A Soldier's Friend

by Megan Rix

  Suddenly Oliver heard the crack of a twig. Patrick heard it too and they both instantly stopped dead, although the two pets didn’t.

  ‘Chat …’ a voice called out to Mouser in a hiss. ‘Chérie!’

  Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. The French were friends not foe.

  ‘Her name’s Mouser,’ Oliver whispered to the French soldier.

  ‘Mooser?’ the French soldier hissed back. ‘Like a moose?’

  But Oliver didn’t have time to explain. It was too dangerous to talk out in no-man’s-land even under cover of darkness. Although, if they did stumble across the enemy, it was even more dangerous to draw their weapons for fear of attracting the fire of the machine guns which would be deadly to all members of the patrol in the darkness, friend or foe.

  ‘Like a mouse,’ Oliver hissed as he and Patrick moved on.

  ‘Une souris,’ the confused soldier muttered as Mouser and Sammy ran over to him.

  Mouser purred as she wound herself round the ankles of the soldier who had shooed her away from the messenger pigeons. Sammy wagged his tail in greeting and both pets were given the last of the cheese from the soldier’s coat pocket.

  When the soldier headed down the French communication trench to the stores for more wire-cutters, Mouser followed him and Sammy followed her and the lovely cheesy smell.

  Sammy had often run to the dilapidated deserted farm at end of the British communication trench when he was taking messages. But at the end of the French communication trench he smelt a quite different, much stronger and more interesting scent. He and Mouser headed off down the farm track to investigate.

  It was almost dawn as they went into the farmyard and were greeted by a shriek that made them race into the nearest barn for cover.

  ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’

  They peered out from behind the safety of a pile of hay bales only to have the cockerel’s song repeated again and again.

  The next moment handfuls of corn and a cabbage were thrown into the barn. Some of the corn landed close to Sammy and he tried a bit, but wasn’t keen on its crunchy texture. Mouser didn’t try it. She was much more interested in the three chickens that came flapping down from their perches with a flurry and a squawk and began pecking at the corn. She was just about to say miaow when she heard a grunt and slipped back behind the hay bales instead.

  Mouser and Sammy watched as an enormous black-and-pink beast with a ring through its nose came snuffling towards them.

  Mouser let out an instinctive hiss, but the pig took no notice of her. It was too intent on reaching its morning cabbage to be bothered by a cat. The pig chomped on the cabbage with relish, sometimes dropping leaves and picking them up again, as Sammy watched him with his head cocked to one side.

  When the pig had finished its breakfast, it headed over to Sammy, fully aware of where the visitors were. Sammy wagged his tail, unsure and a little frightened, but not as much as he’d been at first although the pig was much, much bigger than he was.

  He sat down to wait for the pig to reach him, but when the pig gave a squeal of obvious delight at meeting a new friend Sammy sneezed with excitement and stood up. The two of them nuzzled heads and were soon playing together.

  Mouser was too busy stalking the chickens to say hello to the pig, but when she was confronted by the cockerel and its sharp beak she ran off in the opposite direction, only to find herself face to face with a beast that was even larger than the pig. The cow lowered its head to Mouser, looked her in the eyes and gave a loud moo.

  Mouser was so surprised she jumped on to the bucket of milk beside the cow as Sammy and the pig, who were now playing chase, trotted over to her. The bucket wobbled and toppled, spilling the milk which Sammy, Mouser and the pig lapped and snuffled up.

  They froze when they heard whistling. The farmer was back. The pig gave a squeal as he waddled over to him. Sammy and Mouser slipped out of the barn unseen.

  They ran back to the farm track and headed along the trenches until they found Oliver.

  ‘Where’ve you two been?’ Oliver asked them when Mouser and Sammy arrived. He was very relieved to see them. He was used to Mouser going off on her wanderings, but Sammy had never been away for so long before and he’d been very worried about them. ‘I do wonder what you two get up to out there, and what you see. I bet you’ve got some stories to tell …’

  Chapter 26

  Ivor and Thumbs thought going to war would be a lark. Plus, they’d be paid a lot of money. More than they could get by trying to sell rat-catching cats or dogs to the dog-fighting rings, that’s for sure.

