The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl Volume 1 Read online

  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.11 "About Stinker's dog?"

  "No.11 "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 Stinker. 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."

  "I've saved lots of lives. And you can drive straight across intersections because the car you would have hit has already gone by. It went by just a little earlier because you delayed yourself by counting twenty."

  "Marvellous."

  "Isn't it?"

  "But it's like jinking," he said. "You never really know what would have happened."

  "I always do it," I said.

  We kept right on drinking.

  "Look at that woman," I said.

  "The one with the bosom?"

  "Yes, marvellous bosom."

  He said slowly, "I bet I've killed lots of women more beautiful than that one."

  "Not lots with bosoms like that."

  "I'll bet I have. Shall we have another drink?"

  "Yes, one for the road."

  "There aren't any other women with bosoms like that," I said. "Not in Germany anyway."

  "Oh yes there are. I've killed lots of them."

  "All right. You've killed lots of women with wonderful bosoms."

  He leaned back and waved his hand around the room. "See all the people in this room," he said.

  "Yes."

  "Wouldn't there be a bloody row if they were all suddenly dead; if they all suddenly fell off their chairs on to the floor dead?"

  "What about it?"

  "Wouldn't there be a bloody row?"

  "Certainly there'd be a row."

  "If all the waiters got together and put stuff in all the drinks and everyone died."

  "There'd be a godalmighty row."

  "Well, I've done that hundreds of times. I've killed more people than there are in this room hundreds of times. So have you."

  "Lots more," I said. "But that's different."

  "Same sort of people. Men and women and waiters. All drinking in a pub."

  "That's different."