by Roald Dahl
‘Joannis Spirakis,’ and he smiled. The name seemed to have a significance for the old man and he smiled.
‘Where does he live?’ the pilot said. ‘I am sorry to be giving you this trouble.’
‘Where he lives?’
‘Yes.’
The old man considered this too. Then he turned and looked down the street towards the sea. ‘Joannis was living in the house nearest to the water. But his house isn’t any more. The Germanoi hit it this morning. It was early and it was still dark. You can see the house isn’t any more. It isn’t any more.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He is living in the house of Antonina Angelou. That house there with the red colour on the window.’ He pointed down the street.
‘Thank you very much. I will go and call on the boat owner.’
‘Ever since he was a boy,’ the old man went on, ‘Joannis has had a boat. His boat is white with a blue line around the top,’ and he smiled again. ‘But at the moment I do not think he will be in the house. His wife will be there. Anna will be there, with Antonina Angelou. They will be home.’
‘Thank you again. I will go and speak to his wife.’
The pilot got up and started to go down the street, but almost at once the man called after him, ‘Inglese.’
The pilot turned.
‘When you speak to the wife of Joannis — when you speak to Anna… you should remember something.’ He paused, searching for words. His voice wasn’t expressionless any longer and he was looking up at the pilot.
‘Her daughter was in the house when the Germanoi came. It is just something that you should remember.’
The pilot stood on the road waiting.
‘Maria. Her name was Maria.’
‘I will remember,’ answered the pilot. ‘I am sorry.’
He turned away and walked down the hill to the house with the red windows. He knocked and waited. He knocked again louder and waited. There was the noise of footsteps and the door opened.
It was dark in the house and all he could see was that the woman had black hair and that her eyes were black like her hair. She looked at the pilot who was standing out in the sunshine.
‘Health to you,’ he said. ‘I am Inglese.’
She did not move.
‘I am looking for Joannis Spirakis. They say that he owns a boat.’
Still she did not move.
‘Is he in the house?’
‘No.’
‘Perhaps his wife is here. She could know where he is.’
At first there was no answer. Then the woman stepped back and held open the door. ‘Come in, Inglesus,’ she said.
He followed her down the passage and into a back room. The room was dark because there was no glass in the windows — only patches of cardboard. But he could see the old woman who was sitting on the bench with her arms resting on the table. She was tiny. She was small like a child and her face was like a little screwed-up ball of brown paper.
‘Who is it?’ she said in a high voice.
The first woman said, ‘This is an Inglesus. He is looking for your husband because he requires a boat.’
‘Health to you, Inglesus,’ the old woman said.
The pilot stood by the door, just inside the room. The first woman stood by the window and her arms hung down by her sides.
The old woman said, ‘Where are the Germanoi?’ Her voice seemed bigger than her body.
‘Now they are around Lamia.’
‘Lamia.’ She nodded. ‘Soon they will be here. Perhaps tomorrow they will be here. But I do not care. Do you hear me, Inglesus, I do not care.’ She was leaning forward a little in her chair and the pitch of her voice was becoming higher. ‘When they come it will be nothing new. They have already been here. Every day they have been here. Every day they come over and they bom bom bom and you shut your eyes and you open them again and you get up and you go outside and the houses are just dust — and the people.’ Her voice rose and fell.
She paused, breathing quickly, then she spoke more quietly. ‘How many have you killed, Inglesus?’
The pilot put out a hand and leaned against the door to rest his ankle.
‘I have killed some,’ he said quietly.
‘How many?’
‘As many as I could, old woman. We cannot count the number of men.’
‘Kill them all,’ she said softly. ‘Go and kill every man and every woman and every baby. Do you hear me, Inglesus? You must kill them all.’ The little brown ball of paper became smaller and more screwed up. The first one I see I shall kill.’ She paused. ‘And then, Inglesus, and then later, his family will hear that he is dead.’
The pilot did not say anything. She looked up at him and her voice was different. ‘What is it you want Inglesus?’
