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Page 25
"A collie, down near Soissons, was sent across a bad strip of
fire-scourged ground, with a message. A boche sharpshooter fired
at him and shattered his jaw. The dog kept on, in horrible agony,
and delivered the message. Another collie was sent over a still
hotter and much longer stretch of territory with a message. (That
was during the Somme drive of 1916.) He was shot at, a dozen
times, as he ran. At last two bullets got him. He fell over,
mortally wounded. He scrambled to his feet and kept on falling,
stumbling, staggering--till he got to his destination. Then he
dropped dead at the side of the Colonel the message had been sent
to. And those are only two of thousands of true collie-anecdotes.
Yet some fools are trying to get American dogs done away with, as
'non-utilitarian,' while the war lasts! As if the dogs in France,
today, weren't earning their overseas brothers' right to live--
and live well!"
Neither of his hearers made reply when the guest finished his
earnest, eager recital. Neither of them had paid much heed to his
final words. For the Master and the Mistress were looking at each
other in mute unhappiness. The same miserable thought was in the
mind of each. And each knew the thought that was torturing the
mind of the other.
Presently, at a glint of inquiry in the Master's eye, the
Mistress suddenly bent over and buried her face in the deep mass
of Bruce's ruff as the dog stood lovingly beside her. Then, still
stroking the collie's silken head, she returned her husband's
wretchedly questioning glance with a resigned little nod. The
Master cleared his throat noisily before he could speak with the
calm indifference he sought. Then, turning to the apparently
unnoticing guest, he said--
"I think I told you I tried to get across to France at the very
start--and I was barred because I am past forty and because I
have a bum heart and several other defects that a soldier isn't
supposed to have. My wife and I have tried to do what little we
can for the Cause, on this side of the ocean. But it has seemed
woefully little, when we remember what others are doing. And we
have no son we can send."
Again he cleared his throat and went on with sulky
ungraciousness:
"We both know what you've been driving at for the past five
minutes. And--and we agree. Bruce can go."
"Great!" applauded the guest. "That's fine! He'll be worth his--"
"If you think we're a couple of fools for not doing this more
willingly," went on the Master with savage earnestness, "just
stop to think what it means to a man to give up the dog he loves.
Not to give him up to some one who will assure him a good home,
but to send him over into that hell, where a German bullet or a
shell-fragment or hunger or disease is certain to get him, soon
or late. To think of him lying smashed and helpless, somewhere in
No Man's Land, waiting for death; or caught by the enemy and
eaten! (The Red Cross bulletin says no less than eight thousand
dogs were eaten, in Saxony alone, in 1913, the year BEFORE the
war began.) Or else to be captured and then cut up by some German
vivisector-surgeon in the sacred interests of Science! Oh, we can
bring ourselves to send Bruce over there! But don't expect us to
do it with a good grace. For we can't."
"I--" began the embarrassed guest; but the Mistress chimed in,
her sweet voice not quite steady.
"You see, Captain, we've made such a pet--such a baby--of Bruce!
All his life he has lived here--here where he had the woods to
wander in and the lake to swim in, and this house for his home.
He will be so unhappy and--Well, don't let's talk about that!
When I think of the people who give their sons and everything
they have, to the country, I feel ashamed of not being more
willing to let a mere dog go. But then Bruce is not just a 'mere
dog.' He is--he is BRUCE. All I ask is that if he is injured and
not killed, you'll arrange to have him sent back here to us.
We'll pay for it, of course. And will you write to whomever you
happen to know, at that dog-training school in England, and ask
that Bruce be treated nicely while he is training there? He's
never been whipped. He's never needed it, you see."
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