Lest We Forget Part 15

Thus, by the help of these faithful friends, the lives of many hundreds of men have been saved. Over one hundred were rescued in one night after a battle. A big Newfoundland, named Napoleon, had the credit of saving as many as twenty. One of the men, in speaking of him, said, "Part of his tail has been blown away, and once he was left for dead in No Man's Land, but he is still on the job, working for civilization."

When not fighting or on watch, the men in the trenches enjoy the company of the dogs and teach them to perform all sorts of tricks, the fox terriers proving especially intelligent. They also do good work in keeping the trenches free from rats.

At night, a French sentinel sometimes crawls through the entanglements on his way to a "listening post" out in No Man's Land. With him goes a sentinel dog. The sentinel's purpose is to discover if the enemy are getting ready for a surprise attack. Lying flat on the earth, or crouching in a sh.e.l.l hole, he listens with bated breath for any telltale noises. The dog, listening too, creeps along beside him, or slinks silently out into the darkness. He can tell, when his master cannot, if an enemy is abroad. Making no sound, giving no betraying bark, as soon as he discovers the enemy the dog draws near to his master, stands at attention, his ears p.r.i.c.ked up, his hair bristling, his tail wagging as he silently paws the ground or growls so low that only his master can hear him. If the German soldier attempts to fight, the dog springs at him and throws him to the ground.

A group of soldiers were on watch one night in one of the front trenches, when all of the dogs suddenly became uneasy, growling low, and growing more and more excited. The soldiers knew their dogs and trusted their warnings, so they telephoned back to the main trenches for help. In less than half an hour, an attack was made from the German trenches opposite. Meanwhile, however, reenforcements had arrived for the Allies, which sent the enemy back to his own lines again. How the dogs knew so long before that the attack was coming, whether they could have heard the first faint signs of preparation in the enemy trenches, the soldiers could not tell.

When a front line trench of the enemy is captured, it is the faithful dogs who draw up the many cartloads of ammunition and supplies, and some of the smaller guns. For this, the Belgian dogs are especially well fitted.

Happy as long as they can help in the fighting, restless and uneasy whenever sent back to the hospitals for treatment or rest, these dogs have shown the worth of all the training they have received, as well as a great amount of natural intelligence.

While Zip, Napoleon, Spot, Stop, Mignon, and Bouee have been doing their bit on the firing line, still others have been taking their training in readiness to go to the front. And very hard training it is.

Sheep dogs, fox terriers, bulldogs, collies, St. Bernards, Newfoundlands, Alaskan wolf dogs, mongrels,--all must be carefully trained by expert dog trainers.

First they must learn to distinguish between the uniform of their country and that of the enemy. They must not bark, because then the enemy will be sure to shoot. In carrying letters from post to post, they must learn to recognize the posts by name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FRENCH OFFICER AND HIS DOG BOTH WEARING ANTI-GAS MASKS WHILE CROSSING A DANGEROUS ZONE IN FRANCE _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y._]

About three months of training are necessary to teach the dogs to travel as far as three kilometres in this work. Two of the dogs are put into the care of two trainers, and taught to recognize both as their masters, and to carry dispatches from one to the other.

The dogs must be trained to obey implicitly. If the master stops abruptly in his walk, the dog must do the same; if the trainer runs, the dog must keep in perfect step, ready at a given signal to lie down, or follow a scent, or find a wounded soldier. For many hours he must be trained in jumping, because of the great heights over which he must spring, carrying heavy weights in his mouth or upon his back or around his neck. He must learn to make no sound except when ordered to do so, to find objects which have been most skillfully hidden, to distinguish between a dead man and one wounded and breathing, to deliver the token of a wounded man only to the doctor or Red Cross nurse, to allow nothing to hinder him from carrying out any task, to refuse food and water from strangers, and to aid soldiers on the watch. These watch dogs must learn to give a signal when they scent poison gas or hear the enemy creeping up. And they must guard prisoners very carefully.

Some dogs cannot learn all of these duties, and so specialists examine every dog that is enlisted. There are tests for health, intelligence, speed, quick tempers, and even tempers. When a dog has been in training for several weeks, he is sometimes found in the end to be unfit for service, and the trainer has to admit a new recruit in his place and start all over again. Often a dog can do certain tasks much better than others, and so each one is a.s.signed to the kind of service which he can do best.

It is marvelous what great services these dogs have rendered in the World War. The governments have recognized their worth, and societies have been formed to train and protect them. The French people, in 1912, organized the "Blue Cross." It is a Blue Cross officer who examines the dogs and a Blue Cross doctor who gives first aid and orders an injured dog to the hospital for further treatment. The Blue Cross also has been at work in Italy.

