Biggles (14 page)

Biggles glowered through the window of the Mess at Maranique as rain swept across the airfield. The Armistice was three weeks old, and apart from a dismantled Sopwith Camel on the runway there was no sign that this had ever been one of the most active combat stations in the war. Mahoney was already off on leave in Paris, and several of the other pilots in 266 Squadron had opted for a swift return to England in their eagerness to leave the war behind them. Biggles would probably have joined them, but his leg wound had confined him to a hospital bed at Base for the last fortnight, and he was still on crutches. The leg was on the mend, but his spirits remained distinctly low. Algy had stayed behind to be with him, but even his devotion was becoming just a little strained by Biggles' bitterness.

‘You really had considered signing on?' asked Algy.

Biggles shrugged his shoulders with impatience.

‘I talked it over briefly with the CO., but he wasn't hopeful. He said he'd recommend me — which was nice of him, all things considered — but he added that I'd have to drop back in rank to a Lieutenant, even if the Air Board took me on. He didn't seem to think they would.'

‘Holy mackerel! They'd be off their flaming chumps to turn clown a flier with your record.'

Biggles shook his head.

‘By no means, Algy lad. Those Whitehall warriors don't much care for individualists like us. It'll be a peacetime air force, and they want nice safe reliable characters to serve in it. Which I imagine rules us out. Not that the situation really arises anyhow. This blasted leg wound stymies my chances. I'm already thinking that poor old Charles was not all that unlucky popping off like that. He'd had a dashed good war — and if this is peace, he's best off out of it.'

A look of consternation spread over Algy's habitually complacent countenance at these gloomy words.

‘You don't really mean that Biggles?' he exclaimed.

Biggles smiled wanly, and at the same time signalled the Mess waiter for another drink.

‘Afraid I do, old scout! For almost as long as I remember I'd been looking forward to the war ending but now, my God, I'd give a lot to see a pack of Fokker triplanes over yonder.'

Algy leant forward, fixing Biggles with his pale blue eyes.

‘Biggles,' he said, ‘forgive me addressing you like the proverbial Dutch Uncle, but I think the time has come to pull yourself together. Self-pity gets you nowhere, and I think we've had enough of it. You're young. You've got your life before you and there's no point getting maudlin just because the old Squadron's breaking up.'

Algy was not a man for speeches of this sort and a heavy silence greeted his effusion. Then Biggles placed his hand on his cousin's arm.

‘Thanks, Algy. You're quite right, as usual. This confounded wound has got me down. There's no point wanting the impossible. One must be realistic. What do you suggest?'

‘It's dashed difficult, I know,' said Algy, ‘but I've been giving quite a bit of thought to the future over the last few months. The
Mater seems to think I should go into the Diplomatic Corps.'

‘And could you?' Biggles asked him quickly.

Algy's boyish smile returned as he grinned at Biggles.

‘Can you see me as an ambassador?'

‘Frankly, no, old thing, I can't.'

‘No more can I. There's always chicken-farming. Lots of the chaps are doing that. How's about chipping in with me and buying a few hundred Rhode Island Reds?'

For the first time in several weeks, Biggles laughed.

‘Or an ostrich farm,' he said. ‘The eggs are bigger, so we'd have bigger profits. No, but seriously, just what are chaps like us to do?

‘Well,' said Algy pensively,' ‘it seems that you and I are rather similar. The one thing we really know about is flying — and the one thing we still demand from life is real adventure. It shouldn't be impossible to combine the two.

‘Absolutely,' Biggles said, ‘but how?'

‘By using our imagination.'

Three weeks later Biggles and Algy were installed in what were euphemistically described as ‘bachelors' apartments' in Mount Street, Mayfair. The rent — £300 a year — had appeared exorbitant to Biggles, but Algy, practical as ever, pointed out the need for what he called ‘a good address'. ‘We must begin as we intend to continue,' he explained. ‘Absolutely no point slumming it in Kensington just to save £50 a year. Here we're within walking distance of the Ritz, and the Carlton Grill is just around the corner. Can't think of a better place to set up shop.'

