by Roald Dahl
The Stag paused. Then he said, "I am to state on behalf of the authorities that they are sorry to disturb you. My apologies, mesd'moiselles. But it is necessary that you come with us for purposes of registration, et cetera. Afterwards you will be allowed to go. It is a mere formality. But now you must come, please. I have conversed with Madame."
The Stag stopped speaking, but still the girls did not move.
"Please," said the Stag, "get your coats. We are the military." He stepped aside and held open the door. Suddenly the tableau dissolved, the girls got up, puzzled and murmuring, and two or three of them moved towards the door. The others followed. The ones that were halfclothed quickly slipped into dresses, patted their hair with their hands and came too. None of them had coats.
"Count them," said the Stag to Stuffy as they filed out of the door. Stuffy counted them aloud and there were fourteen.
"Fourteen, sir," said Stuffy, who was trying to talk like a sergeant-major.
The Stag said, "Correct," and he turned to the girls who were crowded in the passage. "Now, mesd'moiselles, I have the list of your names from Madame, so please do not try to run away. And do not worry. This is merely a formality of the military."
William was out in the passage opening the door which led to the stairs, and he went out first. The girls followed and the Stag and Stuffy brought up the rear. The girls were quiet and puzzled and worried and a little frightened and they didn't talk, none of them talked except for a tall one with black hair who said, "Mon Dieu, a formality of the military. Mon Dieu, men Dieu, what next." But that was all and they went on down. In the hall they met the Egyptian who had a fiat face and two cauliflower ears. For a moment it looked as though there would be trouble. But the Stag waved his identification card in his face and said, "The Military Police," and the man was so surprised that he did nothing and let them pass.
And so they came out into the street and the Stag said, "It is necessary to walk a little way, but only a very little way," and they turned right and walked along the sidewalk with the Stag leading, Stuffy at the rear and William walking out on the road guarding the flank. There was some moon now. One could see quite well and William tried to keep in step with Stag and Stuffy tried to keep in step with William, and they swung their arms and held their heads up high and looked very military, and the whole thing was a sight to behold. Fourteen girls in shiny evening dresses, fourteen girls in the moonlight in shiny green, shiny blue, shiny red, shiny black and shiny gold, marching along the street with the Stag in front, William alongside and Stuffy at the rear. It was a sight to behold.
The girls had started chattering. The Stag could hear them, although he didn't look around. He marched on at the head of the column and when they came to the crossroads he turned right. The others followed and they had walked fifty yards down the block when they came to an Egyptian cafŽ. The Stag saw it and he saw the lights burning behind the blackout curtains. He turned around and shouted "Halt!" The girls stopped, but they went on chattering and anyone could see that there was mutiny in the ranks. You can't make fourteen girls in high heels and shiny evening dresses march all over town with you at night, not for long anyway, not for long, even if it is a formality of the military. The Stag knew it and now he was speaking.
"l'vlesd'moiselles," he said, "listen to me." But there was mutiny in the ranks and they went on talking and the tall one with dark hair was saying, "Mon Dieu, what is this? "What in hell's name sort of a thing is this, oh mon Dieu?"
"Quiet," said the Stag. "Quiet!" and the second time he shouted it as a command. The talking stopped.
"Mesd'moiselles," he said, and now he became polite. He talked to them in his best way and when the Stag was polite there wasn't anyone who didn't take it. It was an extraordinary thing because he could make a kind of smile with his voice without smiling with his lips. His voice smiled while his face remained serious. It was a most forcible thing because it gave people the impression that he was being serious about being nice.
"Mesd'moiselles," he said, and his voice was smiling. "With the military there always has to be formality. It is something unavoidable. It is something that I regret exceedingly. But there can be chivalry also. And you must know that with the RAF there is great chivalry. So now it will be a pleasure if you will all come in here and take with us a glass of beer. It is the chivalry of the military." He stepped forward, opened the door of the cafŽ and said, "Oh for God's sake, let's have a drink. Who wants a drink?"
Suddenly the girls saw it all. They saw the whole thing as it was, all of them at once. It took them by surprise. For a second they considered. Then they looked at one another, then they looked at the Stag, then they looked around at Stuffy and at William, and when they looked at those two they caught their eyes, and the laughter that was in them. All at once the girls began to laugh and William laughed and Stuffy laughed and they moved forward and poured into the cafŽ.
The tall one with dark hair took the Stag by the arm and said, "Mon Dieu, Military Police, mon Dieu, oh mon Dieu," and she threw her head back and laughed and the Stag laughed with her. William said, "It is the chivalry of the military," and they moved into the cafŽ.
The place was rather like the one that they had been in before, wooden and sawdusty, and there were a few coffee-drinking Egyptians sitting around with the red tarbooshes on their heads. William and Stuffy pushed three round tables together and fetched chairs. The girls sat down. The Egyptians at the other tables put down their coffee cups, turned around in their chairs and gaped. They gaped like so many fat muddy fish, and some of them shifted their chairs round facing the party so that they could get a better view and they went on gaping.
A waiter came up and the Stag said, "Seventeen beers. Bring us seventeen beers." The waiter said "Pleess" and went away.
