Short Story Review: The Boob

Algy (on the left) getting a talking-to from Biggles
("The Boob")
Image from http://www.algylacey.0catch.com/

“The Boob” (Biggles, Pioneer Air Fighter) introduces us to Biggles’ well-known cousin and right-hand man, Algernon Montgomery Lacey.

Our first glimpse of Algy is not particularly impressive. The story opens with Biggles reading a letter from an “elderly female relative of mine” (Algy’s mother) who bestows upon him [Biggles] the news that she’s “pulled the wires at the Air Board for the Pool to send [Algy] to 266”. As if that isn’t bad enough, she also wants Biggles to look after Algy, and puts in a list of instructions, or, as Biggles puts it, “a dozen other ‘doesn’t’ s!” We are also informed

“…it’s years since I saw him. And if he’s anything like the little horror he was then, heaven help us-and him. His Christian names are Algernon Montgomery, and that’s just what he looked like. A piece of warmed up death wrapped in velvet and ribbons.”

--“The Boob”, Biggles, Pioneer Air Fighter

The unspoken implication seems to be that Algy is a “mother’s boy” who can’t stand on his own two feet.

All in all, the picture we form of the young Algernon is not a complimentary one. The description made by Biggles prepares us for a spoiled rich kid, someone, perhaps, worthy of an Enid Blyton-type reform.

And yet when we finally meet Algy in person it’s almost disappointing. Nowhere is there the swagger we might expect of a boy who in later books carries an “Honorable” before his name and has the means to go yachting at will. In fact, the young Algy is pathetically eager to please, calling to mind the picture of a tail-wagging Scottish terrier. His attitude is humble, slightly uncertain, and retains a touch of the naïve.

Biggles’ first words to his future best friend are not at all welcoming. “I’m Captain Bigglesworth,” he informs his cousin curtly. Strange words for a man who never pulls rank, and in a later book (Biggles of the Camel Squadron) says, “There is no ceremony here” on being addressed as “sir” by a new pilot! We are also left wondering just how much of a “little horror” Algy was in his youth, that Biggles doesn’t even at least try to be polite to him.

A long lecture on flying then ensues, and even now Biggles can’t hide his prejudice: “…the sky is full of Huns waiting to pile up their scores and its people like you that make it possible…” ,“…they can’t teach you [flying] at home…” etc. all spoken in a highly superior tone.

Later in the story, when Algy is suspected “missing”, but turns up with a tale about how he shot down his first Hun, Biggles’ dislike is further enhanced—obvious in the way he checks the guns on Algy’s Camel. Everything undergoes a change the next day, however, when Algy charges into a dogfight with jammed guns after Biggles ordered him to go home. Biggles’ feelings toward his cousin thaw completely: “Oh, and, er, you can call me ‘Biggles’.” (At last!)

Those of us who have met Algy Lacey elsewhere may be somewhat puzzled by the young Algy of “The Boob”. His sarcasm and his hot temper are notably missing. What we do recognize is his devil-may-care attitude, his loyalty, and his unfailing optimism.

It is also interesting to note that Algy’s last name, Lacey, is not mentioned throughout “The Boob”, and in the next story (“The Battle of the Flowers”), Algy is referred to as Algernon Montgomery, as if “Montgomery” were his last name. But yet in all the later books where his last name is Lacey, there is no longer any mention of Montgomery. Can it be that Algernon Montgomery and Algernon Lacey are NOT one and the same--?