The Ginger Cat
The Ginger Cat is an unpublished short story by the British writer Roald Dahl (1916–1990), which was written around 1945.
action
A German bomber plane unexpectedly lands on the airfield of the Greek town of Eleusis (now a suburb of Athens ) during World War II . The commanding officer, Monkey, carefully approaches the machine. Monkey looks up at the cockpit and opens the access hatch. At that moment a ginger cat jumps out and scares him. Without noticing him, she slowly walks away and walks leisurely and dignified across the airfield with her tail up and eyes on the ground.
Monkey and the storyteller nervously step onto the bomber plane. They discover that the radio operator, the pilot and the man responsible for dropping the bomb are dead, but the rear gunner is still alive. Monkey and the narrator get him out of the Dornier plane and lay him on the ground. When the injured man starts to moan and the cat hears him, it suddenly stops. Then she turns and begins walking slowly and gracefully back towards him. When the cat approaches, the German begins to squirm and scream. The cat does not take its eyes off him the whole time while walking and stops about two meters away from the man. Then she crouches and stares at him with all four legs under her body and swinging tail. Like a kind of supernatural judge, she brings death to the rear gunner. His face turns as white as the faces of the three other men on the plane and his open eyes look up at the sky.
See also
literature
- Donald Sturrock: Storyteller . The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl, New York and London 2010
Web links
- The Ginger Cat - further information (English)