  They weren’t exactly sure how much they’d get, but they’d heard it was a shilling a day at least and quite likely more than that. Ivor was looking forward to being rich for once.

  ‘Ivor?’ Amelia called out. ‘Ivor Dawson, is that you?’

  Ivor stopped as Amelia, Lizzie and Arthur hurried up to him.

  ‘It is you,’ Amelia said. ‘Well, I never thought I’d see the day. What are you doing in uniform?’

  ‘Me and Thumbs have joined the Battersea Beasts battalion. We’re going to the front to join the rest of our mates. Don’t want to be given no coward’s white feather, do we?’ Ivor told her.

  ‘But you’re so young …’ Amelia said. He looked barely sixteen.

  ‘Nineteen this past birthday,’ Ivor told her.

  Amelia shook her head in dismay.

  ‘I thought you weren’t as old as Oliver,’ Arthur said. Ivor had sometimes joined in the kickabouts out in the street. He was sure Ivor was in between his and Oliver’s age. A little bit older than Lizzie.

  ‘Nineteen and that’s a fact,’ Ivor replied, giving him a hard stare.

  ‘When do you go to the front?’ Amelia asked him.

  ‘After Christmas.’

  Amelia opened her purse and took out the little money she had in it.

  ‘Don’t need your money,’ Ivor told her as she held it out to him.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you can find something to spend it on.’

  Ivor grinned his gummy grin and took it. ‘Can’t look a gift horse in the mouth,’ he said cheekily.

  ‘Ivor!’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Really, thanks.’

  Amelia nodded as he put the money in his pocket and went off in the opposite direction, whistling ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’.

  ‘He doesn’t look as old as Oliver,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘That’s because he isn’t,’ Amelia told her. ‘I hope that silly boy doesn’t go and get himself killed.’

  They passed a large poster stuck to a wall.

  ‘Play the Greater Game on the Field of Honour’ was written in big letters on it. There was a drawing of German soldiers behind a trench, their rifles drawn, and then a picture of what they were thinking in a cloud above them. It said the Germans believed that British men preferred playing football to protecting their country.

  Arthur was outraged.

  ‘We don’t!’ he said, although he and Oliver and Lizzie did love football. But not more than their country.

  ‘It’ll be all over soon, won’t it?’ Lizzie said. Surely the war couldn’t go on for much longer. Everyone had thought it would be over by Christmas, but it was almost Christmas now and the war wasn’t over yet.

  Amelia pursed her lips. ‘The sooner our soldiers and their soldiers get to pack up and come home, the better,’ she said as they reached the Dogs Home.

  She thumped on the gate and Kenneth opened it.

  ‘Morning to you all,’ he said.

  ‘Morning, Kenneth,’ Amelia said. She was still angry about seeing Ivor heading off to the front and told her brother all about it.

  ‘They’re just boys; they don’t understand what it is they’re going into,’ she said.

  ‘They’ll find out soon enough,’ Kenneth replied gravely.

  Chapter 27

  Mouser and Sammy slipped down into the German trench. The place was buzzing with activity, with soldiers
rushing to and fro.

  ‘Achtung!’ said a young soldier as he hurried past Sammy and Mouser. The soldier was struggling to carry three small green fir trees.

  Sammy sniffed the air. He could smell the pine from the trees. Mouser miaowed loudly at the soldier who stopped and bent down to greet them.

  ‘Do you like the smell? We do too,’ he said in German.

  It was Christmas Eve and twenty-three small trees had been delivered to this section of the German trench along with candles to decorate them.

  None of the German soldiers knew exactly who the cat or dog belonged to, or even which side the pets were on, but they were always glad to see them, especially as the cat often disposed of a rat while she was there.

  Mouser was very partial to rat and Sammy would eat them too, although he ate the soldiers’ food with far more enjoyment.

  The young soldier was sad about not being at home for Christmas. No one wanted to be here. He put his Christmas tree on the parapet of the trench and when it wasn’t shot down other soldiers did the same.

