The Bomber Dog

by Megan Rix

  ‘But what about the other dog, the one that rescued it?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Doesn’t look like he’s got a collar on at all,’ Kate said, avoiding his question. She’d seen Nathan before, helping at the bomb sites, but she didn’t really know him.

  ‘No,’ Nathan agreed. It didn’t.

  The big dog’s eyes never left Nathan and he didn’t move away as Nathan approached him and his friend.

  ‘Let’s just concentrate on getting the injured dog some help for now. Someone will be sent for the other one in the morning,’ Kate said, and she pressed her lips together to stop herself from saying more.

  But Nathan was worried about the other dog. ‘What happens to dogs that don’t have a NARPAC disc on their collar?’ he asked her.

  Kate sighed and shook her head.

  ‘We can’t look after them all,’ she said, but Nathan wasn’t listening to her because he was looking at the big dog, who had stood up.

  The German Shepherd took a few paces towards the young man, and then headed back to his friend, stopping every few moments to look behind him. The dog definitely wanted them to come and help but Kate was worried it might get in the way while she was trying to examine the smaller one.

  ‘Here, try throwing a bit of this over that way,’ she said, pulling a beef-dripping sandwich from her pocket. She’d been eating it for her tea when the siren went off and she’d had to dash out of the door without stopping to finish it. ‘It’ll distract the big dog so I can take a look at the injured one.’

  Nathan threw the sandwich off to the side, where Kate had told him to. The dog watched the bread being thrown, looked at it, and then turned back to Nathan.

  ‘One perfectly good sandwich wasted. Go on you silly dog, eat it!’ Kate told him.

  But all the dog did was look steadily back at them, then slowly raise his paw as if he were asking them to do something to help his friend. He wasn’t leaving Molly, not even for food.

  Kate and Nathan kept slowly walking towards the dogs.

  ‘Be careful,’ Kate told Nathan.

  It didn’t take long for a dog to turn from a house pet into a wild animal, some said only forty-eight hours or so.

  ‘Young puppies need to be stroked frequently and held by human hands,’ said Kate. ‘If they don’t get this, it’s unlikely they’ll ever become truly comfortable and relaxed as pets.’

  ‘I will be careful,’ answered Nathan.

  As Nathan moved towards the dog, who’d been such a good friend to his injured pal, the dog backed away, unsure. He wasn’t used to contact with people – other than being shouted at or having things thrown at him.

  Kate gave Nathan her last sandwich and Nathan broke bits off it and crouched down so that he wouldn’t be as frightening.

  ‘Here dog, come here,’ he called in a soft, non-threatening voice.

  The young animal took a step towards him and then stopped. He stared at the hand that held the sandwich, glanced up at Nathan’s face for a fraction of a second and then back at the sandwich. He was always very hungry and the sandwich was almost impossible to resist.

  ‘He’ll feel less threatened if you don’t look directly at him,’ Kate said over her shoulder, as she reached Molly.

  Nathan knew the dog wanted the bit of sandwich because he could see it drooling, but would it be brave enough to come over to him? Nathan waited. The dog took another few paces forward but then stopped and sat down, his head tilted to one side as he looked at Nathan.

  Nathan laughed. The dog was playing him at his own game!

  He stood up and moved a few paces backwards, dropping small bits of sandwich on the ground as he did so. All the time he kept his head turned away from the dog, as Kate had suggested, but he could still just see any movement it made from the corner of his eye.

  The dog took a step closer and then another. The sandwich lure was too strong to ignore.

  He ate one bit of the sandwich and then he ate another. He didn’t see Nathan smiling to himself. Nathan risked taking a step towards him and he scuttled a few feet away, then stopped.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Nathan told the dog. ‘Your friend’s going to be all right.’

  Every time Nathan moved forward the dog moved back, but he didn’t try to interfere or stop Kate as she examined Molly and cleaned the cut on her head.

  ‘Her wounds don’t look too bad but I’ll need to take her back to the clinic for a proper examination,’ Kate said, and Nathan came over, with the other dog following a few steps behind.

  ‘We can use my coat,’ Nathan said, and he pulled it off and laid it on the ground beside Molly.

  Molly whimpered as Kate and Nathan slid her on to Nathan’s coat and Nathan lifted her in his arms.

  ‘She hardly weighs a thing,’ he said.

  Molly looked fragile and vulnerable. The big dog whined and followed them as they made their way back to the ambulance where the warden was waiting.

  ‘What exactly happens to dogs that aren’t registered?’ Nathan asked Kate again as they reached the NARPAC ambulance.

  Kate sighed. ‘It’s an impossible situation. There are already far too many homeless dogs – especially in Dover.’

  Nathan felt a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘So what happens to them?’ he repeated.

  ‘Unregistered stray dogs are put down,’ Kate said as she opened the ambulance door. ‘It’s not my choice,’ she added when she saw Nathan’s stricken face. ‘But it’s what we have to do.’

