by Megan Rix
The German soldier with Oliver pointed to himself: ‘Marko.’
Oliver nodded and pointed to himself: ‘Oliver.’
Marko nodded.
Oliver didn’t know how to speak German, and Marko knew very little English, and it was the same for most of the soldiers so, as a sign of friendship, they started to exchange gifts. A German button for a British one. A hat for a scarf, gloves for gloves, a jar of strawberry jam for a jar of sauerkraut.
Oliver didn’t want to give away his bullet pencil because he was certain Arthur would like it very much and Lizzie, he was sure, would think of all sorts of things to put inside the tin. But he didn’t mind swapping the sweets.
He exchanged them with Marko for a candle from one of the German trees.
‘Tannenbaum,’ Marko said as he pointed at the sweet-smelling little tree.
The football was almost as big as Sammy, but that just seemed to make him like it even more. It was too big for him to hold in his mouth, but he pushed it forward with his body as he raced after it into no-man’s land, excitedly yipping.
‘Fussball!’ came a shout from the German soldiers.
‘Anyone want a game?’ Oliver shouted into the icy air as he and Marko ran after the little dog.
Soldiers from both sides wanted to play and, within moments, more and more soldiers came to join in – far more than the usual eleven players per team. Soon there must have been fifty or more soldiers playing against each other. And not just British and German soldiers, but French and Belgian ones too.
Their pitch was no-man’s land, their goal wherever the goalie with his arms opened wide was.
Sammy was as happy as could be, racing round and round, not playing on any one team, but on both at once. The ball was his prey and his prize. He even jumped up into the air to try to get it when Oliver kicked a long shot. The soldiers from both sides manoeuvred round him and were careful not to kick the little dog as he ran between them and the ball.
Mouser watched the men’s legs running about, and Sammy running through them, as she was petted by soldiers from both sides. She herself was not the least bit tempted to join in and gave the occasional miaow when the play got too close to her.
But Sammy loved it and played on and off all day, with short breaks to catch his breath before the excitement of the game forced him back into it, until he was panting with exhaustion, while Mouser watched the game from different soldiers’ laps.
Finally Sammy tired and rolled on to his back and held the ball in his forepaws. Oliver watched him and shook his head.
‘You are one football-loving dog,’ he said and the other soldiers laughed.
As night fell, Mouser and Sammy sniffed out tasty bits of food as the soldiers from both sides told them about their own pets at home, while feeding them whatever delicacy they had to offer. By the time the Germans went back to their own trench, the pets were so full they couldn’t eat a scrap more.
Sammy and Mouser fell asleep to the sound of the two sides taking it in turns to sing Christmas songs – mostly off key but very loud and in a range of languages.
Chapter 30
The soldiers in Oliver’s squad never disturbed Sammy as he ran, and the little dog never stopped running until his message was delivered.
‘I reckon he’s better than a lot of professionally trained messenger dogs,’ Patrick said, and Oliver agreed.
‘Never known him not to finish the job – although it does help when there’s a biscuit for him at the end of it,’ he said, grinning.
‘Message needs taking to HQ,’ Sergeant Wainwright said. ‘Nothing much – just supplies needed.’
Sammy wagged his tail as Oliver put the piece of paper in his message tin. Paper in his tin always meant running and biscuits – both good in his opinion.
Mouser watched Sammy head off and then she went to visit her friends in the Belgian trench.
Sammy ran along Oliver’s stretch of trench, past soldiers, many of whom recognized him, and cheered him on along the way. He then ran down the communication trench as fast as he could, past the reserve trench until he reached HQ.
‘Morning, Sammy,’ Corporal Bates said as he took the message from Sammy’s tin and gave him a piece of shortbread as a reward for his work.
Sammy swallowed the biscuit in one gulp.
‘Did you even taste that?’ Corporal Bates asked him.
Sammy wagged his tail and looked up hopefully for more.
Corporal Bates was reading the requisitions note when a loud clatter made him look up. The soldier who was manning the trench phone had dropped his handset and turned pale.
