Disclaimer: I do not own, or claim to own, any of the Biggles series characters used in this work. This fan fiction was written for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered part of the official storyline.
Somewhere during the scuffle Ginger dropped his torch
and was unable to find it again. It was perhaps for the best, since if he had
had the light, he might just possibly have been more scared than he already
was, if such a thing were possible.
The lizard reared at Ginger’s face. He threw up a hand
to protect himself, and very nearly lost it as the dragon’s teeth snapped
together barely an inch from the tips of his finger.
He struggled for what seemed like an eternity, and he
knew that there really was no competition. Despite being half his size, the
creature had twice his strength and thrice his speed.
This could only end one way, he realized, and it did
not look good for Ginger.
Something exploded close to his ear, and Ginger was so
startled that if he could have jumped, he would have. However, the terror was
short-lived, as to his infinite relief, the lizard’s weight abruptly left his
body as the creature bounded away into the woods without a backward glance.
Slowly, Ginger sat up, feeling himself all over to
check for signs of damage.
It took him a minute to recover from the shock, and
when he finally did, the first thing he wondered was what had scared the lizard
away. Remembering the explosion he had heard, he decided that it had to be a
bullet.
And if there was a bullet, someone must have fired it.
Ginger’s spirits rose. “Biggles?” he called.
“Where are you?” came back the instant reply, sharp
and cold.
Ginger froze.
The voice was not Biggles’.
&&&
Biggles awoke suddenly from a sound sleep. He checked
his watch and saw that he had been asleep for just over two hours. He turned
over on his side and tried to go back to sleep, but he soon found, to his
annoyance, that once awakened, he was now much too wide awake to sleep.
He sat up and looked over at Ginger to see if he was
awake, and got a shock when he saw that the spot Ginger had previously occupied
was empty except for a carelessly discarded flying jacket.
Biggles jumped to his feet, looking for some sign of
where Ginger might have gone. “Ginger?” he called, not really expecting a
reply.
A rustling sound came from some bushes to his left,
and he spun round with his gun halfway out of his pocket, only to push it back
as Ginger emerged, looking somewhat worse for wear. He smiled wanly at the
expression on Biggles’ face. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to alarm you. I went for a
walk and thought I’d be right back.”
“What happened to you?” demanded Biggles, noting the
cuts and bruises over Ginger’s person.
“I went dancing with one of the dragons we’ve been
hearing so much about.”
“Suffering crocodiles! Are you all right?”
“More or less. I’d be in a lot more trouble if Mark
hadn’t come along though.”
“Mark?” said Biggles. “Who’s Mark?”
“Mark Robbs,” was the reply, as a second figure
emerged from the bushes behind Ginger. He was a tall, youngish lad in his
early-thirties.
“And who are you?” inquired Biggles, of the newcomer.
“You’re never going to believe this,” said Ginger.
“This is Wilks’ second pilot.”
&&&
The chatter of the machine gun had Algy automatically
reaching for his guns, which, of course, were not there. Still, it had not only
been his shooting that had earned him his wartime reputation as an air ace, and
as he swung the single-seater furiously around on its own axis, he smiled
grimly. “Come on, you skunk, let’s go,” he muttered to himself, as his eyes
fell on his opponent, a flamboyantly painted single-seater with a stripe of
green across its nose.
The other plane was coming in close to deliver what it
seemed to predict would be the knockout blow, but Algy was waiting for it, and
at the last possible second, he threw the plane into a wild bank that almost
made him lose control of it altogether.
Spinning upside-down in the air, he saw the stream of
bullets pass by above him as he strained to right the machine.
Inch by inch he fought to gain control of the plane,
and after what felt like several eternities later, he managed to get it back on
even keel.
It was a good thing he had been looking over his
shoulder, or he would have missed the plane coming down at him from behind. As
it was, he barely had time to dodge out of the way, and some of the bullets
struck his machine, making him wince at the violent impact.
“If only I had some guns, I’d show you how real
fighting is done,” he growled, as the plane dived down at him yet again. “Oh,
for goodness sakes!” he snapped, as a wave of irrational fury overcame him.
“I’ve had enough of this messing about.”
He turned the nose of his plane so abruptly that if
the other pilot had not swerved hastily out of the way, the two machines would
undoubtedly have collided. Before the enemy pilot had even had time to collect
his wits, Algy was heading straight towards him as if the only thing in the
world he intended to do was ram the other plane down.
The other plane shuddered as the terrified pilot tried
to make it go in four different directions at once, and the end came suddenly
as the plane fell into a headlong spin.
Algy would have liked to stay, and finish the plane
off, but he knew that that would be a somewhat unlikely goal to accomplish
without the help of some guns. “I’ll get out of this while the going’s good,”
he decided, as, with one last quick look at the island where he had last seen
the others, he turned back for home. “I’ll come back with some teeth to bite
with.”
He was musing on how he would persuade the South
American authorities to help him in the matter, when he was brought harshly
back to reality as his engine coughed, coughed again, and then cut down.
Algy stared down at his instruments in disbelief.
“What the--?”
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