"Dahl, Roald - Beware of the Dog" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dahl Roald)

BEWARE OF THE DOG
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walking, except when I walked down the street of the coppersmiths in Bagdad, but I could go in
a rickshaw. I could go home
and chop wood, but the head always flies off the ax. Hot water, that's what it needs; put it in the
bath and make the handle
swell. I chopped lots of wood last time I went home, and I put the ax in the bath. . . .
Then he saw the sun shining on the engine cowling of his machine. He saw the rivets in the
metal, and he remembered where he
was. He realized that he was no longer feeling good; that he was sick and giddy. His head kept
falling forward onto his chest
because his neck seemed no longer to have- any strength. But he knew that he was flying the
Spitfire, and he could feel the
handle of the stick between the fingers of his right hand.
I'm going to pass out, he thought. Any moment now I'm going to pass out.
He looked at his altimeter. Twenty-one thousand. To test himself he tried to read the hundreds as
well as the thousands.
Twenty-one thousand and what? As he looked the dial became blurred, and he could not even
see the needle. He knew then
that he must bail out; that there was not a second to lose, otherwise he would become
unconscious. Quickly, frantically, he tried
to slide back the hood with his left hand, but he had not the strength. For a second he took his
right hand off the stick, and with
both hands he managed to push the hood back. The rush of cold air on his face seemed to help.
He had a moment of great
clearness, and his actions became orderly and precise. That is what happens with a good pilot.
He took some quick deep
breaths from his oxygen mask, and as he did so, he looked out over the side of the cockpit. Down
below there was only a vast
white sea of cloud, and he realized that he did not know where he was.
It'll be the Channel, he thought. I'm sure to fall in the drink.
He throttled back, pulled off his helmet, undid his straps, and pushed the stick hard over to the
left. The Spitfire dripped its port
wing, and turned smoothly over onto its back. The pilot fell out.
As he fell he opened his eyes, because he knew that he must not pass out before he had pulled
the cord. On one side he saw
the sun; on the other he saw the whiteness of the clouds, and as he fell, as he somersaulted in the
air, the white clouds chased
the sun and the sun chased the clouds. They chased each other in a small circle; they ran faster
and faster, and there was the sun
and the clouds and the clouds and the sun, and the clouds came nearer until suddenly there was
no longer any sun, but only a
BEWARE OF THE DOG
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great whiteness. The whole world was white, and there was nothing in it. It was so white that
sometimes it looked black, and
after a time it was either white or black, but mostly it was white. He watched it as it turned from
white to black, and then back