BIGGLES DOES SOME HOMEWORK
First Published in February 1998 - 170 pages
This is the story that every Biggles fan wants to have and read!
Captain W. E. Johns died whilst writing Chapter 12 of this book
and it was only ever privately published as a limited edition of 300 copies.
The book is currently selling for up to £1000! For this reason, I have done the
story summary on a chapter by chapter basis, so that all Biggles fans can get a
good idea of what this last story was all about and enjoy it.
The Chapters can be summarised as follows:-
CHAPTER ONE - A HEART TO HEART
Biggles is called in to see Air
Commodore Raymond who reminds him that they are both getting old and the day is
not far distant when both he and Biggles will be due to retire. Due to its
success, Raymond wants to expand the Special Air Section of the Police and buy
new planes. The time has also come for them to have their own Aerodrome to use.
Who will replace Biggles when he retires? Raymond has been looking for possible
new recruits to the Air Police and wants Biggles to try out some new people to
see what he thinks. To this end, Raymond has made arrangements for a suitable
RAF Officer, nearing the end of his commission, to attend for interview. At the
end of the day, the recruitment decision will, of course, be for Biggles.
CHAPTER TWO - ALEXANDER GORDON MacKAY
Biggles, Algy, Bertie and Ginger
meet Alexander Gordon MacKay, the son of V.C. holder, General Alexander MacKay.
MacKay (junior) is dark skinned and he explains that he has Native American or
"Red Indian" blood in him. The team get to know and like MacKay and
find out that his nickname is "Minnie" - short for Minnehaha (from
Longfellow's poem 'The Song of Hiawatha'), because of his native American ancestry. Minnie joins the team for a
probationary period.
CHAPTER THREE - A STRANGE TALE OF A BAG
Air Commodore Raymond asks
Biggles to investigate the mystery of an army kit bag that has been found in
the middle of remote countryside. The kit bag was packed with registered post
office mail stolen from a Post Office van where the driver had been coshed and
was now seriously ill in hospital. Biggles takes Algy, Bertie, Ginger and
Minnie down to investigate the location where the bag was found.
CHAPTER FOUR - RURAL REFLECTIONS
Biggles and the team meet with
local Police Constable Murphy who shows them where the bag was found and then
leaves. The bag was found in a small clump of trees known as a spinney. Minnie
is the first to raise the possibility that the bag has fallen or been dropped
out of an aeroplane. Climbing the tree under which it was found, Minnie finds
evidence that this was the case. From the tree, Minnie sees a stranger coming
and he arrives soon after a man in a RAF tie.
CHAPTER FIVE
The man in the RAF tie is looking
for the army kit bag. Biggles says that it has been found but it is empty. The
man leaves and Minnie is sent to follow him. The man returns to his car by the
road where two men are nearby waiting in a London taxi. One of these waiting
men shoots the man in the RAF tie. Minnie runs back to report to Biggles.
Biggles suspects that the new men on the scene will be with them very shortly
and sets Ginger and Minnie to watch for their approach.
CHAPTER SIX
Minnie returns to the spinney to
say the men are on their way and Ginger has gone off to get the number of their
car. Two nasty villains arrive and there is a confrontation between them and
Biggles' party. They want the kit bag and the contents, the registered mail.
The confrontation looks like ending in violence when one of the villains pulls
a gun on Biggles, but this confrontation is ended by the return of the Police
Constable. The two villains leave. After some time, Ginger returns to say that
(with the help of a passing motorcyclist), he followed
the two villains to Lotton Hall, a nearby large house
set in huge grounds.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Biggles asks the Police Constable
who lives at Lotton Hall. He is told it is a Mr. Nestor Zolton, from Cyprus,
who is believed to have made a fortune from shady gambling joints in London. He
walks with a stick and for this reason tends to travel in a large London taxi.
