SPITFIRE
PARADE - BIGGLES AT WAR
by Captain W.
E. Johns
IX. THE COWARD (Pages 162 – 182)
“The normal duties of Number 666 Squadron
consisted of intercepting enemy daylight raiders, and it may have been largely
due to Biggles’s leadership that no casualties occurred before they did; but by
late autumn the strain of long hours at the tremendous altitude at which
battles were fought was beginning to tell.
Nutty Armand went to hospital with a bullet through his foot, and Tex
O’Hara, to his disgust, was kept on the ground, by the M.O.’s orders, with a
wrenched shoulder sustained in collision with a tree while trying to bring his
Spitfire down after its lateral controls had been shot away. Added to this, three airmen had been injured
by bomb splinters when a deliberate dive-bombing attack had been made on the
aerodrome during the absence of the machines”.
“On the other hand, Cuthbert had returned from hospital and to bring the
squadron up to strength came Henry Harcourt”.
Harcourt is a “weedy youth with a thin, pale face and thoughtful grey
eyes. He goes to see Biggles and asks,
in a rather flowery way, if he can keep a pig in a pigsty on the aerodrome and
feed it on squadron leftovers. A pig is
obtained and called “Annie”. One morning
Biggles hears laughter and finds the pig has been painted with “the red, white,
and blue ring markings such as are carried by service aircraft” (I believe
this is called a national cockade in the form of a roundel) so that if the
pig escapes people will know where she belongs.
Biggles assigns Henry to A Flight and tells him to keep close to
him. A large enemy formation is
encountered and with the help of Hurricanes of 701 Squadron, it is broken
up. Five enemy machines are shot down,
two falling to Biggles’s guns. Back at
base, Biggles speaks to Harcourt and says he noticed that he “did not quite
pull your weight” as Harcourt was on the outskirts of the dogfight. Biggles tells him that if he feels he is not
quite up to it, Harcourt should tell him.
Biggles sends Ginger to have a word with Harcourt to give him some gentle
encouragement. Ginger finds Harcourt
face down on his bed and he tells Ginger that he “funked it”. Harcourt admits that when the guns started,
he was afraid. Ginger says he was as
well. The following morning, Harcourt
reports sick with toothache. Eight
Spitfires, including Biggles, go out to take on the approaching enemy bombers
and fighter escort approaching the Thames Estuary. At least twenty Messerschmitts attack
them. “To describe in detail the battle
that now ensued would necessarily involve much repetition. Words, too, would lag behind the speed of the
action”. “The fight went on. It was the most bitterly contested in all
Biggles’s experience, machines of both sides hurtling round and round at
frenzied speed, sometimes missing each other by inches, neither side giving
way”. Biggles sees a remarkable
sight. A Spitfire appears a thousand
feet above the German bombers and then it dives vertically down like a torpedo,
straight towards the middle of the bomber formation. (The Spitfire stood vertically on its nose
and went down like a torpedo – is the illustration on page 177). Biggles thinks the pilot is either dead or
unconscious as no sane pilot would behave in such a way. The Spitfire pulls out of its dive and shoots
up again like a rocket. Biggles
concludes the pilot is mad. German
machines skid away and the formation is in confusion. When the bombers try to fire, they risk
firing at each other. “One bomber turned
away and started gliding down; another followed it, smoke pouring from its
tail. The crew toppled out like ripe
apples dropping off a tree”. The unknown
Spitfire again come tearing through the middle of the enemy machines and misses
Biggles by inches. Twelve Hurricanes and
a further seven Spitfires arrive to help turn the tide of the battle. The German bombers unload their bombs and
turn for home. Back at their home
aerodrome, Algy asks Biggles if he saw the crazy Spitfire. Biggles laughs. “There must have been forty bombers in that
mob, and he scattered them like a dog barging into a flock of sheep”. A badly damaged Spitfire comes in to land, riddled
with bullet holes. Biggles recognises it
as Harcourt’s machine and asks who is flying it? “Henry got out – or rather fell out. He staggered about for a bit like a sailor
thrown out of a grog shop”. Biggles is
astonished and asks Henry what came over him.
Henry shows him a deep round hole where the pigsty was. A German dive bomber has attacked the
aerodrome and killed Annie the pig.
Henry has now sworn revenge and wants to shoot down every Hun out of the
sky. It is at this point that a farmer arrives. He has found a pig on his adjourning farm and
seeing the painted marks on the pig concluded it must belong to the
aerodrome. In the back of his vehicle is
Annie the pig, alive and well.
This chapter was originally a story spread over four pages – with
illustrations – from issue number 289 of “The Modern Boy” (week ending 19th
August 1933) entitled “The Funk!”. The
story was collected in “Biggles of the Camel Squadron” and published by John
Hamilton in March 1934. The differences
in the original story are these.
Firstly, the original story was a First World War story rather than a
Second World War story. Biggles has to
train three new pilots called Harcourt, Howell and Sylvester. Harcourt wants to get ant eggs to feed a
goldfish that he has won at the fair at Amiens and named Percy. Biggles spends some time training them and
after four days they go over the lines with Biggles and Algy. When engaged in combat, Harcourt turns his
aircraft and flees for their home aerodrome.
Sylvester is shot down and badly wounded. Back at base Harcourt admits he was scared
and says he can’t fly again. A German
Fokker D.VII flies over and drops a pair of boots – an insult meaning they
should join the infantry. Biggles in a
fit of rage takes off and flies after the plane, taking Algy and Howell with
him. Biggles is surprised to see that
Harcourt’s aircraft has followed them.
The German flies off and joins eight of his comrades and a dogfight
ensues with the four British planes taking on the nine German planes. “Kill or be killed was the motto of
to-day!”. Two Fokkers collide. A camel goes down in a sheet of flame. Another Fokker sheds its wings as it pulls
up. A Sopwith Camel chases the Fokker
that dropped the boots with fury, trying to ram it and eventually shooting it
down. Biggles thinks it must be Algy,
but of course, it turns out to be Harcourt.
The remaining five Fokkers flee.
Algy has been shot down but is unharmed.
It was Howell who went down in flames.
The reason why Harcourt has gone fighting mad is that the dropped boots
went through the roof of his hut and killed his goldfish, Percy. With regard to the painting of aircraft
roundels on the pig, this is based on a true story. The Canadian air ace, Billy Bishop, and his
colleagues painted British red, white and blue roundels on some ducks and
German aircraft markings was painted on a large sow.