Soldier Dog

by Sam Angus

  Stanley felt a wet nose in his hand. The dog was nuzzling him. The dog’s strange and immediate affection for Stanley felt at times like a burden too heavy, too great for so empty a heart, but he said with forced jollity, ‘Obstacle course. Obstacle course again for you today.’ Pistol’s brows flickered and his tail circled. In spite of himself, Stanley smiled as he handed the dog over to a kennel orderly to lead away.

  Each day those tufts of new hair had grown thicker, were deepening to slate grey, but the coat was all wrong, so long and rough and unfamiliar after the trim velvet pile of Bones. That and Pistol’s slightness. Where Stanley would always expect a solid, muscular weight against his legs, there instead would be this quicksilver shadow, all limb and nose.

  The signal was given and the dogs were unleashed by the orderlies. Pistol was off, soaring over the first jump, over the second, then the third and highest, a five-bar gate, with grace and joy and ease, hind legs tucked. The dog could jump like a stag, Stanley had to admit to himself; he’d never seen a dog jump like that.

  They were all racing home now, hurtling down through the pinewoods, flinging themselves on to the sand and over the dunes. There was Pistol. Stanley caught his breath: the dog had a way of surprising him – that gallop was so very fast, so fast you could barely tell, now, he was a dog, his hind legs thrusting springs that reached his chin at each take-off. He was at the front, a flurry of dogs in his wake, open-jawed, legs coalescing in an eternally suspended step. He smiled as he ran, his long jaws open, silvery tail aft like a banner, those soft breech feathers flying, back arched, the endless forelegs outstretched.

  ‘He’s a new dog, Keeper Ryder.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Thorne had joined Stanley. ‘Took to you from the start. He’s had a rough time, though. Be gentle with him.’ Thorne paused a little before saying, ‘Remember that all he does, he does for you.’

  Stanley made a sort of involuntary, snorting sound. The responsibility for this dog was too much for so numb and glazed a heart as his own, but he recovered himself and looked up and said simply, ‘Yes, sir.’

  When Pistol arrived, eyes narrowed, panting and breathless and grinning, Stanley was caught up, just a little, in the dog’s silvery joy.

  Later, holding a tin of apricots and some chocolate, Stanley went once again to the Post Office, just in case there was a letter. As he approached, the postal orderly raised an arm, beckoning. He looked pleased to be able to give Stanley good news, after so many days of saying a cheerful ‘Sorry, nothing today’.

  Stanley’s heart was in his mouth as he took the envelope, an official one, a letter telegram, stamped ‘URGENT BEF. ON ACTIVE SERVICE’ across the top left with an officer’s stamp dated 9 April. Tom! It must be from Tom. Why had he sent a letter telegram? He’d know that the Censor would read every word. There were lots of British stamps fixed to the telegram itself, 2d for every word – lots of stamps and, for a telegram, lots of words. Stanley ripped it open.

  Tom didn’t ask how his little brother was, what work he was doing, if he was safe. It was so unlike the Tom he loved; so angry - that was it - so angry. Tom didn’t want to see Stanley, just wanted him back because Da had disappeared. And that seemed to be all Stanley’s fault. ‘There is more at stake here than a puppy.’ Tom meant that something might happen to Da. Tom was more concerned for Da than for his brother.

  Shocked, Stanley leaned for support against a stack of crates of provisions. Could Tom not see that Stanley had signed up because he needed to be with Tom? ‘No,’ he said aloud, furious and wounded. ‘No. I am not going home.’ He screwed the telegram into an angry ball. He couldn’t count on Tom any more than he could on Da.

  Stanley marched furiously towards his tent. Too much, too much, it was too much to bear. It wasn’t his fault that Da had disappeared. He marched faster, swinging his arms, wishing he could breathe a dragon’s fire, to warn men, to warn the world, to warn Tom off him.

  He reached his tent, heard chatter and laughter, and stopped. He couldn’t go in. Couldn’t go where men talked and laughed and read their brothers’, sisters’, mothers’ letters to each other. He turned, gazing blankly at the immense, lonesome sea of tents. Lost and purposeless he stood, still holding the scrunched telegram, the apricots and the chocolate. There was nowhere to be alone in a camp of ten thousand men.

