by Roald Dahl
Then came the explosion. There was a blinding white flash and a hollow crumph as though someone had burst a blown-up paper bag; then there was nothing but flames and thick whitish-grey smoke. The flames were coming up through the floor and through the sides of the cockpit; the smoke was so thick that it was difficult to see and almost impossible to breathe. She became terrified and panicky because he was still sitting there at the controls, flying the machine, fighting to keep it on an even keel, turning the wheel first to one side, then to the other, and suddenly there was a blast of cold air and she had a vague impression of urgent crouching figures scrambling past her and throwing themselves away from the burning aircraft.
Now the whole thing was a mass of flames and through the smoke she could see him still sitting there, fighting with the wheel while the crew got out, and as he did so he held one arm up over his face because the heat was so great. She rushed forward and took him by the shoulders and shook him and shouted, ‘Come on, quickly, you must get out, quickly, quickly.’
Then she saw that his head had fallen forward upon his chest and that he was limp and unconscious. Frantically she tried to pull him out of the seat and towards the door, but he was too limp and heavy. The smoke was filling her lungs and her throat so that she began to retch and gasp for breath. She was hysterical now, fighting against death and against everything, and she managed to get her hands under his arms and drag him a little way towards the door. But it was impossible to get him farther. His legs were tangled around the wheel and there was a buckle somewhere which she could not undo. She knew then that it was impossible, that there was no hope because of the smoke and the fire and because there was no time; and suddenly all the strength drained out of her body. She fell down on top of him and began to cry as she had never cried before.
Then came the spin and the fierce rushing dive downwards and she was thrown forward into the fire so that the last she knew was the bright yellow of the flames and the smell of the burning.
Her eyes were closed and her head was resting against the back of the chair. Her hands were clutching the edges of the blankets as though she were trying to pull them tighter around her body and her long hair fell down over her shoulders.
Outside the moon was low in the sky. The frost lay heavier than ever on the fields and on the hedges and there was no noise anywhere. Then from far away in the south came a deep gentle rumble which grew and grew and became louder and louder until soon the whole sky was filled with the noise and the singing of those who were coming back.
But the woman who sat by the window never moved. She had been dead for some time.
YESTERDAY WAS BEAUTIFUL
* * *
First published in Over to You (1945)
He bent down and rubbed his ankle where it had been sprained with the walking so that he couldn’t see the ankle bone. Then he straightened up and looked around him. He felt in his pocket for a packet of cigarettes, took one out and lit it. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and he stood in the middle of the street looking around him.
‘Dammit, there must be someone here,’ he said aloud, and he felt better when he heard the sound of his voice.
He walked on, limping, walking on the toe of his injured foot, and when he turned the next corner he saw the sea and the way the road curved around between the ruined houses and went on down the hill to the edge of the water. The sea was calm and black. He could clearly make out the line of hills on the mainland in the distance and he estimated that it was about eight miles away. He bent down again to rub his ankle. ‘God dammit,’ he said. ‘There must be some of them still alive.’ But there was no noise anywhere, and there was a stillness about the buildings and about the whole village which made it seem as though the place had been dead for a thousand years.
Suddenly he heard a little noise as though someone had moved his feet on the gravel and when he looked around he saw the old man. He was sitting in the shade on a stone beside a water trough, and it seemed strange that he hadn’t seen him before.
‘Health to you,’ said the pilot. ‘Ghia sou.’
He had learned Greek from the people up around Larissa and Yanina.
The old man looked up slowly, turning his head but not moving his shoulders. He had a greyish-white beard. He had a cloth cap on his head and he wore a shirt which had no collar. It was a grey shirt with thin black stripes. He looked at the pilot and he was like a blind man who looks towards something but does not see.
‘Old man, I am glad to see you. Are there no other people in the village?’
There was no answer.
The pilot sat down on the edge of the water trough to rest his ankle.
‘I am Inglese,’ he said. ‘I am an aviator who has been shot down and jumped out by the parachute. I am Inglese.’
The old man moved his head slowly up and down. ‘Inglesus,’ he said quietly. ‘You are Inglesus.’
‘Yes, I am looking for someone who has a boat. I wish to go back to the mainland.’
There was a pause, and when he spoke, the old man seemed to be talking in his sleep. ‘They come over all the time,’ he said. ‘The Germanoi they come over all the time.’ The voice had no expression. He looked up into the sky, then he turned and looked behind him in the sky. ‘They will come again today, Inglese. They will come again soon.’ There was no anxiety in his voice. There was no expression whatsoever. ‘I do not understand why they come to us,’ he added.
The pilot said, ‘Perhaps not today. It is late now. I think they have finished for today.’
‘I do not understand why they come to us, Inglese. There is no one here.’
The pilot said, ‘I am looking for a man who has a boat who can take me across to the mainland. Is there a boat owner now in the village?’
‘A boat?’
‘Yes.’ There was a pause while the question was considered.
‘There is such a man.’
‘Could I find him? Where does he live?’
‘There is a man in the village who owns a boat.’
‘Please tell me what is his name?’
The old man looked up again at the sky. ‘Joannis is the one here who has a boat.’
‘Joannis who?’
‘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 expression-less 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 r
emember,’ 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.
A PIECE OF CAKE
* * *
Revised and retitled version of ‘Shot Down over Libya’, published in Over to You (1945)
I do not remember much of it; not beforehand anyway; not until it happened.
