Dog Diaries 07 - Stubby (9 page)

I was
un chien extraordinaire,
he told the ladies. He told me that meant
extraordinary dog.
He told them that I was a brave soldier who had been wounded twice. He boasted about how I warned the men about gas attacks and artillery barrages. It was enough to make even a bull terrier blush.

Conroy must have impressed the ladies, because later on, in another town, they held a special ceremony where they presented me with my own

army jacket. It was made of soft leather and fit like a second skin. On it they had sewn badges showing all the battles I had fought in. When they wrapped the jacket around my shoulders, they kissed the top of my head. I sat proudly and raised my paw to give them my smartest salute.

Now, thanks to the lovely ladies of Chateau-Thierry, I was a decorated soldier.

B
AGGING A
S
PY

We stopped for a few days so the men could get fresh uniforms, new gear, and a chance to rest. Then we pushed northward by train to the region of St. Mihiel (san me-HEL). There, we marched through what seemed like endless woods, clearing out enemy troops as we went. One day, Conroy gave me the good news.

“It looks like our side is winning now, boy.”

So it was a little surprising that, there in the
woods of the Argonne, we wound up running into our hardest fighting yet. It seemed like the enemy had saved their best soldiers to defend this very important site, close to the capital city of Paris. Every day, our boys struggled to move forward and push the enemy back. Many soldiers died fighting. That—and the
ack-ack
of the machine guns and the
zzzzzz
of the fighter planes overhead—was bad enough to make even a seasoned soldier dog turn tail and run. But as long as Conroy and the rest of the regiment forged ahead, then so would I.

When we were too exhausted to march another day, we stopped and dug trenches, hoping for a day or two of rest. As usual, I wandered out into the countryside to do my business. I was looking for a bush that hadn’t been blown to smithereens, when I came upon what I knew right away was not a bush. It was a soldier disguised to
look
like a bush.

He had leafy branches sticking every which way out of his belt and collar and boots. Just who did he think he was fooling? Any fool could smell that he was a man, not a shrub. (Although it would have served him right if I had lifted my leg on him. Ha!) His head was down, and he was scribbling on a pad, the kind the boys used to write letters home.

I bared my teeth and growled.

He stopped and looked up. When he saw me, he smiled and held out his hand. “Good doggie,” he said. “Come here.”

He spoke the language of the doughboys and Tommies, but he wasn’t fooling me. He was no doughboy. He was a Jerry! A German soldier! I lifted up my head and started barking.
Look who I’ve caught, boys, a stone’s throw from our trenches!

The smile died on his lips, and his eyes widened in terror. “Hush! Hush! Good doggie!” he
whispered. “We would not want to cause a stir.”

Oh, yeah?
A stir is
exactly
what I aimed to cause.

When he saw I was not going to quit, he turned and made a run for it. I took off after him, hurling myself onto his back and toppling him over headfirst into the dirt. His pad and pen went flying. He struggled to push himself up. But I sunk my teeth into what I know to be tenderest part of a person’s body.

You guessed it: his rear end!

I heard running feet approaching.

Five American soldiers appeared. Four held guns trained on the German. The fifth picked up the man’s writing pad. He looked at it and chuckled.

“Well, what do you know!” he said. “This guy’s been mapping the locations of our trenches. Looks like Stubby caught himself a spy.”

“At ease, Stubby,” another soldier said. I
opened my mouth and released the enemy’s butt. He groaned and rolled over, then stumbled to his feet, hands raised behind his head.

“I surrender,” he said. “Get this vicious dog away from me, please.”

Vicious? Hardly. Just doing my duty like any red-blooded American soldier would do. And speaking of duty, I trotted off in search of a
real
bush to lift my leg against. In war, as in peace, a dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta do.

