Biggles and Son: Chapter 14.

by Sopwith

Disclaimer: I do not own, or claim to own, any of the Biggles series characters used in this work. This fan fiction was written for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered part of the official storyline.

Warning: Non canon type fan fiction works may contain severe time mix-ups and character deviations. 

Relieved as he was to see Sebastian, Biggles could not help feeling a twinge of annoyance as well. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, somewhat belligerently.

“Followed you,” said Sebastian, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Followed me?” echoed Biggles, as if he could not believe his ears. “Why on earth would you do something like that?”

Sebastian wrinkled his nose, jammed his fists into his pockets, and avoided Biggles’ eye, staring at the ground with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Well?” demanded Biggles, impatiently.

“I thought you might find Mom,” said Sebastian, and for a second there was something in his voice that made Biggles suddenly realize that Sebastian really was just a young boy after all. “I thought maybe I’d get to see her.”

Biggles cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “Well, you didn’t have to follow us. I would have made sure that you got to see her after we rescued her. You didn’t have to worry. You could have stayed at home.” Another thought struck him, and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “How did you get here, anyway?”

“I got a cab to follow you.”

“You took a cab from Mount Street to here? How on earth did you pay for that?”

Sebastian shrugged. “I had some money Uncle Algy gave me before.”

“Uncle Algy,” said Biggles bitingly, “should know better. Did you spend all night out here, then?”

“Sort of. I lost you in the dark when you were walking here, so I spent most of the night wandering around trying to find you, and then I had a bit of a nap in someone’s shed until the morning, and then I wandered about for a bit until I came here.”

Biggles stared, then sighed. “All right,” he said. “Never mind that now. I seem to be locked in this room, and I should probably find some way of getting out as soon as possible—”

Sebastian nodded, eagerly. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

The boy walked off, out of Biggles’ line of sight. Biggles strained his ears, trying to see if he could hear what Sebastian was doing, but except for the rustling of some leaves, he could hear nothing.

He waited. Five minutes turned to ten, and then to fifteen. Where was Sebastian? Had something happened to him? Had someone caught him trying to get into the house? Biggles fidgeted nervously with his watch, resisting the urge to pace back and forth in the cramped room.

And then, to his relief, he heard the sound he had been waiting for. Footsteps, on the other side of the door.

“Sebastian?”

“Hold on.” The voice was somewhat muffled through the door, but Biggles had no trouble recognizing it as that of his son’s. There was a slight scraping at the lock, and then a few seconds later the door sprang open and Biggles found himself face to face with Sebastian.

“Good work,” he said warmly, and was somewhat gratified to see the boy’s face light up at the approval. “Did you see anyone on your way in?”

“No.”

“Good. Let’s get away, then, before someone comes along and catches us.” Biggles led the way down the stairs to the floor below. The pub he had been in the night before had been reduced to a dank, dark room smelling of stale beer, with barstools piled on top of tables. Not being able to see anything except vague outlines of objects, Biggles turned to his son. “Where’s the door?” he asked in a whisper.

Sebastian looked abashed. “Er…I don’t know,” he confessed.

“What d’you mean, you don’t know?”

“Well…I didn’t come in the front door.”

“Where did you come in, then?”

There was a pause. “I found a window without any glass in it,” said Sebastian.

“Really?” said Biggles, astonished at such lax security on the part of his captors.

There was another, longer pause. “Yes.”

Biggles felt a suspicion rise at the back of his mind. “Did you break the window?” he demanded.

This third pause was much longer than any of the previous pauses. “Well,” said Sebastian, finally. “I wouldn’t say I broke it, exactly…”

“Sebastian!” cried Biggles, horrified. “You really can’t be doing that sort of thing!”

“Well, I wanted to get you out, didn’t I?” said Sebastian, sounding hurt. “And anyway, if they locked you up in their room, that’s against the law as well, isn’t it? They can hardly be complaining just because I broke their window.”

“That’s not the point—”

“It was only a little window, anyway,” muttered Sebastian.

Biggles sighed. “Never mind,” he said wearily. “We’ll sort this out later. Where is this window of yours?”

“This way.”

Biggles followed his son to the window, stepped over some shards of broken glass, and then clambered out of the glassless window onto the road outside.

“Well,” concluded Biggles. “Here we are. I suppose I’d better take you home. We’d better go somewhere where there’s a phone so I can call Algy to come and get us.”

“Why can’t we just take the car?” suggested Sebastian.

“What car?”

“The one you drove here in last night. It’s still where you left it. I saw it when I was walking around trying to find you this morning.”

Biggles started. “What?”

Algy should have driven the car home after he, Biggles, had left the night before. The fact that the car was still there could only mean one of two things. Either something had happened to Algy, or he had chosen to stay of his own accord.

But if the latter—where was Algy now?

“If he had stayed behind to follow me, he should be here,” Biggles muttered to himself, thinking out loud.

So clearly Algy had not stayed behind to follow Biggles.

Which meant that something must have happened to him.

Biggles laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “All right, we’d better go back to the car,” he said, hoping that his voice did not betray the worry he was feeling. He would take Sebastian back home first, he decided, and then he would come back and try to find Algy.

They walked back to the car, which was, as Sebastian had said, exactly where Biggles had left it the night before.

Biggles opened his door and got into the driver’s seat. Just as he was starting the engine, another car passed by next to them, and Biggles idly glanced over at it.

He was not expecting to see anything in particular, and he was certainly not prepared for the sight that he did see.

A man dressed in a smart black suit was driving the car. And in the passenger seat beside him sat the last person Biggles had expected to see.

Algy.

And in the back seat, a figure with long blond hair.

Go to Chapter 15.

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