flat on the ground by the roadside, or standing behind trees, they
began firing at the Uhlans. Then, after a little, two armoured
automobiles came rushing along and charged down the road, and the
firing of the machine-guns ceased.
By and by the order came for the carbineers to fall back, and the dogs
were quickly harnessed up again. Some of them had to be kicked and
cuffed into action, but Pierrot and Jef obeyed Conrad Orts in spite of
their fear. Beside their gun a soldier lay moaning, and Pierrot sniffed
at him curiously. He could not understand any of it.
It had been only a little outpost skirmish, but it was Pierrot’s first
taste of war.
There followed many days of this sort of thing. Sometimes there were
skirmishes, sometimes false alarms, but the dogs never knew when they
might be called upon to run into action with their little cannon.
Day or night, it was always the same, and it was fortunate for them
that they learned to snatch such moments for rest and sleep as were
offered. And dinner-time became a very irregular affair. It was all
quite different from the orderly course of a cart-dog’s life in
Brussels. But gradually they learned to know what was expected of
them and responded willingly. In fact, there was an excitement about
it which kept them constantly keyed up and eager. They got used to
the smell of powder and the sound of firing, too, and Pierrot did not
tremble any more.
In the main, Conrad was kind, though frequently hurried and a little
rough, and there were never sweetmeats any more nor caresses. It was
all very hard to understand.
Two or three times the camp was moved, and finally they withdrew to
the circle of the Antwerp forts. And then once more Pierrot heard the
sounds and sniffed the smells of a city. Conrad hitched his dogs one
day to a supply cart and took them in to town. Here again Pierrot
trotted along paved streets between high buildings, and once his sharp
ear caught the sound of milk cans rattling over paving stones. It made
him feel very homesick.
On their way back they had to wait for a long column of soldiers to
march past. They looked tired and dusty, and the tramp, tramp of their
feet sounded strange in Pierrot’s ears. Suddenly his eye was caught by
a face he thought he knew. Could it be Père Jean? Perhaps he had come
to take him home.
Pierrot sniffed, but in the strong man-smell of the marching troops he
detected no familiar scent. He barked with all his might, “Here I am,
Père Jean; here I am!” But Conrad bade him be still, and the soldier
in the line kept his eyes fixed sternly ahead and marched on without
turning. So Pierrot must have been mistaken. It made him very unhappy,
and he whined in a low, whistling tone till the column passed and
Conrad started on again.
There came a day when a fiercer battle took place than any Pierrot had
yet been engaged in. The Germans had spread out their forces until they
were very near to the Antwerp forts, and there was need of an action in
force to drive them back again. Many soldiers were ordered hastily to
the front--galloping dragoons, close ranks of infantry, and horse-drawn
field guns. When the command came to the carbineers, the machine-gun
battery was ready and the dogs waiting in their harnesses, and they
started off at a run down the road.
After they had gone about a mile an officer came galloping up and sent
them off to the left around a little wood, in which a battalion of
infantry was in action. The rattle of their rifles made an incessant
din, and now and then shrapnel shrieked overhead and shells exploded in
the soft earth or among the trees.
[Illustration]
The men urged their dogs to greater efforts, and they tore over the
rough ground, dragging their guns and wagons in and out of gullies and
through underbrush at a mad pace.
As they skirted the wood they came into full view of a gray German
column making its way slowly around the flank of the Belgians. The
carbineers quickly deployed, falling on their faces behind any bush or
hillock they could find, and opened fire. But the men in charge of the
batteries could not hide. They must get their guns into action and take
their chances.
There was no time to unharness the dogs, so they were turned about and
were obliged to stand facing away from the tumult of battle as the
machine-guns began to rattle directly behind them. It was very hard to
bear, and some of them might have broken and run but for a half-dozen
men who had been told off to squat by the dogs’ heads and hold them
steady.
Bullets began to whistle about their ears and to go plop! plop! into
the ground about them. Now and then a man fell silently or with a
sharp cry, and over on the right Pierrot heard a dog’s sharp yelp of
anguish. Behind him Conrad Orts grunted and breathed through his teeth
as he desperately worked his gun.
