Chapter 2

Preparations

Algy was briefed about the mission as soon as he returned from his visit to the airfield. He seemed highly amused, much to Ginger's indignation, and could not resist ribbing the young man. As Bertie was on leave visiting relatives who had a sheep farm in the Australian outback and would not be likely to return until well after the case had been resolved, one way or the other, at least Ginger was spared his facetious remarks, much to his relief.

More than once in the days that followed, Ginger regretted his decision but having once embarked on his role, as he liked to think of it, he felt unwilling to let everyone down by pulling out, although that remained an option should he fail the final test he had set himself. Indeed he threw himself into character with such gusto that at times Biggles found it hard not to smile.

WPC Wendy Newton, whom Gaskin had detailed to initiate Ginger into the ways of women, proved to be a pretty brunette with a good sense of humour; an invaluable asset, as Ginger frequently appreciated during his training. She was quick to put him at his ease with a joke which helped overcome his initial embarrassment. The fact that at first he never went outside the office in his new disguise gave him some comfort, although he knew that the crunch would have to come sometime.

Ginger had some natural advantages for the task he was about to undertake; his short, slim figure and virtually hairless, smooth skin presented few difficulties to passing as a woman, and his voice, a light tenor bordering on alto, was not deep, allowing him to use the upper registers of his range without sounding falsetto. Fortunately his hands, always a problem area for female impersonators, although rather square and not particularly elegant, were neither overly large nor especially masculine and the addition of long false nails did much to feminise them. Wearing high necked dresses and blouses masked the slight protuberance of his Adam's apple while his body was easily made more curvaceous by the addition of prostheses. As Wendy pointed out, the special brassiere was designed for women who had had a mastectomy following breast cancer and it would be no bad idea to put about that the same thing had happened to the British scientist's wife, which would also account for the wearing of a wig, since chemotherapy made one's hair fall out. Ginger thought that made a lot of sense and began to believe for the first time that the whole thing might have a chance of success.

After some initial difficulty, he learned to cope with the long, brilliantly painted false nails, and to put on make-up as expertly as if he had been born to it. Constant practice in tight skirts shortened his stride although he drew the line at acquiring a wiggle. "Just remember," he admonished his tutor severely as she encouraged him to feminise his walk, "I have to get back to normal after all this! I can soon stop wearing make-up and women's dresses, but I don't want to get into the habit of mincing everywhere!" She giggled and told him that he would probably get away without it. "As long as your body language is right," she told him, "no one will think about your not swinging your hips. Keep everybody's attention above your waist!" He laughed, feeling his cheeks go red.

Acquiring the right body language, however, did not come easily. Wendy drilled him more thoroughly than a Sergeant Major, knowing that his life might depend on getting it right. Ginger struggled to learn to know what to do with his hands, walk, sit, and stand elegantly and even alter his vocabulary and phrasing to become more "ladylike". The longer she spent in his company the more she got to like him. One day, as Ginger was exasperated at his failure to get things right, she looked at him sympathetically.

"You don't like doing this, do you?" she stated.

He sighed. "No, I really dislike it," he admitted, "but I'm not doing it for fun. Biggles wants me to do it, so I will, if it kills me."

She thought that there was more than a possibility that might happen if he were kidnapped and the deception discovered. "Why doesn't your boss want a woman to do it?" she asked, curious. "Doesn't he like women?"

Ginger smiled. "It's not that," he grinned. "He has an old-fashioned respect for them. I know that the modern woman likes to feel she can do everything a man can and better, but Biggles still feels they shouldn't be exposed to getting shot, knifed and blown up. Besides," he added, "he doesn't want to work with a stranger and I can sympathise with that. We've worked together so long now, we don't have to explain things to each other. We seem to be on the same wavelength and know what each other is thinking. That's important in our line of work."

Wendy had to agree and redoubled her efforts to transform him into a credible woman. With the deadline of the conference coming rapidly closer, she made him venture out. As she pointed out, he had to gain confidence in his role and he would only do that by proving he could fool strangers who were not in on the deception, no matter how sure he might be of being accepted by the people in the office.

She took him on a shopping trip and rather cruelly, he thought, made him do everything a woman might do in the circumstances. "It's for your own good," she told him as, his cheeks scarlet, he protested he couldn't possibly. "You might have to do it when you are on the case and you need to be able to handle it confidently." Seeing the logic of this he stopped protesting and resigned himself to going through every ordeal with as much confidence as he could muster.

At first, Ginger felt that everyone's eyes were on him, recognising him as an impostor. When no challenges came, even in the hitherto unknown territory of the ladies' powder room, he started to relax and believe in himself. He still could not take any pleasure in shopping, as Wendy obviously did, but he managed to simulate enough interest to get by, whatever his personal views on the cost of women's clothing. At the end of the day, Wendy was well satisfied that he would pass any test with flying colours.

"Well," she asked him as the taxi dropped them off outside his flat. "How do you feel? Confident enough to take a test?"

"Do you mean that wasn't it?" asked Ginger incredulously.

