Biggles (9 page)

Then suddenly the fight was over — almost as soon as it began. The aircraft had lost height in the
mêlée,
and Mahoney, now alarmed to find his aircraft well over German territory, signalled to disengage. Most of the German squadron had disappeared by now, and half an hour later Biggles was landing safely back at Base.

This was his first experience of a full-scale ‘dogfight' in the air, and it left him strangely unaffected, even when Mahoney landed, slapped him on the back and cheerfully congratulated him.

‘Great work, my boy!' he said, and smiled his strange crooked smile (all broken teeth and shaggy eyebrows), ‘You realise who you nearly got?'

Biggles shook his head.

‘The bold bad Baron! Von Richthofen in person! He was in that scarlet triplane that you nearly hit. It isn't every day you meet him and survive to tell the tale.'

By lunchtime the full story of the fight was in. Two of the Pups had failed to return and three of the Bristol Fighters had been shot down as well. According to observers on the ground, the Germans had lost seven aircraft.

‘Not bad for a morning's shooting,' Major Mullen said to Biggles and Mahoney in the Mess. ‘I'd better buy you both a drink. I think you've earned it.' There was no mention of the two dead members of the Squadron. Like their aircraft, they had been ‘written off already. There was no point at all in being sentimental.

Biggles, however, found it difficult to dismiss them quite so lightly. Perhaps this was a sign of strain. Perhaps he should have had that fortnight's leave when it was offered. It had been all right while he was actually in the air, but now he had a sense of dreadful let-down and depression. He had seen far too much of war and death in the last ten months since he had been in France. Besides, he was haunted by the thought that the two pilots ought not to have died, and that the battle they had fought that morning had been a terrible mistake. Von Richthofen and his men had laid a trap for them; the flight had sailed into it, and but for luck and Biggles' quick reactions, not two, but all five members of the flight would have fallen to the German Spandaus.

This was the thought that preyed on his mind, and finally he brought himself to mention it to Major Mullen. Had he been Major Paynter, this would have been interpreted as one more sign that ‘the boy wonder' was once more ‘getting above himself, but Mullen was intelligent enough to spot the genius in Biggles, and make allowances accordingly.

‘Trap?' he said. ‘You think the Huns had set up a trap for you this morning?'

‘Certain of it, sir,' said Biggles quickly. ‘I think the whole thing was arranged. The first three Albatrosses were a decoy to lure us right under the noses of Richthofen's squadron.'

‘huh!' said Major Mullen thoughtfully, ‘You may be right.'

‘Whether I am or not, I think we ought to try something of the sort upon the Hun.'

‘And how do we do that?'

‘In India they would use a goat as a decoy to catch a tiger while the hunters waited in the tree above. I think we could do the
same, but it'll need several squadrons. One squadron would attack across the German Lines in the direction of Douai and hang around long enough to bring Richthofen and his boys out in pursuit. Then they would lead them back across the Lines where we would have two further squadrons flying at 12,000 feet waiting for them. With any luck the Huns would have split formation by then and we could even catch the stragglers as they made for Base.'

‘You think that it would work?' asked Major Mullen.

‘I think it's worth a try — and I wouldn't mind another crack at Richthofen, to tell the truth,' said Biggles.

This was the beginning of the celebrated ‘Big Show', which three R.F.C. squadrons finally staged against the enemy some two weeks later, with Major Mullen leading 266 in person. Earlier in the afternoon a group of F.E.2s had lured the German ‘circus' up from their field at Douai, and Biggles had the satisfaction of being in the first of the formations of Sopwith Pups which swept down on the two unsuspecting triplanes as they were coming in to land at Douai. Neither had a chance against the firepower of nine British aircraft firing together, and they broke up before their pilots could have realised what hit them.

It wasn't particularly sporting, but Biggles never had believed in sport at school, and it made even less sense in the air. He often used to say that the jungle near Garhwal was a better training ground for combat flying than the playing fields of Malton Hall, for in the cockpit, just as in the jungle, only one rule applied, the cruellest and simplest rule of all — kill or be killed. ‘That was the rule von Richthofen and his fliers always followed — and so did we. So both sides knew what they were up against.'

