In Biggles Makes Ends Meet, Colonel Black was the leader of the smuggling gang which maintained a secret base in the Nicobar islands. The Colonel had served in the US Army as a major during the Second World War. Following that, he had been a paymaster in the Korean War. Having a little financial difficulty,he then absconded with the regimental pay and had become wanted by the US authorities. For a while, until he surfaced inthe Nicobars, he was thought to have skipped behind the Iron Curtain.
The Colonel ran an extensive and higly organised smuggling operation which included several transport aircraft as well as a Nakajima fighter. His base in the Nicobars was well equipped with an airfield as well as fuel, stores and ammunition. Also in his inventory was a yacht, the Floridia, as well as a Chinese junk and a dhow. His gang had spies everywhere and kept many informants on its payroll.
Biggles first met the Colonel in Kutaradja. The Colonel had flown there with The Count where they bribed/threatened Vandershon to cooperate with them by supplying information about Biggles' movements. Biggles was watching them behind the scenes, wearing a mechanic's overalls. Later, the Colonel flew to Kuala Lumpur where he directly confronted Biggles, asking him to either lay off or come under his employ. During this meeting, Algy managed to have photos taken of the Colonel. These photos were subsequently sent to London where the US authorities identified him as a man they had been hunting for years.
Biggles encountered the Colonel a third time on the Colonel's secret island base. The Colonel had kidnapped Algy and was interrogating him. Biggles walked into the meeting and boldly placed the Colonel under arrest, revealing that he was a police officer. Biggles, of course, knew that he was heavily outnumbered and he had not even bothered to draw his gun. However his bold move dislocated the Colonel and distracted the people with him for long enough so that Ginger could steal the gang Dakota to go off to fetch help.
Unable to escape because Ginger had taken his aircraft and Bertie had burnt his yacht, the Colonel was finally captured when his island base was raided by a strong force of US Marines led by General Cotter. The Colonel, who once said to Biggles that he never made a mistake, ended up with a long jail sentence.