Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [32 of 32]

• The man in the chair said, "Well, let's get this stuff over. I'm afraid you'll have to answer a few questions so that
• I can fill in this combat report. Let me see now, first of all, what was your squadron?"
• The man in the bed did not move. He looked straight at the Wing Commander and he said, "My name is Peter Williamson.
• My rank is Squadron Leader and my number is nine seven two four five seven."
• The End.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [31 of 32]

• She beckoned with her hand and the Wing Commander came in. "Sorry to bother you like this," he said. He was an ordinary RAF officer,
• dressed in a uniform which was a little shabby, and he wore wings and a DFC. He was fairly tall and thin with plenty of black hair.
• His teeth, which were irregular and widely spaced, stuck out a little even when he closed his mouth.
• As he spoke he took a printed form and a pencil from his pocket, and he pulled up a chair and sat down.
• "How are you feeling?" There was no answer. "Tough luck about your leg. I know how you feel.
• I hear you put up a fine show before they got you." The man in the bed was lying quite still, watching the man in the chair.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [30 of 32]

• And there was a sentence running through his head. It was a sentence which Johnny, the Intelligence Officer of his squadron,
• always repeated to the pilots every day before they went out. He could see Johnny now, leaning against the wall of the dispersal hut
• with his pipe in his hand, saying, "And if they get you, don't forget, just your name, rank and number. Nothing else.
• For God's sake, say nothing else." "There you are," she said as she put the tray on his lap. "I've got you an egg. Can you manage all right?"
• "Yes." She stood beside the bed. "Are you feeling all right?" "Yes." "Good. If you want another egg I might be able to get you one."
• "This is all right." "Well, just ring the bell if you want any more." And she went out. He had just finished eating,
• when the nurse came in again. She said, "Wing Commander Roberts is here. I've told him that he can only stay for a few minutes."

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [29 of 32]

• They never looked at anything for more than a moment and they moved too quickly from one place to another in the room.
• There was something about her movements also. They were too sharp and nervous to go well with the casual manner in which she spoke.
• She set down the basin, took off his pajama top and began to wash him. "Did you sleep well?" "Yes." "Good," she said.
• She was washing his arms and his chest. "I believe there's someone coming down to see you from the Air Ministry after breakfast,"
• she went on. "They want a report or something. I expect you know all about it. How you got shot down and all that.
• I won't let him stay long, so don't worry." He did not answer. She finished washing him, and gave him a toothbrush and some tooth powder.
• He brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth and spat the water out into the basin. Later she brought him his breakfast on a tray,
• but he did not want to eat. He was still feeling weak and sick, and he wished only to lie still and think about what had happened.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [28 of 32]

• Quickly he knelt down again, crawled back to the bed and hoisted himself in. He pulled the bedclothes over himself and
• lay back on the pillow, exhausted. He could still think of nothing at all except the small sign by the hedge,
• and the plowed field and the orchard. It was the words on the sign that he could not forget.
• It was some time before the nurse came in. She came carrying a basin of hot water and she said, "Good morning, how are you today?"
• He said, "Good morning, nurse." The pain was still great under the bandages, but he did not wish to tell this woman anything.
• He looked at her as she busied herself with getting the washing things ready. He looked at her more carefully now. Her hair was very fair.
• She was tall and big-boned, and her face seemed pleasant. But there was something a little uneasy about her eyes. They were never still.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [27 of 32]

• He stood there balancing on one leg and holding tightly to the edges of the window sill with his hands,
• staring at the sign and at the whitewashed lettering of the words. For a moment he could think of nothing at all.
• He stood there looking at the sign, repeating the words over and over to himself, and then slowly he began to realize the full meaning
• of the thing. He looked up at the cottage and at the plowed field. He looked at the small orchard on the left of the cottage and
• he looked at the green countryside beyond. "So this is France," he said. "I am in France."
• Now the throbbing in his right thigh was very great. It felt as though someone was pounding the end of his stump with a hammer,
• and suddenly the pain became so intense that it affected his head and for a moment he thought he was going to fall.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [26 of 32]

• He was looking at the hedge when he saw the sign. It was just a piece of board nailed to the top of a short pole,
• and because the hedge had not been trimmed for a long time, the branches had grown out around the sign so that it seemed
• almost as though it had been placed in the middle of the hedge. There was something written on the board with white paint,
• and he pressed his head against the glass of the window, trying to read what it said. The first letter was a G, he could see that.
• The second was an A, and the third was an R. One after another he managed to see what the letters were.
• There were three words, and slowly he spelled the letters out aloud to himself as he managed to read them.
• G-A-R-D-E A-U C-H-I-E-N. Garde au chien. That is what it said.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [25 of 32]

