Alternate Biggles History: Who Would Be The Best Friend?

This really isn’t the best topic for an Algy blog, but who do you think would have ended up as Biggles’ best friend if Algy had never been posted to 266? (I know, I know, it really doesn’t bear thinking about, but this is Alternate Biggles History, where we speculate on the things that might have been.)

Image from algylacey.0catch.com

To begin with, I think there’s no doubt that Smyth would have joined Biggles on many of his inter-war adventures, anyway, as Biggles needed a mechanic. But I don’t see Smyth and Biggles as best friends. I get the feeling that Biggles didn’t really think as Smyth as an equal.

Mahoney, Mac, and Wilks are all close friends of Biggles’ in WWI, but I doubt that they would have won the best friend award either. Mahoney and Mac are clearly older and more experienced than Biggles in the matter of flying. And Wilks, though an equal, would never put himself in the position of quietly taking orders from Biggles—he baulks at the way Biggles runs his station in Sergeant Bigglesworth, CID, and complains that it has taken him twenty years to reach his current rank in the RAF. Similarly, in Biggles Flies North, he doesn’t write to Biggles until he has lost all his men and things get really desperate. He was probably embarrassed that he had to ask for help! (Incidentally, didn’t Wilks have any friends in 287 who could have flown to his rescue in that book? Odd.)

Mark Way would have made a great best friend, but sadly it would have been hard for him to become a pilot with his injuries (*sniff sniff* I’m a big Mark fan; sorry). Although, again, he is somewhat more experienced in war flying than Biggles is, so I don’t see him as someone who would stand by and take orders from Biggles. In fact, in Biggles Learns to Fly, Biggles finds himself following a lot of Mark’s orders in order to stay alive.

Still love you though, Mark. ♥

If we’re looking for someone who learned to fly from Biggles, the Professor sounds like a good fit, except he, um, died…Thirty and Rip from Rescue Flight would also be ideal, but they seem to have their own Biggles-Algy type relationship there, so it’s hard to say how they would react to adventuring around the world with Biggles.

Would Biggles have been all right knocking around the world with only Smyth and no best friend until Ginger came along in Black Peril? (Yes, yes, Algy fans. Put your machine guns down. We’re only speculating here.)

Even assuming that Biggles had the best luck in the world and managed to stay alive through all of the dogfights, and the post-Marie drinking, and the post-Marie I’m-looking-for-trouble dogfights (come on, did you really think that Algy was staying behind all those times that Biggles went looking for trouble?), it’s hard to imagine that he could have survived through the entire Flies Again era, the Cruise of the Condor, and all the other countless untold stories without someone to help him.

So, yes. Biggles needed a best friend to get him through WWI, and all the times after that. And there is no one more perfect for the position than Algy, who is forever loyal, good-humored, and steadfast.