‘It’s you and me, just you and me.’ The dog opened its slender jaws and did his odd smiling thing. Stanley glimpsed the sharpness of Pistol’s teeth, was stopped short by the puppyish whiteness of them.
‘Hamish was right. You’re younger than they think. You know, they don’t like to take dogs under a year. Well, I’m too young too, but I’m staying. I can do this job as well as any man, and so can you.’
14 April 1918
Etaples
It had been a good start to the day. Stanley had gone round twice for breakfast, kept his head down, and got a second lot. Even though Hamish had gone, still it had been good because instead of Church Parade there was Bathing Parade, a four-mile march over clumps of spiky grass, past hazy fishing boats, towards a classy seaside resort.
Stanley stripped. How good it would be to wash off the white dust. Already the other men were in the water, laughing and splashing and swimming with their dogs. The salt water would be good for Pistol – salt water was always good for skin problems, Da used to say. Stanley raced into the waves, threw himself in head first, enjoying the shock of cold, clean water. He rose and shook his head and turned to the shore, looking over the ramshackle pink and grey roofs of the town, towards the white tents of the camp that crawled up the hill like white sails, beyond them to the pine trees and hills.
Pistol was there on the shore running back and forth, thrilled, prancing at the waves, retreating as they broke, hectic with anxiety to reach Stanley, filled with trepidation about the waves. Bones, thought Stanley, would have been indignant at the waves. Like Canute, he’d expect the sea to retreat before him. Stanley smiled a sad smile.
Pistol thrust his head into Stanley’s hand, clung as close as a shadow, when Stanley ran up and down the beach. This dog clung so tightly to Stanley that other keepers noticed and were jealous. Always in Pistol’s eyes was the question, What do you want me to do?
Breathless, Stanley threw himself on to the shell-white sand and flung back his head to bask in the sun. Pistol settled beside him. Later, when Stanley sat up, Pistol sat too, and followed his master’s gaze out to sea. Over that shimmering blue sea, the boy was thinking, lay England and Da and Tom.
Irritated by the direction of his thoughts, Stanley shook himself and leaped up. ‘Chocolate,’ he said to Pistol. ‘I’ve got five francs. When we get back, we’ll have chocolate and apricots again in the YMCA.’
Hamish had gone up to the Villers sector, with his brother James, who was now a Captain in command of a Signal Station of ten men. Stanley had heard that another attack was expected in the sector. The news from there had grown worse, Amiens still the focus of Ludendorff’s attention. Some ground had been lost, some gained, since Stanley had come out of the line; just inches, both ways.
At camp that evening a letter was waiting for Stanley, Tom’s handwriting on the envelope.
‘What now, Pistol? What will Tom say now?’ said Stanley in a resigned voice, and began to read aloud for the benefit of the attentive dog.
Da still not at home? Why? Surely he’d have wanted to be there when Tom was on leave? ‘I am under orders to return two days from now’: Tom was coming back – would be back in France soon.
Stanley smiled and drew Pistol close. Tom was once again himself.
Tom was on his way to France!
Stanley stuffed the letter into his pocket and hurried to Central Kennels, the last to join the ranks of men assembled to listen to General Haig on the wireless, the words of Tom’s letter still running like a current in his head as the General’s voice boomed out.
‘Three weeks ago today, the enemy began his terrific attacks against us . . .’
Tom didn’t blame Stanley for Da’s disappearance, but somehow Stanley was beginning to feel that it was perhaps his fault. The spectre of the old man, white-haired, snatching at the empty air, had returned to trouble and unsettle him.
‘His object is to . . . destroy the British Army . . . Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end.’
A shiver ran down Stanley’s spine, a shiver that rippled a hundredfold down the ranks of listening men. The wireless was switched off and an address was made.
‘All active dog sections are to be sent up to the Front, every last man and every last dog. To go straight up with no delay. The dogs are in urgent demand. Go forward and honour the reputation your work has already earned.’
The waiting men grouped into their units for specific instructions. Stanley’s orders were to return immediately to the Villers-Bretonneux sector.
‘You, Ryder, will be reporting to Captain James McManus, at the Brigade HQ Signal Station. Captain McManus has specifically requested you. The Captain’s Station is assigned to Brigadier-General Glasgow’s Thirteenth Brigade of the Fourth Australian Division. A critical action is expected at Villers. Aerial observations show enemy troops massing by Hangard Wood, about a mile south of the town. The Hun has resupplied his troops, brought his big guns up, put six fresh divisions on his front. The lie of the land in your sector is awkward. A steep north-facing slope leads up to the Signal Station. They’re experiencing heavy losses among the runners – there’s cover going down, but no cover for the runners who have to come up. Do your best, Ryder – we’re under orders to hold the Somme at all costs. Remember – if Villers falls, Amiens falls. If Amiens falls, Paris falls.’
Stanley was in turmoil. Paris and Amiens meant nothing to him. Tom was coming and even if Tom were to beg his brother to go home, still Stanley ached to see him.
‘One more for you, Ryder,’ came a shout from the Post Office.
A card this time, not a letter – Cross Post – the inter-Army post – stamped the 13th, the day before yesterday, and two inverted YMCA triangles – Tom! Another letter from Tom! Stanley read.
Cross Post only took twenty-four hours within any single Army area: Tom could be anywhere up here – might be here now – heading like Stanley himself for the Amiens area. Where was he? There were different stamps for each Field Post Office – but this stamp was just a number and didn’t mean anything to him. Which division was he joining? Which brigade, which corps?
Stanley whirled around, searching the convoys and vehicles and trains of departing men. A battalion of Australians, wearing brown slouch hats and broad smiles, marched along the dusty road in the distance with a quick swaggering step to the beat of a pipe band.
‘Well, God help Jerry,’ breathed the postal orderly who’d given Stanley his mail. Stanley looked at the Anzacs, saw their smiles, watched them pass and pass in endless ranks, their buttons and badges winking and flashing in the pale evening light, saw each smiling face, each ready to fight to the end.
Stanley saw them, and knew they had to go back up, he and Pistol, and do the work they’d been trained to do. Tom would find Stanley later. In the meantime they were under orders and had a duty to James and Hamish.
Next morning, squeezed once again into the corner of a dark cattle truck, Field Marshal Haig’s words echoed uneasily in Stanley’s head: ‘Every position must be held to the last man . . . each one of us must fight on to the end.’