• With two arms and one leg, he crawled over towards the window. He would reach forward as far as he could with his arms,
• then he would give a little jump and slide his left leg along after them. Each time he did, it jarred his wound so that he
• gave a soft grunt of pain, but he continued to crawl across the floor on two hands and one knee. When he got to the window he reached up,
• and one at a time he placed both hands on the sill. Slowly he raised himself up until he was standing on his left leg.
• Then quickly he pushed aside the curtains and looked out.
• He saw a small house with a gray tiled roof standing alone beside a narrow lane, and immediately behind it there was a plowed field.
• In front of the house there was an untidy garden, and there was a green hedge separating the garden from the lane.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [24 of 32]

• The idea became an obsession with him, and soon he could think of nothing except the window. But what about his leg?
• He put his hand underneath the bedclothes and felt the thick bandaged stump which was all that was left on the right-hand side.
• It seemed all right. It didn't hurt. But it would not be easy. He sat up.
• Then he pushed the bedclothes aside and put his left leg on the floor. Slowly, carefully, he swung his body over until
• he had both hands on the floor as well; and then he was out of bed, kneeling on the carpet. He looked at the stump.
• It was very short and thick, covered with bandages. It was beginning to hurt and he could feel it throbbing.
• He wanted to collapse, lie down on the carpet and do nothing, but he knew that he must go on.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [23 of 32]

• He looked around the room. The nurse had taken the roses out the night before, and there was nothing except the table with a packet of
• cigarettes, a box of matches and an ash tray. Otherwise, it was bare. It was no longer warm or friendly. It was not even comfortable.
• It was cold and empty and very quiet. Slowly the grain of doubt grew, and with it came fear, a light, dancing fear that warned
• but did not frighten; the kind of fear that one gets not because one is afraid, but because one feels that there is something wrong.
• Quickly the doubt and the fear grew so that he became restless and angry, and when he touched his forehead with his hand,
• he found that it was damp with sweat. He knew then that he must do something; that he must find some way of proving to himself that
• he was either right or wrong, and he looked up and saw again the window and the green curtains. From where he lay,
• that window was right in front of him, but it was fully ten yards away. Somehow he must reach it and look out.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [22 of 32]

• "I will prove that I am not crazy. I will make a little speech about something complicated and intellectual.
• I will talk about what to do with Germany after the war." But before he had time to begin, he was asleep.
• He woke just as the first light of day was showing through the slit in the curtains over the window. The room was still dark,
• but he could tell that it was already beginning to get light outside. He lay looking at the grey light which was showing through
• the slit in the curtain, and as he lay there he remembered the day before. He remembered the Junkers 88's and the hardness of the water;
• he remembered the large pleasant nurse and the kind doctor, and now the small grain of doubt took root in his mind and it began to grow.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [21 of 32]

• She rinsed the flannel in the basin, wiped the soap off his leg, and dried him with a towel. "It's nice to be washed," he said.
• "I feel better." He was feeling his face with his hands. "I need a shave." "We'll do that tomorrow," she said.
• "Perhaps you can do it yourself then." That night he could not sleep. He lay awake thinking of the Junkers 88's and
• of the hardness of the water. He could think of nothing else. They were JU-88's, he said to himself. I know they were.
• And yet it is not possible, because they would not be flying around so low over here in broad daylight. I know that it is true,
• and yet I know that it is impossible. Perhaps I am ill. Perhaps I am behaving like a fool and do not know what I am doing or saying.
• Perhaps I am delirious. For a long time he lay awake thinking these things, and once he sat up in bed and said aloud,

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [20 of 32]

• As he said it he remembered something. He remembered the baths which he used to take at school in Brighton,
• in the long stone-floored bathroom which had four baths in a room. He remembered how the water was so soft that you had to take a shower
• afterwards to get all the soap off your body, and he remembered how the foam used to float on the surface of the water,
• so that you could not see your legs underneath. He remembered that sometimes they were given calcium tablets because the school doctor used
• to say that soft water was bad for the teeth. "In Brighton," he said, "the water isn't . . ." He did not finish the sentence.
• Something had occurred to him; something so fantastic and absurd that for a moment he felt like telling the nurse about it and
• having a good laugh. She looked up. "The water isn't what?" she said. "Nothing," he answered. "I was dreaming.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [19 of 32]

• She had finished washing his chest and arms, and now she turned back the bedclothes, so that his left leg was uncovered.
• She did it in such a way that his bandaged stump remained under the sheets. She undid the cord of his pajama trousers and took them off.
• There was no trouble because they had cut off the right trouser leg, so that it could not interfere with the bandages.
• She began to wash his left leg and the rest of his body. This was the first time he had had a bed bath, and he was embarrassed.
• She laid a towel under his leg, and she was washing his foot with the flannel. She said, "This wretched soap won't lather at all.
• It's the water. It's as hard as nails." He said, "None of the soap is very good now and, of course, with hard water it's hopeless."