Suddenly one of the men at the dogs’ heads grasped his throat, uttered
a rattling moan, and fell over in the grass, and two of the dogs
started wildly off, their gun bumping and careening behind them. Other
dogs reared and snarled, and it was all the men could do to prevent
a stampede. A panic seized Pierrot and the desire for swift flight,
but Conrad turned about for a moment, crying, “Steady, boys, steady!”
Stolid old Jef growled in his throat and Pierrot stood firm.
The fire of the machine-guns had checked the advancing Germans, and
the carbineers began to dart ahead from hillock to hillock, continuing
their fire. At length the Germans withdrew and the battle centre
shifted. The carbineers were recalled and fell in with their battery
behind the trees to catch their breath. Just as they were turning a
speeding bullet caught a spotted young dog that Pierrot had become
acquainted with. He was trotting close by with his mate and their gun,
and with a cry of pain and terror he leaped into the air and fell at
Pierrot’s feet, the red blood spurting from his shoulder.
In terrified amazement Pierrot stopped short and sniffed at his fallen
comrade. Then Conrad urged him on again while the men cut the dead dog
from the traces.
For the carbineers the battle was over for that day, but Pierrot had
looked upon his dead and he began to understand.
IV
At length came the day of the evacuation of Antwerp, and the Belgian
king and his brave but beaten army moved sorrowfully westward, leaving
their fair land to suffer unprotected. The carbineers were sent on
ahead with their battery, leaving the horse artillery and armoured
motor cars and cavalry to cover the army’s retreat. Some of the troops
went on railway trains through Ghent, Bruges, and Ostend, but for the
most part the army, including the carbineers, was obliged to travel on
foot.
It was a forced march, long and arduous. Seventy miles they covered in
three days, sometimes keeping to the roads, sometimes cutting across
country, but always hurrying on until it seemed to the dogs as though
their legs would collapse and their lungs burst.
Once they came out upon the seashore, and Pierrot would have liked to
tarry here and contemplate the new wonder, but always there seemed to
be the need for haste and Conrad would not let him rest. They left
behind them the pleasant farms and the wooded country and came at
length to the land of canals and dykes and sand dunes, with queer,
pollarded willows along the roadsides and canal banks. Also there was
a great deal of rain and mud which made the hauling of the guns doubly
difficult.
At last, weary and wretched, they came to a halt, and the dogs were
allowed a brief rest while the ranks were reformed and the men
established camps and dug trenches.
It was here that Pierrot occasionally saw soldiers in brown khaki who
sang wild songs and spoke in a strange tongue but who seemed very
friendly. A few of them came one day to visit the carbineers, and there
was much handshaking and smoking, but very little conversation. They
seemed particularly interested in the dogs, and one of them, a short,
stocky fellow, with a very red face and a wide grin, strode among them
as though he had been waiting for weeks to rub his hand up and down a
dog’s back and pinch a dog’s ears. Jef remained coldly suspicious, but
Pierrot wagged his stump tail violently and placed his muddy forepaws
on the soldier’s broad chest. Whereupon the soldier gave Pierrot a
stifling hug and a pat on the head and walked quickly away.
This did Pierrot a world of good, for though Conrad Orts was a good
master he seemed to have no time for caresses, and in Pierrot’s heart
there was a mighty craving for the love of man. When the brown khaki
man was gone Pierrot stood looking after him and whining. Then he lay
down, whimpering a little, and the great wave of homesickness swept
over him afresh.
If a dog cannot fully reason, he can at least remember, and Pierrot
felt that he had lost what was best in life and he could not
understand why. He saw it all again--the peaceful dairy farm with
Medard and the cows; Mère Marie, with her fresh face and the shiny milk
cans; the busy city and the laughing newsgirls; mild old Gran’père and
merry little Lisa; the gentle hands and voices and the joy of being
loved. But of course Pierrot was only a dog and war is war. One cannot
be bothered with such trivial matters when the fate of dynasties is at
stake.
Soon the fighting began again, only now there were no gallant dashes
along hard roads or across green fields, but weary plodding through the
mud, climbing in and out of trenches, short, heartbreaking charges, and
hasty retreats. It was close-range fighting, and almost continuous.
