During the early years of World War II a pair of English pilots stationed in North Africa were sitting in the officer's mess taking a pint of bitters. Both were boasting of their hunting prowess. The subject came round, as it ever will on such occasions, to one of the supreme game animals of them all, the desert lion. As the pilots became sufficiently lubricated they eventually challenged each other to a competition to see who would be the first to bag one of these wily creatures. It being a friendly wager, each would put up a pint of bitter as the prize. The contest would begin the following morning.
The first fellow, after suitable preparation, set off into the desert on foot with a fine Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifle. The other, more enterprising, prepared one of the Hurricane fighters and took off. It took him almost no time before he spotted one tawny beast loping along under the desert sun. He quickly dispatched it with his wing guns, flew back to the aerodrome, secured a lorry, retrieved the animal and returned to claim both glasses of bitter.
The shortest distance between two pints is a strafed lion.