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [18 of 32]

• She had taken off his pajama top and was soaping his right arm with a flannel. He did not answer.
• She rinsed the flannel in the water, rubbed more soap on it, and began to wash his chest.
• "You're looking fine this evening," she said. "They operated on you as soon as you came in. They did a marvelous job.
• You'll be all right. I've got a brother in the RAF," she added. "Flying bombers." He said, "I went to school in Brighton."
• She looked up quickly. "Well, that's fine," she said. "I expect you'll know some people in the town." "Yes," he said, "I know quite a few."

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [17 of 32]

• Once toward evening he heard the noise of another aircraft. It was far away, but even so he knew that it was a single-engined machine.
• But he could not place it. It was going fast; he could tell that. But it wasn't a Spit, and it wasn't a Hurricane Fighter Air Craft.
• It did not sound like an American engine either. They make more noise. He did not know what it was, and it worried him greatly.
• Perhaps I am very ill, he thought. Perhaps I am imagining things. Perhaps I am a little delirious. I simply do not know what to think.
• That evening the nurse came in with a basin of hot water and began to wash him.
• "Well," she said, "I hope you don't still think that we're being bombed."

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [16 of 32]

• The nurse came up to the side of his bed and began to straighten out the sheets and tuck them in under the mattress.
• "Gracious me, what things you imagine. You mustn't worry about a thing like that. Would you like me to get you something to read?"
• "No, thank you." She patted his pillow and brushed back the hair from his forehead with her hand.
• "They never come over in daylight any longer. You know that. They were probably Lancasters or Flying Fortresses." "Nurse." "Yes."
• "Could I have a cigarette?" "Why certainly you can." She went out and came back almost at once with a packet of Players and some matches.
• She handed one to him and when he had put it in his mouth, she struck a match and lit it.
• "If you want me again," she said, "just ring the bell," and she went out.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [15 of 32]

• The aircraft was always far away, and soon the noise faded away into the distance. Later on there was another.
• This one, too, was far away, but there was the same deep undulating bass and the high singing tenor, and there was no mistaking it.
• He had heard that noise every day during the battle. He was puzzled. There was a bell on the table by the bed.
• He reached out his hand and rang it. He heard the noise of footsteps down the corridor, and the nurse came in.
• "Nurse, what were those airplanes?" "I'm sure I don't know. I didn't hear them. Probably fighters or bombers.
• I expect they were returning from France. Why, what's the matter?" "They were JU-88's. I'm sure they were JU-88's.
• I know the sound of the engines. There were two of them. What were they doing over here?"

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [14 of 32]

• He lay listening to the sound of its engines. It was a long way away. I wonder what it is, he thought. Let me see if I can place it.
• Suddenly he jerked his head sharply to one side. Anyone who has been bombed can tell the noise of a Junkers 88.
• They can tell most other German bombers for that matter, but especially a Junkers 88. The engines seem to sing a duet.
• There is a deep vibrating bass voice and with it there is a high pitched tenor.
• It is the singing of the tenor which makes the sound of a JU-88 something which one cannot mistake.
• He lay listening to the noise, and he felt quite certain about what it was. But where were the sirens, and where the guns?
• That German pilot certainly had a nerve coming near Brighton alone in daylight.

Beware the Dog : Roald Dahl [13 of 32]

• "Well, well," he said. "So you've decided to wake up at last. How are you feeling?" "I feel all right."
• "That's the stuff. You'll be up and about in no time." The doctor took his wrist to feel his pulse.
• "By the way," he said, "some of the lads from your squadron were ringing up and asking about you. They wanted to come along and see you,
• but I said that they'd better wait a day or two. Told them you were all right, and that they could come and see you a little later on.
• Just lie quiet and take it easy for a bit. Got something to read?" He glanced at the table with the roses.
• "No. Well, nurse will look after you. She'll get you anything you want." With that he waved his hand and went out,
• followed by the large clean nurse. When they had gone, he lay back and looked at the ceiling again.
• The fly was still there and as he lay watching it he heard the noise of an airplane in the distance.