"Hey, Ginger, I've got a question," Taffy said one afternoon as they sat on some oil drums in the hangar, waiting for orders.

"Shoot," said Ginger, stretching out his legs until his knees popped.

"The other day, in the mess, you made some smart-alecky comment and Biggles said 'if we weren't in the service, I'd give you a thick ear'," Taffy began.

Ginger laughed. "He says that a lot. What's your question?"

"Does he really mean it?"

"No, not really," said Ginger, his smile broadening. "It's just his way of saying 'cut it out right now because I'm about to get really cross'. He wouldn't really hit me." Algy gave a discreet cough. "Well, most of the time, anyway," Ginger added with a sheepish grin.

Now, Corporal Roy Smyth happened to be standing nearby coiling up some lengths of wire when Ginger made this statement, and he crossed over and murmured something in Ginger's ear.

Ginger laughed. "You're right, Roy," he said. "I'd forgotten all about that."

"What did Corporal Smyth say?" Henry asked.

"He just reminded me about an incident with a magazine. We were just kids."

"What happened?" asked Ferocity. "This sounds like a Ginger-story."

"Yes, tell us," said several voices.

And this is the story he told…

"One afternoon, shortly after Biggles and Algy had taken me in, we were in the hangar at Brooklands. It was a Saturday and Roy was out of school, so his father had brought him in to lend a hand with overhauling the Vandal. Roy and I had … ahem… found a magazine in the locker of one of the apprentice mechanics called Mikey Thompson that worked under his father, Flight Sergeant Smyth. We were laughing over it at the back of the hangar and Biggles came over to see what we were snickering about. He took one look at it over my shoulder and he said 'Right, that's enough of that!' and he snatched it away and rolled it up and smacked each of us on the back of the head with the magazine."

"For reading a magazine?" Henry asked, aghast.

"Well, it wasn't just any magazine," Ginger explained, a deep blush coloring his fair skin.

"I don't get it," Henry said.

"You wouldn't," Tug snorted.

"Oh," said Henry, blushing as the penny dropped. "Never mind."

"Anyway," Ginger continued, "Biggles took out his petrol lighter and he was about to burn it and I said 'No, you can't, it's not ours.' And Biggles said 'Whose is it?' and I didn't want to tell him because I knew I'd get Mikey in trouble. But you may have noticed that the C.O. has a way of making you tell him stuff you don't want to. So I said it belonged to Mikey and he said 'I'm going to sack him right away for giving this filth to children' and I said 'No, don't… he didn't give it to us. We… er… found it. In his locker.' So then Biggles smacked each of us on the head with the magazine a second time."

Ginger paused to take a drink from his canteen. "Strewth, it's hot today," he said before continuing with this tale.

"So, then, Biggles shouted for Smyth and Mikey. They both jogged over. Biggles said to Smyth 'I thought you'd like to see what your son's been reading' and then Smyth's eyes got really wide and he grabbed Roy by the ear and hauled him off. Biggles told Mikey that if he ever saw this type of thing on the aerodrome again he'd throw him out on his tail. Mikey turned bright red and took his magazine back to locker."

"Then what happened?" Ferocity asked, grinning. The other officers were hanging on his every word.

"Well, Biggles took me back to the office and we had probably the most embarrassing conversation of my life. Then we didn't talk about it again and I'd tried to forget all about it when Roy so kindly reminded me about it." Ginger paused to glare at Roy, but his eyes were twinkling. Roy glanced up from his wire coiling and winked.

The other officer shouted with laughter.

"All right," said Algy, stubbing out his cigarette. "That's enough fooling. It's time we were in the air, chaps."

The end