There was a constant roaring of big guns and the sickening bursting of
bombs near at hand. The dogs were seldom unharnessed, slept by snatches
when they could, and were often obliged to go hungry.
During one of the many encounters, a miserable little affair among
the dunes ungilded by any of the fabled glory of battle, Conrad Orts
suddenly tumbled over in the wet sand and lay still. The order to
retreat was given, but no word came from Conrad. Jef and Pierrot stood
perplexedly watching the other men and dogs flounder back around the
sand-hills. Then came shouts and the sound of running feet behind them,
and of hostile firing. Turning about, they saw the men in gray coming
on, rushing from dune to dune. Partly through fear and partly through
an instinctive feeling that they should return to their friends, the
two Belgian dogs started off on a mad gallop after the retreating
carbineers, leaving the silent form of their master where it had fallen.
By a miracle they reached the trenches in safety, though a rain of
bullets fell all about them, and a man named André Wyns took charge of
them and their gun.
[Illustration]
And now a new burden was laid upon Jef and Pierrot, for André was a
rough man and knew little about the handling of dogs. He beat and
prodded and kicked them, not in anger but in the mistaken belief that
such treatment was necessary to get the most out of them. At first
Pierrot was terrified and enraged and showed his resentment, for he
had never been beaten in this manner before; but he soon learned the
uselessness of rebellion and submitted with what grace he could.
Eagerly he waited for the coming again of Conrad Orts, but Conrad never
returned. As for Jef, he bore it all in sullen silence, but it was
plain to be seen that he bore no love for André.
When the cold winter weather came there was added misery for dogs and
men. Icy water stood in the bottoms of the trenches and the nights were
raw and chill. It was fortunate for Pierrot that he had always been
an outdoor dog, used to rain and frost and sleet, and that his rough
coat was thick and matted. But that did not save his feet from getting
frost-bitten after his runs through the water, and cut by the frozen
mud and ice-crusted pools. Little balls of ice would form between his
toes, which hurt him cruelly. Some of the men bandaged the feet of
their dogs, but André Wyns seemed to have no time for that. He only
beat them the harder when they started out stiffly or showed signs of
weariness on the return. At night the men drew blankets around them and
huddled about such small fires as they could find fuel for, but there
were neither fires nor blankets for the dogs.
If Czar and Kaiser can bring such suffering to men, what chance that
they will heed the aching limbs and bleeding feet of shivering dumb
brutes?
The days and weeks slipped by and some of the dogs died of pneumonia,
or, weakened by hunger and exposure, had to be shot. Pierrot, grown
gaunt and haggard, was nearing the end of his strength. He had become
almost insensible to Andre’s beatings, and his mind had become so
dulled that he worked mechanically and without initiative. The happy
days on the Waterloo Road seemed now so dim and unreal that he scarcely
thought of them; only in the back of his brain there was always an
aching, hopeless longing.
One midwinter morning at daybreak Pierrot was aroused from restless
slumber by a great noise and confusion all about him. He and Jef had
been sleeping unharnessed beneath their gun in a little hollow at the
lip of the trench, huddled close together for warmth. In the night a
light snow had fallen and partly covered them.
Pierrot rose to his feet, stretched, shook himself wearily, and stood
blinking stupidly out upon a white world. Across the trench, a few
hundred yards away, he could see the helmets of a great host of Germans
advancing rapidly in solid ranks. The Belgian soldiers were hurrying
to the escarpment to meet the attack, and already their rifles were
speaking, while German bullets ploughed sharp lines in the snow or
buried themselves in the bank behind. Already one or two of the dogs
who were in exposed positions were yelping with pain or had stiffened
out upon the ground, and now and then one of the carbineers went
tumbling down to the bottom of the trench.
The men in charge of the little battery made a rush for their guns, and
a few of the dogs were hastily harnessed. Presently Pierrot saw André
Wyns come labouring toward them with an armful of ammunition. He had
nearly reached them when he pitched forward upon his face and rolled
down the bank.
Then came the Germans--hundreds, thousands of them--not cheering, but
pressing grimly on and filling the gaps as their comrades fell. There
was a sharp order, and the Germans broke into a run and stormed the
trench with fixed bayonets.
