us a glass of beer. It is the chivalry of the military.' He stepped forward, opened the door of the cafŽ and said, 'Oh for God's sake, let's have a drink. Who wants a drink?'
Suddenly the girls saw it all. They saw the whole thing as it was, all of them at once. It took them by surprise. For a second they considered. Then they looked at one another, then they looked at the Stag, then they looked around at Stuffy and at William, and when they looked at those two they caught their eyes, and the laughter that was in them. All at once the girls began to laugh and William laughed and Stuffy laughed and they moved forward and poured into the cafŽ.
The tall one with dark hair took the Stag by the arm and said, 'Mon Dieu, Military Police, mon Dieu, oh mon Dieu,' and she threw her head back and laughed and the Stag laughed with her. William said, 'It is the chivalry of the military,' and they moved into the cafŽ.
The place was rather like the one that they had been in before, wooden and sawdusty, and there were a few coffee-drinking Egyptians sitting around with the red tarbooshes on their heads. William and Stuffy pushed three round tables together and fetched chairs. The girls sat down. The Egyptians at the other tables put down their coffee cups, turned around in their chairs and gaped. They gaped like so many fat muddy fish, and some of them shifted their chairs round facing the party so that they could get a better view and they went on gaping.
A waiter came up and the Stag said, 'Seventeen beers. Bring us seventeen beers.' The waiter said 'Pleess' and went away.
As they sat waiting for the drinks the girls looked at the three pilots and the pilots looked at the girls. William said, 'It is the chivalry of the military,' and the tall dark girl said, 'Mon Dieu, you are crazy people, oh mon Dieu.'
The waiter brought the beer. William raised his glass and said, 'To the chivalry of the military.' The dark girl said, 'Oh mon Dieu.' Stuffy didn't say anything. He was busy looking around at the girls, sizing them up, trying to decide now which one he liked best so that he could go to work at once. The Stag was smiling and the girls were sitting there in their shiny evening dresses, shiny red, shiny gold, shiny blue, shiny green, shiny black and shiny silver, and once again it was almost a tableau, certainly it was a picture, and the girls were sitting there sipping their beer, seeming quite happy, not seeming suspicious any more because to them the whole thing now appeared exactly as it was and they understood.
'Jesus,' said the Stag, He put down his glass and looked around him. 'Oh Jesus, there's enough here for the whole squadron. How I wish the whole squadron was here!' He took another drink, stopped in the middle of it and put down his glass quickly. 'I know what,' he said. 'Waiter, oh waiter.'
'Pleess.'
'Get me a big piece of paper and a pencil.'
'Pleess.' The waiter went away and came back with a sheet of paper. He took a pencil from behind his ear and handed it to the Stag. The Stag banged the table for silence.
'Mesd'moiselles,' he said, 'for the last time there is a formality. It is the last of all the formalities.'
'Of the military,' said William.
'Oh mon Dieu,' said the dark girl.
'It is nothing,' the Stag said. 'You are required to write your name and your telephone number on this piece of paper. It is for my friends in the squadron. It is so that they can be as happy as I am now, but without the same trouble beforehand.' The Stag's voice was smiling again. One could see that the girls liked his voice. 'You would be very kind if you would do that,' he went on, 'for they too would like to meet you. It would be a pleasure.'
'Wonderful,' said William.
'Crazy,' said the dark girl, but she wrote her name and number on the paper and passed it on. The Stag ordered another round of beer. The girls certainly looked funny sitting there in their dresses, but they were writing their names down on the paper. They looked happy and William particularly looked happy, but Stuffy looked serious because the problem of choosing was a weighty one and it was heavy on his mind. They were good-looking girls, young and goodlooking, all different, completely different from each other because they were Greek and Syrian and French and Italian and light Egyptian and Yugoslav and many other things, but they were goodlooking, all of them were good-looking and handsome.
The piece of paper had come back to the Stag now and they had all written on it; fourteen strangely written names and fourteen telephone numbers. The Stag looked at it slowly. 'This will go on the squadron notice-board; he said, 'and I will be regarded as a great benefactor.'
William said, 'It should go to headquarters. It should be mimeographed and circulated to all squadrons. It would be good for morale.'
'Oh mon Dieu,' said the dark girl. 'You are crazy.'
Slowly Stuffy got to his feet, picked up his chair, carried it round to the other side of the table and pushed it between two of the girls. All he said was 'Excuse me. Do you mind if I sit here?' At last he had made up his mind, and now he turned towards the one on his right and quietly went to work. She was very pretty; very dark and very pretty and she had plenty of shape. Stuffy began to talk to her, completely oblivious to the rest of the company, turning towards her and leaning his head on his hand. Watching him, it was not so difficult to understand why he was the greatest pilot in the squadron. He was a young concentrator, this Stuffy; an intense athletic concentrator who moved towards what he wanted in a dead straight line. He took hold of winding roads and carefully he made them straight, then he moved over them with great speed and nothing stopped him. He was like that, and now he was talking to the pretty girl but no one could hear what he was saying.
Meanwhile the Stag was thinking. He was thinking about the next move, and when everyone was getting towards the end of their third beer, he banged the table again for silence.
'Mesd'moiselles,' he said. 'It will be a pleasure for us to escort you home. I will take five of you,'-he had worked it all out 'Stuffy will take five, and Jamface will take four. We will take three gharries and I will take five of you in mine and I will drop you home one at a time.' military.,, said, 'It is the chivalry of the military.'
'Stuffy,' said the Stag. 'Stuffy, is that all right? You take five. It's up to you whom you drop off last.'
Stuffy looked around. 'Yes,' he said. 'Oh yes. That suits me.'
'William, you take four. Drop them home one by one; you understand.'
'Perfectly,' said William. 'Oh perfectly.'
They all got up and moved towards the door. The tall one with dark hair took the Stag's arm and said, 'You take me?'
'Yes,' he answered. 'I take you.'
'You drop me off last?'
'Yes. I drop you off last.'
'Oh mon Dieu,' she said. 'That will be fine.'
Outside they got three gharries and they split up into parties. Stuffy was moving quickly. He got his girls into the carriage quickly, climbed in after them and the Stag saw the gharry drive off down the street. Then he saw William's gharry move off, but it seemed to start away with a sudden jerk, with the horses breaking into a gallop at once. The Stag looked again and he saw William perched high up on the driver's seat with the reins in his hands.
The Stag said, 'Let's go,' and his five girls got into their gharry. It was a squash, but everyone got in. The Stag sat back in his seat and then he felt an arm pushing up and under and linking with his. It was the tall one with dark hair. He turned and looked at her.
'Hello,' he said. 'Hello, you.'
'Ah,' she whispered. 'You are such goddam crazy people.' And the Stag felt a warmness inside him and he began to hum a little tune as the gharry rattled on through the dark streets.
Katina
*Some brief notes about the last days of RAF fighters in the first Greek campaign.*
PETER saw her first.
She was sitting on a stone, quite still, with her hands resting on her lap. She was staring vacantly ahead, seeing nothing, and all around, up and down the little street, people were running backward and forward with