Everybody returns to London and Biggles goes to brief the Air Commodore as to
the result of his enquiries so far and finds that he is now dealing with a
murder. The injured Post Office driver has now died. Biggles makes his plans
and returns to his office to brief everybody on the next line of enquiry.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bertie is sent to keep watch on
the spinney of trees where the bag was originally found. On the way, he drops
Ginger and Minnie off at Lotton Hall to keep watch
there. Biggles' theory is that the army kit bag was dropped due to a problem
with the aircraft so Algy is sent to make enquiries with all aerodromes within
a 50-mile radius of Lotton Hall as to any planes
making any emergency landings. Bertie climbs a tree in the spinney to keep
watch and soon sees four men approaching. These are the two villains, plus the
man with the RAF tie, now bandaged, and a fourth man who Bertie thinks must be Zoltan. They are obviously trying to force the bandaged man
to tell them where the contents of the kit bag are. Unfortunately, the tree
Bertie is in breaks (and this is the picture on the cover of the book -
together with pictures of (presumably) Biggles and Air Commodore Raymond). The
bandaged man in the RAF tie takes the opportunity to run for it, leaving Bertie
to face the wrath of the three remaining men.
CHAPTER NINE
Meanwhile, Ginger and Minnie see a
car leave Lotton Hall. They don't know who is in it
but later meet with Police Constable Murphy who is able to tell them it was
Doctor Grey who was in the car. Apparently, the Doctor had been called out to
see a man with a minor gunshot wound. Seeing four men walking in the direction
of the spinney where Bertie is keeping watch, Ginger follows them,
whilst Minnie goes to investigate the now supposedly deserted Lotton Hall.
CHAPTER TEN
Ginger hears Bertie fall out of
the tree and soon meets the fleeing bandaged man. Stopping him, Ginger finds
out his name is Varley. Varley
agrees to tell Ginger all he knows about what is going on, in return for safe
passage away from the area. Ginger is told that there are two rival drug gangs
and they are at war with each other. Zoltan, who is a
Greek Cypriot, leads one gang and a man named Alfondari,
who is a Turkish Cypriot, leads the other. Both gangs deal heroin. The
registered mail was stolen because it contains a package of heroin. Zolton usually picks it up at a Hotel but now needs to
intercept it because he has been tipped off that the rival gang now know about
this. Ginger takes Varley back to the main road where
they meet up with Biggles who had said he would come down to join them. Biggles
is told of the new information and decides to take Varley
with him back to London. This is Biggles' last appearance in the story and his
final line is "I'll drop you off as near as I can get to the
spinney". This is said to Ginger who is sent to make sure Bertie is
alright and to tell the gang what has happened to the missing mail.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bertie is being offered £100 by Zoltan to tell the gang where the contents of the army kit
bag are. He declines to do so. Ginger arrives and, following his orders is
quite happy to tell the gang what has happened to the contents of the army kit
bag. The registered mail has been returned to the Post Office, who have gone on to deliver it in the normal course of post. The
gang leave Ginger and Bertie, presumably to return to Lotton
Hall.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ginger and Bertie go to look for
Minnie who was supposed to be at Lotton Hall. Finding
no sign of him, they venture closer and hear the dogs at the Hall making a
commotion. They find that half a dozen Alsatian dogs are holding Minnie at bay.
He has climbed up into a hayloft to get away from the dogs. One of the villains
appears on the scene with a rifle. Ginger asks Bertie to go and contact Biggles
to say they need help whilst Ginger stays to try and delay things. "With
considerable reluctance Bertie backed away from ......"
It was on the 21st June 1968 at 8.30 a.m. that William Earl
Johns (born 5th February 1893) stopped mid-sentence in order to make himself
and his wife a cup of tea. He went upstairs to her and sat in his armchair and
suffered a fatal heart attack and died immediately. He was 75 years old. So ended the saga of Biggles, first published in 1932 and last
published in 1997. It is appropriate that Johns' final Biggles story
should be published some 65 years after his first. Sixty-five is, of course,
the normal retirement age for men and this was a story in which Biggles was
facing retirement from the Special Air Police and recruiting fresh new blood to
take his place.
With the exception of the frontispiece, there are no story
illustrations in this book.
The cover art was painted by Andrew Skilleter
and is available for purchase by
clicking here
Biggles Does Some Homework
Subtitle - The Final, Unfinished Novel
Publication Details - published privately by Norman Wright in a
limited edition of only 300 books.
Frontispiece
Click on the above to see it in more detail