[Illustration]
Then all was a frightful confusion of struggling men. They filled the
trench, fighting desperately, and Belgians and Germans fell together
in the awful agonies of sudden death. The Belgians fought stubbornly,
but foot by foot the survivors were forced back, and the Germans
swarmed into the trench, across the bodies of foe and comrade, and up
the opposite bank.
One or two of the carbineers had succeeded in getting their
machine-guns into action, but they were soon overwhelmed and the dogs
who were harnessed were quickly bayonetted that they might not run off
with the guns. Some of the other dogs fled and perhaps a few escaped,
but there was little chance for them.
Pierrot and Jef stood waiting, the impulse to flee not having come to
them. Men scrambled past them, but they stood dazed and terrified. Then
a big brute of a fellow, his face distorted with the battle madness
which sometimes turns a man into a fiend, came grunting and cursing up
the bank, and finding the dogs in his path, thrust his bayonet wantonly
through poor Jef’s heart. Pierrot saw his team-mate fall without a
cry. The German put his foot on the animal and drew out his bayonet
with an effort. A spurt of blood followed it and made a red pool in the
snow.
Unreasoning rage seized Pierrot, and with what remained of his once
agile strength he leaped at the man’s throat and sank his fangs into
the flesh. The soldier dropped his rifle, and grasping Pierrot in his
strong hands sought to choke him and force him off. But the dog was
crazed and blind with rage and insensible to pain. He felt the tearing
of the man’s neck muscles between his jaws and he tasted the hot blood.
Then the man’s grip relaxed and he fell backward. Pierrot fell with
him, the breath well-nigh gone out of his body. But the man lay quiet,
struggling no more, and Pierrot extricated himself and rose unsteadily.
The fight raging about him made no impression on his stunned senses.
But suddenly another gray form appeared before him; a heavy boot
caught him under the chin and sent him sprawling. Then the report of a
rifle sounded loudly in his ears and he felt a sharp and awful pain in
his right hind leg.
After that, darkness.
V
When the light again dawned upon Pierrot’s distressed brain he was
conscious, first, of an intense sensation of pain and weakness. Then
gradually he became aware of a weight upon his chest and a severe
throbbing in his right hind leg. He lifted his head but found himself
unable to move or to reach his wounded leg with his tongue. Across his
body rested the heavy thigh of a dead soldier.
Pierrot sank back and waited till the dizziness passed and his head
cleared a little. Then the universal instinct for self-preservation and
the need to struggle for his life awoke within him. Little by little,
with long, painful waits between his efforts, he managed to drag
himself free from the weight upon him.
He stood for a moment, trembling with weakness, as though to reassure
himself that he was alive. All was quiet about him, though the sounds
of battle still raged not far away. He hardly noticed the forms of
fallen men in the trench or heard their occasional moans. Then he
dropped to his side again and made a feeble attempt to lick his aching
leg. The foot was quite numb and the hair was matted and caked, but the
bleeding had stopped.
[Illustration]
As his small store of strength returned he discovered that he was cold
as well as weak, and the need came upon him--the instinct of the hurt
animal--to crawl away to some sheltered spot where he might either
recuperate or die. It seemed to him that first of all he must get
away from the horrible trench. Very slowly and painfully, with one
leg dragging, he toiled up the bank and over the escarpment, and lay
panting on the snowy ground. Then, after a little rest, he started on
again unsteadily toward a little thicket of shrubbery that had been
trampled nearly flat by the feet of the grenadiers.
It seemed a long way off, and he was obliged to stop often to rest.
When at last he approached the thicket he was startled for a moment by
a brown hare which scuttled out from beneath the tangled bushes and
went bounding off across the snow. Pierrot felt no impulse to give
chase nor any wonder that the hare should have escaped destruction. He
burrowed under the broken branches and sniffed his way to where the
hare had made a nest in the dry grass beneath. The spot was still warm,
and Pierrot curled himself up in it gratefully and fell to nursing his
wound.
For three days and two nights Pierrot lay in his hiding-place, sleeping
much of the time. At noon the warm sun struck through the twigs which
by night shielded him from the bitter winds. The Red Cross motors came
and there were sounds of human activity in the trench. Soldiers marched
by, but there was no rushing attack and no heavily shod phalanx came
crashing through his cover. In his dense retreat he lay undiscovered,
waiting patiently for life or death.
