by Megan Rix
His parachute landing was soft because of the early summer floods and he jumped to his feet, unclipped his chute, tore it off and stuffed it in a bush to hide it as quickly as possible. Then he looked around for Grey. It was very dark and he could barely see anything because of the lashing rain. He made a whistling sound through his teeth. He couldn’t call out in case he alerted the enemy, but there was no response to his whistle and, as Nathan waded knee deep through the flooded fields, he felt sick with dread.
The army had prepared them all as well as it could, but one of the things Nathan’s group of soldiers hadn’t been taught how to do was swim.
He whistled quietly again as he circled the area, hoping for an answering bark or a whine or anything at all, but there was nothing – just a terrible silence.
Grey didn’t have a life jacket. They weren’t designed for dogs to wear and Nathan didn’t know whether Grey could swim or not. He’d been told that dogs can swim instinctively, but he didn’t know if this was really always true or not.
If only he’d taken Grey swimming. If only he could be sure. But it was too late now.
Then an even worse thought came to him. Even if Grey could swim he wouldn’t be able to get out of his parachute. He needed someone to remove it, and that person should have been Nathan.
‘Grey,’ Nathan called out. ‘Grey!’
As if from nowhere, a hand appeared and clamped itself over his mouth.
‘Shut up! Or we’ll all be killed,’ a voice with a French accent ordered him.
It was a member of the French Resistance who had been waiting for them, as planned. The man released his hand from Nathan’s mouth.
‘My dog,’ Nathan whispered. ‘We parachuted together …’
The man had never met Nathan or Grey and so Nathan knew he couldn’t possibly begin to understand the bond he and the dog had.
‘I have seen no dog,’ he muttered. ‘And there’s no time to look for it now. Come on!’
The man pushed him roughly forward and Nathan knew he had no choice but to go. He needed to report back about the guns; his comrades at home were counting on him. The man from the French Resistance introduced himself as Jacques Dubois, and he and Nathan waded on through the flooded field.
‘They’ve brought more guns – big guns,’ Jacques told him as they reached the edge of the field where Nathan saw that he had a motorcycle waiting for them. He pulled away the tree branches he’d used to hide it. ‘They took them to the Merville gun battery. I will show you.’
He climbed on to his motorcycle and, after one last desperate look behind him to see if Grey was there, Nathan climbed on too. Jacques started the engine and they drove – without headlights so it would be harder for the enemy to spot them – towards the German gun battery. All the time Nathan prayed that Grey was all right; that he wouldn’t be caught; that wherever he’d landed someone would help him remove the parachute that he couldn’t remove for himself.
He felt desperately guilty as he imagined Grey lying injured and afraid. Had he landed safely somewhere? Often parachutists landed in trees and were stuck there unless they managed to cut themselves free. But Grey didn’t have a knife or hands that could grip one. He was solely dependent on someone to release his parachute for him.
For a moment Nathan wondered if it would have been better for Grey if they had never met. Nathan felt it certainly wouldn’t have been better for himself, but if Nathan hadn’t rescued him Grey could have gone back to life as a stray dog in Dover. It had been a tough life admittedly, but maybe better than being lost in France.
‘Voila,’ Jacques said as the motorcycle stopped. ‘From here we walk.’
Nathan helped Jacques to hide his motorcycle under more foliage and they set off to trudge through the rain for the last mile towards the Germans’ gun enplacement. It was well protected not only with barbed wire, but also by a minefield through which Jacques led Nathan carefully.
‘Over there,’ he said as he handed Nathan a pair of wire-cutters to cut through the barbed wire. The huge gun fort, made of concrete and steel to protect the guns within, lay just ahead. It was hard to see exactly what was inside the fort, but there were holes in it for the largest of the guns to poke through. The guns could do devastating damage to the Allied forces and the British needed to know about them as soon as possible.
But Nathan wanted to see more so that he would have more intelligence to report. They crept closer and were just inside it when they were almost spotted.
‘Wer ist das?’ a voice asked.
Nathan and Jaques ran to hide as footsteps approached.
‘Miau, is that you?’ the German soldier said. He stopped in front of the large cannon-shaped gun behind which Nathan was hiding.
Nathan held his breath as a cat miaowed and came running to the soldier.
‘Aha, was it you catching mice again?’ the soldier said as he lifted the cat into his arms. ‘Let’s see if we can find you some milk, little Miau.’
As soon as the German soldier had gone, Nathan and Jaques ran. They made it safely out of the gun battery, but as they were running through the minefield a shot rang out.
‘My leg,’ yelled Jacques. ‘I’ve been hit!’ Then, ‘Go, go, go!’ he shouted, as Nathan instinctively went to help him.
‘No!’ Jacques begged, holding up his hand as Nathan knelt beside him. ‘Too risky to save me. Tell them there is also a railway gun …’
Nathan pulled Jacques’s arm round him and dragged him to his feet.
