Roald Dahl was flying over the African desert for the Royal Air Force during World War II when he was forced to make an emergency landing. He wrote in his first short story, "A Piece of Cake," "I remember the dipping of the nose of the aircraft and I remember looking down the nose of the machine at the ground and seeing a little clump of camel-thorn growing there all by itself.... Then there was a small gap of not-remembering." When Dahl regained consciousness, he thought that something was burning. "I rolled about a bit in the sand, then crawled away from the fire on all fours and lay down." It was then that Dahl began to feel pain. "Things were beginning to hurt. My face hurt most. There was something wrong with my face. Something had happened to it. Slowly I put a hand to feel it...