THE BLACK PERIL

 

by W. E. Johns

 

 

II.            GINGER TAKES A HAND  (Pages 30 –52)

 

“When Biggles left Algy in order to make a closer inspection of the mysterious flying boat, he had little idea of what he was literally walking into”.  “That the nocturnal visitors were engaged in some nefarious scheme was obvious, and he considered it his duty to find out, if possible, just what it was”.  Biggles gets to the foreign aircraft and examines it.  “It was a metal flying boat of the high-wing monoplane type, not unlike the famous Dornier Do.X, but painted black.  Fared into the leading edge of the cantilever wing were eight engines, fitting with gleaming metal propellers.  The exhaust manifolds were gathered into two large exhaust pipes, one of each side of the hull, that thickened strangely towards the end, and he guessed why the engines made their curious muffled roar.  They were silenced”.  Biggles decides to look inside.  He finds that the machine is a foreign bomber of huge dimensions.  Biggles accidently get locked inside an internal room of the aircraft and can’t find his way out in the darkness after dropping his matches.  The crew return and Biggles finds himself trapped onboard when they take off.  After what seems like hours, the aircraft lands again and Biggles is able to get out unseen.  He finds the aircraft floating fifty yards from the shore and he swims to the beach.  Here, he is found by four men from the aircraft.  One of them has a black beard and Biggles mentally thinks of him as “Blackbeard”.  Biggles bluffs it out by claiming to have swum ashore from being shipwrecked.  Biggles is taken to a concrete structure like the one he had been in previously.  Biggles normally doesn’t tell lies, but he has to this time.  He pretends he knows nothing about planes and asks for a joyride.  Blackbeard asks “you’ve never been in an aeroplane, perhaps?”  “Never,” lied Biggles unblushingly; the position was far too desperate for squeamishness”.  “Now there is an old saying that “truth will out,” and never was it more startlingly demonstrated than at this moment”.  Biggles gives his name as James Bigglesworth but Blackbeard has found his silver cigarette case in their plane.  “Engraved on the front of it were the letters, J. B., and underneath, rather smaller, R.F.C.  If any further proof of his identity was needed, it was there.  Inside the case was a photograph of himself, in flying cap, and googles, standing beside the Vandal.  Smyth, his mechanic, had taken it a few days before, and had given him a print just as they were taking off; he had slipped it into his cigarette case for safety”.  “I’ll give you a joyride,” said the German softly, “a long one”.  Biggles throws his cigarette case at the candle in the room and runs for his life.  Gunshots follow him.  Biggles gets about quarter of a mile before he trips and sprains his ankle and he manages to crawl to an old railway hut where he sees a light.  Here he meets for the first time a companion who will be in nearly all of the future Biggles books.  (This is the very first introduction of Ginger Hebblethwaite, who goes on to become one of Biggles regular companions for the rest of the series of novels).  Biggles “found himself staring into the wide open eyes of a lad of fifteen or sixteen years of age.  He was in rags, dirty beyond description, but above a collarless shirt rose a frank, alert, freckled face, surmounted by a mop of towsled red hair”.  “Put that fire out, Ginger – quick!” gasped Biggles – giving the unnamed lad the nickname he will always be known by.  This lad is on his way to London to join the Air Force.  He is from Smettleworth and his father is a miner.  “Now, Ginger,” Biggles says.  “I want you to help me”.  “All right but not so much of the Ginger; my name’s Habblethwaite.  (This is how Johns originally spelt Ginger’s surname.  We are never ever told his first name in any of the Biggles books.  Johns later changed Ginger’s surname to Hebblethwaite, with an ‘e’ rather than an ‘a’.  The surname is spelt ‘Habblethwaite’ in all versions of the Black Peril book, until the Red Fox paperback of June 1995, when they corrected it to ‘Hebblethwaite’ )  “Let’s stick to Ginger, it’s shorter,” suggested Biggles.  “O.K with me,” agreed the boy.  “What’s your name by the way?”  “Bigglesworth”.  Ginger started violently “Bigglesworth!  Not the war pilot by any chance?”  Ginger has read of Biggles.  Biggles gives Ginger money and sends him to the nearest village to get a car with a driver to pick Biggles up.  He can then take him back to the village where Biggles will telegram Algy Lacey at Brooklands Aerodrome to fly up and fetch him.  Ginger sets off on his task and is stopped by two men.  They ask him to keep an eye out for a man.  Shortly afterwards, Ginger calls them to send them off the wrong way.  Ginger then slashes a tyre on their car.  Ginger goes to a garage and wakes the proprietor and agrees to pay him two pounds to get Biggles.  “Make it snappy and I’ll give you an extra ten bob”.  Driving to the disused railway hut, Ginger calls “Biggles! Hi, it’s me, Ginger”.  But Biggles has gone.  Ginger returns with the garage man back to the village.  He waits until dawn and then goes to the post office.