Tag: shortstory

“The Umbrella Man”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! The narrator of this story is a 12-year-old girl who has gone to London with her mother to visit the dentist. The girl has a tooth filled, and then she and her mother go to a café afterwards. When it’s time to go home, they discover that it’s pouring rain and they have no umbrella. They decide to get a taxi. While they’re watching for a cab, an old gentleman sheltering under an umbrella approaches them. He asks for a favor. The girl’s mother is very distrustful of strange men. The old man explains that he has forgotten his wallet and would like to sell them his umbrella in return for taxi fare back to his home. He explains that it’s a very nice silk umbrella worth twenty pounds, but his legs are weak and he simply must take a taxi home. The mother likes the sound of the deal, but the little girl worries that they’re taking advantage of the old man. The mother offers to simply give him the cab fare, but he insists that they take the umbrella. The transaction is made and everyone is happy.

As the mother is proudly explaining the importance of correctly judging people, the daughter notices that the old man has quickly crossed the street and is hurrying away. “He doesn’t look very tired to me,” she said. The mother is displeased. “He’s up to something.” They decide to follow him and find out. They quickly follow him as he rushes through the rainy streets. Eventually they find themselves at a pub called “The Red Lion” and watch through the window as the old man enters and uses the pound note to pay for a triple whiskey. “That’s a jolly expensive drink,” said the little girl. “It cost him a twenty-pound silk umbrella!” They watch as the old man finishes his drink and goes to retrieve his coat and hat. Just before he leaves the pub, he smoothly plucks a wet umbrella from the coat rack and takes it with him. “So that’s his game!” the mother explained. They see him head back to the main street and sell the umbrella to another unsuspecting person. Then he heads off in another direction for another pub. “He could be doing this all night,” the girl says. “Yes, of course,” says the mother. “But I’ll be he prays like mad for rainy days.”

“They Shall Not Grow Old”

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Spoiler warning! The narrator of this story is an RAF pilot fighting the Vichy French in Palestine during WW2. As the story begins, he and another pilot (“The Stag”) are waiting for the return of Fin, who flew out to check on some enemy ships. Eventually they realize that he should have been back by now, and even if he hadn’t been shot down, he’d have run out of gas. They inform the other pilots and officers that Fin is missing and discuss his girlfriend Nikki, a caberet singer in Haifa.

Two days later, an airplane is heard approaching the base. It turns out to be Fin, who lands and acts surprised when they ask him where he’s been. According to him, he’s only been gone for an “hour and five minutes”. He thinks they’re pulling a joke on him. It’s only when he goes to report to the commanding officer that he realizes he really has been gone for two days. He gets upset when he can’t explain what happened to him. The men decide to give him some time so he can try to remember.

A week later, the entire squadron is out attacking an enemy aerodrome. A pilot called Paddy is shot down and killed. Immediately Fin’s voice is heard on the radio: “I’ve remembered it… I’ve remembered it all.” When the men return to the base, Fin tells his story. He says that while he was flying his mission, he was suddenly enveloped in a thick white cloud. He tried everything to get out of it, and eventually he just put his plane into a dive in frustration. He didn’t hit land or sea though; he just kept diving. Suddenly the cloud disappeared, and he found himself flying in an endless sky of blinding blue. He saw a line of aircraft flying on the horizon, as far as the eye could see. He saw planes of every description. He somehow knew that “these were the pilots and air crews who had been killed in battle, who now, in their own aircraft were making their last flight, their last journey.” His own plane was caught up in a wind vortex of some kind and soon took its place in the line. Fin found that he wasn’t even flying and that all the controls were dead. The pilots on either side of him waved and he waved back. He felt supremely happy.

