21 Biggles In the South Seas Page 2

  `My yell brought up Castanelli at a run—and the boys. They were not so drunk as I thought they were. I shouted "Man the boat!" Castanelli wanted to know what the blankety-blank for—and well he might. I told him to come and look. We all stood there staring. The bottom of the sea came up, a marvellous sight, blue, red, green, and purple coral, like—well, you'd have to see it to understand. But there wasn't only coral. There was something else. Shell! Thousands of oysters, the size of dinner-plates, lying in pairs—because the oysters were open. They open to eat,

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  and when they do that you can see the gleam of the mother-of-pearl inside. The whole floor of the sea was covered with gleaming disks of shell, lying flat or sticking out of the coral like big swallows' nests. I felt myself go weak as I realized that in shell alone I was looking at a fortune. It was the sort of thing the old hands dream about. And that very fact warned me to glance at Castanelli. It was a good thing I did. I was only just in time.

  There was such a look on his face as I hope never to see on any man's face again—and his hand was in his side pocket where I knew he kept his gun. "I reckon there ain't enough here for the two of us," he said, with an ugly grin. I jumped aside just as he fired.

  The shot missed me.

  `Now just imagine my position. We were in the middle of the Pacific, in water crawling with sharks. Castanelli had a gun and was bent on murder. I wasn't even armed. His eight boys were with him, their knives out. I couldn't run. I couldn't hide. There was nowhere on the ship where I could take cover without being shot full of holes. You won't find it hard to believe that I told myself my number was up. But I had one card left to play. If I couldn't get the pearls, then I would see to it that Castanelli shouldn't—that is, if he didn't know where_ we were. As I told you, I'd noted our position although I hadn't entered it up in the log. The sextant was still standing by the wheel where I had put it down. If I could reach it before he plugged me it should go over the side, for without it he would have no means of ascertaining where we were. I made a dash for it. He fired, but missed again. I fairly yelled with joy as I snatched up the instrument and heaved it over the rail.

  Castanelli fired again, but at that moment by the grace of God a squall hit the schooner. I fell. So did Castanelli. But the gang, with their knives in their hands, were at me. I decided that I'd rather drown than be carved into slices, so over the side I went, and swam for all I was worth. What with the way now on the schooner, and me swimming, by the time Castanelli had got to the rail I was too far away for accurate shooting. He kept on firing, of course, but although some of the shots splashed the water over me, not one hit me.

  But he wasn't going to let me get away—not if he could

  prevent it. I saw the boys making sail, and round they came 14

  at me. But the wind was now blowing half a gale. You get squalls like that in the Pacific.

  Twice they brought the schooner past me, but what with me ducking and diving, and the schooner rolling, Castanelli's shooting was all over the place. Pretty soon he had to pack up chasing me and keep his head into the wind, or he'd have capsized his schooner. Now, I thought, as it drew farther away from me, I'll just drown comfortably by myself. You see, it wasn't much use hoping. What could I hope for? Imagine it. Out in the middle of the Pacific, no land in sight, sharks in the water, and a gale blowing up. Not so good, eh?'

  `Pretty grim,' admitted Biggles.

  `You're right, that's just what it was,' declared Sandy, taking another sip at his drink. 'I hadn't even a hen-coop to hang on to, as most people seem to have in a shipwreck,' he went on. 'But there was this about it: the water was warm. It always is down there, and if you can keep afloat, and the sharks leave you alone, you can hang on for hours. I soon stopped swimming. I kicked off my clothes and floated, keeping an eye open for dorsal fins. I saw one or two, but apparently they weren't man-eaters—they're not all killers, you know. The schooner disappeared over the horizon and I was all alone on the rolling deep—a position in which I hope never -to find myself again. Night came. The squall passed. The sea began to go down, and I was still floating. Presently I began to wonder why I troubled to float; it was only prolonging things. However, it's funny how you hang on to life, even when everything seems hopeless. I couldn't hope to be picked up. In those waters there is, maybe, one ship for every hundred thousand square miles of sea, so to expect one to come my way at that moment was to expect too much. Years might pass before one came along. But my luck was in, for all that. I might have got into a current running to the North Pole, or to South. America, instead of which I struck one running towards the island we had passed. I saw it at dawn, quite close. It lay so. low, and I was so low in the water, that I could only see the tops of the palms; they appeared to be growing out of the water, but I knew that where they were there was land, and I struck out towards them. Funnily enough, having resigned myself to my fate I had ceased to worry; but now that I had a chance I got frightened again, terrified that the palms might slide past without my being able to reach them after all.

  just made it, although the surf nearly finished me. I shan't forget those last ten minutes.

  Nearly every atoll has a reef round it. The lagoon is inside. But it isn't always possible to get to the lagoon, because once in a while there is no opening through the reef. You'd have to see the conk bers breaking on a South Sea reef to understand what they're like. If ever there was a case of an irresistible force meeting an immovable mass, that's it. A wave of a hundred thousand tons of water comes roaring along, majestic, invincible.

