The Bomber Dog (2 page)

Nathan Green had seen countless acts of
human bravery since the war began, but he'd never seen a dog actually drag
another dog to safety before.

The smaller one was lying very still,
while the larger one kept licking and pushing at it. It was almost as if the bigger
dog was trying to persuade its friend to wake up.

The house that had taken the direct hit
had been cleared and the fires it had started in the houses on either side put out,
although the soot and ash from the blast still filled the air, so Nathan headed over
to the two dogs.

‘Wait!' the
elderly warden called after him. Nathan stopped. ‘Don't go getting
yourself bitten on your last night with us. A frightened animal's not going to
be thinking straight.'

The warden was going to miss Nathan when
he left. He was one of the best search-and-rescue volunteers they had ever had. But
the boy was almost eighteen, even though with his slight frame he could pass for a
much younger lad, and he'd recently received his call-up papers.

‘I'll be careful, I
promise,' Nathan said. He carried on towards the dogs as the animal rescue
ambulance arrived.

Kate pulled on the ambulance's
handbrake and grabbed her first-aid kit. Before the war she'd been a
veterinary nurse. Now when the air raid sirens went off she became part of NARPAC,
the National Air Raid Precautions Animal Committee.

‘Don't you have a
muzzle?' the warden
called after her, as he pointed to where
Nathan and the dogs were.

‘I'll make do with a bandage
if I get worried about being bitten,' Kate replied. She never liked to use a
muzzle unless she absolutely had to, because they could be very distressing for some
dogs. The injured animal didn't look as if it would even be able to sit up,
let alone bite her.

She ran to catch up with Nathan.

‘At least the injured dog's
got a NARPAC disc on its collar,' Kate said with relief as they got closer and
she could see the distinctive white disc with a blue cross on it that all registered
dogs wore.

‘But what about the other dog, the
one that rescued it?' Nathan asked.

‘Doesn't look like
he's got a collar on at all,' Kate said, avoiding his question.
She'd seen Nathan before, helping at the bomb sites, but she didn't
really know him.

‘No,'
Nathan agreed. It didn't.

The big dog's eyes never left
Nathan and he didn't move away as Nathan approached him and his friend.

‘Let's just concentrate on
getting the injured dog some help for now. Someone will be sent for the other one in
the morning,' Kate said, and she pressed her lips together to stop herself
from saying more.

But Nathan was worried about the other
dog. ‘What happens to dogs that don't have a NARPAC disc on their
collar?' he asked her.

Kate sighed and shook her head.

‘We can't look after them
all,' she said, but Nathan wasn't listening to her because he was
looking at the big dog, who had stood up.

The German Shepherd took a few paces
towards the young man, and then headed back to his friend, stopping every few
moments to look behind him. The dog definitely wanted them to come and help but Kate
was worried
it might get in the way while she was trying to examine
the smaller one.

‘Here, try throwing a bit of this
over that way,' she said, pulling a beef-dripping sandwich from her pocket.
She'd been eating it for her tea when the siren went off and she'd had
to dash out of the door without stopping to finish it. ‘It'll distract
the big dog so I can take a look at the injured one.'

Nathan threw the sandwich off to the
side, where Kate had told him to. The dog watched the bread being thrown, looked at
it, and then turned back to Nathan.

‘One perfectly good sandwich
wasted. Go on you silly dog, eat it!' Kate told him.

But all the dog did was look steadily
back at them, then slowly raise his paw as if he were asking them to do something to
help his friend. He wasn't leaving Molly, not even for food.

Kate and Nathan kept slowly walking
towards the dogs.

‘Be
careful,' Kate told Nathan.

It didn't take long for a dog to
turn from a house pet into a wild animal, some said only forty-eight hours or
so.

‘Young puppies need to be stroked
frequently and held by human hands,' said Kate. ‘If they don't get
this, it's unlikely they'll ever become truly comfortable and relaxed as
pets.'

‘I will be careful,'
answered Nathan.

As Nathan moved towards the dog,
who'd been such a good friend to his injured pal, the dog backed away, unsure.
He wasn't used to contact with people – other than being shouted at or having
things thrown at him.

Kate gave Nathan her last sandwich and
Nathan broke bits off it and crouched down so that he wouldn't be as
frightening.

‘Here dog, come here,' he
called in a soft, non-threatening voice.

The young animal took a step towards him
and then stopped. He stared at the hand that
held the sandwich,
glanced up at Nathan's face for a fraction of a second and then back at the
sandwich. He was always very hungry and the sandwich was almost impossible to
resist.

‘He'll feel less threatened
if you don't look directly at him,' Kate said over her shoulder, as she
reached Molly.

Nathan knew the dog wanted the bit of
sandwich because he could see it drooling, but would it be brave enough to come over
to him? Nathan waited. The dog took another few paces forward but then stopped and
sat down, his head tilted to one side as he looked at Nathan.