  He then held out a slice of German sausage and Mouser hopped up into his lap and took it from his hand.

  He smiled as he stroked her fur.

  ‘I used to have a cat just like you at home,’ he told her, and his eyes took on a sad, faraway look at the memory. ‘She’d sit with me in the evenings and we’d stare into the fire together. It’s so long ago now. I hope my neighbour took care of her as she promised to do. I hope I’ll see her again, but I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

  Mouser rubbed her head against him and he stroked her some more.

  Sammy, meanwhile, was trying Christmas stollen for the first time and finding it very fine indeed.

  ‘Don’t give him too much of that – it’s too rich for dogs,’ one of the soldiers said.

  ‘A little won’t do him any harm.’

  Sammy and Mouser sat with the German soldiers as they linked arms and sang a song about a Christmas tree:

  O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,

  wie treu sind deine Blätter …

  The soldiers found the novelty of the cat and little dog who were best friends very entertaining.

  ‘Merry Christmas!’ they called after them as Sammy and Mouser leapt up the trench side and disappeared back out into no-man’s-land.

  ‘Where’ve you two been?’ Oliver asked the pets, when they finally padded back into their own trench, tired and full of food.

  The British soldiers had tried to decorate their section of trench as best they could with newspaper torn up to make paper chains.

  As night fell, there was even louder singing from the German lines across the moonlit strip of no-man’s-land.

  ‘Is it a trick?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘Do you think the flickering lights on those Christmas trees are supposed to deceive us about what they’re really up to?’ said Patrick.

  ‘They’re singing “Silent Night” in German,’ the old soldier said. ‘They’re not singing it very well, but I recognize the tune.’

  ‘Let’s join in, shall we?’ Oliver and several of the other Battersea Beasts said.

  ‘Can’t do any harm.’

  ‘Can’t sing it any more off key than they’re doing.’

  Soon both the British and the German sides were singing ‘Silent Night’ in their own language and then the French and Belgian sections of the trench joined in too.

  ‘Might not be the best singing in the world, but it’s certainly loud!’ Oliver laughed.

  Chapter 28

  Lizzie woke on Christmas morning thinking of Oliver, Mouser and Sammy. She hoped Oliver would have a bearable Christmas at the front. And wherever Mouser and Sammy were she hoped they were being well looked after.

  ‘I hope the warm socks I knitted for Oliver and his card have arrived as well as his gift from the nation,’ Mrs Jenson said as she cast off the last row of the scarf she’d been making and went to pour the tea.

  More than £162,000 had been raised by the British public for the soldiers and sailors. It was much more than anyone had expected and it had been decided to spend the money on an embossed brass tobacco tin for everyone wearing the King’s uniform. The surface of the lid had Princess Mary’s head on it, and on the lower edge was written Christmas 1914. In the corners and around the other edges were the names of all the Allies: Belgium, Japan, Montenegro, Serbia, France and Russia.

  ‘In the newspaper it said 426,000 men and women are being sent our Christmas present,’ Arthur said.

  Up and down the country there’d been marches and fêtes, sports events and collections, just like they’d done in Battersea, to raise money.

  ‘That’s so many to deliver,’ Mrs Jenson said. ‘Plus, the woman at the post office said they’d had a mountain of warm winter clothing, food treats and tobacco put in the collection for the soldiers when I took Oliver’s cards and presents from us there.’

  ‘Good,’ said Lizzie. Everyone she knew wanted to help. At school they rarely had regular sorts of lessons any more. They had lessons about the war and spent their time digging the vegetable garden on the playing field, sewing, knitting and collecting money for the soldiers.

  Their teacher, Miss Hailstock, had been very pleased when she’d heard about Lizzie and Arthur’s fund-raising and collecting activities and encouraged them to do more of it.

  ‘We must all do our part in these troubled times,’ she’d said.

  They’d been at the Dogs Home that afternoon with their mother as the munitions factory was closed on Christmas Day.

