The Bomber Dog by Megan Rix Read Free Book Online

out.
    ‘Who’s this, then?’
Michael asked, as hecrouched down and patted Grey. Grey wagged his
tail and nuzzled his head into him. Michael smelt of all the dogs he’d stroked
that day, which was a lot.
    ‘I call him Grey,’ Nathan
said.
    ‘So Grey, you want to be an army
dog, do you?’ Grey sniffed at Michael’s pocket and Michael laughed.
‘Well, we can’t expect you to work for nothing can we?’ He pulled
a biscuit from his pocket and Grey wolfed it down gratefully.
    Over a strong cup of tea Nathan told
Michael the story of how he and Grey had met.
    ‘Doesn’t look much like a
stray, does he?’ Michael observed, looking at the shiny-coated dog. ‘Bit
thin, of course, but nice coat and teeth and good clear eyes.’
    ‘I gave him a bath before we left
this morning,’ Nathan grinned.
    ‘You gave a stray adult dog a bath
– and he let you?’ Michael said, looking astonished.‘You’re a braver man than I am. Ever thought about becoming a dog
handler for the army? You seem to have a knack.’
    Grey gazed up at Nathan as Michael
looked down at Grey.
    ‘And I can see that Grey thinks
the world of you. Usually the first few weeks are spent building a bond between dog
and handler, but you two have already got that,’ Michael said.
    Nathan pulled his call-up papers from
his pocket.
    ‘Unfortunately I can’t,
although I would if I could. If you could just give him a chance,’ Nathan
said.
    ‘Don’t worry
yourself,’ Michael told him. ‘I can see he’s a special dog and
your affection for him just confirms that. I’ll make sure he gets a fair
trial.’
    ‘Will you be his handler?’
Nathan asked hopefully.
    Michael shrugged. ‘I don’t
know – probablynot. There are so many dogs here, but I’ll
keep a special eye on him whether I’m his handler or not.’ He put down
his teacup. ‘Do you want to see where he’s going to sleep?’
    ‘Sure.’ Nathan got to his
feet and Grey immediately responded by standing up too.
    He was very interested in the different
smells coming from the camp and the dogs in the kennels. So long as Nathan was with
him it was all interesting and he trotted along beside him, his tail up
confidently.
    Nathan stared at the rows of wooden dog
kennels. It looked like an army barracks for canines. There was a lot of noise
coming from them as dogs barked and whined, some of them standing up on their hind
legs to watch the newcomers as they passed their doors. Grey looked interested,
sniffed at some of the dogs and wagged his tail, but jumped back from a snarling
Yorkshire terrier.
    ‘Some of these dogs are here to be
assessedbut others are being trained as guard dogs, tracker dogs
and infantry dogs and also messenger dogs,’ Michael told Nathan. ‘That
little Yorkie looks like it should be a guard dog. It’d see anyone
off.’
    ‘What are tracker and infantry
dogs?’ Nathan asked.
    ‘Tracker dogs are given the scent
of someone or something and trained to find it. Infantry dogs are trained to
silently alert troops to an enemy danger by looking in the direction of the sound
and not barking,’ Michael told him. ‘Then there are the messenger dogs.
Some dogs can take messages between handlers up to eight miles apart, but one mile
is usually the maximum distance the army expects from them.’
    ‘Sounds like we need a lot of
dogs,’ Nathan said, and Michael grinned.
    ‘There’s even talk of some
of them being trained as parachute dogs,’ he said.
    Nathan gave him a look of utter
disbelief.
    ‘It’s
true,’ Michael insisted.
    Nathan shook his head. ‘No one can
possibly expect a dog to jump out of a plane hundreds of feet up in the air.
That’s just crazy.’
    ‘Maybe. But I’d love to be a
paratrooper, wouldn’t you? I can just imagine it.’
    Nathan shook his head because he
didn’t want to imagine it. He’d been terrified of heights ever since
he’d fallen off the garden shed when he was eight.
    ‘I don’t think
there’ll be many dogs that’d make the