by Roald Dahl
‘Come into the office, boys,’ she said, and started to waddle down the passage to the left. It was a long wide passage, about fifty yards long and four or five yards wide. It ran through the middle of the house, parallel with the street, and as you came in from the stairs, you had to turn left along it. All the way down there were doors, about eight or ten of them on each side. If you turned right as you came in from the stairs, you ran into the end of the passage, but there was one door there too, and as the three of them walked in, they heard a babble of female voices from behind that door. The Stag noted that it was the girls’ dressing room.
‘This way, boys,’ said Rosette. She turned left and slopped down the passage, away from the door with the voices. The three followed her, Stag first, then Stuffy, then William, down the passage which had a red carpet on the floor and huge pink lampshades hanging from the ceiling. They got about halfway down the passage when there was a yell from the dressing room behind them. Rosette stopped and looked around.
‘You go on, boys,’ she said, ‘into the office, last door on the left. I won’t be a minute.’ She turned and went back towards the dressing-room door. They didn’t go on. They stood and watched her, and just as she got to the door, it opened and a girl rushed out. From where they stood, they could see that her fair hair was all over her face and that she had on an untidy-looking green evening dress. She saw Rosette in front of her and she stopped. They heard Rosette say something, something angry and quick spoken, and they heard the girl shout something back at her. They saw Rosette raise her right arm and they saw her hit the girl smack on the side of the face with the palm of her hand. They saw her draw back her hand and hit her again in the same place. She hit her hard. The girl put her hands up to her face and began to cry. Rosette opened the door of the dressing room and pushed her back inside.
‘Jesus,’ said the Stag. ‘She’s tough.’ William said, ‘So am I.’ Stuffy didn’t say anything.
Rosette came back to them and said, ‘Come along, boys. Just a bit of trouble, that’s all.’ She led them to the end of the passage and in through the last door on the left. This was the office. It was a medium-sized room with two red plush sofas, two or three red plush armchairs and a thick red carpet on the floor. In one corner was a small desk, and Rosette sat herself behind it, facing the room.
‘Sit down, boys,’ she said.
The Stag took an armchair, Stuffy and William sat on a sofa.
‘Well,’ she said, and her voice became sharp and urgent. ‘Let’s do business.’
The Stag leaned forward in his chair. His short ginger hair looked somehow wrong against the bright red plush. ‘Madame Rosette,’ he said, ‘it is a great pleasure to meet you. We have heard so much about you.’ Stuffy looked at the Stag. He was being polite again. Rosette looked at him too, and her little black eyes were suspicious. ‘Believe me,’ the Stag went on, ‘we’ve really been looking forward to this for quite a time now.’
His voice was so pleasant and he was so polite that Rosette took it.
‘That’s nice of you boys,’ she said. ‘You’ll always have a good time here. I see to that. Now — business.’
William couldn’t wait any longer. He said slowly, ‘The Stag says that you’re a great woman.’
‘Thanks, boys.’
Stuffy said, ‘The Stag says that you’re a filthy old Syrian Jewess.’
William said quickly, ‘The Stag says that you’re a lousy old bitch.’
‘And I know what I’m talking about,’ said the Stag.
Rosette jumped to her feet. ‘What’s this?’ she shrieked, and her face was no longer the colour of mud; it was the colour of red clay. The men did not move. They did not smile or laugh; they sat quite still, leaning forward a little in their seats, watching her.
Rosette had had trouble before, plenty of it, and she knew how to deal with it. But this was different. They didn’t seem drunk, it wasn’t about money and it wasn’t about one of her girls. It was about herself and she didn’t like it.
‘Get out,’ she yelled. ‘Get out unless you want trouble.’ But they did not move.
For a moment she paused, then she stepped quickly from behind her desk and made for the door. But the Stag was there first and when she went for him, Stuffy and William each caught one of her arms from behind.
‘We’ll lock her in,’ said the Stag. ‘Let’s get out.’
Then she really started yelling and the words which she used cannot be written down on paper, for they were terrible words. They poured out of her small fish mouth in one long unbroken high-pitched stream, and little bits of spit and saliva came out with them. Stuffy and William pulled her back by the arms towards one of the big chairs and she fought and yelled like a large fat pig being dragged to the slaughter. They got her in front of the chair and gave her a quick push so that she fell backwards into it. Stuffy nipped across to her desk, bent down quickly and jerked the telephone cord from its connection. The Stag had the door open and all three of them were out of the room before Rosette had time to get up. The Stag had taken the key from the inside of the door, and now he locked it. The three of them stood outside in the passage.
‘Jesus,’ said the Stag. ‘What a woman!’
‘Mad as hell,’ William said. ‘Listen to her.’
They stood outside in the passage and they listened. They heard her yelling, then she began banging on the door, but she went on yelling and her voice was not the voice of a woman, it was the voice of an enraged but articulate bull.
The Stag said, ‘Now quick. The girls. Follow me. And from now on you’ve got to act serious. You’ve got to act serious as hell.’
He ran down the passage towards the dressing room, followed by Stuffy and William. Outside the door he stopped, the other two stopped and they could still hear Rosette yelling from her office. The Stag said, ‘Now don’t say anything. Just act serious as hell,’ and he opened the door and went in.
There were about a dozen girls in the room. They all looked up. They stopped talking and looked up at the Stag, who was standing in the doorway. The Stag clicked his heels and said, ‘This is the Military Police. Les Gendarmes Militaires.’ He said it in a stern voice and with a straight face and he was standing there in the doorway at attention with his cap on his head. Stuffy and William stood behind him.
‘This is the Military Police,’ he said again, and he produced his identification card and held it up between two fingers.
The girls didn’t move or say anything. They stayed still in the middle of what they were doing and they were like a tableau because they stayed so still. One had been pulling on a stocking and she stayed like that, sitting on a chair with her leg out straight and the stocking up to her knee with her hands on the stocking. One had been doing her hair in front of a mirror and when she looked round she kept her hands up to her hair. One was standing up and had been applying lipstick and she raised her eyes to the Stag but still held the lipstick to her mouth. Several were just sitting around on plain wooden chairs, doing nothing, and they raised their heads and turned them to the door, but they went on sitting. Most of them were in some sort of shiny evening dress, one or two were half-clothed, but most of them were in shiny green or shiny blue or shiny red or shiny gold, and when they turned to look at the Stag, they were so still that they were like a tableau.
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 half-clothe
d 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, mon Dieu, what next.’ But that was all and they went on down. In the hall they met the Egyptian who had a flat 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 café. 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.
‘Mesd’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 R.A.F. 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 café 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 café.
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 café.
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 good-looking, 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 good-looking, all of th
em 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.’
William said, ‘It is the chivalry of the military.’