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Stray Biggles thoughts

I started reading Biggles' Chinese Puzzle after

philomytha posted about it, and I have an observation based on the first few pages of the first story in the collection, which I think makes a really interesting compare/contrast with Terai, Buries a Hatchet, and perhaps especially Looks Back.

So, in this book, you get to see what Biggles is like when a friend, but not one of his core people, is in danger. Marcel (the French policeman from some of the other books) has gone missing in Vietnam. Biggles is concerned and goes looking for him. As

philomytha pointed out, it's very touching! He's demonstrably willing to risk himself to help out a friend who isn't even one of the core group of "his people." They all are! It's excellent.

... however, it's also an interesting contrast to the absolute insanity that ensues when one of Biggles's core people is at risk. In other words, in Chinese Puzzle, Biggles behaves like a perfectly normal person who has had a friend go missing. He is openly concerned, he talks his boss into letting him go (but also mentions to the others that they aren't going anywhere if Raymond says no), and more or less follows the ground rules that he's been given.

Meanwhile, in the books where someone he truly can't live without has disappeared, he has two settings: I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING, and "creates 12 international incidents before breakfast." (Or both.)

Biggles in Chinese Puzzle: Obviously we're not going to French Indo-China without permission from the boss.

Biggles in Looks Back: Takes vacation time, BUYS A PLANE, sneaks into a Soviet-sphere country with full intentions of doing something illegal, gets chased all over the place by the secret police, eventually flees the country under the cover of darkness in a hail of gunfire.

No wonder Looks Back ends with Raymond yelling at him. I can only imagine what the experience was like from Raymond's point of view, in which his pilots keep taking vacation time and vanishing, while concerning bits of intel float back through the Iron Curtain.

Raymond, wandering through the Air Police office in which only Algy is left: heard from Biggles lately?
Algy, who just helped Bertie buy a plane that he 100% knows is going to be used to illegally sneak across the Czech border: define "Biggles" and "lately", sir

(Algy deserves a medal for putting up with this.)

But it also really highlights how out there Biggles's mental state is in Terai and Hatchet, because this book is what he looks like when he's normal levels of worried - he's fairly open about it, as well as being comparatively cautious in his plans-making - as opposed to OH WELL WHO CARES I **GUESS** I'LL GO I'M FINE (frantically chainsmoking).

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This is an excellent write-up that really helps sharpen my thoughts on Biggles's reactions to his endangered friends. It feels very him that he has an easier time opening up when what he's fixated on isn't actively tearing him to pieces.

Imagine von Stalhein getting hurt and seeing Biggles have one of his very locked-down freak-outs about him, where there's almost nothing on the surface, and thinking this means that Biggles doesn't feel that much about him. And one of the others has to explain that no, this is actually how Biggles is when his feelings are operating at MAXIMUM INTENSITY.

Imagine von Stalhein getting hurt and seeing Biggles have one of his very locked-down freak-outs about him, where there's almost nothing on the surface, and thinking this means that Biggles doesn't feel that much about him.

OH NO I WANT IT. ;__;

I'm going to digress a bit here, but - because it is relevant to the above, sort of! - I had a really interesting conversation with

sheron about Buries a Hatchet in which she pointed out something I had never noticed or realized, but I think she's entirely right, which is that a large part of Biggles's IDGAF attitude about von Stalhein on Sakhalin is simply due to Biggles thinking that EvS doesn't need him. He assumes that von Stalhein would just smack him down again if he tried, but it's not JUST that, it's also assuming that EvS can get out of it on his own even if Biggles does nothing.

It's the same exaggerated confidence in EvS's competence that led to Biggles failing to realize how trapped he was in his abusive Soviet job, because Biggles thinks he could walk away anytime - because why wouldn't he! He's smart and competent and brave and (etc). Meanwhile, EvS is a depressed, miserable, suicidal mess, and Biggles doesn't see it because he's too fixated on how amazing he thinks von Stalhein is.

