“An African Story” was first published in Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying, but it actually has very little to do with that aeronautical theme. The story comes to us in the form of a found manuscript, which the narrator (Dahl) supposedly found in the suitcase of a fellow RAF pilot and friend who died in combat. The manuscript is the dead pilot’s recollection of a story that was told to him by a strange old African man following a forced landing in the Nairobi Highlands. In other words, “An African Story” is about a story about a story.
Spoiler warning! In the found manuscript’s story, the old African man lives in his small shack with his dog, some chickens, a cow, and another man named Judson (evidently some sort of helper). Judson is an irritable fellow, and the sound of the dog licking its paw practically drives him mad. He strikes it with a bamboo rod and breaks its back. The old man puts the dog out of its misery and curses at Judson. Later they begin to have a mysterious problem with the cow: her milk is disappearing during the night. The old man waits up one night and sees something amazing – a deadly poisonous black mamba snake is visiting the cow and drinking milk from her udders! After making sure that this goes on every night, he tells Judson that a small boy is stealing the milk and that Judson should hide beside the cow and catch him in the act. Judson does this and is of course bitten by the snake. He dies there in the meadow, and as the old man watches the snake again begin to suckle at the cow, he says quietly, “You can have his share… Yes, we don’t mind your having his share.”
Someone Like You read by Julian Rhind-Tutt, Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig, Derek Jacobi, Richard Griffiths, Willl Self, Jessica Hynes, Juliet Stevenson, Adrian Scarborough, Richard E. Grant
Plot Description
To be honest, I’ve never really known what to make of this story. It’s very short, only a few pages, yet it’s incredibly vivid and suspenseful. Are the snakes only in the boy’s imagination? What is “the wish” that the title refers to? Has he really disappeared into the snake pit? Is it all just a metaphor? I don’t know.
Spoiler warning! The story opens with a small boy picking a scab off his knee. As he sits on the stairs, he becomes aware of the large red, black, and yellow carpet that stretches to the front door. He decides that the red patches are red hot lumps of coal that will burn him up completely, and the black parts are poisonous snakes that will bite him and kill him. If he can make it all the way across without getting burnt or bitten, he will get a puppy for his birthday tomorrow.
The boy begins his quest. The first part is easy going, but he reaches some difficult parts and has to take long strides. He wobbles but stretches out his arms to steady himself. He reaches a turning point and goes left, because although it seems more difficult, there’s less black. (He’s very afraid of the snakes.) He reaches the halfway point and knows he can’t turn back or jump off. He begins to feel panic rising in his chest. He takes another step to the only close yellow piece, and his foot is only a centimeter from a black patch. A snake stirs and raises its head to watch him. “I’m not touching you! You mustn’t bite me!” he thinks. Another snake rises as well, and the child is frozen with terror for several minutes. The next step is a very long one, too long to jump. The child manages to get one foot across and transfers his weight. He tries to then bring up his back foot but can’t. He was doing the splits and he was stuck. He looked down at the oily bodies of the snakes writhing beneath him. He began to wobble, but this time waving his arms only made it worse. He was starting to go over. “The next thing he saw was this bare hand of his going right into the middle of a great glistening mass of black and he gave one piercing cry as it touched. Out in the sunshine, far away behind the house, the mother was looking for her son.”
Someone Like You read by Julian Rhind-Tutt, Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig, Derek Jacobi, Richard Griffiths, Willl Self, Jessica Hynes, Juliet Stevenson, Adrian Scarborough, Richard E. Grant
This is one of Dahl’s most famous stories, and one of the most misunderstood, I think. The entire time you’re reading it, you think that the main conflict is between the men and the krait on Harry’s stomach. It’s only in the last few paragraphs, though, that you realize that the “poison” is actually racism. Harry Pope is perfectly willing to tolerate Dr. Ganderbai as long as his life is in danger, but as soon as Ganderbai dares to question the white man, Harry lets his true colors show. The story is also a masterpiece of tension and suspense. You should check out the radio version sometime.
