A Soldier's Friend Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Puffin

  MEGAN RIX lives with her husband by a river in England. When she’s not writing she can be found walking her two golden retrievers, Traffy and Bella, who are often in the river.

  Books by Megan Rix

  THE BOMBER DOG

  THE GREAT ESCAPE

  A SOLDIER’S FRIEND

  THE VICTORY DOGS

  Don’t miss Megan’s exciting new story,

  publishing in autumn 2014.

  www.meganrix.com

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Praise for Megan Rix:

  ‘If you love Michael Morpurgo, you’ll enjoy this’ Sunday Express

  ‘A moving tale told with warmth, kindliness and lashings of good sense that lovers of Dick King-Smith will especially appreciate’ The Times

  ‘Every now and then a writer comes along with a unique way of storytelling … Meet Megan Rix … her novels are deeply moving and will strike a chord with animal lovers’ LoveReading.com

  Praise from Megan’s young readers:

  ‘I never liked reading until one day I was in Waterstones and I picked up some books. One was … called The Bomber Dog. I loved it so much I couldn’t put it down’ Luke, 8

  ‘I found this book amazing’ Nayah, 11

  ‘EPIC BOOK!!!’ Jessica, 13

  ‘One of my favourite books’ Chloe, 12

  ‘I swear this is the best story I have ever read in my entire life’ Rashmi, 10

  The little creature was running for all he was

  worth, hopping, jumping, plunging, all with the

  most obvious concentration of purpose …

  – British War Dogs, Their Training and

  Psychology, Lt.-Col E. H. Richardson

  Chapter 1

  The little shaggy-coated cairn terrier puppy trotted down the cobblestoned street in the late afternoon sunshine. Every now and again he looked up at his owner through the grey fur that half flopped over one of his eyes and his little tail wagged happily. But the man didn’t reach down and pat him like the little dog wanted him to. He didn’t even look at the pup.

  ‘This’ll do as well as any,’ the man muttered gruffly as they came to a stop outside a large grey building that loomed above them with a sign in front of it saying BATTERSEA MUNITIONS FACTORY.

  The small puppy looked up expectantly with his head cocked to one side. His tail still wagged while his lead was tied to a post. Perhaps this was a new game? He tried to lick his owner’s hand, but was brushed away.

  ‘None of that now,’ the man muttered briskly.

  The puppy sat down. He watched as the man stood up and turned away. Then the little dog jumped up and tried to follow his owner as he headed off down the street, but a second later the little pup was jerked back by his lead. He pulled again, as hard as he could, twisting this way and that, but he couldn’t get loose. He barked and then he barked again, now desperate, but his owner didn’t come back.

  Further along the street, just around the corner, nineteen-year-old Oliver Peters paused before kicking the football into the improvised goal marked out with his cap and his friend’s jacket. There it was again, that strange cry. It sounded like some kind of animal. A dog, he thought. A dog in distress.

  Oliver frowned; he hated any animal to be frightened or in pain. He tried to work out which direction the sound had come from, but the high yap didn’t come again and he assumed the dog’s owner must have returned.

  Fourteen-year-old Ivor interrupted the hush that had descended on the fifteen or so men and boys who were playing the game, as they waited for Oliver to shoot.

  ‘Get on with it,’ he shouted from the front garden wall that he was sitting on.

  ‘The enemy would have got him by now,’ Ivor’s friend Thumbs, also on the wall, agreed.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ivor snickered. ‘You’re going to lose the war for us, you are, Oliver.’

  Oliver didn’t even hear Ivor as he worked out the best angle for his shot. The two things he loved most were animals and football.

  ‘Shut up, you two,’ Patrick told Ivor and Thumbs, coming over to them.

  Patrick was the same age as Oliver, and his best friend. They were apprentices at the same factory, lived in the same digs and had joined up to fight in the war at Battersea Recruiting Depot on the same day, as had most of the others who were playing. This was their last game before they left for the Western Front in the morning. All over the country, men had been encouraged to join up together and form what everyone called ‘PALs battalions’.

  The Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, had promised they could serve alongside their friends, neighbours and work colleagues, rather than being allocated to regular army regiments. Hundreds of PALs battalions had formed to swell the ranks and now those that were old enough in the Battersea Beasts football team would join them.

  ‘We’re only ribbing him,’ Ivor said to Patrick. ‘Can’t he take a joke?’

  ‘Just because you’re too young to sign up doesn’t mean you need to make fun of the rest of us who are going,’ Patrick told him.

  ‘It’s OK, Patrick, they just want to be part of England’s victory, like we do!’ said Oliver as he expertly kicked the ball straight into the goal that eleven-year-old Arthur was guarding.

  ‘Nooooo!’ Arthur shouted as he watched the ball bounce cleanly between the cap and jacket.

  From her open bedroom window upstairs, Arthur’s twelve-year-old sister Lizzie saw the goal being scored.

  ‘Nice goal, Oliver,’ she said, although of course he couldn’t hear her. Lizzie really liked Oliver. He always included her younger brother Arthur in the football games, and treated him like one of the older boys from the neighbourhood, even though he was only eleven. Ever since their dad had died a few years earlier, Lizzie knew how much Arthur depended on Oliver’s friendship. They all did, even Mum, so much so that Lizzie thought of him as part of their family now.

