A Soldier's Friend

by Megan Rix

  Oliver lay back down, but he still worried. He should have heard something about Mouser and Sammy by now. They’d done so much for him and the other soldiers just by being in the trenches with them, let alone Sammy helping deliver important messages. He didn’t want them to have to suffer.

  Slowly Oliver drifted back to sleep, only to have scary dreams.

  ‘Sammy … Sammy!’ he called out in his sleep.

  ‘Shh, hush now,’ a nurse with red hair told him. ‘Shh. Sleep.’

  Oliver did sleep, but then his dreams turned to nightmares again and he started calling out Sammy’s name.

  ‘Who is this Sammy that the soldier keeps calling for?’ the red-headed nurse asked her colleague over a late-night cup of tea.

  ‘Probably one of the soldiers who didn’t make it here,’ her colleague said. ‘Lots of these men came out to the war with groups of their friends. It must be hard enough when someone you don’t know is killed as they fight beside you, but to lose someone you might have known since you were a child is almost unthinkable.’

  ‘Sammy’s not a soldier,’ said Oliver, awake now. ‘He’s the Battersea Beasts’ messenger dog. Trained by us and one of the bravest little dogs I’ve ever known.’

  ‘How extraordinary. Where did he come from?’ the red-headed nurse asked him gently.

  ‘He was a mascot with the cavalry, but the colonel didn’t want to take him into battle and so he left him with me.’ Oliver smiled at the memory of his first meeting with Sammy. ‘We played football against the cavalry and, as soon as Sammy saw the ball, he came bounding over, wanting to join in.’

  The nurses smiled too and shook their heads.

  ‘Good little player – even though the ball was bigger than him! And as for his best friend, Mouser the cat, well, she’s definitely the best rat-catcher in the trenches, even if she does leave me unwelcome little bits of rats every now and …’ But Oliver couldn’t go on; his eyes filled with tears thinking of his friends. ‘They really should have come back by now.’

  Chapter 34

  Ivor and Thumbs were of the opinion that everyone thought they were much older than they actually were. But the truth was everyone knew they were just boys still and much too young to officially be soldiers.

  Sergeant Stoneley had seen many soldiers come and go.

  ‘We’ve come to join the Battersea Beasts,’ Ivor and Thumbs told him.

  ‘Well, most of them are in the field hospital at the moment,’ Sergeant Stoneley said. ‘So you can’t join them just yet.’

  He assigned Ivor and Thumbs to the role of stretcher-bearer. Some stretcher-bearers had a lot of medical first-aid training, but there wasn’t enough time to teach Ivor and Thumbs so they had just been taught the basics before they were sent out.

  ‘Where’s our guns?’ Ivor wanted to know.

  ‘You won’t be fighting so you don’t need guns.’

  Ivor and Thumbs were not happy about this.

  ‘How’re we supposed to protect ourselves?’

  ‘Crazy,’ Thumbs muttered.

  ‘You can’t carry rifles and stretchers at the same time,’ Sergeant Stoneley told them. ‘Your job is to find the injured soldiers from our side and bring them back to the field hospital.’

  ‘What about the other side’s?’ Thumbs asked.

  ‘Just leave them.’

  ‘What if ours are dead?’ Ivor said.

  ‘It’s a tough job, but you’ve got to be ruthless. When there are so many injured to find and bring back, you’ve got to make the living ones your priority.’

  Ivor and Thumbs looked grim.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ the sergeant told them. ‘You might see mercy dogs out there.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Specially trained Red Cross dogs who’re doing basically the same job as you.’ He didn’t add that the dogs were probably doing it better. ‘They wear a red cross on the medical supplies they carry and there’s French, Belgian and German ones. The German ones take back the tag from the soldiers’ helmets to get help.’

  Ivor and Thumbs were exhausted; they had been back and forth across the mud all day, carrying injured men to the hospital tents.

  ‘They should’ve given us guns,’ Ivor grumbled as they struggled to lift an unconscious soldier on to their now very muddy stretcher.

  ‘It’s not right.’ Thumbs agreed with Ivor. ‘How’re we supposed to help win this war with a stretcher?’

  The man on the stretcher they were carrying through the mud groaned in agony.

  ‘S’all right, mate. You’ll be having a nice cup of tea soon,’ Ivor told him.

