Horrie the War Dog

by Roland Perry

  ‘I am sorry to hear that, mate, I really am. But this is another war, another time,’ Moody said. ‘They see us as invaders of their land—’

  ‘You see, Dig,’ Gill added, ‘what if they invaded Australia and camped in our desert, even if they were on their way to fight someone else? We wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘What? We wouldn’t let these arseholes in our country, mate—never!’

  ‘Sort of makes my point,’ Gill said with a short, nervous laugh, but he did not ‘debate’ any further. Wallace was too drunk for any rational discussion.

  The Arab with the knife stood only a few paces from Wallace. Seeing this, the big man lurched at the Arab, but was soon set upon by the other five who brought him down in a crash of tables and chairs. Gill moved in, throwing punches. Moody let Horrie go and joined in. Wallace was being kicked as he lay on the ground. Horrie flew at one of the Arabs, biting his ankle. The Arab with the knife straddled Wallace and was angling to drive the curved weapon into his heart, when Moody brought a wooden chair down so hard on his head and back that the chair legs broke off. The Arab fell unconscious on top of Wallace, his knife inflicting a wound in Wallace’s shoulder. Just at that moment, several diggers alighted from a bus. Seeing fellow Australians in a brawl, they all hurried to the cafe, causing the remaining Arabs to make a quick departure, one with a decided limp from Horrie’s attack. They rushed down a lane next to the cafe, with Horrie in hot pursuit. Moody chased after him, ordering him to ‘Come here or else!’ The dog stopped and turned back.

  The other Australian soldiers helped Wallace to his feet. He was now bleeding from the two cuts.

  ‘Better take you down to the hospital,’ Moody said. He looked at the Arab he had struck. He was lying face down in a crumpled position and had not moved since the incident. ‘Better take him too.’

  ‘No, leave the bastard!’ Wallace shouted. ‘He tried to kill me!’

  Gill turned the Arab over. He retrieved a bucket of water from the cowering owner, and threw it flush into the stricken Arab’s face. His eyes blinked; his mouth twitched. Gill asked two soldiers to help him carry the Arab, while two others assisted Wallace on a straggling march 200 metres to the hospital. By chance, Bonnie and Louise were the two nurses on duty in Emergency. They were cool and efficient, and barely acknowledged Moody and Gill.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Bonnie said, examining Wallace’s shoulder and arm.

  He began to answer by pointing at the Arab stretched out on the floor, but Moody cut him off and said: ‘He was at the circus, and accidentally stumbled in front of a knife-throwing act.’

  Bonnie gave Moody a withering look, her pen poised over a patient report sheet.

  ‘And him?’ she asked, nodding to the prostrate Arab, ‘I suppose he ran into a door?’

  ‘No,’ Gill said, ‘a chair.’

  Wallace laughed, and mumbled a ‘thank you’ to Moody.

  ‘Do the same for a white fella,’ Moody said.

  ‘Nar, I owe you one, mate!’ Wallace slurred. ‘I may be shicka, but I know what happened. Boy! That chair . . . !’

  Louise had called for an English doctor to examine the Arab, who had stirred. He tried to sit up. The doctor was used to dealing with countless results of fights among servicemen. He examined him, shining a small torch into his eyeballs, and looking at the egg-sized bump on the back of his head and the graze on his back.

  ‘Concussion,’ the doctor said, pointing to the report sheet in Bonnie’s hand. ‘Keep him in a room overnight.

  Release him in the morning.’ He turned to Wallace, looked at his arm and shoulder, and said, ‘They’ll need stitches now before the flies get into them.’

  ‘They already have,’ Wallace sneered with contempt at the Arab, who, although dazed, looked frightened when he focused on Wallace.

  ‘Let it be, mate,’ Moody said to Wallace, ‘let it be.’

  At Zubaydat, Aussies and locals playing two-up.

  Horrie resting beneath the aft gun on Lossiebank during evacuation from Crete.

  Horrie in his pack.

  Horrie confronts an Arab, soon after a Stuka bombed the 2/1 Machine Gunners’ camp at Dier Suneid, Palestine, leaving bomb craters.

  Dog tired: Horrie sleeps alongside Moody in Crete.

  Horrie’s beach shelter near Tel Aviv. He had a busy day guarding the Rebels’ clothes from mischievous Arab boys.

  Horrie on guard outside the Rebels’ tent, Dier Suneid, Palestine, August 1941.

