BIGGLES SEES TOO MUCH

by Captain W. E. Johns

17. HOW IT ALL ENDED (Pages 150 – 156)

“Biggles explained what he had in mind. “If the men on this French boat come ashore, as I imagine they will, we should be able to persuade them to take this poor fellow back to France. After all, he’s one of them. He isn’t a crook. His only sin was doing a little quiet poaching in British waters, and there’s nothing outrageous about that”. Biggles and Bertie leave Ginger to look after the wounded man. The French fishing-boat comes in and two men are waiting on a scrap of sandy beach for it. One carried a suitcase. “Where’s the third man?” said Bertie. “There should be another. We’ve only seen three”. “There shouldn’t be any more if our wounded friend was right in assuming that the two who tried to pinch his boat were drowned,” Biggles pointed out. “The fact that only one, the one we saw, was washed up on the beach is neither here nor there. The other may be on the bottom with the boat”. The two men on the sandy beach see Biggles and Bertie approach and go and hide in the rocks. A shot is fired at them and Biggles fires back. The French boat arrives and Biggles sees the port of registration is St. Malo, where the wounded Frenchman is from. Two men from the French boat come ashore and Biggles speaks to them in French asking to speak to the captain. Biggles explains they are British Government officers and they have found a wounded Frenchman and it would be quicker and safer if there would take him back to France. The captain of the French vessel joins them and they go to see the wounded Frenchman, who has now passed out. The captain recognises him as Paul Voudray from the same port. The French captain agrees to take the man back to France and he gives Biggles his word that he will never come back to the island. Biggles says he will deal with the two men who are there. Taking the wounded Frenchman with them, the French boat leaves. Biggles shouts at the men in the rocks and tries to persuade them to come quietly. “Go to hell. Come and get us”. There is another pistol shot. “Okay, if that’s how you want it,” called Biggles. “I hope you enjoy a diet of limpets and salt water”. Biggles tells Bertie “I’m in no mood for heroics” and they walk back across the island to meet Ginger. Biggles says he is leaving the crooks there to sweat it out. “If by some stroke of luck they did get to France, they’d be arrested for attempted murder”. They collect up some of the money. They return to the coastguard boat and tell Cole the story of events on the island. Cole agrees to take the dead bodies on board, which they do. They return to St Helier and taxi to the airport where Algy is waiting. Two hours later, Biggles is in Air Commodore Raymond’s office reporting in detail the events of the day. Raymond agrees “I think you did right in leaving those two men on the island. It wasn’t worth risking your life for a couple of common crooks who, knowing they had nothing to lose now there is no capital punishment, would not have hesitated to shoot you, given the chance”. (Capital punishment was suspended in 1965 in the UK and abolished in 1969. Although this book was published in June 1970, it had been written prior to the author’s death in June 1968). “You can leave the rest to me. I’ll have a word with the Admiralty about collecting them, and any money still lying about on the beach. It’ll be an exercise for the boys in blue”. Biggles asks about Julius Brunner and is told that he is dead. Inspector Gaskin went down to Penlock Grange with a couple of men and a search warrant and found him dead on the library floor with a shotgun lying beside him. “He had blown his brains out”. Biggles final line in an official published and completed Biggles book is this. “The trouble with me is I see too much,” returned Biggles lugubriously, as he turned to the door. “All I do is knock my pan out working overtime. I’ll be more careful in future”. He went out. Johns adds a final couple of paragraphs. “As the reader may feel somewhat ‘left in the air’ over one or two details, here is a note by way of a postscript. It is unlikely that what exactly happened on the island when the bank robbers arrived with their haul will ever be known, although Biggles’ interpretation of it was probably the true one. When the suitcase was burst open by the wave that wrecked the Shearwater, and its contents revealed, there was a fight between the newcomers, and those already on the island for possession of the bank-notes. This would be in accord with the characters of the men concerned. Stephen Brunner and his chauffeur had tried to intervene and had been shot for their pains (Biggles has concluded that Bates had drowned)”. When a party of marine commandos arrive to get the two men on the island, they find they are no longer there. They had been arrested by the French police for the attempted murder of the French fishermen and they spent some years in a French prison rather than an English one. At the inquest on Tom Draper, a possible charge of murder had to be dropped. The verdict could only be ‘accidental death’. “Taking the whole thing by and large, Biggles always regarded the case as having an unsatisfactory ending. But as Bertie on one occasion reminded him when the subject was raised: “You can’t always win, old boy, so you might as well forget it".