Certainly, that afternoon the British pilots did their share of killing, and seven of the German triplanes were officially accounted for at no loss to the British squadrons.

‘Highly satisfactory,' was Major Mullen's verdict on the whole affair, and Biggles' reputation as a ‘lunatic' began to change. He was becoming cunning — ‘one of those fliers who can use their brains,' as Major Mullen said approvingly to Mahoney in the Mess that night.

‘Perhaps he won't kill himself after all,' replied the Ulsterman.

‘I wouldn't count on that,' said Mullen.

But during that late summer with 266, Biggles' charmed life continued. Throughout the long patrols, the dogfights and diversions, he seemed almost indestructible. Mahoney christened him ‘the machine', and now there began to be something faintly inhuman in the way he fought. His flying was near perfect. His instinct never seemed to fail him in the thickest dogfight, and however near he flew to death, his boyish smile would never falter. He used to say his one regret was that he never came face to face again with the scarlet triplane of von Richthofen.

But beneath the confidence and schoolboy eagerness, something was going wrong.

Mahoney, who was an understanding man, was probably the first to spot the signs of what was happening.

‘Ease up, young Biggles,' he would say. ‘Come out and have a drink with me tonight in Maranique. We could even find ourselves a couple of nice girls. A woman would do you good.'

But Biggles always grinned and made the same excuse. ‘There aren't any nice girls left in Maranique, and you can't mix drink and flying.'

‘I can,' Mahoney would reply.

‘You're lucky. You're an Irishman!' Biggles would answer gravely, and next morning he would always be the first man down for dawn patrol, and when bleary-eyed Mahoney shambled across the tarmac Biggles would smile at him and primly shake his head.

‘Rough night, Mahoney?' he would shout. And Mahoney, most tolerant of men, would softly answer.

‘Wonderful! I found a lovely girl and she's got a sister who can't wait to meet you.'

‘Later, when I'm not so busy,' Biggles would reply as his engine started up. And Mahoney would wonder how much longer Biggles could go on without cracking up.

The truth was that Biggles, in his single-minded way, was still in love with flying. He remained scared of women, and all the feelings and emotions which might otherwise have found an outlet in a normal love-affair were centred on his Sopwith Pup. Dedicated, chaste as any novice monk, he had no knowledge of the world, and precious little knowledge of himself. He had no real friends, no hobbies and no vices — and there was no give in his lonely, locked-in nature. Mahoney saw this but he could not
communicate with Biggles now. All he could do was wait, and hope the boy would not destroy himself.

In the autumn of 1917, Squadron 266 was re-equipped with Sopwith Camels — a more powerful, more lethal aircraft than the Sopwith Pup, but one that took a lot of flying. Once again Biggles proved himself a virtuoso pilot, and seemed to have adapted to this latest aircraft faster than anybody in the Squadron. For several weeks he flew it with his usual skill, and then at the beginning of October the whole Squadron was involved in a dawn patrol that turned into one of the most vicious dogfights anyone had ever seen. It was appalling weather right across the Front and 266 was ambushed by two German squadrons far across the German Lines.

As usual, Biggles' nerve sustained him through the battle and at one point he was in the thick of things with twenty German triplanes in the crowded sky around him. He fought like an automaton, looping and diving and evading certain death, with his twin Vickers guns blazing at the enemy. He had no recollection of how many German planes he had hit, and then, as often happened in a dogfight of this sort, the enemy appeared to vanish. The cloud closed in around Biggles, and he was flying on his own. Then he noticed that a bullet had destroyed his compass.

Suddenly, he was scared. It was an emotion he had never felt in an aeroplane before, and it shook him. He had no idea of his position or direction, and felt lonelier than ever in his life before. At first he could see no landmarks, but then, miraculously, there was a break in the cloud and below him he could make out another Sopwith Camel. Presumably it knew where it was heading, and Biggles followed in a shallow dive which brought him out below the bank of cloud. By now the other plane had disappeared. Then he saw it, still descending, and as he overhauled it he could see the reason. The propeller was no longer turning and its pilot was already looking for a place to land.