During the third day he became restless and slept but little. He was
feeling somewhat stronger and his mind had become more active. His
wounded leg throbbed less severely. Toward nightfall an imperative call
came to him to go forth.
Thus far, strangely enough, he had not felt keen pangs of hunger, for
it is natural for sick dogs to fast. But now he was painfully aware
of a consuming thirst. He had occasionally reached out and lapped at
the cool snow outside his covert, but while that had felt good to
his fevered nose and mouth, it had not sufficed. Now his throat was
parched, his tongue was thick and dry, and his head ached. If you do
not believe that dogs have headaches, notice how your terrier thrusts
his head against your knee next time he is ailing, and begs for the
pressure of your hand.
So Pierrot crawled out of his nest in the gathering dusk and looked
about him, stretching his stiffened limbs and lifting his nose to the
keen wind. He walked once around his thicket and then started off
across the frozen ground toward the dunes, making laborious progress,
keeping to the shadows, sniffing for water.
Twice he heard voices, and once footsteps approached and passed by,
while he lay still and waited, cowering. At last he came to a hollow
where melting snow had formed a little pool. He broke the thin sheet of
ice with one forepaw, and then, thrusting his nose into the freezing
water, he drank long and gratefully.
With the quenching of his thirst a new life seemed to flow through his
veins and courage returned to his stout heart. But he was still weak,
and after a moment’s indecision he crept back to his shelter.
On the morning of the fourth day he awoke refreshed. But now a new need
had come to torment him. He was hungry. Sharp pangs gnawed at his
vitals and all his being cried aloud for food. He thrust his head out
of his hiding-place and looked about, sniffing the air. Over the edge
of the trench he saw the movements of men and the sun glistening on
rifle barrels and German helmets. He drew back stealthily. Experience
had taught him caution. He had had enough of soldiers and of war. He
must wait.
All day he suffered the agonies of hunger and fought against the
impulse to dash out blindly in search of food. And as the day advanced
he was conscious of an ever-increasing desire to go home. A great
longing filled him for his cozy bed in Medard’s stable, for the home
where there was always plenty to eat, for the kind hands that knew how
to cure a dog’s hurts, for the human love that had drifted so far into
the past that it was like a dream of heaven. The homing instinct became
his ruling motive; it obsessed him and drew him as with chains.
Repeatedly he started impulsively out from the thicket, and as often
the sight of soldiers drove him fearfully back.
When at last nightfall came and the trenches glowed with little
campfires, Pierrot sallied forth, deliberately and cautiously. First,
he sought again his drinking-pool and slaked his burning thirst. Then
he passed on into an unknown country in the dark. He skirted the dunes,
followed a little watercourse for half a mile, and then struck into a
shallow ditch beside a rutty road. He trusted little to his eyes, but
ears and nostrils were constantly alert to detect danger, and he gave
a wide berth to everything that suggested man to his senses. His sore
feet had healed, but he was obliged to travel on three legs by reason
of his wound, and he was still stiff and far from strong. Always his
nose was searching earth and air for the scent of food.
Suddenly he stopped and lifted his head. From a shallow ravine a few
rods from the road came a smell that at once attracted and repelled
him. There was the scent of men and of wood smoke. There was also the
scent of food. The thought of soldiers terrified him, but his unwonted
exercise had made him ravenous with hunger.
Irresistibly the smell of food drew him, and he crept stealthily toward
the low bushes that grew along the edge of the ravine. Peering through,
he saw with fearful eyes the glow of dying campfires stretching off in
a long line, and the shadowy forms of prone men wrapped in blankets. On
the opposite bank a lone guard paced slowly up and down.
Pierrot skulked silently along behind the bushes till he came to a spot
where the food smell was very strong. Directly below him was one of the
smouldering fires, and a few feet down the bank he discerned strewn
about half-visible objects from which the smell came.
Grown reckless with famine, Pierrot crawled eagerly out from the bushes
and fell upon the refuse of the camp. A hard crust of bread, the bones
and offal of a fowl, the beans clinging to the inside of a tin--he
devoured them all impartially.