by John Pearson
‘Sorry Biggles,’ he exclaimed, as he reported back for duty. ‘Tried to be a bit too clever. Should have remembered what you told me. Guess I’m darned lucky to be here to tell the tale.’
‘What happened to you, then?’ asked Biggles, trying to hide the relief he felt.
‘I fixed one of them, but the other one got on my tail and that was that. Some joker on a fishing boat pulled me out of the drink, and here I am!’ He grinned. ‘They always say it takes a helluva lot to kill a Texan.’
‘Good lad,’ said Biggles, who couldn’t help admiring his spirit. ‘Get yourself patched up. How long before you think that you can fly again with that arm of yours?’
‘Tomorrow, if it’s all the same with you,’ said Tex. And at dawn next morning, as the Special Duty Squadron took off to battle in the skies above the Channel, Tex was back amongst them.
Biggles came through these weeks of battle splendidly. This was the life that he was born for. Fighting was in his blood, and much as he’d enjoyed the soft life and adventures of his years of peace, he loved the challenge of the dedicated combat pilot — the knowledge that his life depended on his skill within the cockpit, the deadly game he played among the clouds, and the final headon confrontation with another human being set to kill him. Perhaps his reactions were a little slower now than in his youth, but if they were he didn’t notice. It seemed that as a pilot he was in his prime — a tougher, more experienced and determined flier than he had ever been — and danger, far from ageing him, had made him younger, as it always did.
During this period he had heard nothing from the Air Commodore, and had had little time to think about him either, so that it came as a surprise when he returned from a patrol that second week of June to find the familiar figure sitting in the Mess. He was looking thinner and more lined than when Biggles saw him last, and responded wearily to Biggles’ greeting.
‘Good to see you James. I hear you’re flourishing. Excellent reports about your Squadron. Very proud of you, my boy.’
‘We’ve done our best,’ replied Biggles modestly, giving that slightly nervous laugh with which he habitually responded to unexpected praise.
‘What are you drinking, sir?’
‘The usual Scotch and soda, if it’s all the same to you.’
Biggles joined him, and as the two men drank, Raymond shook his head.
‘These are tough times, James, you know.’
Biggles nodded.
‘No need to tell me that, sir. But the French could still hold out as they did last time.’
‘I doubt it. No, we’re really up against it. Churchill’s in Paris at the moment, trying to put some backbone into their confounded government, but they’re a miserable crowd. Not a real man among ‘em. No, James, I don’t give much for his chances. The French are caving in. A week or two, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Huns don’t occupy the whole of Europe. That’s why I’m here, James.’
‘Really, sir?’ said Biggles, who knew that Raymond wasn’t one for social visits.
‘Rather a tricky job of work I’ve got for you, I’m afraid.’
Biggles nodded. ‘That’s what I’m here for, sir,’ he said.
‘Quite. Ever heard of a character called Clairvaux, James?’
‘The aircraft designer? Yes, of course. Met him a few years back when he was trying to get the Schneider trophy with that monoplane of his. Can’t say I took to him.’
‘No, nor did I, but that’s neither here nor there. Fact is, the blighter’s been developing the plane since then and from the reports we’ve had it’s pretty revolutionary. Something to do with superchargers for the engine. Double-Dutch to me, but our boffins say they’d give their eye teeth for a look at it.’
‘You mean they haven’t seen it?’ asked Biggles. ‘But I thought the French were meant to be our allies?’
‘Some of them are, James. Others aren’t, and that includes friend Clairvaux. The Schneider business soured him and he’s consistently refused to work with us. I won’t say the man’s a traitor, but he’s resisted all our efforts to persuade him to disgorge his secrets. He’s sitting tight. The French government’s got other things to think about, and in a day or two it’ll be too late anyhow — the Germans will have reached him.’
‘Where is he then?’ asked Biggles quickly.
‘Just outside Saumur, along the River Loire. Village called Andrey. He’s got a factory there with its own small airfield. According to Intelligence reports, the aircraft’s there, and so is Monsieur Clairvaux. I want them both.’
‘That shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange,’ said Biggles thoughtfully.
