Soldier Dog Read online

  The crowd grew tighter, more concentrated. People were standing about, just waiting. Stanley stopped, glimpsing a vivid image over the heads of the crowd: an artillery team dashing into action under heavy fire. Other posters were plastered to the windows of the imposing building. In one, above the words ‘ENLIST TODAY’, a soldier wore the laurel wreath and sphinx and red rose of the East Lancashires. Tom’s regiment. A queue had formed in front of the building: a motley bunch, all shapes, sizes, heights, ages, and all at odds with the tall, fit figures in the posters. It was getting late, but if the queue kept moving, Stanley would be seen today.

  A corpulent officer, dressed in khaki, sat at a desk in a high-ceilinged, oak-panelled room, sifting papers with one hand, nursing his belly with the other. He was getting more than rations, Stanley thought, more than the four ounces of butter a week he and Da got. The officer kept his eyes on the papers as Stanley approached. Stanley’s hands were sticky, his mouth dry.

  ‘And what can I do for you?’ The officer’s tone was derisive.

  ‘I’ve c-c—’ Stanley fought for air.

  The officer’s pen tap-tap-tapped the desk. Stanley took a deep breath.

  ‘I’ve c-come to j-join up, sir.’

  ‘Name? Trade?’ The voice was weary.

  ‘S-Stanley Ryder, sir. Under-gardener, sir. And I help with the h-horses.’ Stanley looked at the floor. What was he thinking coming here? The officer raised a pair of red-veined eyes.

  ‘Age?’

  Stanley hesitated, floored by a sudden thought – was it a criminal offence to lie to the Army about your age?

  ‘Sixteen, sir.’

  He bit his lip. You had to be seventeen. Why hadn’t he said ‘Seventeen’? Seventeen was no more of a lie than sixteen. The officer heaved an exasperated, over-loud sigh and scratched his forehead. Stanley’s age seemed to have brought on a sudden headache.

  Stanley didn’t move. ‘Seventeen, sir, seventeen,’ he wanted to say. The officer closed his eyes and rolled his aching head from side to side.

  ‘Will you go outside, turn around three times and come back at five when you’ll be seventeen?’ The officer’s belly rose and fell like a tug in a swell as he enjoyed his own joke.

  ‘Yes, sir. Oh, yes, sir. Qu-quick-sticks, sir – right away, sir.’

  Stanley hurried out. He looked up and down the street for a clock. If the officer wanted him to return at five, he’d do exactly that. Half past four. Only half an hour till he was the right age.

  At five, the officer raised his eyes and appraised Stanley as though inspecting a horse.

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Seventeen, sir.’

  ‘Hmm. Does your mother know you’re seventeen?’ he asked, mocking.

  ‘She’s dead, sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Well, “under-gardener” you said, and – er – “horses”. There’s no call for chrysanthemums in Flanders, but the Engineers are short of men that know about animals. Now, you could do us both a favour by saying you know about horses?’

  ‘Oh, y-yes, sir. I do know about horses, sir.’

  ‘Good. Well done. Now, join the Royal Engineers.’

  Stanley was waved aside to an adjoining room and a medical officer. Two men, both white as quartz, stood waiting, in their drawers. Stanley stripped and waited too.

  A doctor entered the room, holding a tape measure in his hand, assessed them all with a despairing glance and headed for Stanley. He looped the tape around Stanley’s chest and brought his head close. The measure didn’t seem to show the number he was looking for. He made a careful loop and clamped the loop between his thumb and index finger. This time the tape came to the right number and he noted the result with an exhausted exhalation.

  Stanley was motioned on to the scales. The doctor’s head almost touched the dial as Stanley again fell short of Army requirements. Another exhausted sigh. The doctor reached for a large blue dictionary and passed it to Stanley, then bent to read the result. Perfect. The combined weight of Stanley and the dictionary were recorded. Stanley’s height was measured. The short-sighted eyes blinked in exaggerated surprise as Stanley appeared to have exceeded the minimum height regulation.

  ‘A-one,’ the doctor muttered with a sardonic laugh and moved on to the next man.

  In a daze, Stanley joined the blur of men around the desk, raised his hand and swore his oath to King and country. He was a member of His Majesty’s Army, and had a number. He was seventeen, had a railway warrant and would be paid on Fridays.

