Biggles

by John Pearson

  Then, it was back to Base for breakfast — usually baked beans and fried eggs in the Mess — and when the aircraft had been checked, refuelled and their guns re-loaded, 666 would once again take off to await the next wave of enemy attack.

  The Squadron had its losses. Early that August, Taffy Hughes ignored Biggles’ constant warning — ‘beware the Hun in the sun’ — and while taking on a Dornier was caught from behind by a yellow-nosed Messerschmitt. Ginger reported later that the last he saw of him was a black trail plunging to the sea. Bertie’s plane went down in flames just two days later, but he managed to get out, and his parachute was spotted by the Deal lifeboat. He lost his monocle and got very wet, but was in the air again at six next morning. Biggles nearly copped it too, for by the end of August he was getting slightly ‘battle-happy’, and was beginning to take risks he would have normally avoided. This may partially have been the effect of age, and it was around this time that the Wing M.O. had tried to ‘ground’ him, saying that his nerves would soon be shot to pieces. Biggles avoided this, of course — he always did — but Algy began to get worried about him now, and it was Algy who ultimately saved his life.

  They had been up twice that morning, and the Squadron had already taken on a massed formation of the enemy. All had gone well for several minutes as the Spitfires did their deadly work. They had had several kills and, more importantly, the German bombers had been forced to break formation, and several were already heading back for France. This was the point at which the Spitfires would normally break off their attack and return to Base as well, but suddenly across his radio Algy heard Biggles’ voice. He can’t have realised he was transmitting, for he was swearing furiously to himself, and then he started shouting that he’d ‘seen the Hun that got old Taffy’ and was after him. Then the radio went dead.

  Algy was out of ammunition but he immediately began to search the skies for Biggles. There was no sign of him. The German planes had disappeared, and Algy could see Tex and Ginger just below him heading back towards the English coast. Algy climbed higher. Still no sign of Biggles, so he kicked the rudder-bar and, climbing higher still, he made for France. It was a perfect August morning, and from this height he could see for miles — the glittering azure of the Channel, the twin white cliffs of Calais and Dover on each horizon, and a destroyer far beneath him like a child’s toy as it made for Portsmouth. But although he scanned the skies, there was no sign of aircraft now. At this point, Algy had to take a chance. He knew the Messerschmitts had come either from Belgium or from northern France. He wasn’t certain which, but plumped for France and finally spotted what he sought. Far below him, just to the north of Calais, he saw a pack of half a dozen Messerschmitts encircling one lone aeroplane — a Spitfire.

  There was a deadly duel in progress and he could see already that the British plane was trapped. From the way it was performing, he knew the pilot must be Biggles, but the odds against the plane were far too great. One of the Messerschmitts went down in flames, but even as Biggles dived past it, two other Messerschmitts were climbing high above him for the kill.

  ‘O.K., you blighters, here I come!’ Algy muttered through clenched teeth, and shoving the stick hard forward, aimed his aircraft in a power-dive straight for the leading Messerschmitt. He cursed himself for being out of ammunition, but was counting on diverting the attack to give his chum the chance to get away. Down, down he went and practically blacked out. Then, over his radio, he heard one of the German pilots shouting, ‘Achtung, Achtung, Spitfire!’ It was a brave attempt, and had his guns been loaded Algy could have finished both Messerschmitts at once. As it was, the leading aircraft took evasive action, rolled and dived away, but the one behind it kept straight on for Biggles, and as Algy pulled out of his dive and banked, he saw behind him in his cockpit mirror deadly tracer-fire raking Biggles’ Spitfire from the rear.

  Algy was powerless, and saw the Spitfire’s wing come off, smoke start to billow from its engine, and the fuselage twist in the beginning of a spin. He saw it all as if it was happening in slow-motion, and he told himself that Biggles must be dead. But then a miracle occurred. Just as the first flames were licking from the engine, the Spitfire’s canopy slid back, a figure tumbled out and, seconds later, Algy glimpsed the white fleck of an opening parachute. It mushroomed out with Biggles dangling on the end of it, kicking his legs to straighten out the cords.