‘Poison-gas attack threat,’ he said.
‘What? Where?’ the captain asked.
The soldier turned back to the phone. ‘The line’s not very good. I can’t tell, sir. But it’s imminent.’
‘Find out more,’ the major ordered.
‘The phone’s gone dead, sir.’
‘Blasted nuisance!’
‘We have to get the word out to the men at the front.’
‘There’s going to be a mass panic,’ the second lieutenant said.
‘They need to be ready,’ Corporal Bates replied. ‘They have to be warned. There are almost a thousand men in the South London battalion in this section of the trenches. We’ve got to get the message out.’
Sammy watched the panicked men with his head cocked to one side. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he could sense their fear. He looked from one to the other as they spoke. He was starting to wonder why he hadn’t been sent back to Oliver yet, and so gave a little yelp to get their attention.
‘What about the dog, sir?’ the soldier manning the phone said. ‘He’d be quicker and able to get through where sometimes men can’t.’
‘Of course! Send him too.’
Corporal Bates hastily wrote a message and put it in Sammy’s Maconochie tin.
‘Go on, boy, off you go.’
Sammy raced back to Oliver with it, his tail wagging, just like it always did.
Oliver gave the corporal’s note to Sergeant Wainwright without reading it.
‘Sammy brought this back, Sarge.’
The sergeant glanced at it and immediately called Patrick over to join them too.
‘What is it, Sarge? What’s wrong?’ Oliver could see the situation was serious.
‘It’s what we feared. Gas attack’s coming. I want you to go to the right and warn them along the front line that way,’ he told Patrick. ‘And you go the other way, Peters, and warn the rest of the battalion. As soon as it’s done, send word back via the pigeons.’
The pigeon wrangler gave Patrick and Oliver a pigeon each to take with them. They were in lightweight pigeon baskets so they could be easily carried.
‘You stay here,’ Oliver told Sammy as the sergeant left to prepare the rest of the Battersea Beasts for the possible attack. He looked round for Mouser, but couldn’t see her and there wasn’t time to look for her now.
Sammy didn’t want to be left behind, and as soon as Oliver started running Sammy ran after him.
‘Go back,’ Oliver told him.
But there wasn’t time to stop and send Sammy back, especially when the little dog would only follow him again.
Sammy and Oliver ran on through waterlogged trenches and mud, round corners where they didn’t know what they would find, and all the time Sammy’s tail wagged as he looked up at Oliver.
‘Yes, you’re a good dog,’ Oliver told him. He was glad Sammy was there; he just didn’t want him to be in danger.
They came to the next section of trench and Oliver gave the message to the officer in charge, took a message in return and ran on. Sammy was tired; usually they stopped long before now and had a drink of water and a biscuit. But not today.
Oliver was gasping for air too, but he didn’t slow his pace and neither did Sammy.
As they neared the next trench section, Oliver heard gunshots and the blast of shells just ahead. But they needed to warn the
men so they ran on, although now Sammy ran behind Oliver; his little legs were starting to get tired.
Suddenly a really loud crack sounded just to the left of them. Both Sammy and Oliver jumped to the right, trying to avoid it. Before he knew what was happening, Oliver found himself tumbling: he’d fallen off the slippery duckboards, yelling out in shock and pain. Sammy didn’t understand what was happening; the noises were so loud, and Oliver was lying on the ground, when Sammy knew they should be running and racing as usual.
Oliver looked down at his leg; his foot was twisted at a very strange angle. He started to feel dizzy with the pain. Sammy nuzzled in to Oliver’s chest, and reached up and licked his face.
‘Sammy, I don’t think I can go any further,’ he said, gasping in pain from his ankle. ‘But we have to warn the soldiers further along the line. It sounds like there’s even more fighting up ahead,’ he added desperately.
Oliver looked down at Sammy. Sammy barked back at him. Can he do it? Oliver thought.