  Daisy and Daffodil, the two blanket cats, were now no longer shy when Lizzie came to visit them and ran to the door to greet her. They didn’t even mind when her mother stroked them and they’d never even met her before.

  But the best part of the afternoon was when Kenneth said: ‘Look who’s here,’ and in came Toby with the little boy and his grandfather.

  ‘Rover wanted to say thank you,’ the little boy said, his arm round the big dog’s head.

  ‘Well, I can see he’s obviously enjoying being back home and I’m enjoying not having to listen to him howling or worrying about him biting his paw any more.’ Kenneth smiled as he gave Toby a sliver of ham. ‘I just wish all the dogs and cats we have here could find as good a home as his.’

  All of them wished that for the dogs and cats at the home.

  Chapter 29

  The icy white morning frost and pink-and-grey sky almost turned the barren shell-struck no-man’s-land stretching before Oliver into a place of beauty. There was a hush in the air as if the day was holding its breath.

  Oliver woke up and immediately felt the warmth of Sammy and Mouser curled up alongside him. He watched their breath rise like steam in the cold air, before he gently stroked them awake, muttering ‘Happy Christmas’ as they stirred. He tried not to think about home.

  At breakfast Oliver and the other soldiers were given a souvenir brass tobacco tin from Princess Mary and Friends at home.

  Inside Oliver’s was a bullet pencil, a packet of boiled sweets, a photo of the Princess and a greetings card with a crown and the letter M on it. The King and Queen Mary had also sent cards for everyone:

  ‘With our best wishes for Christmas 1914. May God protect you and bring you home safe.’

  ‘This is for you too, Oliver,’ Sergeant Wainwright, who was acting as Father Christmas, said. He gave Oliver the cards and presents from Lizzie, Arthur and Mrs Jenson.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said as the sergeant called out the name of the next soldier.

  After breakfast, Oliver was on fire-step duty and as he looked through the periscope across no-man’s-land he could see the lighted candles flickering on the little fir trees on the edge of the German trench. He wondered what the German soldiers were doing today, and whether they missed home too.

  ‘What’s going on over there?’ one of his fellow soldiers suddenly called out, pointing towards the German area.

  Oliver watched in amazement as a German soldier h
olding a candlelit fir tree headed towards them across the narrow strip of no-man’s-land.

  ‘Stand down!’ Sergeant Wainwright shouted as the German soldier moved closer.

  The soldier didn’t stop walking.

  ‘Stand down or we’ll fire!’ Sergeant Wainwright shouted again.

  The German soldier paused to put the tree down on the hard ground.

  Oliver looked back at the German trench. It looked like the German soldiers were waving from the top of it.

  ‘Oh, come on, Sarge, it’s Christmas,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see it’s a symbol of peace? I think it’s safe,’ and he and the other Battersea Beasts started to wave back.

  But the sergeant raised his rifle and shouted, ‘Stop!’ In a split second the German soldier also had his rifle pointed back towards the British front line. Oliver and the other men froze, and Oliver held his breath.

  But suddenly he saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye – it was Sammy and Mouser! Before Oliver could stop them, Sammy had bounded over the top and was running towards the German soldier, quickly followed by Mouser.

  Sammy reached the man and started jumping up around him, wagging his tail and barking excitedly at the candlelit tree while Mouser stretched up to the soldier to be stroked.

  Oliver and the rest of the Battersea Beasts began to laugh, and soon they could hear laughter coming from the German trenches too.

  The sergeant sighed loudly. ‘Go on, then,’ he said with a smile.

  So Oliver slowly climbed over the parapet and went to meet the German soldiers who were now running towards them. His heart was racing. He’d never met a real-life German soldier before and he was surprised that close up they looked so much like him and his friends. If they weren’t wearing their uniforms, they could have been playing football out with him on the cobbled streets of Battersea.

  As they got closer, a young German soldier held his hand out to him and Oliver took it.

  ‘Frohe Weihnachten.’

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ Oliver said back.

  Around him he heard the words repeated over and over as soldiers from both sides greeted each other and the British khaki uniforms mingled with the German grey.