That One Time When Algy Acted Completely Out Of Character

I love Algy. You know this. I know this. Basically, the whole world knows this. There are many many reasons why I love Algy, far too many to list here.

But there are a few moments in the books where Algy acts out of character.

And that is bad.

The most notable example is probably in Charter Pilot, where he pokes a bees' nest (ants' nest? Haven't gotten to that book yet, so I can't quite recall, but when I do get to this book, you may be sure that this incident is one that will be thoroughly discussed.) Algy does not poke things he does not understand, and he definitely does not mess with insects if he can help it. Algy is mature. Algy is sensible. This sounds more like something Ginger would do.

Anyway--we're not here to talk about that (yet). We're here to talk about another Algy out-of-character moment, namely, the moment in Flies East where he shot Biggles down.

For those who are hazy on the details, let's run over them quickly.

Biggles' plane was forced down by a sandstorm, he was captured by Arabs and taken to a British post, where he was subsequently rescued by Mayer, and then, the plane they were in was shot down--by Algy (this is later revealed to be the case when Biggles sees Algy with the Camel).

It would be well to keep in mind that Algy, at this point, had no idea that Biggles could possibly in the Hun plane, believing as he did that Biggles was behind British lines undergoing interrogation. It would hardly be fair to blame him for shooting down a Hun in his new Camel, the way he might have done in France.

What does strike me as out of character is that Algy would shoot another plane down in the desert and leave the scene without so much as a second glance. Even Biggles, when shooting down Leffens, felt compelled to go down to check that his opponent was dead, as he was horrified by the thought that he might die of thirst.

So why didn't Algy stop to check on the fallen "Hun" pilot he had shot down?

We're not talking about some cold-blooded killer with no empathy, or some arrogant idiot like Hess. This is Algy we're talking about.

Algy!!!!!

Another thing that strikes me as odd is this conversation where Algy realizes that he has shot Biggles:

"Well, we got a Camel up from Heliopolis, and it's been handed over to me pro tem," went on Algy. "I shot down a Halberstadt yesterday."
Biggles started and his eyes narrowed. "Where?" he asked coldly.
"About twenty miles to the north-east of where we are now. It hit the floor a dickens of a crack and went to pieces."
"You needn't tell me: I was in it," Biggles told him grimly. 

Why would Algy feel compelled to tell Biggles about shooting down the Halberstadt? Is he boasting? Algy has never been one to boast about his kills. He isn't one of those pilots who's squeamish about killing Huns, but he's never been overly arrogant about it either.

This conversation is just weird. If anything, I would have expected Biggles to be the one to bring it up: Oh, by the way, I wasn't here yesterday because I got shot down twenty miles from here.

Algy: Really? That's weird, because I shot down....etc etc

And then, a few sentences later, we have this:

[Algy]: "Of course; I didn't think of that. My word! I might have killed you."
[Biggles]: "Might! You thundering nearly did."
"Well, I wasn't to know. I saw a Hun and I went for him. It didn't occur to me that you might be in it, because I thought you were wandering about behind the British lines."
Biggles looked perplexed....

What?

What???!!

And yet again--WHAT?

Algy has just found out that he nearly killed his best friend, and his response is, Oh, sorry. I didn't know, because I thought you were somewhere else, and now let's change the subject and never talk about this again.

When Biggles is faced with the Camel coming down over his rear gun in a later chapter (in the famous I-think-I-killed-Algy scene), Biggles thinks:

Then something like panic seized him as he visualized the unthinkable picture of his gunner killing Algy, or conversely, Algy's feelings when he found he had shot down his best friend. 

Hate to break it to you, Biggles, but judging from the above, Algy's feelings when he shot you down, and your feelings when you thought you shot him down, don't appear to be on the same level....

There are reasons for this. These are mostly story reasons. Had Algy gone down after shooting Biggles, we would not have gotten that Biggles and Mayer bonding scene in the desert, nor marveled at Biggles' powers of endurance, nor seen him become something of a hero in the eyes of the Huns. Had Algy spent time on self-blame after finding out that he shot Biggles down, it would have taken a few more pages before they could have gotten to the gist of things that were vital for moving the story along.

As I said, story reasons.

But what about Algy????

I imagine that he lost a few nights' sleep wondering what might have happened if Biggles had died as a result of his shooting him down in error. I imagine that after Biggles flew off in the Camel to kill Hess, Algy spent a few minutes staring into space, shocked by the sheer horror of what might have been had Biggles not survived. I imagine that this is something Johns neglected to record. I imagine that because if I don't imagine that, I find myself wondering whether an alien got into Algy's head and took him over for a couple of days.

Because all of this? It's not Algy. It's so not Algy.

It's just not.