Soldier Dogs #3

by Marcus Sutter

Stryker peed on another tree, because you couldn’t be too careful.

  “Message! Um, carry! Um . . . Bring the—the message—” The boy huffed. “Gah! Would you stop peeing? Come on, let’s go! At least we can start toward the coast.”

  Stryker watched the boy head toward the dry home between the boulders. After a moment, he followed, sniffing the air for the scent of the enemy.

  He smelled something else instead.

  A familiar scent. And a frightening one.

  Chapter 22

  As Bo squeezed into the gap between the boulders, he thought about the coded message. He remembered the words, but the numbers were already getting a little fuzzy.

  So he repeated them under his breath as he kicked dirt over the embers of the fire.

  “One twenty, thirty-six, seven, seven, ninety-one.”

  Then he felt silly. Why was he wasting time on this little campfire? Thousands of bombs were falling on the island every day, to say nothing of flamethrowers and grenades!

  Still, he tamped down the dirt before heading outside.

  He didn’t see Lemmai anywhere. He started to whistle, then felt a furry head knock into his hand.

  “Oh!” he said, looking down at the dog. “You snuck up on me.”

  The dog gave him what he would’ve sworn was a teasing look, then trotted away. Heading to the west—which Bo confirmed with his new compass. So at least they were going toward the Americans.

  Though also toward the Japanese. And the battlefield.

  Well, he’d worry about that later. First, he needed to find his sister. His sister would know how to deal with the message—and the machine guns.

  “Slow down!” he called, hiking after the dog.

  Lemmai glanced over his shoulder, then disappeared into the underbrush.

  Bo didn’t know anything about tracking, but he was pretty sure Lemmai was following a trail. Every time he caught sight of the dog, Lemmai was sniffing or listening—or sniffing and listening.

  The ache returned to Bo’s feet. His legs felt heavy. His breath turned ragged, and he heard himself repeating the code numbers like a prayer. “One twenty, thirty-six, seven, seven, ninety-one.”

  The island became a smear of trees and hills, mosquitoes and roots, the crunch of leaves and the sound of shelling. And every so often, the glimpse of a furry bottom through the trees, urging him onward.

  The rumble of battle echoed through the jungle—guns, shells, grenades—getting louder and louder as Bo climbed, until he couldn’t tell the bombs from his own heartbeat.

  He fell into a daze again, struggling onward while his mind focused on the one thing that mattered.

  Find his sister.

  Pass along the message.

  Tell the Americans about the machine guns surrounding the camp.

  Bo surprised himself with a laugh. He could almost hear Teresita’s voice in his head saying, That’s three things.

  “But one at a time,” he panted out loud.

  Then he saw something that made him stop short.

  The dog was standing motionless at the top of a shallow ravine. His ears were pricked, and his whole body was focused on the ditch. Like he’d found what he’d been looking for.

  Relief washed over Bo. The Americans! It had to be!

  A smile spread across his face. Either a marine squad was hiding out of sight or this ravine would lead right to them!

  He bustled forward, peering into the ravine. It didn’t look like anything special. Just another jungle ditch, lined with rain-flattened grass and dripping bushes. His smile died. Nobody was hiding there, and it sure didn’t look like the way toward anything.

  Another dead end.

  “What are you doing?” he asked the dog. “This isn’t the way to deliver your message!”

  The dog edged closer to a heap of clothing in the dirt.

  “I don’t need more muddy clothes!” Bo told him. “Look at me! The only thing I have is muddy clothes.”

  The dog kept trotting forward.

  “What are you doing?” Bo demanded again.

  Then the clothes moved.

  A groan sounded, and a filthy hand appeared.

  Bo’s heart almost burst from his chest in surprise. That wasn’t a heap of clothing. That was a person!

  A marine! The wounded soldier had red hair and a bloody gash on his forehead.

  “Hey, pup,” he groaned at Lemmai.

  “Um,” Bo said, warily approaching. “Are you—”

  The marine rolled onto his side. Blood covered his arm, but he lifted his pistol quickly enough, pointing directly at Bo—until Stryker bounded between them.

