A Soldier's Friend

by Megan Rix

  ‘We could ask our mum,’ Lizzie said doubtfully. ‘But I don’t think we’ll be allowed to keep him.’ In her heart she knew they wouldn’t.

  ‘Can we come back one morning before school?’ Arthur asked Kenneth as Sammy pushed his little paw through the bars of the cage. ‘To see how he’s getting on?’

  ‘Yes, you’d be more than welcome. And maybe you could do a bit of cat socializing while you’re here, as you’re used to cats.’

  ‘What’s cat socializing?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘Cats, even pet cats like your Mouser, need to be regularly stroked or they won’t let anyone touch them. It’s like they turn back into their wild-cat selves and, if they do that, no one will want to adopt them or be able to do anything with them. Plus, there’s the cage guarding – when cats are confined to a small space, they can become stressed and territorial.’

  ‘We’ll help socialize them,’ Lizzie and Arthur promised. ‘We’d like to do it.’

  Amelia left the Dogs Home with them. ‘My shift at the hospital starts in twenty minutes,’ she said. ‘But I always like to look in on the dogs and cats when I can. Hope to see you there again soon. They could really do with volunteers.’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ Arthur and Lizzie promised. ‘We won’t let them down.’

  ‘Give your cat a stroke from me when she comes home,’ Amelia said as she turned the corner to go to the hospital.

  ‘We will.’

  Chapter 6

  Mouser hadn’t had any breakfast and she didn’t get any supper either. She hadn’t liked being bounced around in the rough sack with the other cats and now she didn’t like being shut in a cage that rocked horribly back and forth.

  There were three other cats in the cage with her: two black-and-white moggies and a ginger one with a white tip to its tail. Whenever they came close, Mouser hissed and spat at them. The other cats now sat huddled together in the corner at the back of the cage, giving Mouser a wide berth.

  Mouser miaowed loudly through the bars of the cage as two men approached.

  ‘Shall I feed them, Captain?’ one of the men asked.

  ‘No point,’ the other answered. ‘Don’t want them to be too full up to bother to chase the rats, do we? Hungry cats make the best ratters and there’ll be plenty of rats for them to eat once they’re at the front. Might even be a few to catch on this boat in the meantime …’ he said thoughtfully.

  ‘There’s more than enough at the front!’ a soldier, sitting on his kitbag in the corner, chimed in. ‘It’s like rat paradise over there. Never seen so many or such big ones.’ He shuddered at the memory. ‘They’re not frightened of people any more, I tell you. Many a soldier’s woken up to find a large furry rat snuggled right up beside him.’

  The more cats they had out there the better as far as he was concerned. They could never have too many.

  The captain of the boat peered into the cat cage.

  ‘Fine-looking cat that one,’ he said, pointing at Mouser as he stroked his beard. ‘Fine-looking cat indeed. Just the sort of cat a captain of a boat like this might choose to have permanently onboard.’

  ‘These cats are for the front,’ the soldier who’d brought them aboard said firmly.

  ‘But surely they can spare one,’ the captain replied. He was doing them a favour ferrying the cats over to France. There wasn’t anything about being a cat transporter in his orders. ‘It isn’t like boats and ships don’t have rats too, you know. Rats get everywhere.’

  He put his finger through the wire of the cage to stroke Mouser. But instead of purring, as he’d expected her to do, she hissed and swiped at him with her claws so he quickly took his finger back out.

  ‘On reflection, I don’t think we do need a cat on board after all,’ he said.

  The soldier who’d been at the front grinned.

  ‘That cat’ll show those rats what for,’ he said, and the other man agreed.

  Chapter 7

  By the time Mouser set off, Oliver, Patrick and the rest of the Battersea Beasts PALs battalion had already reached the thin strip of land between Germany, France and Belgium that was known as the Western Front.

  The first job they had to do was help dig more trenches and reinforce those that had already been made. They got there by marching along a communication trench that connected the different trenches together and was used for taking messages and supplies.