Eventually the line of planes began to dive and bank to the left. Fin saw a beautiful green plain below them, which “reached to the far edges of the horizon where the blue of the sky came down and merged with the green of the plain.” He also saw in the distance a bright white light, far bigger than the sun but without shape or form. It was brilliant but not blinding. He couldn’t look away from it. He wanted to fly towards it but the plane wouldn’t respond. As he descended further, he saw the the planes were all landing on the green plain. Hundreds of them were parked around. Fin came in for a landing but his plane wouldn’t touch down. It began to pick up speed. Fin gazed longingly at the light, knowing that if he had landed he would have been running towards it. He grew desperate as the plane continued to fly away from it. He tried to commit suicide by crashing the plane or ejecting, but something prevented him. He found himself back in the white cloud, and he gave up his struggle. He went to sleep and began to dream about his normal life. He dreamed about his mission, and then about landing at the squadron. This dreaming became reality, and he was unable to remember about the cloud and the pilots and the light. It wasn’t until he saw Paddy killed that he found himself saying, “You lucky bastard.” That’s when he remembered it all.

After Fin’s story, the squadron returned to normal. No one ever spoke of it. The campaign was coming to an end. One on of the last flights, the narrator saw Fin’s plane catch fire. “Hello Fin,” he called on the radio. “You’d better jump.” “It’s not so easy,” Fin replied. He said that his arms had been shot and he couldn’t undo his straps. As his plane dipped towards the sea, the narrator heard Fin saying over the radio, “I’m a lucky bastard. A lucky, lucky bastard.”

“Taste”

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Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! The setting for this story is a dinner party at the home of stock broker Mike Schofield. The guests include Schofield and his wife and daughter, the narrator and his wife, and a man called Richard Pratt. Pratt is a famous gourmet and enjoys showing off his knowledge of fine wine and food. He is also a thoroughly unpleasant man. Both times prior that Pratt dined with Schofield, the two men made a curious bet: Schofield bet that Pratt could not identify some special wine that he had procured for the night. Pratt had always won. On the night this story takes place, Schofield thinks that he will finally win one over on the gourmet. He has a very rare bottle of claret from a tiny chateau in France, and he boasts that Pratt will never be able to guess it. Pratt, who had been spending the night engrossed in conversation with Schofield’s daughter Louise, takes the bet and asks to up the stakes. He offers to bet two of his houses against the hand of Louise in marriage. Both Louise and her mother are against it, but Schofield manages to convince them to accept. He believes that Pratt has no chance of winning. Pratt then proceeds to smell and taste the wine, and he slowly begins to narrow down its possible origin. Eventually he gets the correct answer and Schofield sits there horrified. Just as Pratt is starting to get nasty about the bet, the house maid appears at his arm and offers him his spectacles, which he had misplaced earlier. He takes no notice of her, but she stands her ground and reminds him (rather loudly) that he left them in Mr. Schofield’s study on top of the filing cabinet when he went in there that evening… which is just where Pratt, on a previous visit, had advised Schofield to leave his wines to “breathe”. In other words, he cheated!

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Covers

Taste
Redpath Press, 1986

Spanish Covers

Nórdica Libros, 2016
Nórdica Libros, 2016

“The Sword”

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Plot Description

Dahl retells a version of this story years later in Going Solo. His servant is renamed from Salimu to Mdisho in that version.

Spoiler warning! Dahl starts the story with a description of the many ships that arrive in west Africa every September with the monsoon winds, laden with goods to sell. From one of these ships, he buys a beautiful sword. He takes it home and shows his house boy, Salimu, how to clean it and care for it. Later, as Britain was about to declare war on Germany, Dahl was ordered to take a troop of locals and to guard a key road out of Dar es Salaam. Before he left on the mission, he explained to Salimu that they would soon be at war with the Germans, who would try to kill everyone. Dahl’s mission was successful, and he returned home a few days later to find Salimu and the sword missing. Salimu returned later that night, covered in sweat and brandishing the now bloody sword. He explained how he had heard they were at war with the Germans, and that he wanted to help. He remembered a rich German who lived over the hills, so he took the sword and ran four hours through the jungle to his home. He ran straight into the German’s house, found him sitting at his desk in his pajamas, and cut the man’s head off. Then he ran all the way home, triumphant and proud.