The American Red Cross Society has taken over the task of securing and protecting dogs on the American front, but instead of the red cross, the animals wear a red star, so that the field is blest with three red symbols of mercy--the red cross, the red triangle, and the red star.

The number of dogs added to the war service during the first four years of the war was about ten thousand on all fronts.

Not only have dogs been provided by various societies, but many have been given by private families. One elderly French father wrote to the French War Department, "I already have three sons and a son-in-law with the Colors; now I give up my dog, and 'Vive la France!'"

The French government officials, as well as the various societies, have shown their grat.i.tude by awarding honors to the canine heroes. Many have been mentioned in the orders for bravery and heroic conduct.

Several have been presented with gold collars. The French government has even published a "Golden Book of Dogs," in which are recorded some of the heroic deeds of these brave and faithful friends of man. One of the dogs wearing a French medal of honor is a plucky fox terrier, who is said to have saved one hundred fifty lives after the Battle of the Marne. Bouee, a fuzzy-haired, dirty, yellow-and-black, tailless little fellow, is another hero, who has been cited three times for his bravery. During a heavy action, when all the telephone wires had been destroyed, Bouee carried communications between a commandant and his force, fulfilling his duty perfectly without allowing anything to distract him.

Shall we not change the old proverb from "As brave as a lion," to "As brave as a dog"?

THE _BELGIAN PRINCE_

The _Belgian Prince_ was a British cargo steamer. On a voyage from Liverpool to Philadelphia, with Captain Ha.s.san in command, she was, on July 31, 1917, attacked and sunk by a German U-boat. For brutal savagery and barbarism, the drowning of the crew of the _Belgian Prince_ is one of the most astounding in the history of human warfare.

Captain Ha.s.san was taken aboard the U-boat, and no further knowledge of his fate has been received. The _Belgian Prince_ was a merchant ship, not a warship in any sense of the word.

The Germans evidently intended to sink her without a trace left behind to tell the story, as their Minister to Argentina advised his government to do with Argentine ships; but three members of her crew, the chief engineer and two seamen, escaped as by a miracle. Their stories are now among the records of the British Admiralty; they have also been published in many books which have a place in thousands of libraries, public and private, all over the world. How will the Hun, when peace comes again, face his fellow-men?

The story of the chief engineer, Thomas Bowman, is as follows:

At 7:50 P.M. on the night of July 31, the _Belgian Prince_ was traveling along at ten knots, when she was struck. The weather was fine and the sea smooth. It was a clear day and just beginning to darken. I was on the after deck of the ship, off watch, taking a stroll and having a smoke. The donkeyman shouted out, "Here's a torpedo coming." I turned and saw the wake on the port about a hundred yards away. I yelled a warning, but the words were no more than out of my mouth when we were hit.

I was thrown on deck by a piece of spar, and when I recovered I found the ship had a very heavy list to port and almost all the crew had taken to the boats. I got into the starboard lifeboat, which was my station. Until then I had seen no submarine, but now heard it firing a machine gun at the other side of the ship.

With a larger gun it shot away the radio wires aloft so that we could send out no S.O.S. messages. As soon as we had pulled away from the ship I saw the U-boat, which promptly made toward our own boats and hailed us in English, commanding us to come alongside her. We were covered by their machine gun and revolvers. We were in two lifeboats and the captain's dinghy.

The submarine commander then asked for our captain and told him to come on board, which he did. He was taken down inside the submarine and we saw him no more. The rest of us, forty-three in number, were then ordered to board the submarine and to line up on deck. A German officer and several sailors were very foul and abusive in their language. They ordered us, in English, to strip off our life belts and overcoats and throw them down on the deck.

When this was done they proceeded to search us, making us hold up our hands and threatening us with revolvers. These sailors, while they pa.s.sed along the deck and were searching us, deliberately kicked most of the life belts overboard from where we had dropped them. Beyond making us take off our life belts and coats there was no interference with our clothing. They robbed me of my seaman's discharge book and certificate, which they threw overboard, but kept four one-pound notes.

After searching us, the German sailors climbed into our lifeboats and threw out the oars, gratings, thole-pins, and baling tins. The provisions and compa.s.s they lugged aboard the submarine. They then smashed our boats with axes so as to make them useless, and cast them adrift. I saw all this done myself.

Several of the German sailors then got into our dinghy and rowed to the _Belgian Prince_. These men must have been taken off later, after they had ransacked the ship.

The submarine then moved ahead for a distance of several miles.

I could not reckon it accurately because it was hard to judge her speed. She then stopped, and after a moment or two I heard a rushing sound like water pouring into the ballast tanks of the submarine.

"Look out for yourselves, boys," I shouted. "She is going down."