  ‘This is going to become your second home, lads,’ Sergeant Wainwright said as the shovels were handed out. ‘So you might as well make yourselves comfortable. Or at least as comfortable as you can. Those German soldiers want to secure the seaports, go right through Belgium and take Paris in a swift victory. But we’re not going to let that happen, are we?’

  ‘No, Sarge,’ the men said.

  ‘Your time here’ll be divided between three trench lines: the front trench line which is closest to the enemy’s trenches so it’s the most dangerous; this one, which is about eighty yards behind the front line, known as the support trench line; and the reserve trench line which is another three hundred yards behind us. Oh, and if you’re very lucky you might get a bit of leave and won’t need to be in a trench at all.’

  ‘How long will we be in the front line for, Sarge?’ Patrick asked. He’d heard a rumour that in the front line trench not only did you have to face the enemy, but sometimes soldiers had to stand for days in muddy water. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

  ‘Four days in each trench line – usually,’ the sergeant told him. ‘But nothing’s fixed in stone in a war, son. Eight or more days isn’t that unusual.’

  ‘But it’ll all be over by Christmas, won’t it?’ Patrick asked as the Battersea Beasts set to work digging in the support trench.

  ‘If we do our jobs right it should. So get digging!’ the sergeant bellowed.

  It was awkward digging in such a confined space, but they did the best they could.

  ‘You’ll be digging in your sleep soon, lads,’ the sergeant told them as he inspected their work, sounding overly jolly. ‘If you can get any sleep, that is. Make sure you keep your head down as you dig. Don’t want to get it shot at by an enemy sniper, do you?’

  Oliver kept his head down from then on, although it was very tempting to try to see what was on the other side of the trench.

  ‘The trenches need to be no more than seven feet deep and six feet wide, following a zigzag pattern,’ the sergeant explained.

  ‘Why can’t they be straight, Sarge?’ one of the new soldiers asked. ‘It’d be a lot simpler.’

  The sergeant held up his rifle and pretended to take aim at the men who’d been digging, but now straightened their backs to hear his answer.

  ‘If I shot this gun from here at you lot, just think about the damage I could do. You’d all be like sitting ducks. I couldn’t miss. But my gun doesn’t shoot in zigzags and a gas attack won’t spread as far either. The reason you’re digging like this is so you get a chance to go home and see your mothers one day.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ the soldier said, thinking about what he’d said.

  They all got back to digging and didn’t moan too much about their aching backs and blistered hands.

  ‘Stand back!’ the sergeant yelled suddenly. Oliver dropped his shovel and stepped back in surprise as a collie dog came racing down the tunnel towards them, its face steady in concentration and a tin canister attached to its collar.

  Oliver reached out to the dog. It seemed so desperate to him. But one of the more experienced soldiers, who’d been at the front almost since the start of the war and the Boer War before that, grabbed Oliver’s arm and pulled him back as he was about to touch it and the dog ran past.

  ‘Didn’t you listen in your training when they said it’s a court-martial offence to stop a messenger dog from doing his duty?’ the grizzled-looking soldier hissed.

  ‘What? No,’ Oliver said. ‘I was only going to stroke it.’

  The soldier shook his head. ‘You and just about every other Tommy
soldier, and the problem’s not just that too many soldiers have been stroking and making a fuss of them. They’ve been feeding them as well. It distracts the dogs and stops them from doing their job.’

  ‘That, lads,’ said the sergeant, who fortunately hadn’t seen Oliver trying to stroke the dog, ‘was a messenger dog, a French messenger dog by the look of it. We don’t have any of our own here yet. But now we’ve seen what they can do we’re hoping to get some trained up.’

  ‘Do the Germans have messenger dogs, Sarge?’ one of the Battersea Beasts asked.

  ‘Yes, they do. In fact, I’m told that every German army headquarters on the Western Front has a messenger dog section attached to it called a Meldehundstaffel.’

  ‘Why don’t we have them?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘We will, lad. Once we get our act together. But in the meantime we need some volunteer human messenger dogs – or dispatch runners. Any of you lot good at running? Your mates’ lives might depend on you getting that message through and you’ll need to be fast. Gas attacks, not that we’ve had any yet, and German raids wait for no man.’

