Biggles and the Nightmare

Biggles woke at three in the afternoon and wondered if his bed was on fire. After a moment's reflection he accepted it was, grabbed a box of cigars and jumped out the window.

“Fire!” he screamed and immediately a howitzer stationed beneath his Nissen hut opened fired and destroyed the local water works. Biggles had fallen asleep with a box of Havanas and set fire to his room, it was only a ferret-like instinct for survival and the fact he always slept with an open window insured his continued existence. It was the fifth Nissen hut he had burned down that month and sleepily wondered if smoking really was unhealthy.

“Biggles!” Group Captain Wilkinson stared down at Biggles lying in the sand. Biggles was cradling a box of Cubans, his teddy bear and trying to get back to sleep. “Report for briefing.”

“Not now matron,” Biggles smiled as he fell asleep, “in the morning, and biscuits please.”

“Biggles!” Wilkinson kicked Biggles feet. “Report for briefing, or I’ll have you shot for insubordination!”

“Not the whip matron!” Biggles blurted out in his sleep. “Not the whip!”

Five minutes later he staggered into briefing tent with a cup of tea, his teddy and dragging a sleeping bag he had pilfered behind him. He collapsed at a desk and laid his head on the bear. Ten seconds later a five-foot ruler crashed down next to his face and he woke up with a jolt.

“So glad you could join us Captain Biggles!” Group Captain Wilkinson yelled at him.

“Ginger!” he yelped and rolled his eyes around, trying to get his bearings. “Jerry’s on your tail!”

Biggles had been now awake for three days, after a reconnaissance mission over the southern Zagros Mountains had gone terribly awry and he had landed his Hawker GR-9 Jump Jet in the main Bazaar of Istanbul. How he had flown off course by 1500 miles was a matter of some confusion, but was probably due to his using his teddy bear instead of the navigation computer for directions. After being chased by the Kamu Güvenliği Teşkilâtı, or the Turkish Secret Police, through most of the streets in Istanbul, Biggles had finally escaped into the largest brothel this side of the Cairo and suffered a worse case of sleep deprivation than the secret police could have ever achieved. Three days later, it had taken five burly Royal marines in the middle of the night to drag him away from the intoxicating rhythms of a room filled with Turkish belly dancers and Irish whiskey.

Group Captain Wilkinson resumed his position at the front of the room.

“Thanks to Captain Biggles’ unfailing ability to lose the recon photos of the Iranian base at Imam Ali, near Khoramabad in the Zagros Mountains, we are forced to repeat the mission.” He pointed at a map with a laser. “Now we know the Iranians are up to something, because Khoramabad had the word ‘bad’ in it. Or at least this is what MI-7 has decided, and given MI-7 is the propaganda division of military intelligence – their opinion may be subject to interpretation. So we are forced to undertake the mission, yet again. Any questions?”

Biggles sat up and stared about the room blearily. It was at this point he realized he was the only person in the room beside Group Captain Wilkinson. He frowned. This meant he was going to take the mission. Then he smiled and wondered how long it would take to get back to Istanbul.

“Any volunteers?” Group Captain Wilkinson stared Biggles.

Biggles grinned, thought about the brothel he was about to elope to and held up a flying glove. “When Blighty calls – I’ll be there!”

Group Captain Wilkinson smiled back. “Good Captain Biggles. Since, however, we are missing your GR-9 Jump Jet as the Turks have impounded it, we will be parachuting you near the Khoramabad base and you will perform the reconnaissance on foot.”

It was quarter of an hour before the M.P.s had cornered Biggles attempting to commandeer a Vickers VC10 to fly to Istanbul, and instead bundled him and his parachute onto a Lockheed C-130 Hercules. It was a further two hours later before he was thrown into the black sky above Iran with a Stasi spy camera hidden inside his teddy bear. He would have parachuted earlier, but they had to release him from a death-like grip on the Hercules airframe as he screamed about frequent flyer miles to Istanbul.

In the empty gloom of the freezing air above Khoramabad, Biggles wondered about early retirement at the age of 110, but then cheered himself up when he realized he had his bear to talk to.

“You know Monty,” he said to his habitual companion. “This reminds me of that time Matron took us to the London zoo on the Tube.” At that moment, a tremendous barrage of flak opened up around him, as Iranian anti-aircraft gunners tried to shoot down the fleeing C-130 Hercules. “Although, I can’t remember Matron being over Berlin with us.”

With this, he fell asleep as the toll of three days without slumber finally caught up with him, all the while flak crumped about him with all the danger of exploding sheep. In the morning he awoke wrapped in his parachute and surrounded by a dozen Iranian soldiers armed with their Khaybar assault rifles. They poked him with bayonets and sticks, and drowsily he grumbled about Sleepy Time in the kindergarten.

“Get Up!” said a solider with more facial scars than a cow at the wrong end of an abattoir.

“Whiskey. Ice.” Biggles mumbled as they dragged him to his feet and through him in the back of a Cobra armoured personnel carrier. “Have you cigars?” and then promptly fell back to sleep.

He awoke strapped to a chair and a bucket of water in his face.

“Heathens!” He ejaculated, then blinked and saw remarkably it was his latest archenemy Captain Arash of the Iranian Savama, or secret police.

“We meet again, Captain Biggles,” he lit a cigarette and offered it to Biggles. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

“Yes, let's have lunch at the Lyceum club, oh wait you’re not a member.”

 “Really Biggles,” Captain Arash pursed his lips in a smile.

“That's Captain Biggles to you,” Biggles raised his eyebrows, “and I demand my rights according to the Geneva Convention.”

“Remind me what those rights are?”

“You don't know?” Biggles blew a smoke ring, “Well first of all, any serving officer of the Royal Air Force is entitled to a free telephone call, tea and crumpet on silverware any time of night, holidays in Majorca during the off season, free dental care, and most importantly a date with Christine Keeler or Anna Chapman depending whom we're are at war with at the time.”

“But Captain Biggles,” the secret policeman sighed, “we’re not at war, you are here spying on us, that makes you a spy and not a prisoner of war.”

“Tosh - if you can fly a Camel, you can fly anything.”

“That doesn't really follow from what I said, but you’re still a spy.”

