War

by Roald Dahl

  He looked again at the German, hanging there in his straps with his legs apart, his hands above his head grasping the cords of the parachute. He seemed to be a small man, thickly built and by no means young. The German was looking at him too. He kept looking, and when his body swung around the other way, he turned his head, looking over his shoulder.

  So they went on down. Both men were watching each other, thinking about what would happen soon, and the German was the king because he was landing in his own territory. The pilot of the Spitfire was coming down in enemy country; he would be taken prisoner, or he would be killed, or he would kill the German, and if he did that, he would escape. I will escape anyway, he thought. I’m sure I can run faster than the German. He does not look as though he could run very fast. I will race him across the fields and get away.

  The ground was close now. There were not many seconds to go. He saw that the German would almost certainly land in the same field as he, the field with the cows. He looked down to see what the field was like and whether the hedges were thick and whether there was a gate in the hedge, and as he looked, he saw below him in the field a small pond, and there was a small stream running through the pond. It was a cow-drinking pond, muddy round the edges and muddy in the water. The pond was right below him. He was no more than the height of a horse above it and he was dropping fast; he was dropping right into the middle of the pond. Quickly he grasped the cords above his head and tried to spill the parachute to one side so that he would change direction, but he was too late; it wasn’t any good. All at once something brushed the surface of his brain and the top of his stomach, and the fear which he had forgotten in the fighting was upon him again. He saw the pond and the black surface of the water of the pond, and the pond was not a pond, and the water was not water; it was a small black hole in the surface of the earth which went on down and down for miles and miles, with steep smooth sides like the sides of a ship, and it was so deep that when you fell into it, you went on falling and falling and you fell for ever. He saw the mouth of the hole and the deepness of it, and he was only a small brown pebble which someone had picked up and thrown into the air so that it would fall into the hole. He was a pebble which someone had picked up in the grass of the field. That was all he was and now he was falling and the hole was below him.

  Splash. He hit the water. He went through the water and his feet hit the bottom of the pond. They sank into the mud on the bottom and his head went under the water, but it came up again and he was standing with the water up to his shoulders. The parachute was on top of him; his head was tangled in a mass of cords and white silk and he pulled at them with his hands, first this way and then that, but it only got worse, and the fear got worse because the white silk was covering his head so that he could see nothing but a mass of white cloth and a tangle of cords. Then he tried to move towards the bank, but his feet were stuck in the mud; he had sunk up to his knees in the mud. So he fought the parachute and the tangled cords of the parachute, pulling at them with his hands and trying to get them clear of his head; and as he did so he heard the sound of footsteps running on the grass. He heard the noise of the footsteps coming closer and the German must have jumped, because there was a splash and he was knocked over by the weight of a man’s body.

  He was under the water, and instinctively he began to struggle. But his feet were still stuck in the mud, the man was on top of him and there were hands around his neck holding him under and squeezing his neck with strong fingers. He opened his eyes and saw brown water. He noticed the bubbles in the water, small bright bubbles rising slowly upwards in the brown water. There was no noise or shouting or anything else, but only the bright bubbles moving upwards in the water, and suddenly, as he watched them, his mind became clear and calm like a sunny day. I won’t struggle, he thought. There is no point in struggling, for when there is a black cloud in the sky, it is bound to rain.

  He relaxed his body and all the muscles in his body because he had no farther wish to struggle. How nice it is not to struggle, he thought. There is no point in struggling. I was a fool to have struggled so much and for so long; I was a fool to have prayed for the sun when there was a black cloud in the sky. I should have prayed for rain; I should have shouted for rain. I should have shouted, Let it rain, let it rain in solid sheets and I will not care. Then it would have been easy. It would have been so easy then. I have struggled for five years and now I don’t have to do it any more. This is so much better; this is ever so much better, because there is a wood somewhere that I wish to walk through, and you cannot walk struggling through a wood. There is a girl somewhere that I wish to sleep with, and you cannot sleep struggling with a girl. You cannot do anything struggling; especially you cannot live struggling, and so now I am going to do all the things that I want to do, and there will be no more struggling.

  See how calm and lovely it is like this. See how sunny it is and what a beautiful field this is, with the cows and the little pond and the green hedges with primroses growing in the hedges. Nothing will worry me any more now, nothing nothing nothing; not even that man splashing in the water of the pond over there. He seems very puffed and out of breath. He seems to be dragging something out of the pond, something heavy. Now he’s got it to the side and he’s pulling it up on to the grass. How funny; it’s a body. It’s a body of a man. As a matter of fact, I think it’s me. Yes, it is me. I know it is because of that smudge of yellow paint on the front of my flying suit. Now he’s kneeling down, searching in my pockets, taking out my money and my identification card. He’s found my pipe and the letter I got this morning from my mother. He’s taking off my watch. Now he’s getting up. He’s going away. He’s going to leave my body behind, lying on the grass beside the pond. He’s walking quickly away across the field towards the gate. How wet and excited he looks. He ought to relax a bit. He ought to relax like me. He can’t be enjoying himself that way. I think I will tell him.

