Dennis Wheatley - Contraband

'Seems like you've succeeded pretty quick, sir.'

'Good Lord no! What we've seen tonight is only one thread in the tangled skein. These people must be operating on a huge scale. They've probably got half a dozen bases on this side, because if they sent every cargo from that dip in the downs the French police would get wind of it before long. We've got to find out where they land their stuff in England and how they distribute it afterwards too.'

'Seems a chancy game ter me, anyhow, with all the planes there are flying about these days. Some bloke might fly over casual like any old night 'nd spot those flares.'

Gregory shook his head. 'Didn't you notice the flares were placed irregularly so that the valley would not have the appearance of a proper landing ground from the air? Besides, Gavin Fortescue is as wily as the traditional serpent: we've got to give him that. If anybody visited that base in the day time there wouldn't be a thing to show what's going on, not even a cart track, because the goods are all consigned to one of the little fishing villages on the coast and brought up underground through the caves.'

'Maybe, Mr. Gregory sir, but what abart all them planes? They've got ter have 'angars, ain't they? Though I didn't see none.'

'Of course you didn’t because the planes are not kept there. Each one is probably registered as a privately owned machine and housed separately somewhere between here and Paris. Then, when these night birds get their orders, they go up, only land here long enough to take on their cargo and are away again over the sea. I doubt if the whole operation takes more than half an hour so, if they don't use any one base too frequently, the chances are all against their being rumbled in an almost uninhabited stretch of country like this.'

'Half an hour, eh! Blimey, we'll have to make it snappy then if we're to be in the air before they hops it.'

'Ever known me run without reason?' Gregory replied tersely. As he spoke the lorry was rumbling into the outskirts of Calais. Leaving Rudd, he crawled forward and spoke to the driver, asking him to take them direct to the airport for an extra ten francs.

The man complied and five minutes after their arrival they were in their plane, Gregory having already thrust a note into the oily palm of the mechanic and asked him to telephone the garage with particulars of the spot where they had abandoned the hired car. Next moment they were in the air.

Gregory did not make straight for the secret base on the downs behind Cape Gris Nez. The place was so near by the measure of air travel that he would have been compelled to fly low over it and, perhaps, give away to the smugglers the fact that they were’ being watched. Instead, he spiralled round and round to gain altitude then, when he had reached three thousand feet, turned the plane's nose towards the west.

It was the dark period, between moons, and he guessed that the smugglers had purposely chosen this, and the succeeding dates mentioned in the telegram, to run through their cargoes; but there was little cloud, and many stars lit the August night. By their faint glow it was quite possible to make out the coastline and his position was easily ascertainable from the harbour lights of Calais and Boulogne.

As they passed over Mont Couple he felt a stab of disappointment. The flares in the hidden valley were no longer burning so he assumed that the secret fleet had already sailed but he turned his plane seaward in the hope that he might yet pick them up.

They had been cruising for about five minutes and were well out over the water when Rudd tapped him on the shoulder and jerked a grimy thumb towards their tail.

Gregory looked back towards the coast and saw what it was that had caught Rudd's attention. Dead in their rear certain stars in a long oval patch of sky seemed to be blacked out for a moment and then show up again. It was the smuggler fleet behind them and Gregory cursed himself as a fool for not having realised that the flares were only necessary to guide the planes in to their unofficial landing ground. Directly all the machines had arrived the flares would be put out in order further to shorten the time in which discovery of the secret base was possible by a casual plane passing over.

He began to climb again. His intention being both to gain further altitude and, by the resulting loss of speed, allow the smuggler feet to pass under him. Ten minutes later he was up at five thousand feet and dimly silhouetted below him against the sea stretched the long line of heavy bombers; but now they were climbing too and he judged that they meant to pass over the English coast at as great an altitude as possible, in order to escape drawing attention to themselves by the roar of their engines.

He climbed still higher as they passed beneath him, and altered his course a little when he noted that the fleet was now veering to the north.

Soon he picked up the lights of the English coast lying thousands of feet below to his left and, having acquainted himself with the varying flashes of the Kent lighthouses that morning for just this purpose he was able to check his course as almost dead northward, with Dover and the South Foreland light on his beam.

The smuggler fleet was a good way ahead, below him now and still climbing, but he hoped that if he could maintain his present distance they would lead him in to their English landing ground without suspecting that they were being followed. Unfortunately, visibility ahead was by no means so good as it had been over the French coast, and a moment later they passed through a cold wisp of cloud.

Gregory grabbed the throttle lever in his left hand and pushed it through the gate of the quadrant, bringing his supercharger into play and decreasing his distance a little, as he feared to lose the squadron; but they flew on, still gaining height, and apparently taking advantage of the cloud patches rather than avoiding them. A few moments more and he could see only two machines on the extreme right wing of the flight.

Cursing the clouds, he mounted again, hoping to get above them but the upper layers proved thicker than any he had yet encountered and now the smugglers had disappeared. The Sound of their engines was of no assistance since the roar of his own blacked out any other vibration; and as they were flying without lights he could only hope to spot them again in a clear patch then they momentarily obscured a star here and there.

For another ten minutes he flew on; still towards the north. He could no longer see the coastline below him bat judged that they must have left Deal behind on their left and were coming up to Ramsgate. In the dense cloudy masses through which they were now flying it seemed that all hope of sighting his quarry had vanished, so he decided that his best course was to get down below the cloud banks, pick up the coast, and cruise along it on the off chance that he might spot the smugglers when they came down towards their secret landing place. He had little hope that luck would favour him as it was probable that each machine would make for a separate destination, perhaps far inland, but it was worth trying.

Five minutes later he was free of the clouds and picked up Ramsgate with the North Foreland light beyond it. Then he suddenly banked steeply to the left for he had just spotted a single plane tearing through the night sky over Thanet.

It might only be some amateur pilot practising night flying but, on the other hand, it just might be a single unit now detached from the smuggler squadron. Setting the controls, he pulled out his night glasses and focused them upon the solitary night flyer, then grunted with disappointment. It was not a big plane such as he had hoped to see, but a passenger machine, probably a four seater.

They were well inland now and heading west north-westward. The solitary plane was a thousand feet below them and, as Gregory came down, he picked up a long irregular broken chain of lights upon his right which, although the town was dark and the holidaymakers long since sleeping, indicated the deserted front at Margate.