“Prove it!” Biggles slammed the table with his fist. “I demand proof!”

Captain Arash pulled the head off Biggles teddy bear and pulled out the camera.

“Monty!” Biggles shrieked. “You murderer!”

“It's just a toy.”

“And a serving officer in the Royal Air Force! That bear was the best autopilot I’ve ever known! This is a war crime!”

“We're still not at war, and it's still just a teddy bear.”

“Prove it! Give me justice or give me liberty!”

Captain Arash pulled out the stuffing of the bear.

“Torture!”

“I always get the nutters,” Captain Arash rolled his eyes.

They then attempted to torture Biggles with electric shocks and telephone books to the head, but every time they put a blindfold over his head he promptly fell asleep as three days without sleep in a Turkish brothel makes you immune to pain. Three hours later Biggles was put on a train to Turkey, and told not to spy on Iranian secret bases anymore. The bear they gave ten years hard labor for entering the country without a passport.

Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©

Biggles Defeats the Desert

      Biggles was lost; he had been lost from the moment he had taken off from Forward Operating Base Falcon, this mainly due to his taking a cup of tea into the cockpit and spilling it on the navcom computer, not only destroying a £300000.00 computer, making all communications and navigation impossible but also ruining his morning cuppa.

        He had been flying for almost three days now, busily refuelling in mid-air each time his fuel gauge fell to empty. He achieved this by mugging any passing U.S. KC-135 Stratotankers. It was a mugging because he would shoot across their nosecones until they gave into his demand for extra fuel, and the fact they refused to offer him tea and crumpet was starting to annoy him. Four times the U.S.A.A.F had launched intercept squadrons to shoot him down for piracy, but each time he had given them the slip but flying upside down into a dust storm, he was after all - Biggles.

“Jolly ho,” Biggles said to the ghosts of all the pilots he had flown with, “I could do with a nap.”

It was not unknown for Biggles to fly in his sleep. For any other aeronaut this would be considered impossible, but Biggles had a brain the size of a finch and like a finch could sleep on the wing. Five minutes after falling asleep he crashed into a sand dune in the middle of the great desert. He might be able to fly asleep, but his plane still needed fuel to fly.

He woke up wrapped in a parachute and wondered if this was the Savoy, tried to fluff his pillows and promptly went back to sleep. The ejection seat had fired automatically when he clipped the leading edge of a sand dune and fired him fifty feet straight up and down onto the trailing side of the dune. The fighter plane had smacked incontrovertibly into a stand of date trees and exploded.

The next day Biggles woken and tried to ring for room service, this was of course impossible, but everything about Biggles was impossible so was in no way the unexpected. What was unexpected was the sudden appearance of a Bedouin sheepherder offering him a cup of coffee.

The Bedu had their camp at the base of the sand dune and had woken in the middle of the night to a tremendous crash as Biggles’ plane had wiped out their only stand of date trees for fifty miles in any direction. Since this was their only source of revenue besides hostage taking, they were sorely put out, but the requirements of hospitality in the desert forced them to take care of any lost strangers until they had a reason to cut his throat or sell him for a camel in the nearest village.

Biggles blinked and stretched, took the coffee without thought and asked for some crumpet.

“No English,” said the chief of the Bedu sizing up the pilot, “we have no crumpet. We only have dates and camel’s milk. But no crumpet, I am very sorry. Are you rich?”

“Why is there so much sand in the Savoy?” Biggles said, still waking up. “I know the Saudis own it, but there’s really no need to fill it with Saudi Arabia, is there old bean?”

The chief looked around and wondered what the stranger was talking about.

“Savoy?” he asked as the wind whipped particles of sand into his face.

“Ah,” Biggles gave him back the coffee cup, undid his harness and stood up. “This isn’t the Savoy Hotel, is it?”

“No English, this is the Nefud, the great desert of Arabia.”

“So, definitely no crumpet then?”

“Not unless you are very rich.”

“And if I was very rich?”

“Then I would ransom you for much gold and buy you all the crumpets you desire.”

“And if I’m poor?”

“Then either I will cut your throat or sell you for a camel at the great camel market.”

“When in that case, I’m loaded,” Biggles grinned weakly.

“That is very good to hear English,” the Bedouin sheikh had finished sizing him up and made a decision not to murder Biggles, at least not until a ransom had been paid. “You will be my guest for the present. I ask only that you respect our customs and do not attempt to escape.”

“What are your customs?”

“Leave our women alone and don’t molest the donkeys.”

“Do people often molest your donkeys?”

“More often than they molest our women” the sheikh grinned, “and when you see our women you’ll understand.”

At the camp Biggles was introduced to a family so extended it started in Damascus and ended in Detroit, most weren’t immediately available but they were mentioned in passing and deed.

“And finally I mention my ninty-seventh cousin Ali ben Rahsid ben Sali, who drives a taxi in Tierra del Fuego.”

Biggles eyes had long glazed over and was surprised the sun was still shinning as they sat in the black tent of his host.

“Really,” he blinked himself awake, “you don’t say.”

“And yourself, English, tell me of your family.”

Biggles blew air through his moustache, and looked thoughtful.

“Hmm, well let’s see. There’s my grand aunt Olga Von Bigglesbottom, she got arrested for selling official secrets to Stalin back during the cold war. Although fair’s fair I say, I can’t see how the catcher chute on a combine-harvester falls within the purview of the Official Secrets Act. She’s been on the run for sixty years now, and given the fact no one has seen her for the last fifty, and the fact she must over one hundred and forty years old now, might actually mean she is dead, but who knows. I mean any woman who has slept with every leader from Neville Chamberlin to Pol Pot is capable of anything I say.”

“I see,” the sheikh said to be polite.

“Then there’s grand uncle Rupert del Biggles-Smyth-Oppenheimer who once tried to sell the Eyrie Canal back to the Americans shortly after they constructed it. Would have succeeded too - if they hadn’t noticed this new canal wasn’t in California like he said. He is at present serving a three thousand year sentence for defrauding the Crown over a counterfeit barge tax, which was supposed to charge a guinea to everyone on a canal who wasn’t wear a tartan kilt. Obsessed with inland waterways, he is.”