  They were over flat green farmland, and Biggles hadn’t all that far to fall, but even so, one of the Messerschmitts showed signs of coming back to deal with him — until Algy flipped his wings to warn him off.

  ‘No you don’t, my lad!’ said Algy softly to himself, making a tight turn round his cousin as he drifted down. He saw Biggles wave — though whether in greeting or farewell, he wasn’t sure. Then he was down in the middle of a field, the long line of the parachute spewed out behind him. Algy still buzzed protectively overhead and for a moment wondered what to do, but coming down the road beyond the field was something that made his mind up for him — an open German Army lorry with half-a-dozen field-grey soldiers in the back. There was no question now of leaving Biggles to their tender mercy. Instead, he banked the Spitfire, flattened out above a line of trees, and landed barely ten yards from where Biggles stood.

  ‘Taxi!’ shouted Biggles, raising a gloved hand and grinning ruefully at Algy.

  ‘Hurry Up, you idiot!’ yelled Algy, above the roar of his Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. ‘The Huns have got a welcoming party down the road. Hop in, unless you want to spend the rest of the war behind barbed wire.’

  Biggles required no second bidding, especially with German rifle-fire now zinging round his head. It was a horribly tight squeeze inside the cockpit, but even before he’d shut the canopy, Algy had gunned the engine and released the brakes, and the overloaded Spitfire was trundling across the meadow. It missed the line of trees by inches and minutes later was above the waters of the English Channel.

  ‘Sorry, Algy,’ mumbled Biggles. ‘I was a blithering idiot. Simply lost my rag. Should’ve known better. Thanks for fetching me, old scout!’

  ‘Don’t mention it, old boy’ said Algy. ‘It was a pleasure. Just the same, go easy, eh? Committing suicide won’t get poor old Taffy back.’

  Luckily for Biggles — and for 666 — things were easing up, for by late September ‘the Few’ had won the battle of the skies and the great German onslaught slackened. That autumn, Biggles took a few days’ leave, and even started up a brief affair with a blonde called Pam, who worked in an officers’ club in Kensington. Algy and Ginger took a proprietorial interest in the romance and had both done their level best to encourage it — on the grounds that ‘the old boy’s been taking life too seriously and needs taking out of himself. They had discussed this several times, and it was Algy who finally suggested Pam, and had made the original introduction. She was an ancient flame of his, a gentle, rather jolly creature in her early thirties, with a well-developed bosom and a flat in Eaton Square. Biggles seemed extremely taken with her, but when his leave was over and Algy asked him how it had all gone, he shook his head.

  ‘No go, old fruit. It simply wasn’t on.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’ responded Algy, mouth agape.

  ‘Algy, I’d rather not talk about it,’ said Biggles stiffly.

  ‘Oh come now Biggles, for Pete’s sake!’ answered Algy. ‘We’ve known each other long enough, and we’re not exactly schoolgirls. What went wrong?’

  ‘She’s married, Algy. That’s what’s wrong.’

  Algy laughed with evident relief.

  ‘Good Heavens, Biggles! Is that all it was? But I thought you knew! For a moment I imagined it was something really serious.’

  ‘But it was serious,’ said Biggles levelly. ‘Dashed serious. For me at any rate. You see, I asked Pamela to marry me. I felt I ought to, after what had happened. That’s how I found out. And now, if you’ll excuse me, we will change the subject.’

  Later that evening Algy discussed it all with Ginger.
/>
  ‘Dreadful pity,’ Algy said. ‘She was exactly what he needed. Quite an affectionate little thing and a husband in the Navy. She would have been ideal.’

  But Ginger shook his head.

  ‘Algy, when will you realise that Biggles isn’t a cad like you where women are concerned? He’s a romantic. He respects them.’

  Algy nodded.

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Poor old Biggles. What a helluva thing to be. But what a good thing dear old Pam was married.’

