First World War Centennial

I WAS perfectly determined to get inside that door no matter what happened, and I knew the best way was to make no noise but just to wait quietly, and sure enough it was not so very long be­fore the stretcher men themselves opened it to come out. I was not going to lose my chance a second time, so I did not stop to speak to them but rushed in between their legs before they could stop me.

Once inside I had no notion where to find my dear Master, but I went smelling around the big entrance hall until at last I found the bearers had been up the stairs. I bounded up in a per­fect agony of anxiety, and just at the top I met a woman in a white dress with the red mark on her sleeve. She looked at me in surprise and exclaimed in a kind voice, "Why, you dear doggie! How did you come to be here? What do you want?"

Then she took my head in her hands and looking into my eyes seemed to try her best to under­stand, while I looked at her earnestly and licked her hands. After a minute she said, "I don't think you had better stay here, little dog, come, come down with me," and as I did not move she took hold of me, and tried to force me to go down. I really could not stand that, so I just bared my teeth and growled gently to show her what I meant, and she must have understood, for she let me go, and said she would have to speak to the "Officer."

I did not wait to hear any more, you may be sure, but ran smelling and sniffling about under the doors which were all shut tight, until I came to one I was certain must be the right one, for I could tell that the bearers had been through it. What with anxiety and the dust I had snuffled up my nose, I began to shiver, and sneezed several times, and though I tried to make as little noise as possible somebody inside must have heard me, for the door opened a little crack, enough for me to get my nose in, and before the Person could think to stop me, I had pushed my way into the room.

What I saw there I hate to think about, for it was my Master who was lying on the table bleeding and being bound and washed, so I just ran under the bed in the corner and lay quite still hoping they were too busy to bother me. After awhile I could see from where I was lying that the Person who was working over my dear Master was the Surgeon who had taken care of me, and though I had never forgotten that he had said I was "only a dog," I believed he would understand that I must stay and watch.

When he seemed to have finished, I heard him say, "I believe I know this man, and if he is the one I think he is, we must make every possible effort to save him, for he is the kind England cannot now afford to lose." When I heard him speak that way I got up from my hiding place and went boldly to him and rubbed my head against his leg to make him notice me. He looked down and said, "Hullo, little man, is it you?" and then to the others: "It is the man I meant, sure enough, for this is his dog, the one he saved. When he revives it will probably give him heart to see his little comrade, so unless the dog gives you trouble you may let him stay." I just laid right down on the floor with a deep sigh when I heard this, I was so happy.

They were too busy to think any more about me just then, and when they had put my dear Master on the bed in the corner I lay down beside him, and soon the table and all the horrid looking things were taken away, and we were left alone in peace, just my Master and me.

I raised myself up on my haunches so that I could watch him, and wished as hard as I could that I might see him open his eyes. A long time passed and once in a while a "nurse" (as I found they called the women in white dresses) would put her head in the door, and go quietly away again. I had begun to despair, when all at once I saw my Master move his hands a little, and this made me so very joyful I reached up and licked his face, very gently, and then, just imagine my feelings, when I saw the dear eyes open and heard a very faint voice say, "Army, dear little laddie." That was all, but it was enough, and the next time a nurse came to the door, I frisked silently around the room to show her that all was well.

Well, after this, my Master got better and we went to live in a great big room where there were a lot of other wounded men lying in the rows of beds, and everybody was my friend, and they never tried to send me away. When he was feeling well enough I used to lie on the bed very close to him, but sometimes he'd say, "Get down now, please, Army laddie, I cam't bear you now," and then I would lie under the bed, or sit beside it and watch him.

Those times when I lay beside him, he would talk to me of Eng­land, and of London, and how, though he liked the country well enough, he loved the London streets even better. "I used ter be a queer little bloke," he'd say, "I was carrier fer a big bookshop h'in Piccadilly an' I just got ter luv the books like they was 'umans. I luved the very smell uv 'em, an 'orfen I'd get a chawnce ter know sumthin' about the h'insides too. There was one chap by nayme uv Kiplin' now, 'e wrote such things, laddie, as stirred the 'eart, an' made me want ter fight fer Eng­land w'en the time came, as I'd never thought I would." Some­times he would repeat to me over and over words he had learned in those days. There was one verse he said so often I got to know it well myself, and the men in the beds all round would ask him to say it again and again, until at last it got to be a regular thing when they were all dressed in the morning.

He would ask to be propped up on his pillows, and he would make me sit up in front of him, and then he'd say so proudly,

When he came to the last words the men all over the room would shout them out just as loud as they could, "But she ain't!" though some of the poor things could hardly more than whisper, and then I was allowed to join in, and always gave one loud bark as a finish. The first time we did it I got so excited I jumped off the bed and ran all up and down the room barking as loud as I could, but I never did it again, because the nurse my Master called "Sister," who was my special friend, explained to me that it made too much noise and excite­ment for all the sick People.