So he doesn't quite get how much trouble von Stalhein is really in at Sakhalin. Biggles doesn't seem to realize how dire the situation is at all - there's this conversation with Fritz:

'If your uncle is inside for life, a day or two one way or the other won’t make much difference.’
‘I do not agree. Haste is necessary.’
‘Why?’
‘If my uncle Erich is forced to do hard labour in that climate, and that is the usual way with prisoners, it would kill him. He is not a weak man, but he has not been used to that sort of thing.’
‘I see. How much do you know about Sakhalin?’
‘Only what I have told you.’
‘You know of no one at home who has been there — someone who knows his way about the prison?’
‘No. People who go to Sakhalin seldom come back.’
‘Not even the warders?’
‘Not even the warders.'

He's thinking of it as "locked up for life in a normal prison," not "starved and worked to death." And he probably still thinks von Stalhein can get out of it on his own! From Biggles's perspective, the most likely results of showing up to help are either finding out that EvS escaped weeks ago on his own (this is the guy who survived a fatal plane crash and swam across a crocodile-infested river, after all) or having EvS flatly refuse to accept his help, so what he gets for trying is absolutely nothing.

I think it had never occurred to me until that conversation with Sheron that before Sakhalin, Biggles has never really seen EvS vulnerable before. He's never seen him need help (at least not in a way he recognized as such), and he's never had any of his offers of help accepted. Thinking about it from that perspective, it feels a lot less callous that he has to be pushed into doing something; he really thinks EvS will be fine on his own and the only thing Biggles is going to get for trying to help him is to be told off again.

Oh, this is fascinating! I hadn't really thought about Biggles's conception of Sakhalin, but he clearly is thinking of an ordinary prison--he only really learns more about how awful it is after he starts committing to the plan. And I think he would also reflexively assume a kind of honor and decency is it play here even when it's not, and even when he doesn't respect the Soviets; he instinctively uses his own moral yardstick for comparison and so obviously doesn't hit on "hellish forced labor."

Yes, and also note how the information is presented to Biggles by Fritz:

He was arrested and charged with treason. He could have escaped because he had been warned of what was going to happen. He still had one or two friends in high places. The night before they came for him, when he was at our house, one rang him up and told him he just had time to get out of the country. But he refused to run away. He said he would face the charge, although the result was a foregone conclusion.

Everything is Erich's choice, it's his wish to go to prison rather than accept the hand that Biggles has extended to him so many times. No wonder Biggles thinks Erich hates him and would rather Biggles not help at all! No wonder he thinks Erich might not wish to go with him from Sakhalin.

It's only later that he starts to understand that Erich might pretend to be fine when he is really really not.

Thus witness the switch up to Biggles in Looks Back, asking Erich is he's alright four times in the space of basically one conversation! Biggles finally learned what's what.

the switch up to Biggles in Looks Back, asking Erich is he's alright four times in the space of basically one conversation

This absolutely KILLS ME. He spent years making the mistake of assuming that Erich was totally fine because Erich said he was fine, and he's not ever making that mistake again. <3333

As far as interesting turnarounds, I also really love the switch from the way he assesses Erich's actions and his own part in it in Hatchet:

[Fritz]“You were the chief cause of his failure.’
‘He would have been the cause of mine had things fallen out differently,’ stated Biggles. ‘If he chose to take sides with people on the other side of the Iron Curtain that was entirely his affair. He knew the sort of people he was working for. I can’t accept responsibility for that.'

... to the later, retrospective version of it he describes in Gun Runners, in which he pins the culpability on himself:

“How did you come to fall out with them — if the question isn’t a personal one?’
‘They took on a professional German agent who had a grudge against us for winning the war. Through my fault he failed in a certain assignment. For that he was sent to spend the rest of his life in the political prison on Sakhalin Island. I thought that was a bit tough, so I took out a plane and picked him up. That’s all there was to it.’