  ‘I’ll do it, sir,’ Oliver said.

  ‘And are you fast? Have you got stamina?’ the sergeant asked him.

  ‘You should see him on the football pitch,’ the other Battersea Beasts told the sergeant as Oliver grinned. ‘Then you’d know.’

  ‘Right, any more volunteers?’

  Patrick volunteered too as did some of the others.

  ‘Looks like most of you reckon you could be dispatch runners. Come on then, let’s see what you’ve got.’

  Running between the three main trench lines were communication trenches that enabled soldiers and supplies to be moved from one line to another without being exposed to enemy snipers. A few miles further back, past the reserve trench, was HQ and the artillery supplies.

  Sergeant Wainwright led the lads to the communication trench and pointed down it. ‘I want you to run down there, past the reserve trench to HQ and back again. Three-mile round trip.’

  Oliver and the other volunteers lined up, all eager to show what they could do. The sergeant looked at his military-issue pocket watch.

  ‘Wait for the second hand to get to the twelve. Ready, set, go!’

  Oliver ran as fast as he could, gradually pulling ahead of all the others. By the time he passed the reserve trench, he’d taken the lead, although there wasn’t much between him and Patrick when they reached the deserted farm where HQ was based, a mile or so further on, and turned to come back.

  Oliver dashed over the finish first with Patrick just inches behind him.

  The sergeant looked at his pocket watch. ‘Sixteen minutes. Right, you’ve definitely got what it takes,’ he said to Oliver. ‘And you as reserve,’ he told Patrick. ‘And the rest of you – as and when. You two, a word, please. The rest of you, there’s a few hundred miles of trench to be dug.

  ‘Being a dispatch runner is a vital role,’ Sergeant Wainwright told Oliver and Patrick. ‘You’ll need to keep yourselves fit, so that when you’re needed to take messages from the command staff at the rear to the fighting units near the battlefield you’ll be ready.’

  ‘We will, Sarge,’ Oliver said, and Patrick nodded.

  ‘What kind of messages might we be taking, Sarge?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘Most of them will be routine – lists of stores needed from the brigade – but a few might warn of an enemy attack. Fewer still …’ The sergeant took a breath. ‘And there haven’t been any of these yet, thank goodness, might be to warn of a gas attack. If you’re given one of those, you must run with it like your life depends on it, because it does – along with the lives of all your mates. Don’t waste time trying to find me or one of the other officers, just bang on the nearest gas gong as loudly as you can.’

  ‘What’s a gas gong?’ Oliver asked.

  The sergeant pointed to an empty shell casing attached to a length of wire that swung down near the periscope.

  ‘You’ll find them all the way down the line. With men trapped in the trenches, poison gas can’t be seen or smelt until it’s often too late. Your warning will probably be all that can save them in time.’

  Chapter 8

  Sammy’s bowl of food lay untouched beside him in his cage.

  ‘I know it’s hard being in a new place, but it’s really not too bad here,’ Kenneth said from the other side of the bars.

  Sammy didn’t even seem to hear him as he lay there with his head on his paws, looking utterly miserable. Kenneth sighed. He didn’t want to leave the sad puppy, but he had to get on with his early-morning rounds. Sammy was just one of many unwanted pets that needed his attention.

  Suddenly Sammy’s tail started thumping on the floor of his cage. He jumped up and whined, and then barked as he looked towards the entrance door. The other dogs started to bark too and Kenneth turned to see what was happening.

  ‘Morning.’ Lizzie smiled as she came in, followed by Arthur. Sammy’s tail wagged as fast as it possibly could. He stood up on his back legs with his front paws resting on the bars of his cage.

  ‘We’re not too early, are we?’ Arthur said. It was just after seven thirty. ‘We wanted to make sure we had enough time to spend with the animals before school.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Kenneth told them. ‘Sammy’s just about over the moon and back now that you’re here.’

  ‘Did you miss us?’ Lizzie asked Sammy as she crouched down. It had only been a few days, but Lizzie and Arthur had certainly missed him.

