‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh . . .’
A few minutes passed.
Stanley moved a little closer.
‘No wonder,’ he whispered. ‘No wonder.’ Still crouching, keeping his hands by his sides, Stanley moved forward again.
The dog turned his head towards the boy. A second or so passed and the dog’s nose twitched, then twitched again. He blinked and slunk forward two or three paces, stifles bent almost to the ground, then stopped and waited, nose twitching. He began to quiver. His brows flickered up and down, his hairless tail flipped across the sand raising clouds of dust. Stanley stayed where he was. The dog was quivering now from head to tail. Thorne was silent, watching. The dog slunk closer and his tail flipped once more. Slowly Stanley opened his palm flat beneath the long narrow jaws. Slower still, he inched it up to the sore, cracked skin under the neck and further up around the ears. The dog rested his long snout on the boy’s lap, his tail whipping back and forth.
‘Well, I never,’ said Thorne, looking pleased, his chest swelling.
‘Everyone else,’ whispered Stanley, ‘everyone else is sad too. Broken. Terrified. Every man here.’ Stanley kept whispering, now edging his hand back along the dog’s flank, feeling the seismic shivering beneath his fingers. ‘I can see the whites of your eyes. You’re terrified too, aren’t you? You don’t know or care, do you? You’re beyond caring . . .’
Pistol was a mix of some kind; it would be difficult to tell what he was until his coat improved, but he was broad-chested and leggy – all long nose, slender limbs and no belly. Stanley saw the dog’s seriousness, his soulfulness, and felt, like a knife wound, Bones’s humour, his truculence, his naivety, his bullish enthusiasm. Stanley bowed his head. No, he thought, I have no strength myself, I am myself too weak to look after you. I cannot look after myself. Stanley moved his hands so they were beneath the dog’s jaws and lifted its head from his lap, feeling as he did so the dry scabs behind the ears.
‘No.’ Stanley half rose, saying to himself, ‘I can’t go back up, can’t take another dog.’ To Thorne he said, ‘No. I can’t. I can’t do this.’
Thorne looked upset, then distraught as the dog reared up and clung pitifully to Stanley’s legs.
‘No,’ said Stanley to Pistol. ‘Stay. Sit.’ To Thorne he said, ‘No. I’m going home.’
Stanley turned on his heels before he could hear Thorne’s response and marched away. He’d go back to the Major and tell him he was underage, that he wanted to go home. At the door to HQ, Stanley paused, seeing with a wave of irritation that the strange, silent dog was suddenly at his side.
‘No. Go. Go.’ The dog looked grief-stricken. Stanley’s exasperation grew. ‘No. Get away. Go.’
The dog stood his ground, full of conviction that it was in the right place.
‘Go. Boy. Go.’
It lifted a forepaw. Where did the boy want him to go, if not here?
‘Go, boy, go.’
Stanley stood between the door and the dog, frustrated. He must speak to the Kennel Staff, must say straight away that he was going home – but he must also rid himself of the dog. He turned and marched back to Thorne’s hut. The dog trotted, light as a wisp alongside him, long snout raised to the boy’s hand. Stanley marched faster, angry with himself, angry at this wretched grey dog. The dog followed right at his heels, head upward, jaws open in a half-smile.
‘No,’ Stanley hissed at last. ‘I don’t want you. I’m going home.’
The strange grey dog nuzzled Stanley’s legs. Stanley shook him off and marched on.
Thorne was waiting by the door. He’d seen everything. Stanley took Bones’s lead out of his pocket, attached it firmly to Pistol and handed it to Thorne.
‘No. I will not go. It is no place for a dog.’
Thorne’s small head was nodding up and down, compassionate and patient, as though coaxing a recalcitrant, wounded animal, but Stanley didn’t want compassion or understanding, he wouldn’t give Thorne time to speak, and his quick, cross steps blew up clouds of dust as he marched away.
He reached the blue and white crossed flags of Central Kennels HQ and turned to check, before entering, that Thorne still had the dog. As he did so, he saw the dog tear round and rip the leash through Thorne’s fingers, watching horrified as the dog flew towards him, racing with every fibre in his body, back coiled, tail outstretched, neck outstretched, his smooth, liquid movement, his entire form, the perfect expression of a powerful, single-minded will. Thorne’s head was bobbing sadly against his chest and Stanley found himself liking the man for being more affected by the dog’s distress than by his own insubordinate behaviour. It arrived at Stanley’s feet and sat, his eyes narrowed, panting, his tail whirring, grinning up at the boy.
‘Stanley, laddie, is it you?’ The boy turned from the maddening, grinning dog to the familiar voice. It was Hamish, the same Hamish who’d always looked out for him at Chatham, running towards him.
Hamish hugged Stanley, then with a hand on each shoulder, drew back and looked at him carefully. ‘Aye, they told me –’ he tipped his head towards the HQ – ‘they told me about your dog.’
A sudden wave of grief washed over Stanley and he nodded dumbly.
‘They say he was a great dog . . .’
When Stanley came to, Hamish was bending down, caressing the strange, silent grey dog. Stanley shook his head.
‘I’ll never have another dog, Hamish, never.’
‘Aye, this fellow’s no’ so bad . . . there’s deerhound in it somewhere . . . Aye, he’ll be canny enough . . . a good ’un. Silent too –’ Hamish tousled Pistol’s raw ears – ‘like his master.’ Hamish grinned at Stanley, then turned back to the dog. ‘Poor wee thing, your heart’s in the Highlands, so it is. You’re mebbe still young?’ Hamish pushed back the slender lips, ‘Ever so young. Same age perhaps as a nine-year-old child. Aye, with a summer breed a puppy can surprise you as it grows. You’ll be thinking it’s going to be medium-sized and smooth and – look – it’s a shaggy giant.’ Hamish grinned and tousled the dog’s ears again. ‘Aye, ’tis a Highland hound, sure enough, the sum and substance of the canine species no less, laddie.’ To the dog he said then, ‘Aye, you’re a cracker, you are.’
Hamish looked at Stanley once more, scrutinizing him.
‘Come, ah’ve got two Signaller’s bikes and we’ll go and get something to eat . . . That’s the fun about these blue and white bands, we’ve more freedom to move around than the poor old infantry, and you look like you’ve no’ eaten in a wee while. Will we take this fellow along too?’
Stanley paused and half turned, saw Thorne nodding again, happily now. He’d wanted to go home, but to what? Where was Tom? If he returned home, he would miss the letter from Tom, which was surely on its way. Hamish put an arm around him and once again Stanley allowed himself to be led.
The army bicycle was much heavier than Stanley’s old bicycle at Thornley and cycling on cobbles was bumpy. Biting back his tears, and focusing on the road as he went, Stanley told Hamish about Bones in an unstoppable flood of words. They passed a sign offering one egg and fried potatoes and tea and butter and pastries, all for 2 francs 40.
‘Aye, and that’s more words together in one go than I’ve heard before,’ said Hamish, studying Stanley as he pulled up at a second sign, offering two eggs and fried potatoes and tea and butter and pastries, again all for 2 francs 40. ‘This is the business,’ said Hamish, resting his bicycle against the sign. ‘Keep talking, laddie.’
Stanley ate ravenously, surprised by his hunger, unable to remember when he’d last eaten. He felt better for being with Hamish, better for the eggs and fried potatoes and the warm crusty bread and the milk that wasn’t powdered, but his hand kept slipping to his side, and in place of the large square skull of Bones there was this leggy animal, light as a whisper or a shadow, and always at his side.