  Luckily for Biggles, aircraft really took the place of women in his life and he had little time to brood. During that winter 666 was mainly occupied with night-time flying — trying to meet the German Blitz on London — and then, in the spring of 1941, there were a number of demanding operations on behalf of Air Intelligence. During one of these — described by Captain Johns in his book Biggles Fails to Return — Biggles was actually given up for lost after the failure of a mission to the Italian-occupied territory of the south of France to rescue the celebrated ‘Princess X’ whose father, a noted anti-fascist, was being blackmailed, before he was finally killed, with threats against his daughter. For several weeks Biggles was given up for dead, and this was the one occasion when Algy took command of 666. Biggles reappeared on this occasion in North Africa, having made good his escape in a commandeered Italian flying boat.

  It was shortly after this that Biggles met the only woman who could match his reputation in the air — the extraordinary Joan Worralson, or ‘Worrals of the W.A.A.F.’ as she was known to her admirers. The assiduous Captain Johns saw fit to chronicle a few of her adventures, but once again discretion — and quite simple fear of rousing Biggles’ ire for what he would have termed the author’s ‘blasted scandal-mongering’ — made him fight shy of giving any details of her friendship with our hero. Algy, who knew her rather well, always insisted that ‘she was absolutely made for Biggles’, and regretted that things turned out as they did. But the more one learns about this flying Amazon, the more one understands why Biggles acted as he did.

  ‘Dashed fine flier,’ he replied once when I mentioned her to him. ‘But tough, and not what one would call a cosy sort of girl. Not very womanly, you know.’ Confirmed male chauvinist that he was, Biggles liked ‘cosy’ women, and was not attracted by young women who attempted to usurp the male role. But despite this, he was undoubtedly impressed by his first sight of Miss Joan Worralson — and may well have ‘led her on’ in the months that followed.

  He had been on the tarmac, waiting for delivery of replacement Spitfires which had been promised some days earlier from the central pool. The condition of the Squadron’s aircraft had been worrying him and he had had a number of furious exchanges with the Air Ministry upon the subject. He had demanded three new aircraft — which were promised faithfully. But all that finally turned up was one solitary Spitfire, and no sooner had it landed than Biggles stormed across to vent his wrath upon the pilot.

  According to Algy, there was ‘something of a shindig’ as Biggles fumed away at ‘those confounded nincompoops in the Air Ministry’, and ordered the pilot to return to the central pool and say that he wanted his three planes or nothing. The pilot stayed very cool throughout all this, and seemed quite unaffected by Biggles’ wrath and highly coloured language.

  ‘Would you please put your refusal to accept this aircraft in writing, and any other observations that you care to make.’

  ‘Observations! What the blazes do you mean by observations?’ thundered Biggles. ‘I want those three confounded Spitfires I was promised. You can tell that to those flaming nitwits who sent you. And while you’re about it, man, I think you should get yourself a haircut.’ For Biggles had seen a thick black curl escaping from the side of the pilot’s flying helmet.

  At this the pilot turned and grinned, then quietly replied, ‘I’ll tell my hairdresser, sir.’

  ‘Hairdresser!’ choked Biggles. ‘What the blazes ...?’

  For the helmet was suddenly removed, and the Spitfire pilot stood revealed as an attractive young brunette.

  ‘Flight Officer Worralson of Transport Command at your service, Squadron Leader,’ she replied. ‘Most people call me Worrals.’

  ‘Good heavens, so you’re Worrals. I’ve heard all about you. You must excuse my language, but one gets a bit frustrated at a time like this,’ answered Biggles, somewhat sheepishly. ‘You must come over to the Mess and have a drink.’

  And so the friendship started, for Worrals stayed to lunch, was introduced to all the members of the Squadron, and that same afternoon Biggles insisted on ferrying her back to Transport Command headquarters in the twin-engined ‘Oxford’ aircraft which the squadron used for flying V.I.P.s. Thanks to Worrals, 666 did get the rest of the replacement Spitfires which had been promised. She flew them over personally next day. During the weeks that followed there were more occasions for her to visit Tangmere, so much so that Algy was soon making quite a joke about it all.

  ‘It’s that Worrals girl again,’ he’d say to Biggles with a wink. ‘You’d better watch out or you’ll have her applying to join the Squadron. I wonder which of us she fancies?’

