Biggles (7 page)

Adventures such as these appealed to Biggles, for his attitude to war remained a very private one. Apart from his passion for flying, which nothing could deflate, he still regarded the war as something of a personal crusade. But during the early spring of 1917, the war in the air began to change, particularly for hard-pressed 169, and Biggles started to become uneasy about what was happening. As he put it when he talked about it later, ‘All the fun suddenly went out of it and it became a very beastly business — like the war itself.'

Part of the trouble was the growing strength of the German opposition, which, with faster planes, and sound Teutonic tactics, was sending out massed patrols against which the isolated F.E.2s had little chance. In answer to this the Allied Air Command switched 169 to night-bombing duties — a task which hardly suited Biggles. It was hazardous, impersonal work, and although he continued to fly with Lieutenant Way, and on one memorable April night joined in a mass attack on the Richthofen headquarters at Douai, Biggles did not enjoy it, and made no secret of the fact.

He was at his best when faced with an instant challenge, and was still very much the boy who had taught himself to survive in the forests of Garhwal. Although relations between Biggles and Major Paynter were as bad as ever, the C.O. must have recognised something unusual in him, since it was now that he chose him for a very special mission, which required rather more than the everyday pilot's skills. Biggles was still barely eighteen at the time, but this mission was to prove of key importance to him, both as a foretaste of the sort of high adventure he would follow in his life, and for the introduction that it gave him to the man who would help to shape his destiny. This was a tall, emaciated-looking, steely-eyed Intelligence major attached to Wing Headquarters. His name was Raymond.

Paynter introduced him to Biggles in his office, and Major Raymond, in that clipped, laconic way he had, explained that the Allied Secret Service had a little problem. The German army was bringing up reinforcements over a bridge across the River Aisne near a town called Aille. Several air attempts to bomb the bridge had failed, and because of the urgency it had been decided to try sabotage. Raymond had found a Frenchman from the district who was highly recommended by the French High
Command as one of their top saboteurs, but he had to be landed near the bridge — by night, of course, and without arousing the German guards. The F.E.2s were ideal for this sort of work — they were slow and could practically land and take off in a cabbage patch. How, Major Rayond asked, did Biggles feel about it?

‘No problem, sir!' said Biggles easily.

‘Oh, and there's just one other thing I should have mentioned,' added Raymond. ‘Under the rules of war, if they catch you or the Frenchman they're perfectly entitled to shoot you both. They probably will. Say if you'd rather back out now.'

Biggles shook his head.

‘Capital,' said Raymond. ‘Say nothing of this to anyone of course, but be prepared to leave at a moment's notice'.

It was next day, just as Biggles was finishing dinner in the Mess, that he was called again to Paynter's office, and Major Raymond introduced him to a small round Frenchman wearing a bowler hat.

‘Here's your passenger,' he said. ‘Take-off in half an hour's time. Good luck!'

It was so casual that the Frenchman might have been a civil servant who required flying back to Base. He spoke little English and seemed a most unlikely saboteur. They discussed their mission briefly; despite his broken English the little man appeared extremely competent, and had a brief-case with him. ‘Dynamite,' he said cryptically when Biggles stared at it.

‘How is he planning to return?' Biggles asked Major Raymond.

‘Oh, that's his business,' he replied. ‘He has his own ways of getting back across the Lines.'

‘Why don't I wait for him?' said Biggles.

‘Far too dangerous. They'd be bound to spot you.'

Biggles accepted this, but was worried at the thought of this fat, heroic little Frenchman — who rather reminded him of his old friend Captain Lovell — having to risk the guns and wire of no man's land.

‘Tell him I'll return for him at dawn,' he said. ‘We'll make a rendezvous and I'll be there.'

‘On your head be it if you want to take the risk,' said Major Raymond.

It was a tricky piece of flying, for plainly there was no room for
error, but luckily Biggles had already had a chance to reconnoitre the bridge in daylight earlier that morning, and to memorise the landmarks and the field near the river where he had to land. Luckily there was a moon — and Biggles had a knack for this sort of precision flying.

