Michael Morpurgo - Morpurgo War Stories

“Course,” I said.

“Well, she’s always been my favourite ever since. And then this afternoon the Colonel comes by the kennels and tells me … he tells me he’s going to have to shoot Bertha. So I ask him why. Because she’s getting a bit old, a bit slow, he says. Because whenever they go out hunting she’s always going off on her own and getting herself lost. She’s no use for hunting any more, he says, no use to anyone. I asked him not to, Tommo. I told him she was my favourite. ‘Favourite!’ he says, laughing at me. ‘Favourite? How can you have a favourite? Lot of sentimental claptrap. She’s just one of a pack of dumb beasts, boy, and don’t you forget it.’ I begged him, Tommo. I told him he shouldn’t do it. That’s when he got really angry. He said they’re his foxhounds and he’d shoot them as and when he felt like it, and he didn’t want any more lip from me about it. So you know what I did, Tommo? I stole her. I ran off with her after dark, through the trees so no one would see us.”

“Where is she now?” I asked. “What’ve you done with her?”

“Remember that old forester’s shack Father used, up in Ford’s Cleave Wood? I’ve put her in there for the night. I gave her some food. Molly pinched some meat for me from the kitchen. She’ll be all right up there. No one’ll hear her, with a bit of luck anyway.”

“But what’ll you do with her tomorrow? What if the Colonel finds out?”

“I don’t know, Tommo,” Charlie said. “I don’t know.”

We hardly slept a wink that night. I lay there listening out for Bertha all the while. When I did drop off, I kept waking up suddenly thinking I had heard Bertha barking. But always it turned out to be a screeching fox. And once it was an owl hooting, right outside our window.

I haven’t seen a fox while I've been out here. It’s hardly surprising, I suppose. But I have heard owls. How any bird can survive in all this I‘ll never know. I've even seen larks over no-man’s-land. I always found hope in that.

“He’ll know,” Charlie whispered to me in bed at dawn. “As soon as they find Bertha gone, the Colonel will know it was me. I won’t tell him where she is. I don’t care what he does, I won’t tell him.”

Charlie and I ate our breakfast in silence, hoping the inevitable storm wouldn’t break, but knowing that sooner or later it must. Big Joe sensed something was wrong — he could always feel anxiety in the air. He was rocking back and forth and wouldn’t touch his breakfast. So then Mother knew something was up as well. Once she was suspicious Mother was a difficult person to hide things from, and we weren’t very good at it, not that morning.

“Is Molly coming over?” she asked, beginning to probe.

There was a loud and insistent knocking on the door. She could tell at once it wouldn’t be Molly. It was too early for Molly, and anyway she didn’t knock like that. Besides, I think she could already see from our faces that Charlie and I were expecting an unwelcome visitor. As we feared, it was the Colonel.

Mother invited him in. He stood there glaring at us, thin-lipped and pale with fury. “I think you know why I’ve come, Mrs Peaceful,” he began.

“No, Colonel, I don’t,” said Mother.

“So the young devil hasn’t told you.” He was shouting now, shaking his stick at Charlie. Big Joe began to whimper and clutched Mother’s hand as the Colonel ranted on.

“That boy of yours is a despicable thief. First of all he steals the salmon out of my river. And now, in my employ, in a position of trust, he steals one of my foxhounds. Don’t deny it, boy. I know it was you. Where is she? Is she here? Is she?”

Mother looked to Charlie for an explanation. “He was going to shoot her, Mother,” he said quickly. “I had to do it.”

“You see!” roared the Colonel. “He admits it! He admits it!” Big Joe was beginning to wail now and Mother was smoothing his hair, trying to reassure and comfort him as she spoke. “So you took her in order to save her, Charlie, is that right?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have done that, Charlie, should you?”

“No, Mother.”

“Will you tell the Colonel where you’ve hidden her?”

“No, Mother.”

Mother thought for a moment or two. “I didn’t think so,” she said. She looked the Colonel full in the face. “Colonel, am I right in thinking that if you were going to shoot this dog, presumably it was because she’s no use to you any more — as a foxhound I mean?”

“Yes,” the Colonel replied, “but what I do with my own animals, or why I do it, is no business of yours, Mrs Peaceful. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Of course not, Colonel,” Mother spoke softly, sweetly almost, “but if you were going to shoot her anyway, then you wouldn’t mind if I were to take her off your hands and look after her, would you?”

“You can do what you like with the damned dog,” the Colonel snapped. “You can bloody well eat her for all I care. But your son stole her from me and I will not let that go unpunished.”

Mother asked Big Joe to fetch the money mug from the mantelpiece. “Here, Colonel,” she said, calmly offering him a coin from the money mug. “Sixpence. I’m buying the dog off you for sixpence, not a bad price for a useless dog. So now it’s not stolen, is it?”

The Colonel was utterly dumbfounded. He looked from the coin in his hand to Mother, to Charlie. He was breathing hard. Then, regaining his composure, he pocketed the sixpence in his waistcoat and pointed his stick at Charlie. “Very well, but you can consider yourself no longer in my employ.” With that he turned on his heel and went out, slamming the door behind him. We listened to his footsteps going down the path, heard the front gate squeaking.

Charlie and I went mad, mostly out of sheer relief, but also quite overwhelmed with gratitude and admiration. What a mother we had! We whooped and yahooed. Big Joe was happy again, and sang Oranges and Lemons as he gambolled wildly round the kitchen.

“I don’t know what you’ve got to be so almightily pleased about,” said Mother when we had all calmed down. “You do know you’ve just lost your job, Charlie?”

“I don’t care,” said Charlie. “He can stuff his stinking job. I’ll find another. You put the silly old fart in his place good and proper. And we’ve got Bertha.”

“Where is that dog anyway?” Mother asked.

“I’ll show you,” Charlie said.

We waited for Molly to come and then we all went off up to Ford’s Cleave Wood together. As we neared the shack, we could hear Bertha yowling. Charlie ran on ahead and opened the door. Out she came, bounding up to us, squeaking with delight, her tail swiping at our legs. She jumped up at all of us, licking everything she could, but right away she seemed to attach herself particularly to Big Joe. She followed him everywhere after that. She even slept on his bed at nights — Big Joe insisted on that no matter how much Mother protested. She’d sit under his apple tree howling up at him while he sang to her from high up in the branches. He only had to start singing and she’d join in, so from now on he never sang his Oranges and Lemons unaccompanied. He never did anything unaccompanied. They were always together. He fed her, brushed her and cleared up her frequent puddles (which were more like lakes). Big Joe had found a new friend and he was in seventh heaven.