“Err,” the sheikh would have looked at a watch if he had one. “Interesting.”

“Next comes my great-great nephew Dagmar Erskin-Biggles, last of the great explorers. He started exploring at the ripe old age of six weeks when he escaped from his crib in Wellington Barracks and ended up on a safari in Zululand shooting gazelles for his royal highness Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu.” Biggles looked wistful. “They grow up so fast these days.”

The Bedouin sheikh rubbed his forehead.

“I should also mention my great cousin Peter Alexeyevich Biggles-Kropotkin a biologist who specialized in the scatology of Coleoptera and overthrowing the Tzarsist state… he has a very interesting career…”

It was in the vein Biggles kept talking for a week, until he woke up one morning and found the camp deserted with a letter pinned to his flight suit suggesting he take the next bus back to England.
“Bother,” he snorted, “and still no crumpet.”

Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©

Biggles and the Ziggurat

Biggles missed the airdrome at Nasiriyah and landed his harrier jet on top of the Great Ziggurat of Ur. It was near mistake, which anyone could have made provided they were blind drunk from a two-week bender at the Hotel Baghdad and hadn’t accidentally stolen a jet fighter from the United States Marine Corps at Camp Adder. Biggles fell out of the cockpit and handed his car keys to a guide who came running up to remonstrate as this desecration of the ancient monument.

“And make sure you don’t scratch the paintwork!” Biggles slurred, took three steps and collapsed in a puddle. He woke up the next morning surrounded by short men with large kalashnikovs. They kicked him and yelled what he thought was something about no parking in Iraq. He lay on his back and wondered where he was, the guns weren’t familiar, the men were certainly strangers, but the raging headache that was blocking out the sun was all too well known.

“Never again, oh crikey, never again,” he moaned and threw up on the sandals of the leader of Al Queda in Iraq. The terrorists perceived this as a terrible insult and started wailing into his body with the butts of the rifles and kicking him repeatedly with vomit covered feet. None of which Biggles noticed as he was still wearing his flight helmet, blind drunk and a century of war wounds had left him immune to irony.

They hauled him to his feet and demanded to know his name.

“I’ll take a martini, preferably a Singapore sling followed by a saucy evening with Vera Lynn,” he rolled his head and promptly threw up again on the chest of the leader. Once more they attacked him with fury that could only be matched by a stoic refusal on Biggles’ part to sober up. Eventually they exhausted themselves and decided to hold him as either hostage, for ransom or at the very least for shooting practice. Remarkably they were able to disguise the harrier-jet as a camel, and then dragged him away to a bunker in the base of the Ziggurat.

Three days later Biggles finally sobered up staring up a bas-relief carving of the god king Hammurabi staring down at him.

“Wah!” Biggles shrieked, “I’m sorry headmaster but Jones made me do it!”

The noise brought the leader of the Al Queda troop swirling into the room in a flurry of robes. He stared down ferociously at Biggles who was pegged on with ropes on the floor. A short balding man with the intensity of a deranged otter, he had all the makings of someone with a future in self-exploding.

“I am Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi,” said the chief as coolly as he could muster, “leader of the Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn.”

“Tamzin,” Biggles rolled his eyes. “Bit of a girls name, what?”

“Not Tamzin!” The leader shrieked, “I said Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn.”

“Like I said, Tamsin,” Biggles stretched his jaw, which Rashid had almost dislocated with a kick.

“I said Tanzim! Get it right!”

Biggles flew air threw his moustache. “Only girls kick.”

“We’re not girls!”

“Tosh,” Biggles grinned, “like your skirt, Tamsin.”

“I’m not Tamsin!” Rashid completely lost his composure, “my name is Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi, leader of the Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn.”

Biggles held his breath for a moment then giggled. “Still, you got to admit it does sound like Tamsin.”

“You idiot!”

“Biggles to you.”

“A-ha! You’re the famous Biggles!”

“More famous than you are,” Biggles grinned again.

This flustered Rashid completely. “Yes, but, no, but, …argh!” Then pulled out a revolver and started shooting wildly about the room. “Stop talking!”

Biggles went quiet but the grin on his face said everything.

“You are my prisoner!” Rashid pointed the emptied gun at Biggles.

“Only because I’m tied up,” Biggles snorted.

“That’s the very definition of a prisoner!” Rashid went florid with rage. “You will obey my orders!”

“Tosh,” Biggles looked sceptical, “that’s what they said at Colditz and looked what happened there.”

Rashid would have shot him but he had run out of bullets and stormed out of the room.

“You could at least offer me a cup of tea,” Biggles shouted after him. “They did at Colditz!” Biggles returned to staring up at the carving of god king Hammurabi. “Haven’t we met before?”

The floor was cold and hard, and Biggles had a scratch between his legs that felt decidedly like it was moving. His eyes became round eyed and he tried to stare past his crotch at whatever was investigating his inner thigh. After a moment there was a scuttling and a giant camel-scorpion the size of a Fell terrier ran onto his chest and stared down at him with all the sympathy of a vulture sitting on an abattoir fence at offal hour.

“Shoo, shoo,” Biggles tried to blow it away. “Go fetch.”

The camel-scorpion rattled forward and stuck a hairy leg up Biggles’ nose.

“Ooh, ugh,” Biggles grimaced, at that moment Rashid came storming back in the room with a fully loaded pistol and the camel-scorpion ran off into the shadows. “Thank heavens you’re back.” Biggles breathed again.

“What?” Rashid looked startled at Biggles, not expecting a welcome and not seeing the spider. He was going to shoot Biggles, but now wasn’t so sure as he pointed the gun at Biggles head. “You want me to shoot you? Is this some trick?”

Biggles stared up at Rashid and wondered if this was part of some floorshow.

“We’re not alone,” Biggles whispered, and looked with his eyes at where the camel-scorpion was hiding.

Rashid looked about and seeing nothing but the statues, laughed at Biggles.

“Ha, you fear the ghost of Hammurabi!”

“No,” Biggles sweated as he listened to the scuttling, “but I am worried about your terrier laying eggs in my moustache.”

“Bah,” Rashid put away the pistol, “you speak madness, they must have left you in the sun too long.” Then he pulled out a knife and cut the ropes on Biggles, setting him free. “It would be inhospitable to kill a madman.”

