Biggles/EvS - Set post defection in London. A misunderstanding leads to Biggles being told that Erich is cheating on him. After some angst and h/c, their relationship is even stronger.
(All I can say is that this went in a Direction, for sure.)
Erich caught himself humming softly, a song from his youth, as he did the morning washing-up in the tiny kitchen of his top-floor flat. Sun streamed through the window. Tonight he would have dinner with Bigglesworth, who he had not seen for a few days. The feeling of contentment was still an unfamiliar companion, but he felt as if he could grow used to it.
Contentment shattered into a million pieces at a hard knock on the door. Erich dropped the flannel, took a few fast steps to his desk, reached into a drawer, and slipped his automatic into his pocket.
"It's me," snapped Algy Lacey's voice through the door. "I know you're in there. And you'd better be alone."
Erich sighed. It was tempting to ignore him, but he supposed whatever was happening, best to hear about it now rather than have it spoil his dinner date. He unlocked the door.
"I'm going to ask this politely, believe it or not," Lacey announced, striding into the room.
"Good morning," Erich said mildly. "Come in, why don't you."
"No, actually." Lacey put his hand over his mouth as his brisk walk was interrupted by the wall. He turned to walk the other way. Erich was tempted to find out if he would walk right back into the hall, but shut the door instead, and derived some small entertainment from Lacey pulling up short in the same way. "Actually, I have no idea how to ask it at all."
"We could try French, German, or Russian, if English simply isn't cutting it."
"Do not make light of this, you --" Lacey stopped, getting himself under control. "Okay, I'm just going to say it. Are you seeing someone? Someone else, I mean," he got out through clenched teeth.
"What?" Erich said.
"Did your hearing stop working along with your good sense and ability to make discerning employment choices?"
Erich was used to Lacey by now, well enough to ignore this and cut through to the fundamental question. "Seeing someone -- in what sense?"
"What sense do you think?" Lacey forced out. "Don't make me say it."
Erich became aware that one hand was in his pocket on the gun and the other was holding a spatula, which he went and placed back in the soapy water. "And what brought this accusation on?" he inquired calmly.
"Biggles apparently thinks you are."
Erich whirled around. "He what?"
"Oh, he won't admit it, and if anyone asks, he'll defend you to the rafters like always. But in the meantime, the rest of us have to deal with the moping, and sighing, and staring forlornly out the window --"
"Good God," Erich said, reaching for his coat. "I must see him at once."
"No wait, I came here for an answer, not --"
"Did you bring a car?"
"Well, yes, it's downstairs, but -- unhand me immediately," Lacey snapped as Erich shouldered him aside and headed for the door. "I expect you want me to drive you too? A simple yes or no would have done," he complained, as he followed Erich out the door.
A little late-cannon Biggles snippet (~500 words) because I've been reading (and re-reading...) a lot of fic lately with EvS & Biggles or EvS & Algy, but I've found very little with EvS and the other two, particularly in whumpy situations. I might expand it, but to be honest probably not ^^' So, to prevent it mouldering in my drafts forever, I'm posting it here :') I hope it's enjoyed!
---
The phone seemed to ring for a long time, droning on and on to the extent that the usually nerveless caller was reaching for the curly cord to fiddle with when the line was finally picked up, and sleepy but familiar tones answered.
"Mayfair oh one four nine. Which coincidentally isn't too different from the time right now, so what do you-"
"I have Lord Lissie." von Stalhein announced, wasting no time.
These words blew all the sleepiness out of Algy's voice like a winter gale, and his reply was coldly incredulous. "You what?"
"I said, I have-" suddenly, Erich realised how that wording might come across, given their mutual history, and rephrased. "What I mean to say is that he is with me, in my flat. He is safe here, but he was injured when he arrived- in fact, he all but collapsed on my doorstep- and-"
"We're on our way." Algy said curtly. "Make sure it's us before you open the door."
Needled, Erich merely hung up in reply, then turned back to his charge.
Bertie was still lying on the sofa, at least mostly; he seemed to have come around in the short time that Erich had stepped away, and been trying to get up, but stalled half way through, teetering on the edge. With quick, gentle movements, Erich rolled him back to a reclining position, and seeing that he was still at least a little coherent, offered him a sip of water.
"Lord Liss- Bertie? Can you hear me?" he asked softly, staring at the half-open non-swollen eye in hope of some reaction.
"Mmm." Bertie replied, his eye falling shut as he turned further over into the thin pillows. "No school today, nanny. I don't feel well."
