Free Judy: The Unforgettable Story of the Dog Who Went to War and Became a True Hero by Damien Lewis

aide, to announce the surprise inspection. The ship’s officers and crew knew instantly what they were in for. The rear admiral would scour the vessel from stem to stern for the slightest infraction of ship’s rules. He’d put every man and ship’s department through its paces to ensure the Gnat was operating at peak performance and ready to wage war should such be necessary.
    Or as Judy’s keeper, Tankey Cooper, put it, he’d come aboard to put them through “the works!”
    First off came the inspection of the crew. The men were lined up on the main deck in two ranks, at so-called divisions. The rear admiral proceeded to check over their kit and bedding, all of which was supposed to be neatly laid out, each item labeled with the owner’s name. In due course he came to the newest crew member . . . Judy. She was positioned between Tankey Cooper and her ammunition box of a bed, ship’s blanket neatly folded before her.
    The rear admiral stared down at the seated dog with a gimlet eye. She in turn gazed up at him, tongue lolling and with the signature silly grin that she seemed to reserve for any formal occasion aboard ship. At her feet were coiled two spare leashes, plus an extra collar displaying her name clearly—“Judy.” All appeared to be present and correct, so without a word or a twitch in his deadpan expression the rear admiral moved on, shadowed by his aide.
    Similar inspections followed all over the ship as mess decks, storerooms, stores, engine rooms, galley, and all were given the once-over. Finally seeming to be satisfied, the rear admiral and his aide returned to where they had started—the ship’s bridge. From there he began to order the men through every drill known to the Yangtze gunboat flotilla, plus some seemingly yet to be invented.
    To the casual observer the ship would have appeared a mass of chaos, but to Captain Waldegrave this was strictly ordered chaos in action. Every man knew his place and his duties as block and tackle groaned and pulleys whirred and the ship was “dressed”—involving a “washing line” of brightly colored flags being raised from stem to stern—then the topmast lowered, the ship’s generator stripped down and reassembled, and so on and so forth.
    That done, the rear admiral gave the order to “land armed guard,” and the launch was manned and lowered and it motored away from the Gnat . No sooner had it left than he announced a “man overboard”—which left the crew in some confusion as to how they were to rescue the fictitious victim, with the launch already halfway to storming some unseen adversary ashore.
    “He’ll just ’ave to swim until the ruddy boat gets back!” one of the sweating seamen muttered as he ran to a new task.
    In quick succession came orders to “action stations,” then “fire all guns”—with quite spectacular results—and “away kedge anchor,” the kedge anchor being a light secondary anchor used to help a ship maneuver in narrow estuaries or rivers. The Gnat ’s crew was becoming more than a little exasperated when Judy decided it was time for her to do something. As would prove to be the case many times in the future, whenever Judy sensed that her family was in distress, she’d find some means to come to their aid.
    Without warning she raised her fine head to the skies above the bridge and began to bark. Aruuf-ruuf-ruuf-ruuf-ruuf . The barking was continuous and insistent, and the ship’s crew recognized it instantly for what it was—a warning. As the barking grew to a fierce crescendo, they felt certain they were facing some kind of imminent danger—though no pirate ships were likely to attack twoBritish gunboats in broad daylight, and the threat appeared to be coming from the skies.
    As for the rear admiral, the orders he’d been issuing had been drowned out by a madly barking dog, and he was turning a noticeable shade of puce. Just as it seemed he was about to lose control and vent his anger on Judy, the