Oliver leant against the side of the trench and carefully put the message about the gas attack into Sammy’s tin. He then took the pigeon in the basket and strapped it to Sammy’s back. Sammy looked with interest at the basket. He didn’t really like it much, but Oliver kept telling him what a good dog he was so he didn’t make too much of a fuss.
‘Go, Sammy, go,’ Oliver said once the bird was securely attached to the dog. He didn’t want to panic Sammy so he tried to keep his voice light, as if there were nothing wrong, as if it were all just some new and exciting game that they were playing.
‘Go on, Sammy, that’s it, go on.’
Sammy whined. He didn’t want to leave Oliver.
‘Go!’ Oliver shouted; the pain in his leg was almost unbearable. ‘Go, Sammy.’
Finally Sammy ran in the direction Oliver wanted him to.
‘I only hope he gets there in time,’ Oliver muttered before collapsing back against the side of the trench.
Chapter 31
Sammy had run all day long and he was exhausted. His paws were cut from the debris he’d run through, his short legs and fur were covered in mud and he wasn’t used to running with the pigeon crate on him, but still he ran on.
It was twilight by the time he reached the final stretch of this section of the trench and the last soldiers of the battalion.
The soldiers in this part of the trench didn’t know Sammy and had never met him before. They couldn’t understand what he had on his back. As he raced along the trench towards them, it looked almost like the little dog had wings.
‘He can’t have though, can he?’
‘Never heard of a flying dog before.’
‘He’s certainly fast enough to be flying.’
As Sammy got closer, they saw he had some sort of basket on his back and recognized he must be a messenger dog because he was wearing his tin. Although they could see it wasn’t one of the standard-issue tins.
Sammy barked at them, waiting for them to read the message as Oliver would. But the men didn’t move, they were so surprised to see the little dog. Sammy barked again, more urgently.
‘Sammy? Is that you?’ said a familiar voice.
Lieutenant Morris had been trying to get the communications telephone to work and hadn’t noticed the little dog when he arrived.
Sammy barked again and Lieutenant Morris bent down to him.
‘Sammy,’ he said as Sammy wagged his tail. ‘What on earth are you doing all the way out here? Where’s Oliver? And what have you got on your back?’
Sammy put his paw out to Lieutenant Morris. Where was his biscuit? He always got a biscuit when he’d delivered his message.
The pigeon fluttered in its crate on Sammy’s back and a soldier hurried to unbuckle the basket.
‘Let’s have a look,’ Lieutenant Morris said as he took the message from Sammy’s tin.
‘Poison gas!’ he said. ‘Poison-gas attack threat! Alert the men to protect themselves. Everyone get a gas mask on now.’
The soldier hurried out as Sammy wagged his tail and looked up at Lieutenant Morris. After all that running and pigeon carrying, surely he deserved a biscuit.
Lieutenant Morris gave him one and Sammy crunched it up.
‘HQ need to know the message has been received all along the line, sir.’
‘Right.’
Lieutenant Morris quickly scribbled a message on the tiny lightweight paper, rolled it up and put it into the canister on the pigeon’s leg.
‘Fly away home, pigeon,’ Lieutenant Morris said as they released the bird and it flew upwards out of the trench and into the sky. Sammy barked.
‘No need for you to carry the pigeon any more, boy. He’s going to fly back home to his coop. Once he gets back, one of the soldiers from the pigeon corps will check him for the message.’
Sammy barked again. He wanted to get back to Oliver, and while Lieutenant Morris was busy releasing the pigeon and putting on his own gas mask Sammy began running for home.
‘Wait, Sammy, come back!’ Lieutenant Morris called after him, but Sammy had been away from Oliver for too long and he had to get back to him.
He didn’t stop even when Lieutenant Morris shouted again: ‘You haven’t got a gas mask!’
Sammy ran on and on, round corners and down trenches, past soldiers rushing around him as the gas gongs rang out. No one took any notice of the little dog as he flew down the line. All Sammy could think of was Oliver.
