“Biggles! Put down that cat!” Group
Captain Wilkinson stormed into
the officer’s mess with a looked that could curdle ennui.
“It may be a spy!” Biggles stared
closely into the cat’s eyes as it struggled to escape. “I caught it listening
to me!”
“Put it down, I have a mission for
you,” Wilkinson threw a briefcase on the table and sat down with a thump.
“Can I take the cat? Could be a
double agent?”
“No,” snapped Wilkinson, “now sit down before I shoot you
and the cat.”
The cat flew out the window the
instant it was let go. “There see!” Biggles pointed. “Escaping custody proves
it is guilty.”
“Shut up Biggles, this is
important.”
“So, am I - I’m the famous Biggles!”
“Which is why I’m risking you and
not someone I might miss.” Wilkinson slid a map across the desk and drew a circle around the Bushehr nuclear
power plant in Iran on the Persian Gulf. “You are to be equipped with only a
Yakovlev UT-2 monoplane and a Russian camera. We need you to fly over Iran and
take photos and destroy the nuclear plant. Either way, the plant will be
destroyed.”
Biggles looked quizzically at the
ceiling.
“Bother,” he whistled, “but blow me
down with a bunch of trifoliate gorse berries, but how am I supposed to destroy
a nuclear plant with just a camera.”
“This is part of the plan, since the
town of Bushehr has over 100,000 troops stationed around it, armed with Russian
ground to air missiles, state of the art phase array radar and a terrain so
rugged camels commit ritual suicide rather than traverse it. You will almost
certainly fail.”
Biggles rolled his eyes and looked
wistfully at the window the cat had left through.
“Still not following you, old
strumpet.”
“You are to be equipped with a
Russian Lubitel 166 Universal single reflex camera. In advent of your certain
capture or death, the spy mission will be blamed on the Russians and almost
certainly start a small war between our good friends the Russians and our not
so good enemies the Iranians. In the ensuing fog of war we are allowing our
extremely good friends the Israelis to fly in and bomb the crap out the place
and the world will be saved.”
“Saved?”
“Saved by Biggles, I mean,” smirked
the Group Captain.
“I’ll do it!” Biggles jumped up,
“after all saving the world is what I do! Hang on, didn’t I do this two
chapters ago?”
“Yes, which is why the Iranians will
not expect us to try the same plot twice!”
The Yakovlev UT-2 turned out to be
an open two-seater, cockpit trainer left over from the Great Patriotic War,
with all the handling characteristics of an Abyssinian goat in a windstorm.
Biggles had tied the cat into the passenger seat and decided to call it
‘Copilot Biggles’ after himself; rationalizing if you are going to call a cat
something - Biggles is as good a name as any.
“Pilot Biggles to Copilot Biggles,
do you read copilot?” Biggles said into the mouthpiece once they had reached
10,000 feet.
“Meow!” the cat shrieked in terror
as it struggled to free itself from the complex of webbing Biggles had used to
tie it in.
“Meow it is, old bean,” Biggles
smoked a pipe and flew the airplane with his feet. He wasn’t the famous Biggles
for nothing. “What’s our E.T.A.?”
“Meooow!”
“That soon, still time enough for a
spot of tea, do you want Irish Breakfast or Earl Grey? I expect you’ll want milk.”
The cup of tea blew straight out of
the cup and covered the moggy in Irish Breakfast. The sound of the aircraft,
the rush of the wind, and the presence of captain James Bigglesworth was too
much for it and it relieved itself at every opportunity. The ground crew was
going to have a fit when they saw the cockpit.
They soon flew into a sandstorm that
not only filled the intake valves, it also covered the instruments and swamped
the cockpit with sand up to the ankles. Under any other pilot, the plane would
have gone down faster than an archdeacon on the under-fifteen rugby team, but
Biggles managed to achieve the impossible by redirecting the exhaust pipe to
the front of the intake and blew all the sand out - quicker than the above
mentioned archdeacon discovering the Parents and Friends Association was due in
the Gym in five minutes.
Meanwhile the cat had wriggled
itself free and was climbing out on the wing, to get as far away as possible
from the madman in the cockpit. Biggles was having none of this, put the plane
on autopilot, an instrument the plane didn’t possess and joined the cat on the
wing for a spot of catch-the-frenzied-moggy, before finally dragging it back to
the cockpit and tying it back in again. Just in time to stop the plane
nose-diving into the side of a mountain.
Three minutes later the Ack-Ack over
Bushehr opened up with all the fury of Madeline College all girls hockey team,
as 100,000 Iranian troops let fire with enough ground to air missiles to bring
down a category nine hurricane.
“I say Copilot Biggles!” Biggles
whistled through his moustache, “the blighters are expecting us.” As he ducked
and weaved through the maelstrom of gyrating missiles with all the aplomb of
Bradman discovering a dozen Bengal tigers hurtling down the pitch.
That Biggles was able to avoid be
hit while flying a fifty year old plane, says as much about the inadequate
training the Iranians gave their troops as it did about how amazing was the
famous Biggles. It couldn’t last long, and it didn’t, as the plane suddenly
gave up the ghost and pointed directly to the ground; a move the Iranian guards
were not expecting as the plane came screaming towards them, accompanied by the
caterwauling of both Biggles and his co-pilot. At the last moment, Biggles
pulled a 90 degree turn out of the exhaust pipe and landed on the roof of the
Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant.
