Algy Goes Alone: Chapter 5. Bertie in France

By Sopwith

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.

When Bertie took off in pursuit of the stolen plane, he was not altogether easy in his mind. He would have liked to know what had happened to Biggles and Ginger, for even though he had seen the beginning of the shooting match, he had not seen much of the end of it, and he could not imagine that Biggles and Ginger would let the plane be stolen unless one of them was seriously hurt.

However, his orders were to follow the stolen plane, so follow the plane he did, taking care to keep under cover of the clouds or in line with the sun. Needless to say, he was an old hand at the game, and so his mind was free to wander even as he kept his eyes on the machine in front of him.

From what Eddie had said, Bertie half expected that he would find himself in South America when the chase was over, and so he was prepared for a longish journey. For this reason, he was quite surprised to find the plane going down after only a short period of time.

“France,” he murmured. Why on earth were the crooks taking the plane to France? Surely this was too much out of character to be true? Were they even after the right gang of crooks? Doubts began to form in Bertie’s mind, but, seeing no other alternative, he followed the plane’s lead and landed.

Having parked the Auster, he strolled casually over to where the stolen plane had been parked, looking as non-committal and harmless as possible. In this he must have succeeded, for the crooks did not even look his way as he paused to tie his bootlaces, right within seeing and hearing distance of them.

What he saw was somewhat astonishing, to say the least. The three crooks were talking to a man in a suit and bowler hat. The conversation was just ending when Bertie arrived on the scene. The man in the bowler handed over a suitcase and promptly began clambering into the cockpit of the stolen plane, with the parting remark, “I’ll just go fill up and then I’ll be on my way.” Judging by his accent, he too was an American.

By now Bertie had begun to worry. Biggles had said follow the plane, but he had given no instructions as to what should be should done after the plane had reached its destination. It seemed that the plane had changed hands and would be leaving again quite soon. Should he, Bertie, follow the plane or the crooks?

He rather thought that Biggles would be more concerned with the crooks. On the other hand, having information on one of the buyers might also come in useful.

As the Auster was already being refilled, he decided that he could spare a few minutes to follow the crooks, reasoning that however quickly the stolen plane was refilled, it could hardly be refilled within the next ten minutes or so. Moreover, it was unlikely that the bowler hatted man was a member of the British Air Police, and known to the airport officials on sight. That being the case, he would probably be held up for a time with formalities.

The main thing, Bertie decided, was to ascertain whether or not the crooks were staying in France. If they were, well and good. If they were not—he decided that he would work out that problem if and when he ran into it.

Following the crooks at a discrete distance, he was delighted to hear them booking a room in one of the nearby hotels. It seemed that they were planning to stay for a little while at least.

That made things a lot simpler. He could now follow the stolen plane, as long as he found some way to get a message to Biggles. Aware that time was running out, he searched his surroundings for a telephone, but unfortunately all the ‘phones within sight were in use. Also, he was not quite sure where he would find Biggles. Would he and Ginger have gone back to the Valentia after the theft? Or perhaps one of them had been injured and they were now in the hospital?

He was trotting back to his Auster as fast as he could now, worried that he would miss the stolen plane’s departure.

An idea came to him as he walked. The airport officials all knew him by sight. Most of them also knew Marcel by sight. It should be a simple matter to ask one of them to pass on a message to Marcel, who could then pass it on to Algy and Biggles. Also, as the crooks were now on French soil, they were technically in Marcel’s jurisdiction, so it would not be a bad idea for him to know something about the affair—if indeed Biggles or Eddie had not already told him.

Tearing a leaf out of his notebook, Bertie began to scribble a note.

&&&

Biggles and Ginger made their way back to the Valentia. Biggles was occupied for the best part of an hour, making phone calls to Algy, Gaskin, Eddie, and the local police. Fortunately, the local inspector was a friend of Gaskin’s, and, after Biggles had produced his own credentials, was happy to do what he could to help.

The rest of the day was spent in leading the police up to the clearing where the dead men lay, and in a visit to the police station, where a young constable took notes as Biggles told his story.

Ginger was left at the Valentia during most of this, for Biggles wanted him to be there to answer the phone should any news come in. In this, however, he was doomed to disappointment, for there was no news from Bertie by the time the two of them were ready for bed.

“I hope nothing’s happened to him,” said Biggles anxiously, as the two of them sat in the dining room the next morning, eating a hearty breakfast. “He must be down somewhere by now, at any rate.”

“I hope the crooks haven’t discovered his presence,” remarked Ginger, picking at his piece of toast. “They’re likely to shoot him down without stopping to ask questions first.”

“All this waiting about doing nothing is getting my nerves on edge,” complained Biggles. “After breakfast I think we might as well prepare to leave. The inspector says he doesn’t think he’ll need us again, and he can easily find us if he has to, so there’s no need for us to stay on that account. If Bertie doesn’t find us here, no doubt he’ll know to ring Algy at home, and the crooks are unlikely to come back here after what happened yesterday.”

At that moment, the manager arrived to tell Biggles that he was wanted on the phone. “That’ll be Algy or Bertie, I suppose,” remarked Biggles, as he got up and threw his napkin on the table.

He was away for a good while, and Ginger had begun to wonder whether or not he should go look for his chief when Biggles returned.

