Over to You

by Roald Dahl

  Slowly the machine began to sink, dipping its nose under the water and lifting its tail into the air. But there was no sign of the crew. Suddenly, without any warning, the rear gun started to fire. They opened up with their rear gun and the bullets made small jagged holes in my starboard wing. I swerved away and I remember shouting at them. I slid back the hood of the cockpit and shouted, ‘You lousy brave bastards. I hope you drown.’ The bomber sank soon backwards.

  When I got back they were all standing around outside the hangars counting the score, and Katina was sitting on a box with tears rolling down her cheeks. But she was not crying, and Fin was kneeling down beside her, talking to her in English, quietly and gently, forgetting that she could not understand.

  We lost one third of our Hurricanes in that battle, but the Germans lost more.

  The Doc was dressing someone who had been burnt and he looked up and said, ‘You should have heard the Greeks on the aerodrome cheering as the bombers fell out of the sky.’

  As we stood around talking, a truck drove up and a Greek got out and said that he had some pieces of body inside. ‘This is the watch,’ he said, ‘that was on the arm.’ It was a silver wrist watch with a luminous dial, and on the back there were some initials. We did not look inside the truck.

  Now we had, I think, nine Hurricanes left.

  That evening a very senior R.A.F. officer came out from Athens and said, ‘Tomorrow at dawn you will all fly to Megara. It is about ten miles down the coast. There is a small field there on which you can land. The Army is working on it throughout the night. They have two big rollers there and they are rolling it smooth. The moment you land you must hide your aircraft in the olive grove which is on the south side of the field. The ground staff are going farther south to Argos and you can join them later, but you may be able to operate from Megara for a day or two.’

  Fin said, ‘Where’s Katina? Doc, you must find Katina and see that she gets to Argos safely.’

  The Doc said, ‘I will,’ and we knew that we could trust him.

  At dawn the next morning, when it was still dark, we took off and flew to the little field at Megara, ten miles away. We landed and hid our Hurricanes in the olive grove and broke off branches of the trees and put them over the aircraft. Then we sat down on the slope of a small hill and waited for orders.

  As the sun rose up over the mountains we looked across the field and saw a mass of Greek villagers coming down from the village of Megara, coming down towards our field. There were many hundreds of them, women and children mostly, and they all came down towards our field, hurrying as they came.

  Fin said, ‘What the hell,’ and we sat up on our little hill and watched, wondering what they were going to do.

  They dispersed all around the edge of the field and gathered armfuls of heather and bracken. They carried it out on to the field, and forming themselves into long lines, they began to scatter the heather and the bracken over the grass. They were camouflaging our landing field. The rollers, when they had rolled out the ground and made it flat for landing, had left marks which were easily visible from above, and so the Greeks came out of their village, every man, woman and child, and began to put matters right. To this day I do not know who told them to do it. They stretched in a long line across the field, walking forward slowly and scattering the heather, and Fin and I went out and walked among them.

  They were old women and old men mostly, very small and very sad-looking, with dark, deeply wrinkled faces and they worked slowly scattering the heather. As we walked by, they would stop their work and smile, saying something in Greek which we could not understand. One of the children gave Fin a small pink flower and he did not know what to do with it, but walked around carrying it in his hand.

  Then we went back to the slope of the hill and waited. Soon the field telephone buzzed. It was the very senior officer speaking. He said that someone must fly back to Elevsis at once and collect important messages and money. He said also that all of us must leave our little field at Megara and go to Argos that evening. The others said that they would wait until I came back with the money so that we could all fly to Argos together.

  At the same time, someone had told the two Army men who were still rolling our field, to destroy their rollers so that the Germans would not get them. I remember, as I was getting into my Hurricane, seeing the two huge rollers charging towards each other across the field and I remember seeing the Army men jump aside just before they collided. There was a great crash and I saw all the Greeks who were scattering heather stop in their work and look up. For a moment they stood rock still, looking at the rollers. Then one of them started to run. It was an old woman and she started to run back to the village as fast as she could, shouting something as she went, and instantly every man, woman and child in the field seemed to take fright and ran after her. I wanted to get out and run beside them and explain to them; to say I was sorry but that there was nothing else we could do. I wanted to tell them that we would not forget them and that one day we would come back. But it was no use. Bewildered and frightened, they ran back to their homes, and they did not stop running until they were out of sight, not even the old men.

