where he had made his bed, and gazed stupidly at a circle of hostile faces glaring at him. He yawned, shifted his gaze to where the rising sun had turned the sheltered stretch of water into a pool of carmine and gold, and smiled grimly as his eyes fell on a yacht standing close in to the shore. He recognized it for the one he had last seen in the harbour at Georgetown. A dinghy was drawn up on the beach.

“So here you are,” he smiled.

“Quit grinning and get on your feet,” snarled a man in sailor’s uniform, evidently the leader of the shore party.

Algy lazily opened one eye and then sat bolt upright as if he had been stung by a scorpion. “Good heavens!” he gasped. “What’s all this?”

“Come on, step out, baby,” snapped the man in uniform, drawing an automatic.

“You’ll hurt yourself with that thing one of these days,” observed Biggles seriously, as he rolled out from under the wing-tip and stood up, yawning. “What a lovely day.”

What followed happened so quickly that even Algy, who was prepared for something of the sort, could hardly believe it. Biggles’s right hand shot out and slashed a handful of sand straight into the man’s eyes. He leapt sideways like a cat as the automatic exploded, and then forward; his left hand took the man in the pit of the stomach, and as he doubled up with a gasping groan Biggles, the automatic in his hand, swung up to face the rest just as they started forward. They stopped dead as they saw the squat muzzle covering them.

“Well, and now what is it all about?” he asked coldly. “Have you bought this place or——?”

His voice died in his throat as, glancing to one side, his eyes fell on a vision of blonde loveliness standing beside an elderly man in white ducks.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” he went on when he had recovered from his surprise, “for this unseemly bickering; I had no idea——” He tossed the weapon carelessly into the undergrowth and turned to the man beside the girl. “Having disturbed my party, sir, may I suggest that you introduce yourself and state your business in a manner less suggestive of the methods employed by the gentlemen who once frequented this coast,” he concluded icily.

“My name is Hollinger, Cyrus P. Hollinger, of Tonville, Illinois, U.S.A.,” replied the man, looking rather uncomfortable.

“Mine’s Bigglesworth—James C. Bigglesworth, of nowhere in particular,” replied Biggles lightly. “Meet my young and irresponsible friend, the Honourable Algernon Montgomery Lacey, of Merioneth Towers, Merioneth, Merionethshire; if you don’t believe it you can ask him yourself. Algy, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Hollinger and—may I presume?—thank you—Miss Hollinger. I fear I cannot offer you much in the way of hospitality,” he went on, “but we have some good coffee.”

“That’s fine,” broke in Mr. Hollinger, “but where is that rascally steward of mine?”

“Steward, was he?” nodded Biggles. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know where he is. He went off to sleep by himself, but I fancy he must have seen you coming.”

Mr. Hollinger dismissed his crew, and over an excellent breakfast on the beach, supplied by the ship’s galley, the story soon unfolded itself.

“He must have overheard me discussing the wreck with my daughter,” exclaimed Mr. Hollinger, “and the sight of your aircraft gave him the idea of slipping along first—and he might have got away with it, too, had there been anything to take.”

“But isn’t there some gold here?” asked Biggles quickly.

“There should be, but I’ve made a hobby of hunting these things out all my life and I’ve never found any yet.”

“Do you mean to say I’ve shifted all that sand for nothing?” cried Algy, aghast.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” laughed the American. “By the way, what are you boys doing with an airplane in this out-of-the-way part of the world?”

Briefly, Biggles explained what had happened, and the old man listened in amazement to his story, laughing loudly at Algy’s interpolated comments on the character of the Oil Investment Company of British Guiana.

“Well, it was a blow to lose our pay,” Biggles concluded, “but it’s some satisfaction to know that we’ve done the Company out of the machine.”

Mr. Hollinger laughed, it seemed to Biggles immoderately, at the story of how it had been obtained. “Well, let’s go and see if there’s anything worth salving in the wreck,” exclaimed the American at last, rising.

Many hands soon made light work of the operations, and by evening the skeleton of the once proud ship lay stark and gaunt on the beach. They found nothing, not a coin or a relic of any description. Algy’s piece of eight was the sum total of the proceeds.

“My word, I’m glad you turned up,” breathed Algy fervently to Isobel Hollinger, as he looked at the huge excavation. “If I’d done that and got nothing at the end of it I should have crawled away and given myself up to the alligators.”

“Yes, it is disappointing,” admitted Mr. Hollinger, “particularly as by coming here I have missed the chance of a big deal. I should have been in Peru by the twentieth and it’s the fifteenth now. Can’t be done.”

“Where do you want to go?” asked Biggles suddenly.

“Lima.”

“Lima! Speaking from memory, that is a fair step from here, but it might be done,” said Biggles.

“Impossible! My yacht only steams at twenty knots.”

“What about that?” Biggles pointed to the “Vandal”.

“Say! I never thought of it,” muttered Mr. Hollinger. “I wonder how far it is?”

“I’m not thinking so much of the distance as of the difficulty of getting fuel on the way,” said Biggles, as they made their way to the dinghy in order to examine the map in the chart-room of Hollinger’s yacht, the Sea Dream. “We’ve an endurance range of about seven hundred miles, and we could carry some spare fuel with us. We can follow the Pan American route via Port of Spain, Maracaibo, and Panama, and then down the other side via Buenaventura, I believe it goes. It’s about three thousand five hundred miles, for a rough guess, and, bar accidents, we could do it if we started at dawn tomorrow.”

“I’ll risk it; the yacht can follow on!” cried the American enthusiastically. “I’ll pay expenses and a thousand dollars if you get me through.”

“Good!” cried Biggles delightedly. “Come on, Algy, let’s run over the machine and slip down to Georgetown for a full load of fuel.”

Just before noon, four days later, the “Vandal” touched its wheels lightly on Las Palmas aerodrome at Barranco, near Lima.

“Well, you boys, I’m very much obliged to you,” smiled Mr. Hollinger as he climbed out of the machine and handed Biggles an envelope. “Here are the dollars I promised you, and the pay-cheques you failed to receive from the Oil Company.”

“Pay-cheques!” exclaimed Biggles in surprise. “What’s that got to do with you?”

“I’m the managing director,” grinned Hollinger, backing away. “I suspected our Agent in Georgetown was crooked, so I ran down to see. That’s really why I was there. See you later!”