Then, side by side, they ran for their lives. There were shouts behind them, but they did not stop. They ran until they reached a wood, into which they plunged, gasping for breath, and then paused to consider the position. It was just about as unpleasant as it could be. The place was dripping with moisture and it was bitterly cold. Angus"s teeth were already chattering, for his uniform had been by no means dry when he had put it on at the farm-house. There was nothing they could do about it, so they pressed on into the heart of the wood, where they crouched until it was pitch dark, hardly speaking a word.
Angus was still livid with rage. His com panion apologized profusely, and declared in a hollow voice that he was "desolated". Finally, moved by a common impulse, they returned to the edge of the wood and found themselves in a narrow lane.
Suddenly Nutty started. He clutched Angus by the arm. "The Heinkel," he muttered. We will capture it. I will yet fly you to Rawlham!"
Angus uttered a low, hoa.r.s.e laugh. "Ye will, ha? Not on your life. Ye"re not flying me anywhere."
Nevertheless, there seemed to be something in Nutty"s idea, and he regarded him with a new respect. He had no intention of letting him fly him to Rawlham - or anywhere else for that matter; but if they could manage to get hold of the machine they might yet escape. He might even reach the squadron that night.
Come on, we may as well try it," he announced presently.
They set off in the direction of the aerodrome. It was nervy work, and more than once they had to crouch shivering in the bottom of a ditch or in soaking undergrowth, while unseen pedestrians pa.s.sed them in the darkness.
With the stealth of Red Indians on the warpath they crept towards their objective. In his heart Angus felt certain that by this time the machine would have been put in a hangar, from which it would be impossible to extract it without attracting attention. If that were so, then it would be the end of things.
As they slowly neared the spot where they had last seen the German aircraft, a low murmur of voices reached them from the direction of Nutty"s crashed Moth, and once Angus thought he heard a laugh. The crash, it seemed, was amusing. He consoled himself with the thought that had the position been reversed he himself might have laughed; as it was, he did not try to raise a smile.
Hoping all the officers of the German squadron had collected round the crash, they made a wide detour to avoid it, and presently came upon the Heinkel almost in the same position as they had last seen it. What was more important, not a soul was in sight.
Now that the moment for action bad arrived, Angus felt curiously calm; his companion, on the other hand, was fairly panting with excitement.
"You stay here while I get in the c.o.c.kpit and start up." "Not on your life," declared Angus warmly. "If anyone is going to fly that machine it"s me."
Nutty was inclined to argue, but Angus showed his teeth and clenched his fists. This had the desired result. He was about to climb into the machine when from somewhere near at hand appeared a mongrel terrier, bristling and growling in his throat. A voice spoke. At the same time a head appeared above the edge of the c.o.c.kpit.
There was no doubt about it. A man was sitting in the machine. As the awful truth burst upon him a groan broke from Nutty"s lips.
Then the voice spoke again, loudly. It was not so much what it said, or the tone of the voice, that struck Angus all of a heap. It was the language used. It was English; nicely polished Oxford English, with a slight lisp.
" Here, I say, what the d.i.c.kens do you fellers think you"re playing at ?" inquired the occupant of the machine as he jumped to the ground.
Angus"s jaw sagged as he stared at a Royal Air Force uniform, with the rings of a Flight Lieutenant. His hands made idiotic signs in the air.
"Who - who are you ?" he gasped.
Lord Bertie Lissie smiled wanly. "Me? I"m Lissie - yes, absolutely."
Angus began to shake. "But what"s this kite doing here?" he demanded, pointing to the Heinkel.
Bertie considered the aircraft with a melancholy expression. "I persuaded it to land this morning, after a bit of an argument - if you see what I mean."
"Then this is - a British aerodrome?" queried Angus in a stunned voice.
For a moment Bertie looked alarmed. "By Jove! I should jolly well hope so." He turned to Nutty. "You"re not by any chance the silly a.s.s who landed here about an hour ago and set fire to his machine ?"
But Nutty was not listening. He had sunk down on to the wheel of the Heinkel and buried his face in his hands.
Bertie was regarding him sympathetically when a number of other officers hurried up, headed by a Squadron Leader.
"What"s going on here ?" he demanded.
Angus stood up, looking dazed, and announced himself. I was on my way to 666 Squadron, sir, when I ran into bad weather," he explained.
The Squadron Leader held out his hand. "We"re glad to have you. I"m Squadron Leader Bigglesworth. As a matter of fact we were just wondering what had become of you."
Biggles turned to Nutty Armand. "Who"s this ?"
Nutty managed to blurt out his name and rank.
"Why, that"s splendid," declared Biggles. "We didn"t expect you until tomorrow."
Expect me?" stammered Nutty.
