THE RESCUE FLIGHT

by Captain W. E. Johns

IV. INTO THE BLUE (Pages 50 – 63)

For ten days, Thirty and Rip practised the tactics of war-flying. They learn a good deal from conversations in the mess, not just with Biggles, but also with the other two flight-commanders, Mahoney and McLaren. They form their greatest attachment with “an untidy youth with longish hair and a freckled face on which dwelt an expression of amused surprise. He was, they learned, a distant relative of Biggles’s, and had come straight out from school and caused a minor sensation at the squadron by shooting down an enemy aircraft on his first trip over the lines (this story is told in ‘The Boob’ in the first Biggles book ‘The Camels are Coming’). His name appeared on the squadron roll as Second Lieutenant The Honourable Algernon Lacey, but he was never called anything but Algy”. “Algy refused to treat the war as anything but a joke. The more his machine was shot about, the more he laughed, although on such occasions Biggles was apt to turn a reproving eye on him”. On the eleventh morning after their arrival, Thirty and Rip go over the Lines, with Algy and Biggles as four machines are needed to escort a photographic machine home, a D.H.4. They are meeting it over Douai - the home of the Richthofen Circus. Biggles tells Thirty and Rip not to leave formation. The four Camels take off and when they meet the D.H.4, they find it being pursued by six German Albatros Scouts. The planes engage in combat and Thirty’s sleeve and his altimeter are both hit by bullets. Thirty engages in combat with a German aircraft with a blue nose and gets some shots in, but the fight breaks up and they all return to their aerodrome, with the exception of Rip who has to land in a field next to the aerodrome. Biggles says “He must have got his engine shot up, or else had his tank holed”. Biggles shot down one of the Albatroses – one with a purple stripe. Biggles takes Thirty and Rip to the flight office where they find Algy already there. Biggles then asks Thirty and Rip “Just what do you two fellows think you’re doing here?” and “Who gave you permission to wear those uniforms?” Biggles then unfolds a small piece of paper from his pocket.