But suddenly he smelt it. It was something he’d never smelt before. But he instantly knew it was bad. Then he saw it: a cloud of yellow-green gas drifting slowly towards the trench ahead of him. He didn’t understand exactly what it was, but he sensed danger and knew he had to get away from it. He jumped up on to a trench step and desperately scrambled up the steep, crumbling bank, over the sandbags and out into no-man’s-land.
But soon his eyes were stinging and his throat seared and his skin burnt beneath his fur. With streaming eyes, Sammy ran on and on. Not knowing where he was going, just wanting to get away from the pain and the smell of the gas.
Chapter 32
As night fell, Mouser came back from the Belgian stretch of trench, where she’d been visiting a cat called Hansel, to find Oliver’s trench in chaos. Soldiers were shouting, and the gas masks they wore made them look and sound very strange to Mouser. She backed away, uncertain, and tried to crouch down as low as possible against the side of the trench.
Soon the night was filled with loud cracks and bangs all around her. She watched as the soldiers fired over the top of the trench, bayonets glistening.
Then Sergeant Wainwright blew his whistle and the next moment they were clambering over the top of the trench into no-man’s land to fight the enemy. The noise was incredible as guns roared and Verey lights and exploding rockets lit up the sky.
Mouser turned and ran into the darkness, desperate to get away to somewhere she’d feel safe. That night she scratched herself a sleep hole and slept out in no-man’s-land in the rain.
In the morning she returned to look for Oliver and Sammy, but the trench was deserted.
Alone in the trench, Mouser waited for them to return. She was hungry, but she didn’t eat the dead rats that lay on the ground; instinct told her not to. Clouds filled the sky and turned the day grey. As the sun went down and the long day turned into night, she left the trench to go and look for Sammy and Oliver once more.
There was a rumble of thunder and the storm that had been threatening all day finally broke. That was when she heard a pitiful whimpering and crying sound. Instantly she knew it was her friend.
Sammy was in no-man’s land, shaking and whimpering. In his terror and pain he’d run into some barbed wire. His eyes were sore, and slowly his vision got more blurred until he could see only darkness around him. He was wriggling and thrashing around, desperately trying to get free, but with every move he made the wire cut through his fur into his skin.
He lifted his head and howled up at the sky in despair as Mouse
r raced through the rain to reach him. Suddenly Sammy felt her beside him. He smelt her familiar smell and knew it was his friend. He started licking Mouser over and over. A desperate licking as if he couldn’t quite believe she was there, but was so very glad she was.
Sammy couldn’t see the wire or how it was wrapped round him, but Mouser could. Slowly she nudged him back the same way he’d entangled himself and, with one last pull, Sammy was free and sat down in shocked surprise and exhaustion.
But Mouser nudged him up again and encouraged him on, back towards the trenches they knew. She ran so close to him that their fur touched as they steadily made their way back across no-man’s land together.
Chapter 33
‘Have you seen Sammy? Did he survive? Did he deliver the message? What about Mouser? Was she at the trench?’ Oliver asked Patrick who stood at his bedside.
The field hospital marquee was constantly busy and almost overflowing with injured soldiers. It was where Oliver had been taken for treatment for his ankle. Lots of the other Battersea Beasts who’d been in the trench when the gas attack had happened and gone over the top to fight the Germans were there too.
‘No. I don’t know,’ Patrick said. ‘I returned from my message run to find our trench a living nightmare. They’re probably fine though,’ he quickly added when he saw Oliver’s worried face.
Oliver knew Patrick was trying to make him feel better, but he feared the worst too. How were Sammy and Mouser supposed to survive when they didn’t even have gas masks to protect them?
‘No news could be good news,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Promise me you’ll let me know if you hear anything – good or bad.’
‘I promise.’
‘How are the rest of the Battersea Beasts?’
‘Most of them are here being treated for their injuries after going over the top. But it would have been far worse if they hadn’t had the warning about the gas attack. At least they were safe from that,’ Patrick told him.