The Dog Who Could Fly (11 page)

Karel nodded. “There is. What’re you thinking?”

Robert beckoned his fellow conspirators closer, lowering his voice as he outlined a plan. An hour later Ant had vanished completely from view. His protectors had decided to defy the British authorities and to break the law of the country to which they were headed, and upon which they had pinned their hopes of further resisting the enemy. They knew it could jeopardize their future in Britain if they were caught. They might even be arrested or refused entry: but that
was a risk they were willing to take to save the eighth member of their fellowship.

All for one, and one for all
: that had been the trigger that had set Robert’s synapses sparking. Toward the stern of the ship were several large heaps of luggage. They constituted the passengers’ worldly possessions, separated out by service and nationality. The Czech airmen’s pile was netted down and sheeted over with a tarpaulin. On arrival at the dock, their heap of suitcases and kit bags would be raised up in its net by a quayside crane and lifted ashore.

It was within that netload of luggage that one dog’s promise of escape and survival might lie.

Seven

They’d smuggled Ant onto the ship and had to smuggle him off again—for pets were bound for quarantine or destruction upon arrival in the UK.

U
nder cover of darkness Robert and his fellows mined out a tunnel leading to the very center of the luggage mountain. They removed one large case and placed it on top of the others, replacing it with one dog trussed up in Robert’s kit bag, and with only a thin passage leading to the outside. It was too narrow and dark for anyone to see into the center, but wide enough to pass food and water to Ant, depending on how long he needed to be kept hidden in there.

The hiding place complete, Robert urged Ant to stay silent and still, for his very life might depend upon it. That done, they left their dog in the midst of the luggage mountain and prepared for stage two of their plan: outright defiance of British law.

At two o’clock the following afternoon the ship’s crew began a final inspection of the
Neuralia
’s quarters, with a view to taking into custody all animal stowaways. When they tallied up at the end of their search, one was missing. Sergeant Robert Bozdech’s young German shepherd—the handsome dog with a distinctive black streak running down his backbone—seemed to have disappeared. Robert was called before the ship’s officers, but there was little sign now of the amusement that had greeted Ant-the-stowaway’s arrival aboard.

“Sergeant Bozdech, we note you have failed to hand over your dog,” one of the officers began. “We made it quite clear what the rules are, so where is he?”

The Czech interpreter translated, and Robert gave the best shrug he could muster. “Sorry, sir, I haven’t seen him for a good twenty-four hours or more.”

The officer fixed Robert with a withering look. “This is a ship. There’s not exactly far he can go, is there? So, presumably you must know where he’s likely to be?”

Robert shook his head. “Sorry, sir, I couldn’t tell you.”

The officer paused for a long second, letting the silence hang in the air between them. “Quarantine laws in Britain are strictly enforced, Sergeant. Breaking those laws is a very serious offense.”

“I’m not committing an offense, sir. I just can’t seem to see my dog.”

Robert was choosing his words carefully. Strictly speaking it was true that he couldn’t
see
his dog, for right now he was concealed deep within a mountain of luggage.

The officer stared at him as he pondered his next move. “Very well, but don’t try to tell us that you didn’t know the penalty when your dog is found . . .”

The ship’s crew searched the vessel from end to end, flinging open lockers, rifling through closets, lifting containers, and peering behind doors, but no sign of the errant German shepherd could be found.

Later that afternoon Uncle Vlasta briefed Robert that a Lieutenant Josef Ocelka would be meeting them upon arrival at the Liverpool docks. He was to be their liaison officer for further processing into Great Britain. Lieutenant Ocelka had been persuaded to appoint Joska and Robert himself as the party in charge of disembarking the Czech airmen’s luggage and ensuring its safe transfer to the railway station for transport to their new home—Cholmondeley, just outside Liverpool.

“You’ve been put in charge of
all
luggage,” Vlasta repeated, looking Robert meaningfully in the eye. “All luggage is to be disembarked safely from the ship.”

“Understood,” Robert confirmed.

•  •  •

On the dank early evening of July 12, 1940, the convoy steamed up the Mersey and docked at Liverpool. Thunder rolled over the city as the Czech airmen were separated from the other passengers for their deployment instructions, and rain started to pelt down from a glowering sky. Welcome to Britain. On the quayside a crane creaked and squealed as it took up the strain and then jerked a netload of luggage into the air. Robert gazed up at the load’s seemingly perilous progress, wondering what on earth he would do if the cable broke and Ant was plunged into the cold waters of the harbor.

Lieutenant Ocelka, having been tipped off about the smuggling operation, ordered Robert and Joska to move the baggage double-time onto the waiting truck, before the rain soaked it completely. He wanted it out of sight and out of mind before a hidden dog started yapping. By the time they had most of the luggage loaded, Robert
had detected not the slightest sign of life from the bulging kit bag in which his dog was concealed.

The last suitcase thrown onboard, he leaped onto the truck’s rear and settled down next to the kit bag. He slipped his fingers through the semi-open top, murmuring quiet words of reassurance, and was rewarded by a good few licks from the hidden animal. So far, all was going to plan.

After a short journey they unloaded the luggage and prepared to board the train. But the station platform was milling with British policemen, and worse still, eight of the dreaded Red Caps—British Military Police—were scanning the assembled throng. Few of the airmen doubted that news of a stowaway dog trying to evade British quarantine laws had been passed around the assembled forces of law and order. It was now that Ant—secreted in the kit bag perched beside the Czechs’ luggage, and emblazoned with the name
R. V. Bozdech
—had to play his part to perfection.