‘You must report what you see. If you do not, all this will be a waste,’ Jacques begged.
But there was no way Nathan would leave Jacques to be taken prisoner or maybe even shot.
‘They need the railway-gun information too,’ he said, through gritted teeth, as he half dragged the much heavier man away through the torrential rain. Although the rain was drenching both of them to the skin, it would at least make them harder to see.
Chapter 13
The flooded river’s current was so strong that Grey had no chance of swimming against it, and with the parachute still attached and no way for him to remove it, he was in very grave danger of drowning.
He tried and tried to reach the bank, but the rushing river refused to let him. The parachute weighed him down and finally he was too exhausted to fight the river any more. He stopped trying and let the rushing water carry him away, his head sinking under the water as he was pulled down.
Suddenly, however, he was stopped by a sharp jolt. The parachute strings had caught on the branch of a fallen tree, which stopped his progress down the river. Grey was able to half clamber on to the tree and cling there. All night he held on, shivering and wet. All night he waited for Nathan to find him.
By the time the sun rose Grey was half delirious. He was so cold and so tired and so lost without Nathan. He slipped in and out of consciousness, and when he finally did hear voices they seemed to be coming from very far away.
‘Un chien!’ Claude cried, pointing at the dog in the river.
He and Sabine ran towards it, but as she ran Sabine was worried the dog would be dead, and she couldn’t bear for this war to take any more lives.
‘Be careful,’ Claude begged her as Sabine crawled out along the branch of the tree and found herself staring into a pair of terrified blue eyes.
‘It’s all right,’ she said softly. ‘It’s all right. I’m going to set you free.’
The dog was so weak she had to be careful the current didn’t drag him away once the parachute that was trap
ping and also supporting him was released.
‘Get Luc,’ she shouted to her brother. ‘And then run home and bring the cart.’ The dog didn’t look strong enough to walk and he’d be too heavy for them to carry home.
Luc’s family was part of the French Resistance too.
Sabine was frightened for Luc and Claude, and for herself, but she knew, also, that they had to help the Allies if France was ever to regain its freedom.
Luc was fourteen and lived on the farm next to theirs. He was very quiet and shy – sometimes he barely said a word all day – but he was also very strong and Sabine was glad when he came running to help.
As she carefully unravelled the parachute strings she gave them to Luc to hold on to so that if the dog were dragged away by the current he’d be able to pull him back.
Claude ran up, breathless, pulling the hand cart, but it wasn’t needed. Luc cradled the dog in his arms, holding Grey close to him to keep him warm. Grey shivered with shock, cold and exhaustion as Luc told him he would be safe now. He couldn’t understand the boy’s words, but he knew the tone of Luc’s voice meant comfort and security, warmth and love.
Luc carried Grey all the way back to Sabine and Claude’s farmhouse and laid him gently on a blanket in front of the fire while Claude ran to fetch more sticks to build up the flames. Sabine knelt beside the dog and stroked him.
They were still kneeling beside Grey when Sabine and Claude’s mother came back from the market.
She gasped when she saw the large dog lying fast asleep in front of the fireplace. Grey was the first dog they’d had in their house since France had become occupied and their own German Shepherd dog and her puppies had been confiscated by German soldiers. His sable colouring was different from that of the puppies they’d lost, but seeing him brought back a lot of memories.
Sabine told her all about what had happened and how they’d found Grey.
‘You shouldn’t have brought him here,’ her mother scolded. But Sabine knew she didn’t truly mean it. Their mother was well aware that the war had made all three children more independent and grown-up than they would otherwise have been.
‘Luc helped us,’ Claude added. ‘But Sabine crawled out along the branch over the river …’
Sabine gave her brother a ‘be quiet’ look and their mother gave Sabine a ‘we’ll talk about this later’ one.
‘We have to keep him hidden,’ Sabine said. ‘He was wearing a parachute …’
Sabine’s mother nodded. She removed Grey’s collar with its identification tag that bore his name, number and regiment.
‘His name’s Grey,’ she said, and she put the collar and ID tag in a pottery jar on the mantelpiece, so Grey couldn’t be identified as a British dog if he were captured by the Germans.
Grey awoke to find himself on some sacking and a blanket in front of a roaring fire. He tried to sit up but a soft voice spoke soothingly, and a gentle hand pushed him back down.
‘Rest,’ Sabine told him, and he went back to sleep, only to wake again an hour later.
‘Get the dog some ragout,’ Sabine’s mother instructed her, and Sabine hurried to ladle some stew into a bowl.
‘Not too much – little and often is better for a dog in his condition,’ her mother added. ‘And make sure it’s cool enough before you give it to him.’
‘I know.’ Sabine said. She’d never be foolish enough to give a dog hot food which might burn its mouth.
Grey lapped at the unfamiliar-smelling food, found he liked it, and licked the bowl clean. Then he looked up at Sabine for more.
Sabine laughed and stroked his head.