  Nathan stared at the German Shepherd standing only a few paces away. He’d been so brave helping his friend. Nathan couldn’t bear the thought of him being put down – it was so unfair. The dog shouldn’t have to die just because it hadn’t been registered. It wasn’t right. He had to do something – couldn’t let it happen – but he’d had his call-up papers and was due to leave for basic training in two days’ time.

  Nathan lifted Molly into the ambulance.

  Her friend barked, not understanding what was happening or where they were taking Molly. He’d never been separated from her before.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Nathan said. He reached out to stroke the dog without thinking, but it ducked out of the way.

  ‘Seventeen Harold Road,’ Kate read from the back of Molly’s NARPAC collar.

  ‘I’ll let the owner know she’s been found,’ the warden said as he climbed on to his heavy single-speed bicycle.

  ‘Thank you,’ Kate said.

  A major part of an animal rescuer’s work, and the best part in Kate’s opinion, was reuniting lost pets with their owners.

  The German Shepherd looked up at Nathan and then back at Molly in the ambulance. He whined mournfully.

  ‘Right, let’s get her some medical attention as soon as possible. See you later, Nathan,’ Kate added, then she closed the ambulance door and the big dog was left staring at the back of it as she ran round to the driver’s side, jumped in and started the engine. The sooner she got Molly back to the clinic the better.

  The German Shepherd barked, but the ambulance door didn’t open. He barked again but it remained closed.

  As the ambulance drove off he ran after it, ran and ran, until it was gone and he could run no more.

  He threw back his head and howled in misery.

  Chapter 3

  He was lost without Molly. She’d always been there for him. She was the one who had decided where they should go and when they should eat – even where they slept at night. B
ut now Molly was gone and he didn’t know what to do. He sank down on to the road with his head on his paws, looking utterly despondent, and that’s where Nathan found him.

  ‘You can certainly run fast,’ Nathan gasped, bending double as he tried to catch his breath.

  Nathan’s coat still had the faint scent of Molly on it. The dog looked up at him and whined.

  ‘Don’t worry, your friend’s going to be OK,’ Nathan told him, but he knew the dog couldn’t understand. How could he?

  He took a step closer but the big dog jumped up and moved to the other side of the road before turning and looking back at Nathan.

  Nathan rummaged around inside his coat pocket and found a small leftover piece of the sandwich Kate had given him earlier. He threw it to the dog, who took a few steps forward to eat it, then just stood there, his tail between his legs. It seemed to Nathan that the dog’s blue eyes were staring straight into his own brown ones, trying desperately to communicate with him.

  ‘I don’t have any more food,’ Nathan explained, but the dog just kept on looking at him, willing him to understand.

  When Kate arrived at the clinic with Molly she found it was as chaotic as usual. There were always far too many animals needing treatment for their injuries. Some of them had been hurt by bomb blasts, but many more had been wounded afterwards by falling debris or had cut their paws on broken glass or fragments of metal. Kate laid Molly down in one of the cubicles for the vet to examine her.

  Molly’s eyes opened and Kate could see the fear in them.

  ‘It’s all right, you’re going to be just fine,’ she said as she softly stroked the trembling dog.

  Molly’s eyes closed and she drifted back to sleep.

  While Kate waited for the vet she filled in a brief report of what had happened at the site, but she left out the answer to one of the questions. She was supposed to report any dogs that had been spotted that weren’t registered with NARPAC, so they could be collected, but Kate couldn’t bear the thought that the dog that had stayed by his injured friend’s side would be put to sleep without being given a chance, so she left out any mention of him.

  ‘I’m Mrs Williams and I’m looking for my dog, Molly. She’s a honey-coloured spaniel and the warden said she was here,’ said an anxious voice outside the cubicles. ‘Please tell me if she is. Please tell me, have you found my Molly?’

  Kate swished back the curtain to find a middle-aged woman wearing a coat over her dressing gown and with house slippers on her feet, wringing her hands as she asked one of the other nurses about her dog.

  ‘Have you found her?’ the woman asked, turning to Kate. ‘Please tell me it’s true. I’ve been so worried about her. I miss her so. The house doesn’t feel right without her.’ She’d tied a scarf round her head to cover up the rollers in her hair, and knotted it under her chin. As she spoke, she nervously pushed back one of the rollers that had started to work its way free.

  ‘She’s in here,’ Kate said, beckoning the woman over to the cubicle.

  ‘Oh, Molly, dearest Molly,’ Mrs Williams said as tears of worry and relief rolled down her face at the sight of her dog. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

  ‘Yes. She’s been injured and was knocked unconscious – the vet still needs to see her – but I think she’s going to be absolutely fine,’ Kate reassured her.

  ‘I blame myself for her getting lost,’ Mrs Williams said. ‘I should have told them Molly was still inside as soon as I’d been rescued after the house was struck by the bomb, just over a year ago now. But I didn’t – not till they’d taken me away on the stretcher and I was lying in the ambulance. I’d been unconscious and wasn’t thinking straight. They said they’d see to me first and I wasn’t to worry, but I did worry and when they couldn’t find her I thought she was … must be …’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘dead’, but another tear slipped down her face at the memory.