  Sammy made a sound somewhere between a whine and a bark. He was very excited to see his friends again.

  ‘He’s trying to talk,’ Arthur said, grinning.

  Lizzie noticed the puppy’s full bowl of untouched food and now Sammy remembered it too. He put his head down and for the next few moments all that could be heard was the sound of his teeth crunching up his biscuits.

  Once his food was all gone, he looked up at Lizzie and Arthur with his head cocked to one side.

  ‘Now he looks like he’s asking what next?’ Arthur said.

  ‘He does indeed,’ Kenneth agreed as he pulled back the bolt of Sammy’s cage. ‘You can take him out if you like,’ he said, handing Arthur Sammy’s lead.

  ‘Come on, Sammy,’ Arthur said as he clipped it to the puppy’s collar.

  They headed out of the kennel block as the other dogs barked and whined, saying as clearly as they could that they’d like to come too. But Lizzie and Arthur could only take one dog at a time.

  Kenneth watched them go. It was plain to see that Sammy felt a lot happier as he almost danced along with the children.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘How about the park?’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s just around the corner, and perhaps we’ll see Mouser there.’ Mouser still hadn’t come home and Lizzie was trying not to worry.

  Sammy was very well behaved on his lead and didn’t pull at all as they went down the street.

  ‘He’s so well trained,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘But how did he end up getting lost? Do you think someone’s looking for him?’ Arthur asked.

  Lizzie didn’t know, but she thought she’d be beside herself with worry if she’d lost him.

  ‘Do you think Mouser’s all right?’ Arthur said.

  ‘Mum said she was probably being treated like the cat that got the cream somewhere and would come home when she’s ready,’ Lizzie told him.

  Arthur grinned. ‘Mouser is a canny cat. It’s hard to imagine she’d ever be in trouble.’

  Almost as soon as they walked through the park gates and let Sammy off his lead, he raced off, barking with excitement.

  ‘Oh look, he’s seen that football,’ said Arthur as Sammy raced towards the ball.

  Arthur and Lizzie looked at each other in surprise and then laughed.

  ‘Well, I didn’t expect that!’

  ‘It’s almost as big as him.’

  Sammy didn’t bite the ball, but pushed it along as he ran behi
nd it, barking happily. It was like he’d found an old friend.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Arthur said as they ran after him.

  ‘Looks like he’s playing football!’

  ‘I wish Oliver could see this. He’d never believe it.’

  ‘I think he’s played with one before,’ Arthur said.

  ‘Certainly seems like it,’ said Lizzie.

  But, although Arthur and Lizzie thought Sammy playing with the football was funny, the boy whom the ball belonged to didn’t think so.

  ‘Your dog’s biting my new ball,’ he said. ‘He’ll ruin it before I’ve had a chance to show it to my friends at school.’

  Lizzie hadn’t seen Sammy try to bite the ball once, but she knew the ball didn’t belong to the puppy, however much he might want it to.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘We’ll get it back for you.’

  She ran over to the ball, but Sammy thought this was all part of the game and ran off with it. Arthur tried to help by running towards the ball too – which only made the game even better from Sammy’s point of view. Plus, there was the new boy shouting and waving his arms about.

  Sammy swerved with the ball one way and then he ran with it the other as Lizzie and Arthur tried unsuccessfully to catch him. And all the time his tail wagged like mad because he was having so much fun.

  ‘Sammy, give me the ball!’ Lizzie shouted as she ran towards him, but Sammy didn’t think that was a good idea and he ran on towards the pond. Arthur followed him and did a flying tackle to try to get the ball back. His fingers touched it for a moment, but then Sammy got it back before Lizzie came in for a tackle too.Then Arthur managed to snatch the ball and held it above his head while Sammy barked and tried to jump up and get it.

  ‘Sorry, Sammy, but it’s not yours,’ Arthur said as the other boy came running over and took the ball from him.

  Sammy went to run after it, but Lizzie said, ‘No.’ And Sammy stopped and looked back at her. He wagged his tail, unsure, then looked back at the ball, which he really wanted to play with.