"I can believe that." Erich replied in an undertone, before continuing in a louder voice "Bertie, it's me."
Before he could elaborate, Bertie suddenly rolled back and looked at him directly for the first time that evening- morning?-, his open eye unfocused and bright from the drug swimming in his system, but nonetheless wide open. With a look of relief dawning on his face, he pronounced his latest conclusion in a confident and only slightly wavering voice.
"Biggles!"
Erich's mouth was open to correct him before he realised that it was probably pointless, and 'Biggles' was at least better than 'Nanny'. He sat for a moment looking rather like a fish, wondering how to continue, before snapping his mouth shut.
Before he had reached any conclusions, he was thrown again by the feeling of a hand clumsily reaching for his, finding it and lightly squeezing it, then retreating, with an accompanying sigh of "Glad you found me, old thing. Things were starting to...to not go so well."
This time it was Erich who reached for Bertie's hand, holding it gently to avoid aggravating the boot-tread pattern of bruises that had already begun to turn nasty shades of yellow and purple, his gaze lingering on the swollen-shut eye in its own puddle of bruises and abrasions.
"Don't worry," he said quietly, keeping his anger for the man's attackers at bay with an effort, "you're safe now."
Biggles, Algy, Ginger: Right Foot - originally posted here
"It's like a vice," Algy panted, after struggling and failing to free his trapped foot from the splintered boards of the wreckage pinning it in place, trapping him in the shipwrecked cargo hold. "You'd better go get the skipper, Ginger."
"I don't want to leave you," Ginger protested. "I can find something to pry it up with, maybe."
The old boards creaked underfoot. "We don't have time. Go!"
After a brief hesitation, Ginger scrambled up the ladder, leaving Algy below in half-dark lit by sunlight from above, his foot solidly trapped between broken timbers ... and bleeding, from the sticky feel of it. He blew out a breath: at least now the only one in peril was --
"Suffering Icarus!" came from above him, and it turned out that Ginger hadn't had far to go. Biggles leaned through the opening to peer below, shining a torch around, and Algy could glimpse Ginger backlit by the sunlight behind him. "What have you done to yourself, laddie?"
"Stuck," Algy said tersely. "No, don't come down!" he barked as Biggles showed every intention of clambering down the ladder Ginger had just gone up. "The whole floor's about to go. It's rotted through."
He couldn't see Biggles's face that well, but he could tell by the brief silence that Biggles was taking it in, his quick brain analyzing the situation in that way he had. Then Biggles said shortly, "Ginger, run to the machine and get the tool kit and any ropes you can find. There's a good lad. Hurry!"
Ginger raced off without a complaint.
"Good job getting him away," Algy said quietly. "Whatever's to happen next, he shouldn't see it." The floor creaked again. He could feel the wreckage shifting every time either of them moved.
"We're not done yet, so don't pack it in before the landing," Biggles said. He drew his pocket knife and vanished from view.
"We? Wait --" But Biggles doing something above. Algy heard something tearing, a vaguely familiar sound, but he only realized what it was when Biggles reappeared and then very slowly climbed down through the opening. There was something tied round his waist that looked like a fat cord shedding bits of itself, but turned out to be half-rotted canvas from the old ship's tattered sails.
"If this collapses, there's every chance I'll drag you down too," Algy protested as Biggles slowly walked himself headfirst down the ladder until he could reach out a hand for Algy. "Also, if my foot's still stuck like this when it goes, it'll pull my leg off."
"With me to support your weight, that floor should be solid to last another fifty years," Biggles retorted. "Here, clasp my arms." The head-down position he was hanging in couldn't be comfortable, and the canvas tied crudely round his waist looked none too secure, but he grinned one of those quick, confident smiles as he gripped Algy's forearms and Algy felt the strain on his trapped leg ease slightly. "Ginger will be back in a minute with tools and better ropes. Now hold on to me, and we'll have you out of here in time for lunch."
Biggles books, Algy & Ginger + Right Foot - originally posted here
See explanation here for the dice ficlets.
"I can walk on my own. It's not that serious."
"Of course you can," Ginger said, looping Algy's arm over his shoulders. "You've been hobbling at a good clip for the last quarter mile, a little faster than a snail with a cardiac condition, I'd say. You could make it back to the machine by lunchtime tomorrow, but me, I'd rather not spend the night out here."
"Cheeky blighter," Algy said between his teeth. But as soon as Ginger had Algy's arm solidly wrapped over his shoulders, Algy's weight came to rest on him heavily. Ginger had guessed he was in a lot more pain than he wanted to let on.