Nathan laughed. The dog was playing him
at his own game!

He stood up and moved a few paces
backwards, dropping small bits of sandwich on the ground as he did so. All the time
he kept his head turned away from the dog, as Kate had suggested, but he could still
just see
any movement it made from the corner of his eye.

The dog took a step closer and then
another. The sandwich lure was too strong to ignore.

He ate one bit of the sandwich and then
he ate another. He didn't see Nathan smiling to himself. Nathan risked taking
a step towards him and he scuttled a few feet away, then stopped.

‘It's all right,'
Nathan told the dog. ‘Your friend's going to be all right.'

Every time Nathan moved forward the dog
moved back, but he didn't try to interfere or stop Kate as she examined Molly
and cleaned the cut on her head.

‘Her wounds don't look too
bad but I'll need to take her back to the clinic for a proper
examination,' Kate said, and Nathan came over, with the other dog following a
few steps behind.

‘We can use my coat,' Nathan
said, and he
pulled it off and laid it on the ground beside
Molly.

Molly whimpered as Kate and Nathan slid
her on to Nathan's coat and Nathan lifted her in his arms.

‘She hardly weighs a thing,'
he said.

Molly looked fragile and vulnerable. The
big dog whined and followed them as they made their way back to the ambulance where
the warden was waiting.

‘What exactly happens to dogs that
aren't registered?' Nathan asked Kate again as they reached the NARPAC
ambulance.

Kate sighed. ‘It's an
impossible situation. There are already far too many homeless dogs – especially in
Dover.'

Nathan felt a feeling of dread in the
pit of his stomach.

‘So what happens to them?'
he repeated.

‘Unregistered stray dogs are put
down,' Kate said as she opened the ambulance door. ‘It's not
my choice,' she added when she saw Nathan's stricken
face. ‘But it's what we have to do.'

Nathan stared at the German Shepherd
standing only a few paces away. He'd been so brave helping his friend. Nathan
couldn't bear the thought of him being put down – it was so unfair. The dog
shouldn't have to die just because it hadn't been registered. It
wasn't right. He had to do something – couldn't let it happen – but
he'd had his call-up papers and was due to leave for basic training in two
days' time.

Nathan lifted Molly into the
ambulance.

Her friend barked, not understanding
what was happening or where they were taking Molly. He'd never been separated
from her before.

‘It's all right,'
Nathan said. He reached out to stroke the dog without thinking, but it ducked out of
the way.

‘Seventeen Harold Road,'
Kate read from the back of Molly's NARPAC collar.

‘I'll let
the owner know she's been found,' the warden said as he climbed on to
his heavy single-speed bicycle.

‘Thank you,' Kate said.

A major part of an animal
rescuer's work, and the best part in Kate's opinion, was reuniting lost
pets with their owners.

The German Shepherd looked up at Nathan
and then back at Molly in the ambulance. He whined mournfully.

‘Right, let's get her some
medical attention as soon as possible. See you later, Nathan,' Kate added,
then she closed the ambulance door and the big dog was left staring at the back of
it as she ran round to the driver's side, jumped in and started the engine.
The sooner she got Molly back to the clinic the better.

The German Shepherd barked, but the
ambulance door didn't open. He barked again but it remained closed.

As the ambulance drove
off he ran after it, ran and ran, until it was gone and he could run no more.

He threw back his head and howled in
misery.

He was lost without Molly. She'd
always been there for him. She was the one who had decided where they should go and
when they should eat – even where they slept at night. But now Molly was gone and he
didn't know what to do. He sank down on to the road with his head on his paws,
looking utterly despondent, and that's where Nathan found him.

‘You can certainly run
fast,' Nathan gasped, bending double as he tried to catch his breath.

Nathan's coat still had the faint
scent of Molly on it. The dog looked up at him and whined.

‘Don't
worry, your friend's going to be OK,' Nathan told him, but he knew the
dog couldn't understand. How could he?

He took a step closer but the big dog
jumped up and moved to the other side of the road before turning and looking back at
Nathan.

Nathan rummaged around inside his coat
pocket and found a small leftover piece of the sandwich Kate had given him earlier.
He threw it to the dog, who took a few steps forward to eat it, then just stood
there, his tail between his legs. It seemed to Nathan that the dog's blue eyes
were staring straight into his own brown ones, trying desperately to communicate
with him.

‘I don't have any more
food,' Nathan explained, but the dog just kept on looking at him, willing him
to understand.

When Kate arrived at the clinic with
Molly she found it was as chaotic as usual. There were
always far
too many animals needing treatment for their injuries. Some of them had been hurt by
bomb blasts, but many more had been wounded afterwards by falling debris or had cut
their paws on broken glass or fragments of metal. Kate laid Molly down in one of the
cubicles for the vet to examine her.

