The Dog Who Could Fly (7 page)

When they retired to their hut Ant seemed to sense his master’s mood. The young dog tried to cheer him up in the only way he knew, by falling on his master’s hands and face and licking every inch of exposed skin. That seemingly failed to do the trick, so he tried a little extra. He took his master’s hand in his powerful jaws and squeezed gently, increasing the pressure little by little. When he removed his jaws the impression of his teeth showed like dimples in Robert’s skin. Robert knew this play bite was his dog’s way of trying to cheer his spirits, it being such a powerful demonstration of their mutual trust and love.

Still Ant couldn’t settle down. He needed to carry out one last duty before sleep: his customary bedtime inspection. Ignoring the curses of the semicomatose airmen, he went from face to face, touching each with the cold end of his nose, as if to reassure himself that all his brothers were present and accounted for. The men had become accustomed to Ant’s habit of checking on them all at the end of the day. They knew he couldn’t be broken of it, no matter how annoying it was to be woken by a wet nose just as you were drifting off to sleep. But when Ant finally curled up beside Robert, his inspection done,
he knew that one man was missing. That night would be broken by dark dreams of a stricken aircraft tumbling from a burning sky.

The next morning Robert was heading for the squadron office for a briefing when he heard a joyful shout from behind him. For a moment he thought he must have imagined it and kept walking, but then it came again.

“Hey, Robert! What’s the big hurry?”

This time there could be no mistaking it. He turned to see Pierre hurrying after him, going as fast as his heavy suitcase would allow him.

“Pierre! I don’t believe it!” Robert exclaimed, clasping his friend’s hand. Ant caught the mood—
together again
—and despite his uncertain history with the French airman, he jumped for joy around them.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” panted the red-faced Pierre. “Can’t you keep still for two days? It’s high time you had a decent pilot again.”

“Too bad, Ant.” Robert grinned at his cavorting dog. “You’ve had your share of smooth landings. Now you’ll have to put up with this bone rattler.”

The leg pulling masked the intense emotion of their reunion. Robert had heard that Pierre’s convalescence was going well, but being constantly on the move, he’d despaired of ever seeing him again. The return of the Frenchman softened the blow of losing their Czech brother airman, Karel, but only slightly.

As Robert and Ant took off for their first sortie with Pierre since their aircraft had been shot down, Robert struggled to banish from his mind the image of Karel’s doomed plane smashing into the earth. It had never even entered his head that their dashing Czech comrade might have survived. As for Pierre, he seemed to have lost none of his impulsiveness or his reckless bravery, and in a way Robert was glad to be flying with him again. He was the perfect pilot with whom to take the fight to the seemingly invincible German enemy.

But when Pierre brought them safely back to base after that first
sortie together again, Robert was stunned to see a familiar figure waiting beside the runway. Ant bounded up to him, as if in recognition of a miraculous homecoming, offering an eager paw for the figure to shake. For a moment, Robert just stared in disbelief as Karel—the man they’d all given up for dead—bent to his dog and greeted him in the accustomed way.

After greeting Ant, Karel stood with his hands in his pockets and a cigarette dangling from his mouth, as if to say:
What’s all the fuss about?
Seeming to revel in his comrades’ obvious surprise and disbelief, he acted as if it was no big deal for him to have reappeared in their midst. He beamed and winked as if he’d just returned from one of his amorous nocturnal adventures, rather than a jarring impact with a furrowed field and a perilous escape in a French Army vehicle, which only just managed to keep ahead of the German armor.

“What I want to know,” he remarked to Robert, “is what you lot were saying about me in the bar last night. Go on, don’t be shy. It’ll be like reading my own obituary.”

•  •  •

Sadly, there was precious little time to enjoy the miracle reunion. The Wehrmacht’s advance into France was overwhelming. As the Panzers rolled relentlessly toward Paris, Robert flew numerous, ever more desperate sorties, but always with Ant at his side. The young dog’s boundless energy and apparent enthusiasm for combat gave Robert added strength and conviction, although Ant could have no idea whom they were fighting or why.
If my dog can fly repeatedly into the face of death undaunted, so can I
, Robert reasoned.

Reconnaissance flights confirmed that the enemy armor was blasting asunder anything that stood in its path. The squadron’s few aircraft that remained serviceable had barely touched down before they were being refueled and flown to another aerodrome farther away from the German advance. The aircrew left behind had to follow in
road convoys, and were forced to pick their way along routes choked with fleeing refugees.

The French and British Air Forces had fought courageously, inflicting heavy losses on the Luftwaffe, but the armies on the ground had been routed with bewildering speed. So many columns of French soldiers had been overrun that the Germans could not take them all prisoner. They were disarmed and turned loose to run for their lives along with the civilians.

Flying low, Robert could see that the roads were jammed with refugees fleeing Paris. He had no trouble telling them apart from others on the move, for plush cars carried the well-dressed Parisians in relative comfort. By contrast, most of the country folk relied on horses or oxen to drag ancient carts that groaned under the weight of their possessions. But both the city slickers and the fruit pickers had one thing in common:
fear.
Anxious faces scanned the skies for warning signs of an attack. Whenever German warplanes pounced, rich and poor alike scrambled into roadside ditches to take cover.

On June 14, the Germans penetrated the outskirts of Paris and thrust onward to find the city center virtually undefended. The remnants of Robert’s squadron, complete with Ant, were withdrawn to a small airbase near the village of Le Breuil, far to the south of the capital, where it was hoped they might be able to operate for a while longer against the victorious enemy.