“Whose mad?” Biggles jumped to the opposite side of the room of the scorpion. “You have a bug infestation that would rival the plagues of Egypt.”

“Hmm,” Rashid stroked his beard and looked thoughtful. “You are either brave or mad, I can not tell the difference.”

“Trust me Tamsin,” Biggles tried climbing up the statue. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”

“I said – Don’t call me Tamsin!” Rashid yelled as he pulled out his pistol again. At that moment the giant camel scorpion ran out of the shadows. “Wah! A Djin!” Rashid dropped the pistol and clambered up the statue with Biggles. The scorpion hissed at them from the floor.

“Why are you up here?” Biggles yelled at Rashid. “This is your desert, you should be used to those things!”

“I’m from Cairo!” Rashid yelled back frantically, “I’m an art’s student! Not a camel herder!”

There was a sickening crack as the statue they were hugging snapped free from the wall where it had remained for over two and half thousand years and fell like an mast to the desk with Biggles and Rashid riding it like damned sailors. They managed to roll free as the room exploded in a storm of flying rocks and dust, if a bomb had gone off they wouldn’t have noticed it in the noise. They stood up and looked gingerly about the room.

“I think we killed it,” said Rashid.

“I am Biggles you know,” Biggles grinned. “That’s what I do. I'm spiffying!”

The scorpion jumped on the fallen head of Hammurabi, its red eyes glowing in the gloom and raised its fangs like a toreador with his swords. The fangs were so large it made the Hound of the Baskerville look like a rabbit with mange. With this apparition, any pretence of bravery fled the two and they fought each other up the stairs and raced off in opposite directions. Minutes later Biggles arrived back at Camp Adder with the Marine Corps harrier jet still camouflaged as a camel.

“Biggles,” asked the group captain, “where in blazes have you been?”

“Sightseeing,” Biggles said over his shoulder as he headed back to the officers regimental mess where he knew an infinite supply of booze was hiding. “They have some amazing tourist attractions over here.”

Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©

Ace!

“Biggles, we are having trouble placing you, in fact your records seem to be out of date by a couple of decades. I’ll need you to help me with the details.”

 “Yes sir,” Biggles grinned then scratched his head, “Only to happy to oblige, will I need to contribute blood?”

“No, just your flying record and commissions, sorry but you seem to have fallen off the War Department radar and we need it for the regimental records.”

“Yes sir, well, I started flying with the Royal Flying Corp in 1916 at seventeen years of age, actually I was twelve, but I just added a few years so I could join the rest of the squadron down the pub.”

“Wait,” the colonel blinked, “did you say 1916. That's ninety-four years ago.”

“Yes sir, I keep trim by studying the ancient Tibetan art of drinking whiskey until four in the morning, for some reason, it's frozen my aging process.”

“I see,” the colonel said slowly. “Starting with World War One then?”

“I seem to remember I flew an F.E.2, then a Sopwith Pup, then a Sopwith Camel and finally a Sopwith Elephant.”

“Sorry,” the Colonel looked up from his notes, “did you say Sopwith Elephant? I didn’t know we had such an aircraft.”

“Yes, it was an experimental flying tank,” Biggles stroked his moustache as he remembered back, “looked like a giant hangar with wings but flew like a giant hangar with no wings - mostly downwards.”

“And the Second World War?”

“Vickers Viking Mk 4, Supermarine S.6B, Spitfires, Hurricanes, Flying Fortresses, Shturmoviks, Yakovlev Yak-7, Messerschmitts, and Focke-Wulfs.”

The colonel feverishly wrote all these down, and then looked wonderingly at Biggles, “You flew German planes?”

“I had a month’s furlough, and air commodore Raymond said  - don’t come back until I had a fresh perspective. So I took a fishing boat across the channel and joined the Luftwaffe, gives you no end of fresh perspective when you’re looking down the sights of a plane which had previously been shooting at you.”

“How many bogeys did you shot down?”

Biggles pulled out a handkerchief.

“Not boogies, I said bogeys!” The colonel yelled.

“Yes sir,” Biggles grinned, “does that include all Boche, Frogs, Italians, Russkies, Turks, Swiss, Irish, Swedes, Armenians, Japs, Finns, Czechs, Poles, Cubans, Yanks, Mexicans, and English?”

“You shot down one of ours?”

“Only a couple of hundred and only when they crossed my line of fire,” Biggles shrugged and gave his officially stupid look, “accidental and all that.”

“Well, if you did in fact shoot any of those nationalities down, then I suppose yes.”

“Do I include blimps, weather balloons, Fokkers, dirigibles, zeppelins, kites, sheep and seagulls?”

“Do you often shoot down seabirds?”

“I once read this book called Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and even since then I’ve had this unrelenting compulsion to blow them all to feathers and smithereens.”

“In that case, no,” the colonel sighed and rubbed his head, “just legitimate military targets.”

“About eleven million, sir,” Biggles stared at the ceiling in computation, “give or take three.”

“Three million?”

“No, just three, I keep a running tally, I crossed the three million mark about an hour ago when I shot down a flock of Cessnas.”

“Cessnas aren’t military planes.”

“Brazilian Air Force has some, well had some, now I expect they only have a navy.”

“How do you keep a score of all these kills?”

“A portable abacus, sir,” Biggles pulled out a folding abacus from his flying boot and showed it, “amazing little things.”

Biggles commanding officer rubbed his temples and looked at Biggles as if he was something that shouldn’t exist, this was so close to the truth that if he had known it would have bent reality around him.

“Biggles, are you sure this is all correct?”

“Yes sir, I’m British I can not lie.”

“Hmm,” the commanding officer thought little of this, “so, what fields of war have you engaged in?”

“Let’s see,” Biggles stared thoughtfully at the ceiling, “World War I of course, Turkish War of Independence; Third Anglo-Afghan War; Great Arab Revolt in Palestine; World War II and all of it; Malayan Emergency; Korean War; Mau Mau Uprising; Suez Crisis; The Cod Wars with Iceland - I strafed a few sheep in that one; Dhofar Rebellion; Sealandic War of Independence – we lost that one to the damned Pirate radio station; Falklands War of course, more sheep strafing; Gulf War in Iraq – we won that one; Desert Fox War in Iraq; Kosovo War in Iraq; War in Afghanistan in Iraq, and of course the Iraq War in Iran.”