‘In theory, no,’ the Air Commodore replied, ‘but I must warn you that it could be trickier than it appears. Clairvaux himself could well prove difficult, and no one seems to know how near the Germans are. The Front’s collapsing and the Huns are anxious to get hold of Clairvaux too.’
‘We’d better get a move on, then,’ said Biggles.
It says a lot for Raymond’s influence, as well as for the keenness of the Special Duty Squadron, that the operation went as smoothly as it did. Few of the Squadron had much sleep that night. Plans were discussed, maps studied, and shortly after midnight a twinengined Wellington touched down at Tangmere. As dawn was breaking, it took off again and headed south, with Biggles and Algy at the controls. Both knew the dangers of the flight, for the Germans had swept over northern France, and their aircraft could control the skies ahead of them. Raymond at first suggested the whole Squadron as an escort, but Biggles had vetoed this.
‘Too risky, sir, and certain to attract attention. Frankly, I’d rather that we took them by surprise as we used to in the good old days. South to the Bay of Biscay, then follow the Loire, flying as low as possible.’
Algy had backed him up in this, and as the twin-engined bomber came in from the sea and followed the river towards its destination, it was at little more than roof-top height. It was exciting flying, calling for perfect judgment.
‘Nice flying, Biggles!’ shouted Algy, as they seemed to skim a bridge by inches. Biggles grinned happily in reply.
‘Not such a bad old crate, is she Algy? How’re the others?’
Algy glanced back at Ginger and Tex O’Hara, who were strapped into the rear crew-seats of the aircraft, and gave them the thumbs-up sign in greeting.
‘Ginger’s looking worried, Biggles. Perhaps for his sake you’d better take her up a little higher. You’re not flying Spitfires any more.’
‘Right you are!’ said Biggles, easing back the controls and sending the Wellington up to a few hundred feet.
‘That better, Ginger?’ he called out.
‘Thanks, Biggles,’ Ginger answered. ‘This height’s a little easier on my nerves.’
From here it was possible to see the signs of French defeat. It was another perfect summer day, and many of the roads were crammed with the cars and carts of fleeing refugees. A village beyond Nantes was burning and further on they saw two German tanks.
‘Just hope we’re going to be in time,’ shouted Algy grimly, and as he spoke there came the rattle of machine-gun fire and the Wellington lurched sickeningly. Algy glimpsed the grey and green fuselage of a Messerschmitt diving past them, and Biggles struggled with the controls. For several moments it was touch and go. A church tower seemed to loom ahead of them and Algy never knew how Biggles missed it, but then the Wellington came zooming up, and banked sharply to the left as the German plane came diving back for the kill. The Wellington was not constructed for this sort of flying, for Biggles was treating it like a fighter-plane. Few pilots would have got away with it, but by that sixth sense he had developed in a lifetime’s flying, he saved the heavy plane from stalling, and spun it round so that ‘Tug’ Carrington, in the Wellington’s rear gun-turret, was presented with a perfect target. Tug did his deadly work with cold precision, and his twin Vickers guns went barking out their tracer-fire as the German flashed across his sights. At such short range the German had
no chance, and Algy glimpsed the Messerschmitt disintegrating in mid-air.
‘Nice shooting, Tug!’ said Biggles quietly across the intercom. ‘Any sign of any more about?’
‘Seems to have been on his own, Biggles,’ Tug replied.
‘Well, keep your eyes skinned from now on. We can only hope he didn’t radio our position back to Base before we got him.’
The Wellington was soon back on course, and their luck held out. Saumur appeared, and a few minutes later Algy was saying, ‘Well, it looks as if we’ve made it, Biggles. The airfield’s slap ahead. I wonder what we’re going to find?’
Biggles brought the Wellington in to a perfect landing, and taxied up the tarmac to a hangar and a group of buildings. After the action of the previous few minutes it was a strangely peaceful scene, and the whole place seemed deserted. He switched off the engines and, unbuckling his safety belt, turned round to give his crew their orders.