  You'd think that nothing could stop it. Then the coral grabs at the bottom of it and tears its foundations away. The mountain of water hangs - for a minute in mid-air, and then crashes down with a noise like thunder. It spreads itself out into a boiling sea of foam, like white lace; then it rolls back, and there is the reef waiting for the next wave. And so it goes on year after year. Occasionally the sea seems to go mad and hurls its entire fury on the coral. That's when a hurricane comes along. I hope you never get caught in one. A man or a boat caught in the surf would be smashed to pulp. Well, I kept on swimming until I found a gap in the reef. The sea picked me up and flung me through—just in time, for a shark was very interested in me and had been keeping me company for some minutes. I finished up like a piece of wet rag on the beach.'

  `Was anybody there?' asked Ginger, quickly. He had followed Sandy's story with intense interest.

  `There was not,' replied Sandy. 'Robinson Crusoe's island was a hive of industry compared with mine. He did at least find a footprint on the beach. I found nothing except sea-shells and coconuts. My great fear was that there would be no fresh water.

  Fortunately there was; there usually is, although where it comes from in the middle of so much salt is a question I can't answer. So I had a drink, nibbled a coconut, and staggered around the new establishment to see what I'd struck. It was very pretty, there's no doubt of that; the lagoon was something to make you gasp; but I wasn't concerned with beauty.

  For let me tell you this: Robinson Crusoe stuff may be all very nice to read about, but when you find yourself fixed that way it gives

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  you a funny sort of weak feeling in the tummy. The more I realized that I was likely to spend the rest of my days by myself, the less I liked it. You see, knowing about the pearls, for the first time in years I had a real object in living. I kept a weather eye open for Castanelli's schooner, in case he came back; but I never saw him again, which leads me to think that I was right in assuming that he didn't know where we were when he tried to kill me. Otherwise he would certainly have been back for the pearls.'

  `How long were you there?' asked Ginger.

  Ònly three months. Oh, I was, lucky, there's no doubt o' that. I was taken off by a couple of Marquesans from Rutuona in a canoe; a boy and a girl named Breaker of Shells and Full Moon—at least, those are the English equivalents. They are easier to remember than the native names. They had been out fishing for albic
ore, got caught in a squall and carried out to sea—not that it worried them much. That sort of thing is always happening to them. They are as much at home on the sea as on land. They can swim as soon as they can walk, so always being used to the water they have no fear of it. Anyhow, they spotted my island and came ashore for a few fresh nuts. Instead, they found me. They thought it was no end of a joke. I was certainly glad to see them. They took me back to Rutuona with them.

  Ìt took me two months, hopping from island to island in a canoe, to get to Nuka-hiva, the biggest island of the group, where I had to wait another three months before Pierre Loubert came along in his schooner and took me to Tahiti. I found that Castanelli had been back and gone off again, having reported me as lost overboard in a gale. From the fact that he went off again so soon, I fancy that he went to look for the pearl-bed—as he was bound to. What man wouldn't, with a fortune waiting to be picked up? But without knowing the exact position he might as well look for a particular grain of sand on a beach. I knew where the bed was, of course, and I'd have told him if the fool hadn't tried to kill me. There was just a chance that he might find the island if he looked long enough, but even that would be a tall order.

  `The end of the story is that I tried to get one- of the

  island skippers interested in my find, offering to go fifty-17

  fifty. But there was nothing doing. You see,- the trouble is that every loafer and beachcomber in the South Seas has a tale to tell about a wonderful pearl-bed. You are always hearing such stories, but nobody believes them. They just laugh at you. And to tell the honest truth, if I hadn't seen the pearls with my own eyes I should have laughed at any one who tried to pitch me a yarn like that. There were plenty of such beds years ago, but they've all been worked out—at least, that's what people think. I've picked up a small pearl or two on Rutuona; the natives made me a present of them when I left; they enabled me to get a little money; but not enough to fit out an expedition of my own, with diving-gear, which I should need, because with that weight of water going up and down it would be too dangerous for skin-diving. The boys would be willing to try, no doubt, but it wouldn't be fair to ask them, although a good Paumotuan will go down over a hundred feet and think nothing of it. The only thing left to do was to go to Australia to see if I could raise the money there. I was afraid Castanelli would come back to Tahiti, and if we met face to face one of us was likely to get killed and the other arrested for murder. But it was just the same in Australia. One or two people were Mildly interested, but they wanted to know too much. They wouldn't put down the money without my telling them where the pearl-bed was, and that was something I wasn't prepared to do. I had just enough money left to bring me back to England, where I thought people might not be so sceptical but

  '

  `You haven't succeeded?' murmured Biggles.

  `No.'

  `Frankly, I don't think you will. I'm afraid the proposi- ti on lion is too much of a gamble for most people.'

  `Gamble! ' cried Sandy, angrily. 'It's no gamble. I could go straight to the spot.'

  Biggles took out his notebook and pencil. 'How far is it from Tahiti to your island—what'

  s the name of it, by the way?'