  Horrie was given this set of harness, complete with colour patch, in recognition of his faithful service in Greece and Crete. His identification disk was made from a Greek Drack coin engraved with H.Moody VXO1.

  Imshi (left) with Horrie.

  Horrie with a querulous look, which was a feature when he concentrated on the whine of in-coming German planes.

  A typical Middle Eastern coffee house.

  Author Ion Idriess meets Horrie. He would never know that Horrie survived.

  Moody with trademark pipe and camera.

  Moody and Imshi II with whom Horrie sired seven pups.

  Moody with second wife Joan. They married in 1951 and had three children.

  Horrie in Syria guarding equipment while the Rebels were employed making roads.

  Jim Moody examining an ancient coin he had just purchased. He believed it was from the era of Roman Rule, 64 BC to 323 AD.

  Imshi II, the Scottish Terrier from a Sydney dog pound, with three of her pups sired by Horrie.

  Moody with good friend and fellow Rebel, Don Gill.

  19

  SYRIAN ODYSSEY

  The Nazi attack on Russia in mid-1941 had rapid and early successes but, as the months slipped by, there was less certainty about the outcome. The Russians had not given way under the onslaught, which meant there was not quite the urgency about the 6th Division’s position in Syria after they had defeated the Vichy French. The expected Nazi thrust south at Middle East oilfields and the Suez Canal had not come. But still, the division was needed to help form a line of defence across Syria. In conjunction with this in early October, the 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion began to receive eagerly awaited Vickers guns since most of their weapons had been lost in Greece and Crete. By early in November 1941 the battalion learned it was due to move north to Syria later in the month, yet not to meet any new Nazi push.

  In anticipation of a severe winter there, the Rebels fashioned a miniature coat for Horrie out of a discarded coat belonging to Featherstone, who had been promoted to corporal. They lined the edges with white tape. Brass buttons and two stripes were retained.

  ‘That’s a small consolation for losing I—’ Featherstone began to say when Horrie modelled his new gear for the Rebels. Even the utterance of the first letter had Horrie on alert.

  ‘Independence!’ Moody said with a frown and then a smile at Horrie. ‘You won’t be able to run so freely in the snow in Syria!’

  *

  Snow was falling on the top of distant Lebanese mountains when the Rebels’ truck convoy approached the small Lebanese village of Zaboude near the battalion base at Ras Baalbek, 1100 metres above sea level. Horrie was at a window on his hind legs, observing everything of this new territory. There were fewer people to see in fewer villages but his interest did not wane. He just remained quiet, his tail still. As usual, Moody had a guidebook. Despite the derision of the others, he began to recite passages. They were attentive for a moment or two before the inevitable descent into frivolity.

  He began by informing them that the local ruins provided evidence that Ras Baalbek existed as a Greek City: Heliopolis. The guidebook suggested that it became a Roman colony in about 554 AD and that the Great Temple was destroyed by lightning and fire. It further claimed that after the disaster it had become a centre of Pagan worship. Muslims centuries later formed the Acropolis of Ras Baalbeck into a fortress.

  ‘Oooh, pagan worship, eh?’ Shegog said, emptying yet another whisky flask. ‘We’d better be careful.’

  ‘What
I don’t understand is why everything has to be so old,’ Featherstone interjected. ‘Why can’t they have a few new towns like Perth or Yallourn? Why do we have to look at crumbled old buildings all the time? What about a few modern structures that stay upright, like in New York?’

  ‘It’s good to see there are still one or two Philistines in the area,’ Fitzsimmons said.

  The convoy rumbled along the valley. The air became nippy and soon it was cold. Horrie’s demeanour changed. This was an unfamiliar land without shimmering, flat desert spotted with sand dunes. He seemed fascinated by what he saw but the freezing atmosphere upset him. He stopped looking out the window and soon bundled up in a ball in Moody’s lap. Not even his greatcoat would be enough for these conditions.