Spoiler warning! Timber Woods, the narrator, arrives home at his bungalow to discover his partner, Harry Pope, lying in bed and acting strangely. Harry is whispering and sweating all over. He tells Timber that a krait – an extremely poisonous little snake – crawled onto the bed and is now sleeping under the sheet on Harry’s stomach. Timber gets a knife from the kitchen in case Harry gets bitten, which he’ll use to cut the skin and suck out the poison. Harry tells him to call the doctor. Doctor Ganderbai agrees to come at once. Once he arrives, he quickly decides that the first thing to do is inject Harry with some snakebite serum. Carefully, Ganderbai rolls up Harry’s pajama sleeve and ties on a rubber tourniquet. Harry is struggling not to move or cough. Ganderbai smoothly inserts the needles and administers the serum. Outside, the doctor tells Timber that the serum is by no means a guarantee of safety. They decide to try to anesthetize the snake. The use chloroform to soak the mattress beneath Harry. The process is agonizing and takes a long time. Eventually they begin to slowly lift the sheet off Harry. They see no sign of the snake. “It could be up the leg of his pajamas,” says Ganderbai. At that, Harry goes berserk and leaps to his feet, shaking his legs violently. When he stops, they realize that he hasn’t been bitten and the snake is nowhere to be seen. “Mr. Pope, you are of course quite sure you saw it in the first place?” asks Ganderbai. Harry turns red and asks if Ganderbai is accusing him of being a liar. When the doctor doesn’t reply, Harry begins screaming horrible racist insults at him. The doctor quickly leaves. Timber stops the doctor outside and apologies for Harry. He thanks the doctor for his help. “All he needs is a good holiday,” Ganderbai says quietly before driving off.
“An African Story” was first published in Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying, but it actually has very little to do with that aeronautical theme. The story comes to us in the form of a found manuscript, which the narrator (Dahl) supposedly found in the suitcase of a fellow RAF pilot and friend who died in combat. The manuscript is the dead pilot’s recollection of a story that was told to him by a strange old African man following a forced landing in the Nairobi Highlands. In other words, “An African Story” is about a story about a story.
Spoiler warning! In the found manuscript’s story, the old African man lives in his small shack with his dog, some chickens, a cow, and another man named Judson (evidently some sort of helper). Judson is an irritable fellow, and the sound of the dog licking its paw practically drives him mad. He strikes it with a bamboo rod and breaks its back. The old man puts the dog out of its misery and curses at Judson. Later they begin to have a mysterious problem with the cow: her milk is disappearing during the night. The old man waits up one night and sees something amazing – a deadly poisonous black mamba snake is visiting the cow and drinking milk from her udders! After making sure that this goes on every night, he tells Judson that a small boy is stealing the milk and that Judson should hide beside the cow and catch him in the act. Judson does this and is of course bitten by the snake. He dies there in the meadow, and as the old man watches the snake again begin to suckle at the cow, he says quietly, “You can have his share… Yes, we don’t mind your having his share.”
To identify: Used a standard single statement (‘First published’ followed by the date with later printings stated underneath) and published with a jacket priced at £7.95.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986, USA.
To identify: Used a First Edition statement and published with a jacket priced at $14.95.
Connections:
Over to You is a collection of short stories about pilots and flying, much of which is autobiographical and similar to the stories in this book
“Katina” tells a story set in the Greek campaign that Dahl describes in this book
Important note: From 2022 onwards, Puffin has edited selected Dahl books to remove sensitive language and insert new sentences not written by Dahl. If you would prefer to read the original text, ensure you get a copy published before 2022 or one of the “Classic Collection” published by Penguin.
Description
In Going Solo, the world’s favourite storyteller, Roald Dahl, tells of life as a fighter pilot in Africa.
‘They did not think for one moment that they would find anything but a burnt-out fuselage and a charred skeleton, and they were astounded when they came upon my still-breathing body lying in the sand nearby.’
In 1938 Roald Dahl was fresh out of school and bound for his first job in Africa, hoping to find adventure far from home. However, he got far more excitement than he bargained for when the outbreak of the Second World War led him to join the RAF. His account of his experiences in Africa, crashing a plane in the Western Desert, rescue and recovery from his horrific injuries in Alexandria, flying a Hurricane as Greece fell to the Germans, and many other daring deeds, recreates a world as bizarre and unnerving as any he wrote about in his fiction.
“More pleasure in Dahl’s accounts from life than from his fables” by Ralph Elliott from the February 14, 1987 issue of The Canberra Times – Canberra, Australia (read online)
