The Dog Who Could Fly by Damien Lewis Read Free Book Online Page A

back to the squadron’s airbase at St. Dizier.
    The twin-seat, single-engine training plane—a Potez 25—was just the job to introduce an inexperienced flier to the air. The little dog trembled against his ribs as Robert started the engine, but a pat and a few gentle words soon calmed him. He behaved perfectly throughout the rest of the flight, and Robert felt a surge of pride in his new charge. What a team they made. Not only did they have their fighting spirit in common, but like him this little dog seemed born to fly.
    •  •  •
    While Robert and Pierre had dived through the fog over the German lines, the six fellow Czechs in Robert’s squadron had been flying high above them, battling a flight of German Messerschmitts. They had seen much of the doomed aircraft’s desperate last moments, and they’d assumed that Robert and Pierre had perished as the Potez went down. Consequently, they had drunk heavily to help speed their friends’ “journey upstairs,” in traditional Czech style.
    At first they were almost too hungover to take in the sight of Robert breezing back into the base, some twenty-four hours after they’d believed him killed in action. Then there were wild cheers, slaps onthe back, and promises of a good many rounds of drinks that night to celebrate his great escape.
    The Czech airmen had formed something like a close-knit family in exile. While serving in their own country’s air force, they had bonded like young men do during wartime. But since Hitler’s invasion had forced them out of their country, they had become united in one driving desire— to kill Nazis . Since they were stuck in France they had decided to adopt the motto of Alexandre Dumas’s Three Musketeers: “All for one, one for all.” And now they had an eighth musketeer joining their number in Robert’s puppy dog.
    Although they didn’t know it at the time, the lives of these men would be intimately bound up in the fate of their newfound four-legged friend. Robert’s fellow Czechs were Joska, twenty-four, and Josef, twenty-six, both crack shots; Karel, a slim, twenty-three-year-old ladies’ man; the avuncular Vlasta, thirty-five; Ludva, twenty-seven, nicknamed “Flame” for his red hair and fiery temper; and Gustav, at eighteen the baby of the party. All were single, and most importantly right now all were self-confessed dog lovers.
    As they played with Robert’s puppy dog the memories he evoked of family life reminded them of their loathing for the enemy that had driven them from their homeland. In no time each of the airmen had taken the little dog to his heart. No animal could have had more devoted protectors. The seven truly had become eight.
    They would need a name for their new member, though. They debated long and hard. Such an obvious aristocrat of the breed deserved a noble moniker, they reasoned. Lord? Duke? Rex? All seemed a bit grand for a puppy that had yet to be house-trained. Karel lost the plot and suggested Emigrant; he was hit by a barrage of flying boots and books for his trouble. Then Joska, a handsome dark-skinned lad with a fine head of curls, had a brainstorm.
    “I know,” he said. “Remember that grand old plane we used to flog around the skies back home?”
    “The ANT!” they shouted in unison, recalling the Russian Pe-2 dive-bomber they had all loved to fly. It had been designated the ANT by the Czech Air Force, and it was one of the best ground-attack aircraft then in service.
    “That’s it!” Robert exclaimed. “Joska, you’ve got it! We’ll call him Ant in honor of our aircraft. Let’s drink to it.”
    So it was that Ant was christened with all the exuberance of a baby in peacetime, except that he was toasted in beer rather than champagne.
    •  •  •
    The days passed. The rest of that winter of 1939–1940 was relatively quiet, for the “phony war” offered little chance of action or combat flying. Ant grew steadily and developed an assertive streak in keeping with a