Molly's eyes opened and Kate could
see the fear in them.

‘It's all right,
you're going to be just fine,' she said as she softly stroked the
trembling dog.

Molly's eyes closed and she
drifted back to sleep.

While Kate waited for the vet she filled
in a brief report of what had happened at the site, but she left out the answer to
one of the questions. She was supposed to report any dogs that had been spotted that
weren't registered with NARPAC, so they could be collected, but Kate
couldn't bear the thought that the dog that had stayed by his injured
friend's side
would be put to sleep without being given a
chance, so she left out any mention of him.

‘I'm Mrs Williams and
I'm looking for my dog, Molly. She's a honey-coloured spaniel and the
warden said she was here,' said an anxious voice outside the cubicles.
‘Please tell me if she is. Please tell me, have you found my Molly?'

Kate swished back the curtain to find a
middle-aged woman wearing a coat over her dressing gown and with house slippers on
her feet, wringing her hands as she asked one of the other nurses about her dog.

‘Have you found her?' the
woman asked, turning to Kate. ‘Please tell me it's true. I've been
so worried about her. I miss her so. The house doesn't feel right without
her.' She'd tied a scarf round her head to cover up the rollers in her
hair, and knotted it under her chin. As she spoke, she nervously pushed back one of
the rollers that had started to work its way free.

‘She's in
here,' Kate said, beckoning the woman over to the cubicle.

‘Oh, Molly, dearest Molly,'
Mrs Williams said as tears of worry and relief rolled down her face at the sight of
her dog. ‘Is she going to be all right?'

‘Yes. She's been injured and
was knocked unconscious – the vet still needs to see her – but I think she's
going to be absolutely fine,' Kate reassured her.

‘I blame myself for her getting
lost,' Mrs Williams said. ‘I should have told them Molly was still
inside as soon as I'd been rescued after the house was struck by the bomb,
just over a year ago now. But I didn't – not till they'd taken me away
on the stretcher and I was lying in the ambulance. I'd been unconscious and
wasn't thinking straight. They said they'd see to me first and I
wasn't to worry, but I did worry and when they couldn't find her I
thought she was … must be …' She couldn't
bring herself to say the word ‘dead', but another tear slipped down
her face at the memory.

Molly opened her eyes at the sound of
the familiar voice and her tail wagged slowly up and down once as if she were saying
hello.

‘She had a good friend with her
when we found her,' Kate said. ‘Another dog – an Alsatian – who stayed
by her side when she was injured. Without him she may not have survived, but because
of him she did. We don't know who he belongs to. I don't suppose
there's any chance you'd be interested in giving him a home with you? He
and Molly did seem very attached to each other.'

Mrs Williams blew her nose loudly on her
handkerchief. ‘Oh my goodness, dear, I couldn't possibly take on a dog
that size at my age. I wish I could help but Molly is the only dog for me. How soon
will she be allowed to come home?' she asked.

‘She'll
need the vet to check her over before we'll know that,' Kate told her.
‘But I don't think it should be very long at all before she can go back
home with you.'

‘I have to get home,'
Nathan told the dog. He'd given him all the food he had and there was nothing
left.

Nathan started to walk away, but then
something made him look back. The dog was following him! It wasn't brave
enough to get too close though, and stopped when it was about a yard away.

Nathan walked on a bit further and then
glanced behind him again. The dog was still there! Ten minutes later they reached
Nathan's street and Nathan turned up the path to his house.

The house, like all the other houses
they'd passed, had no lights that could be seen from the outside, because of
the strict blackout. Any
light that showed from the houses could be
used by enemy bombers to work out where to target, so the lights-out rule was
strictly enforced. Nathan pulled his key from its string around his neck and opened
the door.

‘I'm home, Mum,' he
called out. He wasn't sure if she'd be back from her shift at the
underground hospital at Dover Castle yet. She worked long and irregular hours there
as an auxiliary nurse.

‘Oh good, your
supper's …' Mrs Green started to say, but then she saw the beast
standing behind Nathan in the semi-darkness and she screamed and jumped on a chair.
‘A wolf!'

‘It's not a wolf, Mum.
It's an Alsatian,' Nathan reassured her. ‘No one seems to like to
call them German Shepherd dogs because of the war, but they really are great dogs,
Mum.' Nathan said. ‘It's not their fault they've got that
name. You should have seen how brave he was today.'

The dog looked from
Nathan to his mother standing on a chair and back to Nathan. He tilted his head to
one side, floppy ear down, and gave a small whine.

‘What's it doing in our
house?' Mrs Green asked, her voice higher than usual.

Nathan couldn't lie to her.
‘It followed me home.'

‘Well, it can't stay
here,' Mrs Green said. ‘You'll be going off in a couple of
days.'

She didn't like the way it was
looking at her. It looked hungry.