  It was back-breaking work and not made any easier by the knee-deep mud they had to wade through.

  ‘My arms are killing me,’ Ivor said as they dropped the man off at the hospital and set off once more.

  ‘Not again,’ Ivor said as the clouds opened. It had been raining most of the day as it had every day since they’d arrived at the front. ‘Doesn’t it ever stop?’

  The rain made their job much harder.

  ‘Gotta be time to call it a day now,’ puffed Thumbs as the sun set across the sky. ‘Can’t expect us to keep going on like this forever –’

  ‘Hang on, what’s that over there?’ Ivor interrupted. ‘Is that a dog? Do you think it’s a mercy dog?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Thumbs said, squinting into the distance through the rain as the light faded. He could just make out the little dog hopping about and barking in the distance, but he couldn’t see a red cross on it.

  ‘Listen,’ Ivor said. ‘It doesn’t sound very happy.’

  They heard a high-pitched barking coming from across the plain.

  ‘Looks like he’s trying to get our attention. He’s circling round the edge of that large hole.’

  ‘That’s what shell blasts do,’ Thumbs said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Make holes like that.’

  Now the barking had turned into a desperate whining.

  ‘Come on,’ Ivor said to Thumbs. ‘Summin’s wrong. I think someone’s in trouble and he’s trying to tell us.’

  As they headed towards the shell hole, Sammy ran to them and then back to the hole, back to Ivor and Thumbs and then to the hole again, barking all the time.

  ‘S’all right, calm down,’ Ivor said to the little dog as he and Thumbs got closer. ‘Poor thing is beside himself with panic.’

  But Sammy couldn’t calm down. His friend was in trouble, but he didn’t know what to do, or how to help. His eyes still hurt and he couldn’t see very well, but he could hear Mouser’s desperate calls and his strong sense of smell let him know exactly where she was.

  ‘Well, I never,’ said Ivor. ‘Quick, grab me ankles,’ he told Thumbs as he lay down on his tummy in the mud. ‘There’s something stuck in the mud down there.’

  Mouser had slipped into one of the shell holes that now littered no-man’s land and the surrounding areas. It hadn’t looked like it would be all that deep, but it was in fact very deep, and full of water due to the almost continual rain they’d had recently. The shell hole was like a moon crater and dangerous enough for a man if he fell into it.

  ‘Quick, it’s another animal I think, and it looks like it’s sinking.’

  All that could be seen of Mouser now was her black nose and one paw poking out of the muddy water. She’d struggled for so long that she was beyond exhausted and couldn’t fight any more.

  ‘Hold on tight,’ Ivor told Thumbs. ‘I don’t want to be stuck down there too.’

  ‘I won’t let you go.’

  Thumbs held on tight as Ivor stretched out as far as he could over the shell hole. He could almost reach the cat, but just not quite. His fingertips were a hair’s breadth away from her fur, but a hair’s breadth was too far.

  Mouser’s nose sunk under the soupy, muddy water as Ivor yelled, ‘Let go of me ankles!’ and made a dive for her.

  The next moment Mouser was up, coughing and sneezing, and Ivor, now covered in mu
d himself, had her in his arms and was grinning his gummy smile up at Thumbs. Sammy was still barking and barking, running along the edge of the shell hole.

  ‘You look a right state,’ Thumbs said as his friend emerged. ‘The sergeant’s going to play merry hell with us for this for sure. He sent us to find wounded men not drowning cats!’

  But Ivor didn’t care.

  ‘Sometimes you’ve gotta do the right thing, mate.’

  The little dog danced round them, yapping excitedly and jumping up to Mouser who was still in Ivor’s arms.

  ‘Looks like they’re friends,’ said Thumbs.

  ‘Well, he’s an ’ero,’ replied Ivor, nodding at Sammy. ‘Saved this chap’s life. Right, we’d better head back to the field hospital with this stretcher. Not sure if they’ll take a cat and a dog though!’

  ‘The way that cat’s looking at me reminds me of one of those we tried to sell to the army,’ Thumbs said as Ivor cradled Mouser in his arms.

  Ivor shrugged. ‘Just looks like a cat,’ he said. ‘A very muddy, smelly cat.’ He could barely remember the cats they’d caught now. It seemed so long ago.

  ‘That dog looks familiar too,’ Thumbs said.

