BIGGLES FLIES TO WORK

Some unusual cases of Biggles and his Air Police

by Captain W. E. Johns

9. DAWN PATROL (Pages 142 – 157)

This story was published in STIRRING STORIES FOR BOYS 1960 (by Odhams Press Ltd). It is not to be confused with the story “The Dawn Patrol” which is the title of Chapter 16 of the 1955 Brockhampton reprint of BIGGLES LEARNS TO FLY (Pages 182 – 192). That chapter was a substantially altered version of an original story called "Knights of the Sky" originally first published in issue number 328 of "The Modern Boy" dated 19^th May 1934. To make matters even more confusing, there is ANOTHER story called “Dawn Patrol” that is in fact a completely different story! That was originally published in the 1958 ‘Daily Mail Boys Annual’ and had to have its name changed to “The Trick that Failed” in order to be collected in “Biggles Flies to Work” because this story was called “Dawn Patrol”!

“Ginger hummed softly to himself as, on a routine patrol along the south coast, he flew a compass course at ten thousand feet between great billowing masses of cumulus cloud that were rolling in from the Atlantic”. (In the original version the first line is “Police-Pilot “Ginger” Hebblethwaite of the Special Air Police hummed softy to himself as, on a routine patrol along the south coast, he flew a compass course at ten thousand feet between great billowing masses of cumulus cloud that were rolling in from the Atlantic”. That was the only difference that I found). Ginger sees an Auster and checking its course he made it out to be north-east, which meant that it had come in from the sea, the English Channel. Ginger follows the machine, not with any deep suspicion but simply as a matter of interest, as a policeman on a suburban beat might keep an eye on a stranger behaving in an unusual manner. Ginger makes a note of the registration letters and the course. “In life it is often the little things that turn out to be important, and thus it was when the machine being watched suddenly banked steeply, and turning on a wing tip dived into the nearest cloud”. Ginger thinks “He saw me. He must have spotted me in his reflector. And he didn’t like the look of me. What’s his idea?” The Auster has now disappeared and Ginger can’t find it. Ginger finishes his patrol and returns to base. He made out his Flight Report and went on to his headquarters at Scotland Yard. Ginger says to Biggles “You remember Marcel Brissac of Paris Surete calling us the other day to ask us to keep our aircraft at home unless they were prepared to comply with regulations, what did he say?” Biggles tells him a British light aircraft had twice been seen over France without any record of it having landed. The machine was identified as an Auster. Ginger tells Biggles he may have seen it as he saw an Auster come in from the Channel. Ginger goes to check the identification marks he saw, but they have not been allocated to any Auster or any other aircraft. Biggles and Ginger draw a line through the course the Auster had been taking and note the southern end runs into Normandy and the only airfield near the route in the southern counties of England is a private club that was registered a few months ago at Listern in Sussex (a fictional location). Biggles remembers it is called Airsports Limited and was started by some City gent for his son who had just retired from the R.A.F., who wanted to teach some friends of his to fly. Ginger went to the appropriate file and was able to say the owner is Mr. Otto Kleiner, his son David is secretary and chief instructor. They have three Austers all with different registration letters to the ones Ginger saw that morning. Biggles tells Ginger “We can’t let this slide” and says they should fly down to Listern in a different aircraft to Ginger’s Auster. They decide to take the Proctor. Biggles says he will have a word with Inspector Gaskin and ask him to find out what he can about Mr. Kleiner.

“In rather less than an hour the Air Police Proctor, carrying no signs of its official purpose, was on its way to Listern, which a little while later revealed itself to be nothing more than a very large field with a white chalk circle in the middle. At one end was a single hangar, carrying a wind-stocking pole, and, close by it, a wooden building in the manner of a cricket pavilion, presumably the club-house”. They land and are greeted by “a youngish good-looking man wearing grey flannel trousers and a tweed sports jacket”. The man introduces himself as David Kleiner. He says “My guv’nor fixed me up with this show to keep me out of mischief”. “Do you normally get into mischief?” inquired Biggles, smiling. Kleiner grinned. “It has happened. You know how it is after seven years in the Service”. Biggles follows Kleiner into the club-house, whilst Ginger goes and has a look at the Auster outside the hangar. He then joins Biggles and Kleiner, where the latter is saying he has done no flying so far that day but was expecting a pupil along at any moment. Biggles and Ginger leave and Ginger tells Biggles that all three Austers had the correct registration letters but Kleiner is a liar as the engine of the machine outside was still warm. A mechanic looked like he had been washing down one of the Austers using petrol or, “from the stink”, some sort of spirit. Ginger also said Kleiner’s father must have oodles of money as parked beside the hangar there’s a practically new Rolls Bentley. (This is a fictional car. There isn't a car called a "Rolls Bentley"; it is a combination of two distinct brands, Rolls-Royce and Bentley, which were once owned by the same company but are now separate, with Volkswagen owning Bentley and BMW owning Rolls-Royce). Biggles tells Ginger that Kleiner has done seven years in the R.A.F. That means he can really fly. “He told me he’d spent some time as a blind-flying instructor, which means that clouds won’t worry him. But they’d worry us if we were trying to follow him. If he’s up to mischief it’s my guess he’d choose a day with plenty of cloud about, just the sort of conditions you struck this morning when you were out on patrol. We’ll get back and see if Gaskin has been able to gather any gen about Mr. Kleiner senior, or, for that matter, his son”.