‘Maybe some more later,’ she said.
The dog would be better in no time at this rate. She squeezed her mother’s hand.
‘A good appetite is a good sign,’ her mother agreed.
Claude came in with more wood for the fire and Sabine told him the good news.
‘He’s going to be OK,’ she said, her eyes shining.
That night they left Grey by the fire to sleep but later Sabine crept downstairs to lie beside the dog and Claude came to join her.
Although he was exhausted from his night-long ordeal in the river, and his muscles ached from clinging to the branch for so long, Grey was not otherwise injured and once he awoke he tried to stand. He needed to find Nathan but his legs crumpled and he lay back down.
‘Shh, hush now,’ Sabine told him, as Grey whined.
She stroked him gently and softly sang a lullaby to him and he sank back into sleep, his body twitching as he remembered the jump the night before.
When the cock crowed at sunrise Madame Dubois came down the stairs to find her children fast asleep with the British German Shepherd from the river lying contentedly between them.
His eyes were open and he looked at her.
‘You look very comfortable,’ she told him. ‘Very comfortable indeed.’
Grey’s tail slapped up and down once on the stone-tiled floor, as if he were agreeing with her.
Sabine rubbed her eyes as Claude snuggled closer into Grey’s soft fur.
‘Good morning,’ Sabine said sleepily, and the dog licked her face.
They all froze instinctively when there was a thump at the door.
‘One moment,’ Madame Dubois called. There was no time to hide the dog.
Thinking quickly, Sabine pulled a rug from the back of an armchair and laid it over Grey.
Claude went to the door and opened it as Sabine held her breath.
Outside stood Luc.
‘How’s the dog?’ he asked them.
Sabine lifted the rug and Luc hurried over to the dog he’d helped to save.
Grey’s tail flapped slowly up and down as Luc sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of him. Although he’d barely been conscious when they’d found him, Grey recognized the smell of the boy who had cradled him and carried him here. Luc tentatively reached out a hand and softly stroked Grey’s fur.
‘His name’s Grey,’ Sabine told him.
Chapter 14
Later that day, Grey had recovered enough for Sabine and Claude to take him on his first tour of what was left of their farm after the last German raid just over a month ago.
The farm’s horse and donkey had both been taken and Eva, their one cow, had gone too although none of them had actually seen the Germans take her. The cart their mother and father used for taking produce to market was also missing.
Their pigs had been killed and eaten during the few days that the German soldiers had camped close by. Most of the chickens had also gone and it was a miracle that the cockerel had somehow managed to escape and continued to wake them up each morning by crowing loudly on his perch.
Somehow the goose had got away too. It waddled over as they walked around the cobbled farmyard and it hissed at Grey. The dog was startled, and gave a low growl.
‘Leave him, Grey,’ Sabine warned as the goose wisely headed off to the duck pond.
It was a hot and humid summer day and the children led Grey out of the farmyard and down a muddy track to a shallow part of the river where they liked to swim and paddle.
‘Come and join us,’ Claude called to Grey, as he and Sabine splashed about in the water.
But Grey hadn’t forgotten his last watery experience. He stayed on the bank and whined. Then suddenly he went deathly still, as he’d been taught to do by Nathan during his infantry training. He looked over to the left where a sound had come from.
Sabine lo
oked too and saw three German soldiers heading down the road. The river was in a dip and they were just able to scramble out on the other side and hide in the bushes before the soldiers arrived. The men stopped in the spot where they’d been playing only moments before.
Sabine and Claude hardly dared to breathe as they watched the soldiers take off their helmets, pull off their boots and socks and paddle into the water.
The children kept perfectly still, hoping that Grey wouldn’t give away their hiding place. The soldiers would not be pleased if they thought they’d been spying on them, but they needn’t have worried about Grey. He kept perfectly still as the soldiers cooled their feet and then sat on the river bank chatting in German before continuing on their way nearly an hour later.
Sabine and Claude breathed a sigh of relief once they’d gone. That had been much too close. Claude stroked Grey’s head.
‘I don’t want to lose him. His coat is so beautiful, like a grey wolf’s,’ he said.
‘It’s called sable,’ Sabine said. But she agreed with him that the German soldiers would want the dog if they saw him. Maybe they could disguise him somehow so he looked less like a military dog and more like a farm dog.
‘As long as he doesn’t look good to the Germans they’re not going to want him – are they?’ she said, thinking hard.
Claude looked at Grey’s beautiful grey – no, sable – and white coat and his proud head. There was something almost regal about him. It wasn’t going to be easy to fool the Germans.
‘Come on, I’ve got an idea,’ Sabine said.
They hurried back to the farm, where Sabine proceeded to rub mud into Grey’s fur, along with bits of old pig manure.
‘He’ll stink!’ Claude protested.
‘Good, then no one will want to come near him, will they?’ Sabine said.
Claude opened his mouth and then closed it again.