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Page 40
Turning, he faced the American lines and tried to break into a
gallop. His scent and his knowledge of direction were all the
guides he needed. A dog always relies on his nose first and his
eyes last. The fog was no obstacle at all to the collie. He
understood the Sergeant's order, and he set out at once to obey
it.
But at the very first step, he was checked. Mahan did not release
that feverishly tight hold on his mane, but merely shifted to his
collar.
Bruce glanced back, impatient at the delay. But Mahan did not let
go. Instead he said once more:
"CAMP, boy!"
And Bruce understood he was expected to make his way to camp,
with Mahan hanging on to his collar.
Bruce did not enjoy this mode of locomotion. It was inconvenient,
and there seemed no sense in it; but there were many things about
this strenuous war-trade that Bruce neither enjoyed nor
comprehended, yet which he performed at command.
So again he turned campward, Mahan at his collar and an
annoyingly hindering tail of men stumbling silently on behind
them. All around were the Germans--butting drunkenly through the
blanket-dense fog, swinging their rifles like flails, shouting
confused orders, occasionally firing. Now and then two or more of
them would collide and would wrestle in blind fury, thinking they
had encountered an American.
Impeded by their own sightlessly swarming numbers, as much as by
the impenetrable darkness, they sought the foe. And but for Bruce
they must quickly have found what they sought. Even in compact
form, the Americans could not have had the sheer luck to dodge
every scattered contingent of Huns which starred the German end
of No Man's Land--most of them between the fugitives and the
American lines.
But Bruce was on dispatch duty. It was his work to obey commands
and to get back to camp at once. It was bad enough to be
handicapped by Mahan's grasp on his collar. He was not minded to
suffer further delay by running into any of the clumps of
gesticulating and cabbage-reeking Germans between him and his
goal. So he steered clear of such groups, making several wide
detours in order to do so. Once or twice he stopped short to let
some of the Germans grope past him, not six feet away. Again he
veered sharply to the left--increasing his pace and forcing Mahan
and the rest to increase theirs--to avoid a squad of thirty men
who were quartering the field in close formation, and who all but
jostled the dog as they strode sightlessly by. An occasional
rifle-shot spat forth its challenge. From both trench-lines men
were firing at a venture. A few of the bullets sang nastily close
to the twelve huddled men and their canine leader. Once a German,
not three yards away, screamed aloud and fell sprawling and
kicking, as one such chance bullet found him. Above and behind,
sounded the plop of star-shells sent up by the enemy in futile
hope of penetrating the viscid fog. And everywhere was heard the
shuffle and stumbling of innumerable boots.
At last the noise of feet began to die away, and the uneven
groping tread of the twelve Americans to sound more distinctly
for the lessening of the surrounding turmoil. And in another few
seconds Bruce came to a halt--not to an abrupt stop, as when he
had allowed an enemy squad to pass in front of him, but a
leisurely checking of speed, to denote that he could go no
farther with the load he was helping to haul.
Mahan put out his free hand. It encountered the American wires.
Bruce had stopped at the spot where the party had cut a narrow
path through the entanglement on the outward journey. Alone, the
dog could easily have passed through the gap, but he could not be
certain of pulling Mahan with him. Wherefore the halt.
* * * * * * * * * * *
The last of the twelve men scrambled down to safety, in the
American first-line trench, Bruce among them. The lieutenant went
straight to his commanding officer, to make his report. Sergeant
Mahan went straight to his company cook, whom he woke from a
snoreful sleep. Presently Mahan ran back to where the soldiers
were gathered admiringly around Bruce.
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