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| Cover of Biggles Learns to Fly Image links to Amazon |
Surprising as it may sound, Biggles actually meets Major/Colonel Raymond for the first time…twice. The first time is in Biggles Learns to Fly, where “Major” Raymond asks Biggles to fly a French spy over to the German side of the lines.
The second “first” meeting with “Colonel”
Raymond is in the short story “The Packet” (The
Camels Are Coming, later also published in Biggles of the Special Air Police), where Biggles is asked to fly
over the lines and pick up a packet of documents.
Which is the real first meeting with
Raymond? Or were there two meetings and Biggles forgot about the first one? Or
decided to be polite and not mention it as he was on a secret mission that “never
happened”?
Typical WEjohns - forgetting what he had already written. 'The Packet' in The Camels Are Coming would have been written first of course.
ReplyDeleteI prefer it as a story. I like the begining, the picture of Biggles standing in front of his CO and Colonel Raymond, in a long silence, trying to think what might have brought the senior officer to the squadron (I always imagine he is mentally checking his most recent sins!).
I also like the end, where he throws the packet at the senior officers from his Camel before dashing back to join his friends who had come to help him get back safely.
I like that story as well. The bit where he goes back for Mahoney is magnificent.
ReplyDelete