  At the new camp, keeping warm became the first priority for everyone, including Horrie. He was a desert dog and he struggled to combat the freezing conditions. It was a battle for him, even inside the specially designed Nissen huts, with their pegged wire supports to prevent them from being blown away in the howling mountain winds, and their sloping round roofs to cause the predicted snow to roll off. On the third morning Horrie grabbed one of Featherstone’s socks in front of him and took off outside into the snow. This act was not appreciated by the fastidious corporal. Whereas the other Rebels barely complied with dress codes, Featherstone, who declared himself ‘my own batman,’ always looked neatly pressed, with his boots shiny, his hair combed and even his socks ironed. For one sock to be taken in such a wanton, unprovoked manner by the tiniest battalion member was irritating. Featherstone followed Horrie, demanding his sock back. The dog let him get close and then darted off, much to the mirth of the others. They, too, joined in the chase but could not catch the nibble Horrie, who toyed with them, sock in mouth and tail wagging. Soon all the Rebels surrounded him, but he avoided their cumbersome efforts to nab him in the slippery conditions. The eel-like dog just could not be caught. Twenty minutes into the game, his tongue was hanging out in fatigue, but he kept going until all the Rebels gave up, puffing and in urgent need of a cigarette or pipe. Horrie then dropped the saliva-stained item at Featherstone’s feet.

  ‘He has always had fun with socks, but this was a far more sustained game than anything he did before,’ Featherstone observed, as he began to clean his chewed sock. ‘I wonder why.’

  ‘I reckon he did it to warm up,’ Gill said, to much derision from the others, but then on reflection, some agreed that it was an odd game for him to start playing on his own volition, especially as he had never done it before with such dedicated vigour. All observed him lying by a stove, still panting from his efforts. When he repeated variants of the act each morning, usually with Featherstone’s socks, all agreed that the aim was to get blood running through his long body and stunted legs.

  ‘You know,’ Brooker said one night at battalion mess, ‘I worry a little about what is going to become of the pup after this show is over. We picked him up when he was just a few months old. Now he’s nearly a year, and the way he behaves, we are all family to him, with Moods and Gillie, as, if you like, his two “parents.”’

  ‘Like all good relatives, we must get him home,’ Shegog said, looking at Moody, whose expression remained noncommittal. ‘He’s a fair dinkum Aussie dog now, as sure as if he came out of our outback. He knows how to take a joke—’

  ‘As long as he is not ridiculed,’ Fitzsimmons interjected.

  ‘Yeah,’ Shegog went on, ‘but he knows how to play a joke, fool around . . .’

  ‘Drink at the bar,’ Fitzsimmons said, ‘—well, milk anyway. And don’t forget the girls. He likes female company.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Brooker said, ‘I hear the Anti-Tank Regiment is due to join the camp in about a week . . .’

  *

  At the end of the first week at Zaboude, Horrie succumbed to the cold and he appeared to come down with a canine influenza. Moody and Gill fussed about him, wrapping him in blankets and old pullovers. Featherstone warmed rocks on the fire and put them in his basket-bed under a makeshift mini-mattress. A doctor was summoned from the Ras Baalbeck base. He examined the forlorn little animal, whose soulful expression made it appear as if he was at death’s door. The doctor kept apologising for not being a vet, which was his excuse for a non-diagnosis, but he did prescribe a special diet of warm porridge and milk. Horrie refused it unless he was spoonfed, and this task fell to each diligent and concerned Rebel in shifts. Soon he became so listless that Fitzsimmons observed: ‘Perhaps we should ask the Luftwaffe to send over a squadron of Stukas to stir him.’ But when none of the other Rebels even grinned, he muttered almost to himself, ‘It might be time for the padre to visit.’

  ‘Not funny, Fitz,’ Brooker said with a shake of the head.

  ‘I didn’t mean for the dog. It’s you blokes who need a spiritual lift. You aren’t helping by being so damned mournful. You’re making Horrie feel worse!’

  The battalion priest did make a visit but went to great pains to say that he was not making a professional call. He claimed his role was ‘to minister to human flock only, for only they can enter the kingdom of heaven.’

  ‘We think he is an angel,’ Fitzsimmons said. ‘You save them, don’t you?’

  ‘I agree that he is a gift from God,’ the padre remarked. ‘Why else would he be found by one of the division in the middle of nowhere, only to end up saving the lives of every battalion member and others on many occasions?’

  ‘I think we just got lucky,’ Fitzsimmons said. ‘We showed him kindness and took him in. He responded in his doggie way, which just happened to be salvation for us.’

  ‘Your meeting him would not be by chance, Private.’

  ‘With respect, Padre,’ Fitzsimmons interjected again, ‘if he is a gift from God, then surely he is worthy of your blessing; your prayers for his life?’

