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“Somewhere in France,” and not far from Verdun, a little village occupied a very important position in the Allies line. It was held by a garrison consisting of a few hundred French soldiers, who had orders to hold on until they were relieved.
The enemy had succeeded in cutting them off from their friends in the rear,but they fought on bravely alone. For days they had hindered the German advance, answering the enemy batteries with a steady stream of shells.
But now their ammunition was giving out, and there was no way of getting more, for the enemy was in possession of every road. Worst of all, the Germans had managed to plant a battery on the left in a position from which it could pour a deadly fire into the French town. Owing to the shortage of shells, only a weak reply could be made by the garrison. If the latter could only let the French army know the position of that battery, it might yet be silenced in time. But there was no way of letting it know. The telephone and telegraph wires had been cut, the last homing pigeons had been killed by a bursting shell, and every other means of communication was destroyed.
With the French garrison was a famous dog trainer named Duval, from the war dog school at Satory. He had been sent to the front with two dogs,Rip and Satan, both in the messenger o service of the French army. Rip, a soft-eyed Irish setter, was killed in action soon after his arrival, and Satan had been left with the French troops two miles in the rear of the now isolated town where his master was stationed.
Satan was an ideal messenger dog, swift-limbed, intelligent, and absolutely fearless under fire. He was black as night, a mongrel by birth, but a thoroughbred by nature. His father was a champion English greyhound, and from him he inherited his speed. His mother was a working Scotch collie that had won more than one silver cup at the sheep-dog trials in Scotland.
Satan loved just one man in all the world, and that man was Duval.Together they had walked several times over the ground which now stretched between them, and Duval knew that if their friends in the rear had any message to send, Satan would bring it if it could be brought. So every little while he would raise his head cautiously and look out over the shelltorn ground, hoping to see his dog.
At last he started forward with a great cry, “Voilà! Satan! Satan!” At first his companions could see nothing but a black speck moving toward them from the distance. But presently the black speck took the form of a dog—a black dog wearing a gas mask and skimming the earth as he came. As he raced over the rough ground and leaped the shell holes, some of the men declared that he was flying—that they even saw his wings. But the ground was fairly smoking under the enemy fire, and no one but Duval believed that even this great speed and courage would save him from death. Perhaps they were right, for down he went as a German bullet found its mark.
Duval saw him as he fell, and saw him stagger to his feet again, confused and faltering. Taking his life in his hands the man leaped to the top of the trench wall in full view of the enemy, and heedless of the bullets which sang around him, shouted at the top of his voice: “Satan! Satan! Come, mon ami!For France! For —!” A bullet cut him down.
But Satan had seen and heard, and with a frantic yelp—of pain or joy,no one could tell— once more he was into his stride. On three legs now, and with the fourth swinging loose at the hip, he moved swiftly toward his goal.As he swept into the town a dozen hands caught him, and from a metal tube on his collar they took a message which read: “For God’s sake, hold on.Will send troops to relieve you tomorrow.” It was signed by a well-known officer whose word could be relied on, and a cheer went up from the weary men. But how could they hold on? How was it possible with that German battery withering them with its fire? But the metal tube containing the message was not all that Satan had brought them. What some of the men had mistaken for wings on his shoulders were two little baskets, and in each basket there was a homing pigeon frightened almost to death.
An officer took a message pad of tissue paper and wrote upon it: “Silence the battery on our left.” Then he added some figures showing the exact position of the battery. The message was folded and placed in a small aluminum capsule, and that was attached to the leg of a pigeon. A copy of the message was entrusted to the other bird, and both were tossed into the air. Away they went as if they knew the importance of their work,and the men in the town watched them as they sped toward the French lines far away. Then a score of German rifles cracked, and one of the little messengers fell earthward with a mist of blue-gray feathers in his wake.
But the other pigeon passed through the hail of bullets unhurt, and flew straight to his loft, where an alert young officer caught him up. The anxious men of the garrison did not see their message read, nor could they hear the sharp, terse order given to the waiting gunners. But they heard the deep roar of the big French guns which smothered with bursting shells the German battery on their left, and they knew that the town was saved.
( Ernest Harold Baynes )
Ernest Harold Baynes (1868-1925), the naturalist-author, lived in Meriden,New Hampshire. He was an authority on the service of birds and animals in the World War, having been sent overseas to the front to make a permanent history of the war work done by animals. Because of this, his story, Satan, the War Dog, has peculiar interest. Mr. Baynes was a member of the American Bison Society and the National Association of Audubon Societies, and was president of the Meriden Humane Society. He organized the Meriden Bird Club, which has made his town a refuge spot for birds, and the Bird Club of Long Island, of which Theodore Roosevelt was president. Mr. Baynes’s book, Wild Bird Guests,was written to interest people in protecting birds. It has a preface by Colonel Roosevelt, in which he says, “The Meriden Club has furnished a model for all similar experiments in preserving bird life, and Mr. Baynes writes in advocacy of a cause which by practical achievement he has shown to be entitled to the support of every sensible man, woman, and child in the country.”
garrison : body of troops, arms
mongrel : a dog of mixed breed
voila : there it is!
mon ami: my friend
terse : brief
A) Answer the following questions.
1) In what war did this story occur?
2) What made the situation of the French garrison unbearable?
3) How did Satan save the town?
4) What did Satan bring besides the message?
5) What happened to the homing pigeons?
6) What can we tell about the personality of Satan?
B) Fill in the blanks—Complete the sentences with words from the story.
1) V_ _ _ _ _ is a town in France.
2) The G_ _ _ _ _ _ were fighting against the French
3) Satan loved D _ _ _ _.
4) Satan was a m _ _ _ _ _ _.
5) One pigeon was cut down by a b _ _ _ _ _.
C) Write a brief summary for this story.