  Stanley drifted aimlessly along the paths he knew until he found himself at Central Kennels and he went, unthinking, to his dog’s kennel. He’d not have to talk to the dog. He could be silent and yet not be alone. If Tom didn’t want his brother, if Da didn’t want his son, the dog could have him. Stanley could belong to the strange grey dog.

  Pistol was there waiting for Stanley as though he’d expected him all along, as though he’d wait all night, if necessary. Without greeting him, Stanley slumped against the kennel, and just sat, with the apricots on his lap and the telegram in his hand. Bones would have been interested in the chocolate, but Pistol wasn’t.

  ‘Strange thing you are,’ he said, aware how intently Pistol was watching his face, his every movement. ‘More interested in me than in chocolate, eh?’ he said amused. If he kept still, Stanley was thinking, the dog kept still; if he moved, the dog moved. Stanley tested him. If he looked to the right would Pistol look to the right? Yes. If he looked to the left, would Pistol look to the left? Yes.

  ‘You’d be better off thinking about chocolate than me,’ he said sadly.

  Stanley covered his face with his hands, wishing his heart were not so numb.

  The tin of apricots rolled off his lap. Stanley’s hand was in his pocket, gripping the matchbox he’d carried since leaving home, the one which held the reed whistle. Da had never picked up the whistle Stanley had made for him – nothing meant anything to Da any more, not now that all the love had gone out of him and the anger had come into him.

  The matchbox was rhomboid now after being squished by the Mills bombs, the words ‘Bryant & May’ scarcely legible. Stanley forced it open, saw the reed whistle, saw in it the thorn trees and valleys and stone walls of home.

  Miserable, Stanley put the whistle to his lips and blew, feeling the vibration of the reed. The call his da had taught him bubbled, bright and clear in the dusty air. Stanley’s longing for home ballooned. Pistol leaped up at the whistle, frantic, nuzzling Stanley. Still lost in thoughts of Thornley, Stanley shook him off, irritated.

  ‘Down, boy . . . Down. Inside. Kennel.’

  Leaving the apricots and the chocolate on the ground, Stanley rose. Holding the reed and the telegram, he walked away, glancing back only to ensure the dog didn’t follow. Seeing the crestfallen ears, the light, graceful legs and hesitant tail, Stanley turned back and stroked the rough skin where the mange had been.

  ‘It’s you and me, just you and me.’ The dog opened its slender jaws and did his odd smiling thing. Stanley glimpsed the sharpness of Pistol’s teeth, was stopped short by the puppyish whiteness of them.

  ‘Hamish was right. You’re younger than they think. You know, they don’t like to take dogs under a year. Well, I’m too young too, but I’m staying. I can do this job as well as any man, and so can you.’

  14 April 1918

  Etaples

  It had been a good start to the day. Stanley had gone round twice for breakfast, kept his head down, and got a second lot. Even though Hamish had gone, still it had been good because instead of Church Parade there was Bathing Parade, a four-mile march over clumps of spiky grass, past hazy fishing boats, towards a classy seaside resort.

  Stanley stripped. How good it would be to wash off the white dust. Already the other men were in the water, laughing and splashing and swimming with their dogs. The salt water would be good for Pistol – salt water was always good for skin problems, Da used to say. Stanley raced into the waves, threw himself in head first, enjoying the shock of cold, clean water. He rose and shook his head and turned to the shore, looking over the ramshackle pink and grey roofs of the town, towards the white tents of the camp that crawled up the hill like whi
te sails, beyond them to the pine trees and hills.

  Pistol was there on the shore running back and forth, thrilled, prancing at the waves, retreating as they broke, hectic with anxiety to reach Stanley, filled with trepidation about the waves. Bones, thought Stanley, would have been indignant at the waves. Like Canute, he’d expect the sea to retreat before him. Stanley smiled a sad smile.

  Pistol thrust his head into Stanley’s hand, clung as close as a shadow, when Stanley ran up and down the beach. This dog clung so tightly to Stanley that other keepers noticed and were jealous. Always in Pistol’s eyes was the question, What do you want me to do?

  Breathless, Stanley threw himself on to the shell-white sand and flung back his head to bask in the sun. Pistol settled beside him. Later, when Stanley sat up, Pistol sat too, and followed his master’s gaze out to sea. Over that shimmering blue sea, the boy was thinking, lay England and Da and Tom.