He said, ‘About the Germanoi, I am sorry. But there is not much we can do.’
‘No,’ she answered, ‘there is nothing. And you?’
‘I am looking for Joannis. I wish to use his boat.’
‘Joannis,’ she said quietly, ‘he is not here. He is out.’
Suddenly she pushed back the bench, got to her feet and went out of the room. ‘Come,’ she said. He followed her down the passage towards the front door. She looked even smaller when she was standing than when she was sitting down and she walked quickly down the passage towards the door and opened it. She stepped out into the sunshine and for the first time he saw how very old she was.
She had no lips. Her mouth was just wrinkled skin like the rest of her face and she screwed up her eyes at the sun and looked up the road.
‘There he is,’ she said. ‘That’s him.’ She pointed at the old man who was sitting beside the drinking trough.
The pilot looked at the man. Then he turned to speak to the old woman, but she had disappeared into the house.
They Shall Not Grow Old
The two of us sat outside the hangar on wooden boxes.
It was noon. The sun was high and the heat of the sun was like a close fire. It was hotter than hell out there by the hangar. We could feel the hot air touching the inside of our lungs when we breathed and we found it better if we almost closed our lips and breathed in quickly; it was cooler that way. The sun was upon our shoulders and upon our backs, and all the time the sweat seeped out from our skin, trickled down our necks, over our chests and down our stomachs. It collected just where our belts were tight around the tops of our trousers and it filtered under the tightness of our belts where the wet was very uncomfortable and made prickly heat on the skin.
Our two Hurricanes were standing a few yards away, each with that patient, smug look which fighter planes have when the engine is not turning, and beyond them the thin black strip of the runway sloped down towards the beaches and towards the sea. The black surface of the runway and the white grassy sand on the sides of the runway shimmered and shimmered in the sun. The heat haze hung like a vapour over the aerodrome.
The Stag looked at his watch.
‘He ought to be back,’ he said.
The two of us were on readiness, sitting there for orders to take off. The Stag moved his feet on the hot ground.
‘He ought to be back,’ he said.
It was two and a half hours since Fin had gone and he certainly should have come back by now. I looked up into the sky and listened. There was the noise of airmen talking beside the petrol wagon and there was the faint pounding of the sea upon the beaches; but there was no sign of an aeroplane. We sat a little while longer without speaking.
‘It looks as though he’s had it,’ I said.
‘Yep,’ said the Stag. ‘It looks like it.’
The Stag got up and put his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts. I got up too. We stood looking northwards into the clear sky, and we shifted our feet on the ground because of the softness of the tar and because of the heat.
‘What was the name of that girl?’ said the Stag without turning his head.
‘Nikki,’ I answered.
The Sta
g sat down again on his wooden box, still with his hands in his pockets and he looked down at the ground between his feet. The Stag was the oldest pilot in the squadron; he was twenty-seven. He had a mass of coarse ginger hair which he never brushed. His face was pale, even after all this time in the sun, and covered with freckles. His mouth was wide and tight closed. He was not tall but his shoulders under his khaki shirt were broad and thick like those of a wrestler. He was a quiet person.
‘He’ll probably be all right,’ he said, looking up. ‘And anyway, I’d like to meet the Vichy Frenchman who can get Fin.’
We were in Palestine fighting the Vichy French in Syria. We were at Haifa, and three hours before the Stag, Fin and I had gone on readiness. Fin had flown off in response to an urgent call from the Navy, who had phoned up and said that there were two French destroyers moving out of Beyrouth harbour. Please go at once and see where they are going, said the Navy. Just fly up the coast and have a look and come back quickly and tell us where they are going.
So Fin had flown off in his Hurricane. The time had gone by and he had not returned. We knew that there was no longer much hope. If he hadn’t been shot down, he would have run out of petrol some time ago.