  ‘Really, Algy,’ Biggles said. ‘That’s no way to speak about an officer and a lady. She just does her job — and jolly well she does it too.’

  ‘Well, you should know old chap, if anybody does.’

  ‘Now, look here Algy,’ snorted Biggles. ‘I find this sort of innuendo coarse and tasteless in the extreme. Good heavens, man, Worrals is young enough to be my daughter!’

  ‘Exactly Biggles. She obviously sees you as a father figure. You know what young girls are.’

  But Biggles clearly didn’t know what young girls were — at any rate, not young girls like the determined Worrals of the W.A.A.F. — and despite a lot of somewhat heavy humour in the Mess, it rather looked as if Biggles had finally been hooked. He would have said, of course, that it was all extremely innocent — brief expeditions through the Sussex lanes in Worrals’ red MG, a chaste dinner at the Dorchester followed by an equally chaste film in Leicester Square, a spot of dual flying down at Tangmere in which Biggles’ admiration for the young girl’s flying skill increased. They talked a lot — or rather, Biggles talked a lot, with Worrals wide-eyed and adoring as he went through his well-tried repertoire of flying stories from the past. He even kissed her — once. It was the most fatherly of kisses, in the deserted ante-room at the end of a squadron dance. (The station band was playing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and Biggles was briefly overcome.) It might have led to other things, but a few days later the call to action intervened, and Worrals was permanently displaced by a shadowy figure out of Biggles’ past.

  It all began when Squadron 666 was suddenly involved in a desperate operation against the German U-boat base at St Nazaire. Thus had begun as an attempt by Air Commodore Raymond to work with the French Resistance. Because of his near-perfect French and his proven skill at working ‘in the field’, as Raymond put it, Biggles had had the task of parachuting into Brittany to liaise with the local French Resistance group and plan a joint attack by a British bomber force and Free French saboteurs.

  The beginning of the plan worked admirably. Biggles was dropped outside the town, picked up by the French and spent several days disguised as a French dockyard worker living in the town. During this time, the whole attack was planned down to the last detail — timing, the explosive charges to be planted by the French inside the U-boat pens, and the targets to be dealt with by the British bombers. Biggles was looked after by a French couple he knew as ‘Madeleine’ and ‘Gaston’, and he admired them greatly for their coolness, their hatred of les sales Boches, and the skill with which they did their work. It was thanks to them that everything went smoothly on the night that Algy came to fetch him — flying the same Lysander Biggles used at Amiens. The attack was fixed for three days later.

  It was a near disaster. The British bombers flew in from the sea to meet some of the toughest opposition of the war. Biggles, who flew with
them, had never seen so many Messerschmitts in the air at once, and fifteen of the bombers failed to return. None of them did appreciable damage to the U-boat pens — nor, as it turned out, did the saboteurs. Biggles discovered later that the whole Resistance group had been arrested by the Germans on the very morning of the attack.

  Biggles had always taken failure badly, and had the miserable duty of attending the ‘inquest’ on the operation at the Air Ministry a few days later. An Air Vice Marshal was in charge, and while no actual blame was laid on Biggles, there was a lot of criticism of the role of Air Intelligence.

  ‘What were your fellows doing, Raymond?’ thundered the Air Vice Marshal bitterly. ‘The opposition must have known what we were up to from the start. They set a trap and we flew slapbang into it.’

  Raymond nodded, stony-faced.

  ‘I’ve no excuse sir. There must have been a leak. These things happen.’

  ‘Well they shouldn’t. We’ve lost sixty of our finest men, and all for nothing. I insist upon a full inquiry.’

  ‘You shall have it, sir,’ said Raymond grimly.

  As Biggles left the inquest, he was button-holed by Raymond.

  ‘Just a minute, James. We’ve something to discuss.’ With sinking heart, Biggles followed his old chief towards his sanctum.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Biggles, as he met that steely gaze across the familiar desk. But Raymond brushed his apologies aside.

  ‘No time for that, James. War by its nature is a risky business and mistakes occur. The only thing to do is profit by them. I didn’t mention it just now, but I think I’ve found out what went wrong.’