  “Wait!” Bo yelped. “Wait, no!”

  The red-haired marine lowered his gun. “You’re just a kid.”

  “I’m Bo.”

  “Private Mitchum.”

  “Oh, hi! Are you okay? Do you know Lemmai? I mean, the dog?”

  “We’ve met,” the man said, and closed his eyes.

  “I found him in the river,” Bo said. “He had a message around his collar. It’s gone now, but I read it, and I can tell you what it said. Except it’s in Chamorro, and I’m not sure if I’m translating it right. And I need to find my sister. The Japanese rounded everyone up and forced us into this camp in the jungle and it’s surrounded by machine guns and if you don’t stop them, I think—I think they’re going to start shooting.”

  The man didn’t respond.

  “Hey!” Bo frowned. “Did you hear me?”

  The man still didn’t respond.

  In fact, he didn’t move.

  Bo looked closer, his stomach twisting.

  The marine wasn’t breathing!

  Chapter 23

  Stryker sniffed the wounded marine. That’s what he’d smelled earlier: an injured packmate. That’s why he’d brought the boy here.

  The man’s head was bleeding. So were his arm and his side. Now he’d fallen still and almost silent. Stryker heard the faintest wheeze of his breath and the weak flutter of his heart. The marine had lost too much blood; if he fell asleep he might never wake.

  So Stryker helped him. He roughly licked the wound on the man’s head, hard enough to hurt—cleaning the marine, but also rousing him.

  The man groaned and weakly tried to push Stryker away.

  “Stop!” the boy snapped at Stryker. “Don’t do that!”

  Stryker licked the wound again. That time the man pushed him more strongly. Good. He wasn’t going to fade away.

  “Puppy,” the man whispered, his eyes still closed. “Didn’t I tell you . . . there’s no time for kisses?”

  Stryker looked expectantly at the worried boy standing above them. A packmate was in trouble! A human packmate needed human help!

  “Okay, okay,” the boy said, taking a breath. “Um, we need to get you to a doctor or something.”

  The man opened his eyes to look at the boy, then closed them again.

  “Stay awake!” the boy said, crouching over the man. “Hey, you! Mitchum!”

  “You’re a pest,” the man breathed. “Just like that dog.”

  “Too bad!” The boy grabbed the man’s arm and tried to pull him to his feet. “I’m going to pester you all the way back to the army!”

  With the boy’s help, the man pushed weakly to his knees. “No, you won’t.”

  “I will too!”

  “You’ll pester me . . .” On his third try, the man rose to his feet, draping his arm across the boy’s narrow shoulders. “. . . back to the marines.”

  The boy held the man’s hand tightly. “First we get you to a doctor.”

  “Field hospital,” the man mumbled.

  “Lemmai!” The boy looked at Stryker. “Find the hospital!”

  “I know . . . where it is,” the man said, and nodded along the ravine.

  “Thank God. Lemmai keeps leading me in the wrong direction.”

  “He brought you to . . . me.”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess that was okay.”

 
The boy and the man started shuffling along. They moved slowly and unsteadily, but they made progress.

  Stryker ranged in front of them despite his hurt leg, checking for ambushes. He kept his senses alert for danger, for traps, and for Epstein.

  He still had a message to deliver.

  The light-haired marine pointed the way along the ravine, then up a rocky hillside. The humans took forever to climb it. They crawled. The man almost fainted. The boy cried in frustration.

  As they walked, the chatter of machine guns grew louder. Taunting voices called and grenades exploded.

  A cloud of smoke swirled on the breeze, and Stryker smelled the salty tang of the beach. He smelled the blood and sweat of hundreds of men. They were close to base.

  The light-haired marine kept sagging. But no matter how many times he faltered, Stryker’s boy urged him onward. That boy was as loyal as a dog. Stryker didn’t know any higher compliment than that, and—

  He smelled Epstein!

  The scent wafted around him on a breeze, then faded into the bite of gun smoke and the musk of sweat. Still, Stryker wanted to bark with satisfaction. He’d found Epstein!