Edited 2023-03-03 15:11 (UTC)

Yeah I love that contrast. You really get a sense of how much closer they grow post Hatchet. I LOVE.

Also! Biggles goal, from Hatchet:

‘If I can make von Stalhein see that we bear no grudge against him for what has happened in the past I shall be satisfied.

Not only is he not thinking about all the hardships EvS has caused them. No, he actually wants Erich to know that there's no grudge on Biggles' end. It ties in with the idea he expresses several times throughout the books which is that his (Biggles') actions really hurt von Stalhein and even though he doesn't actually regret his actions because they were necessary he wishes it didn't come down to wounding Erich.

Takes Charge:
the fault may not be entirely his. An old wound may irritate him.

Follows On:
He’s never got over the fact that through us Germany lost the first war. ... The shock of that knocked him off the rails, and he’s never got on them again.

‘He hates the sight of you, and you know it.’
‘He has no reason to regard me with affection.’

etc.

Biggles is just so aware that he has "so often been the cause of" Erich's failure.
As Fritz puts it:
your efficiency, which he admired and which has now been the cause of his downfall

♥♥♥

Edited 2023-03-03 18:07 (UTC)

Also, relating to above, you can see exactly when things went downhill from the still fixable Flies East dynamic, after which EvS apparently followed Biggles' career with some interest and bore him no grudge at all, reminiscing fondly, in Biggles & Co:

Von Stalhein laughed pleasantly, and his manner became reminiscent. ‘Funny how the wheel of fortune turns, isn’t it?’ he observed. ‘It’s a long step from the deserts of Palestine to the verdant plains of—er—Central Europe. Do you remember—’
‘Never mind about the past; I’m more interested in the present,’ interrupted Algy.

As relates to that discussion we had separately about bearing grudges, and how von Stalhein rarely bears any to those who have wronged him. But with Biggles somehow emotions and competitive pride gets in the way and things become more personal, especially after:

His arm flew up, and he brought the butt down sideways on the German’s closely cropped head. He hated doing it, but it was a matter of life or death now, and he had no alternative.
Von Stalhein collapsed limply, and Algy staggered as he allowed the inert weight to slip to the floor.

Biggles's attitude at the start of Hatchet is so fun to contemplate. This is the bit that strikes me particularly:

Again Biggles studied the face of the visitor. 'Were you very fond of your uncle?'
'Yes. He was always kind to me and my mother. I admired him, too, because I knew he was a brave soldier.'
'Tell me this, frankly,' requested Biggles, curiously. 'Had you any other motive in coming to see me, apart from warning me of my danger?'
The boy hesitated.
'Speak up. You're safe here.'
'I thought you might be able to help him.'

Biggles is absolutely leading Fritz to that request, he wants Fritz to ask him for help - but then once Fritz actually spits it out in response to Biggles's prompting, Biggles seems to realise what he's doing and backtracks wildly, and then it takes him several weeks to build back up to that point again.

But words cannot express my love of his conversation with Raymond, in which Raymond basically says, EvS might have information vital to national security and that could prevent thermonuclear war, find him and offer to rescue him in exchange for that vital information - and Biggles refuses! He's ok with the finding and rescuing bit, but he'll only do it for free <333

I have spent far too much time meticulously analyzing Biggles's state of mind in Hatchet. :D Because, yes, he seems to be intentionally drawing Fritz to ask him to help ... only to go, haha, why would we help you? Which seems oddly cold for him! But he's clearly dealing with his own issues in that book.

He's ok with the finding and rescuing bit, but he'll only do it for free <333

I know. <3333 And Raymond just goes along with it without a single complaint! Even though information is literally the entire reason why he's financing and justifying the expedition in the first place.

He is totally making his own arrangements with EvS at the end, though.

(I do find the entire conversation with EvS on the plane a bit revisionist about this, however, when Biggles implies - or outright states - that he's there on his own initiative and no one told him to go. Biggles! You may feel this way now, but you were literally ordered to go! And you said no at first!)