Biggles was walking towards the mess. He glanced back over his shoulder. "Yes - but of course, you"ve been absent without leave so perhaps you didn"t know? You were posted to 666 Squadron with effect from tomorrow morning. Come on everybody, let"s get inside out of the rain."
CHAPTER 4.
TAFFY TRUNDLES IN.
HAVING dealt with the morning mail, Biggles tossed the letters into a filing basket and rang the bell for it to be taken away.
"I see there"s a new posting," he told Toddy, the station Adjutant.
"That"s right, sir," agreed Toddy. " That will bring us up to strength. You saw the note from Wing saying that a spare pilot would also be sent along in the near future?"
Biggles nodded. " Thank goodness we"re getting things straightened out at last," he remarked, with relief in his voice.
shall never hold this squadron together if they go on keeping us in reserve. Everyone"s aching to get into the air and have a crack at these raiders, and I"m afraid if we"re kept back much longer we shall need new machines before we can put a full squadron up.
Carrington, in particular, is getting restive. By the way, this fellow Hughes who is due to report do you know anything about him?"
A slight cough from the direction of the door brought him round to see Flight Lieutenant Lord Bertie Lissie, in charge of B Flight, standing at the threshold.
" Did you say Hughes, sir?" murmured Bertie, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his monocle a little more tightly in his eye.
"Yes." "Not Taffy Hughes the Buster?"
Biggles picked up the posting slip. "Flying Officer J. W. Hughes, of Aberystwyth."
Bertie"s face softened. "Yes, that"s Taffy the Buster," he purred, and there was a curious note of affection in his voice.
Biggles frowned. "Buster ? That sounds ominous. How did he get that name ?" he asked suspiciously.
Bertie smiled apologetically. "Well, as a matter of fact, sir, he has a curious knack of busting things not that it"s always his fault if you see what I mean?"
"What sort of things does he bust?"
"He bust four Dornier 17"s one afternoon we were playing rugger at the time."
"What do you mean? How the devil could he knock down four Huns while he was playing rugger?"
Bertie fingered his wisp of a moustache. "We were playing the archie battery on the aerodrome -"
"We? Were you in this too?"
Bertie coughed. "Yes, I"m afraid so absolutely." "Go on."
"Well, the game was just-warming up when a party of jolly old Huns had the nerve to come over and throw things down on us. At first Taffy wouldn"t stop the game, which was quite right, but when the Huns started machine-gunning us it distracted the spectators" attention, and then he got frightfully annoyed. By Jove he did! You should have seen him spit at them."
Biggles stared. "Spit! What was the use of that?"
"I explain myself badly," returned Bertie sorrowfully. "Taffy always spits, spits like a cat, when he gets worked up. Without waiting to change his shirt and shorts, he jumped into the nearest Spitfire and went upstairs like a lamplighter.
He got four. Jolly good show, don"t you think?" Bertie"s eyes brightened at the recollection.
We can do with a few fellows like that," declared Biggles.
unfortunately, he didn"t only bust the Dorniers," murmured Bertie, in melancholy tones.
He bust a hole through the mess."
What with?"
A lorry. You see, he was shot down himself by a Messerschmitt 109, and borrowed a lorry to get home so that we could finish the game before dark; but when he got to the mess it seems that the brakes wouldn"t work - beastly nuisance."
The suspicious look in Biggles"s eyes deepened. Go on -what else did he bust ?"
Bertie stroked his chin and gazed at the ceiling reminiscently. "He bust a roundabout one day, I remember - it was his own. He"d bought it."
" What in the name of heaven would he want with a thing like that ?"
It all came through an argument in the mess as to how fast it would rev. up. Poor old Taffy decided to find out - and you"d be surprised how fast it went when he gave her full throttle."
It must have been rather fun."
I know," said Bertie earnestly, that"s what we all thought. We couldn"t understand why the people who were on it made such a fuss."
Biggles started. You mean - there were people on it at the time ?"
We forgot to tell them to get off," explained Bertie. "Not that they stayed on very long - centrifugal force, and all that - if you see what I mean ?"
"Yes," said Biggles slowly. "I see what you mean. I begin to understand why he"s been posted to me. You"ve given me an idea of what to expect. All right. Carry on with machine-gun practice until Hughes arrives; then maybe we"ll do a little squadron formation practice."
Bertie saluted and withdrew.
Biggles picked up his cane and set off on a tour of inspection. "Let me know when Hughes arrives," he told Toddy. "Something may have delayed him."
Biggles spoke more truly than he knew. Something had delayed Taffy. Something always did. In this case it was a formation of enemy bombers. Of course, being on his way to a new unit he need not have engaged them; nor, indeed, would he have seen them had he carried out his orders and flown direct from his station to Kent. But Taffy"s idea of a direct flight between two points was via the Thames Estuary. Even then there was really no excuse for him to fly as high as twenty-five thousand feet.
The truth of the matter was that the alert had sounded, and he knew it, so the temptation to go round by the Estuary -just to have a look - was too great to be resisted.