‘Please, Mum,' Nathan said.
‘Let him stay just for tonight. He saved his friend from a fire and then got
left behind when they took her away.'

As if on cue the dog whined and sat
down. He tilted his head to one side again as he looked up at her, almost as if he
were adding his own plea.

Mrs Green climbed slowly down from the
chair. She'd always been a bit wary of big dogs, but
since the war had started there'd been a lot of things she'd always been
frightened of that she now found herself reconsidering. She was very much looking
forward to the war being over, so everything could get back to normal.

‘What's its name?' she
asked.

‘I don't know,' Nathan
said. ‘He doesn't have a collar.'

‘Well, we'll have to call
him something. Can't just call him Dog,' Mrs Green said.
‘Doesn't feel right.'

Nathan looked down at the dog beside
him. He was covered in soot and ash from the blast, as he was sure he must be
himself.

‘Grey?' he suggested.

His mother nodded and managed a nervous
smile. ‘Suits him,' she said.

Grey's tail flapped up and
down.

‘I know someone who'd like
him very much,' Mrs Green said.

‘Penny,'
Nathan agreed.

His younger sister had been evacuated to
keep her safe from the bombs.

Mrs Green remembered that she had a
letter for Nathan from Penny. It had been in the same envelope as the one addressed
to her.

‘She sent this for you,' she
said, pulling the letter from her dressing gown pocket.

She missed her daughter terribly, but as
the shelling had increased, she'd had no choice but to send Nathan's
ten-year-old sister to her parents' farm in Kent for safety.

Nathan smiled as he took the envelope
from her. Penny had drawn a picture of herself waving whilst surrounded by farm
animals.

‘To the best big brother in the
world. Make sure you sort out Mr Hitler and come home safe. I love you, Penny
xxx.'

Mrs Green had stayed in Dover to
continue to help the wounded soldiers who were brought to the underground hospital
at the castle. It
also meant she should have been able to see
Nathan off, but she'd found out, as she was finishing her shift today, that
that wasn't going to be possible.

‘I've been put on earlies
for the next week,' she said sadly, as Nathan read the letter from his sister.
‘Sorry, love, it means I'll have to leave at five. I told them you were
going but they've had an outbreak of flu, as if those poor wounded soldiers
haven't got enough to put up with already, and I'm badly
needed.'

‘It's OK, Mum,' Nathan
told her. He knew she'd have been there for him if she possibly could.

‘What's Grey going to
eat?' Mrs Green asked as she headed to the kitchen with Nathan and Grey
following her. ‘A big dog like that'll need a lot of food. The
butcher's down the road is selling meat dyed green for dogs.'

She took Nathan's favourite
dinner, steak and kidney pie, from the oven, and added some
boiled
potatoes and carrots to the plate. She'd been saving up her ration coupons
ever since Nathan got his call-up papers so she could make it for him.

‘He can have half my supper.
I'm not very hungry,' Nathan lied, as he scraped half his dinner on to a
tin plate and set it on the floor, then sat down at the kitchen table.

Mrs Green bit her bottom lip but
didn't say anything as Grey gulped down the result of all her careful ration
coupon saving in just a few seconds. Nathan had always been an animal lover and a
generous son. If he wanted to share his special meal with this dog then that was up
to him.

As he ate the rest of his steak and
kidney pie, Nathan told his mum what had happened that evening.

‘Grey howled when the ambulance
took the other dog away, Mum. Actually howled, like a wolf,' he said.

Mrs Green looked down
at Grey. He'd finished all the pie and licked his plate clean. He did remind
her of a wolf.

‘There used to be wolves in
Britain, still are in parts of Europe,' she told Nathan as she sipped her last
cup of tea of the day.

‘I wish one would eat Mr Hitler
and end the war for us,' Nathan said, spearing a boiled potato.

‘A wolf would probably spit him
out in disgust,' Mrs Green laughed and Nathan joined in.

Grey looked from one to the other, and
then thoroughly licked his plate again, although there wasn't a scrap of food
left on it.

‘Where's Grey going to
sleep?' Mrs Green asked, when Nathan had finished eating. She glanced towards
the back door that led out to the garden, wondering whether they could use the
Andersen shelter as a kennel for the night. But Nathan didn't think it was a
good idea for
Grey to sleep out in the garden because he might run
off.

‘He can sleep in my room,'
he said.

‘Oh – oh, good,' Mrs Green
said. She really hadn't fancied bumping into the dog when she came downstairs
for her early morning cup of tea before setting off for the hospital.

‘And where's he going to go
once you've gone?' she asked, rather anxiously.

‘Don't worry, Mum.
I'll think of something,' said Nathan, sounding a lot more confident
than he actually was.

‘All right, night love,' she
said, and she kissed Nathan on the forehead. ‘I'll probably have left
before you wake up in the morning.'