  I took off and flew to Elevsis. I landed on a dead aerodrome. There was not a soul to be seen. I parked my Hurricane, and as I walked over to the hangars the bombers came over once again. I hid in a ditch until they had finished their work, then got up and walked over to the small operations room. The telephone was still on the table, so for some reason I picked up the receiver and said, ‘Hallo.’

  A rather German voice at the other end answered.

  I said, ‘Can you hear me?’ and the voice said:

  ‘Yes, yes, I can hear you.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘listen carefully.’

  ‘Yes, continue please.’

  ‘This is the R.A.F. speaking. And one day we will come back, do you understand. One day we will come back.’

  Then I tore the telephone from its socket and threw it through the glass of the closed window. When I went outside there was a small man in civilian clothes standing near the door. He had a revolver in one hand and a small bag in the other.

  ‘Do you want anything?’ he said in quite good English.

  I said, ‘Yes, I want important messages and papers which I am to carry back to Argos.’

  ‘Here you are,’ he said, as he handed me the bag. ‘And good luck.’

  I flew back to Megara. There were two Greek destroyers standing offshore, burning and sinking. I circled our field and the others taxied out, took off and we all flew off towards Argos.

  The landing ground at Argos was just a kind of small field. It was surrounded by thick olive groves into which we taxied our aircraft for hiding. I don’t know how long the field was, but it was not easy to land upon it. You had to come in low hanging on the prop, and the moment you touched down you had to start putting on brake, jerking it on and jerking it off again the moment she started to nose over. But only one man overshot and crashed.

  The ground staff had arrived already and as we got out of our aircraft Katina came running up with a basket of black olives, offering them to us and pointing to our stomachs, indicating that we must eat.

  Fin bent down and ruffled her hair with his hand. He said, ‘Katina, one day we must go into town and buy you a new dress.’ She smiled at him but did not understand and we all started to eat black olives.

  Then I looked around and saw that the wood was full of aircraft. Around every corner there was an aeroplane hidden in the trees, and when we asked about it we learned that the Greeks had brought the whole of their air force down to Argos and parked them in that little wood. They were peculiar ancient models, not one of them less than five years old, and I don’t know how many dozen there were there.

  That night we slept under the trees. We wrapped Katina up in a large flying suit and gave her a flying helmet for a pillow, and after she had gone to sleep we sat around eating black olives and drinking resinato out of an en
ormous cask. But we were very tired, and soon we fell asleep.

  All the next day we saw the truckloads of troops moving down the road towards the sea, and as often as we could we took off and flew above them.

  The Germans kept coming over and bombing the road near by, but they had not yet spotted our airfield.

  Later in the day we were told that every available Hurricane was to take off at six p.m. to protect an important shipping move, and the nine machines, which were all that were now left, were refuelled and got ready. At three minutes to six we began to taxi out of the olive grove on to the field.

  The first two machines took off, but just as they left the ground something black swept down out of the sky and shot them both down in flames. I looked around and saw at least fifty Messerschmitt 110s circling our field, and even as I looked some of them turned and came down upon the remaining seven Hurricanes which were waiting to take off.

  There was no time to do anything. Each one of our aircraft was hit in that first swoop, although funnily enough only one of the pilots was hurt. It was impossible now to take off, so we jumped out of our aircraft, hauled the wounded pilot out of his cockpit and ran with him back to the slit trenches, to the wonderful big, deep zigzagging slit trenches which had been dug by the Greeks.

  The Messerschmitts took their time. There was no opposition either from the ground or from the air, except that Fin was firing his revolver.

