Bruce Part 16

Corporal Freund did not thrill, as usual, to the colonel's grunt of approval. The Corporal was worried. He was a Black Forest peasant; and, while iron military life had dulled his native superst.i.tions, it had not dispelled them.

The night was mystic, in its odd blend of moon and shadows. However hardened one may be, it is a nerve-strain to creep through long gra.s.s, like a red Indian, to the murder of a hostile sentinel. And every German in the "Pocket" had been under frightful mental and physical stress, for the past week.

Corporal Rudolph Freund was a brave man and a brute. But that week had sapped his nerve. And the work of this night had been the climax. The desolate ground, over which he had crawled to the killing, had suddenly seemed peopled with evil gnomes and goblins, whose existence no true Black Forest peasant can doubt. And, on the run back, he had been certain he heard some unseen monster tearing through the underbrush in hot pursuit of him. So certain had he been, that he had redoubled his speed.

There were no wolves or other large wild animals in that region. When he had wriggled toward the slow-pacing American sentinel, he had seen and heard no creature of any sort. Yet he was sure that on the way back he had been pursued by--by Something! And into his scared memory, as he ran, had flashed the ofttold Black Forest tale of the Werewolf--the devil--beast that is entered by the soul of a murdered man and which tracks the murderer to his death.

Glad was the unnerved Corporal Freund when his run ceased and he stood close to his grossly solid and rank-scented fellowmen once more. Almost he was inclined to laugh at his fears of the fabled Werewolf--and especially at the idea that he had been pursued. He drew a long breath of relief. He drew the breath in. But he did not at once expel it. For on his ears came the sound of a hideous menacing growl.

Corporal Freund spun about, in the direction of the mysterious threat.

And there, not thirty feet from him, in the ghostly moonlight, stood the Werewolf!

This time there could be no question of overstrained nerves and of imagination. The Thing was THERE!

Horribly visible in every detail, the Werewolf was glaring at him. He could see the red glow of the gigantic devil-beast's eyes, the white flash of its teeth, the ghostly s.h.i.+mmering of its snowy chest. The soul of the man he had slain had taken this traditional form and was hunting down the slayer! A thousand stories of Freund's childhood verified the frightful truth. And overwrought human nature's endurance went to pieces under the shock.

A maniac howl of terror split the midnight stillness. Shriek after shriek rent the air. Freund tumbled convulsively to the ground at his colonel's feet, gripping the officer's booted knees and screeching for protection. The colonel, raging that the surprise attack should be imperiled by such a racket, beat the frantic man over the mouth with his heavy fist, kicking ferociously at his upturned writhing face, and snarling to him to be silent.

The shower of blows brought Freund back to sanity, to the extent of changing his craven terror into Fear's secondary phase--the impulse to strike back at the thing that had caused the fright. Rolling over and over on the ground, under the impact of his superior's fist blows and kicks, Freund somehow regained his feet.

Reeling up to the nearest soldier, the panic-crazed corporal s.n.a.t.c.hed the private's rifle and fired three times, blindly, at Bruce. Then, foaming at the mouth, Freund fell heavily to earth again, chattering and twitching in a fit.

Bruce, at the second shot, leaped high in the air, and collapsed, in an inert furry heap, among the bushes. There he lay,--his career as a courier-dog forever ended.

Corporal Rudolph Freund was perhaps the best sniper in his regiment.

Wildly though he had fired, marksman-instinct had guided his bullets.

And at such close range there was no missing. Bruce went to earth with one rifle ball through his body, and another in his leg. A third had reached his skull.

Now, the complete element of surprise was all-needful for the attack the Germans had planned against the "Here-We-Comes." Deprived of that advantage the expedition was doomed to utter failure. For, given a chance to wake and to rally, the regiment could not possibly be "rushed," in vivid moonlight, before the nearest Allied forces could move up to its support. And those forces were only a mile or so to the rear. There can be no possible hope for a surprise attack upon a well-appointed camp when the night's stillness has been shattered by a series of maniac screams and by three echoing rifle-shots.

Already the guard was out. A bugle was blowing. In another minute, the sentry-calls would locate the gap made by the three murdered sentinels.

A swift guttural conference among the leaders of the gray-clad marauders was followed by the barking of equally guttural commands. And the Germans withdrew as quietly and as rapidly as they had come.

It was the mouthing and jabbering of the fit-possessed Corporal Rudolph Freund that drew to him the notice of a squad of Yankees led by Top-Sergeant Mahan, ten minutes later. It was the shudder--accompanied pointing of the delirious man's finger, toward the nearby clump of undergrowth, that revealed to them the still warm body of Bruce.

Back to camp, carried lovingly in Mahan's strong arms, went all that was left of the great courier-dog. Back to camp, propelled between two none-too-gentle soldiers, staggered the fit-ridden Corporal Freund.

At the colonel's quarters, a compelling dose of stimulant cleared some of the mists from the prisoner's brain. His nerve and his will-power still gone to smash, he babbled eagerly enough of the night attack, of the killing of the sentries and of his encounter with the Werewolf.

"I saw him fall!" he raved. "But he is not dead. The Werewolf can be killed only by a silver bullet, marked with a cross and blessed by a priest. He will live to track me down! Lock me where he cannot find me, for the sake of sweet mercy!"

And in this way, the "Here-We-Comes" learned of Bruce's part in the night's averted disaster.

Old Vivier wept unashamed over the body of the dog he had loved.