“The Swan”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! A boy named Ernie has been given a rifle for his birthday. Ernie is a violent, ignorant bully and hooligan. Raymond, another bully, is Ernie’s best friend. The two of them go off to hunt rabbits. On the way they run into Peter Watson, a small frail boy who is watching birds. Peter is their favorite victim. He’s smart and polite and nothing like them. They insult him and threaten to shoot him, but backoff when he reminds them that they’d be sent to prison. Instead they punch him and tie him up. Then they drag him to the railway line and tie him between the rails. When he realizes that they are serious about not letting him go, he tries to figure out how to survive the train. It passes over him and he is unharmed. The bullies are disappointed and decide on a new game. They march Peter to a nearby lake, a waterfowl sanctuary. They shoot a duck and force Peter out into the lake to retrieve it for them. When he tries to refuse, they hit him and beat him. Next they shoot a nesting swan. Peter retrieves it and hides the baby cygnets beneath from the bullies’ eyes. When he gets back on dry land, he turns on his captors. “That was a filthy thing to do! … You’re not fit to be alive!” Ernie gets an idea and claims that he can bring the swan back to life and make it flight around the sky. He takes the dead swan and cuts its wings off, and then he and Raymond tie them to Peter’s arms. Then they make him climb a high willow tree in order to jump off. When he doesn’t jump, they begin firing at him with the rifle. He remains hidden until one of the bullets hits him in the thigh. With a cry, he began to fall. Yet, the author tells us, there are some peoploe who will always be “unconquerable”. Peter Watson was one of these. He saw a light shining above the lake and spread his wings. Three different people reported seeing a great white swan circling over the village that day. Mrs. Watson happened to look out her kitchen window at the exact moment her son flopped down out of the sky. He fainted and she called for the ambulance. “And while she was waiting for help to come, she fetched a pair of scissors and began cutting the string that held the two great wings of the swan to her son’s arms.”

“The Surgeon”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Magazine Scan

Information

  • First published:
    • January 1988 issue of Playboy
    • 12 pages
    • Artwork by Bruce Wolfe

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! Dr. Robert Sandy has recently saved the life of a Saudi Arabian prince, and as a reward he is given a very large diamond. Sandy is amazed when his local jeweler tells him it’s worth almost a million dollars. He rushes home to show it to his wife, who is just as excited. They’re going away for the weekend, though, so they decide to freeze the diamond into an ice cube tray in order to hide it from any thieves. When they return, they are shocked to see that their house has, in fact, been burgled. Everything in their kitchen has been smashed and thrown on the floor, including the contents of the freezer. The police are called and search everywhere, but they can’t locate the diamond. The next day, another surgeon at the hospital is operating on a young man with something lodged in his intestine. To the surgeon’s amazement, it is a large diamond. He and one of the hospital theatre sisters take it to the local jeweler to have it appraised. The jeweler recognizes it as Dr. Sandy’s and calls the police. Sandy is also notified, and by the time he gets to the shop the surgeon and sister are both in handcuffs. Sandy recognizes him and they tell him their story. He has the police release them and tells them to head to the hospital to arrest the recovering thief. The young hooligan had evidently made himself a drink in Dr. Sandy’s house, and he’d swallowed the ice cube!

Magazine Scan

January 1988 issue of Playboy Magazine

"The Surgeon" Magazine Scan

“The Sound Machine”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! Klausner is a man obsessed with sound. He has a theory that there are many, many sounds in the world that humans are just unable to hear due to their high frequencies. He explains to his doctor that he has invented a machine that will allow him to tune in to those frequencies and convert those pitches into audible sound. The first time he tries it out in his yard, he hears shrieking in his headphones as his neighbor cuts roses from her garden. Each time a flower is cut, he hears a shriek. The next day, he tries a bigger experiment. He takes an axe and swings it into a large beech tree. He is horrified to hear the deep and pathetic moan that the tree makes in response. Klausner rushes back to the house and calls his doctor. “Please come. Come quickly. I want someone to hear it. It’s driving me mad!” he says. The doctor agrees to come over and listen to the headphones, but just as Klausner takes a second swing at the tree a large branch crashes down between them and destroys the machine. Klausner is deeply shaken and asks the doctor to paint the tree’s cuts with iodine. The doctor claims not to have heard anything, but he agrees to Klausner’s demands and dresses the wounds.