As they sat waiting for the drinks the girls looked at the three pilots and the pilots looked at the girls. William said, "It is the chivalry of the military," and the tall dark girl said, "Mon Dieu, you are crazy people, oh mon Dieu."
The waiter brought the beer. William raised his glass and said, "To the chivalry of the military." The dark girl said, "Oh mon Dieu." Stuffy didn't say anything. He was busy looking around at the girls, sizing them up, trying to decide now which one he liked best so that he could go to work at once. The Stag was smiling and the girls were sitting there in their shiny evening dresses, shiny red, shiny gold, shiny blue, shiny green, shiny black and shiny silver, and once again it was almost a tableau, certainly it was a picture, and the girls were sitting there sipping their beer, seeming quite happy, not seeming suspicious any more because to them the whole thing now appeared exactly as it was and they understood.
"Jesus," said the Stag, He put down his glass and looked around him. "Oh Jesus, there's enough here for the whole squadron. How I wish the whole squadron was here!" He took another drink, stopped in the middle of it and put down his glass quickly. "I know what," he said. "Waiter, oh waiter."
"Pleess."
"Get me a big piece of paper and a pencil."
"Pleess." The waiter went away and came back with a sheet of paper. He took a pencil from behind his ear and handed it to the Stag. The Stag banged the table for silence.
"Mesd'moiselles," he said, "for the last time there is a formality. It is the last of all the formalities."
"Of the military," said William.
"Oh mon Dieu," said the dark girl.
"It is nothing," the Stag said. "You are required to write your name and your telephone number on this piece of paper. It is for my friends in the squadron. It is so that they can be as happy as I am now, but without the same trouble beforehand." The Stag's voice was smiling again. One could see that the girls liked his voice. "You would be very kind if you would do that," he went on, "for they too would like to meet you. It would be a pleasure."
"Wonderful," said William.
"Crazy," said the dark girl, but she wrote her name and number on the paper and passed it on. The Stag ordered another round
of beer. The girls certainly looked funny sitting there in their dresses, but they were writing their names down on the paper. They looked happy and William particularly looked happy, but Stuffy looked serious because the problem of choosing was a weighty one and it was heavy on his mind. They were good-looking girls, young and goodlooking, all different, completely different from each other because they were Greek and Syrian and French and Italian and light Egyptian and Yugoslav and many other things, but they were goodlooking, all of them were good-looking and handsome.
The piece of paper had come back to the Stag now and they had all written on it; fourteen strangely written names and fourteen telephone numbers. The Stag looked at it slowly. "This will go on the squadron notice-board; he said, "and I will be regarded as a great benefactor."
William said, "It should go to headquarters. It should be mimeographed and circulated to all squadrons. It would be good for morale."
"Oh mon Dieu," said the dark girl. "You are crazy."
Slowly Stuffy got to his feet, picked up his chair, carried it round to the other side of the table and pushed it between two of the girls. All he said was "Excuse me. Do you mind if I sit here?" At last he had made up his mind, and now he turned towards the one on his right and quietly went to work. She was very pretty; very dark and very pretty and she had plenty of shape. Stuffy began to talk to her, completely oblivious to the rest of the company, turning towards her and leaning his head on his hand. Watching him, it was not so difficult to understand why he was the greatest pilot in the squadron. He was a young concentrator, this Stuffy; an intense athletic concentrator who moved towards what he wanted in a dead straight line. He took hold of winding roads and carefully he made them straight, then he moved over them with great speed and nothing stopped him. He was like that, and now he was talking to the pretty girl but no one could hear what he was saying.
Meanwhile the Stag was thinking. He was thinking about the next move, and when everyone was getting towards the end of their third beer, he banged the table again for silence.
"Mesd'moiselles," he said. "It will be a pleasure for us to escort you home. I will take five of you,"-he had worked it all out "Stuffy will take five, and Jamface will take four. We will take three gharries and I will take five of you in mine and I will drop you home one at a time." military.,, said, "It is the chivalry of the military."
"Stuffy," said the Stag. "Stuffy, is that all right? You take five. It's up to you whom you drop off last."
Stuffy looked around. "Yes," he said. "Oh yes. That suits me."
"William, you take four. Drop them home one by one; you understand."
"Perfectly," said William. "Oh perfectly."
They all got up and moved towards the door. The tall one with dark hair took the Stag's arm and said, "You take me?"
"Yes," he answered. "I take you."
"You drop me off last?"
"Yes. I drop you off last."
"Oh mon Dieu," she said. "That will be fine."
Outside they got three gharries and they split up into parties. Stuffy was moving quickly. He got his girls into the carriage quickly, climbed in after them and the Stag saw the gharry drive off down the street. Then he saw William's gharry move off, but it seemed to start away with a sudden jerk, with the horses breaking into a gallop at once. The Stag looked again and he saw William perched high up on the driver's seat with the reins in his hands.
The Stag said, "Let's go," and his five girls got into their gharry. It was a squash, but everyone got in. The Stag sat back in his seat and then he felt an arm pushing up and under and linking with his. It was the tall one with dark hair. He turned and looked at her.