By this time, Biggles' leg was almost healed, and though he limped and used a walking-stick, his spirits had revived. He liked the little flat — he had his own small ‘den' where he kept his logbooks and trophies from the war, along with his faithful Sidcot flying suit, his goggles, and a small armoury of various offensive weapons. Algy had found the perfect housekeeper — a policeman's wife of uncertain age called Mrs Symes. (‘As long as she can grill a steak and keep her mouth shut, she's all right by me,' said Biggles typically.) The whole arrangement seemed to have reconciled him to the shock of breaking with his beloved
Squadron. It had been a wrench leaving Maranique and bidding a last farewell to that battlefield above the desolation of the Western Front. He had felt naked out of uniform, and missed the routine of the dawn patrols, but in his heart of hearts he knew that Algy had been right — and was duly grateful to him. He was even starting to do something he had always thought impossible — enjoying living in the heart of the metropolis.

‘You'll soon turn me into a confounded cockney,' he said to Algy as he limped cheerfully down Piccadilly en route to meet Mahoney for a farewell dinner at the Café Royal. (Mahoney was off to Kenya to plant coffee. ‘Glad that you're leaving the fleshpots to do something for the Empire,' Biggles told him.)

There was still one matter of concern for Biggles — money. Algy had been more than generous, as he could well afford to be. His grandfather, the fiery old Lord Lacey, had died immensely rich from the somewhat dubious profits of his Governorship, and had set up a succession of abundant trusts for all his heirs. Somewhat unfairly in the circumstances, Biggles did not qualify for any of the Lacey wealth. The old man's refusal to forgive his daughter for her marriage continued beyond the grave. But Algy already had the interest on the money, which amounted to an income of several thousand pounds a year, and he insisted on sharing some of it with Biggles.

‘After all, old chap, it's family money and you're one of the family. Can't have you penalised because the old man didn't like your father.'

Biggles saw the logic of his words, and was duly grateful, but it went against the grain to be dependent on his cousin, even though Algy was the most generous and discreet of men where money was concerned. This made him all the more determined to make the joint activity on which they had now embarked a genuine financial success.

The idea behind it all was Algy's really, and the two cousins had discussed it at great length during their final days at Maranique.

‘Why don't we set up together as independent pilots? The only thing we know about is flying, and now the war's over there is bound to be a need for characters like us who'll fly anywhere at any time, and do anything — provided it's within the law.'

‘What'll we do for aircraft?' Biggles had inquired warily.

‘No problem there,' said Algy. ‘The government has several thousand it no longer needs. They're almost giving them away.'

‘And maintenance? Neither of us is what you'd call a skilled mechanic'

‘By the counter-clockwise aircrew of Icarus, you're an optimistic fellow, I'll say that for you,' replied Algy with a laugh. ‘What about the mechanics that we had with 266? Finest bunch of experts on the Western Front. They could have made a mangle fly. For a fiver a week we could have the pick of them.'

‘And an airfield?'

‘Well, to start with we could garage the old bus at Brooklands.'

‘One final question, Algy lad. Who's going to foot the bill — until the shekels start rolling in?'

Algy smiled. ‘Who d'you think? Our old horror of a grandfather. He left a special legacy for my eighteenth birthday. Five thousand ill-gotten guineas, yours truly strictly for the use of. I can't think of a better way of using them.'

The next few days passed rapidly, and suddenly all Biggles' natural zest for life appeared to have returned. Algy had just spent several hundred pounds of his legacy on a brand-new Bentley three and a half litre tourer, and the first journey that the cousins made in it was down to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. Biggles had had no difficulty arranging with the powers that be to purchase a government surplus warplane — ‘without its armament of course', as the Wing-Commander in Whitehall had quickly added — and they spent a happy morning at the famous R.A.E. ‘shopping around for something suitable', as Algy put it.

Their first thought had been to find a good, all-purpose aircraft — ‘something solid and reliable' said Biggles — and the first plane they looked at was a long-range Vickers Vimy heavy bomber. Neither was very taken with it, despite Biggles' sensible insistence that they could use it to fly freight and passengers and make their fortune.

‘It isn't really us,' said Algy, and Biggles knew that he was right. All their experience had been with combat planes, but these were only single-seaters and they obviously required more
than that. Biggles explained the problem to Jim Halcrow, one of the most experienced test pilots with the R.A.E. He was a short, bald, somewhat silent man, but he had known Biggles of old and was anxious to be helpful.

‘Well,' he said, scratching his non-existent hair, ‘there is one aircraft that might suit you. Still rather hush-hush, I'm afraid, but come and have a look.'