  ‘Why don’t you relax a bit?’

  Goodness, how he jumped when I spoke to him. And his face; just look at his face. I’ve never seen a man look as frightened as that. He’s starting to run. He keeps looking back over his shoulder, but he keeps on running. But just look at his face; just look how unhappy and frightened he is. I do not want to go with him. I think I’ll leave him. I think I’ll stay here for a bit. I think I’ll go along the hedges and find some primroses, and if I am lucky I may find some white violets. Then I will go to sleep. I will go to sleep in the sun.

  SOMEONE LIKE YOU

  * * *

  First published in Town & Country (November 1945)

  ‘Beer?’

  ‘Yes, beer.’

  I gave the order and the waiter brought the bottles and two glasses. We poured out our own, tipping the glasses and holding the tops of the bottles close to the glass.

  ‘Cheers,’ I said.

  He nodded. We lifted our glasses and drank.

  It was five years since I had seen him, and during that time he had been fighting the war. He had been fighting it right from the beginning up to now and I saw at once how he had changed. From being a young, bouncing boy, he had become someone old and wise and gentle. He had become gentle like a wounded child. He had become old like a tired man of seventy years. He had become so different and he had changed so much that at first it was embarrassing for both of us and it was not easy to know what to say.

  He had been flying in France in the early days and he was in Britain during the Battle. He was in the Western Desert when we had nothing and he was in Greece and Crete. He was in Syria and he was at Habbaniya during the rebellion. He was at Alamein. He had been flying in Sicily and in Italy and then he had gone back and flown again from England. Now he was an old man.

  He was small, not more than five feet six, and he had a pale, wide-open face which did not hide anything, and a sharp pointed chin. His eyes were bright and dark. They were never still unless they were looking into your own. His hair was black and untidy. There was a wisp of it always hanging
down over his forehead; he kept pushing it back with his hand.

  For a while we were awkward and did not speak. He was sitting opposite me at the table, leaning forward a little, drawing lines on the dew of the cold beer glass with his finger. He was looking at the glass, pretending to concentrate upon what he was doing, and to me it seemed as though he had something to say, but that he did not know how to say it. I sat there and picked nuts out of the plate and munched them noisily, pretending that I did not care about anything, not even about making a noise while eating.

  Then without stopping his drawing on the glass and without looking up, he said quietly and very slowly, ‘Oh God, I wish I was a waiter or a whore or something.’

  He picked up his glass and drank the beer slowly and all at once, in two swallows. I knew now that there was something on his mind and I knew that he was gathering courage so that he could speak.

  ‘Let’s have another,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, let’s have a whisky.’

  ‘All right, whisky.’

  I ordered two double Scotches and some soda, and we poured the soda into the Scotch and drank. He picked up his glass and drank, put it down, picked it up again and drank some more. As he put down the glass the second time, he leaned forward and quite suddenly he began to talk.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘you know I keep thinking during a raid, when we are running over the target, just as we are going to release our bombs, I keep thinking to myself, Shall I just jink a little; shall I swerve a fraction to one side, then my bombs will fall on someone else. I keep thinking, Whom shall I make them fall on; whom shall I kill tonight? Which ten, twenty or a hundred people shall I kill tonight? It is all up to me. And now I think about this every time I go out.’

  He had taken a small nut and was splitting it into pieces with his thumb-nail as he spoke, looking down at what he was doing because he was embarrassed by his own talk.

  He was speaking very slowly. ‘It would just be a gentle pressure with the ball of my foot upon the rudder bar; a pressure so slight that I would hardly know that I was doing it, and it would throw the bombs on to a different house and on to other people. It is all up to me, the whole thing is up to me, and each time that I go out I have to decide which ones shall be killed. I can do it with the gentle pressure of the ball of my foot upon the rudder bar. I can do it so that I don’t even notice that it is being done. I just lean a little to one side because I am shifting my sitting position. That is all I am doing, and then I kill a different lot of people.’

  Now there was no dew left upon the face of the glass, but he was still running the fingers of his right hand up and down the smooth surface.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is a complicated thought. It is very far-reaching; and when I am bombing I cannot get it out of my mind. You see it is such a gentle pressure with the ball of the foot; just a touch on the rudder bar and the bomb-aimer wouldn’t even notice. Each time I go out, I say to myself, Shall it be these or shall it be those? Which ones are the worst? Perhaps if I make a little skid to the left I will get a houseful of lousy women-shooting German soldiers, or perhaps if I make that little skid I will miss getting the soldiers and get an old man in a shelter. How can I know? How can anyone know these things?’

  He paused and pushed his empty glass away from him into the middle of the table.

  ‘And so I never jink,’ he added, ‘at least hardly ever.’

  ‘I jinked once,’ I said, ‘ground-strafing. I thought I’d kill the ones on the other side of the road instead.’

  ‘Everybody jinks,’ he said. ‘Shall we have another drink?’