At first, to his intense disappointment, no aircraft were to be seen, and as he surveyed the dome of lapis lazuli a look of gloom settled in his dark Celtic eyes. He was not to know that the enemy formation had been intercepted, broken up, and turned back, nearer to London, so that he was, in fact, between them and the coast. Still hoping, he continued on towards the Channel, cruising in the direction of the French coast.
He turned, and was just about to glide back towards his distant destination when the affair developed on such ideal lines that he could not have arranged things better. Out of the haze appeared two Junkers, flying close together; they were about five thousand feet below him, and looked like two dirty fish swimming in a bowl of milky liquid. The pilots were gliding towards their own territory, and it is doubtful if they even saw the British machine which moved quickly into the sun.
Taffy knew instinctively what had happened; realized that the enemy formation had been broken and that the pilots were now making their way home independently. He felt almost sorry for the unsuspecting pilots below him as he stood his Spitfire on its nose and roared down on them. He took the nearest one first, and held his fire until the last moment. The Junkers broke up instantly, as if it had been struck by one of its own bombs. The other pilot turned to fight, saw the Spitfire, changed his mind, and made the understandable but fatal blunder of diving for home. Taffy, as if he had divined what the German would do, cut him off, zoomed into the sun, dived, came up underneath, and laced the fat fuselage with bullets. The machine turned slowly over on its back and plunged downwards towards the sea.
Taffy returned to his original height and course. His, eyes were sparkling. Another enemy machine appeared, a Messerschmitt 109 this time, cruising confidently now that it was so near home; but a movement evidently caught the pilot"s eye, for he looked up.
He saw the Spitfire at once and acted with the speed of light. Flinging his machine into a spin, he sought safety nearer the water. Death followed him down. There was a brief battle just above the water, a cloud of spray, and the Messerschmitt disappeared from view.
Taffy turned away and looked up, realizing that he was now dangerously low. He could hardly believe his eyes when they picked up a straggling part of five Heinkel fighters less than a mile away, and flying at under a thousand feet. It was obvious from the loose formation in which they flew that they had not thought of danger. Their eyes may have been on the French coast, for he was amazed at the calm way they went on flying even while he was racing towards them.
He picked out the rear man, and one short burst set his machine on fire. This, he felt, was a satisfactory performance, and he had reason to hope that he would be able to repeat it; but it was not to be. The leading pilot must have looked back, and in another moment the four machines were tearing back over their course, with Taffy heading for home at full throttle. In the ordinary way four machines would not have intimidated him, but, rash though he was, he was no fool; he was too near German-occupied France for safety, and there was a chance of more machines arriving to cut him off. Moreover, his ammunition was running low. On the way home he met another straggler and gave it a short burst, but had no time to reconnoitre the result. With the four enemy machines close behind, close enough to fire at him, he sped towards the white cliffs behind which lay safety.
He reached them, and looked back to see the Heinkels making for home hotly pursued by archie from the sh.o.r.e batteries. Narrowly missing a barrage balloon, he climbed to two thousand feet and then set a course for his new station. Glancing at his watch, he saw with surprise, but without dismay, that he was likely to arrive late.
He was aroused from the reverie into which he had sunk by a sudden vibration of the engine, and looked sharply at his rev. counter to see the needle falling back, although from what cause he did not know. Possibly a bullet had hit his engine, he thought vaguely, hoping that it would last out until he reached the aerodrome. In this, however, he was doomed to disappointment, finally being forced to land in a convenient field about half a mile short of it. It was irritating to get so close and then have to make a forced landing, but he was used to that sort of thing.
The Spitfire, thanks to its flaps, finished its run about twenty yards short of a hedge which bordered the road at that particular spot, and near to where some Tommies were standing by a vehicle which, as Taffy climbed the gate, revealed itself to be a tank. He sat on the gate, watching it for a moment or two while he recovered his composure, and in so doing discovered that he was thirsty.
"Have any of you fellows got anything in your water-bottles ?" he asked the crew of the tank.
Yes, sir," came a chorus of replies.
He accepted the first water-bottle, and having refreshed himself, got off the gate, telling himself that he would have to get on.
What are you doing?" he asked the corporal in charge of the party.
"We"ve had a bit of a breakdown, sir," returned the N.C.O.
Taffy considered the ponderous vehicle curiously, for he had never before had an opportunity of examining one.
I"d hate to be shut up in that thing, look you," he murmured.
" Oh, it"s not so bad," answered the corporal. "Have a look. She stinks a bit, but that"s all."
Taffy crawled through the steel trap. "Phew, I should say she does stink," he remarked.
You soon get used to it," smiled the corporal.
And this is where the driver sits ?" went on Taffy, dropping into the seat behind the wheel and peering through the letterbox slit that permitted a restricted view ahead.