  Molly opened her eyes at the sound of the familiar voice and her tail wagged slowly up and down once as if she were saying hello.

  ‘She had a good friend with her when we found her,’ Kate said. ‘Another dog – an Alsatian – who stayed by her side when she was injured. Without him she may not have survived, but because of him she did. We don’t know who he belongs to. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d be interested in giving him a home with you? He and Molly did seem very attached to each other.’

  Mrs Williams blew her nose loudly on her handkerchief. ‘Oh my goodness, dear, I couldn’t possibly take on a dog that size at my age. I wish I could help but Molly is the only dog for me. How soon will she be allowed to come home?’ she asked.

  ‘She’ll need the vet to check her over before we’ll know that,’ Kate told her. ‘But I don’t think it should be very long at all before she can go back home with you.’

  ‘I have to get home,’ Nathan told the dog. He’d given him all the food he had and there was nothing left.

  Nathan started to walk away, but then something made him look back. The dog was following him! It wasn’t brave enough to get too close though, and stopped when it was about a yard away.

  Nathan walked on a bit further and then glanced behind him again. The dog was still there! Ten minutes later they reached Nathan’s street and Nathan turned up the path to his house.

  The house, like all the other houses they’d passed, had no lights that could be seen from the outside, because of the strict blackout. Any light that showed from the houses could be used by enemy bombers to work out where to target, so the lights-out rule was strictly enforced. Nathan pulled his key from its string around his neck and opened the door.

  ‘I’m home, Mum,’ he called out. He wasn’t sure if she’d be back from her shift at the underground hospital at Dover Castle yet. She worked long and irregular hours there as an auxiliary nurse.

  ‘Oh good, your supper’s …’ Mrs Green started to say, but then she saw the beast standing behind Nathan in the semi-darkness and she screamed and jumped on a chair. ‘A wolf!’

  ‘It’s not a wolf, Mum. It’s an Alsatian,’ Nathan reassured her. ‘No one seems to like to call them German Shepherd dogs because of the war, but they really are great dogs, Mum.’ Nathan said. ‘It’s not their fault they’ve got that name. You should have seen how brave he was today.’

  The dog looked from Nathan to his mother standing on a chair and back to Nathan. He tilted his head to one side, floppy ear down, and gave a small whine.

  ‘What’s it doing in our house?’ Mrs Green asked, her voice higher than usual.

  Nathan couldn’t lie to her. ‘It followed me home.’

  ‘Well, it can’t stay here,’ Mrs Green said. ‘You’ll be going off in a couple of days.’

  She didn’t like the way it was looking at her. It looked hungry.

  ‘Please, Mum,’ Nathan said. ‘Let him stay just for tonight. He saved his friend from a fire and then got left behind when they took her away.’

  As if on cue the dog whined and sat down. He tilted his head to one side again as he looked up at her, almost as if he were adding his own plea.

  Mrs Green climbed slowly down from the chair. She’d always been a bit wary of big dogs, but since the war had started there’d been a lot of things she’d always been frightened of that she now found herself reconsidering. She was very much looking forward to the war being over, so everything could get back to normal.

  ‘What’s its name?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nathan said. ‘He doesn’t have a collar.�
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  ‘Well, we’ll have to call him something. Can’t just call him Dog,’ Mrs Green said. ‘Doesn’t feel right.’

  Nathan looked down at the dog beside him. He was covered in soot and ash from the blast, as he was sure he must be himself.

  ‘Grey?’ he suggested.

  His mother nodded and managed a nervous smile. ‘Suits him,’ she said.

  Grey’s tail flapped up and down.

  ‘I know someone who’d like him very much,’ Mrs Green said.

  ‘Penny,’ Nathan agreed.

  His younger sister had been evacuated to keep her safe from the bombs.

  Mrs Green remembered that she had a letter for Nathan from Penny. It had been in the same envelope as the one addressed to her.

  ‘She sent this for you,’ she said, pulling the letter from her dressing gown pocket.

  She missed her daughter terribly, but as the shelling had increased, she’d had no choice but to send Nathan’s ten-year-old sister to her parents’ farm in Kent for safety.

  Nathan smiled as he took the envelope from her. Penny had drawn a picture of herself waving whilst surrounded by farm animals.

  ‘To the best big brother in the world. Make sure you sort out Mr Hitler and come home safe. I love you, Penny xxx.’

  Mrs Green had stayed in Dover to continue to help the wounded soldiers who were brought to the underground hospital at the castle. It also meant she should have been able to see Nathan off, but she’d found out, as she was finishing her shift today, that that wasn’t going to be possible.

  ‘I’ve been put on earlies for the next week,’ she said sadly, as Nathan read the letter from his sister. ‘Sorry, love, it means I’ll have to leave at five. I told them you were going but they’ve had an outbreak of flu, as if those poor wounded soldiers haven’t got enough to put up with already, and I’m badly needed.’

  ‘It’s OK, Mum,’ Nathan told her. He knew she’d have been there for him if she possibly could.