第22章 The War Dog(7)

"I'll buy Vivier all the red-ink wine he can gargle, next pay-day!" he vowed. "He was dead right about the dog. No bullet was ever molded that can get--"Mahan broke off in his exultation, with an explosive oath, as a new note in the firing smote upon his trained hearing.

"The swine!" he roared. "The filthy, unsportsmanly, dog-eating Prussian swine! They're turning MACHINE-GUNS on him!"In place of the intermittent rattle of rifleshots now came the purring cough of rapidfire guns. The bullets hit the upper hillside in swathes, beginning a few yards behind the flying collie and moving upward toward him like a sweeping of an unseen scythe.

"That's the wind-up!" groaned Mahan. "Lord, send me an even break against one of those Hun machinegunners some day! If--"Again Mahan failed to finish his train of thought. He stared open-mouthed up the hill. Almost at the very summit, within a rod or two of the point where the crest would intervene between him and his foes, Bruce whirled in mid-air and fell prone.

The fast-following swaths of machine-gun bullets had not reached him. But another German enemy had. From behind a heap of offal, on the crest, a yellow-gray dog had sprung, and had launched himself bodily upon Bruce's flank as the unnoticing collie had flashed past him.

The assailant was an enormous and hyena-like German police-dog.

He was one of the many of his breed that were employed (for work or food) in the German camps, and which used to sneak away from their hard-kicking soldier-owners to ply a more congenial trade as scavengers, and as seekers for the dead. For, in traits as well as in looks, the police-dog often emulates the ghoulish hyena.

Seeing the approaching collie (always inveterate foe of his kind), the police-dog had gauged the distance and had launched his surprise attack with true Teuton sportsmanship and efficiency. Down went Bruce under the fierce weight that crashed against his shoulder. But before the other could gain his coveted throat-grip, Bruce was up again. Like a furry whirlwind he was at the police-dog, fighting more like a wolf than a civilized collie --tearing into his opponent with a maniac rage, snapping, slashing; his glittering white fangs driving at a dozen vulnerable points in a single second.

It was as though Bruce knew he had no time to waste from his life-and-death mission. He could not elude this enemy, so he must finish him as quickly as possible.

"Give me your rifle!" sputtered Mahan to the soldier nearest him.

"I'll take one potshot at that Prussian cur, before the machine-guns get the two of 'em. Even if I hit Bruce by mistake, he'd rather die by a Christian Yankee-made bullet than--"Just then the scythelike machine-gun fire reached the hillcrest combatants. And in the same instant a shell smote the ground, apparently between them. Up went a geyser of smoke and dirt and rocks. When the cloud settled, there was a deep gully in the ground where a moment earlier Bruce and the police-dog had waged their death-battle.

"That settles it!" muttered the colonel.

And he went to make ready for such puny defense as his men might hope to put up against the German rush.

While these futile preparations were still under way, terrific artillery fire burst from the Allied batteries behind the hill, shielding the Here-We-Come trenches with a curtain of fire whose lower folds draped themselves right unlovingly around the German lines. Under cover of this barrage, down the hill swarmed the Allied reserves!

"How did you get word?" demanded the astonished colonel of the Here-We-Comes, later in the day.

"From your note, of course," replied the general he had questioned. "The collie--old Bruce.""Bruce?" babbled the colonel foolishly.

"Of course," answered the general. "Who else? But I'm afraid it's the last message he'll ever deliver. He came rolling and staggering up to headquarters--one mass of blood, and three inches thick with caked dirt. His right side was torn open from a shell-wound, and he had two machine-gun bullets in his shoulder.

He's deaf as a post, too, from shell-shock. He tumbled over in a heap on the steps of headquarters. But he GOT there. That's Bruce, all over. That's the best type of collie, all over. Some of us were for putting him out of his misery with a shot through the head. We'd have done it, too, if it had been any other dog.

But the surgeon-general waded in and took a hand in the game--carried Bruce to his own quarters. We left him working over the dog himself. And he swears Bruce will pull through!"