BIGGLES IN
BORNEO
By Captain W.
E. Johns
XII. A
HECTIC NIGHT (Pages 123 - 135)
Our heroes walk through the incredible
downpour with the Wong brothers and watch their elephants at work as they push
the logs into the river. There is a huge
Malay foreman supervising by the name of Kayan. His back is cut to ribbons followed a vicious
flogging by the Japanese. Our heroes
then go down the river to view the damage done by the logs but no damage has
been done because a fallen tree has literally caused a log jam. At that moment the Japanese army cross the
river on the pontoon bridge. Biggles
notes that if the dam made by the log jam was to burst the million tons of
water and hundreds of tons of timber would sweep the bridge away like tissue
paper. Kayan
runs out over the logs and using a metal bar breaks the log dam causing a
mighty tidal wave and is fatally swept away in the deluge. The results wave strikes the bridge and
sweeps away Japanese soldier, lorries and guns.
The logs then go on to strike the loaded barges like torpedos. Biggles and co. return to their plane to
assess the damage to it. It was upsteam of the dam breaking but rising water had forced it
into the trees damaging the fabric. The
drop in the water level had then left it caught up in a branch so that its nose
was held up clear of the stream.
Suddenly an enormous mad bull elephant comes running through the trees and
the only place of safety in on the aircraft on the water. Biggles cuts the rope causing it to drop down
onto the river again. Mud and weeds are
cleaned off as best as they can as they drift down the river. They then come under fire from Japanese soldiers
on the bank but they are then attacked by the mad elephant. Then the rains start again in earnest and
blots out the river banks. It would be
impossible to take off in this rain in any event and if the rain stopped they would be under fire from the Japanese. "In other words," put in Ginger,
"we are between the devil and the deep blue sea".