He gave the thumbs up to the Frenchman — and the Frenchman, from his seat in the front cockpit, solemnly raised his bowler hat.

The flight took less than half an hour, and Biggles was relieved that the German anti-aircraft guns took no notice of this solitary aircraft crossing the Lines at 5,000 feet. But he was taking no chances. He could not risk alerting the German guards on the bridge, and before he reached the long pale ribbon of the Aisne, he cut his engine and came in to land in a slow and silent glide.

It was the sort of landing every pilot dreads. Biggles had no way of knowing if there were trip wires stretched across the field, or if a German ambush was already waiting for them. But they were lucky, and the bus-like F.E.2 made a perfect three-point landing.

‘Six a.m. sharp, I'll be there,' whispered Biggles as the Frenchman, with considerable agility, heaved himself and his black bag over the side of the cockpit and landed on the grass.

‘D'accord,'
he answered. Biggles watched the bowler hat go bobbing off across the field, and waited nervously until the Frenchman reached the shelter of the hedge before starting up the engine. There was a row of trees at the far end of the field, and the wheels of the F.E.2 scraped through them as it took off in the darkness, turned and sped for home. This time there was some anti-aircraft fire and Biggles wondered if the Germans had been put on the alert for him.

He had five hours to wait before returning, and it says much for the state of Biggles' eighteen-year-old nerves that within ten minutes of landing back at base, he was rolled up in his bunk and instantly asleep. The next he knew, his batman, holding a cup of tea, was shaking him on the shoulder and saying sternly, ‘Five o'clock, sir. Time to rise and shine!'

It was a cold and cheerless morning, and Biggles began to wish that he had taken Major Raymond's advice and let the Frenchman find his own way back. But a promise was a promise, even if it meant rising at that unearthly hour. His aircraft was
refuelled and waiting, and soon he was across the Lines and heading for the Aisne as dawn was breaking. He followed his earlier routine, cutting his engine and gliding in towards the field, and then glanced at his watch. Six o'clock exactly. ‘How's that for timing!' he thought to himself.

Already there was sufficient light for Biggles to survey the landscape, and as he did so something caught his eye — a movement in a nearby field. He looked again and suddenly made out, in the shadow of a line of trees, a row of horsemen — German cavalry. By now he was approaching the rendezvous, and was just about to switch on his engine and escape from what was obviously a trap, when something else caught his eye — a figure in the middle of the field, waving at him. His man was obviously there and waiting for him to take him off to safety. At whatever risk, he felt he had to land and pick him up.

He took a swift glance at the German cavalry in the nearby field. They had spotted him, and were already galloping to where he aimed to land, but the figure in the field was still waving at him.

‘Can't let the fellow down,' thought Biggles to himself. ‘He'd never trust an Englishman again.' He pushed the joystick forward, started the engine to be ready for an instant take-off once the Frenchman was aboard, and aimed for the centre of the field.

But as he swept in to land, a strange thing happened. A second figure darted from the edge of the field and sprinted towards the waving man. Biggles could see he had a gun. There was a flash, the first man fell and as the aircraft rumbled to a halt Biggles could see the man who had fired more plainly. He wore a large black bowler hat.

‘Bonjour monsieur,' the Frenchman shouted cheerfully. ‘Like all you English, you are only just in time.'

‘But who's the man you shot?' shouted Biggles above the roar of his engine.

‘A German agent. They must have known you were coming and he was trying to decoy you down.' The Frenchman heaved himself aboard as Biggles opened up the throttle. ‘Off we go,
mon vieux,
unless you wish to end up at the wrong end of a German firing squad.'

Biggles required no second bidding, for by now the first of the
German horsemen were barely forty yards away, whilst bullets from their carbines buzzed like angry wasps around the cockpit. There was nothing for it but to fly straight at them, hoping they would have the sense to scatter — which to Biggles' satisfaction was exactly what occurred.

‘The Boche cavalry's no match for an F.E.2,' he chuckled to himself as he soared above the milling horsemen, waved debonairly at them with a well-gloved hand, banked the plane and headed off for home and the three-course breakfast that he knew was waiting for him in the Mess.

