Biggles, Foreign Legionnaire, by W E Johns

Biggles and Ginger are recruited to join the French Foreign Legion to help uncover a conspiracy which is recruiting pilots to desert and do nefarious things. He does so, giving himself the very impenetrable false name of... Biggs. Ginger Hebblethwaite's fake name is Hebble. Very clever, guys. I guess Algy and Bertie weren't in on this part because they'd be Lac and Lis, which was presumably vetoed as improbable.

This book has some really great bits but also a very big caveat. The wealthy globalist starting wars for money is named Julius Rothenberg W E JOHNS DID YOU HAVE TO? In a book where there are multiple references to Hitler and anyone working with him being the worst, too. Also, while there are definitely Johns books that are worse in terms in racism, this one has it sprinkled in throughout the entire book, and more than sprinkled in the last fourth or so.

That aside, I fucking love W E Johns' plotting. Every single book of his that I've read to date has a minimum of one excellent, unexpected, yet logical twist. I guess except for the ones where the twist is electric centipedes controlled by underground monks, which is.... well, for sure nobody expects monk-controlled electric centipedes!

There's a sequence in this book that exemplifies this sort of thing.

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SO ANYWAY, Biggles, Ginger, and von Stalhein end up besieged in an ancient stone fortress. This part is great. I think it's the only time in the series that Biggles and von Stalhein are forced to cooperate while they're still enemies, and it's terrific. They share their last cigarettes! They are deeply respectful of each other! We also get a bit that really encapsulates where they both are emotionally at this point in time:

Biggles: "So what does everyone think we should do now?"

Von Stalhein: "Let's have a suicide charge! We'll go out together in a blaze of glory, and take some of the enemy with us!"

Biggles: "...okay, you do you, but I'm going to eat dinner and go to sleep."