“What?” the officer looked up in surprise, “The present war; here in Iraq?”

“No sir, the present Iraq war over there in Iran.”

“But we’re not at war with Iran.”

“I had trouble with my GPS one day, just give me a theodolite and a compass I say, all this nonsense with satellites and what not.”

“What happened?”

“I got lost and strafed some more sheep.”

“So basically you’re telling me you’re over a hundred years old, you have flown every type of plane that has ever been made, and fought in every war the United Kingdom has ever been in.”

“Yes sir,” Biggles grinned happily, “that pretty well sums it up, except of course for the accident with the Time Machine.”

The officer blinked slowly.

“Time machine?”

“Yes sir, at one point I was sent back in Time, hush-hush you know, with orders to kill Hitler.”

“And you failed?”

“No sir, I accidentally invaded Poland and started World War Two, right cock up that one.”

Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©

Biggles and the Undersand Railway

Biggles eventually escaped from the Iranian Secret police by standing outside his hotel and catching the nine o’clock bus to Teheran. He found himself sitting at the back of the bus, between a flock of goats and an enormous woman who ate nothing but fried chicken. To Biggles consternation, all of the busses occupants’ -including the driver- spent the entire journey turned around in their seats, asking him about British soap operas, and most importantly the difference between Coronation and Ramsay Streets.

“But how can you people even have heard of Coronation Street?” Biggles shifted uncomfortably as chicken-fat dripped on one shoulder and goats peed on the other.

“Coronation Street is the greatest art form that is exported to the Middle East,” one learned bearded old woman explained.

“It is?” Biggles said more in amazement than inquiry. “Haven’t you heard of Shakespeare?”

“Oh yes,” she wheezed, “but only in Coronation Street are ugly old women portrayed in a noble way. Shakespeare makes them all in to …well ugly crones. Here in Iran, old women are now seen as interesting complex personalities. This is all due to Coronation Street.”

“I never saw that one coming.”

“Great art does that,” she agreed.

Every few kilometers the bus driver would suddenly remember he was a bus driver, and wildly drag the steering wheel around to avoid hit the oncoming traffic, potholes, dead camels, low flying cruise missiles, and because it kept the bus going in a forward direction. This had the effect of turning the inside of the bus into the interior of a space ship reentering orbit as chickens, goats and Biggles flew about in glorious abandon.

“Does he always drive like this?” Biggles grabbed an overhanging strap to stop being catapulted through the front window.

“How else could he drive?” came a hyperbolic reply.

“But isn’t it dangerous?”

“More dangerous than if he didn’t avoid crashing?”

They stopped for a lunch break and fixed the axle, which had just fallen off. Biggles looked about the mountains that soared around him and wondered if this was near Kent.

“Cigarettes?” a voice floated at his elbow.

He looked down and to his surprise a man shuffling about on a cardboard mat, holding up a box of cigarettes. Both of his legs were missing and his face was horribly scarred from phosphorus burns, he looked like the victim of a napalm attack.

“What on Earth happened to you?” Biggles almost shrieked.

“War.”

“You fought in the War?”

“No, I was late for work and got run over by a tank,” the victim said sarcastically, “of course it was the War. Want to buy some cigarettes?”

“Which War?”

“Who cares which war, they’re all the same.”

“No, they’re not,” Biggles, insisted, “a war can be just, or unjust, moral or immoral. And there are the wars I fight on, the good ones.”

“Look,” the poor wretch wearily explained. “In war there four sides.”

“Don’t you mean two?”

“If you’d shut up, buy some cigarettes and let me explain.”

“Oh right, um, lets say a pound?” Biggles handed over some of the counterfeit Iranian Rials he had once dropped on a bombing round.

“In war,” the victim explained, “there are four sides. The winners, the losers, the greedy blood sucking merchants and the victims, now guess which group I belong to?”

“Greedy blood sucking merchants?” Biggles erred on the side of caution as he lit up a Chesterfield.

“Do I look like a greedy blood sucking war merchant?” the cripple asked in amazement.

“Do cigarettes cause cancer?”

“Well, yes.”

“Are you the result of a war?”

“Obviously.”

“And did you just make a profit?”

“Only a tiny one,” the veteran stared up with an angry look, “I have to eat and feed my wife and children.”

“Ergo, you are a merchant of war,” grinned Biggles and ran off before the cripple could bite his ankles.

“You feckin’ English bastard!” was all the poor fellow could come up with, as he tried to drag himself after Biggles.

The bus journey had started again, once Biggles commandeered the bus driver’s seat, by pointing out that as an Ace pilot he could fly anything even a runaway bus, as he kicked the driver out the door, and tore off down the road with passengers and the driver in hot pursuit.

“It's a long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go.” Biggles merrily sang, “It's a long way to Tipperary. To the sweetest girl I know!” then he paused as he mentally calculated the distance to Tipperary.

“Hey,” he said to himself. “It really is a long way to Tipperary.”

Swerved the bus round and headed back towards Iraq and the officer’s mess in Baghdad.

“Sorry” he called out as he roared past the passengers. “I’m late for snooker night.”

Before disappearing in a storm of dust over the horizon. It all would have been another splendid escape - if he hadn’t run out of diesel at the very hotel he had escaped from the day before.

Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©

Biggles Escapes!

For three days Biggles had wandered across the desert looking for rescue or at least a bus. It had gotten to the point where he wanted to be captured again. He had escaped from the Iranian secret police three nights before, by simply going outside for a cigarette, while they were watching some obscure Egyptian soap opera. The show was so incomprehensible it featured a young woman wearing nothing but a towel, who seemed to spend her entire life singing about a boy who had run off with a camel driver. Biggles had gotten bored waiting for her to take off the towel. Since he could make neither head nor tail out of, he went for a walk, and after trudging over a sand dune to see what was on the other side; he had become completely and utterly lost. So out of sheer force of habit, he escaped and now he wanted to be caught again as that was his best chance to making it back to old Blighty.