  Ivor rolled his eyes.

  ‘Where’ve you two been?’ the sergeant demanded to know when they returned. He gave Ivor a hard stare. The boy was covered in mud and he smelt terrible. Sometimes some recruits could be more trouble than they were worth. He would put Ivor and Thumbs in that category.

  ‘We found these two,’ Ivor said.

  Now it was the turn of the sergeant to roll his eyes. He should have known these boys wouldn’t listen to a word he said.

  ‘Do a mud-covered dog and cat actually look like wounded soldiers to you?’ he asked them.

  ‘The cat was stuck in a shell hole full of water,’ Thumbs told the sergeant. ‘It would have died if Ivor hadn’t saved it.’

  The sergeant sighed and shook his head. ‘You’re supposed to help soldiers,’ he said as slowly and clearly as he could. ‘Not animals …’

  ‘He is a soldier, sir,’ Ivor said quickly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Look, sir. He’s got a messenger dog tin.’

  The sergeant wiped off some of the mud on Sammy, so he could see the tin more clearly. ‘Sammy of the Battersea Beasts,’ he read. ‘Well, I never.’ He stood up. ‘Right then, you two can get cleaned up and then you can clean these two up as well. I’m guessing there might be more than a few people who’ve been looking for them …’

  Chapter 35

  Sammy’s eyesight was still a bit misty from the gas, but there was nothing wrong with his sense of smell. And now he could smell a familiar scent above the strong aroma of hospital disinfectant. He whined and slipped inside the field hospital tent flap with Mouser right behind him.

  Oliver had been given a sedative and was sleeping, but Sammy knew he was nearby. He went from one bed to the next, getting closer all the time.

  ‘Hey, what’s that dog doing in here?’ said one of the patients.

  ‘Cat too. Nurse!’

  The red-headed nurse came over to see what was wrong.

  Sammy’s nose twitched. Oliver was so close. His tail wagged and he sneezed with excitement as finally he found what he was looking for and jumped up on to Oliver’s bed.

  When Oliver didn’t react, he sat down in surprise, then he pushed his head under Oliver’s hand for him to stroke him, and when Oliver’s hand didn’t move he rolled on to his tummy in case Oliver wanted to stroke him there instead, but Oliver didn’t do that either. Finally Sammy stood up on his back paws and rested his front ones on Oliver’s chest and then he licked and licked Oliver’s face.

  ‘Sammy,’ Oliver whispered groggily. ‘Sammy, is it really you?’

  And Sammy licked Oliver’s face again and then snuggled into him as Oliver buried his face into the dog’s just-washed, lavender-smelling fur.

  ‘How on earth did you get here?’

  Mouser hopped up on to the bed and purred as Oliver stroked her too and laughed. He’d been so worried that she hadn’t survived the attack on their stretch of trench.

  ‘Where have you both been?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ the soldier in the bed next to Oliver said.

  ‘Is it Sammy and Mouser?’ the other Battersea Beasts asked. They’d all been worried about them.

  ‘Yes!’ Oliver said. ‘They’re OK after all.’

  ‘Who’re Sammy and Mouser?’ the rest of the soldiers in the makeshift ward asked.

  Oliver and the other Battersea Beasts told them about Sammy and Mouser and their adventures.

  ‘Sammy warned them all along the line about the gas attack.’

  ‘He’s a hero.’

  ‘Mouser must have caught more rats than any other cat on the Western Front.’

  ‘And usually she leaves a bit of them for Oliver to find …’

  ‘Sammy played football at the Christmas truce …’

  ‘Isn’t he too little?’

  ‘He doesn’t think so!’

  ‘He even headed the ball.’

  ‘So that’s where you two got to,’ Ivor said to Sammy and Mouser, coming over to Oliver’s bed.

  ‘Went to find them some grub and the next minute they’d disappeared,’ said Thumbs.

  ‘What in the world are you two doing here?’ said Patrick.

  ‘Me and Ivor signed up,’ Thumbs told him. ‘We’re Battersea Beasts just like you now, only we’re temporarily being stretcher-bearers because of you lot getting in a scrap.’

  ‘But you’re not old enough to be in the army,’ Oliver said.

  ‘Old enough to save that cat and dog you’re making such a fuss of,’ Ivor told him.