I looked down and I saw his blue R.A.F. cap which was lying on the ground where he had thrown it as he ran to his aircraft, and I saw the oil stains on top of the cap and the shabby bent peak. It was difficult now to believe that he had gone. He had been in Egypt, in Libya and in Greece. On the aerodrome and in the mess we had had him with us all of the time. He was gay and tall and full of laughter, this Fin, with black hair and a long straight nose which he used to stroke up and down with the tip of his finger. He had a way of listening to you while you were telling a story, leaning back in his chair with his face to the ceiling but with his eyes looking down on the ground, and it was only last night at supper that he had suddenly said, ‘You know, I wouldn’t mind marrying Nikki. I think she’s a good girl.’
The Stag was sitting opposite him at the time, eating baked beans.
‘You mean just occasionally,’ he said.
Nikki was in a cabaret in Haifa.
‘No,’ said Fin. ‘Cabaret girls make fine wives. They are never unfaithful. There is no novelty for them in being unfaithful; that would be like going back to the old job.’
The Stag had looked up from his beans. ‘Don’t be such a bloody fool,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t really marry Nikki.’
‘Nikki,’ said Fin with great seriousness, ‘comes of a fine family. She is a good girl. She never uses a pillow when she sleeps. Do you know why she never uses a pillow when she sleeps?’
‘No.’
The others at the table were listening now. Everyone was listening to Fin talking about Nikki.
‘Well, when she was very young she was engaged to be married to an officer in the French Navy. She loved him greatly. Then one day when they were sunbathing together on the beach he happened to mention to her that he never used a pillow when he slept. It was just one of those little things which people say to each other for the sake of conversation. But Nikki never forgot it. From that time onwards she began to practise sleeping without a pillow. One day the French officer was run over by a truck and killed; but although to her it was very uncomfortable, she still went on sleeping without a pillow to preserve the memory of her lover.’
Fin took a mouthful of beans and chewed them slowly. ‘It is a sad story,’ he said. ‘It shows that she is a good girl. I think I would like to marry her.’
That was what Fin had said last night at supper. Now he was gone and I wondered what little thing Nikki would do in his memory.
The sun was hot on my back and I turned instinctively in order to take the heat upon the other side of my body. As I turned, I saw Carmel and the town of Haifa. I saw the steep pale-green slope of the mountain as it dropped down towards the sea, and below it I saw the town and the bright colours of the houses shining in the sun. The houses with their whitewashed walls covered the sides of Carmel and the red roofs of the houses were like a rash on the face of the mountain.
Walking slowly towards us from the grey corrugated iron hangar, came the three men who were the next crew on readiness. They had their yellow Mae Wests slung over their shoulders and they came walking slowly towards us, holding their helmets in their hands as they came.
When they were close, the Stag said, ‘Fin’s had it,’ and they said, ‘Yes, we know.’ They sat down on the wooden boxes which we had been using, and immediately the sun was upon their shoulders and upon their backs and they began to sweat. The Stag and I walked away.
The next day was a Sunday and in the morning we flew up the Lebanon valley to ground-strafe an aerodrome called Rayak. We flew past Hermon who had a hat of snow upon his head, and we came down out of the sun on to Rayak and on to the French bombers on the aerodrome and began our strafing. I remember that as we flew past, skimming low over the ground, the doors of the French bombers opened. I remember seeing a whole lot of women in white dresses running out across the aerodrome; I remember particularly their white dresses.
You see, it was a Sunday and the French pilots had asked their ladies out from Beyrouth to look over the bombers. The Vichy pilots had said, come out on Sunday morning and we will show you our aeroplanes. It was a very Vichy French thing for them to do.
So when we started shooting, they all tumbled out and began to run across the aerodrome in their white Sunday dresses.
I remember hearing Monkey’s voice over the radio, saying, ‘Give them a chance, give them a chance,’ and the whole squadron wheeled around and circled the aerodrome once while the women ran over the grass in every direction. One of them stumbled and fell twice and one of them was limping and being helped by a man, but we gave them time. I remember watching the small bright flashes of a machine gun on the ground and thinking that they should at least have stopped their shooting while we were waiting for their white-dressed women to get out of the way.
