The Bomber Dog

by Megan Rix

  ‘What’s Grey going to eat?’ Mrs Green asked as she headed to the kitchen with Nathan and Grey following her. ‘A big dog like that’ll need a lot of food. The butcher’s down the road is selling meat dyed green for dogs.’

  She took Nathan’s favourite dinner, steak and kidney pie, from the oven, and added some boiled potatoes and carrots to the plate. She’d been saving up her ration coupons ever since Nathan got his call-up papers so she could make it for him.

  ‘He can have half my supper. I’m not very hungry,’ Nathan lied, as he scraped half his dinner on to a tin plate and set it on the floor, then sat down at the kitchen table.

  Mrs Green bit her bottom lip but didn’t say anything as Grey gulped down the result of all her careful ration coupon saving in just a few seconds. Nathan had always been an animal lover and a generous son. If he wanted to share his special meal with this dog then that was up to him.

  As he ate the rest of his steak and kidney pie, Nathan told his mum what had happened that evening.

  ‘Grey howled when the ambulance took the other dog away, Mum. Actually howled, like a wolf,’ he said.

  Mrs Green looked down at Grey. He’d finished all the pie and licked his plate clean. He did remind her of a wolf.

  ‘There used to be wolves in Britain, still are in parts of Europe,’ she told Nathan as she sipped her last cup of tea of the day.

  ‘I wish one would eat Mr Hitler and end the war for us,’ Nathan said, spearing a boiled potato.

  ‘A wolf would probably spit him out in disgust,’ Mrs Green laughed and Nathan joined in.

  Grey looked from one to the other, and then thoroughly licked his plate again, although there wasn’t a scrap of food left on it.

  ‘Where’s Grey going to sleep?’ Mrs Green asked, when Nathan had finished eating. She glanced towards the back door that led out to the garden, wondering whether they could use the Andersen shelter as a kennel for the night. But Nathan didn’t think it was a good idea for Grey to sleep out in the garden because he might run off.

  ‘He can sleep in my room,’ he said.

  ‘Oh – oh, good,’ Mrs Green said. She really hadn’t fancied bumping into the dog when she came downstairs for her early morning cup of tea before setting off for the hospital.

  ‘And where’s he going to go once you’ve gone?’ she asked, rather anxiously.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum. I’ll think of something,’ said Nathan, sounding a lot more confident than he actually was.

  ‘All right, night love,’ she said, and she kissed Nathan on the forehead. ‘I’ll probably have left before you wake up in the morning.’

  ‘I worry about you all alone here once I’m gone, Mum. What if something happens? I wish you could be with Penny,’ Nathan said.

  But Mrs Green shook her head. She couldn’t do that. She was needed here. ‘I’ll be all right. Worse comes to the worst I can sleep up at the hospital or at the Esplanade caves if our house gets hit, which I’m sure it won’t. Did you know, one of the soldiers told me today, those big guns Hitler’s got aimed at us from across the Channel are so big a man could crawl inside the barrel and have room to take a kip – if he was inclined to sleep inside a gun that could shoot you all the way across the sea, that is.’

  ‘I love you, Mum,’ Nathan said softly.

  ‘Love you too. I’m proud of you, son and don’t you forget it.’

  Grey tilted his head and watched her wipe her tears on the sleeve of her dressing gown as she left the room. ‘And I’ll miss you when you leave,’ she added, but didn’t tell him that she felt like her heart was breaking every time she thought of him going off to war.

  ‘This way, Grey,’ Nathan said.

  He took Grey outside into their small garden to do his business and then Grey followed him back inside.

  Grey had never needed to go upstairs before and he stood at the bottom of them looking up at Nathan as he went.

  ‘Come on Grey,’ Nathan said, standing at the top of the stairs and patting his leg.

  Grey whined, but then cautiously went up one stair and then another. The narrow steps were awkward for a dog of his size and he didn’t find them at all easy. But at last he reached the top and wagged his tail with relief. He even let Nathan pat him for the first time.

  Nathan put a blanket on the floor by his bed for Grey and Grey circled round it and scratched it before lying down. It was hard to get to sleep without Molly’s warm body beside him.

  Sometime during the night Grey climbed on to Nathan’s bed and he was still there when Nathan woke up in the morning.

  Chapter 4

  Nathan didn’t hear his mum standing outside his bedroom door at five o’clock the next morning, before she slipped quietly out of the house for her shift at the hospital, but Grey did. He was instantly awake and alert, but then he looked over at Nathan, still fast asleep, and dozed off again.

  Two hours later, Nathan was awoken by the sound of Grey’s snores. But almost as soon as Nathan opened his eyes, Grey was awake too, sitting up, fully alert, panting and staring at him.

  ‘Good dog,’ Nathan said, and Grey allowed himself to be stroked, although he still didn’t seem to be completely comfortable being touched.

  Nathan glanced over at his call-up papers and travel documents, which were sitting on the dresser beside his bed. Along with his call-up papers he’d received his ticket and details of his journey. There were an awful lot of stations between Dover and the basic training camp at Cardington, and it looked as though the train stopped at every one on their journey through Kent, London, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire to their destination. Today was his last day as a civilian and he was going to spend it with Grey. He threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. Grey immediately jumped off too and padded after him.

