The Sword (short story)

The Sword is a short story by the British writer Roald Dahl (1916–1990). It was only published in this version in the American magazine The Atlantic Monthly in August 1943. A German translation of this short story has not yet been published. However, a revised and modified version of Dahl's autobiographical work Im Alleingang (original title Going Solo from 1986) was published in German in 1988 . In the episode Mdisho, the Mwanumwezi , Dahl's older servant Salimu becomes the younger Mdisho from the 1943 version, along with other changes.

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In the short story The Sword , Dahl buys a beautiful sword from one of the many ships that arrive in Africa with the monsoon winds loaded with merchandise every September . At home he shows this sword to his house servant Salimu, a Maasai , and explains to him how to clean and care for it. Later, when Great Britain was about to declare war on Germany, Dahl was tasked with guarding the main access road to Dar es Salaam with a troop of locals . Before setting off on his mission, he tells Salimu that Tanzania will soon be embroiled in a war with the Germans. They would try to kill everyone.

After a successful mission, Dahl returns home a few days later. Salimu and the sword are no longer there. Salimu returns later that night bathed in sweat and swings the now bloodied sword. He tells how he heard about the war against the Germans and wanted to help his people. Salimu remembered a rich German who lives across the hills. He then took the sword and ran for four hours through the jungle to the German's house, stormed in and headed the German, who was sitting at his desk in his pajamas, with the sword. Then Salimu ran triumphantly and proudly all the way home.

See also

• List of all over 70 short stories by Roald Dahl

literature

• Roald Dahl: Mdisho, der Mwanumwezi, in: Im Alleingang, Reinbek 1988, pp. 78-88.
• Mdisho of the Mwanumwezi, in: Going Solo, London 1986, pp. 67–77 (last new edition 2016)
• Donald Sturrock: Storyteller . The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl, New York and London 2010

Web links

• More information on the short story The Sword
• Louise Schwartzkoff: At centenary of birth, Roald Dahl's own story as gripping as his dark tales, website The Sydney Morning Herald, August 22, 2016 - last two sections

References and comments

1. ↑ Sturrock, p. 625 as well as the website of the Roald Dahl fans
2. ↑ Sturrock, p. 118