Biggles’ Extraordinary (Good And Bad) Luck

Luck has always played a significant part in Biggles’ life. There are countless times where he relies solely on luck when making a landing under dubious circumstances, or when escaping from somewhere, or when taking on a mission that might get him killed.

But never has there been a book as dependent on luck as Flies East. Reading it, you have to marvel at the impossible odds that put Biggles in the positions he ultimately found himself in.

An example: the Broglace affair.

Biggles is in London, home on leave from France, at the start of the book. The odds of this single event happening are, to say the least, slim. Remember how Major Mullen had to threaten to send Biggles off to fly a desk before he would consent to take leave?

So, okay, a hundred in one chance that Biggles actually was in London during the time that Brunow got cashiered. Unlikely, but not impossible odds, I agree. Let’s keep going.

The odds that Biggles would choose to eat at the Caprice Restaurant, once he was in London, were probably pretty high, despite his misgivings that his leave might be cancelled due to his lack of uniform. The restaurant was, after all, a popular hangout for RFC officers. However, the fact that he went during a time that Broglace was also there and expecting to find Brunow, and wearing civilian clothes as a result of sending his uniform to the tailor (leading Broglace to make the remark about him being in mufti)—those odds have to be at least a thousand to one. (By the way, one has to wonder whether Brunow did actually show up at said restaurant perhaps an hour or two after Biggles’ meeting with Broglace? That would have been the most incredibly bad timing ever.)

The odds of Biggles looking like Brunow? Seriously? Super super low odds, although it is possible that Broglace only had a description or a very bad photo to go on, which was why he made his mistake.

The odds that Biggles would follow the affair up like a dog with a bone instead of leaving it alone like a normal person? Um. Well, I’ll give you that one. Biggles was never one to let sleeping dogs lie about anything. Even something that might almost get him killed.

My point? It wasn’t just one bout of bad luck that led Biggles into this. It was lots and lots of bad luck—astronomical odds, judging from the reasoning above.

Another example, this one of incredibly good luck: blowing up the waterworks at Zabala.

The fact that the bomb itself was not discovered was already quite good luck—it could have been seen by Von Stalhein when Biggles came in to land and dropped it on the ground (so that it would not be found on his person), Biggles could have been seen when he went out later that night to retrieve it, or—and it really is due to very good luck that this didn’t happen—the Count could have found it when he dropped into Biggles’ room for his little chat, although I will allow that Biggles did some very quick thinking on his feet.

(The blowing up of the waterworks was actually really really good luck for Algy, since it took out the archie and the searchlights he was up against when dropping his message to Biggles. But that is beside the point.)

Then we have the mini run of bad luck where Biggles’ ring is found near the ruined waterworks, but we have extremely good luck to counter this—the fact that Leffens tried to shoot Biggles down the day before, but was shot down by Biggles, who ended up taking his [Leffens’] ring, so he now has a cover for why his [Biggles’] ring was found near the waterworks. Just reading this should be confusing enough—imagine all the amounts of luck that went into making it happen! If Biggles had done anything just a little bit differently, he might not have lived to tell the tale.

My point (yes, I do have one) is that a lot of the events in Flies East seem to rely on, or are tightly intertwined with, luck—good and bad. It’s almost unbelievable that something so so so unlikely to happen to someone actually did happen to someone. And not just one impossible event, but several. That Biggles (and Algy) both made it out of Flies East alive is possibly proof that the universe was looking out for them in some way.

(By the way, for anyone looking for an example of really really bad luck, I recommend Biggles Sees It Through.)