BIGGLES GOES TO WAR

by Captain W. E. Johns

VIII. FIRST BLOOD (Pages 86 – 96)

After dinner, at nearly 9.00 pm, Biggles, Algy and Ginger go to the aerodrome to speak to Smyth and on the way they take a shortcut through a gap in a hedge. They catch a man in the darkness setting fire to their aircraft hangar! On being confronted, the man pulls a revolver from his pocket and fires three shots at them. The man then runs to the road and to a car, whilst Biggles and Algy give chase. When the man fires at them again, Algy shoots him dead. They recognise the man as Menkhoff, the General’s staff-officer. Ginger arrives and Biggles says to him “We’re in a nice mess now. If Bethstein discovers that it was us who killed Menkhoff he’ll have us shot”. (In the original ‘Modern Boy’ version rather than “he’ll have us shot” it is “there’ll be the dickens to pay” – Dickens is a euphemism for Devil). They bundle the dead man into the back of his car. Biggles instructs Algy to take the car and dump it down the road and then come back quickly. Biggles says “We shall have to swear that we know absolutely nothing about it. I hate all this lying, but when one is dealing with liars, one can’t afford to tell the truth: it seems, not in war-time anyway”. Biggles instructs his mechanics, Smyth and Carter, to lie and say that Biggles, Algy and Ginger have been over by the machines with them for the last half-hour and then they saw the hangar on fire. The machines are checked and Biggles orders his mechanics not to let anyone come near them as “this place is rotten with spies”. Ludwig Stanhauser arrives and is relieved to find out that the planes are alright. They arrange to meet later. Algy returns to quietly inform Biggles that the car has been dumped about a mile down the road in an overgrown drive. Algy wiped his fingerprints from the steering-wheel. A car drives past and they see General Bethstein looking savage. Biggles quips “That’s nothing to how he’ll look when he learns what has happened to his boy friend”. Returning to their hotel, Josef tells them there has been a murder – Colonel Menkhoff was found in the drive of the General’s house. Back in Biggles’ room he looks at Algy, “With the whole of Maltovia at your disposal, you would go and chose Bethstein’s own drive to park that confounded car in, wouldn’t you?” he sneered sarcastically. “How the dickens was I to know it was his?” cried Algy helplessly. “No, I suppose you weren’t to know,” agreed Biggles. Then a smile broke over his face. “Maybe it’s all for the best,” he said optimistically. “It will certainly give the general something to think about”.