Reviews

“Someone Like You”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! Two bomber pilots are having a drink in a bar and discussing the War. One of them has been in it since the beginning and he has become obsessed with the arbitrariness of the fate he has been dealing out. “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 swearve a fraction to one side, then my bombs will fall on someone else.” They agree that everybody jinks at one time or another. Then they discuss a fellow pilot, Stinker, who went crazy after he was forced to leave his dog behind after a mission. Stinker walked around for the rest of the war talking to his invisible pet. Then they discuss “car-waiting”, which means waiting for twenty seconds before you leave an intersection. Then you avoid hitting the car or person you might have twenty seconds earlier. They admire a beautiful woman in the bar with a “marvellous bosom.” “I bet I’ve killed lots of women more beautiful than that one”, says the fatalistic one. He wonders what would happen if all the people in the bar fell down dead. They finish their drinks and head out onto the street. They decide to take a taxi somewhere else and drink more whisky. “Somewhere where there are no other people but just us and the man with egg on his beard.”

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“The Soldier”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! Robert is a soldier back from the war, and he has problems. He seems to have some sort of nerve damage that makes it difficult for him to feel heat or pain. He longs to return to the seaside holidays of his youth. He’s married to a woman named Edna, who seems to delight in tormenting him (or so he thinks). He cringes whenever he hears a plane fly overheard. He believes that Edna is changing the hot water taps and the doorknobs to confuse him. He sees faces peering at the window. He hears people following him outdoors at night. One night, returning home, “something small but violent exploded inside his head and with it a surge of fury and outrage and fear.” He goes inside and heads upstairs to Edna, but finds that it is another woman instead. She claims to be Edna’s friend Mary. She tells him to put down the knife in his hand. Robert tells “Mary” that though he loves Edna, she’s an “awful cruel little bitch.” He tells her that she rather looks like Edna. He wants to check for Edna’s birthmark behind her left ear. He moves in close and she suddenly turns and slaps him hard across the fact. As he sits on the bed and cries, she takes the knife from his hand and goes swiftly downstairs to the telephone.

Reviews

“Smoked Cheese”

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Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! A pilot named Bipou lived alone in a house that was infested by mice. Bipou hatches a plan to get rid of the mice. He starts by gluing mousetraps to his ceiling and baiting them with smoked cheese. The mice just laughed. Then Bipou glued his furniture and carpet to the ceiling, with everything hanging upside-down. When the mice came out that night, they grew alarmed. “This is awful,” said the oldest mouse of all. “This is awful. We must do something about this at once.” They decide to stand on their heads, and they all end up dying due to a “rush of blood to the brain”. Bipou was very pleased to see all the dead mice the next morning. “Ah-ha. I knew they’d go for smoked cheese.”

Fun Stuff

Complete Text

Special thanks to site contributor Marvin Winitz, who tracked down this story and provided me with a copy. Marvin also notes:

“John L. Lewis [there is a reference to him in the story] was a trade union leader in charge at that time of labor strike action. The Atlantic Monthly was a sophisticated magazine that included current events analysis, considered several grades above the more popularistic Saturday Evening Postand their ‘factual’ stories. [Marvin is referring to the “Shot Down Over Libya” controversy.] … Another change [from “The Upsidedown Mice”] that really hit me funny was that instead of a television set glued to the ceiling it was changed to a radio set glued to the ceiling. … R. Dahl was really with it on glue. The glue episodes here and in The Twits evolved into superglue in Matilda.”