‘A Company signals OK.’
Then came another call from the Fuller-phone operator to Brigade HQ: ‘Cable repaired, line through to A Company.’
‘No communication with B Company,’ shouted the sapper. ‘No signal from B Company.’
There was a sudden flickering like summer lightning. A thunder-shower of light and sparks and bluish shells burst on the far side of the canal.
From far ahead came the rattle of gongs and the pounding of empty brass cases with bayonets – that was the gas siren, the gas alarm. The Hun was answering British fire with gas shells.
‘Get the men into the open!’ someone in the Signal Station was screaming down the line. Sinister, thick green-yellow fumes billowed in the grey fog.
Stanley clutched Fidget’s arm – out there, beneath them, out there among the falling shells and spumes of earth, was a man, running towards their trench. Was that a runner from B Company? The runner grew closer, had almost reached the parapet. Corporal Hunter was there by the fire step, ready to let him in.
Stanley saw the runner speaking, heard the Corporal repeating his words, bellowing down the stairs, ‘Enemy outposts, enemy soldiers . . . behind the front line to the north-east . . . B Company forced back. One forward Signal Station destroyed. The Fourteenth have pulled right back. Enemy within four hundred yards of Villers.’
Where was the other runner? They were always sent in pairs, even if they carried the same message, in the hope that one might get through. Stanley grabbed his field glasses, looked out and saw him – there – staggering up the open slope – a dark stain on his chest, a growing splodge of crimson creeping outward. How far had he run with that wound? His screams seemed to pierce the very earth, to lacerate the deafening roar of the guns. Stanley started forward on the fire step, but Corporal Hunter pulled him back and together they watched, helpless as the runner collapsed, clutching his chest, stranded, dying only fifty yards from where they stood. Stanley was distraught, horrified. Could no one help? Fidget, and the men beyond – they’d all turned their heads away. Still Stanley watched that figure for any sign of life, watched till he saw red bubbles frothing at the mouth and nose. Then he, too, turned his head.
‘They’ve pulled back, the front line’s retreating!’ shouted Hunter. ‘Forced back by the retreat of the Fourteenth.’
Corporal Hunter took up Stanley’s field glasses and raised them to his eyes. Deep furrows were carved down his forehead like twin valleys. Hunter shouted for two more linesmen over the top to repair the communication lines and as he did so, Stanley saw his eyes flicker over the parapet, towards the wall of flame along the far side of the canal. What chance of survival did the Corporal give the men? Did he know, even as they went out, that there was no chance of their coming back? Another linesman was fighting his way along the trench to Hunter.
‘The shelling’s cut the lines, sir . . . There’s no point, sir, they’re blown to bits as soon as they’re laid.’
‘Oh God,’ breathed Hunter to the linesman, aghast and haggard. ‘No signals and we can’t lay new lines till nightfall. We’ve only the runners and they haven’t a chance – the Hun’s taken the tunnel under the canal – they’d have to swim across.’
Hunter raced back down to the Signal Station. There were more shouts from below, unintelligible. Fidget was shouting to Stanley that the front line had pulled back again, that it wasn’t holding. A man came up the stairs, white-faced, eyes full of fear, a fresh runner, with Hunter behind. Hunter looked towards the canal and the sickle of flame that grew hourly closer.
Stanley looked at the face of the runner. And he looked down at Bones, willing and ready. Would he be wanted now? his round eyes seemed to ask. Stanley saw, with a rush of love, the large square skull and wing-like ears, and he felt a lump rising in his throat. Bones must go, a man should not be sent – the dog was faster, lower, had the better chance.
‘No, sir. Don’t send a man. S-send my dog, sir.’
Hunter turned. ‘Send a dog?’ He gave a mocking, irritated shake of his head.
‘S-send the dog, sir,’ said Stanley. ‘Save the man and send the dog.’ Bones inched closer to Stanley, his tail flicking. ‘It’s what he’s trained for, sir.’
Hunter looked over the plain.
‘He’s as good as a man, sir, better than a man. Send him up to B Company with the runner, sir, but let the dog run back with the message. He’s a strong swimmer, sir.’
‘All right.’ Hunter closed his eyes and nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll give it a go.’
The runner mouthed a heartfelt ‘God bless you’ at Stanley.
The boy knelt on the duckboard floor in front of Bones. The dog was so tall, so proud, it made Stanley’s heart ache.
‘Do your best, Bones. It’s important. Keep low. Come back. Above all, Bones, come back.’
Stanley rose and handed the lead to the waiting runner.
Two hours later
A few miles to the east of Villers-Bretonneux
Both sides were waiting, both watching, both wary. The shelling had died down, the fog begun to burn away, the ravaged plain growing clearer. The front line was thin and sporadic, just platoons here and there. The observation posts of both A and B Company were just mounds of rubble. There was no communication line to C Company.
Hunter was at Stanley’s side, listening to a linesman.
‘Too many breaks, sir, there’s too many breaks – we don’t know where the men are – if the men are . . .’
Nauseous with worry, Stanley scoured the plain. Bones and the runner had been sent to B Company, or to where B Company had been, to the forward left, at Stanley’s ten o’clock. To the north, this side of the Allied line, there were almost certainly, Fidget said, enemy outposts. Stanley had sent Bones up. He himself had sent the dog up. But it would be a hollow victory over the Fuller-phone if any harm came to Bones.
Hunter scanned the line along the canal for the hundredth time. Droplets of sweat coated his forehead. He turned abruptly to Stanley.
‘Has he done it before? Has the dog worked in this sector before?’
‘No, sir, but he’ll do it. He can do it, sir.’
The Corporal took his cap off to wipe his brow and Stanley realized, for the first time, that Hunter was not so much older than Tom.
‘Has he ever worked in line before, anywhere in line?’
‘No, sir, but he can do it, sir. He’s as good as a man for the job.’
Bones would do the work he knew so well, Stanley was certain of that. The dog would run home from anywhere, from any point of the compass. He was strong and he was fearless and if it were just a matter of running from the front line to the back line, Bones would do it – but if the front line was broken, if there were enemy outposts behind it . . .
‘Has it come to this? To a dog?’ asked Hunter, still wiping his brow.
Fidget grabbed Stanley, pointing. ‘Stanley – there!’
A shout went up from the kitchen, from Cook.
‘The kid’s dog – there – look!’
More shouts rippled along the trench.
‘The boy’s dog – his dog’s at the canal!’
Two sappers rushed up and stood by Hunter. Stanley looked, his heart racing. There on the nearside of the canal – there he was – the kingly giant – one hundred pounds of gleaming muscle – shaking himself – now loping away easily, unhurried. Now dropping into the sunken railway line. Stanley waited, breath held.