The Silent Readers Part 41

This is the story of Verdun Belle, a trench dog, who adopted a young leatherneck, followed him to the edge of the battle around Chateau-Thierry and was waiting for him when they carried him out.

It is a true story.

Belle was a setter, shabby white, with great splotches of chocolate brown in her coat. Her ears were brown and silken. She was under size and would not have stood a chance among the haughtier breeds shown in splendor at dog shows in Madison Square Garden. But the marines in the regiment to which she attached herself thought there never was a dog like her since the world began.

No one in the regiment knew whence she came or why. When she joined the outfit in a _sector_ near Verdun, she singled out one of the privates as her very own and attached herself to him for the duration of the war. The young marine would talk long and earnestly to her, and every one declared that Belle could "_compre_" English.

She used to curl up at his feet when he slept or follow silently to keep him company at the _listening post_. She would sit hopefully in front of him whenever he settled down with his laden _mess kit_, which the cooks always heaped extra high in honor of Belle.

Belle was as used to war as the most weather-beaten French _poilu_. The tremble of the ground did not disturb her and the whining whir of the sh.e.l.ls overhead only made her twitch and wrinkle her nose in her sleep.

She was trench-broken. You could have put a plate of savory pork chops on the _parapet_ and nothing would have induced her to go after them.

She weathered many a gas attack. Her master contrived a protection for her by cutting down and twisting a French gas mask. At first this sack over her nose irritated her tremendously; but once, when she was trying to claw it off with her forepaws, she got a whiff of the poisoned air.

Then a great light dawned on Belle; and after that, at the first alarm, she would race for her mask. You could not have taken it from her until her master's pat on her back told her everything was all right.

In the middle of May, Belle presented a proud but not particularly astonished regiment with nine confused and wriggling puppies, black-and-white, or, like the mother, brown-and-white, and possessed of immense appet.i.tes. Seven of these were alive and kicking when the order came for the regiment to pull up stakes and speed across France to help stem the German tide north of the troubled Marne.

In the rush and hubbub of marching orders Belle and her brood were forgotten by every one but the young marine. It never once entered his head to leave her or her pups behind. Somewhere he found a market basket and tumbled the litter into that. He could carry the pups, he explained, and the mother dog would trot at his heels.

Now the amount of hardware a marine is expected to carry on the march is carefully calculated to the maximum strength of the average soldier, yet this leatherneck found extra muscle somewhere for his precious basket.

If it came to the worst, he thought, he could _jettison_ his pack. It was not very clear in his mind what he would do with his charges during a battle, but he trusted to luck and Verdun Belle.

For twenty-five miles he carried his burden along the parched French highway. No one wanted to jeer him out of it, nor could have if they would. When there followed a long advance by _camion_, he yielded his place to the basket of wriggling pups, while he himself hung on the tail-board.

But there was more hiking, and the basket proved too much. It seemed that the battle line was somewhere far off. Solemnly the young marine killed four of the puppies, discarded the basket and slipped the other three into his shirt. Thus he trudged on his way, carrying those three, pouched in forest green, as a kangaroo carries its young, while the mother dog trotted trustingly behind.

One night he found that one of the black-and-white pups was dead. The road by this time was black with hurrying troops, lumbering _lorries_ jostling the line of advancing ambulances, and dust-gray columns of soldiers moving on as far ahead and as far behind as the eye could see. Pa.s.sing silently in the other direction was the desolate procession of refugees from the invaded countryside. Now and then a herd of cows or a little cl.u.s.ter of fugitives from some desolated village, trundling their most cherished possessions in wheelbarrows and baby carts, would cause an eddy in the traffic.

Somewhere in this crowding and confusion Belle was lost. In the morning there was no sign of her, and the young marine did not know what to do. He begged a cup of milk from an old French woman, and with the eye dropper from his kit he tried to feed the two pups. It did not work well. Faintly the wind brought down the valley from far ahead the sound of cannon. Soon he would be in the thick of it, and there was no Belle to care for the pups.

Two ambulances of a field hospital were pa.s.sing in the unending caravan. A lieutenant who looked human was in the front seat of one of them, a sergeant beside him. The _leatherneck_ ran up to them, blurted out his story, gazed at them imploringly and thrust the puppies into their hands. "Take good care of them," he said; "I don't suppose I'll ever see them again."