Biggles prompt- on a case they run into/are made to work with someone who was nasty to Biggles in his school-days, who tries to renew such treatment, and EvS, also involved with whatever they're investigating, finds himself possessed of both an unexpected protective urge and in the rare position to offer his own "you're better than the people you're working for" speech
Still working my way through older prompts before the end of the year!
---
Erich was still unused to the strange feeling of working with Bigglesworth's team, on the same side.
It seemed to go well enough in the field. If he didn't quite know how to join in on their friendly insults and banter, at least he could hold up his end of the job. But in the more relaxed atmosphere outside of the field, he found that his once easy ability to get along smoothly in a group of people seemed to have deserted him. He missed cues and frequently retreated into what must have seemed an awkward, stony silence to the others -- even if Lissie's affable cheer and Hebblethwaite's friendliness rarely seemed to falter.
He had trouble knowing what was normal for them, even for Bigglesworth, who he had spent so much time watching over the years. And so, he might have thought it was merely his unfamiliarity with all the shades of Bigglesworth in different company that made it seem to him as if the man was unusually quiet on this particular case, in which they were working with two Home Office men that Erich didn't know. But Lacey also seemed to be giving Bigglesworth odd, searching looks ... so perhaps it was not merely Erich's perceptions that were at fault.
He took advantage of a brief opportunity to speak to Lacey alone, just the two of them at the small counter with tea and coffee things in a corner of the hangar they were using for their base of operations. "Does Bigglesworth have a history with those men?"
Lacey gave him a sharp glance, as if doubting Erich's reasons for asking, but whatever he saw made him relax a little. "No," he said. Then he hesitated. "Not that I know of. If it was important, I'm sure Biggles would have said something to me."
Erich couldn't tell if this was meant to be pointed (he would have said something to me, not to you) but he felt no sting in it, only vindication that there was something there, after all. "But he is acting oddly, don't you think? Is something bothering him?"
"Ask him yourself, if you need to know," Lacey said brusquely, stirring milk into his tea with sharp, jerky jabs of the spoon.
In other words, Erich thought, you don't know either. He could have left it at that, maybe should have left it, and he wasn't sure what possessed him to venture cautiously, "I don't like how that fellow is treating him."
Lacey gave him a sharp look, still visibly annoyed. He looked away. Then he said, "I don't either. But it's not like Biggles to let something like that get to him."
The senior Home Office fellow had been slighting Bigglesworth in small ways, and speaking down to him, for the duration of this case. It gave Erich some satisfaction to realize that Lacey had also noticed. Lacey was right, though: it really wasn't like Bigglesworth to be bothered. Bigglesworth's resilient nature seemed to shed small slights with hardly a flicker of concern. It was on behalf of others that his temper tended to become aroused.
"No," Erich said. "It's not."
Lacey scowled at the wall, as if he didn't like the fact that they were thinking so similarly on this, and left.
Erich noticed Lacey and Bigglesworth talking quietly in a corner a few minutes later, but Lacey left looking even more annoyed, which probably meant that he had received no answers, at least none he wanted to hear.
Erich was aware that he had no just cause to be concerned. Bigglesworth had said nothing, after all. And Bigglesworth had never had any problem speaking his mind. So why should this be different? If he hadn't said anything, to Lacey or to the face of the Home Office fellow, then it didn't matter.
But it did matter, and Erich was not even aware of how much simmering resentment he had about the situation, until they were discussing arrangements for surveillance and the Home Office man -- whose name was Oakley -- persistently ignored each of Bigglesworth's quite sensible suggestions. However, it was when he turned around a few minutes later and presented one of them as his own that Erich finally snapped.
"As DI Bigglesworth just suggested, you mean?" he asked in a curt tone.
Lacey gave him a swift, sharp glance (so did Bigglesworth, he was fairly sure, but Erich was studiously not looking at him) and then Lacey said, with sugar-laced venom in his voice, "Yes, that's right, Oakley, so good of you to second Biggles's suggestion! I quite concur, we should do it Biggles' way."
Oakley flustered for a moment before sternly turning to tap the map with the pointer in his hand. "And at the back entrance, we'll station two of Gaskin's men ..."
The conversation moved on. Erich dared a single sidelong glance at Bigglesworth and saw that his ears were pink. Likely he was embarrassed by the unwanted interference, Erich thought grimly. But he noticed Lacey looking at him. Their eyes met briefly, and Lacey's mouth quirked in something that was not quite a smile, but seemed almost approving.