‘Algy, old lad, you’ll stay where you are, and so will Tug. I want to be prepared for instant take-off in the event of trouble. The rest of you come with me. We’d better get a move on if we’re going to get this Monsieur Clairvaux and his plane before the Huns arrive.’
Biggles was the first one out, gun in hand. The others followed, and as they entered the hangar Biggles whistled softly beneath his breath.
‘Crikey, Ginger! What d’you think of that? Really worth coming for!’
There in the centre of the hangar, sleek as some enormous silver bird, stood a low-wing fighter plane.
‘So Raymond was right as usual,’ replied Ginger. ‘Clairvaux had finished it after all. It’s ready to be flown. I wonder where the blighter is.’
‘Probably hopped it,’ answered Biggles. ‘Can’t say I blame him. Give us a hand up. I’m going to have a look inside the cockpit.’
But, just as Biggles pulled back the canopy, a voice rang out.
‘Stay where you are — and gentlemen, please drop your guns!’
Framed in the hangar entrance stood a slender figure in a field-grey uniform. Just behind him were four other men with submachine-guns, German paratroopers. Biggles could see at once that he and his comrades had no chance.
‘Drop it, Tex!’ he shouted, seeing the headstrong Texan was about to start a gun-fight that could only have ended in disaster.
‘O.K. Biggles,’ Tex replied, dropping his Smith and Wesson on the floor and raising his hands towards the German. Ginger did likewise.
‘Very wise of you’ remarked the German officer in perfect English, as one of his men retrieved the guns. ‘Into the office, please! The man you came to fetch is there as well. I’m afraid that we arrived before you.’
There were several Frenchmen in the little office, guarded by another German, and among them Biggles recognised Clairvaux, who greeted him with a bitter smile.
‘So the British did come after all, but just a little late, as usual.’
Biggles could have said a lot — but wisely held his tongue.
‘We did out best,’ he said.
‘Enough of this!’ barked the German. ‘I am afraid that you will have to wait awhile until our glorious German Army comes to occupy this part of France. It won’t take long, but in the meantime, no tricks please. My men will keep you under guard.’
He barked an order, and two of the paratroopers entered the office and herded Biggles, Tex and Ginger up against the wall. They were allowed to sit and smoke, but nothing else.
‘Wonder what on earth old Algy’s up to?’ muttered Biggles out of the corner of his mouth. ‘He must have realised by now that something’s up.’
‘Silence!’ shouted one of the Germans, pointing his machinegun threateningly at Biggles.
But, as if in answer to the query, there was the sudden unmistakable roar of the Wellington’s engines from outside, followed by the brisk bark of machine-gun fire. The roar grew to a crescendo and, seconds later, Biggles saw the bomber as it flashed past the office window and its noise receded. He smiled at Ginger. Algy, at any rate, had got away.
After that the hours dragged. The guard was changed. At around two o’clock coffee was brought in, but nothing else, and Biggles kept wondering how much longer it would be before the full force of the enemy arrived. Obviously not long. From where he was sitting he could clearly see the far end of the runway, but nothing stirred and he was getting very stiff. Then one of the Germans shouted excitedly, ‘Transport planes! They’ve come!’ and Biggles saw the silhouette of two three-engined Junkers 52s circling the airport and coming in to land. Ginger had seen them too, and shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of weary resignation. It would not be long now before they would all be on their way to Germany, to spend the rest of the war inside a German prison camp. So much for their efforts to secure the Frenchman and his secret aircraft. A pathetic ending for their precious Special Duty Squadron!
But even as Biggles pondered this gloomy future, he heard another German shouting, ‘Spitfire! Spitfire!’ Then he saw them too — six Spitfires in immaculate formation sweeping across that clear blue sky, closely followed by a Wellington. Algy and his comrades had returned.
The German aircraft didn’t stand a chance, and were soon plummeting in flames. Seconds later, the Spitfires were coming in to land and the German guards were rushing out to meet them. In the confusion, Biggles, Tex and Ginger dodged out of the office and back into the hangar just in time to see the battle on the runway as a dozen Royal Marine commandos leapt from the Wellington and stormed towards them.