—

According to the Brass, the enemy was ready to surrender. Well, the day couldn’t come too soon for me. We marched on from the Argonne to another resting place called Mandres en Cotes (mond on coat). It was November, and the men got Thanksgiving turkey in their meat cans. At the camp, we did drills and exercises, and the Brass held ceremonies where they gave speeches and moved soldiers up in rank or pinned medals on heroes. At one ceremony, Conroy got promoted from private to corporal. But the real kicker was that I got promoted.

Conroy looked down at me and grinned. “You outrank me now, Stubby. Or should I say,
Sergeant
Stubby?”

Didn’t that beat all?

—

A month later, at Christmastime, at a place called Humes, there was a big commotion in HQ. (That
stands for headquarters, where the Brass hangs out.) The men were told to wear their newest, spiffiest uniforms. I wore my jacket with all its badges and medals. Conroy put on his new jacket with the corporal stripes. That morning, we practiced drill marches on the parade field, just like we did back at Yale. A strange man was standing with the Brass in the review stand. He was the only one not wearing a soldier’s uniform.

As we came to attention before the stand, the soldiers seemed extra alert and a little bit nervous. I looked up at Conroy, wondering who this new guy was. But Conroy was way ahead of me.

“Don’t look now,” Conroy said out of the corner of his mouth, “but that man up there is the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. He’s come all the way over here for peace talks. It’s a pretty big deal.”

I must not have looked very impressed, because he added, “He’s not only the leader of our country, but he’s the commander in chief of all the armed forces.”

Well, why didn’t he say so in the first place? I was looking at the biggest Brass there was!

“The war you helped fight is almost over, Stubby,” Conroy said.

After the review, he took me to meet the president.

“So you’re Sergeant Stubby,” the president said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Like most everyone, my jacket impressed him. He noted all the medals on it. There were the ones the ladies of Chateau-Thierry had given me. And other ones I’d gotten since then, including the German cross from the spy I nabbed.

“You’re a brave soldier, and your country owes
you its deepest gratitude,” he said to me.

“Don’t just stand there, soldier,” Conroy said to me. “Present ARMS!”

I lifted my paw and gave the leader of the United States Armed Forces one snappy salute.

Instead of saluting back, he held out his hand. I lifted my paw, and we shook. And suddenly there I was, Stubby the New Haven street mutt, shaking hands with the president of the United States. Who’d have thunk it?

A
T
E
ASE

One day I woke up, and something wasn’t right. It was Conroy. He was shaking like a Chihuahua in a meat locker. I crawled up to his head and gave his face a lick. He tasted salty and sweaty. And his skin was so hot it scalded my tongue!

Conroy? Conroy? Talk to me, buddy!

“I’m not feeling too well, Stubby!” Conroy said through chattering teeth.

Uh-oh. Now I was worried. Gas, bullets,
ack-ack
guns, spies. There was lots to be scared of in this war, but one of the scariest things was called the Spanish flu. It was a bad, bad sickness. We lost lots of soldiers to the Spanish flu. But I wasn’t about to lose Conroy. I lifted my head and started howling.

Pretty soon folks came running, wanting to know what the fuss was all about. Then they got a look at Conroy’s pale, sweaty face and they knew.

“Call the medics,” one of Conroy’s buddies said. “He’s got the flu!”

Somebody gave Conroy a dribble of water from his canteen, but Conroy just spat it up. Where were those medics? What was taking them so long?

Finally, two of them showed up carrying a stretcher.

Over here!
I barked.
On the double!

As they loaded Conroy up, I couldn’t keep still.
It was all I could do not to nip at the medics’ heels. They were moving too slowly! Conroy’s face was too pale!

I chased after the stretcher as the medics ran with it to the field hospital.

There, the nurses crowded around Conroy. I got tangled up in their feet. One of them practically tripped over me. They shooed me away, but I kept coming back. I had to know that Conroy was all right. We’d been through so much together. I couldn’t lose him now!

One of the doctors came to look at Conroy. He was new, and we hadn’t been formally introduced. When he saw me, he frowned. “No dogs allowed!”

A nurse said, “That’s Stubby, doctor. Conroy’s dog. He’s just making sure we do a good job taking care of his master.”