***
After the group began to disperse to their appointed stations, Bigglesworth came up alongside Erich. "Here," he said, passing him a cup of coffee. "I had to stop by the canteen anyway."
"Thank you." Erich found that it was made just as he liked it, strong with a little milk.
After a brief hesitation, Bigglesworth said, "I hope you're finding your role in this mission satisfactory?" His bright hazel eyes searched Erich's face with a curious intensity, looking for what, Erich wasn't sure.
"It's quite all right. No complaints," he said.
"Good, good."
Another slightly awkward pause. Erich could sense that Bigglesworth was skirting around something he wanted to say, or perhaps didn't know how to say.
"That fellow Oakley," Erich said, and surprise leaped in Bigglesworth's expressive eyes -- but not shock. Erich pushed forward. He could guess that Lacey had asked the same question, more or less, and had received no definite answer ... but perhaps Bigglesworth was ready to talk about it now. "Have you worked with him before?"
The answer was a slightly rueful smile. "We went to school together," Bigglesworth said. "He hasn't really changed from those days, I think. Back then, he was the sort of lad who used to bully smaller boys and take credit for others' work."
Erich gave him a thoughtful look. He had never thought about Bigglesworth as a schoolboy. Now he suddenly found himself picturing it, the slight frame even smaller, the tousled fair hair and the fine, narrow face with a child's softness to it.
"So nothing much has changed, then?" Erich said, and there was the quick, bright flicker of a smile, making him realize he had seen Bigglesworth smile hardly at all in the last couple of days.
He had always thought of Bigglesworth possessing the hidden steel of a coiled spring, able to rebound from anything that was thrown at him. But Bigglesworth as a child was not a picture he'd ever had before: small and delicate, perhaps the kind of boy who easily became a target for larger boys.
"It's no matter," Bigglesworth said. "I don't feel a man should be judged by his actions as a child."
"No, but he can be judged by his actions now. I think Lacey and I are united in this," Erich said, which prompted another quick flash of a smile, "and if we agree on something, I expect it's a matter to pay attention to." More seriously, he added, "You don't need to put up with that kind of thing. You could put in a word with the Air Commodore, have him tossed off the case on his ear."
"Simply because the fellow's been a bit rude? There's no need to raise a fuss about it. I've had worse."
"Well, I have nothing to lose," Erich said. "I could tell the Air Commodore that he won't work with me."
Bigglesworth glanced at him quickly. "Has he been giving you trouble?" His voice was sharp.
"Nothing of any note." He was used to slights, and Oakley had mainly just ignored him. The presence of a former Soviet spy on a law enforcement operation wasn't exactly welcome for many.
"I'll have a word with the Air Commodore immediately," Bigglesworth said, scowling.
Erich actually laughed. "But I should not complain about your ill treatment?"
"You shouldn't have to put up with --"
"Neither should you," Erich said pointedly.
After a moment's stubborn silence, Bigglesworth huffed out a soft laugh. "I suppose you are able to bear with it until the end of the case, if you say so."
"As can you, I suppose." Erich met the clear hazel eyes. "You are worth ten of him, you know."
Bigglesworth held his gaze for a moment. "As are you."
The moment was broken by Algy Lacey descending on them. "Oh, there you are, Biggles." He drew a deep breath and launched forward as if reciting a prepared speech. "I'm afraid I simply cannot continue to work with Oakley. The man is insufferably rude. I shall be having a word with the Air Commodore immediately, and I must add that I am sorry if it causes any issues, but in this matter, I certainly don't mind being the villain of the situation --"
Bigglesworth had to say his name twice before Lacey slowed enough that he was able to fit a word in. "It's all right. Don't worry about it. I can handle Arthur Oakley."
"Maybe you can, but can I?" Lacey said darkly.
"You will simply have to," Bigglesworth said, but he was half-smiling. "Do the others feel the same?"
"Absolutely," Lacey said with the conviction of someone who had not consulted anyone else but was confident they would go along with it.
Erich said, as expressionless as he knew how to be, "What about splitting the group? Oakley's team could handle one part of the mission, our group the other part."
Bigglesworth's eyes sparkled. "I'm starting to feel that I'm outnumbered. But that seems a good compromise, thank you. I suppose that Oakley can work with Gaskin's men on staking out the smuggler's warehouse, while the rest of us handle the fieldwork -- is that agreeable to you both?"
