A few minutes later, I went indoors and got myself a second drink, then I returned to the veranda. I lay back again in the deck chair. My shirt was soaked with sweat but I was too tired to take a shower. Then all of a sudden I went rigid. I was just about to put the glass of whiskey to my lips and my hand froze, it literally froze in mid-air, and there it stayed with my fingers clenched around the glass. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even speak. I tried to call out to my boy for help but I couldn’t. Rigor mortis. Paralysis. My entire body had turned to stone.”

“Were you frightened?” someone asked.

“Of course I was frightened,” the Major said. “I was bloody terrified, especially out there in the Sudan desert miles from anywhere. But the paralysis didn’t last very long. Maybe a minute, maybe two. I don’t really know. But when I came to as it were, the first thing I noticed was a burning sensation in the region of my groin. ‘Hullo,’ I said, ‘what the hell’s going on now?’ But it was pretty obvious what was going on. The activity inside my trousers was becoming very violent indeed and within another few seconds my member was as stiff and erect as the mainmast of a topsail schooner.”

“What do you mean, your member?” asked a girl whose name was Gwendoline.

“I expect you will catch on as we go along, my dear,” the Major said.

“Carry on, Major,” we said. “What happened next?”

“Then it started to throb,” he said.

“What started to throb?” Gwendoline asked him.

“My member,” the Major said. “I could feel every beat of my heart all the way along it. Pulsing and throbbing most terribly it was, and as tight as a balloon. You know those long sausage-shaped balloons children have at parties? I kept thinking about one of those, and with every beat of my heart it felt as if someone was pumping in more air and it was going to burst.”