  By six o’clock the next morning, Stanley was two hundred miles from Da. He was on parade and his training had begun.

  Monday, 10 September 1917

  Chatham, Kent

  The vast and bleak parade ground was surrounded by barracks, offices and the entrance gates. Fear kept drawing Stanley’s eyes, like the needle of a compass, towards the gates. Da might stomp through them at any minute, shouting for all to hear, ‘Fourteen! The daft clod’s only fourteen!’ Da would see the ill-fitting uniform, see the trousers which billowed around his son’s buttocks, see the puttee – the bandage-type stocking – that was in danger of unwinding at his right ankle, already unravelling at his knee. Da would mock him and haul him home. Stanley scanned the faces of the new recruits. No, no one here looked as young as he did.

  ‘Parade, ’shun! Left turn! Quick march! Double! Left, right, left, right. Pick up your knees. Left, right, left, right . . .’

  Company Sergeant-Major Quigley had a stout neck, an athletic figure, hair as glossy as a blackbird and a ferocious moustache with long waxy ends that sometimes took on a life of their own. His tongue was like a rasp – his voice could probably be heard a mile away. The man was in his element, born to lead this 6 a.m. PT parade, but he was also a sort of relic, left over, perhaps, from an earlier war.

  Stanley’s eyes flickered towards the gates. Even if Da did come, Stanley would never go home again.

  ‘Double! Left, right, left, right . . .’

  A smile played on Quigley’s lips as he increased the pace. Stanley’s puttee was unravelling further.

  ‘Double! Left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right . . .’ Quigley’s foghorn voice belted out instructions faster and faster until the men were racing round the yard. Stanley couldn’t concentrate because of the unravelling puttee. Quigley would spot him and single him out, would know he was too young and send him home. At least Stanley had a uniform, and a cap – half of the men were still in mufti, as home clothes were known here. It wasn’t like the pictures and the posters, this lack of beds and plates and uniforms.

  Everyone had about-turned except Stanley, who found himself face to face with Hamish McManus. Hamish had the bed next to Stanley. That morning, no one else had spoken to Stanley, but Hamish, with a frank and friendly smile, had said, ‘Watch out for yourself, laddie. They’d steal the milk from a baby’s bottle here.’

  Now Hamish put a hand on Stanley’s shoulder to turn him round, but not before Quigley had seen Stanley facing the wrong way. Quigley marched over, eyes sparking, and halted uncomfortably close to Stanley.

  ‘Get that hair cut. Are you a soldier, hmm, or an artist? Get some fluff on that upper lip before I see you again.’ Stanley felt the man’s breath on his face as his baton prodded the troublesome puttee.

  ‘Your mother won’t be here, hmm, from now on, to dress you in the mornings.’

  ‘N-no, sir.’ There it was again, that dryness, the splintering words. ‘This p-pair of kecks is too loose, sir.’

  ‘Speak English, damn you.’ Quigley looked so bewildered that perhaps he hadn’t heard Stanley properly, but now he’d recovered his flow. ‘Choirboys and milksops, that’s what I’ve been sent.’ Quigley’s moustache twitched with mirth. ‘And if any of you want to go home, hmm, and see your m-mothers again, I’ll first make soldiers of you –’ his voice rose – ‘or I’ll die in the attempt.’

  Someone on the other side of the yard tittered. Quigley swivelled on a sixpence, nimble enough to catch a smirk
on the face of a tall, thin man.

  ‘And I’ll teach you not to laugh on parade, Fidget! I don’t want to see a smile on your milk-white mug till kingdom come.’

  Stanley felt a gentle squeeze on his shoulder, and turned. Hamish smiled at him, a warm, tranquil smile, and whispered, ‘The Sergeant-Major’s just a bully, laddie, just a bully.’

  Yes, thought Stanley, just a bully. I’ve left home, left one bully only to run into another.

  ‘Everyone. On all fours. Now, up-down, up-down, up-down . . .’

  Stanley’s eyes watered as pain seared his muscles. He must blot out the burning pain in his arms. He closed his eyes, and at once visions of Soldier and of the dark lake flooded his head. A solitary circle rose on the surface of the water that he saw in his mind. It rippled outward, unleashing a tidal wave of anger that surged through Stanley. Charged with raging pain, on he went, up-down, up-down, till he was the last man still going.