"Not that I have any opinions about it --" Algy began. Erich coughed into his hand. "But that sounds like an acceptable plan. I would still be very happy to voice a complaint, if one is needed."
"It is not," Bigglesworth said firmly. He eyed both of them for a moment, then shook his head and turned away with his usual briskness. But there was a softness to the slight quirk of the corner of his mouth. "If everyone is quite finished, I'll have a word with Gaskin, and we can get this circus into the air."
Responding to the prompt call with a Biggles prompt- Biggles and EvS are cursed or exposed to a mysterious mad-science substance that makes them have to maintain physical contact or very close proximity or else suffer increasingly debilitating pain &/ illness the farther they are apart- and now must work together in these constraints to fix this situation
Continuing to clear out a few more terribly late prompts ...
--
Biggles was aware that Algy had been casting anxious glances at him, where he sat at his desk in the main room of the Mount Street flat. "I am fine," he said shortly, not liking how rough his voice sounded.
"You're positively grey," Algy said, glowering at him. "Let me go round up the swine; I'll have him back here at gunpoint if he won't listen to reason."
"He'll come back," Biggles said calmly. A spasm of cramps rippled through his abdomen and seemed to travel outward, painfully, down his legs. He went on, "It is the most practical decision, under the circumstances. If nothing else, von Stalhein is a practical man."
Algy made a scoffing sound. Biggles ignored him and reached for the glass of water at his elbow, realised his hand was shaking, and put it back on the desk, next to the London map where he was sketching out possible sites for the unknown location of the warehouse containing the antidote ... or trying to. The printed words kept going in and out of focus before his eyes.
He was close to thinking that Algy was right, von Stalhein truly was stubborn enough to keep walking until he fell facedown in a gutter, when there was a brisk rap at the door and Algy sprang to his feet. Biggles started to rise, then his knees buckled, and he sank back down in his chair. But he was already feeling a noticeable easing of the cramping, the trembling and weakness in his limbs, and so it was no great surprise when Algy came back, looking grim and accompanied by a stiffly moving, utterly stone-faced von Stalhein.
Biggles rose carefully, one hand supporting himself on the edge of the desk. "Would you care for a drink?" he asked.
"No," von Stalhein said shortly. He sat on the end of the sofa, spine rigid. He looked grey and unwell, and there were mud and grass stains on his coat and the knees of his trousers, as if he had fallen. Biggles wondered if he himself looked as ill. No wonder Algy had been staring at him.
"I think I need a drink," Algy said. He hesitated. "Biggles, do you want me to be here in case --"
"Don't worry about it," Biggles said. "It'll be all right."
Algy heaved a sigh and left the room. Biggles suspected he would be listening in the hall.
Von Stalhein had not removed his outerwear upon entering the flat, as if he expected to leave at any moment. After Algy left, he took off his hat, with slow, slightly jerky movements, and placed it beside him on the sofa.
"How far did you get?" Biggles asked conversationally.
Von Stalhein gave him a look with daggers in it. Biggles said nothing. After a moment, the glare softened to something weary and, perhaps, a trifle less edged.
"Nearly to Whitechapel," von Stalhein said.
"That's how far -- two, three miles as the crow flies? That's good to know. It's farther than I thought we had to work with."
"I don't know where I thought I was going," von Stalhein said. He stared at the wall. "I had the waterfront in mind and then I -- I kept walking. I thought of taking a bus, even stood to catch one before I ... thought that perhaps I didn't want to find out how far and how fast --" He stopped again, and Biggles heard him grinding his teeth audibly.
It was like leashing a falcon, or some other wild creature. It would keep beating itself against the walls of the enclosure until it died. Or it would learn to live within the cage, and that was somehow worse.
Biggles got up. The pain, the cramps, the tightness in his chest had almost entirely eased. He came to sit on the other end of the sofa, no closer, with the hat between them. The look von Stalhein gave him suggested that distance was wanted, just at the moment.
Right now, the ache was very easy to ignore, nothing more than a slight chill, like the way that the cold got between the bones in the winter sometimes. Biggles was aware, as he knew von Stalhein was also aware, that the closer he got, the more the ache would evaporate; the urge to touch him was very strong, and he knew they were both feeling it, and he knew he could not let himself give in. He didn't want to find out how stubborn von Stalhein really was, or what he was willing to do to avoid being caged.
"Listen," Biggles said quietly. "The entire Yard is working on this. One way or another, we are going to fix it." He tried to smile, but he feared how it went a little askant of what he hoped for. "Being near me for a little while isn't really so bad as all that ... is it?"