  ‘Yes, let’s have another.’

  I called the waiter and gave the order, and while we were waiting, we sat looking around the room at the other people. The place was starting to fill up because it was about six o’clock and we sat there looking at the people who were coming in. They were standing around looking for tables, sitting down, laughing and ordering drinks.

  ‘Look at that woman,’ I said. ‘The one just sitting down over there.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Wonderful figure,’ I said. ‘Wonderful bosom. Look at her bosom.’

  The waiter brought the drinks.

  ‘Did I ever tell you about Stinker?’ he said.

  ‘Stinker who?’

  ‘Stinker Sullivan in Malta.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘About Stinker’s dog?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stinker had a dog, a great big Alsatian, and he loved that dog as though it was his father and his mother and everything else he had, and the dog loved Stinker. It used to follow him around everywhere he went, and when he went on ops it used to sit on the tarmac outside the hangars waiting for him to come back. It was called Smith. Stinker really loved that dog. He loved it like his mother and he used to talk to it all day long.’

  ‘Lousy whisky,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, let’s have another.’

  We got some more whisky.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ he went on, ‘one day the squadron got orders to fly to Egypt. We had to go at once; not in two hours or later in the day, but at once. And Stinker couldn’t find his dog. Couldn’t find Smith anywhere. Started running all over the aerodrome yelling for Smith and going mad yelling at everyone asking where he was and yelling, “Smith Smith,” all over the aerodrome. Smith wasn’t anywhere.’

  ‘Where was he?’ I said.

  ‘He wasn’t there and we had to go. Stinker had to go without Smith and he was mad as a hatter. His crew said he kept calling up over the radio asking if they’d found him. All the way to Heliopolis he kept calling up Malta saying, Have you got Smith, and Malta kept saying, No, they hadn’t.’

  ‘This whisky is really terrible,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. We must have some more.’

  We had a waiter who was very quick.

  ‘I was telling you about Stinker,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, tell me about Stinker.’

  ‘Well, when we got to Egypt he wouldn’t talk about anything except Smith. He used to walk around acting as though the dog was always with him. Damn fool walked around saying, “Come on, Smith, old boy, come on,” and he kept looking down and talking to him as he walked along. Kept reaching down and patting the air and stroking this bloody dog that wasn’t there.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘Malta, I suppose. Must have been in Malta.’

  ‘Isn’t this awful whisky?’

  ‘Terrible. We must have some more when we’ve finished this.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Waiter. Oh waiter. Yes; again.’

  ‘So Smith was in Malta.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And this damn fool Stinker Sullivan went on like this right up to the time he was killed.’

  ‘Must have been mad.’

  ‘He was. Mad as a hatter. You know once he walked into the Sporting Club at Alexandria at drinking time.’

  ‘That wasn’t so mad.’

  ‘He walked into the big lounge and as he went in he held the door open and started calling his dog. Then when he thought the dog had come in, he closed the door and started walking right down the length of the room, stopping every now and then and looking round and saying, “Come on, Smith, old boy, come on.” He kept flipping his fingers. Once he got down under a table where two men and two women were drinking. He got on to his hands and knees and said, “Smith, come on out of there; come here at once,” and he put out his hand and started dragging nothing at all from under the table. Then he apologized to the people at the table. “This is the hell of a dog,” he said to them. You should have seen their faces. He went on like that all down the room and when he came to the other end he held the door open for the dog to go out and then went out after it.’

  ‘Man was mad.’

  ‘Mad as a hatter. And you should have seen their faces. It was full of people drinking and they didn’t know whether it was them who were crazy or whether it was St
inker. They kept looking up at each other to make sure that they weren’t the only ones who couldn’t see the dog. One man dropped his drink.’

  ‘That was awful.’

  ‘Terrible.’

  The waiter came and went. The room was full of people now, all sitting at little tables, talking and drinking and wearing their uniforms. The pilot poked the ice down into his glass with his finger.

  ‘He used to jink too,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Stinker. He used to talk about it.’

  ‘Jinking isn’t anything,’ I said. ‘It’s like not touching the cracks on the pavement when you’re walking along.’

  ‘Balls. That’s just personal. Doesn’t affect anyone else.’

  ‘Well, it’s like car-waiting.’

  ‘What’s car-waiting?’

  ‘I always do it,’ I said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just as you’re going to drive off, you sit back and count twenty, then you drive off.’

  ‘You’re mad too,’ he said. ‘You’re like Stinker.’

  ‘It’s a wonderful way to avoid accidents. I’ve never had one in a car yet; at least, not a bad one.’

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘No, I always do it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because then if someone was going to have stepped off the kerb in front of your car, you won’t hit them because you started later. You were delayed because you counted twenty, and the person who stepped off the kerb whom you would have hit – you missed him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He stepped off the kerb long before you got there because you counted twenty.’

  ‘That’s a good idea.’

  ‘I know it’s a good idea.’

  ‘It’s a bloody marvellous idea.’