He led Biggles and Algy to a separate hangar, heaved back the sliding door, and walked towards a brand-new biplane standing on its own.

‘Phew!' said Algy. ‘That's more like it. What a beauty! But what is it?'

‘Looks like a Snipe,' said Biggles cautiously.

‘It was a Snipe,' said Halcrow smiling to himself, ‘but we've been altering it a bit — for the R.A.F. As you see, she's got twin cockpits, extra tanks and there's a new 500 horse-power Bentley engine. Goes like a blinking bomb!'

‘What did the R.A.F. want her for?'

‘Long-range anti-submarine patrols. She's got a range of 1,500 miles. But now that the war's over, it won't go into production. This is the prototype. Why don't you make a bid for her? You might be lucky.'

‘That's the plane for us,' said Algy.

‘I think I'd better start to pull a few more strings in Whitehall,' Biggles said. ‘It could be difficult, for she's probably still on the secret list, but if there's anything that influence can do, by God, I'm doing it.'

Jim Halcrow grinned.

‘You do just that, and I'll do what I can to put a good word in for both of you down here. I'm fond of the machine and would like to think she'll go to someone who'll look after her.'

Biggles and Algy were excited now and felt their morning at the R.A.E. had been well spent. But there was still one more surprise in store for them before they left. They had already said goodbye to Halcrow and were walking through the workshops when a voice called out, ‘Good Heavens! It's the Major!'

Biggles looked round, and saw an oil-stained apparition beaming at him from behind a stripped-down aero-engine.

‘Suffering cats!' he ejaculated, ‘If it isn't the inimitable Nobby Smyth. And what on earth might you be doing here, my lad?'

Former Flight Sergeant Ronald Smyth, 266 Squadron's legendary chief mechanic, rubbed an exceptionally greasy hand on the seat of his even greasier set of overalls before accepting Biggles' proferred palm.

‘Slave labour, sir!' he said, and grinned as Biggles had seen him grin when asked for the impossible during the heat of battle. ‘I had to find myself a job when the Squadron folded up. It's not like the good old days, but it's better than working in some blasted garage. And what would you and Captain Lacey both be up to in these parts?'

‘Trying to buy ourselves an aeroplane — and also trying to find a good mechanic to look after it. You wouldn't know of one by any distant chance?'

‘Well as it happens, sir, I do,' said Smyth, with an even wider grin. ‘When do I start?'

Algy never did discover quite how Biggles managed it, but within a week negotiations were completed and the converted Supersnipe — as Biggles called the plane — was standing on the tarmac of the Brooklands airfield, her brand-new paintwork gleaming in the bright spring sun. Biggles and Algy had already had considerable discussions on how the aircraft should be registered.

Biggles had tried to insist that it belonged to Algy, but he wasn't having that.

‘Suffering seacows!' Algy had replied. ‘What would I ever do if my sainted mother found out I'd bought an aeroplane? I'd have hell to pay. No, Biggles, we're in this together. We'll form a company and register the aircraft in its name.'

‘What name?' asked Biggles pensively.

‘Well,' said Algy, ‘as far as I can see there's only one name that'll really do.'

‘What's that?'

‘Biggles and Co.,' said Algy cheerfully. ‘Then if Mama gets wind of what I'm up to, I can put all the blame on you.'

And so it was that the extraordinary firm of Biggles and Company first saw the light of day.

Like the majority of companies, Biggles and Co. found it uphill work to get established. With the ending of the war there was a
glut of former fliers desperate for work, and our two heroes had their work cut out to scrape a living. But at least they managed to keep flying — even if it meant doing the lowliest of jobs. For several weeks they worked from Heston Airport as part of an air-taxi service, and at weekends offered ‘joy-rides' at five shillings a passenger. They flew at fetes and fairs. They worked with a stunt parachutist called Rix — until he lost his nerve — and they did aerobatics for the fun of it. All of this barely paid Smyth's wages and the petrol, but it kept them occupied and happy, and they were young enough to rough it for a while, especially with Mrs Symes to mother them whenever they returned to Mount Street. Then, at the end of March, Biggles and Algy got their first big chance, as they had always known they would. What was surprising was the form the offer took, and that they owed it to the last person either would have dreamed of — Algy's father.