Back at the office, Gaskin tells Biggles that Kleiner senior “runs one of those lush restaurant night-clubs in Mayfair and lives at a rate that doesn’t tally with what he tells the tax collector. He’s smart enough to keep proper books, but what does that mean when most of his business is ready money? Some queer types go to the place but it seems that unknown customers aren’t encouraged”. Gaskin says that Kleiner has two sons, one in Paris. Biggles asks “Just now you mentioned some of Kleiner’s regular clients are queer types. What exactly do you mean by queer?” “Well, four of ‘em at least are known to us as dope addicts. Two have been to gaol for it. Came out swearing they were cured; but in our experience where drug addicts go regularly there’s usually dope not far away”. Gaskins asks Biggles if he thinks the stuff may be coming in from France. “If it is it shouldn’t be too difficult to grab it in transit”. After Inspector Gaskin has gone, Biggles tells Ginger that this begins to line up. “One brother in France in touch with the dope traffickers and the other flying it to England in a machine with fake registration letters. How simple!” Biggles says they can ask Marcel Brissac to watch the brother in Paris because at some time he’ll keep an appointment with his brother to hand over the stuff. “When David lands he’ll find us waiting”.

“It was a week later, early one morning, when the telephone besides Biggles’ bed jerked him from sleep. Having listened for a few seconds he moved swiftly. “That was Marcel,” he told Ginger tersely. (It would appear that Biggles and Ginger share a room. There is no suggestion that Biggles has gone into another room. There was a joke in THE THIN BLUE LINE, a comedy police series written by Ben Elton, that Biggles and Ginger were gay. The character, Inspector Raymond Fowler, played by Rowan Atkinson, refutes the suggestion vigorously. He says “The point of Biggles and of Sherlock Holmes is to solve crime and kill Germans, and by God that should be enough for any man!”). “He called the Yard and they put him through to me here. David and his brother met in a field near Evreux. Marcel just missed the machine but grabbed the brother. The machine is now on its way back. We should just be in time to meet it. Get cracking”. In ten minutes, without stopping even for as much as a cup of tea, Biggles’ car was racing to the operations hangar. Half an hour later the Proctor was climbing for height as it headed for Listern. Ginger watches the sky to the south and Biggles watches the ground in case the Auster slips in low. They see the Auster fly in and land. He switches off his engine and gets out. “We’ve got him,” says Biggles confidently. “He won’t dare risk a take-off from the position he's in, particularly as he has no reason to suppose we are what we are”. They land and Kleiner’s first words made it clear that he suspects nothing. “So it’s you again,” he said. “You seem to be in the deuce of a hurry”. “We were, but we’re not now,” answered Biggles evenly. “I’m an air police officer and I have information that you landed in France early this morning without the customary formalities. I also have reason to believe that, having been abroad, you have just landed here without getting clearance at a Customs airport”. “What are you going to do about it?” Kleiner asked coldly. “I’m putting this machine under arrest and I shall now search it for contraband”. Kleiner lit a cigarette with a hand that shook slightly. “That’s fair enough,” he said. “I told my old man this couldn’t go on indefinitely. I’m prepared to take my share of the blame but it was his idea”. Kleiner adds “Just as a matter of interest how did you get wise to this? Somebody tip you off?” “No”. Biggles walked round to the side of the Auster’s fuselage. “These fake registration letters gave you away. No aircraft licensed in this country carries this set of letters. How did you manage it?” Kleiner rips of a whole sheet of fabric to reveal the original letters underneath. Biggles asks “Now, do I have to search the machine or are you going to save me the trouble by showing me what you went to France this morning to fetch?” Kleiner retrieves a small carefully sealed canvas bag from the cockpit. “He handed it to Biggles who judged it to weigh about half -a-pound. “What’s inside?” asked Biggles. “Heroin”. Biggles drew a deep breath. “Well, Kleiner,” he said, “I won’t tell you what I think of you for murdering people by inches with this infernal muck. But I will tell you this. You’ll deserve the sentence the court gives you for this sort of racket”. Kleiner may have remembered these words when, a few weeks later, he and his father received long prison sentences”.