That was the day after Fin had gone. The next day the Stag and I sat once more at readiness on the wooden boxes outside the hangar. Paddy, a big fair-haired boy, had taken Fin’s place and was sitting with us.
It was noon. The sun was high and the heat of the sun was like a close fire. The sweat ran down our necks, down inside our shirts, over our chests and stomachs, and we sat there waiting for the time when we would be relieved. The Stag was sewing the strap on to his helmet with a needle and cotton and telling of how he had seen Nikki the night before in Haifa and of how he had told her about Fin.
Suddenly we heard the noise of an aeroplane. The Stag stopped his talking and we all looked up. The noise was coming from the north, and it grew louder and louder as the aeroplane flew closer, and then the Stag said suddenly, ‘It’s a Hurricane.’
The next moment it was circling the aerodrome, lowering its wheels to land.
‘Who is it?’ said the fair-haired Paddy. ‘No one’s gone out this morning.’
Then, as it glided past us on to the runway, we saw the number on the tail of the machine, H.4427, and we knew that it was Fin.
We were standing up now, watching the machine as it taxied towards us, and when it came up close and swung round for parking we saw Fin in the cockpit. He waved his hand at us, grinned and got out. We ran up and shouted at him, ‘Where’ve you been?’ ‘Where in the hell have you been?’ ‘Did you force-land and get away again?’ ‘Did you find a woman in Beyrouth?’ ‘Fin, where in the hell have you been?’
Others were coming up and crowding around him now, fitters and riggers and the men who drove the fire tender, and they all waited to hear what Fin would say. He stood there pulling off his helmet, pushing back his black hair with his hand, and he was so astonished at our behaviour that at first he merely looked at us and did not speak. Then he laughed and he said, ‘What in the hell’s the matter? What’s the matter with all of you?’
‘Where have you been?’ we shouted. ‘Where have you been for two days?’
Up
on the face of Fin there was a great and enormous astonishment. He looked quickly at his watch.
‘Five past twelve,’ he said. ‘I left at eleven, one hour and five minutes ago. Don’t be a lot of damn fools. I must go and report quickly. The Navy will want to know that those destroyers are still in the harbour at Beyrouth.’
He started to walk away; I caught his arm.
‘Fin,’ I said quietly, ‘you’ve been away since the day before yesterday. What’s the matter with you?’
He looked at me and laughed.
‘I’ve seen you organize much better jokes than this one,’ he said. ‘It isn’t so funny. It isn’t a bit funny.’ And he walked away.
We stood there, the Stag, Paddy and I, the fitters, the riggers and the men who drove the fire-engine, watching Fin as he walked away. We looked at each other, not knowing what to say or to think, understanding nothing, knowing nothing except that Fin had been serious when he spoke and that what he said he had believed to be true. We knew this because we knew Fin, and we knew it because when one has been together as we had been together, then there is never any doubting of anything that anyone says when he is talking about his flying; there can only be a doubting of one’s self. These men were doubting themselves, standing there in the sun doubting themselves, and the Stag was standing by the wing of Fin’s machine peeling off with his fingers little flakes of paint which had dried up and cracked in the sun.
Someone said, ‘Well, I’ll be buggered,’ and the men turned and started to walk quietly back to their jobs. The next three pilots on readiness came walking slowly towards us from the grey corrugated-iron hangar, walking slowly under the heat of the sun and swinging their helmets in their hands as they came. The Stag, Paddy and I walked over to the pilots’ mess to have a drink and lunch.
The mess was a small white wooden building with a verandah. Inside there were two rooms, one a sitting room with armchairs and magazines and a hole in the wall through which you could buy drinks, and the other a dining room with one long wooden table. In the sitting room we found Fin talking to Monkey, our C.O. The other pilots were sitting around listening and everybody was drinking beer. We knew that it was really a serious business in spite of the beer and the armchairs; that Monkey was doing what he had to do and doing it in the only way possible. Monkey was a rare man, tall with a handsome face, an Italian bullet wound in his leg and a casual friendly efficiency. He never laughed out loud, he just choked and grunted deep in his throat.