During the Finnish Winter War in WWII, Biggles and his crew find a dying Polish scientist with important papers, and thus one of Johns' oddest plots is launched. The papers keep getting obtained, lost, hidden, lost again, regained, buried, drowned, flown around, and so forth. By the end I was half-expecting them to be eaten by slugs. (The final fate of some important papers in a Joan Aiken book).
The majority of the action of this book is caused by Biggles and his crew making bad decisions. If they'd just kept the papers rather than repeatedly hiding them, which invariably means they lose them and then have to go back for them, the book would be twenty pages long.
Some of this can be explained by Biggles getting a severe concussion followed by a doctor giving him a "pick-me-up" which I am pretty sure is some kind of amphetamine, most likely Benzedrine. He immediately rushes off with a shovel and some biscuits, sits up all night in a plane on a frozen lake because he can't sleep, forgets that ice melts, maniacally taxis around the now-liquid lake even though he knows he can't take off, starts to leave on foot, rushes back, gets chased by a bear...
However, this doesn't explain everyone else's behavior. Von Stalhein, who is now with the Russians because... who knows really... particularly seems to have a split personality. But basically everyone is completely off their heads in this book. They even explicitly talk about it!
Biggles: "It’s the daftest thing I ever did or ever heard of."
Ginger: Immediately a sort of madness came upon him. ... He felt that the whole thing was becoming preposterous - ludicrous. "I'm going crazy," he told himself.
Perspiration broke out on his forehead, and his expression was that of a man whom — as the Romans used to say — the gods had deprived of his wits. At that moment his rage was such that had he had the papers in his hand he would have torn them to shreds with his teeth. He loathed them and everything to do with them.
Biggles on the verge of a nervous breakdown: "You know, kid," murmured Biggles in a strained voice when Ginger had finished, "this business is getting me dizzy. It’s uncanny; it’s crazy; it’s one of those stories that goes on and on always coming back to the same place. Writers have made a big song about Jason and the Golden Fleece. Pah! Jason did nothing. He ought to have had a crack at this job. I don’t often give way to despair, but by the anti-clockwise propeller of my sainted aunt, I’m getting to the state when I could throw myself down and burst into tears — like a little girl who’s lost her bag of sweets. Well, I suppose it’s no use sitting here. Let’s go and look for the papers — we shall probably find they’ve been eaten by a rabbit."
"What do we do in that case—catch the rabbit?" grinned Ginger.
"Let’s wait till we get there, then I’ll tell you. Only one thing I ask you if you have any respect for my sanity. Don’t, when we get there, tell me that you’ve forgotten which tree they’re under. It only needs one more little thing to give me shrieking hysterics.”
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sevenall has notes on the Swedish translation of this book.
I wrote in comments, "The plot makes more sense if everyone has a head injury and is on speed, not just Biggles."
sevenall: "At some places in the book, I thought *I* might have a head injury."
This one's on Kindle!
The majority of the action of this book is caused by Biggles and his crew making bad decisions. If they'd just kept the papers rather than repeatedly hiding them, which invariably means they lose them and then have to go back for them, the book would be twenty pages long.
Some of this can be explained by Biggles getting a severe concussion followed by a doctor giving him a "pick-me-up" which I am pretty sure is some kind of amphetamine, most likely Benzedrine. He immediately rushes off with a shovel and some biscuits, sits up all night in a plane on a frozen lake because he can't sleep, forgets that ice melts, maniacally taxis around the now-liquid lake even though he knows he can't take off, starts to leave on foot, rushes back, gets chased by a bear...
However, this doesn't explain everyone else's behavior. Von Stalhein, who is now with the Russians because... who knows really... particularly seems to have a split personality. But basically everyone is completely off their heads in this book. They even explicitly talk about it!
Biggles: "It’s the daftest thing I ever did or ever heard of."
Ginger: Immediately a sort of madness came upon him. ... He felt that the whole thing was becoming preposterous - ludicrous. "I'm going crazy," he told himself.
Perspiration broke out on his forehead, and his expression was that of a man whom — as the Romans used to say — the gods had deprived of his wits. At that moment his rage was such that had he had the papers in his hand he would have torn them to shreds with his teeth. He loathed them and everything to do with them.
Biggles on the verge of a nervous breakdown: "You know, kid," murmured Biggles in a strained voice when Ginger had finished, "this business is getting me dizzy. It’s uncanny; it’s crazy; it’s one of those stories that goes on and on always coming back to the same place. Writers have made a big song about Jason and the Golden Fleece. Pah! Jason did nothing. He ought to have had a crack at this job. I don’t often give way to despair, but by the anti-clockwise propeller of my sainted aunt, I’m getting to the state when I could throw myself down and burst into tears — like a little girl who’s lost her bag of sweets. Well, I suppose it’s no use sitting here. Let’s go and look for the papers — we shall probably find they’ve been eaten by a rabbit."
"What do we do in that case—catch the rabbit?" grinned Ginger.
"Let’s wait till we get there, then I’ll tell you. Only one thing I ask you if you have any respect for my sanity. Don’t, when we get there, tell me that you’ve forgotten which tree they’re under. It only needs one more little thing to give me shrieking hysterics.”
sevenall has notes on the Swedish translation of this book. I wrote in comments, "The plot makes more sense if everyone has a head injury and is on speed, not just Biggles."
sevenall: "At some places in the book, I thought *I* might have a head injury."This one's on Kindle!
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no subject
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But the flying lesson, back in 2014, I arranged through a website of 'things to do in and around Melbourne.' Found it by googling "flying lesson Tiger Moth.' It took a bit of doing because the website kept glitching, and in the end I had to book it direct over the phone, the old-fashioned way. It took an afternoon's digging on the web plus a fair bit of motoring with my parents, but we managed it in the end. My Dad did a flying lesson too - at the age of 86. He built Lancasters during the war (see icon) but was too young to fly them himself, which was just as well, really... So this was his only chance at flying an actual warplane, and he took it, and he was so pleased. And so was I.
Apart from anything else, it taught me how to write three-dimensionally! And my parents paid for the whole thing, which was very good of them. :)
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I just discovered that there's a similar site near me! Quite pricey though.
https://www.biplanefun.com/
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I've seen a Stearman at the RAAF museum near Melbourne. Nice planes, and, like the Tiggie, as close as we're likely to get in the 21st century to the real WW1 deal... I once emailed that museum asking about WW1 aircraft fuel, expecting maybe a volunteer would reply in a week or so. Got a response from the Director within half an hour, to which I replied slightly incoherently, thanking him profusely. People are so kind!