The Dog Who Could Fly (35 page)

“Flight Lieutenants Vaverka and Rybar took him away,” Adamek explained. “He was in bad shape. I’ve never known anyone take him away from his vigil before . . . It was just like that time at East Wretham, when we all tried to move him. But this was worse, much worse. Back then it was summer in the south of England.” Adamek swept a hand across the frozen wasteland of the airfield. “This is no place for a dog to wait in the open hour after hour . . .”

Robert shook his head worriedly. “God only knows what the end of all this will be,” he muttered.

Thanking Adamek, he hurried to his barracks. He found Antis in their room, lying before the fire but strangely shivering, and with
an odd, glassy look in his eyes. Robert tried to feed his dog, but he refused to eat. All he seemed to want to do was drink copious quantities of water. Robert took him outside for a pee, and he was shocked to discover that his dog was passing blood.

He was beside himself with worry now. His dog was definitely not his normal self. He didn’t even acknowledge the friends whom they passed, and his nose seemed unnaturally dry and hot to the touch. Robert took him to the nearest vet, who gave Antis a thorough examination.

“There’s no doubt about it,” he said, once he was done. “Your dog’s kidneys have been damaged in some way. Nothing else would explain all the symptoms. Have you any idea how it might have happened?”

In answer, Robert explained his dog’s long vigils on the flight line, culminating in the frozen epic that had ensued when his aircraft was diverted to the Shetlands.

“Well, that explains it,” the vet remarked. “That kind of cold can do irreversible damage.”

“Is it serious?” Robert asked.

The vet tilted his head, until he could look directly at Robert over his glasses. “It’s always serious when a dog’s kidneys are affected. A dog needs them just as much as any human.”

“So what are we to do?”

“Well, he’s very, very sick. If his kidneys fail completely it could prove fatal. But if he’s properly looked after from now on—well, he might live for years. The trouble is he’s clearly a very clean and obedient animal, and that’s the greatest danger. If he’s locked up for any period of time, and with his kidneys and bladder weakened, he’ll try to hold it in so as not to mess his room—and that could kill him. Make no mistake—one more episode of extended exposure to the cold, and that will be his last.”

Robert had heard the vet’s warning and taken it very much to heart. He’d never wanted his dog to return to his lonely vigils, and certainly not here in the midst of a snow-lashed winter on the Moray Firth. But
what was he to do? He’d tried locking his dog up, but to no avail. He’d had a thick fur coat made for him, but it clearly wasn’t good enough. He sat in his room with Antis stretched listlessly before the fire, and he sank into a miserable mood. The last episode had very nearly killed his dog, but he could think of no alternative strategy that might break him of a habit that seemed destined to prove the death of him.

Then a thought struck Robert from out of the blue. It was so utterly unthinkable that it had never once even crossed his mind. The dog was going to kill himself due to one thing only—devotion and love for his master. Therefore, the only way to save his life had to be to break the connection between man and dog—the very connection that Robert had always seen as unbreakable. For Antis’s own sake and for the sake of his survival, Robert was going to have to do the unthinkable and betray him.

It was the hardest decision of his life, but once it was made, there was no going back. Robert called a council of war, for he could not do this on his own. He gathered Adamek, the two flight lieutenants who had rescued Antis from freezing to death, and one or two other friends. Robert opened the discussion by explaining what the vet had told him, and that there was no way Antis could survive another vigil on the flight line.

“Well, I don’t see there’s anything you can do,” remarked Flight Lieutenant Rybar, one of those who’d rescued Antis.

He looked at the others for confirmation. Flight Lieutenants Vaverka—another of Antis’s recent saviors—and Hering nodded their agreement.

“It’s deadlock,” said Vaverka. “You can’t stop flying, obviously, and he won’t be broken of his habit . . .”

“Which will be the damn death of him!” Robert exclaimed bitterly. “If he’s not broken of the habit he’s as good as dead, isn’t he?”