At this moment, he was lying at the top of a sand dune watching a herd of sheep, and he was getting fed up with waiting to be captured. More to the point he wanted a good cup of tea, which was harder to find in this country than a man who wasn’t wearing a dress.

“Oh, fiddlesticks,” Biggles gave up and ran down the sand dune to the sheepherder waving his arms in the air and shouting hallo. The herdsman took one look at the stranger and began shooting at him. Biggles ran straight back up the dune and hid behind a rock. “I say,” he said to himself, “what happened to the Geneva Convention?”

At the bottom of the hill, the sheepherder also hid behind a rock and for several minutes they cautiously watched each other. The herdsman was taking no chances, since over the last two weeks, strange planes had been coming out of nowhere strafing and bombing his herd and he was in no mood for idle conversation with foreigners.

“I say!” Biggles finally called out, “do you know the way to Piccadilly?”

The sharp retort of the rifle coincided with Biggles’ flying cap being knocked off.

“I take it that’s a no,” Biggles picked up his cap and put it back on, to his annoyance he discovered the bullet had knocked off his Snoopy badge. He called out again from behind the rock. “By the way, I’m Biggles, so pleased to meet you.”

The herdsman felt some confusion, as normally people always shot back at this point. A stranger stopping in the middle of the desert just for a conversation, either meant he was a cousin - and Biggles certainly didn’t look like a cousin - or he was an enemy, and Biggles seemed too incompetent for either.

Maybe was he a rug salesman and a good rug salesman was hard to find.

“Hallo, foreigner!” he called out. “Have you carpets to sell?”

“Sorry Mister Abdullah,” Biggles called back jokingly, “I left them in the pickup truck back in Sussex.”

The herdsman, whose incredibly name really was Abdullah, stood up and looked with surprise up the hill. He wondered how on earth the foreigner knew his name, and more to the point where was Sussex. Before too long Biggles was invited down to the camp for tea and sheep’s eyeballs.

Biggles held one of the eyeballs up to his face.

“It’s staring at me.”

“That mean’s it is happy to see you,” laughed Abdullah.

“What about the sheep?” Biggles was nervous.

“The sheep is not happy to see you,” and Abdullah clapped his hands at the absurdity of foreigners.

Biggles put it in his mouth and slowly bit down on it. It popped like a squishy sea polyp and burst open. He shuddered as he swallowed it.

“Rather tasty,” he managed gasping, “I don’t suppose you know where I could find a plane.”

Abdullah looked at him with some anger.

“There have been planes attacking my sheep,” he picked up his old carbine, “do you know anything about this? I only have all these eyeballs, because I took them from the fly blown carcasses of all the dead ones.”

Biggles gagged on the next eyeball.

“No, not a bit,” he lied between retches, as he felt his taste buds turn into maggots “do you have any salt?”

 

The next day Abdullah showed him how to ride camels and lead him across the desert. The Sun poured down upon the desert with such a villainous heat that at one point Biggles, in delirium thought he was playing County Cricket for Sheffield and would have taken the field to bat if Abdullah hadn’t kept dragging him back on the saddle. Crows circled in the sky cawing incessantly until Abdullah shot one and gave it to Biggles for lunch.

“Aren’t you having any?” asked Biggles as he poked at his fried crow.

“It is forbidden,” grinned Abdullah, “but it is not forbidden to serve it to unbelievers.”

“Pretty sure they wouldn’t serve this at Maxim’s. It could do with a bottle of Chablis.”

“Have you a wife, Biggles of the air?” asked Abdullah.

“Yes, I call her Mrs. Biggles, I seem to have forgot her original name years ago.”

“Is she as beautiful as a falcon soaring above an oasis?”

“More of a vulture hovering over a gasworks.”

“These are things I know not of,” muttered Abdullah. “Is your country a great country?”

“Only when we beat the Australians at cricket,” Biggles crunched down on a wing, “the rest of the time we have to explain the whole Empire thingy, and how the sun never sets - although of course it has, and continues to set with unfailing regularity.”

“Strange is your world.”

“Even stranger is your cooking.”

“There is a hotel near here, where I am told there is good cooking.”

“As long as the television doesn’t show endless reruns of Egyptian soaps.”

Which of course it did, being the same hotel he had absconded from four days beforehand. Oddly the Secret Police never noticed he was missing and were still watching the same obscure Egyptian soap opera - even odder still the girl was wearing the same towel and singing the same song about the camel driver’s boy.

Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©

In which Biggles is captured – yet again

Biggle’s plane came in too low; so low he accidentally landed on soccer field in the middle of a game, and was promptly arrested by the Iranian umpire for being offside. 

“Can you tell me your name, please,” the Iranian police captain sighed after Biggles had been arrested and held at the local station.

“Shan’t,” said Biggles folding his arms across his chest defiantly.

The captain rubbed his forehead with both his hands, and sighed again.

“You’re at least supposed to tell us your name, rank and serial number.” He wearily explained for the ninth time. “As put down in the Geneva Convention on …”

“Shan’t,” Biggles poked out his tongue. “You jolly Abdullahs shot me down again.”

The captain asked over his shoulder to another guard, “Is he talking about Afghanistan's foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah?” but the other guard shrugged his shoulders and continued drinking his tea.

“Look my name isn’t Abdullah,” the captain began doodling on the paper, “my name is Captain Arash. I don’t even know anyone called Abdullah. I’m a Persian. Now for the love of God, can you please tell me your name?”

“What about the bally holes in my plane?” Biggles jabbed with his index finger on the table, “you can’t get them fixed down the local bike shop you know!”

“You invade Iranian airspace, attack a field of sheep, and land in the middle of the quarter-final match between Iran and Kazakhstan of the Asia-Cup. Why shouldn’t we shoot at your plane?”

“What about my cup of tea?” Biggles became petulant.

“It’s right there in front of you, with milk even.”

“Smell’s like camel,” Biggles poked his tongue at it.

“Yes,” the captain rested his head on his hands and sighed with infinite patience “well, we couldn’t get any milk from a Jersey cow as you requested, so we did the best we could and milked a donkey. It’s perfectly good, although we do prefer only sugar with our tea.”

