Biggles awoke from a deep sleep and sat up abruptly, wide awake on the instant, wondering if he had really heard what he thought he had heard, or if he had been dreaming. No, the sound came again from afar off, the low, rhythmic palpitating beat of a multi-engined aeroplane. He slung the tarpaulin with which he had covered himself to one side, and ran out of the boathouse in which he had decided to sleep in preference to the cramped cabin. He tapped sharply on the Vandal’s hull.
‘Stand by, everybody,’ he snapped crisply. ‘Algy, come outside, quickly, what do you make of this, hark!’
It was still dark, but the stars were paling, and a wan light spread over the eastern sky in promise of the day to come. The distant roar of the aeroplane reached their ears clearly, although it came from a l