There was the landing at Fouka, where the Blenheim boys were helpful and gave us tea while we were being refuelled. I remember the quietness of the Blenheim boys, how they came into the mess-tent to get some tea and sat down to drink it without saying anything; how they got up and went out when they had finished drinking and still they did not say anything. And I knew that each one was holding himself together because the going was not very good right then. They were having to go out too often, and there were no replacements coming along.
We thanked them for the tea and went out to see if they had finished refuelling our Gladiators. I remember that there was a wind blowing which made the windsock stand out straight, like a signpost, and the sand was blowing up around our legs and making a rustling noise as it swished against the tents, and the tents flapped in the wind so that they were like canvas men clapping their hands.
‘Bomber boys unhappy,’ Peter said.
‘Not unhappy,’ I answered.
‘Well, they’re browned off.’
‘No. They’ve had it, that’s all. But they’ll keep going. You can see they’re trying to keep going.’
Our two old Gladiators were standing beside each other in the sand and the airmen in their khaki shirts and shorts seemed still to be busy with the refuelling. I was wearing a thin white cotton flying suit and Peter had on a blue one. It wasn’t necessary to fly with anything warmer.
Peter said, ‘How far away is it?’
‘Twenty-one miles beyond Charing Cross,’ I answered, ‘on the right side of the road.’ Charing Cross was where the desert road branched north to Mersah Matruh. The Italian Army was outside Mersah, and they were doing pretty well. It was about the only time, so far as I know, that the Italians have done pretty well. Their morale goes up and down like a sensitive altimeter, and right then it was at forty thousand because the Axis was on top of the world. We hung around waiting for the refuelling to finish.
Peter said, ‘It’s a piece of cake.’
‘Yes. It ought to be easy.’
We separated and I climbed into my cockpit. I have always remembered the face of the airman who helped me to strap in. He was oldish, about forty, and bald except for a neat patch of golden hair at the back of his head. His face was all wrinkles, his eyes were like my grandmother’s eyes, and he looked as though he had spent his life helping to strap in pilots who never came back. He stood on the wing pulling my straps and said, ‘Be careful. There isn’t any sense not being careful.’
‘Piece of cake,’ I said.
‘Like hell.’
‘Really. It isn’t anything at all. It’s a piece of cake.’
I don’t remember much about the next bit; I only remember about later on. I suppose we took off from Fouka and flew west towards Mersah, and I suppose we flew at about eight hundred feet. I suppose we saw the sea to starboard, and I suppose – no, I am certain – that it was blue and that it was beautiful, especially where it rolled up on to the sand and made a long thick white line east and west as far as you could see. I suppose we flew over Charing Cross and flew on for twenty-one miles to where they had said it would be, but I do not know. I know only that there was trouble, lots and lots of trouble, and I know that we had turned round and were coming back when the trouble got worse. The biggest trouble of all was that I was too low to bale out, and it is from that point on that my memory comes back to me. I remember the dipping of the nose of the aircraft and I remember looking down the nose of the machine at the ground and seeing a little clump of camel-thorn growing there all by itself. I remember seeing some rocks lying in the sand beside the camel-thorn, and the camel-thorn and the sand and the rocks leaped out of the ground and came to me. I remember that v
ery clearly.
Then there was a small gap of not-remembering. It might have been one second or it might have been thirty; I do not know. I have an idea that it was very short, a second perhaps, and next I heard a crumph on the right as the starboard wing tank caught fire, then another crumph on the left as the port tank did the same. To me that was not significant, and for a while I sat still, feeling comfortable, but a little drowsy. I couldn’t see with my eyes, but that was not significant either. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Not until I felt the hotness around my legs. At first it was only a warmness and that was all right too, but all at once it was a hotness, a very stinging scorching hotness up and down the sides of each leg.
I knew that the hotness was unpleasant, but that was all I knew. I disliked it, so I curled my legs up under the seat and waited. I think there was something wrong with the telegraph system between the body and the brain. It did not seem to be working very well. Somehow it was a bit slow in telling the brain all about it and in asking for instructions. But I believe a message eventually got through, saying, ‘Down here there is a great hotness. What shall we do? (Signed) Left Leg and Right Leg.’ For a long time there was no reply. The brain was figuring the matter out.
Then slowly, word by word, the answer was tapped over the wires. ‘The – plane – is – burning. Get – out – repeat – get – out – get – out.’ The order was relayed to the whole system, to all the muscles in the legs, arms and body, and the muscles went to work. They tried their best; they pushed a little and pulled a little, and they strained greatly, but it wasn’t any good. Up went another telegram, ‘Can’t get out. Something holding us in.’ The answer to this one took even longer in arriving, so I just sat there waiting for it to come, and all the time the hotness increased. Something was holding me down and it was up to the brain to find out what it was. Was it giants’ hands pressing on my shoulders, or heavy stones or houses or steam rollers or filing cabinets or gravity or was it ropes? Wait a minute. Ropes – ropes. The message was beginning to come through. It came very slowly. ‘Your – straps. Undo – your – straps.’ My arms received the message and went to work. They tugged at the straps, but they wouldn’t undo. They tugged again and again, a little feebly, but as hard as they could, and it wasn’t any use. Back went the message, ‘How do we undo the straps?’