But a flight of ten Messerschmitts was to shatter that illusion once and for all. Pouncing without warning, they methodically targeted each of the surviving aircraft lined up on the airfield, their heavy machine guns spitting tongues of fire. By the time they had disappeared over the horizon, every last one of the squadron’s warplanes was left a smoking, mangled ruin.

On the following day, June 17, the new French leader, Marshal Pétain, a hero of the First World War, made the humiliating announcement
that France would sue for peace with Germany. It was the final hammer blow to an already fragmented war effort.

The last surviving members of Robert’s squadron were summoned to a farmhouse garden to be addressed by the squadron’s adjutant. His medals recalled days of past glory, but now he stood gray-faced before them and with shoulders bowed. No more than sixty men of all ranks mustered, including the seven Czechs with the obedient German shepherd in their midst.

As he called the roll, the adjutant’s voice trembled and tears streamed down his face. He read Pétain’s announcement and the men listened in stunned silence.

“My comrades,” he concluded. “We are finished. The Boche already occupy Orléans and their Panzers are advancing. They are only twelve miles from here. The nearest railway station for trains south is Tours, twenty-five miles away. We can do no more. Save yourselves as best you can. Goodbye and God bless you all.”

It was all the adjutant could do to call each man forward and hand him his papers. To Robert and the other Czechs he gave their French Foreign Legion pay books, the only identity documents they possessed. Finally, overcome with emotion, the adjutant retreated into the house. His country had been betrayed and the world as he had known it was obliterated.

It was obvious to all that if they stayed together, then sorting transport and food while remaining hidden from the omnipresent enemy would be impossible. Their only chance was to split up. The seven Czechs were joined by Pierre and his closest French friend, Jacques Chevalier, with Ant of course completing the party.

The sound of a tank column drawing nearer, its guns blazing, spread panic among local villagers, who fled with what possessions they could. The nine airmen tried to talk things over more calmly. Since they regarded Pétain’s order to lay down arms as unacceptable, their aim had to be to fight on. They needed an objective and a destination,
they reasoned. If they could not fight in France, their destination had to be the one place that might help them lift the iron heel of oppression from their homelands. They would head for the one country still holding out against the Germans—Great Britain.

Making that decision was the easy part. The challenge was working out how to get there. Not a man among them would ever think of abandoning his flying kit, and they could barely move with each of them having a pair of bulging leather suitcases. As airmen, they naturally planned to beg, borrow, or steal a plane that would take them to the English coast, from where they would carry on fighting the Boche as warriors of the air.

A rapid search confirmed that everything on wheels in the immediate vicinity had already been pressed into service. They were almost resigned to making their flight on foot, laden down with their baggage, when they came across a large, brightly lit house on the edge of Le Breuil. It made an incongruous contrast with the dark and deserted dwellings all around it. Not only were lamps blazing in every room, but the sound of laughter spilled out of open windows. And was that singing? On closer inspection the men saw that a party was in full swing, and the partygoers appeared to be celebrating the imminent arrival of the Germans.

Collaborators!

Cold fury concentrated the minds of the airmen. Apparently, this champagne-swilling fifth column had arrived in dozens of cars of all shapes and sizes, betraying that a wide variety of renegades had been willing to deliver their country to the enemy, no doubt in return for positions of petty influence under the coming occupation. The vehicles were parked in a large courtyard inside the gates. Standing watch over them was one guard, with a revolver tucked in his belt.

“Keep moving,” hissed the tall, fair-haired “Uncle” Vlasta, the oldest member of the group. “Don’t do anything suspicious. If we can fix him, we can help ourselves to some transport.”

The friends walked on for a quarter of a mile before halting to discuss how to do away with the guard. It was Uncle Vlasta, the most experienced and battle-hardened of the Czechs, who came up with the plan—one in which Ant, predictably, was to play the pivotal role. Vlasta stressed that whatever else, the guard must not be allowed to fire his revolver or raise the alarm in any way.

When they were all clear on the plan Robert turned back toward the house, Ant trotting happily beside him. As man and dog moved along the road, the redheaded Ludva—“Flame”—vaulted over the hedge so he could sneak into the grounds of the house, accompanied by Pierre’s friend Jacques. Both men could barely contain their anger at what they had seen of the partying collaborators, and they were a natural choice for what was coming.

Robert noticed his dog’s tongue flicking from side to side, as if in eager anticipation of what lay ahead. In some uncanny way he sensed that Ant knew they were embarked upon a vital, life-or-death mission. He felt sure his dog understood he had a crucial part to play in whatever drama might unfold.

Show me what to do and I’ll do it
, Ant’s determined expression seemed to say.
I won’t let you down.

Five

The final leg of Robert’s epic flight from France was via a convoy sailing from Gibraltar, although it required ingenious subterfuge to smuggle Ant aboard.

R
obert and Ant pressed ahead, trying as best they could to give the impression of a man and dog out for a relaxed evening stroll. Robert threw a stick so Ant could chase after it. He pounced on the wooden snake, tail erect and flicking back and forth excitedly as he grasped it in his jaws. They kept the game going until the brightly lit house hove into view once more.

As they neared the gate the guard stationed there spotted them, but he didn’t appear to suspect a thing. Robert threw the stick so it landed near him. The guard picked it up and threw it back to Robert
in an effort to tease the prancing dog. As Robert tossed the stick back to the guard, Ant found himself bounding back and forth playing monkey-in-the-middle.

“Evening!” the guard called over. “Nice dog you have there. A
German
shepherd if I’m not mistaken. That’s the kind of breed that will endear us to our new masters.” A pause. “Want me to find him a good home?”

“Well, it certainly looks as if
you’ve
found yourselves a good home,” Robert replied, feigning nonchalance. “Seems like the good old days, what with the music playing and the partying.”