Von Stalhein looked away, his mouth a thin line.
Before any response could be given, on either side, Algy came back with a tea tray and a grimly resigned expression more at home on a man going to a firing squad than someone bearing a pot of tea and lemon-frosted biscuits.
Hey, if you're still open to prompts, please may I request some Biggles whump, someone beaten up and another taking care of them, maybe Algy and EVS but whoever you like really, thank you!
Finding von Stalhein was the hard part, but Algy suspected that - like a cat - he would crawl off to lick his wounds in private somewhere. And so Algy found him about where he had expected, in a storeroom behind the pub where Gaskin's men were cleaning up the remnants of the gang.
Von Stalhein was sitting on a crate, looking at nothing in the dim light. Algy, who had taken the precaution of stopping by the toilets to wet down a clean bar towel with warm tap water, cleared his throat and then gave a light tap on the door.
Von Stalhein turned slightly towards him, wincing. "I will be out in a minute," he said quietly, his voice hoarse. "You need not trouble yourself."
"I don't actually want you out at all, but I can already picture Biggles's reaction when he gets here and finds out that we left you sitting here like this." The brisk, light tone was one that Algy had used often in the past, although generally his targets were a sick Biggles who wouldn't stay in bed; Ginger with a black eye whose source he wouldn't admit to; Bertie with a limp he was trying to hide. "So just let me clean you up a little, so you can walk out without frightening small children or earning me a cold glare over the breakfast table."
Von Stalhein gave a faint snort, but when Algy sat on the crate beside him, he made no attempt to flee or otherwise defend himself. He jerked a little when Algy placed a firm hand on his face and turned his head towards the light.
"I have had worse," von Stalhein said, but he submitted to Algy dabbing at the blood and bruises on his face with the damp towel, matter-of-factly repositioning his head as necessary.
"I'm sure you have, but you see, you're working with us now," Algy said, focused on the blood soaking into von Stalhein's short hair as he dabbed it off with the towel, rather than looking him in the face. "And whatever I personally think about that, being on our team means not sitting in the dark alone, suffering."
Von Stalhein was silent for a little while as Algy went ahead and worked on his face. Algy was aware of von Stalhein watching him, but tried to ignore it and definitely did not meet his eyes.
Eventually von Stalhein said, "And does that line work on Bigglesworth, just out of curiosity?"
"Where do you think I learned not to take no for an answer?"
Von Stalhein's faint smile made new blood spring up in his cracked lip, but he made no further protest, and somehow it felt like a victory.
No. 6: “No grave can hold my body down.”
Caught in a Net | Medical Restraints | Pinned to the Wall
"Absolutely unbelievable," Algy said, as the net rotated slowly some fifteen feet above the forest floor. "Good show, can't wait 'til Biggles hears about this one. Bertie, get your elbow out of my ear."
"Sorry, old boy, that's not mine."
"Whose is it then?!" He tried to squirm into a more comfortable position, or at least some angle that didn't have his head as the lowest part of his body. "Ginger, if that's your boot on my - ow! face, move it."
"Can't," Ginger said, twisting in a way that pushed Algy's head even lower, pressing his cheek against the net.
"Ow! What are you doing?"
"Trying to get to my penknife and cut us out of here!"
The net had snapped shut around all three of them and catapulted them into the air. They were now in a tangled mass, confined so tightly that they could barely move. Algy was flattened under the other two, Ginger seemed to be the only one with any freedom of movement at all, and lord only knew what Bertie was doing, Algy certainly didn't want to.
"Aha," Bertie said in triumph, and there was a ripping sound and suddenly Algy found himself in freefall. He clutched wildly at the net that he had been cursing a minute ago, but his fingers ripped through the strands and the three of them tumbled in a pained tangle to the forest floor.
There was a stunned moment when everyone lay still, and then began sorting themselves out, muttering and clutching at bruises.
"What happened?" Algy asked, sitting up and rubbing the side of his head. "Did it break under our weight?"
"With a little help from the old sword cane," Bertie said cheerfully. He was slipping the blade back into the cane's staff. Algy stared; it was a miracle none of them had been stabbed in the fall.
"I thought that was just a, er, new accessory you picked up lately," Algy said, carefully avoiding mention of who exactly Bertie might have been inspired by.
"Stylish, what? But it also has twelve inches of good Damascus steel in it. Just a bit of the old snick-snick, and we're back to the races."
Algy looked at Ginger.
"Okay, yeah, we're probably not telling Biggles about this," Ginger said.