“Any biscuits?”

The captain opened a box of Ferrero Rocher Chocolates.

“Will these do?”

“Ooh Ferrero-Rocher,” Biggles grinned as he peeled one open.

“Look, someone from Savama,” the captain almost pleaded with Biggles, “which is the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and National Security will soon be here, and they torture people, so you’re much better off telling me who you are or they might just tear it out of you.”

“You cads!” shrieked Biggles, “I’ve been tortured by Russians, Italian waiters, French taxi drivers and even the occasional German High command - and trust me when it comes to being tortured the Huns know or two. Nobody tortures Biggles, …oh bugger.”

“Biggles,” Captain Arash wrote this down, “with one or two ‘g’?”

“Ahem - two.”

“Rhymes with giggles?”

“You know, I’ve never noticed that before.”

The captain looked at Biggles studiously for several minutes, trying to recall something, as Biggles face became more and more covered with chocolate.

“You’re not the same Biggles we shot down a month ago, are you? The one who attacked a donkey and a field of sunflowers? The one who blew up Persepolis - one of our most treasured monuments, considered one of the great archaeological sites.  The one who escaped by wearing a Burqa, after we had already handed him back to the British, so we had to hand him back twice? Not, that Biggles?”

Biggles’ face went bright red and he looked awkwardly at the ceiling fan.

“No, that name is just a coincidence,” Biggles lied unconvincingly. “You’re thinking of Rupert Biggles, I on the other hand am James Bigglesworth, different chap altogether.”

“James Bigglesworth,” the Captain wrote down meticulously.

“Oh bother!”

“And can you tell me why you invaded Iranian airspace?”

“Is this Iran?” Biggles looked startled. “I thought it was Egypt.”

“Well, can you tell me why you invaded Egyptian airspace?”

“I thought it was on the way to Syria.”

“And have you any reason for invading Syrian airspace.”

“I was meeting a chap about a dog.”

“So, let me get this straight, you were flying to Syria using a British Royal Airforce Harrier II jumpjet,” the captain looked skeptical, “armed with Air to Surface missles and Paveway IV airburst bombs. Just to meet a man about a dog?”

“How on earth did you know all that?”

“Your logbook says,” the Captain opened up a small notebook, “and I quote, ‘fly Harrier II jump jet to Iran, and attack sheep with Air to Surface missiles and Paveway IV airburst bombs. Mister Abdullah won’t know what hit him. Be back in time for snooker with Algy and Ginger. I’m so spiffing. Biggles.’.”

“If you bally well knew all this,” Biggles looked annoyed, “why in blazes are you asking me?”

“When dealing with madmen, it pays to check your facts.” The Captained smiled. “You’re going to put into a hotel until such time as your government can explain why you are attacking all the sheep in my country.”

“What about those jolly Savamas, the secret police chaps,” Biggles quizzed worriedly, “the ones you said were going to torture me?”

“I just did,” Captain Arash, grinned, “I actually am in the Savama. You see, Captain Biggles we’re not idiots, my culture is over four thousand years old, it is comparable to Egypt, India and the ancient Greece. The Persian Empire was, and perhaps one day will be again, as complicated and vast as you could imagine. We are as sophisticated a people as you are ever likely to meet, and while the American press may seek to demonize us, a lot of us simply are not the monsters that we have been portrayed as, and though this may come as surprising to you – we do hold by the Geneva Convention, and you will in time be handed back to the British. We really couldn’t do that, if you were in many pieces, now then could we?”

“Er, bally well say not.” Biggles blew his cheeks out repeatedly.

“Except for one tiny little thing.”

“Yes?”

“The chocolates were really laxatives. Good day.”

Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©

Biggles’ Psychological Assessment

“Sit down Captain,” the psychologist motioned to Biggles to use the couch.

“Thanks Algy, but will there be crumpet?”

“No, now lie down.”

“Finger biscuits?”

“No, now lie down, that’s an order.”

“We’re both captains, you can’t order me.”

“I’m also a doctor, so I can.”

“I’m a pilot, so you can’t.”

“Okay,” the psychologist sighed, “ very well – no, hang on, I’m a pilot too, that means I still outrank you.”

“I’m a pilot and an ace, and come to think of it, I’m also Biggles, nobody outranks a Biggles.”

“The commodore does.”

“He does?” frowned Biggles, “and all this time I thought he just signed the paychecks. Got to respect the paymaster you know.”

“Very well, stand there if you must, but for heavens sake answer these bally questions.”

“Algy, you can’t make me stand for hours on end, that’s a form of torture.” Biggles grinned and lay down on the couch. “More childhood?”

“If you like.” Algy made a scribble. Algy or ‘Algernon Lacey’ was in fact a cousin of Biggles, but they always started the counseling in a semi-professional way, just to show good form.

“Algy, we grew up together, don’t you know already my childhood?” Biggles rested his arms behind his head.

“That’s not the point old man, you have to talk about it, that way, and you know something or other.”

“Something or other what?”

“I don’t know, we won’t know until you bally well talk about it.”

“So how will we know when I am talking about it?” Biggles eyebrows collapsed like the wings of a Fokker Dr.I triplane after Manfred von Richthofen had missed the runway.

Algy pulled a book from behind him, and leafed through the pages. Algy wasn’t really a psychologist, but it gave him something to do while he was convalescing. He too had been shot so many times that it was a miracle he was still alive, and spent most of his time now lying around trying to get the use of legs back - which wasn’t easy as they were kept in a box by the door of the tent.

“It says here,” Algy sucked his cheeks, “you will either have an epiphany or a cathartic shock.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Only if you go insane. Not much risk of that, old bean.”

“I say not,” and they both chortled at the ludicrousness of it.

In fact, Biggles was stark raving mad, and had been for as long as he had been flying. No one had been able to prove this of course, because he was a famous flying ace, in fact, he was the most famous flying ace, which meant his sanity and his reputation was protected by order of the War Office. Which certainly made it easy when picking up Wrens, as the rule of thumb is never argue with a mad person and you can’t argue with a famous flying ace. Life was sweet.

“So, anything childhood epiphanies?”

“Is that like choir practice?” Biggles asked whistling between his teeth.