  Six weeks inched past. Stanley had got used to Quigley’s mockery, got used to the food, to the rules and the regulations of Army life. If he wasn’t hopping up and down, he was being inspected. He was always being inspected. Everything had to be done just so, blankets folded just so, shoes shined just so.

  ‘Subservience and obedience, laddie,’ Hamish had said to him as they’d folded their blankets. ‘They want them to run in your blood.’ Hamish was right, in the Army you must never think for yourself and you must always obey, however pointless the exercise. You must always have shiny boots or be punished with three days on water and biscuits if they told you to. Stanley would keep on doing everything just so, keep his head low, his boots clean, his blankets folded and he’d eventually be sent to France, where Tom was – and Quigley wasn’t.

  Hamish and his brother James were both in Stanley’s unit. They were both clear-browed, large men, born to big hills and deep valleys. James, the older of the two, was a little morose, but Stanley liked and trusted them both.

  Everyone was progressing to specialist training. For Stanley there’d be two extra weeks of parade drills, bayonet fighting, musketry, route marching, wheeling about to the right and the left, inclining and forming squads. He alone among his batch of recruits had been ordered to do two more weeks of Basic Training. Two weeks longer to get to France.

  Stanley’s companions were queuing for the canteen, their mood jubilant. There’d been a success in France at Cambrai. Church bells had rung today for the first time. Had Tom been there, at Cambrai? The country had clutched at something to celebrate after Passchendaele. One hundred and forty thousand casualties for a five-mile advance. Had Tom been there at Passchendaele?

  As each man turned the corner into the canteen, he looked at a list pinned to the Orderly Room door. That was how you knew if you had a parcel, but Stanley never looked. There’d never be a parcel for him, so it was better not think about it, better just to concentrate on counting days.

  ‘Stanley, have they sent you anything?’ James and Hamish were both looking at the notice. Stanley shook his head and turned away. Hamish and James might get parcels of jam and chocolate, Stanley was thinking, but he never would. Not till Tom knew where he was.

  ‘No one knows, do they, that you’re here?’ said Hamish quietly. Not expecting an answer, he continued, ‘But we know, and we’ll take care of you.’

  Stanley took a place at table next to Hamish, opposite James. James picked up the loaf of bread.

  ‘Made of grit and granite,’ he said, weighing it in his hand before passing it to Stanley. ‘Needs lots of margarine so it’s easier to chew.’

  The surface of the table was swimming in sloshed tea. Each man slopped tea into his jar from a basin in the middle of the table. Tea wasn’t at its best in a jam jar, but when you were tired it was good that it was strong and sweet. The tall man, called Fidget, who’d snickered on parade that first morning, slipped himself in between Stanley and Hamish and placed a parcel on the table where everyone could see it. All of Fidget was long and colourless, like a weed grown too fast in a dark cupboard, and he had a habit of sliding into places where he wasn’t especially welcome. Fidget’s hands fluttered over his parcel. His darting gooseberry eyes widened, and his mouth opened to a slack smile.

  ‘From my sister . . . She sends one every week. Fruit cake.’ The loose smile was interrupted by a sudden thought. ‘Do you get parcels, Stanley?’

  Fidget’s face was too mobile, his eyes the colour of Army tea. Fidget meant no harm but, unable to answer, Stanley looked down. He scribbled with his forefinger in the tea on the table.

  ‘Do you get parcels, Stanley?’ asked Fidget once more.

  The doodle in the tea had a tail and a long snout.

  ‘Don’t say much, do you, Stanley Ryder?’

  Once upon a time, Stanley was thinking, there’d been tablecloths and honey and a mother to make cakes. Once there’d been a beautiful oatmeal puppy . . .

  Fidget wasn’t to be put off. ‘She’s a good cook, my sister. Is your mother a good cook?’

  If Stanley answered, his words would stick in his throat. His forefinger wiped out the dog in the tea. Ma had been a lovely cook. Stanley swallowed hard.

  Hamish put an arm round Stanley’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Stanley. The cake in the YMCA hut’s better than Army food any day. We’re parading for pay tomorrow, and I’ve got money over from last week.’

  Stanley shot Hamish a grateful smile, and they rose and left. As they made their way past the rank and file of tables, Hamish asked, ‘Do you like dogs?’