Honestly, I wonder what would've happened if it had gone the other way and Raymond had told him not to go. He's never directly gone against Raymond's orders even when he wants to, though he's found a number of ways of doing convenient end runs around them in a "la la la, I can't go against orders if you don't know I'm doing it in the first place" kind of way. But in this case, his orders and what he wanted to do, at heart, conveniently lined up and even gave him the extra push he seemed to need. It would be a really fascinating dilemma if his duty and heart had ended up in conflict instead ...

Hmm, I didn't read it as he's ordered to go! Biggles definitely has the choice to go! Raymond tells him so. He basically says "either you go or I'll send someone else, but I'm giving you the choice of going":

Biggles considered his chief with a wry smile. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, sir, but don’t you think, in asking me to take this on, you’re asking too much?’
‘Of course I do. I wouldn’t have asked you on my own account. Unfortunately the matter has come before a higher authority who regard the project as necessary in the national interest. There’s no compulsion about it. You are at liberty to decline. But if you don’t go someone else will have to be found who will go. I put the proposition to you, first because you’re officially employed here, and secondly, in the light of your experience, you’re better fitted than anyone else I know to tackle the job and pull it off.’
‘If you put it like that you make it difficult for me to refuse,’ muttered Biggles.
‘I thought you’d see it like that,’ murmured the Air Commodore.

Biggles: Well if Erich is getting rescued anyway it should be me, because I'll do it correctly -- with no strings attached, damnit.

I'm convinced he thinks that Erich doesn't want anything to do with them even in prison. BIGGLES!

Also there's a whole bunch of defeatism that is atypical for him that fascinates me:

‘But Sakhalin!’ protested Biggles. ‘The thing isn’t possible.’
‘It’s not like you to talk like that.’
‘I’m talking like it now.’

It's a fascinating book, I love to think about it. There needs to be approximately a bazillion of fic around this time period.

"la la la, I can't go against orders if you don't know I'm doing it in the first place" kind of way

Obviously anything could have happened, but I find it almost impossible to believe that Biggles wouldn't have eventually gone, even if ordered not to go.

In fact his entire emotional trajectory in the first 3 chapters of Hatchet seems to be being surprised by how well the other people around him know that he should be rescuing Erich. Algy's knowing reaction alone makes him so annoyed XD

‘There’s no need for you to get in a flap,’ announced Biggles. ‘You needn’t come if you don’t want to. That goes for everyone.’

I think the only time Biggles has these particular conversations with Algy about how Algy needn't come is when it comes to the Erich rescues XD It's glaringly obvious how personal it is for him.

You can tell from that conversation that Algy, Ginger and Bertie have been talking for WEEKS about how they're going to end up going to Sakhalin to rescue EvS! Biggles is the last one to know...

Why is this so accurate? XD

I love that Algy nails him with "Hold me up, someone, before I swoon."

YES. All of this!

I also always thought he leads Fritz to it, only to them insist he shouldn't. I imagine he's had that conversation inside his own head many a time already.

And the whole thing with Raymond where he only agrees once Raymond is fine with letting him rescue Erich with no strings attached!

I wonder if part of what worries Biggles about this whole thing is that he could have very easily ended up with a situation where Erich *is* rescued and in England but hates their guts because of all the strings attached and Biggles never wanted that. He's always wanted it to be Erich's choice. T_T

I just love that Biggles' "going stone cold" reaction to stress extends to the matters of the heart. It's such a consistent characterization note from Johns! The emotional stuff in these books is just so good.

normal levels of worried - he's fairly open about it

That's fantastically compelling on a character level, of course, but also such a neat thing for an author to have noticed/decided about the character in the first place.

These books are genuinely really good at characterization. It was the last thing I expected, but there is a lot of characterization in the series that's subtle and consistent and really well done.

It was the last thing I expected, but there is a lot of characterization in the series that's subtle and consistent and really well done.

That's lovely.

Oh, this is a fascinating compare and contrast! I'm going to have to keep an eye out for the pattern.