It was not like Robert to show his emotions so openly, and his fellow airmen could see how the plight of his dog was torturing him.
They glanced at each other. They knew the truth of what Robert was saying, but none wanted to be the one to say it.

“So what do you suggest?” Rybar countered, throwing the question back at Robert.

Robert paused, taking a long and lingering look at his dog. The subject of so much agonized discussion was stretched out by the fire, apparently oblivious to all the upset he was causing.

“If you can train a dog to do one thing,” Robert remarked quietly, almost as if he were speaking to the dog in the room more than his fellow airmen, “you can train him to do another, surely.”

“What do you have in mind?” the others prompted.

Robert raised his eyes to Rybar, Adamek, Vaverka, and Hering. “When I was at Evanton the cadets used to look after Antis in my absence, and I was away quite often. In fact, I left Antis alone far too much . . .”

“Scottish girls,” Hering remarked.

“They nearly cost me my dog,” Robert confirmed. “Eventually he went off to find his own mate, and I almost lost him. But the cadets did manage most times to care for him until my return . . .”

Rybar fixed Robert with a look. “So you’re suggesting something similar, here and now? Like if you force Antis to spend time with others and to take orders from them, he might lose interest in you? If he gets handled and cared for by others, as Vaverka and I did the other night, he might begin to shift his allegiances, is that what you’re thinking?”

Robert nodded. “I can’t see any other way. His life’s at stake, for God’s sake, so it’s got to be worth a try.”

“It’ll never work,” said Rybar. “Without his love for you, he’s finished anyway. He won’t have a life.”

“He’s a dog,” Vaverka declared, “not a human being.
We
might change allegiances like the wind, but not your dog.”

“But if I get diverted again . . .” Robert rested his head in his hands. “It’s the depths of winter and there’s plenty more of this kind
of weather to come. One more episode of cold, the vet said. One more will be the death of him. But if you’ll help me, if you’ll make a special fuss of him, take him for the walks he loves, and all while I ignore him—maybe it’ll work?”

“When I was bad my father used to beat me with a stick,” Rybar remarked. “He used to say it was for my own good, but boy, did my backside still hurt.”

Robert looked at the others, the desperation he was feeling writ large across his features.

“I’ll help,” Adamek remarked quietly. “I don’t think we’ll manage it, but I’ll help.”

“Me too,” volunteered Hering. “It’s got to be worth a try.”

“I’m in, then,” said Vaverka, “but I still think we’ll be wasting our time . . .”

Robert glanced at Rybar, who was the sharpest of the lot. “And you?”

Rybar shrugged. “Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. I’ll join you, but only under protest.”

Vaverka reached out a hand and caressed Antis’s ears. “You poor old sod,” he muttered. “We’re all in a conspiracy against you to make you break your heart . . .”

“Damn it, Vaverka, no one wants to do this, least of all me!” Robert exploded. “But he’ll die otherwise.”

“It won’t work, Robert,” Rybar repeated, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to try.”

“I wonder . . .” Vaverka added, speaking more to the dog at their feet than to any of the airmen in the room. “I wonder who will last the course . . .”

“What was that?” Robert demanded.

Seeing the deep distress on Robert’s face, Vaverka decided there was only one thing to do—a drink was in order. He got to his feet and demanded that all retire to the bar.

The following day Robert was scheduled to leave on a long night patrol. That morning after breakfast he picked up his coat and hat, as if he were going for a walk. Antis was off his blanket in a flash, his master’s leather gloves gripped in his jaws, in preparation for their stroll. Robert forced himself to snatch the gloves from his dog’s jaws and order him harshly back to his bed. He did so in the voice that he reserved for when Antis had misbehaved.

Completely at a loss as to what he had done wrong, Antis slunk back to his blanket and flopped down disconsolately. He flicked his eyes up to Robert’s face, but all he got in return was his master’s back turned to him as he strode out and slammed the door. Robert tramped through the snow for three long hours, feeling sick at heart at what he had just done. Never in his life had he so wanted to be able to speak to his dog in words that he understood, so that Antis might realize that he was trying to save him.