  She went back to putting her long, just washed and still damp red hair in curling rags. The six-inch-long strips of white sheeting were being awkward as she wound strands of her hair round them. She’d much rather have been outside playing football with her brother.

  A large grey tabby cat jumped up on to the window sill next to Lizzie and, with a quick miaow, ducked out of the window.

  ‘Have fun, Mouser,’ Lizzie said as she watched her cat nimbly make her way to the ground via eave and lilac bush. A moment later Mouser was heading off down the street and evading the hands of the footballers that tried to stroke her.

  ‘Here, puss …’

  ‘She only lets people stroke her when she wants to be stroked,’ Arthur told them.

  ‘Come on, Thumbs,’ Ivor said as he hopped
off the garden wall. He knew they couldn’t take Patrick on, much as they liked making snarky comments. Often they joined in with the other lads playing football on the street, but today the game had already begun by the time Ivor and Thumbs arrived.

  Ivor kicked a pebble to Thumbs and Thumbs kicked it back as they headed towards the station along the cobblestoned street.

  ‘One shilling a day they’re going to be getting paid, at least,’ Ivor said. ‘One whole shilling for joining the army.’

  ‘It isn’t fair that we’re not allowed to go to war too,’ muttered Thumbs, who was even younger than Ivor.

  As the two boys passed by the entrance to the large munitions factory, they didn’t hear the puppy’s faint whimper as he lay down on the pavement and rested his head on his paws.

  An hour passed, two hours, three, and the puppy remained tethered to the post by the factory gate. When the whistle blew for the end of the shift, he was still there.

  Exhausted women hurried past the little dog without knowing how long he’d been tied up. A few of them commented on how sweet he was as they made their weary way home.

  ‘Look at his beautiful brown eyes …’

  ‘Poor little fella, do you think he’s all alone?’

  ‘At any other time I’d stop to find out, but there’s a war on … we can’t afford to worry about stray animals.’

  Ever since war had been declared, there’d been a frenzy of activity as men enlisted and were trained to fight and women took over the jobs they’d left behind. There were women working in the factories and delivering groceries and coal. Some of them even worked down the mines. YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU posters were everywhere and more than half the male teachers at Arthur and Lizzie’s school had already left for the front so the female teachers now taught their classes as well as their own.

  The street grew quiet as the factory emptied and the puppy was quite alone again. As the sky grew darker, he tugged at his lead once more. It was frayed now, but he still couldn’t break free. He chewed on it with his sharp puppy teeth.

  The warmth of the day passed and he shivered in the cold as a storm threatened.

  Mouser was a cat that wasn’t afraid of anything she encountered on her nightly prowls, and certainly not a puppy. She stalked over to him to investigate as he jumped up, wagged his tail excitedly and yapped, jumping round the large grey tabby as far as his chewed lead would let him.

  Suddenly the little pup went deathly still at the sound of a distant rumble of thunder. He began to pant nervously as Mouser watched him with her green eyes, her tail twitching slowly. Storms and thunder held no fear for her. The puppy yelped and cowered away as the thunder came again. It was closer this time and followed by a flash of white lightning. The little dog twisted and turned. He tugged with all his might against his lead and finally it broke and he toppled over with the shock of being so suddenly released. A moment later he’d scrambled to his feet as the thunder thudded through the sky once again. And then he was off, running, not thinking, not knowing where he was going, just needing to get away from the storm.

  Mouser watched the puppy, hesitated for a second and then followed as he ran along the pavement and out on to the road in a panic.

  He didn’t see the rag-and-bone man’s cart or the horse drawing it until it was too late.

  ‘Whoa there!’ the rag-and-bone man shouted as the horse shied away rather than step on the small dog.

  The puppy rolled on to his back, showing his tummy in a sign of submission as he stared up at the huge beast, too petrified to move.

  ‘Go on – get out of it!’ the man shouted. It had been a very long day and he’d no intention of getting down from the cart for anyone or anything until they were back at the yard.

  Mouser ran into the road and nudged the puppy out of the way as the horse clopped on. Heavy spots of rain began to fall and the puppy followed Mouser as she led him to shelter in a blackberry bush in an alleyway nearby. His little body trembled with fear as they huddled close together until the storm was over. Mouser licked the puppy’s head with her raspy tongue to comfort him and finally the exhausted little dog fell asleep as she watched over him.

  Just before dawn the puppy stirred and, still half asleep, began chewing on the nearest thing to him, which happened to be Mouser’s ear.

  Mouser gave a warning miaow and the puppy’s brown eyes opened. He looked at his new friend and his little wail wagged. Now he was fully awake and ready to play. He jumped up and put his paw out to Mouser. Mouser’s tail twitched and soon the two of them were running up and down the alleyway in a game of chase, as the puppy yipped with delight.

  Five minutes later they returned to the blackberry bush and the puppy flopped down while Mouser looked over at the upstairs window of the Jensons’ house opposite. The puppy stood up to follow her as she made her way to the back garden fence. He didn’t want to be left behind, but Mouser turned and nuzzled her face to his, ushering him back to the blackberry bush.

