BIGGLES FLIES NORTH

by Captain W. E. Johns

First published May 1939

CONTENTS

List of illustrations – Page 7 (Frontispiece by Howard Leigh and six illustrations by Will Narraway on pages 61, 101, 123, 169, 193 and 231)

I. BIGGLES GETS A LETTER (Pages 9 – 19)

“Biggles was whistling softly as he walked into the break-fast room of his flat in Mount Street”, (Mayfair, London) where amongst his post is a bulky package from Canada. Across the top was printed in block letters ‘CONFIDENTIAL. IF AWAY, PLEASE FORWARD'. It is from Wilks – Captain Wilkinson was a flight commander in 187 Squadron in France, an a very old friend of Biggles and Algy. (Wilks appears in numerous First World War Biggles stories). They had last seen him in South America where he was an officer in the Bolivian Air Force (See Biggles Flies Again). Biggles reads the letter to Algy and Ginger and it starts off by saying that if Wilks disappears can Biggles find a fellow named McBain – ‘Brindle’ Jake, as he is known – and “hand him a bunch of slugs from me, as a last service for an old pal” – in other words – shoot him. The letter explains that Wilks initially got a job charter flying a mining engineer up to the “Gold-fields Corporation” in Moose Creek, well inside the Arctic Circle. Moose Creek is eight hundred miles north of the nearest rail-head and an aircraft can do the journey in a day, as opposed to six weeks by dog sledge or canoe, Wilks has set up a business venture called ‘Arctic Airways’. He has opened up his own landing-field and shed at Fort Beaver, which is the rail-head and business was touch and go for a year. Gold was then struck at Moose Creek and business picked up and he bought a second machine. However, now another man, named Brindle Jack and his cronies have jumped Wilks’ claim to the Fort Beaver Aerodrome, the only landing ground within fifty miles of Fort Beaver. Wilks bought the land off a man called Angus Stirling who has headed north to prospect for gold and not been seen since. Now Brindle Jake and his two pilots, Joe Sarton and ‘Tex’ Ferroni and a fourth man, “a half-breed French-Canadian” named Jean Chicot, who Wilks thinks is Brindle’s bodyguard, have told him to clear off the land. There is a problem at the Government Record Office with missing documentation so Brindle is now claiming that he owns the Fort Beaver Aerodrome. Wilks has had a pilot killed, a man called Walter Graves, and Wilks is convinced that Brindle or his men tampered with the aircraft. Wilks bought another plane and two days letter it went up in flames during the night. Wilks now has to sleep in his remaining Rockheed freighter to guard it and says he has nearly been killed two or three times by ‘accident’. Wilks now writes to Biggles for help. “With one man whom I could rely on absolutely, to take turn and turn about with me, I believe I could still beat Brindle and his toughs”. The letter was posted nine days ago. Biggles says they are going to go to Fort Beaver as fast as they can and asks he Algy to ring up and find out when the next boat sails. Biggles is going to send a few cables to arrange to have a machine waiting for them when they land in Canada.