This was not difficult, for the countryside was a patchwork of neat green fields, and as Biggles circled overhead, he saw the leather-coated British pilot make a perfect landing, clamber out, then fire his Very pistol at the plane to stop the enemy retrieving
it. For Biggles there was only one thing to do — rescue the pilot — and in a moment he had landed by the blazing wreck and was beckoning to him. As the man came running to the plane, Biggles recognised him. It was Mahoney.

‘Jump in, you idle Irishman,' he shouted, for he had spotted a lorry-load of Germans driving down the road to find out what had happened.

‘Thank God you're a little 'un, Biggles my boy,' the fourteen-stone Mahoney answered as he squeezed his great bulk into the single cockpit with Biggles somehow wedged beside him. It was a bumpy take-off, and the German troops were firing by now, but the overloaded Camel was soon soaring above the startled enemy and then up into the mist towards the safety of the British Lines.

On that journey back to Base, Mahoney noticed something strange about Biggles. His hand was trembling and his teeth were tightly clenched. He spoke not a word, and when they landed back at Maranique, and Biggles was surrounded by a crowd of half the Squadron on the tarmac to congratulate him on the rescue, he still said nothing. He was still trembling and when Major Mullen saw his ashen face he recognised the signs.

‘Off to bed with you, James my boy,' he said. ‘You look done in.'

‘I'm fine,' said Biggles gamely.

‘You're nothing of the sort,' said Mullen. And that evening, when he saw him in the Mess, the Major said, ‘Ah, James, I think it's time you had a little leave, and Mahoney agrees with me.'

‘But sir, I don't want leave. I want to go on flying.'

‘I don't care what you want, I'm ordering you a fortnight back in Blighty. And take my advice, while you're there enjoy yourself. There are more things in life than aeroplanes.'

Biggles did not particularly enjoy his leave. It was over a year since he had been in England, and he felt out of place in London during that fourth winter of the war. He was now eighteen and a half, and since leaving school his entire life had been spent in the fighting and the danger of the Western Front. It had hardened him beyond his years. It had also narrowed him. Flying had become his life, and he had no conception of what pleasures there could be beyond the cockpit and an evening in the Mess.

‘I was incredibly green still in those days,' he admitted later. ‘When I stepped off the train at Victoria, London was like a foreign city and I was completely lost. I was staying in a small hotel off Piccadilly, but I knew nobody and had never been so lonely in my life.'

Mahoney had told him to enjoy himself, but he had really no idea how to go about it — and wasn't sure he wanted to, to judge by what he saw around him. He went to a musical comedy at The Lyceum, and was very bored. He nearly had a fight with three Australians who called him ‘Blondie' — Biggles was in mufti at the time — and suggested he should join the Boy Scouts and defeat the Kaiser. He dined alone one evening in the Carlton Grill and felt outraged at the soft life of the wealthy, overfed civilians around him. As he was leaving, one fat lady in a low-cut evening dress gave him a white feather, for which he thanked her and replied that he would treasure it. One of the hotel porters even offered to
find him what he called ‘a nice young lady to keep you company', but the overpainted harridan who finally appeared and promised him ‘a lovely time' would probably have proved too much even for Mahoney's somewhat basic tastes. For somebody as fastidious and virginal as Biggles, she appeared repellent, and when he had disengaged himself — no easy task — he quietly resolved to stick to aeroplanes, for as he put it later, ‘they seemed prettier and far less trouble than the female sex'. He also decided there and then that he had had enough of London, and for the remainder of his leave went off to his schoolboy place of refuge — old General Bigglesworth's in Norfolk.

By now his M.C. had come through. It was officially awarded for his rescue of Mahoney, and although like all Front-Line fliers Biggles pretended to despise such decorations — ‘sent up with the rations' was the usual way they referred to them — he could not resist wearing the brand-new ribbon on his uniform. He had been promoted Captain as well, so that when he stepped off the little train at Norwich he felt that in the General's eyes he had finally atoned for leaving his Rifle Regiment for the R.F.C. He had almost evened up the score with his distinguished brother too.