  His second experience of the stairs wasn’t as bad as his first had been, but they still weren’t easy for a big dog, and going down felt a lot trickier than going up.

  Once they were safely downstairs, Nathan opened the back door to let Grey go outside and do his business. While Grey was sniffing the lavender bush, which was the neighbourhood tom cat’s favourite haunt, Nathan carried the tin bath in from where it hung on a nail outside and set it in front of the kitchen range.

  Next he set the kettle and a saucepan to heat on the range. Once they were piping hot, he poured them into the tin bath and then refilled them both to heat up again. He did this twice more until there was about three inches of water in the bottom of the bath.

  Grey was still outside when Nathan stripped off his clothes and climbed in, but a moment later he was there, staring intently at him. The dog looked at the bath water, put his head down and drank some of it, sneezed a little at the surprising warmth of it, then sat down and gazed at Nathan holding the sponge.

  Nathan found it very unnerving sitting naked in the tin bath with Grey staring at him. At times the dog tilted his head to one side and looked at him as if he was trying to work out what on earth was going on. Grey’s coat had been covered in ash and soot the night before and it was matted and dirty. He looked as though he’d never had a bath in his life.

  Nathan wasn’t sure how Grey would react to being washed. Some dogs hated water and others loved it.

  He stood up, stepped out of the bath and pulled a towel down from the kitchen pulley rack.

  ‘In you go, Grey,’ he said, pointing at the bathwater.

  Grey bent his head and lapped at the water in the bottom of the tin bath again, but he didn’t get in.

  Nathan reached
down and splashed his fingers about in the water.

  ‘It’s nice,’ he said. ‘Go on.’ He pointed at the water again, but Grey clearly had no intention of getting in and stayed firmly where he was.

  Nathan sighed. ‘Sponge bath then.’

  He dipped the sponge in the bathwater, rubbed coal tar soap on the sponge and then squeezed it over Grey’s back. The soap certainly made Grey’s fur smell a lot nicer than it had previously.

  ‘That’s it, you’re OK,’ he told Grey, as the dog turned to look with interest at the river of soapy suds running down his back. Nathan laughed. Grey did seem to be a bit bewildered by it all, but at least he wasn’t running away.

  Nathan lathered the soap deep into Grey’s fur and then sponged it off with plenty of clean water. At last, all rinsed off, it was time to dry him.

  However, before he could get another towel from the pulley rack, Grey started to shake himself vigorously and sprayed water everywhere; all over the walls, the range and the floor. Nathan did his best to mop it up, and then dried Grey as thoroughly as he could with the soggy towel.

  Grey really seemed to like being dried; he made little sounds of happiness deep in his throat, which made Nathan smile. Before he’d washed him he’d thought Grey was mainly a dark charcoal grey all over, but now he found that parts of his coat were actually quite pale, and as the fur became properly dry he discovered that the dog was in fact sable coated.

  ‘You really are a beautiful dog,’ he told him. And judging by the way Grey held his head up proudly, he thought he’d probably agree.

  ‘You know what you need? You need a brush,’ Nathan said. Nathan himself used a comb on his hair and he didn’t think his mother would appreciate him using her hairbrush on Grey, but the scrubbing brush turned out to be perfect. As he ran the bristle brush down Grey’s sable coat he smoothed out any remaining matting and knots in his fur.

  Grey lifted his head to encourage Nathan to concentrate on his favourite brushing place – under his chin.

  ‘More there?’ Nathan said as he obediently brushed the spot.

  The dog’s pointy ears – one grey and standing straight up, the other white-tipped and flopping down – were velvety soft, softer than the rest of his coat. Not that the rest of his coat was rough, especially after all the brushing, but it didn’t have the buttery softness of his ears.

  Nathan laughed when he was brushing the dog’s tummy and found a tickle spot that made Grey sneeze.

  He’d only known Grey a very short time but already he was starting to wish the dog could be his. But that wasn’t possible because he was leaving for army basic-training camp tomorrow.

  Nathan wished that Penny could meet Grey. She was crazy about dogs and he was sure she’d like him just as much as he did. But at least Penny was with animals at their grandparents’ smallholding and it was a lot safer than Dover – Hellfire Corner, as everyone now called it because of all the damage it was receiving. Nathan was worried about leaving his mum alone. He wished she could join Penny and be safe. He wished they could have Grey with them to protect them, but he’d seen how frightened his mum was of Grey, even though she’d tried to hide it.

  ‘Hungry?’ Nathan asked the dog. Nathan certainly was. Grey padded close behind him as Nathan went to see what there was in the pantry.

  ‘Sit!’ Nathan said as he opened the pantry door and reached inside.

  Grey looked at Nathan, then at the bit of chicken in Nathan’s hand and back at Nathan.

  ‘Sit!’ Nathan said again.

  But Grey didn’t. Nathan wasn’t even sure that Grey understood what the word meant, and he didn’t want to frighten him by trying to push his bottom to the ground.

  Nathan sat down on the kitchen floor.

  ‘Sit!’