  Irritated by the direction of his thoughts, Stanley shook himself and leaped up. ‘Chocolate,’ he said to Pistol. ‘I’ve got five francs. When we get back, we’ll have chocolate and apricots again in the YMCA.’

  Hamish had gone up to the Villers sector, with his brother James, who was now a Captain in command of a Signal Station of ten men. Stanley had heard that another attack was expected in the sector. The news from there had grown worse, Amiens still the focus of Ludendorff’s attention. Some ground had been lost, some gained, since Stanley had come out of the line; just inches, both ways.

  At camp that evening a letter was waiting for Stanley, Tom’s handwriting on the envelope.

  ‘What now, Pistol? What will Tom say now?’ said Stanley in a resigned voice, and began to read aloud for the benefit of the attentive dog.

  Da still not at home? Why? Surely he’d have wanted to be there when Tom was on leave? ‘I am under orders to return two days from now’: Tom was coming back – would be back in France soon.

  Stanley smiled and drew Pistol close. Tom was once again himself.

  Tom was on his way to France!

  Stanley stuffed the letter into his pocket and hurried to Central Kennels, the last to join the ranks of men assembled to listen to General Haig on the wireless, the words of Tom’s letter still running like a current in his head as the General’s voice boomed out.

  ‘Three weeks ago today, the enemy began his terrific attacks against us . . .’

  Tom didn’t blame Stanley for Da’s disappearance, but somehow Stanley was beginning to feel that it was perhaps his fault. The spectre of the old man, white-haired, snatching at the empty air, had returned to trouble and unsettle him.

  ‘His object is to . . . destroy the British Army . . . Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end.’

  A shiver ran down Stanley’s spine, a shiver that rippled a hundredfold down the ranks of listening men. The wireless was switched off and an address was made.

  ‘All active dog sections are to be sent up to the Front, every last man and every last dog. To go straight up with no delay. The dogs are in urgent demand. Go forward and honour the reputation your work has already earned.’

  The waiting men grouped into their units for specific instructions. Stanley’s orders were to return immediately to the Villers-Bretonneux sector.

  ‘You, Ryder, will be reporting to Captain James McManus, at the Brigade HQ Signal Station. Captain McManus has specifically requested you. The Captain’s Station is assigned to Brigadier-General Glasgow’s Thirteenth Brigade of the Fourth Australian Division. A critical action is expected at Villers. Aerial observations show enemy troops massing by Hangard Wood, about a mile south of the town. The Hun has resupplied his troops, brought his big guns up, put six fresh divisions on his front. The lie of the land in your sector is awkward. A steep north-facing slope leads up to the Signal Station. They’re experiencing heavy losses among the runners – there’s cover going down, but no cover for the runners who have to come up. Do your best, Ryder – we’re under orders to hold the Somme at all costs. Remember – if Villers falls, Amiens falls. If Amiens falls, Paris falls.’

  Stanley was in turmoil. Paris and Amiens meant nothing to him. Tom was coming and even if Tom were to beg his brother to go home, still Stanley ached to see him.

  ‘One more for you, Ryder,’ came a shout from the Post Office.

  A card this time, not a letter – Cross Post – the inter-Army post – stamped the 13th, the day before yesterday, and two inverted YMCA triangles – Tom! Another letter from Tom! Stanley read.

  Cross Post only took twenty-four hours within any single Army area: Tom could be anywhere up here – might be here now – heading like Stanley himself for the Amiens area. Where was he? There were different stamps for each Field Post Office – but this stamp was just a number and didn’t mean anything to him. Which division was he joining? Which brigade, which corps?

  Stanley whirled around, searching the convoys and vehicles and trains of departing men. A battalion of Australians, wearing brown slouch hats and broad smiles, marched along the dusty road in the distance with a quick swaggering step to the beat of a pipe band.

  ‘Well, God help Jerry,’ breathed the postal orderly who’d given Stanley his mail. Stanley looked at the Anzacs, saw their smiles, watched them pass and pass in endless ranks, their buttons and badges winking and flashing in the pale evening light, saw each smiling face, each ready to fight to the end.