  He backtracked to the sluggish humans and almost nipped their heels to encourage them. Hurry up! He knew where to find the scent now!

  In the end, he just circled the humans a few times. Walking around on two legs was ridiculous. Stryker didn’t know how they even balanced.

  Well, the light-haired man wasn’t balancing much right then. He leaned more heavily on the boy. His blood soaked his clothes and splattered the ground.

  He didn’t fall asleep, though. Probably because the boy kept yapping at him, pestering him. Good boy.

  “So, um, where are you from?” the boy asked.

  “Ohio,” the man said.

  “No, seriously.”

  The man’s grimace of pain turned into a twisted grin. “Seriously. Ohio.”

  “That’s a place in America?”

  “It’s a state.”

  “You’re kidding! There’s a state named after what you say when someone surprises you? ‘Oh! Hi. Oh!’”

  “I . . . never thought of it like that.”

  “Is that how you greet people in Ohio?” the boy asked. “Oh! Hiyo!”

  “If I ever get back home”—the marine panted—“it will be.”

  Stryker herded them toward Epstein. Through a charred row of trees, past a crater filled with rainwater—then he smelled the enemy.

  When he alerted the humans, they fell silent and watched him.

  Stryker pointed his snout toward the enemy. He waited until the humans fell into line behind him, then slunk in the opposite direction, keeping one ear cocked.

  He was so close to Epstein! He barely even felt his injured leg any longer.

  The light-haired marine smelled weaker than ever. Still, he stayed on his feet with the boy’s help.

  Stryker led his people in a careful, winding route through the thick of the enemy—toward Epstein.

  As they climbed the hill, Stryker heard a few enemy soldiers to his left, on the other side of a leafy ridge. He smelled even more of them to the right, hidden in a hollow. They were still a minute’s run away, but a big pack was gathering.

  Stryker led his people along the safest route through thickets and around pillboxes, scrambling past charred shrubs and over fallen trees. Finally, they left the enemy behind.

  “How about . . . you?” the light-haired marine asked, his voice soft from caution—or weakness. “Where are you from? New York?”

  “Of course not! I’m from Guam. I’m from here!” The boy made a face. “Oh, you’re kidding.”

  “It must’ve been rough . . . during the occupation. Even for a kid as tough as you.”

  “I’m not tough.”

  “Not tough?” The marine stopped walking until the boy looked at his face. “You appeared out of the jungle with . . . with fire in your eyes and a war dog at your heels. You’re the kind of tough they write stories about.”

  “I’m not! I’m scared all the time! I’m just doing the best I can.”

  “Kid,” the marine said. “That’s what tough is.”

  Chapter 24

  “One twenty, thirty-six, seven—” Bo followed the dog, repeating the code numbers under his breath.

  There was a sudden rustling of leaves. Before Bo could react, a dozen hard-eyed men in dirty uniforms stalked from the jungle. Bo would’ve fainted, but he didn’t want to drop Private Mitchum.

  Also, the men were Americans.

  After a tense moment, they recognized Mitchum’s uniform.

  “What’re you doing here?” one asked. “Who’s the kid?”

  “Who’s the dog?” another asked.

  Bo interrupted them. “He needs the hospital.”

  “I got . . . separated,” Mitchum said, as a medic jogged forward. “The kid helped . . .”

  Like a furry flash, Stryker raced between the marines toward a curly-haired man who was stepping from the jungle. Giving a single bark, Stryker sat at the man’s feet.

  “Stryker!” The marine scratched the dog’s head, then reached for his collar. “You’ve got a message?”

  “Um,” Bo said.

  The marine frowned at Stryker. “He’s hurt!”

  “He got a little shot. I put ointment on him . . .” Bo trailed off when the marine took the tube from the collar. “Er, the message is gone.”

  “Gone? How?”

  “I read it, though. I memorized it.”

  “Well, what did it say?”

  “It’s in Chamorro.”

  The marine rubbed Stryker’s ears. “What’s a Chamorro?”

  “It’s our language. What we speak in Guam.”

