Free The Bomber Dog by Megan Rix Page A

found that although there weren’t any other dogs,
Grey wasn’t the only animal at the camp. Over on the opposite side pigeons
were being trained to be messengers. There were chickens that laid eggs for the
soldiers’ breakfasts and pigs that ate the food from the pig bins brought in
on the back of a truck once a week. The chickens and pigswere
kept in a field at the furthest edge of the camp and that’s where Billy, the
camp’s goat mascot, or lucky charm, lived too.
    As soon as Billy saw Grey he came
running across the field to him and the two animals touched noses through the fence.
Grey had never seen a goat before and was very interested in this strange
creature.
    After Nathan had settled him in and left
him for the night, Grey was lonely in his solitary kennel until Billy came to join
him.
    Billy was supposed to stay in the pig
field when he wasn’t being a mascot, but he wasn’t the sort of goat that
ever did what he was supposed to do. Billy was the sort of goat who did just exactly
what he liked.
    Late at night he trotted over to
Grey’s kennel where he found the dog lying outside his kennel, although still
chained to it, not asleep but dozing lightly.
    Grey stood up and wagged his tail, a
littleunsure. Billy came closer and let Grey sniff at him. Then
he went over to Grey’s food bowl to see if he’d left anything in it,
which of course he hadn’t. Both Grey and Billy had large appetites.
    Billy turned and trotted off and Grey
tried to follow him but couldn’t because of the chain. He barked to let Billy
know he was stuck and the goat turned back and made a bleating sound before heading
off again.
    Grey had never tried to escape from his
collar and chain before, but now he found that if he pulled his head backwards, like
a tortoise going into its shell, he was able to squeeze his way out of it. Once
free, he ran to catch up with Billy and the two of them explored the camp together
before being joined by the cook’s cat, Astor, on her nightly mouse hunt.
    Just before dawn Billy returned to his
field, Astor went home to the kitchen and Grey crept back to his kennel.
    While the animals
prowled the camp, Nathan stared up at the bunk above his own and listened to the
sounds of other soldiers snoring and muttering in their sleep. He worried that
he’d made a terrible mistake in agreeing to come here and if he were truly
honest he was completely terrified of having to jump out of a plane. Just the
thought of it made him feel sick. He wished he’d said no, but he felt he
hadn’t really had a choice when Lieutenant Colonel Richardson asked him, and
he really didn’t want to let the colonel down. He was far more worried about
jumping from the plane than going on an undercover mission once he’d
landed.
    As soon as the reveille sounded at 6.30
a.m., Nathan headed over to check on Grey, but as he approached he saw two uniformed
men standing in front of Grey’s kennel. They seemed to be shouting at him.
Nathan started running towards them.
    ‘
Sitzen,
hund!
’ yelled one of the men, who wore a pilot’s uniform.
    ‘
Stehan!
’ shrieked
the other, who had on Army Air Corps kit.
    Grey watched the men attentively, his
head tilted to one side and then the other. He didn’t look like he was even on
his lead. They must have released his collar.
    ‘
Sprechen sie Deutsch,
Hund?
’
    Nathan came running over.
    ‘Hey, what are you doing?’
he yelled. ‘Leave my dog alone. Why’ve you removed his collar? He could
have run off.’
    ‘We didn’t take his collar
off.’
    ‘He wasn’t wearing it when
we got here.’
    Nathan didn’t believe them for a
minute. ‘I suppose he took it off himself, did he?’ he muttered as he
put a tail-wagging Grey’s collar back on him.
    ‘Didn’t you hear?’ the
pilot, whose name was Tommy, said.
    ‘Hear
what?’ Nathan asked him.
    ‘Your dog might be able to
speak.’
    Nathan clenched his fists.
    ‘What on earth are you talking
about?’ he said. The two men were a lot