“It wasn’t Bertie,” he said, in answer to Ginger’s inquiring look. “But it might as well have been. That was Marcel on the phone just now. He’s had a message from Bertie that our crooks are staying in a hotel in France.”

“France?” cried Ginger. “What are they doing in France?”

“That’s just what I’d like to know.”

“But surely it can’t have taken Bertie all this time to fly to France?”

“No. Apparently, what’s happened is that the crooks passed on the stolen plane to someone else and booked themselves into this hotel. Bertie decided to follow the plane, but he left a note with Marcel so that we could know where to find the crooks. Marcel was away yesterday, and it took some time to find him, which is a pity.”

“Do you think the gang has gone, then?”

“Well, the only thing we can do is fly over and see,” replied Biggles. “There’s a flight to France in half an hour, and we might make it if we hurry. I’ll settle up the bill. You can be getting the car ready. There’s no time to ring Algy now, but no doubt we’ll have time to do that when we get there. Come on.”

&&&

A couple of hours later, they found themselves in Marcel’s headquarters, discussing the position over tea and cigarettes.

Marcel gave Biggles the note from Bertie and said that he had asked two of his men to go to the hotel to keep an eye on the crooks.

“Thanks,” acknowledged Biggles. “That was good of you, Marcel. They’ll let us know if the crooks leave?”

“Oui.”

“Well, that’s one thing, at any rate. I must confess I rather expected Bertie to get in touch with someone by now—with Algy if not with us. Wherever he followed the stolen plane he must be down by now. The Auster can hold quite a bit of juice but not enough to keep him topsides for this long.”

“What d’you think we should do about the crooks?” asked Ginger.

“Since we’re on French soil it’s really Marcel’s decision,” said Biggles. “If it were up to me, I’d almost be inclined to give them free rein for a little while longer to see what they’ll do. I’ll confess this latest stunt of theirs has me baffled—it’s so different from their usual methods. I’d like to know what it was that caused the change.”

Marcel said frankly that he did not like the idea of a gang of murderers running around in his country. “These are dangerous men, mon ami.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” returned Biggles. “Well, that’s that, I suppose. In that case, we might as well arrest them and get it over with. Perhaps Clark will be able to tell us what we need to know.”

“So we go, yes?” said Marcel, standing up and reaching for his gun.

“Yes,” said Biggles. “Let’s go.”

Half an hour saw them at the airport hotel where the crooks were staying. They did not bring anyone else with them. Marcel said that the two men he had watching the hotel should be enough for their purpose.

They found Marcel’s men in the hotel foyer. Marcel explained the situation to them in a few quick sentences and asked where the crooks were. The men replied that the three crooks had just gone into the dining room, a fact that was not surprising as it was getting on for lunchtime.

They were moving towards the dining room in a straggling line when the crooks unexpectedly emerged from within.

Recognition was instant and violent. As soon as Konn’s eyes fell on Biggles he growled out a curse and pulled out his gun. With a horrifying disregard for the innocent passersby in the foyer, he opened fire.

Biggles would undoubtedly have been killed had he not acted with the lightning speed that had won him so many victories during the wars. He jumped sideways like a cat and dropped to a crouch by the giant dining room door, which was, of course, open to allow the guests access to the dining room.

Behind Konn, Reeves, the second pilot of the party, pulled out his own gun and proceeded to follow Konn’s example. A bullet slammed forcefully into Ginger’s shoulder, and he cried out with pain as his own gun dropped from his nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor.

Reeves stepped forward and Ginger found himself staring down the muzzle of a gun pointed at his head.

&&&

If not for Biggles, Ginger would probably have been killed then and there.

Biggles’ gun spat. He said afterwards that he simply fired without thinking. It was a good thing that the muzzle had been pointing in Reeves’ general direction, because he did not have time to aim.

Reeves collapsed to the ground with a grunt of pain. His pistol flew out of his hand and clattered to the ground a few feet away.

In the confusion that followed, Konn and Clark made a rush for the door, pushing surprised hotel guests out of their way. Somewhere, a woman began screaming hysterically.

Marcel barked out a curse and broke into a run, the two other policemen at his heels.

Biggles turned to Ginger. “Are you all right?” he rapped out.

Ginger nodded without thinking.

“All right; stay here.” Biggles snatched up Reeves’ fallen gun and raced off in pursuit.

Ginger stayed where he was for over a minute. It took him that long to get over the shock. Slowly, he sat up. Looking down, he found, to his astonishment, that the sleeve of his shirt was stiff with blood. He stared, fascinated, at the patch of red until he was almost hypnotized.

Biggles found him like that when he got back. One look at his face told Ginger all that he needed to know.

“They got away,” said Biggles, bitterly. “They had a car waiting outside. Stupid of me not to remember that there were two more people in the gang.”

Ginger tried to say something, but moving his lips seemed to take a lot of effort.

Biggles looked down at him, and in one sharp movement was on his knees beside Ginger, examining the wound. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been shot?” he demanded.

Ginger did not answer. He couldn’t. Vaguely, as if from a great distance, he heard Biggles shouting something in French, and then abruptly, the world went dark around him.

Go to Chapter 6. Algy Follows On

Go back to Algy Goes Alone contents