  ‘My prayers, yes, but not my blessing,’ the priest said, becoming uncomfortable. ‘It is not within the province of the Church to bless animals. Only humans.’

  ‘Then we suggest you get praying, Padre.’

  ‘Are you Catholic, Private?’ the priest asked.

  ‘No, was. I’m lapsed. I’m agnostic. Haven’t quite progressed to atheism, but I’m working on it.’ Fitzsimmons paused and added, ‘And you’re helping.’

  The priest left in a huff. Horrie’s condition brought a steady stream of battalion member well-wishers. Barry the Butcher brought a fresh cut of prime beef, chopped up into tiny pieces like mincemeat. Horrie sniffed it and turned his head away. Barry shook his head and brushed away tears as he left the Rebels’ hut. The word spread that Horrie was near the end. The numbers making a final visit to the one who had saved their lives in one country or another increased to the point where Brooker was forced to place a medical bulletin on the hut door twice a day. One read: ‘The condition of Horrie continues to be grave. He accepted only a little warm porridge during the morning . . .’

  Horrie lost weight and looked about as thin as he did after his nine-day walkabout in Palestine. He shivered, he sneezed, he dry-retched often. His shrinking body shivered whether awake or asleep. On Day 6 of what had become a deathwatch, Bruce McKellary of the Anti-Tank Regiment, which camped alongside the Gunners, knocked on the door. He carried Imshi, who was wearing a warm coat of the regiment’s colours and a pink beret. She was placed on the floor and made a dash for Horrie in his basket near the stove. She licked him awake. His eyes widened for the first time in days. To the amazement of the Rebels, he stood and stretched. His legs were unsteady, but there was no mistaking his grand effort to look ‘well.’ Imshi found her own way over to the hut the next morning and Horrie responded to her presence. The Rebels put on his uniform and he wandered awkwardly and slowly outside to be with her. She was much more active in their playful reunion but slowly, gradually, his tail wagged and his derrière became more active. After eight days, he went to the hut door himself to meet her and they bounded off together. He even brought Imshi back at night to sleep in his own warm c
ot under Moody’s bed.

  ‘You don’t think we were conned, do you?’ Brooker asked the others.

  ‘You’re not suggesting he was acting, are you?’ Shegog asked. ‘I mean, he has lost a lot of weight!’

  ‘Let’s put it this way,’ Brooker replied, ‘there has to be an element of the malingerer in the little beggar. But who cares? He’s back!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Shegog agreed, ‘who cares if he wangled a lot more attention than normal? It’s so great to see him so alive!’

  The medical bulletin on the door on Day 9 said: ‘Horrie has made a miraculous recovery. We put it down to the attractive blond nurse Imshi from our illustrious Anti-Tank Regiment. Love conquers all, even, in this instance, death. We thank you for your sympathy and concern for the Battalion hero and mascot.’

  At mess that night, Brooker proposed a question for the Rebels: ‘Why do you think the entire battalion has shown Horrie so much love and affection?’

  The others looked at each as if the answer was obvious.

  ‘Well?’ Brooker prompted.

  ‘He’s saved just about everyone’s life at some moment, hasn’t he?’ Gill responded.

  ‘C’mon,’ Brooker urged, ‘it’s much more than that, although his heroism triggers the diggers’ feelings, I’ll grant you that.’

  No one could offer further explanation.

  ‘I’ll tell you what his popularity is also about,’ Brooker added, putting down his knife and fork and pushing his plate away. ‘I’ve been in two big wars. Men kill and maim and hate the enemy. You’ve all had a go at firing the Vickers and they can kill several men in seconds. Machine guns have an awesome power and such weapons do strange things to men manning them. Gunners are closer to action than artillery gunners, or air force gunners. Our boys—some of you included—have been closer to mass killings than any other members of our army. This makes hard men even harder, and I don’t care what anyone says, it is not man’s natural nature or mentality to be so tough, so damned brutal.’ He looked around at each of them in turn before continuing: ‘You and every member of this mighty battalion needs a balance to that; an antidote, if you like. Some of you will be thinking of the girls you’ve had from Cairo to everywhere. That is not what I’m talking about. That’s just finding an outlet for your crude natural instincts. That’s not about real feeling or emotion or love. But Horrie is a different proposition. He is the recipient of all that balance of positive feelings from a thousand gunners. He is of course a worthy recipient of their love and sympathy. But for what it’s worth, that is my theory.’