The thing that really got to me about it was that helped me understand, a little better, Biggles's almost aggressive lack of emoting in situations where someone he cares about is in grave danger/presumed dead. He does have an obvious reaction sometimes (especially when the person is Ginger, who I think he responds to very differently from the others since he met Ginger as a kid) but in general he seems to really lock down when he's heartbroken. Either that or do something completely insane. Or both. :D

Yeah!

I've been reading the WWI short stories recently, more than the later ones. Obviously, his core people are mostly not there, and there's a much, much greater mortality rate of everybody around him, because it's WWI. But even in those stories, when someone's death breaks through to really hit him hard (because they'd worked together long enough to get close, or because somebody was a green recruit he immediately took to, or whatever) you're right about the two modes: complete external shut-down or I'M GOING TO GO BLOW UP EVERYTHING IN SIGHT or a combination of the two.

There's also Wilks in Flies North, where Biggles also buys an airplane - and half Wilks's company, as far as I can tell - and happily takes on all kinds of gangsters in order to get Wilks out of trouble. But at that point Biggles basically just wanders around doing whatever he feels like anyway. Later-series Biggles doesn't usually go off the rails the way he does in Looks Back <3

Algy absolutely deserves a medal for putting up with everything in Looks Back, plus no doubt months of cranky recovering Biggles at the end (though we hope he can outsource that job to EvS and Marie...)

Oh yes, that's right, I forgot about Wilks! (And Takes a Holiday as mentioned below.) But yeah, I think he does seem to become much more aware of his responsibilities post-WW2 when he ends up with the Air Police; between wars he seems to be much more at loose ends, willing to try almost anything that strikes his fancy, and therefore better positioned to go running off at the drop of a hat because an old friend needs him. It makes a very interesting difference in plots, now that I think about it ...

(Edit: I also want ALL the recovering Biggles fic post-Looks Back. He really doesn't get that badly hurt very often, and in front of EvS, no less.)

Edited 2023-03-03 15:01 (UTC)

(Edit: I also want ALL the recovering Biggles fic post-Looks Back. He really doesn't get that badly hurt very often, and in front of EvS, no less.)

Needless to say I crave this with a passion of 10,000 burning suns.

There's also the rescue of Angus (one of the 666 Flight Lieutenants) in Takes a Holiday. Biggles manages to persuade Raymond to provide unofficial support but has to disguise his rescue mission as leave and fund it himself. He manages to get away within a week and a condition of the help is a promise to Raymond that he'll try to avoid any sort of public enquiry into his actions.

In & Co, Algy tells von Stalhein 'You try keeping me here and Biggles will be after you like a starving tiger.'

At the end of Looks Back, Raymond says 'You know, Bigglesworth, you're a dangerous fellow to have about.....But then, you always were.'

I think Raymond recognises that there is a down side to having Biggles around as well as an up side, and the down side is that he'll take off on personal missions on occasion and his role is to give him enough unofficial help that he'll come back to continue with his normal duties. I imagine Raymond as a sort of lion tamer at times, cautiously encouraging the unpredictable Biggles in the direction he wants him to go, knowing that he might make a break in a completely different direction at any moment.

That's a wonderful take on Raymond and Biggles, and I agree. Biggles is just not going to compromise on doing what he thinks is right, which will always involve getting Algy out of trouble.

I also think Algy doesn't understand how much Erich doesn't mind Biggles arriving there, rescuing Algy, in Biggles & Co. He's got a tower for ~~the Princess~~ Biggles and home made cake ready. XD

This is a really fascinating observation and I fully agree with it.

Especially with Biggles at baseline being considerate and respectful of processes and other people's constraints. And though he will listen to reasonable arguments, it's no use baiting him, for example, implying he has lost his edge. But then there is a tipping point, when lives are at stake or have been lost, when all of that goes out the window, and that's also when he seems to first have a brief reaction before closing down emotionally.

Oh yes, this is fascinating.

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