The submarine then submerged, leaving all our crew in the water, barring the captain, who had been taken below. We had no means of escape but for those who had managed to retain their life belts. I tried to jump clear, but was carried down with the submarine, and when I came to the surface I could see only about a dozen of our men left afloat, including a young lad named Barnes, who was shouting for help.

I swam toward him and found that he had a life belt on, but was about paralyzed with cold and fear. I held him up during the night. He became unconscious and died while I was holding him.

All this time I could hear no other men in the water. When dawn broke I could see the _Belgian Prince_ about a mile and a half away and still floating. I began to swim in her direction, but had not gone far when I saw her blow up.

I then drifted about in the life belt for an hour or two longer and saw smoke on the horizon. This steamer was laying a course straight for me, having seen the explosion of the _Belgian Prince_. She proved to be a British naval vessel, which also found the two other survivors in the water. We were taken to port and got back our strength after a while. None of us had given the submarine commander and crew any reason for their behavior toward us. And I make this solemn declaration conscientiously, believing it to be true.

The two common sailors who survived were William Snell, a negro, of Norfolk, Virginia, and George Silenski, a Russian. William Snell's story is as follows:

Two men of the submarine's crew stayed on top of the conning tower with rifles in their hands which they kept trained on us.

Seven other Germans stood abreast of our line on the starboard side of the boat, armed with automatic pistols. The captain of the submarine, a blond man with blue eyes, was also on deck and stood near the forward gun, giving orders to his crew in German, and telling them what to do. Pretty soon he walked along in front of the men of the _Belgian Prince_, asking them if they had arms on them. He ordered us to take off our life belts and throw them on deck, which we did. As they dropped at our feet, he helped his sailors pick them up and sling them overboard.

When I threw my belt down, I shoved it along on the deck with my foot, and finally stood on it. As the commander walked along the line, he huddled us together in a crowd and then went and pulled the plugs out of our lifeboats, which were lying on the starboard side of the submarine. When he went back to the conning tower, I quickly picked up my belt and hid it under a big, loose oilskin which I was wearing when I left the _Belgian Prince_. The Germans did not make me take it off when they searched me. I hugged the life belt close to my breast with one arm.

When the commander returned to the conning tower, four German sailors came on deck from below and got into our captain's small boat, which was on the port side. The submarine then backed a little, steamed ahead, and rammed and smashed one of our lifeboats, which had been cast adrift.

The four men who had jumped into our captain's boat now pulled alongside the _Belgian Prince_. The submarine then got under way and moved ahead at about nine knots, as near as I could guess, leaving her four men aboard the _Belgian Prince_, and all of us, except our skipper, huddled together on the forward deck, which was almost awash.

She steamed like this for some time, and then I noticed that the water was rising slowly on the deck until it came up to my ankles. I had also noticed, a little while before this, that the conning tower was closed. The water kept on rising around my legs, and when it got almost up to my knees I pulled out my life belt, threw it over my shoulders, and jumped overboard. The other men didn't seem to know what was going to happen. Some of them were saying, "I wonder if they mean to drown us."

About ten seconds after I had jumped, I heard a suction as of a vessel sinking and the submarine had submerged entirely, leaving the crew of the _Belgian Prince_ to struggle in the water.

I began to swim toward our own ship which I could see faintly in the distance, it being not very dark in that lat.i.tude until late in the evening. The water was not cold, like the winter time, and I was not badly chilled, but swam and floated all night, on my back and in other positions. One of our crew, who had no life belt, kept about five yards from me for half an hour after the submarine submerged. Then he became exhausted and sank. I could hear many other cries for help, but I could not see the men.

When day came, there were lots of bodies of old shipmates floating around me. Then about five o'clock, as near as I can judge, I made out the _Belgian Prince_ and four men coming over the side. They had been lowering some stuff into a boat. I cried out, "Help, help!" but they paid no attention to me.

Then the submarine came to the surface and the four sailors hoisted their stuff out of the rowboat and were taken aboard.

Ten minutes later the submarine submerged. Then there was a great explosion as the _Belgian Prince_ broke in two and sank.

Soon I saw a vessel approaching and she pa.s.sed me, but turned and came back just in time. I was all in. It was a British patrol steamer, and as soon as I came to, I made a full report to the captain of the loss of the _Belgian Prince_ and the drowning of her crew.

The Russian, in his story, tells of the taking away of the life belts and the smashing of the lifeboats; of the crew of the _Belgian Prince_ being left to sink or swim after the U-boat submerged--in all of these details agreeing with the stories of the other two. And he adds:

Then I swam toward the ship all night, although I had no life belt or anything to support me. About five o'clock in the morning I reached the _Belgian Prince_ and climbed on board. I stayed there about an hour and got some dry clothes and put them on.