It was the sort of move that only a
Biggles could have achieved.
Instantly the anti-aircraft fire
ceased as dozens of senior Iranian commanders stared anxiously at a plane
perilously sitting on the Iranian nuclear power plant.
Biggles pulled the goggles onto his
leather helmet and looked about to size up the situation. He was sitting on a
giant concrete egg, the primary reactor of the power station and beneath him two
megawatt thermonuclear reactors were slumbering. In every direction 100,000
Iranian soldiers were equipped with their Khaybar KH2002 assault rifles, or
Saegheh 40 mm anti-personnel rockets, or most importantly Mersad Surface-to-air
missiles and all were pointing them back at him. He also noticed that any move
on his part meant the plane creaked ominously.
It was at this point the cat meowed.
“No Copilot Biggles!” Biggles
yelled, “Now is not the time for kitty-litter!”
A bullhorn came sounding up the side
of the dome.
“Who is that? Is this war?” the
Iranian general yelled.
“I’m pilot Biggles and this is
copilot Biggles.”
“Wait - which Biggles is the
Biggles?”
“Both Biggles is the Biggles!”
“There is only one Biggles!”
“That’s me!” yelled Biggles getting
irate.
“Then who is the other Biggles?”
“The copilot!”
A subdued whispering could be heard
over the loudspeaker, until after some shoving and fierce punching, another
general grabbed the handset. “Who is flying the plane?”
“I am! The famous Biggles!”
“And who’s the copilot?”
“The not so famous Biggles, well not
yet, but after today who knows.”
“Is this an invasion?”
“Is this Iran?”
“Yes.”
Biggles peeked over the side of the
plane. “Then no not yet, but if you want to, you can surrender.”
Again there was fierce muttering
from behind the bullhorn, followed by a squawk as someone pushed the wrong
button.
“We are holding you hostage, until
the West surrenders.”
“Righty-ho!”
Biggles stared furiously at the
control avionics. “Fine pickle we’re in here Co-pilot Biggles.” He pursed his
lips. “Speaking of food, time for a spot of tiffin. Do you have the marmalade?”
The cat continued rolling its eyes
in fear and bit at the harness. Biggles searched around the cockpit for
anything that resembled a tin of marmalade, then on reflection remembered he
had no muffins to consume it with. He leaned over the side of the plane and
yelled once more at his captors.
“I didn’t bring the muffins, have
you got any?” he whistled through his moustache.
Once more there was a jostling
around the tannoy and each general fought for supremacy over the only
functional bit of kit in the Iranian army.
“If you surrender, we have a lot for
muffins down here, and cucumber sandwiches as well.”
“Toasted or with crusts?” Biggles
grinned.
“Both!”
“Ha! You’ll need to get up early
than that to fool the famous Biggles. Cucumber sandwiches are neither toasted
nor crusted. Show me your muffins!”
This oddly translated into Iranian
as an inexcusable insult and one of the generals would have ordered the Bofors
40mm antiaircraft guns to open fire on Biggles on the nuclear reactor if the
other generals had not wrestled him to the ground.
It was a classic Biggles Impossible
Situation, the sort of unattainable adventure that only a Biggles could get
himself into and then get himself out of without ending up in a box, and in
this case there were two Biggles. The cat once more worked itself into a frenzy
and escaped from its complex of webbings and dried cat vomit. Then it leaped
out of the passengers seat and raced out to the wing where it hissed angrily
and defecated over the side.
“That’s it copilot Biggles,” Biggles
grinned, “you show them.” Then he shrieked as the plane started tipping ever so
slightly under the weight of the cat. “Stop showing them old bean! I can’t trim
the airspeed! Oh wait there is no airspeed!”
The ancient plane slowly inclined on
top of the enormous dome, and everyone held their breath, until the cat –like
all cats– ran up to the highest point around which was the other wing.
Immediately the plane started tipping in the other direction.
All the Iranian commandos oohed and
aahed as the plane seesawed back and forth, they all started leaning from one
side to the other matching the cadence of the craft.
The cat started slipping on the
fabric of the plane and accordingly leapt onto the only thing with any
purchase, which turned out to be the leather helmet on Biggles’s head.
“Waaaaaaaah!” he screamed as needle
sharp claws bit into his scalp. Biggles threw out his hands in sharp pain; one
of them collided with the start button just as the plane started slipping down
the side of dome.
“Waaaaaaaah!” screamed 100,000
Iranians as the screech of the airframe dragged itself down the concrete like
the world’s largest nails on the world’s largest blackboard.
The engine started just as the plane
slipped off the side of the nuclear plant and it picked up just enough airspeed
to avoid smacking to the ground like a dollop of strawberry jam.
“Gory! Gory! What a terrible way to
die!” Biggles grinned manically he raced above the heads of the Iranian
generals.
“Hit the deck!” came the sole voice
of the leading general as the plane’s propeller missed him by inches.
Unfortunately, this was not only broadcast over the tannoy but also radioed to
every platoon within a hundred miles, this had the overwhelming result that
everyone was too busy spitting out sand to open fire, and Biggles had slipped
across the Persian Gulf before anyone had the good sense to shoot him down.
Biggles was court-martialed for
failing the mission and the cat was awarded the King George Cross for gallantry
in the face of overwhelming stupidity.
Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©