‘If Way has finished off the Cooper's marmalade,' he told himself, ‘I'll kill the wretched fellow.'

Once back at Base — after Biggles had performed his customary immaculate three-pointer — the little Frenchman gave a courtly bow and said, ‘My thanks,
jeune homme.
You saved my life and taught those filthy German cavalry a lesson they won't forget. I trust we'll meet again.'

‘Delighted to have been of some assistance,' Biggles modestly replied, and watched as the little man went trotting off towards a waiting Staff car. Suddenly he almost envied him, Frenchman and civilian though he was, for he was certainly extremely ‘game' — even old Captain Lovell would have admitted that — and in the middle of this massive European war, he was managing to live a life of high adventure. During that night's brief contact with him, Biggles had experienced excitement such as he had never before known. Compared with him the fellows in the Mess appeared extremely dull, and even though the Cooper's marmalade had not been finished, Biggles felt restless and dissatisfied. He had a brief word of congratulation from Major Raymond, but that was all, and though he knew that thanks in part to him the bridge across the Aisne was totally destroyed, Biggles feared that this would be the last he would ever see of the world of sabotage and Air Intelligence.

During the weeks that followed, Biggles' relations with the remainder of the Squadron — particularly with Major Paynter — deteriorated rapidly, although Lieutenant Way did his best to intercede for him.

‘The boy's all right,' he'd say to Paynter. ‘He's just a bit too eager and reckless, but the fact remains that he's the best damned flier we've got.'

But Paynter now referred to him quite openly as ‘the schoolboy wonder', and pointedly refused to recommend him for the M.C. which Biggles had obviously earned. ‘He just thinks this war is a confounded game,' Paynter would grumble. ‘He needs to be taught a lesson.' Others would say he was a lunatic, a gloryseeker, an adventurer, and though Way attempted to get through to Biggles — ‘Calm down,' he'd say, ‘just take it easy, and for God's sake be a little tactful with the others,' — Biggles refused to listen. The truth was that sensitivity and tact were not in his vocabulary.

In his attempt to ‘teach the boy a lesson', Paynter now put him on the most routine of tasks — ‘art obs' — artillery observation, shuttling back and forth across the Lines and radioing targets for the guns. It was hazardous — the F.E.2s were sitting ducks for the German
Jagdstaffeln
in the neighbourhood — and it was also deadly boring, particularly for anyone of Biggles' temperament. After three weeks of this he lost his temper. It had been a particularly frustrating day, with Biggles giving ‘fixes' on a German battery, which the English Artillery continually missed. Any other pilot would have shrugged his shoulders, cursed the gunners and retired to the Mess for a Scotch and soda. But not Biggles.

No sooner had he landed back at Base, than he shouted at Lieutenant Way, ‘I'm sick to death of this. We're going to deal with that battery ourselves.'

Way urged caution, which was understandable as he had to sit in the front cockpit whatever the escapade Biggles embarked on, but Biggles was emphatic.

‘Refuel the old bus, and stick a pair of 112-pounder bombs on the racks. And make it snappy!' shouted Biggles to the Flight Sergeant. While this was going on, he got on the Mess telephone to the Artillery. ‘I'm sick and tired of giving you ham-fisted idiots instructions all afternoon and then watching you bungle them,' he shouted. ‘I'm going to deal with that blasted battery myself.'

(It was only later that he realised he was talking to the Colonel — not that it would have made a scrap of difference in the state he was in.)

It was a crazy venture from the start, for by this time the enemy was thoroughly alerted, and had ringed the battery with antiaircraft guns and filled the sky with fighters. But nothing would stop Biggles now. Way saw his set, white face, and decided not to argue — even though the sky seemed to be one vast inferno.

Biggles attempted no finesse this time, but flew straight at his target, ignoring everything — the shrapnel that came zinging through the wings, the rifle fire directed from below, the threat of German Albatrosses in the sky above. After three weeks of ‘art obs' he knew this section of the Front like his own back yard, and long before he reached the German battery he had put the F.E.2 into a straight dive from 6,000 feet.