In all of Robert’s very darkest moments—exiled from his homeland; with his fellow airmen and closest friends dying all around him; during the loneliness and fear that the next mission might be his last—he had always known that he had Antis beside him, a loyal and faithful friend upon whom he could unburden himself. While the animal may not have understood his every word, he felt his master’s moods and caught the sentiment, and Robert had never once needed to worry about the shame of showing weakness, or tears, before his dog.

As Robert wandered across the snowy wilderness, Antis was staring at the closed door of their room and wondering what on earth he had done to displease his master. At first he’d wondered if it was all a joke; man and dog were forever playing tricks on each other. He’d waited for the first ten minutes for Robert to pop his head around the door again, declare it all an act, and with a big smile take his dog out to play. But of course, Robert hadn’t returned.

Realizing it couldn’t possibly be a joke, Antis was mortified. He lay on his blanket, trying to figure out what on earth he had done
to warrant such treatment. All he had done was what he always did when his master was preparing to take him for a walk: he’d picked up his gloves and brought them to him. Yet his reward for doing so was to be shouted at and abandoned.

Several times while he was out on that walk Robert came close to faltering, and he almost turned back to embrace his dog and comfort him. But a voice inside his head kept telling him to be strong. The bond had to be broken, the betrayal seen as complete, for nothing else was likely to save his dog from a bitter death on the snowy wastes of the airfield.

When he got back to their room Robert had to force himself to go inside and face what he knew was coming. He turned the handle, opened the door, and there was his dog, gazing up at him anxiously for some sign of forgiveness and approval. He rose from his bed to greet his master, head down and tail wagging hopefully.

“Get back on your bed!” Robert snapped, turning his back to his dog.

Obedient as ever, Antis slunk back to his blanket, but his misery was clear to see. Robert had no doubt now that this process he had embarked upon was going to break his heart.

The following day he put stage two of the plan into action. He moved into a hut shared by his four co-conspirators—Vaverka, Adamek, Hering, and Rybar. His dog—who always slept on his blanket beside his master—was given a place in the center of the hut by the stove, as far from Robert’s bed as possible. Uncertainly, Antis got hold of his blanket and went to drag it toward his master’s end of the hut, but he got a sharp reprimand from Robert for doing so.

“That’s your bed, now stay!”

The look of uncomprehending hurt in the dog’s eyes was almost human, and it made Robert feel as if a sharp bayonet was being stabbed into his own heart.

Toward afternoon he began to make preparations for that evening’s
patrol. The preflight checks in the Liberator seemed to take an age, not to mention the briefings, and it was good to be ready early. Seeing his master getting ready for a mission, Antis grabbed his flight jacket—his sheepskin—and took a few uncertain steps toward the door. He gazed expectantly at his master, hoping for a gesture to signal that he could join him. Instead, Robert rounded upon him and sent him back to his blanket.

With Robert gone, Antis found himself besieged by the other airmen. They were acting very strangely, though not so out of character as his master. One tried to take his comb and brush Antis’s coat—something only ever done by his master. Antis growled throatily—a warning to Flight Lieutenant Vaverka to put the comb down. Then Rybar tried to feed him. The food was left unlooked at and untouched.

Robert returned after a couple of hours. It would be well after midnight before he had to be airborne on the forthcoming patrol. He had with him the medicine that the vet had given him for Antis. Forcing himself not to relent on being cruel to be kind, he gave his dog the bitter-tasting pills with barely a word of encouragement, and no hint of any kindness.

The medicine swallowed, Robert pointed at Rybar, Vaverka, and the others. “Right, now you can go for a walk with one of your new friends.”

Antis refused. Rybar, Vaverka, and Hering tried all they could think of to coax the dog outside, but he remained slumped on his blanket with his eyes fixed on the seemingly uncaring back of his master. Robert tried to catch some sleep in preparation for the long patrol.

At his new place by the stove Antis dozed fitfully, his sleep plagued by nightmares of abandonment and betrayal.

Twenty-five