Just minutes before the Cholmondeley train was due in at the station, a platoon of British soldiers marched onto the platform. They came to a halt in unison right next to the pile of luggage and lowered their rifles with a sharp clatter. The butt of one inadvertently struck a kit bag labeled
R. V. Bozdech
, and a loud and startled yelp issued forth from within. The Czech airmen froze. The British soldiers stared about themselves confusedly. But the Red Caps had also heard the mystery whine, and half a dozen of them began to close in.

The Czech airmen sprang into evasive action. As if eager to be of assistance they started flinging bags to either side, acting like they were searching for the source of the mystery noise. Under cover of the general confusion, one bag marked
R. V. Bozdech
was flung rapidly from hand to hand until it was well clear of the Red Caps’ focus of attention.

By the time the military policemen had completed their search, not a sign of a dog was there to find. But they weren’t about to be put
off that easily. The Red Caps started to fan out across the platform, like dogs on the scent of their prey. Sensing disaster, one of the Czech airmen—the real joker of the pack—went into action. He stepped into plain view, slapped himself hard on the thigh, and let out a yelp like a dog that had just been kicked. He repeated the performance, howling like a beaten puppy as the Red Caps stared at him in consternation.

Eventually one of them turned to the others. “See that bloody Johnny Foreigner taking the micky out of us lot! I’ve had enough of this lark.” He stomped off the platform in disgust, and the other Red Caps followed.

So it was that the search for the contraband canine was abandoned, and Ant was able to finally set foot on British soil. He did so upon arrival at Cholmondeley Castle, in Cheshire, a rest camp for foreign servicemen coming from the chaos and bloodshed of continental Europe.

Cholmondeley Castle was everything that Robert had imagined Britain might be: a vast and rambling mansion complete with turrets, towers, and gargoyles, and surrounded by rolling green hills and verdant woodlands. The tented camp was temporary home to some four thousand non-British servicemen, including those Czechs who would go on to form the Free Czechoslovak Forces—a body of men-at-arms determined to fight the Nazis and liberate their homeland.

Emotions ran high as brother was reunited with brother and soldier with fellow soldier. Ahead of Robert and Ant lay eighteen days of rest and recuperation—time in which to wash and darn their battered uniforms, and for Robert to take Ant on long walks through the grounds, which turned out to be a rabbit-infested paradise. In the evenings Ant insisted on cold-nosing each of the seven airmen’s faces, to check that the brotherhood was present and accounted for. Then he’d fall into a contented sleep alongside his master, one punctuated
by a snapping of jaws and twitching of limbs as he dreamed of hunting rabbits.

These were good times, but each man sensed that this was a temporary lull—the calm before the coming storm. They had been at Cholmondeley barely a week when the camp was visited by Dr. Edvard Beneš, the former president of Czechoslovakia who was now setting up a government-in-exile. On a misty July morning all present at the camp—including 120 Czech airmen complete with their war dog—assembled on parade, to hear Beneš’s speech about the Herculean struggle that lay ahead, one that would surely end in the liberation of Europe.

A week later the first of the Czech airmen received their marching orders. Thirty-six of them—Robert and Ant included—were being posted to the Czech Air Force Depot at RAF Cosford, near Wolverhampton. The remaining ninety formed a cordon of honor around the chosen as they were reviewed by the senior Czech commander at Cholmondeley, a colonel and distinguished veteran of the First World War.

“I envy you the chance you are about to be given,” the colonel intoned, his gravelly voice thick with emotion. “Fight for the honor of the Czech motherland, for Great Britain—your adopted home—and strive with all your power to vanquish the Nazi enemy.”

The colonel shook each man’s hand as he marched past, the seven Czech airmen who made up the original brotherhood forming the head of the column, with one very proud war dog and quarantine buster taking up the lead.

This was a moment of mixed emotions for some. Halfway down that column a gray-haired veteran of the First World War marched with ramrod-straight pride in perfect step beside his two sons. At the front gate he stepped out of the file and, struggling to hide his emotions, smartly saluted his departing boys as they boarded the waiting trucks. He had only recently been reunited with them, but he knew
they had to answer the call of duty. He could not have known that before the leaves on the trees had fallen that autumn, both would be dead.

Late that evening the trucks reached RAF Cosford, where the rebirth of the Czech Air Force and its integration into the RAF was being masterminded. Cosford exuded discipline and studied purpose. Two thousand airmen were housed in a large, modern barracks formed of serried rows of wooden huts. A hospital with specialist facilities stood in one corner, flanked by ornamental flower beds. The scale and sophistication of the base convinced the Czechs that the RAF had what it would take to stand against the mighty Luftwaffe.

While Robert was preoccupied with his first assignment—studying a little red book entitled
Fundamental English
—Ant went about befriending as many as possible who might make life as pleasant as it could be in this brave new land. By now he was growing into a magnificent specimen. The black splash down his spine stood out dramatically from his smooth, golden-brown coat, and he carried his head with real pride. His flanks were lean and he moved with the fluid lope of his lupine ancestors. It was perhaps inevitable that he’d make a lot of very useful friends at RAF Cosford, aided in no small part by his master.

One morning shortly after their arrival a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) found Ant sitting in her doorway with a letter in his mouth.

“Young lady,” it began. “My name is Ant. Will you please shake hands with me?”

Penned by Robert with the aid of his little red book, it was testimony to how well his written English was progressing.

Ant stretched out a paw and made an instant friend in one of the most important places in the camp—the cookhouse. From then on, whenever his nose appeared around the door he could be sure of a
warm welcome and some special tidbit. Ant next befriended the two young ladies who called each morning at the base, driving a green van filled with meat. As soon as they’d shaken hands with Ant, a bone fit for a hungry dog was added to their daily deliveries.