Top-Sergeant Mahan--the big tears splas.h.i.+ng, unnoted, from his own red eyes--besought the Frenchman to strive for better self-control and not to set a cry-baby example to the men.

Then a group of grim-faced soldiers dug a grave. And, carried by Mahan and Vivier, the beautiful dog's body was borne to its resting-place. A throng of men in the gray dawn stood wordless around the grave. Some one shamefacedly took off his hat. With equal shamefacedness, everybody else followed the example.

Mahan laid the dog's body on the ground, at the grave's brink. Then, looking about him, he cleared his throat noisily and spoke.

"Boys," he began, "when a human dies for other humans, there's a Christian burial service read over him. I'd have asked the chaplain to read one over Bruce, here, if I hadn't known he'd say no. But the Big Dog isn't going to rest without a word said over his grave, for all that."

Mahan cleared his throat noisily once more, winked fast, then went on:--

"You can laugh at me, if any of you feel like it. But there's some of you here who wouldn't be alive to laugh, if Bruce hadn't done what he did last night. He was only just a dog--with no soul, and with no life after this one, I s'pose. So he went ahead and did his work and took the risks, and asked no pay.

"And by and by he died, still doing his work and asking no pay.

"He didn't work with the idea of getting a cross or a ribbon or a promotion or a pension or his name in the paper or to make the crowd cheer him when he got back home, or to brag to the homefolks about how he was a hero. He just went ahead and WAS a hero. That's because he was only a dog, with no soul--and not a man.

"All of us humans are working for some reward, even if it's only for our pay or for the fun of doing our share. But Bruce was a hero because he was just a dog, and because he didn't know enough to be anything else but a hero.

"I've heard about him, before he joined up with us. I guess most of us have. He lived up in Jersey, somewhere. With folks that had bred him.

I'll bet a year's pay he was made a lot of by those folks; and that it wrenched 'em to let him go. You could see he'd been brought up that way. Life must 'a' been pretty happy for the old chap, back there. Then he was picked up and slung into the middle of this h.e.l.l.

"So was the rest of us, says you. But you're wrong. Those of us that waited for the draft had our choice of going to the hoosgow, as 'conscientious objectors,' if we didn't want to fight. And every mother's son of us knew we was fighting for the Right; and that we was making the world a decenter and safer place for our grandchildren and our womenfolks to live in. We didn't brag about G.o.d being on our side, like the boches do. It was enough for us to know WE was on G.o.d'S side and fighting His great fight for Him. We had patriotism and religion and Right, behind us, to give us strength.

"Brucie hadn't a one of those things. He didn't know what he was here for--and why he'd been pitched out of his nice home, into all this. He didn't have a chance to say Yes or No. He didn't have any spellbinders to tell him he was making the world safe for d'mocracy. He was MADE to come.

"How would any of us humans have acted, if a deal like that had been handed to us? We'd 'a' grouched and slacked and maybe deserted. That's because we're lords of creation and have souls and brains and such.

What did Bruce do? He jumped into this game, with bells on. He risked his life a hundred times; and he was just as ready to risk it again the next day.

"Yes, and he knew he was risking it, too. There's blame little he didn't know. He saw war-dogs, all around him, choking to death from gas, or screaming their lives out, in No Man's Land, when a bit of sh.e.l.l had disemboweled 'em or a bullet had cracked their backbones. He saw 'em starve to death. He saw 'em one b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.s of scars and sores.

He saw 'em die of pneumonia and mange and every rotten trench disease.

And he knew it might be his turn, any time at all, to die as they were dying; and he knew the humans was too busy nursing other humans, to have time to spare on caring for tortured dogs. (Though those same dogs were dying for the humans, if it comes to that.)

"Yes, Bruce knew what the end was bound to be. He knew it. And he kept on, as gay and as brave as if he was on a day's romp. He never flinched. Not even that time the K.O. sent him up the hill for reenforcements at Rache, when every sharpshooter in the boche trenches was laying for him, and when the machine guns were trained on him, too.

Bruce knew he was running into death--, then and a dozen other times.

And he went at it like a white man.

"I'm--I'm getting longwinded. And I'll stop. But--maybe if you boys will remember the Big Dog--and what he did for us,--when you get back home,--if you'll remember him and what he did and what thousands of other war-dogs have done,--then maybe you'll be men enough to punch the jaw of any guy who gets to saying that dogs are nuisances and that vivisection's a good thing, and all that. If you'll just do that much, then--well, then Bruce hasn't lived and died for nothing!

"Brucie, old boy," bending to lift the tawny body and lower it into the grave, "it's good-by. It's good-by to the cleanest, whitest pal that a poor dub of a doughboy ever had. I--"

Mahan glowered across at the clump of silent men.

"If anybody thinks I'm crying," he continued thickly, "he's a liar. I got a cold, and--"

"Sacre bon Dieu!" yelled old Vivier, insanely. "Regarde-donc! Nom d'une pipe!"

He knelt quickly beside the body, in an ecstasy of excitement. The others craned their necks to see. Then from a hundred throats went up a gasp of amazement.

Bruce, slowly and dazedly, was lifting his magnificent head!

"Chase off for the surgeon!" bellowed Mahan, plumping down on his knees beside Vivier and examining the wound in the dog's scalp. "The bullet only creased his skull! It didn't go through! It's just put him out for a few hours, like I've seen it do to men. Get the surgeon! If that bullet in his body didn't hit something vital, we'll pull him around, yet! GLORY BE!"