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.
Ginger carefully edged his way forward, ducking under
a low-hanging branch. He could see Biggles and Robbs a short distance ahead of
him, looking into what might have been a small hollow or cave to the right.
“Where’s Wilks?” he heard Biggles ask.
And just as Robbs was replying, something big and dark
flew at Ginger’s face, and he jumped back with a yell of fright.
“What was that?”
he gasped, as the others hurried up to him.
Robbs looked grim. “Bat. You have to be careful around
them. One of their favourite foods just happens to be human blood.”
Ginger’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean, vampire bats?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. One of them won’t drain too
much, but if you run into a horde of them it won’t be a laughing matter, I can
tell you.”
Ginger shuddered.
“Are you all right?” asked Biggles, eyeing him with
concern.
“I think so. It didn’t picnic on me, if that’s what
you mean. It just startled me a bit.”
Robbs led the way back to where he and Biggles had
been standing when Ginger had cried out. Pushing aside a curtain of ivy-like
material, he gestured towards the cave opening in front of them. “Hi! Wilks!”
he called. “You’ll never believe who I found wandering about outside.”
A pale man lying on a bed roughly made up of jackets
turned to face them. A few weeks’ worth of beard growth covered his face, and
his eyes seemed to shine a little too brightly, but he grinned in welcome as
his eyes fell on his visitors. “Biggles, by all that’s wonderful! What on earth
are you doing here?”
“Well might you ask, you old hound,” growled Biggles,
hurrying forward. “We came looking for you.”
“I thought you might,” returned Wilks.
“How have you been? Are you all right?”
“More or less. I broke a few things when some idiot
shot me down, but nothing too serious. I’m a bit weak at the moment, just
recovering from a touch of fever, but I should be all right to walk about.”
Biggles said grimly, “The same idiot who shot you down
shot us down as well.”
“Did he now?” said Wilks banteringly. “You’re getting
out of practice.”
“There’s a pot calling a kettle black if I ever heard
one,” retorted Biggles. “Anyway, let’s get down to brass tacks. Did you get
that diamond Raymond sent you out on this perishing mission for?”
“Ah,” said Wilks, looking awkward. “About that…”
&&&
Bertie tripped and tumbled down in an awkward heap on
the ground. For a moment, he lay where he had fallen, stunned that he was still
alive. Over his head, he heard von Stalhein shouting something.
“I did not mean that we had to shoot him now.”
Slowly, Bertie came to terms with his situation and
sat up, rubbing his arm where he had collided with the hard ground. He got to
his feet and looked at von Stalhein.
“I am very sorry,” said the German, quite politely. He
glared at the two South Americans, who had magically appeared beside him. One
of them was holding a gun in his hand, his expression sullen. “I am sure that
there are a few things you would like to do before you die.”
“Oh, rather,” replied Bertie enthusiastically. “Loads
of things, what?”
With a somewhat grand gesture, von Stalhein gestured
forward and Bertie saw a car parked behind him. Conscious of the armed South American
standing within touching distance, Bertie followed the German to the car and
got in the back seat.
&&&
“Well?” demanded Biggles, as Wilks and Robbs exchanged
a look. “Is the diamond here or not? Was there even a diamond to begin with?”
“Oh, there’s a diamond,” said Wilks, and there was
something in his voice that made Biggles look at him sharply. “Look here,
Biggles. Exactly how much do you know about this diamond?”
“Just what I read in the files. Lord
Whatever-his-name-is did some wonderful deed for a bloke who happened to be a
chief or something of this place, and in return the chief told Whatshisname
about this princess diamond and said he could have it with eternal gratitude or
something.”
“That’s more or less it,” agreed Wilks. “Although something
must have been lost in translation.”
“Don’t tell me there isn’t a diamond.”
“Not exactly. Look, I’d better tell you something
about this island first. There’s a volcano about the middle bit of it, and
that’s sort of what created the whole place. Apparently volcanoes exploding
tend to do that sort of thing, you know.”
All right,” said Biggles. “What about it?”
“Apparently, besides creating islands, volcanoes can
also create something else,” said Wilks.
“What’s that?” asked Ginger.
“Diamonds. Loads of them.”
No comments
Post a Comment
While you are free to post comments anonymously, you are encouraged to use the Name/URL option to post so that your comment will not be filtered out as spam.