"No," she smiled. "I think your chief has something else lined up for you. No doubt he'll tell you himself." Ginger absent-mindedly put his hand towards his pocket to feel for the key, but remembered just in time and converted the action into smoothing the peplum of the smart, tailored suit he was wearing over his hips. Wendy looked at him admiringly, approving his quick thinking and watched him extract the key from the handbag he had slung over one shoulder. Together they went in and climbed the stairs. As they were about to enter the sitting room, Biggles' housekeeper came out of the kitchen and was outraged at the sight of two strangers standing unannounced in the hall.

"And just what are you doing here, young ladies?" she challenged them indignantly. "Who let you in? I didn't hear anyone ring."

Fortunately for Ginger, sparing his blushes at having to make an involved and embarrassing explanation, Biggles chose that moment to open the sitting room door.

"It's alright, Mrs Symes," he reassured the housekeeper. "I'm expecting them. I lent them a key and told them to come straight up." As Mrs Symes returned to her domain, grumbling about the folly of lending keys to strange women, he smiled at Ginger who had turned quite pale at the encounter. "I think you fooled Mrs Symes," he remarked, amused. "She didn't recognise you at all." He held open the door and ushered them through to the sitting room where Algy was already lounging in an arm chair by the fire.

"I must admit," Biggles continued, striving to keep his face straight and his voice serious, "you do look very fetching in that outfit, Ginger. It has the look of being very expensive. I hope you haven't exceeded the department's budget."

Algy laughed. Ginger glared at him in a very unladylike way and Wendy giggled. "He's had a hard day's shopping," she announced, putting her hand on his shoulder, "but he's done extremely well. I think he's ready for the final test."

"Do you feel you are?" Biggles asked his protégé.

"I suppose it's now or never," murmured Ginger. "We're running out of time."

"Then I'll set it up," agreed Biggles, and went to the hall to telephone. When he came back in he was smiling.

"That's all settled," he told Ginger. "You and I are going to have lunch with an old friend and another guest, neither of whom knows anything about what is going on, so if you succeed in fooling them you've passed. I'll introduce you as my cousin, just arrived up from the country." He turned to Algy and smilingly announced, "meet your new sister, Algy!"

Algy's jaw dropped. "My sister never looked as feminine as that!" he blurted. "She lived for her horses until one buried her when she was out on a bye day with the Heythrop two years ago and broke her neck! Half the time she was indistinguishable from the nags! You've seen pictures of her, Biggles, you know what she looked like!" They all laughed at his expression. Even Ginger had to smile.

"Well, the ugly duckling has turned into a swan," averred Biggles. He looked at Ginger and his lips twitched. "How do you like being Lady Virginia Lacey?"

"It's hard enough coping with being a woman," replied Ginger. "Why do I have to have a title as well?"

"Two reasons," Biggles told him. "In the first place, if you do make a mistake, people think aristocrats are a bit odd anyway .."

"Thanks a lot," muttered Algy.

"Secondly," Biggles continued with a withering glance at his cousin, "Lady Virginia actually existed until her unfortunate demise in the hunting field. It saves having to invent a person. It's unlikely anyone will have an up-to-date copy of Debrett's but if they do, we'll just say reports of your death are greatly exaggerated! It's happened before. You'd better get all the gen about your new persona from Algy before we turn in and make sure you're word perfect before tomorrow lunchtime when I've arranged the meeting. In the meantime, I'll see Wendy to a cab." So saying, he showed the young policewoman to the door and escorted her downstairs.

Ginger and Algy sat side by side on the sofa while Ginger made notes about Algy's late sister. He practised his answers to Algy's questions until they were both sure he was word perfect. Biggles, back from seeing Wendy off, watched them silently from the doorway as they were absorbed in their task. Ginger sat, knees together, ankles primly crossed, his head bent over his notebook. Algy was leaning over him, pointing something out in the biography. They might have really been brother and sister, thought Biggles, amazed at Ginger's transformation.

Ginger must have felt Biggles' eyes on him for he looked up. "What are we going to tell Mrs Symes?" he wanted to know. "Shall I spend the night as Virginia or myself? Who will come down to breakfast?" He shook his head ruefully. "If I'm not careful, I shan't know who I am!"

Biggles told him it was up to him. "In that case," exclaimed Ginger fervently, "I'll be me as long as I can!"

Later that night, in the privacy of his room, having stripped off his disguise, Ginger prepared to spend the last hours as himself for a while. If all went according to plan, he reflected, he could say goodbye to being himself for at least a week while Biggles was at the conference.

Before turning in, he took a last look in the mirror and told himself he could do it. The reflection that stared back at him seemed to belong to a stranger and to be somehow naked without the wig and make-up he had become accustomed to wearing.

He shrugged on his pyjamas and slid into bed, going over Wendy's advice and reminding himself of the character he was to play. The rehearsal was over, the performance was about to begin. He felt strange, keyed up. Hitherto, he had been able to slip out of character and revert to normal at the end of the day. Soon that would not be an option. Doubts assailed him. Eventually he fell asleep and dreamed of being unmasked and humiliated.