It was a grim encounter while it lasted, with the Germans firing from the shelter of the airport buildings. The German officer went down in a hail of bullets, and then it was suddenly all over and a figure with a Sten gun was standing in the hangar entrance.
‘Anyone at home?’ it called.
And Biggles answered, ‘Algy! My dear old chap, am I glad to see you!’
‘Better get a move on, Biggles,’ Algy said laconically. ‘There’s half the blinking German Army up the road by the look of things. We can’t stay long. What’re we going to do about the plane?’
‘What do you think, my lad?’ said Biggles quickly. ‘I’m flying it. You’d better see to the Frenchman. He’s in the office at the back.’
Clairvaux and his colleagues made no objection now to coming back to England. He even seemed pleased at the idea that his plane would come as well.
‘Better the British than the Boche!’ he answered when Biggles explained their plans. Luckily the plane was fuelled and ready. The hangar doors were pulled right back and, seconds later, Biggles was taxiing across the runway where he joined the waiting Spitfires of his Squadron. He recognised the unmistakeable features of Flight Lieutenant Lissie in the leading plane and raised his hand to him in thankful greeting. Bertie waved back, and then with Biggles in the lead the planes took off and headed home to England, leaving Andrey and its airfield to the Germans.
The fall of France a few days later started the period when Britain stood alone. For Biggles and 666 Special Duty Squadron, this meant that they were now committed to the Front Line in the battle for survival. There was a note of thanks from Raymond for their mission and, unofficially, Biggles heard that the irritable Monsieur Clairvaux had been persuaded to put his talents at the full disposal of the Allies, and that the British scientists were more than grateful for his aircraft with its revolutionary engine.
But once the Luftwaffe launched its mass attacks against the south of England from its fields in France, 666 became a normal fighter squadron and special missions all but ceased. The only one that did crop up occurred when Biggles had to go back to Amiens to pick up an important top French scientist who, like Clairvaux, was badly needed back in Britain. It was a straightforward enough affair — in theory — and not unlike the sort of work Biggles had done behind the enemy Lines in 1918. He was flying a Lysander — a heavy, rather gentlemanly plane after the Spitfire — which could almost land on half-a-crown, making it ideal for operations of this sort. He went by n
ight.
Raymond’s liaison had been excellent this time, and Biggles had no problem landing on a torch-lit field outside the town. Then came inevitable delays. The French Resistance group who met him kept assuring him their man was on his way, but it proved a good three hours before he finally drove up, apologetic and explaining that the Boche patrols had held him up. Dawn was already breaking before Biggles got away, and he knew that in the heavy old Lysander he was a sitting duck for any enemy patrol that spotted him. He did the one thing possible — hedge-hopping all the way back to the coast, then trusting fervently to luck that the enemy would have other things to occupy their minds than a solitary Lysander — and, for once, they had.
For by now, the Battle of Britain had begun in earnest, and from dawn to dusk Reichsmarshal Goering’s Dorniers and Heinkels were sailing in formation through the summer sky, guarded by attendant packs of Messerschmitts. And from dawn to dusk, Squadron 666, along with the other fighter squadrons along that hard-pressed shore, flew up to give them battle.
Their day began when their batmen pulled them from their beds at 4.30 a.m. for ‘dawn readiness’, and Biggles was surprised that it was always Bertie Lissie, that fervent enemy of early mornings, who was invariably in his Spitfire first. Their routine was always much the same. Biggles was fanatical about the vital need for height superiority — another lesson he had learned the hard way years before — and once the Controller ordered take-off, they would fly upwards in formation to a height of 20,000 feet, then wait for battle.
They rarely waited long. At this height they would be on oxygen, and as soon as someone in the Squadron spotted the enemy below, he would report across his radio to Biggles, who in turn would give the order ‘Tally-ho!’. Then, all nine Spitfires would sweep down on the formation like avenging angels. By now they had worked out the best routine for dealing with them. The Messerschmitt was vulnerable from behind and when attacked, the German pilots would usually attempt a half roll before diving vertically to get away, but the Spitfires would be after them, and soon the sky above the Channel would be witnessing ferocious dogfights as Biggles and his Squadron battled for the kill.