And he was gone. A little later in the day that field hospital was pitching its tents and setting up its kitchens and tables in a deserted farm. Amid all the hurry of preparation for the big job ahead they found time to worry about those pups. The problem was food. _Corned w.i.l.l.y_ was tried and found wanting. Finally the first sergeant hunted up a farm-bred private, and the two of them spent that evening chasing four nervous and distrustful cows around a pasture trying vainly to capture enough milk to provide supper for the new members of the hospital staff.

Next morning the problem was still unsolved. But it was solved that evening. For that evening a fresh contingent of marines trooped by the farm and in their wake, tired, anxious, but undiscouraged, was Verdun Belle. Six miles back two days before she had lost her master, and until she should find him again she evidently had thought that any marine was better than none.

The troops did not halt at the farm, but Belle did. At the gate she stopped dead in her tracks, drew in her lolling tongue, sniffed inquiringly at the evening air, and, like a flash, a white streak along the drive, she raced to the distant tree, where, on a pile of discarded dressings in the shade, the pups were sleeping.

All the corps men stopped work and stood around and marveled. For the onlooker it was such a family reunion as warms the heart. For the worried mess sergeant it was a great relief. For the pups it was a mess call, clear and unmistakable.

So with renewed faith in her heart and only one worry left in her mind, Verdun Belle and her puppies settled down with this field hospital. When the next day the reach of the artillery made it advisable to move down the valley to the shelter of a fine hillside chateau, you may be sure that room was made in the first ambulance for the _three_ wanderers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWO COTS WERE SHOVED TOGETHER UNDER A SPREADING TREE]

In a grove of trees beside the house the tents were pitched and the cots of the expected patients ranged side by side. The wounded came--came hour after hour in steady streams, and the boys of the hospital worked on them night and day. They could not possibly keep track of all the cases, but there was one who did. Always a mistress of the art of keeping out from under foot, very quietly Belle hung around and investigated each ambulance that turned in from the main road and backed up with its load of pain to the door of the receiving room.

Then one evening they lifted out a young marine, listless in the half stupor of sh.e.l.l shock. To the busy workers he was just Case No. Such and Such, but there was no need to tell any one who saw the wild rejoicing of the dog that Belle had found her own at last.

The first consciousness her master had of his new surroundings was the feel of her rough pink tongue licking the dust from his face. And those who pa.s.sed that way on the following Sunday found two cots shoved together in the kindly shade of a spreading tree. On one the mother dog lay, contented with her puppies. Fast asleep on the other, his arm thrown out so that one grimy hand could touch one silken ear, lay the young marine. Before long they would have to ship him on to the _evacuation hospital_, on from there to the base hospital, on and on and on. It was not very clear to anyone how another separation could be prevented. It was a perplexing question, but they knew in their hearts that they could safely leave the answer to some one else.

They could leave it to Verdun Belle.

--"_Stars and Stripes._"

1. _Compre_ and _poilu_ are "soldiers' French". From the way they are used here, what do you think they mean?

2. The following are war terms. See if you can find out, if you do not already know, what they mean.

sector camion listening post lorries mess kit leatherneck parapet corned w.i.l.l.y jettison evacuation hospital

3. Why do you like the young marine?

4. How do you suppose Belle solved the problem left to her?

5. Does the story make you feel amused or sad?

ANOTHER NONSENSE TEST

You will need only a small piece of paper in order to solve this test. Read the directions very carefully and do nothing but what they say.

At the top of your paper write "east" no matter whether the sun rises there or not. Now if Christmas comes in December put a cross in the center of your paper, but if not, put a circle there or else a square.

At the bottom of your paper write a wrong answer to the first of the following questions:

1. When did Columbus discover America?

2. Who invented the electric light?

Do not answer the second question unless you have skipped the first.

But if you know the answer sign your own name in the lower right hand corner of your paper, but if you do not know, sign in the lower left hand corner.

CAN YOU UNDERSTAND RELATIONSHIP?

This drill will test your ability to recognize easily the relationships between words and between things, an ability very necessary for both reading and thinking.

1. Write your name on the first line of your paper, and your grade on the second at the right. Beginning with the fourth line write the figures 1 to 10.

2. In each group below, the first two words have a certain connection in meaning. When you see this relationship between the first two words, you can find among the five words that follow two other words that bear the same relationship. Thus, in group one, the SAW is a tool used by the CARPENTER. Now if you look among the word that follow, you will see that the words FARMER and PLOUGH are connected in meaning in the same way. Write these four words after figure 1:

1. CARPENTER SAW farmer plough