  Stanley saw them, and knew they had to go back up, he and Pistol, and do the work they’d been trained to do. Tom would find Stanley later. In the meantime they were under orders and had a duty to James and Hamish.

  Next morning, squeezed once again into the corner of a dark cattle truck, Field Marshal Haig’s words echoed uneasily in Stanley’s head: ‘Every position must be held to the last man . . . each one of us must fight on to the end.’

  While they were waiting at an intersection in the road, a machine-gun limber pulled by a team of twelve horses, all bay, passed by. Da’s preference had always been for bays; he said they took less cleaning. As always, Stanley searched the team of horses in case there was a Thornley horse among them. No, he told himself, a good Thornley horse would be a prize cavalry horse. Trumpet, though, the old cob, would, in his day, have made a good limber horse . . .

  Stanley felt a lurch in his gut as he remembered Da whipping Trumpet, so violently there at the edge of the lake, when Da had wanted to race away and avoid his son. It was odd, Stanley thought, his thoughts veering from Trumpet, that Da had taken the trap. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of this before. Was he seeing things more clearly now that the horror of losing Soldier had ebbed, that his feelings towards Da had grown blurry and confused?

  He marched onward, Pistol trotting airily at his heels, but Stanley’s unease about the trap grew and tangled itself around his whole being. Where had Da gone that morning, and why?

  Misgivings and fears still gnawed away at Stanley as his unit halted at the entrance to a communication trench and stood waiting under the hot sun. He jumped out of his skin as his hand touched a wooden cross. There was a cluster of them to his left that he hadn’t noticed. Stanley moved away towards the duckboard track and the sign saying ‘WALKING WOUNDED’. Four weeks ago he’d marched up to the Front, only to be greeted by Hunter’s ridicule. Corporal Hunter. Stanley glanced towards the crosses, wondering.

  He called Pistol aside to allow passage to a Subaltern with a wounded arm and bright white sling. ‘Good luck, sir,’ Stanley whispered.

  Without turning or raising his head, the Subaltern grunted, ‘It’s you as wants the good luck, I’m out of here.’

  They reached the end of the communication trench. A group of the Black Watch trailed forward, white knees glowing beneath dark kilts. To one side of the duckboard track stood a Lance-Corporal with a group of tired, sweat-streaked, blood-soaked men, groundsheets across their shoulders. He held a sheaf of
papers calling out names, one after another. ‘Fraser,’ he called, waited, then called again, ‘Fraser.’ A third time he called the name. When there was again no answer, he scored out the name with a single stroke.

  The back line ran in front of Villers and across two valleys, one leading to the banks of the River Somme to the north, the other to the south and the River Luce, Stanley’s guide said. As Stanley made his way along, the friendly Australians smiled at him, greeted Pistol. They had a good reputation at Central Kennels for liking dogs.

  All along the line, vast preparations were afoot, convoys of goods being ferried in both directions, while the entire front line, from the wood that was at forward right, to the Roman road at forward left, leading to Villers, flickered with the distant flashes of firing guns. The slope running up to the ridge along which Stanley’s trench ran had valleys whose clefts and gullies would help an enemy creeping up to fight for the high ground. The runners would be having a bad time of it; this slope was a dangerous business.

  ‘Captain McManus, sir?’ said Stanley as he entered the Brigade Signal Station and looked around with interest. It was larger and better equipped than Hunter’s station. James stepped forward and put an arm round Stanley’s shoulder. There, too, was Hamish. In another corner, by the Fuller-phone, was Fidget, curled up next to his basket of pigeons – untidily, like a straggling towel. It was good to see him, too. James, though warm and welcoming, was brief with Stanley, a little tense, and returned quickly to the Fuller-phone, but Fidget and Hamish led Stanley to his new funk-hole.

  Evening, 23 April 1918

  Aquenne Wood, near Cachy

  Two days passed. More men arrived, more ammunition, more provisions. The certainty of an attack being ordered grew with each new convoy. At Rations-Up, the messenger had a letter for Stanley. It was from Cross Post again, this time in a Church Army envelope, addressed in an elegant and precise hand Stanley didn’t recognize, but which he thought might be Father Bill’s – that at last he’d traced Tom. Since Stanley, too, now knew where Tom was, he took it back with him to his funk-hole to read after tea.