  Ìt hasn't a name as far as I can make out.'

  Àll right. For the sake of argument we'll call it Sandy's Island. How far is it from Tahiti?'

  `Getting on for eight hundred miles.'

  Ànd the lagoon? Is it a safe anchorage?'

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  Às safe as anything in the South Seas.'

  `Could you land a flying-boat there?'

  `You're not thinking of flying?'

  `Why not?'

  ndy scratched his head. 'No reason, I suppose. I've just never thought of it that way. It would probably be more expensive than using a schooner.'

  -

  'It would be quicker.'

  Ìt would certainly be that.'

  `Could we dive from a flying-boat?'

  `Certainly—in calm weather, of course.'

  `You've done some diving?'

  `Plenty.'

  `You'd know all about the sort of kit to get?'

  Òf course.'

  `Then if we provided the flying-boat and paid all expenses, would you be willing to split the profits?'

  `Would I? You bet I would!' cried Sandy, enthusiastically. 'You provide the equipment; I'll provide the pearls, and we'll split the profits four ways. How's that?'

  `Suits us,' agreed Biggles, without hesitation, glancing at Algy and Ginger in turn.

  `When would you be ready to start?' asked Sandy.

  `Just as soon as we can get the equipment together. I'll give you a cheque. You go off and see about the diving-gear, and anything else you think we might need—but keep the weight down as far as you can. I'll attend to the machine.'

  Sandy swallowed the rest of his drink at a gulp. Im on my way,' he declared. 'The pearls are as good as ours.' `Don't forget to bring your bowler hat to measure them in,' smiled Biggles. 'We shall be satisfied with nothing less than the hatful you spoke about at the beginning.'

  ALTHOUGH they did not waste a single day, it was nearly two months_ before the expedition arrived at its first temporary base in the South Pacific; for not until Biggles had examined the situation closely did any of them realize the difficulties involved in getting an aircraft to the Islands. In the first place there were papers to arrange, although this was fairly simple compared with the business of getting the machine where they wanted it. And there was, of course, the matter of the selection of the ideal type of aircraft.

  Now there are two ways of getting an aeroplane to a given destination; it can be shipped there or it can be flown under its own power. Contrary to general belief, in the case of a distant destination it is less expensive to ship a machine than fly it, for which reason new machines destined for Australia from Great Britain or America usually arrive on board ship. Naturally, this is not the case with specially organized flights, or the regular air lines.

  The machine chosen for the arduous duties that would be required of it was a 'Scud' twin-engined flying-boat, a high-wing monoplane with long-range tanks that had been built for a company proposing to operate a coastal service round Great Britain. The company, however, had failed financially, and the machine was put on the market. Biggles snapped it up cheaply, a most satisfactory bargain considering that it suited their purpose admirably.

  It was at this juncture, when ways and means of getting the machine to the South Seas were under discussion, that Sandy, having bought such equipment as he considered necessary, suggested that it might be a good thing if he went on ahead and made such arrangements as now appeared not only desirable but imperative. He pointed out that the arrival at Tahiti of an aircraft the size of the flying-boat 20

  could hardly fail to create a sensation, a state of affairs that it would be better to avoid if possible. He proposed, therefore, to cable an agent in Australia to forward a supply of petrol and oil to the British island of Raratonga, which is on the main shipping line to Australia. He would go direct to Raratonga, and leaving a supply of petrol and oil for the machine when it arrived, would arrange for the transport of the rest by sea to Vaitie, one of the smaller of the Cooke islands, which had a large, almost landlocked lagoon that would make a perfect anchorage for the machine while it was being refuelled, after it had been flown up from Raratonga. At Vaitie the machine would pick him up, with the fuel, and go on in a single straight flight to Sandy's Island. These arrangements were made to prevent unnecessarily long overseas flights, involving risks which were better avoided.

  This plan was adopted, more for the reason that it was the best one so far suggested than because it was ideal. In Biggles's opinion it was far from ideal, but for want of a better one he accepted it. The 'Scud' was therefore put on board an Australia-bound steamer calling at Raratonga, and Biggles, Algy, and Ginger travelled with it.

  Sandy had departed for Raratonga immediately on the approval of his plan, taking th
e stores and equipment with him, so that when the others arrived there nearly a month later they found that, in accordance with the programme, he had already departed for Vaitie, having chartered a native lugger for the purpose. He had, of course, left a supply of fuel and oil at Raratonga, more than enough to enable the machine to fly to Vaitie.

  A week of hard work had been required to put the machine in an airworthy condition, so that when it arrived at Vaitie it carried three rather weary airmen, who were not in the least pleased to discover that Sandy had been involved in a mishap which seriously affected their schedule. He was there, as was the petrol and equipment, but his arm was in a sling; and the story he told, apologetically, was this. He had arrived at Vaitie, which was uninhabited, well ahead of time, and learning that the native skipper of the lugger, a Polynesian named Namu, was going on to Tahiti on business, and would call at Vaitie again for fresh water on the way back, he thought it would be a good plan 21