  Grey looked at the chicken and then at Nathan. He sat down.

  ‘Good dog!’ Nathan cried, and he gave him the piece of chicken, which Grey gulped down in a single swallow, seemingly without chewing it at all.

  Nathan scrambled to his feet to get more chicken and Grey stood up and followed him. He wasn’t quite sure what it was he’d done to get the chicken but he definitely wanted more.

  ‘Sit!’ Nathan said, and his hand unconsciously lifted as he said it.

  Grey watched Nathan’s movement, looked at the chicken and sat.

  ‘Yes!’ Nathan said as Grey gulped down the food. The dog was a quick learner, at least when there was chicken involved. Maybe the dog had been taught the command before, maybe he had once had a family, Nathan didn’t know.

  He wanted to take Grey for a walk but he didn’t even have a collar or a lead for him. He improvised by making an extra hole in his own belt to use as a collar and used the washing line, doubled over a few times, as a lead.

  At first, Grey backed away when Nathan tried to put the collar on, but Nathan dropped a scrap of bread on the floor, and while Grey was busy gobbling it up Nathan managed to get the collar safely buckled around his neck. He threaded the washing line through the belt as a makeshift lead. Grey looked unimpressed.

  ‘Come on now,’ Nathan said. ‘You have to wear it.’

  When Nathan tried to get Grey to go the way he wanted him to go, Grey didn’t like it at all and started to pull in the opposite direction.

  ‘This way,’ Nathan said, holding out more bread to Grey. ‘Bread doesn’t grow on trees you know,’ he murmured as they headed out of the house and down the road.

  Grey just gave him a look, but then he caught sight of the park just ahead. He was very fond of running on grass and chasing squirrels and he dragged Nathan towards the park so hard that he had to cling on to the lead with both hands.

  ‘Whoa, slow down there, stop,’ he pleaded.

  But Grey wasn’t listening. He was a strong dog who knew where he wanted to go, and as soon as they reached the park, in they went.

  Grey ran fast and Nathan had no choice but to let go of the lead or end up being dragged into a hawthorn bush.

  As he watched Grey run on without him, Nathan worried that he was going to lose him. What if the dog didn’t come back?

  He spotted a ball that had been left half hidden under the bush and picked it up.

  ‘Grey, Grey, Grey …’ he yelled, as he waved his hands in the air.

  The dog stopped for a moment to look over at him but didn’t come back.

  ‘Fetch!’ Nathan threw the ball into the air. Grey followed it with his eyes and the next moment he was running across the grass chasing after it.

  He’d never played ball before but he liked it just as much as chasing squirrels, and he soon got the idea that if he brought it back to Nathan then Nathan could make it fly through the air for him to chase all over again.

  Nathan soon found out that when it came to meeting other dogs, Grey wasn’t the least bit wary. Nathan watched as he bounded over to the other dogs in the park, wagging his tail to sniff and say hello.

  Most of the dog owners were happy to see him, but some owners, especially those with little dogs, were frightened and quickly picked up their pets for safety.

  ‘Looks like he could eat my Trixie for breakfast …’

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t,’ Nathan replied.

  ‘Don’t want Puddle getting injured by those big paws …’

  ‘He’s quite gentle, really,’ Nathan said.

  ‘My, but you’ve got a big dog there. I bet the War Dog Training School would like a few more like him.’

  Nathan hadn’t heard of the War Dog Training School b
efore.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  But the lady didn’t know much about it. ‘There was an advert in the paper. They’re looking for dogs to train up for the war effort.’

  Nathan looked down at Grey, who gazed up at him and then down at his ball.

  ‘Where is this War Dog Training School?’ Nathan asked the lady. ‘Is it around here?’

  ‘No, it isn’t local. Let me see. It was somewhere I haven’t been … Hampshire, Herefordshire … no … oh, I remember, it was Hertfordshire.’

  Nathan threw the ball for Grey who raced after it but then he spotted a honey-coated spaniel, a lot like Molly, way across the other side of the park and he went racing over to it.

  ‘Grey, Grey, come back!’ Nathan called as he ran after him.

  The dog wasn’t Molly, and worse still the owner looked at Grey in horror and dragged his own dog away.

  ‘Keep that brute away from my dog,’ he shouted at Nathan.

  ‘He was just coming to say hello,’ Nathan said reasonably. ‘He thought …’ But the man didn’t let him finish. ‘Dogs like him don’t think – they just attack without warning,’ he said, and stomped off.

  Nathan looked down at Grey and sighed. ‘I suppose to some people you might look a bit dangerous.’

  Grey tilted his head to one side and looked up at him. ‘But not once they get to know you, of course,’ Nathan added.

  Grey panted as he watched the spaniel being dragged out of the park. Nathan was sure he had run over to the dog because he’d hoped it might be his friend.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, picking up Grey’s lead. The Houghton Street Clinic, where Molly had been taken, wasn’t far away. ‘Let’s see how she’s getting on.’

  Kate was stunned to see them both when they arrived.

  ‘Isn’t that the dog from last night?’ she asked.

  Nathan nodded as Grey sat down next to him. ‘We came to see how his friend was getting on,’ Nathan added.