The dying sun lit up the seeding heads of the long grasses edging the aerodrome of 266 Squadron at Maranique; a perfect summer evening to complete a perfect summer day. But not for the forlorn figure sitting motionless, staring eastwards into the darkening sky. He had been sitting there for hours, ever since he realised that his cousin and closest friend would have long since run out of fuel; waiting for… he didn't really know what he was waiting for, but he couldn't bring himself to go back into the Mess, to listen to all the well-meant reassuring remarks - all the good reasons why Algy might still come back in one piece.
Darkness fell. A late bird flying homeward uttered a plaintive cry; some aircrew, a few stragglers, packed up their tools and closed the hanger doors for the night. Still the figure sat on, motionless, staring into the darkness, unseeing.
Biggles had gone over every possible reason for Algy's non-return in his mind; his fertile imagination dwelt endlessly upon the likely, the possible, and the just plain unrealistic. He had phoned every squadron within flying reach, and bombarded Wat Tyler with requests for information about crashes, on both sides of the lines. Nobody it appeared had seen anything, heard anything, knew anything…
It was the uncertainty that was slowly but surely reducing him to a state of near desperation. Had it not been dark, he'd have been in the air looking for Algy. As it was, he'd have to wait, riven with anxiety, till first light. He'd long since smoked the last cigarette in his packet but such was his dismal lethargy he hadn't been able to summon up the effort needed to get any more.
The moon rose. The grasses rustled in a sudden breeze that brought a chill to the warm night. Biggles stirred; he got to his feet wearily and walked slowly towards his quarters. He had to pass Algy's room. The door was ajar and the breeze was banging an unfastened window to and fro, throwing moving shadows across the moonlit interior.
Biggles went in to close the window, then sank down on Algy's bed looking sadly at the usual chaos: clothes strewn around, an unfinished book open and upside down on a chair, a chocolate wrapper, and a bit of propeller Algy had salvaged as a souvenir of a particularly satisfying victory.
Algy wasn't accustomed to tidying up after himself; there had always been somebody to do it for him. But, far from immaculate over personal matters, Algy was immaculate in his care of his Camel, his flying and his shooting - the things that really mattered. He'd throw down his clothes carelessly on the floor but take infinite pains to check that his ammunition was ok, that his guns would not jam.
Even before Algy had apparently disappeared into thin air, Biggles nerves were in a more than usually frayed state. The strain of acting as a spy behind enemy lines in Palestine had left him tired and fed up, and had stripped away much of his normal optimism and ebullience. Fear of the clever intelligence agent Erich von Stalhein, fright and guilt that his gunner had shot down and killed Algy, resentment at the way he had been manoeuvered into taking the job and how he'd been used on it subsequently, all combined to leave him weary of war, the deception and the killing, to an extent that he had never felt before.
Algy kept him sane; Algy could make him laugh; Algy flew with a song on his lips and a smile on his face; always there at his wing tip; reliable, his rock. But Algy hadn't come back - just an ordinary patrol like hundreds he'd done before, but he hadn't come back. Biggles was overcome with misery and lay down on Algy's bed, burying his face in the pillow, trying to stop the tears threatening to overwhelm him. Exhausted by worry and fear for the person who meant most to him in the whole world, he fell asleep.
A hand on his shoulder woke him. Biggles knew he must be dreaming as candlelight illuminated the face he thought he'd never see again.
"What are you doing on my bed?" queried a surprised Algy. "Did you drink too much and get lost?" he grinned.
Biggles sat up in confusion, still not quite awake, disbelief mixed with relief. "I thought you were dead." Then emotion overwhelmed him and he clung to Algy's hand as if he never wanted to let him go.
"You silly old thing," murmured Algy, "as if I'd leave you to cope on your own."
Never had they been so close. Cousins and friends yes, always looking out for each other, but always a step away from anything more. The dim candlelight reflected two pairs of eyes dark with emotion beyond anything either of them had admitted to before. Such a brief moment, but a line had been crossed, a silent commitment made and accepted.
The next day, Algy regaled all in the Mess with full details of his miraculous escape; how he had been involved with a single Albatross but after his final and lethal stream of bullets had ripped the other plane to pieces, he found that in a stiff westerly breeze they had drifted well over the German side of the lines. To add to his concern, the engine of his Camel had coughed, restarted, coughed again, and then stopped altogether. As if the situation had not been bad enough, a group of four Fokkers had dived at him and only a handy bank of cloud had enabled him to get away and seek a safe place to get down.
But fate hadn't quite finished with Algy that day. As he touched down in a rough but safe landing, two of the Fokkers appeared above him, locked together in a deadly embrace aiming straight at his Camel. Algy declared, "To say that I moved fast was the understatement of the century! I just made it across the field before there was an almighty crash and a ball of fire engulfed the two Fokkers and my Camel."
To Algy's relief, the German soldiers rushing to the spot were too interested in the burning wreckage to look for him, even if they realised he had escaped. As he casually remarked, "All I had to do was hoof it back to the lines, wriggle through the mud and find a hole in the barbed wire."
A general shout of laughter and ribald comments expressed the relief of his fellow pilots. But Biggles didn't laugh; his recent feelings were still too raw.