  “Oh! Right.” The marine turned his head and shouted. “Hey, Santos! Santos, we need someone who speaks Guamian!”

  “I’m right here, Epstein,” a dark-haired marine said, pushing into the opening. “And it’s still not called Guamian.”

  “You’re Chamorro,” Bo said to the new guy.

  “So are you,” Santos said, hunkering down in front of Bo. “You’ve got a message?”

  “You’re a marine! And Chamorro!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Chamorro and a marine,” Bo said.

  Santos grinned. “That’s right, kid. What’s the message?”

  “Oh. Right. Um.” Bo repeated the message and the numbers. “I’m pretty sure that’s what it said.”

  Santos translated the message into English for the rest of the marines. “The Japanese are attacking from both sides,” Santos finished. “They’re making one big final push, once they get in place. And we were supposed to know about this yesterday.”

  “They’re already in place,” Mitchum said, as the medic bandaged his head. “They’re three hundred yards away, maybe a little more. The dog led us past them.”

  There was a flurry of conversation about military stuff that Bo didn’t understand. Epstein called Stryker to check his wounds. The dog gave Bo a look over his shoulder and trotted away.

  The marines surged into action, preparing for the attack. Bo was swept along with them, toward freshly dug ditches and a captured concrete pillbox.

  “Um, excuse me?” he said to the nearest marine. “There are machine guns around the Chamorros—”

  “There are machine guns everywhere.”

  “No, I mean halfway across the island.”

  The marine grunted. “Then they’re the best kind of guns—the ones we don’t have to worry about.”

  “But they’re surrounding the—”

  “Keep your head down,” the marine said, and trotted off.

  Bo sidled toward Mitchum, but the medic shooed him away with a bloody bandage. So he looked for Epstein. He needed to tell someone about the machine guns around the Chamorro encampment!

  “Um, excuse me?” he said.

  “There you are!” Epstein grabbed his arm. “You need to get out of here, kid.”

  “Would yo
u listen to me? I saw the Japanese with machine guns and, and—I need to find my sister!”

  “Your sister?”

  “She’s the one who wrote the message.”

  “That’s some family,” Epstein said.

  “She’ll make someone listen,” Bo said.

  Epstein offered him the end of a leash. “Take Stryker. He’ll lead you away before the Japanese hit. If you’re still here when they attack, we can’t protect you. Get moving!”

  Bo took the leash. “Who do I tell about—”

  “And take Mitchum too,” Epstein said.

  “I’m staying,” Mitchum said, even though he looked worse than ever, his red hair hidden by a fresh bandage.

  “That’s an order,” another marine told him. “Bring the kid to the field hospital. You can’t hardly move your legs, but you’ll make it that far.”

  “I don’t need my legs, just my trigger finger.”

  Bo knelt in front of the dog as the marines argued. “Stryker? That’s your name?”

  Stryker perked his ears, listening for new dangers among the thunder of shelling.

  “You still look like a Lemmai to me,” Bo told him.

  “Kid!” the one named Epstein shouted. “Time to go. Now!”

  “C’mere.” Mitchum stretched out one arm almost like a hug. “Are you up to being my crutch again?”

  “Sure thing,” Bo said.

  Mitchum leaned his weight on Bo, and Epstein snapped commands to Stryker, telling him to find the hospital.

  Stryker led them away, and after they took twenty steps Bo unhooked the leash. He felt safer with Stryker on the loose.

  Mitchum watched but didn’t say anything. Maybe he couldn’t say anything. Despite his earlier bravado, his breathing sounded weak and raspy, and he shuffled more than he walked.

  The path downhill was slippery with leaves. Branches scratched Bo’s face and snagged Mitchum’s uniform. Apparently the hospital was near the beach, through a patch of jungle, and—

  Behind him, the Japanese attacked.

  Chapter 25

  When the boy unclipped the leash, Stryker didn’t even look back. He knew the boy would follow. They were bound together by something stronger than a length of rope.

  And when the enemy attacked the marines behind them, he didn’t bother swiveling his ears.