  He watched Mouser jump easily over the back garden fence. Then he made a soft whimpering sound, curled up and went back to sleep.

  Mrs Jenson was already up and in the kitchen at the back of the house. It was just after 5 a.m. and she needed to leave for work at the factory at 5.30. Thousands of women had flocked to the munitions factories to help make the ammunition that was needed for the war. Some of the other women who worked there had begun to wear overalls and trousers with tunics over them, but Mrs Jenson preferred her overall dress and cap. Everyone had to wear protective clothing because of the danger from the chemicals they were working with, and the cap was worn so strands of their hair didn’t get caught in the machinery.

  ‘Morning, Mouser,’ Mrs Jenson said as the cat came in through the window.

  Mouser let Mrs Jenson stroke her a few times before she slipped away and headed upstairs to her favourite bed for a nap.

  Chapter 2

  The puppy was well hidden in the midst of the overgrown blackberry bush that spread the length of the narrow alleyway at the back of the row of houses. People passed close by him on their way to work without realizing he was even there. When he woke for the second time, he watched them from his new den with his sharp button-brown eyes. He felt safe hidden among the leaves, but he was hungry, very hungry. He looked over at the back fence where his new friend had gone and whined.

  Upstairs in Lizzie’s bedroom, on Lizzie’s bed, lay Mouser. As usual, she’d made herself very comfortable, taking far more than her fair share of the pillow. Lizzie’s hair was covered in little strips of white rag tied in knots. Mouser watched the rags going up and down as Lizzie breathed deeply in and out, fast asleep. She batted at a thread hanging from one of the rags with her paw. Lizzie slept on. Mouser batted at another of the shivering rags and caught Lizzie’s nose.

  ‘Ouch!’ Lizzie cried, and she opened her eyes. ‘What did you do that for?’

  Mouser didn’t have an answer, but simply jumped off the bed and stalked out of the door.

  Lizzie sighed and pulled back the bedclothes. She heard the clatter of cups down in the kitchen and went to join her mother. Mouser was already there.

  ‘Do you know what Mouser just did? She batted me on the nose, on purpose.’

  Mrs Jenson smiled at her outraged daughter. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose,’ she said. ‘Mouser’s just a cat after all.’

  But Lizzie wasn’t so sure about that. The nose bat had felt very purposeful to her.

  Her mother handed Lizzie a cup of tea and then she poured another one from the large brown china pot.

  ‘I’m taking this up to your brother. Oliver’s about to pop in to say goodbye to him,’ she said as she picked the cups up. ‘That poor boy, going off to war …’

  ‘Arthur’s probably still asleep,’ Lizzie said. She added a little more sugar to her tea as soon as her mother left the room. She’d be asleep too if it wasn’t for Mouser.

  Mouser came over and curled herself round Lizzie’s legs and purred. Lizzie reac
hed down to stroke her. ‘Yes, of course I forgive you,’ she said as if the cat had asked her. ‘But it’s not very nice being batted awake by a paw, let me tell you.’

  She lifted Mouser on to her lap. Sometimes Mouser let herself be stroked and sometimes she didn’t. It all depended on how she was feeling at the time. But they were all going to want to stroke the cat today, especially her brother Arthur, because Oliver was leaving to go to war. No one really wanted him to. Oliver had worked as their father’s apprentice before their father passed away and had been a good friend to the family ever since. He was like part of their family now and they were all going to miss him badly.

  Lizzie sighed as Mouser jumped off her lap and headed up the stairs to her brother’s room.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ Arthur said as he took his tea. He moved the cup swiftly out of the way so Mouser wouldn’t bump into it as she jumped up on to his bed, light as a feather for such a big cat.

  Mouser kneaded the covers with her paws, making herself a comfortable spot, and lay down just as there was a knock at the front door.

  ‘That’ll be Oliver,’ said Arthur, and he jumped up to rush downstairs, followed by Mouser.

  ‘Morning all,’ said Oliver cheerily. He put his kitbag and the football he was holding by the front door. ‘Oh, and hello, Mouser,’ he said as Mouser wrapped herself round one of his legs. He reached down and stroked her.

  ‘It’s like she knows this is your last day,’ Arthur said, although he knew she couldn’t really.

  ‘I saw a poster yesterday outside the station asking for cats to be donated to the war effort,’ Mrs Jenson said.

  ‘I don’t think Mouser would like to go to war,’ said Oliver. ‘Would you, Mouser?’ He smoothed his fingers along the fur of her back.

  Arthur frowned. ‘But why would they want cats to go to war?’

  ‘Apparently they make good rat-catchers in the trenches, or so they say,’ Mrs Jenson told him.

  Arthur couldn’t really imagine Mouser helping the Allies to win the war against Germany. She wasn’t the type of cat to obey orders. And what could a cat possibly do anyway? Not a lot, in his opinion. It wasn’t like the horses that were going off to war. He could see how they would be useful leading the battle charge. He could see himself sitting on one, with his sword raised, as they raced together to take down the enemy.