  ‘If it wasn’t for Ivor, that cat would have drowned in a sinkhole and that dog wouldn’t have lasted much longer,’ Thumbs said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Patrick asked him.

  And Ivor and Thumbs told them the whole story and then had to tell the rest of the Battersea Beasts too. The details of their daring deed grew with each telling.

  When the doctor in charge came in to do his rounds, he was amazed at the huge difference to the whole atmosphere of the ward the pets had made. He watched as the soldiers stroked them and laughed with each other.

  ‘They should give me and Thumbs extra wages – danger money for going in that sinkhole,’ Ivor said.

  ‘Not still trying to make money on the side!’ Patrick grinned.

  ‘We’re like heroes, we are,’ Thumbs said. ‘We saved that cat and dog.’

  The rest of the Battersea Beasts laughed, but not unkindly. They’d been at the front much longer than Ivor and Thumbs and there hadn’t been much laughter recently. It felt good.

  ‘Thank you,’ Oliver said to Ivor and Thumbs. ‘Thank you for saving them.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, would you rather the animals weren’t here?’ the red-headed nurse asked the doctor as they watched the soldiers chatting to Ivor and Thumbs about Sammy and Mouser.

  The doctor shook his head. ‘They’re more than welcome,’ he said. ‘They seem to be cheering the men up, so let’s leave them be.’

  The doctor was so impressed by what he’d seen he wrote a letter about it for the British Military Hospitals Journal.

  A short while later the matron called Amelia into her office.

  ‘Yes, Matron?’ Amelia said, trying to think what she might have done wrong now.

  The matron cleared her throat before she began. ‘It’s come to my attention … that is, we wondered if you knew of any very quiet, docile sorts of pets – cats and dogs – that could be brought into the psychiatric ward as therapy for the soldiers?’

  Amelia realized she was staring at the matron with her mouth open in shock and quickly closed it.

  ‘Yes, Matron. Yes, I do know of pets like that,’ she said.

  ‘It’s been suggested that pet therapy may be beneficial to our patients. Only for the mentally traumatized but ot
herwise healthy soldiers, not those suffering from any open wounds or infections, of course.’

  Amelia could hardly contain her excitement.

  ‘Would you like me to bring them in now?’ she almost squeaked.

  ‘Well, yes, if you don’t mind,’ the matron said.

  ‘I don’t mind at all,’ Amelia told her. ‘Not at all.’

  And she ran out of the matron’s office and down the corridor and out of the hospital and along the street, and was quite breathless by the time she got to the Dogs Home.

  ‘Kenneth,’ she shouted as she banged on the gate. ‘Kenneth, open up. We’ve got work to do!’

  Chapter 36

  Lizzie, Arthur, a red-faced Amelia and some of the other hospital staff were playing football with some of the soldier patients on the lawn at the back of Amelia’s hospital. Mrs Jenson was watching from the sideline, knitting and chatting to Kenneth, who had a little black-and-white cat curled up on his lap. Every day for a week now he, Lizzie and Arthur had been bringing cats and dogs from Battersea Dogs Home to the hospital to visit Amelia’s patients.

  ‘Here, pass the ball!’ Arthur yelled to Lizzie, who was dribbling it across the lawn. But Lizzie didn’t seem to be listening. In fact, she had stopped moving and now stood stock still, staring at something behind Arthur.

  ‘Sammy!’ she suddenly cried as a little dog came racing into the middle of the pitch. He ran past Arthur whose mouth had dropped open in astonishment. Sammy raced on across the lawn and easily took the football from under Lizzie’s foot and started running with it.

  She could hardly believe that it truly was him, but she’d know the little dog anywhere and she ran after him across the pitch.

  Sammy looked over at the sound of his name and wagged his tail at Lizzie before turning back to the ball. It had lost none of the distinctive smell it had the last time he’d played with it.

  ‘It is him!’ Arthur yelled, and he ran towards the dog and ball.

  But Sammy had no intention of giving the precious ball up yet and he headed off the other way, yapping his distinctive yap.

  Mrs Jenson laughed so much at the little dog that tears came to her eyes and she pressed her handkerchief to them. A moment later her tears of laughter turned to tears of joy as a tall, handsome soldier in uniform headed towards her, walking with a stick. She barely noticed the cat following along behind him as she ran to him.