 Madame Rosette, read by Julian Rindtut. Oh, Jesus, this is wonderful, said the stag. He was lying back in the bath, with a scotch and soda in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. The water was right up to the brim, and he was keeping it warm by turning the tap with his toes. He raised his head, took a little sip of his whiskey, and then he lay back and closed his eyes. For, God's sake, get out, said a voice from the next room. Come on, stag, give it over an hour! Stuffy was sitting on the edge of the bed with no clothes on, drinking slowly and waiting his turn. The stag said, all right, letting the water out now, and he stretched out a leg and flipped up the plug with his toes. Stuffy stood up and wandered into the bathroom, holding his drink in his hand. The stag lay in the bath for a few moments more, then, balancing his glass carefully on the soap-rack, he stood up and reached for a towel. His body was short and square, with strong, thick legs and exaggerated calf muscles. He had coarse, curly ginger hair, and a thin, rather pointed face covered with freckles. There was a layer of pale ginger hair on his chest. Jesus, he said, looking down into the bathtub, brought half the desert with me. Stuffy said, wash it out and let me get in. I haven't had a bath for five months. This was back in the early days when we were fighting the Italians in Libya. One flew very hard in those days because there were not many pilots. They certainly could not send any out from England because there they were fighting the Battle of Britain. So one remained for long periods out in the desert, living the strange, unnatural life of the desert, living in the same dirty little tent, washing and shaving every day in a mug full of one's own spat-out tooth-water, all the time picking flies out of one's tea and out of one's food, having sandstorms which were as much in the tents as outside them, so that placid men became bloody-minded and lost their tempers with their friends and with themselves. Having dysentery and chippy tummy and mastoid and desert sores, having some bombs from the Italian S-79s, having no water and no women, having no flowers growing out of the ground, having very little, except sand, sand, sand. One flew old Gloucester Gladiators against the Italian CR-42s, and when one was not flying, it was difficult to know what to do. Occasionally one would catch scorpions, put them in empty petrol cans. Sample complete. Ready to continue?