  It is not a pleasant thing to be ground-strafed especially if they have cannon in their wings; and unless one has a deep slit trench in which to lie, there is no future in it. For some reason, perhaps because they thought it was a good joke, the German pilots went for the slit trenches before they bothered about the aircraft. The first ten minutes was spent rushing madly around the corners of the trenches so as not to be caught in a trench which ran parallel with the line of flight of the attacking aircraft. It was a hectic, dreadful ten minutes, with everyone shouting ‘Here comes another,’ and scrambling and rushing to get around the corner into the other section of the trench.

  Then the Germans went for the Hurricanes and at the same time for the mass of old Greek aircraft parked all around the olive grove, and one by one, methodically and systematically, they set them on fire. The noise was terrific, and everywhere — in the trees, on the rocks and on the grass — the bullets splattered.

  I remember peeping cautiously over the top of our trench and seeing a small white flower growing just a few inches away from my nose. It was pure white and it had three petals. I remember looking past it and seeing three of the Germans diving on my own Hurricane which was parked on the other side of the field and I remember shouting at them, although I do not know what I said.

  Then suddenly I saw Katina. She was running out from the far corner of the aerodrome, running right out into the middle of this mass of blazing guns and burning aircraft, running as fast as she could. Once she stumbled, but she scrambled to her feet again and went on running. Then she stopped and stood looking up, raising her fists at the planes as they flew past.

  Now as she stood there, I remember seeing one of the Messerschmitts turning and coming in low straight towards her and I remember thinking that she was so small that she could not be hit. I remember seeing the spurts of flame from his guns as he came, and I remember seeing the child, for a split second, standing quite still, facing the machine. I remember that the wind was blowing in her hair.

  Then she was down.

  The next moment I shall never forget. On every side, as if by magic, men appeared out of the ground. They swarmed out of their trenches and like a crazy mob poured on to the aerodrome, running towards the tiny little bundle which lay motionless in the middle of the field. They ran fast, crouching as they went, and I remember jumping up out of my slit trench and joining with them. I remember thinking of nothing at all and watching the boots of the man in front of me, noticing that he was a little bow-legged and that his blue trousers were much too long.

  I remember seeing Fin arrive first, followed closely by a sergeant called Wishful, and I remember seeing the two of them pick up Katina and start running with her back towards the trenches. I saw her leg, which was just a lot of blood and bones, and I saw her chest where the blood was spurting out on to her white print dress; I saw, for a moment, her face, which was white as the snow on top of Olympus.

  I ran beside Fin, and as he ran, he kept saying, ‘The lousy bastards, the lousy, bloody bastards’; and then as we got to our trench I remember looking round and finding that there was no longer any noise or shooting. The Germans had gone.

  Fin said, ‘Where’s the Doc?’ and suddenly there he was, standing beside us, looking at Katina — looking at her face.

  The Doc gently touched her wrist and without looking up he said, ‘She is not alive.’

  They put her down under a little tree, and when I turned away I saw on all sides the fires of countless burning aircraft. I saw my own Hurricane burning near by and I stood staring hopelessly into the flames as they danced around the engine and licked against the metal of the wings.

  I stood staring into the flames, and as I stared, the fire became a deeper red and I saw beyond it not a tangled mass of smoking wreckage, but the flames of a hotter and intenser fire which now burned and smouldered in the hearts of the people of Greece.

  Still I stared, and as I stared I saw in the centre of the fire, whence the red flames sprang, a bright, white heat, shining bright and without any colour.

  As I stared, the brightness diffused and became soft and yellow like sunlight, and through it, beyond it, I saw a young child standing in the middle of a field with the sunlight shining in her hair. For a moment she stood looking up into the sky, which was clear and blue and without any clouds; then she turned and looked towards me, and as she turned I saw that the front of her white print dress was stained deep red, the colour of blood.

  Then there was no longer any fire or any flames and I saw before me only the glowing twisted wreckage of a burned-out plane. I must have been standing there for quite a long time.

  Yesterday was Beautiful

  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?’