“No different epiphany,” Algy bit on his pencil. “We want the other one.”

“The one we don’t know what it is?”

“Hmm, yes.”

“What if I had an epiphany while I had choir practice  - while I singing an epiphany?”

“Were you ever in choir?”

“No.”

“Ah. Biggles, you’re not making this easy.”

“I’m Biggles.”

“Yes, and that does cover quite a bit doesn’t it. Look old man, isn’t there anything about your childhood, which I can put down on this blasted report. Anything that would look interesting, otherwise the jolly commodore will have me back in the trenches, and I’d rather avoid the whole lose-my-head-before-morning-tea-thing, if you know what I mean.”

“But Algy, we don’t have trenches anymore, this is Iraq. All we have here are targets.”

“Targets?”

“Yes, jolly Mister Abdullah and his donkeys. No end of Mister Abdullahs over here.”

“I see your point.” Algy looked at the ceiling, “I don’t supposed you were frightened by a donkey when you were a child.”

“No, I’m Biggles.”

“Biggles has no fears?”

“Only that this war will be over before I can get in my plane again.”

“Aha! So, for you to overcome your fears,” Algy began writing excitedly, “it’s necessary for you to go out and shoot Mister Abdullah and his donkeys, and this is important for the war effort.”

“I never thought about it that way before, I say Algy, you are clever.”

“Well then, that’s settled. Biggles I’m putting you back on active duty.”

“Was I ever off?”

“Well no, but we must go through the forms, mustn’t we?”

“Right ho, old bean. So, can I go and start flying again?”

“Don’t see why not. It’s for the War effort.”

“Toodle-pip and what!” Biggles bounced out of his couch and paused by the door. “And can I shot down the German medical planes and blow up Iran?”

“Course you can.” Algy nodded, “for the War effort.”

 

Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©

Debriefing Biggles

Biggles reported to the debriefing tent after his skirmishing,and met his C.O. the Air Commodore Raymond who wore a lugubrious expression worthy of Eeyore.

“Biggles,” sighed with the Air Commodore, “I have a report you bombed Iran again, is this true?”

“Possibly,” Biggles grinned ecstatically, “where is it?”

“In the same place as you bombed last time, you know the borders of countries don’t tend to move too often, you know old man.”

“Yes, sir,” Biggles looked thoughtful, “is it filled with those funny looking chaps with the towels on their heads and camel jockeys hidden in their dresses?”

“No, those are our allies,” Raymond sighed, “The Saudis and the Kuwaitis, remember half our squadron is made up of them. No, Iranians wear immaculate black suits, don’t shave and never wear ties. And in general, they live somewhere North of where we are standing. You know, the ones that captured you, put you up in a hotel for nine days, and played backgammon with you, after you bombed and landed on the wrong airfield …yet again.”

“Oh those Blighters!” Biggles looked annoyed. “Well, jolly well I should say so, give them a taste of their own medicine.”

“But they haven’t bombed us, they haven’t done anything to warrant our bombing them. And it says here, you attacked a field of sunflowers and a donkey. Is that true?”

Biggles looked puzzled.

“I thought it was a radar installation. Could have been, those tricky blighters are rather well, tricky aren’t they?”

The Air Commodore looked at Biggles with the same expression of weariness of roman general might have had when he realized his insane, drunken barbarian auxiliaries, were all he had to hold back all the insane, drunken barbarians who were about to invade Rome itself.

“Biggles.”

“Yes Sir!” Biggles yelled enthusiastically.

“I have another report that says you shot a flock of geese.”

“Ah, yes sir, sun was in my eyes and what. Won’t happen again.”

“They were in a barn in Turkey.”

“G.P.S. was playing up sir. I got confused with the difference between geese and turkeys.”

“So you…” the pause would have been worthy of Kenneth Branagh delivering the soliloquy of Hamlet, “…destroyed a barn in an neutral country with an Amraam missile. Biggles you’re not even supposed to have Amraams on your plane.”

“I put it on for ballast, sir!”

“Why,” Commodore Raymond sighed once more, “or perhaps I shouldn’t ask, no, I feel like an adventure, why, oh why did you need ballast on a jet plane?”

“I’ve been experimenting with submarines, I’m trying to see if I can take off from under the sea. Jolly clever what? Saw it on the Thunderbirds. I say, sir when can I have one of those rockets things?”

“They’re not real Biggles, and I suspect you’re not real either.”

“Thank you sir!” Biggles saluted.

The tent was filled with aircrew, subalterns, communications officers, and ground crew who always came to watch one of Biggles amazing debriefings. He never ceased to astound one and all with his endless ability to take a perfectly rational argument and turn it into a hopelessly insane monologue about how amazing he was. For days afterwards the aircrews would gather around open fires and bars and regale each with the latest stories, all of the secretly hoping to emulate this titan of chaos, this man of mayhem.

“I have another report you shot down a German medical transport, is this true?”

“Yes sir! They went down faster than a choirboy at King’s College.”

“The German’s are our allies, you know, the whole NATO thingy. We’re not supposed to shoot them, it annoys them.”

“They are?” Biggles looked as puzzled a ferret that just been run over by a truck and ended up in the carburetor. “What happened to that Hitler chappy?”

“Biggles, tell me why I shouldn’t have you shot for insubordination?”

“I’m British.”

“Yes?”

“It wouldn’t be British to shoot me, I’m British. Sir!”

“Biggles, you know I’d send you to Afghanistan just to get rid of you, but I know full well you’d end up starting World War Three with the Chinese,” the Air Commodore wrote something down, “so I want you to have another psychological check up.”

“Another? But sir, that’s the fourteenth this month and it’s only the second of May,” Biggles protested.

“Yes, and the more check ups you have, the less time you spend in the air.”

“But sir!” Biggles pleaded.

“Biggles,” Raymond grinned, “it’s for Blighty.”

“Yes sir!” Biggles saluted, “for old Blighty.”

Whereupon he spun on the spot and marched out of the tent to the loud applause of his fellow pilots and ground crew, he was worth more in entertainment value then the entire Folies Bergère, the Muppets on Ice, and Eddie Izzard in drag combined.

 Copyright reserved by Jim O’Brien ©