"Hello," he said. "Hello, you."
"Ah," she whispered. "You are such goddam crazy people." And the Stag felt a warmness inside him and he began to hum a little tune as the gharry rattled on through the dark streets.
Katina
*Some brief notes about the last days of RAF fighters in the first Greek campaign.*
PETER saw her first.
She was sitting on a stone, quite still, with her hands resting on her lap. She was staring vacantly ahead, seeing nothing, and all around, up and down the little street, people were running backward and forward with buckets of water, emptying them through the windows of the burning houses.
Across the street on the cobblestones, there was a dead boy. Someone had moved his body close in to the side so that it would not be in the way.
A little farther down an old man was working on a pile of stones and rubble. One by one he was carrying the stones away and dumping them to the side. Sometimes he would bend down and peer into the ruins, repeating a name over and over again.
All around there was shouting and running and fires and buckets of water and dust. And the girl sat quietly on the stone, staring ahead, not moving. There was blood running down the left side of her face. It ran down from her forehead and dropped from her chin on to the dirty print dress she was wearing.
Peter saw her and said, "Look at that little girl."
We went up to her and Fin put his hand on her shoulder, bending down to examine the cut. "Looks like a piece of shrapnel," he said. "She ought to see the Doc."
Peter and I made a chair with our hands and Fin lifted her up on to it. We started back through the streets and out towards the aerodrome, the two of us walking a little awkwardly, bending down, facing our burden. I could feel Peter's fingers clasping tightly in mine and I could feel the buttocks of the little girl resting lightly on my wrists. I was on the left side and the blood was dripping down from her face on to the arm of my flying suit, running down the waterproof cloth on to the back of my hand. The girl never moved or said anything.
Fin said, "She's bleeding rather fast. We'd better walk a bit quicker."
I couldn't see much of her face because of the blood, but I could tell that she was lovely. She had high cheekbones and large round eyes, pale blue like an autumn sky, and her hair was short and fair. I guessed she was about nine years old.
This was in Greece in early April, 1941, at Paramythia. Our fighter squadron was stationed on a muddy field near the village. We were in a deep valley and all around us were the mountains. The freezing winter had passed, and now, almost before anyone knew it, spring had come. It had come quietly and swiftly, melting the ice on the lakes and brushing the snow off the mountain tops; and all over the airfield we could see the pale green shoots of grass pushing up through the mud, making a carpet for our landings. In our valley there were warm winds and wild flowers.
The Germans, who had pushed in through Yugoslavia a few days before, were now operating in force, and that afternoon they had come over very high with about thirty-five Dorniers and bombed the village. Peter and Fin and I were off duty for a while, and the three of us had gone down to see if there was anything we could do in the way of rescue work. We had spent a few hours digging around in the ruins and helping to put out fires, and we were on our way back when we saw the girl.
Now, as we approached the landing field, we could see the Hurricanes circling around coming in to land, and there was the Doc standing out in front of'the dispersal tent, just as he should have been, waiting to see if anyone had been hurt. We walked towards him, carrying the child, and Fin, who was a few yards in front, said, "Doc, you lazy old devil, here's a job for you."
The Doc was young and kind and morose except when he got drunk. When he got drunk he sang very well.
"Take her into the sick bay," he said. Peter and I carried her in and put her down on a chair. Then we left her and wandered over to the dispersal tent to see how the boys had got along.
It was beginning to get dark. There was a sunset behind the ridge over in the west, and there was a full moon, a bombers' moon, climbing up into the sky. The moon shone upon the shoulders of the tents and made them white; small white pyramids, standing up straight, clustering in little orderly groups around the edges of the aerodrome. They had a scared-sheep look about them the way they clustered th
emselves together, and they had a human look about them the way they stood up close to one another, and it seemed almost as though they knew that there was going to be trouble, as though someone had warned them that they might be forgotten and left behind. Even as I looked, I thought I saw them move. I thought I saw them huddle just a fraction nearer together.
And then, silently, without a sound, the mountains crept a little closer into our valley.
For the next two days there was much flying. There was the getting up at dawn, there was the flying, the fighting and the sleeping; and there was the retreat of the army. That was about all there was or all there was time for. But on the third day the clouds dropped down over the mountains and slid into the valley. And it rained. So we sat around in the mess-tent drinking beer and resinato, while the rain made a noise like a sewing machine on the roof. Then lunch. For the first time in days the whole squadron was present. Fifteen pilots at a long table with benches on either side and "Monkey, the CO sitting at the head.
We were still in the middle of our fried corned beef when the flap of the tent opened and in came the Doc with an enormous dripping raincoat over his head. And with him, under the coat, was the little girl. She had a bandage round her head.
The Doc said, "Hello. I've brought a guest." We looked around and suddenly, automatically, we all stood up.
The Doc was taking off his raincoat and the little girl was standing there with her hands hanging loose by her sides looking at the men, and the men were all looking at her. With her fair hair and pale skin she looked less like a Greek than anyone I've ever seen. She was frightened by the fifteen scruffy-looking foreigners who had suddenly stood up when she came in, and for a moment she half-turned as if she were going to run away out into the rain.