  Stanley felt the death of Soldier jam like a stone in his throat. He said nothing. Hamish tightened his arm around the boy’s shoulders and steered him on. It was good, Stanley felt, to be with Hamish, who was kind and thoughtful, and never minded that Stanley said so little. At the Orderly Room door, Hamish said, ‘Did you see this?’

  Stanley’s throat constricted as he saw the mail list.

  ‘Not that.’ Hamish pointed. ‘This. Read this. Working with dogs would be more fun than tunnelling with the Engineers – aye, and safer. What do you think?’

  Stanley felt Hamish’s gentle eyes on him as he read:

  THE MESSENGER DOG SERVICE REQUIRES MEN ACCUSTOMED TO WORKING WITH ANIMALS TO VOLUNTEER.

  THOSE INTERESTED TO APPLY TO SGT. QUIGLEY

  Dogs? Messenger dogs? How wonderful, Stanley was thinking, wonderful beyond imagining. Yes, he thought, I’d love that.

  ‘You’ll have had reasons of your own for signing up, and I’ll ask no questions, but the Front will be no place for you, laddie. The Dog Service maybe would be just the ticket for you.’

  Stanley spread his uniform out on the bed, admiring the ‘R.E.’ on the collar and the embroidered flags, the proud insignia of the Royal Engineers, on the left arm. This week had been a good week. Twenty-eight men had been requested for Signal School and Quigley had instructed Stanley to sign up and do it before his transfer to the Messenger Dog School. Stanley liked Signalling – he’d liked the lamps and the heliographs and wires. He’d learned that signalling was vital in a war that was trench-based, where so much depended now on messages being sent to and from the front lines. Those messages sent by telegram, dispatch rider, radio, by telephone, wireless or pigeon, could make the difference to the success or failure of an operation, and Stanley was proud to be part of the Signals Service. He’d done well, too – he’d passed first-class in the Signalling Examination and now he had a new issue: a greatcoat. He was proud of the coat, proud of his regiment, of its history, its dignity and importance. Stanley smoothed the sleeve with the embroidered flags.

  A desolate Christmas had come and gone, and still Stanley had heard nothing from Da, from Tom. Had no one even tried to find him? he wondered, as his fingers traced the ‘R.E.’ They’d be amazed, Da and Tom both, if they knew. He’d like them to see him on parade. Stanley’s eyes flickered to the window, and the gates beyond, recognizing now, as he looked, that it was hope that drew his eyes to the gates, hope that Da might come. He’d been here one
hundred days exactly and there’d been no word from Da.

  If Stanley went to the War Dog School, he’d most likely be detailed to the Western Front and, if he kept his fingers crossed, to France. He wouldn’t write to Tom, not until he got to France. If he wrote before then, Tom might write to Da and get him sent back home. Tom wouldn’t think that his little brother’s having enlisted was a good thing: ‘I will always be thankful,’ his postcard had said, ‘that you were too young to fight.’ Face to face with Tom, Stanley could explain how things had been at home, why he’d had to leave.

  Stanley turned from the window, wondering how old Soldier would have been by now, what sort of dog he’d have turned out to be. With a strained glance at the mirror by the door, he straightened his cap.

  The six men waiting outside Quigley’s office were clustered around a cutting pinned to the door:

  Why had dogs been killed when the Army needed them? ‘Bang. Gone. Horse-meat for France.’ Da had been right to be so angry.

  When they were seated, Quigley addressed them. Here, off the parade ground, the man seemed a little diminished.

  ‘Your time here has only a few days left to run, gentlemen. You are shortly to receive your transfer to Shoeburyness in Essex.’ The Sergeant-Major’s eyes took on a mocking glint. ‘Five weeks seems to be required for the, hmm, Messenger Dog Service.’

  Five more weeks, Stanley was thinking, so long till I go to France.

  ‘This service is a new division of the Signals Service, which as you know, is itself a division of the Royal Engineers. Unike all other Signals Service recruits, you’ll no longer be known as Pioneers, –but as Keepers.’ Quigley’s brows rose in open mockery. ‘Colonel Edwin Hautenville Richardson has been badgering the War Office since 1914 to use his dogs. Well, two of his dogs were trialled by the Royal Artillery, and it appears that they carried messages successfully, so the War Office has allowed him to establish a Dog School.’

  Messages? Stanley was puzzled and captivated. How wonderful – to use dogs as messengers!