The Strange White Doves (6 page)

If Tom and Clementine had known where they were going, or had traveled their routes before, what they did would have been marvelous enough. But neither cat had ever been West before, and they had no idea where their people had gone. They set out blindly into a strange world, driven by love of their families and guided by intuition alone.

In fairness to their owners I hasten to add that the reason Clementine was left behind on the New York farm was that she was about to have kittens. And Tom had been left in the house where he had always lived, to be cared for by the people who had bought it. Who would have dreamed that either cat, rather than be separated from loved ones, would have chosen to cross a continent on such a strange, blind search? But every cat is an individual, and you can never tell what one will do.

Dogs are more straightforward, and their actions can usually be anticipated—though not always. For a dog, the sun rises and sets in his master, and little else matters. Therefore war is a sad time for him. When the master leaves home and goes off to fight, what can a dog do except mope and wait? But a certain cocker spaniel, named Joker, was different. During World War II he got tired of moping and decided to take action.

Joker's master was Captain Stanley Raye, an Army man who lived in Pittsburg, California. Two weeks after the captain had left home for overseas duty, Joker went looking for him.

I should explain that Pittsburg is located far over on the upper curve of San Francisco Bay. All during the war the entire bay was jammed with ships that were being loaded at scores of docks that stretched past half a dozen bay cities. It was a vast waterfront area, with vessels leaving constantly for hundreds of wartime destinations.

It is doubtful that Captain Raye knew exactly where he was going when he boarded his transport, for in those days destinations were matters of utmost secrecy. All destinations in the war zone were called by code names. Therefore it is very unlikely that Joker could have picked up anything from his master that would have given him any sort of clue.

Joker had never been on a ship in his life, and we can only guess how many vessels he studied before he finally chose one at an Oakland dock. This is thirty miles from Pittsburg, and across the bay from San Francisco.

By this time, of course, Captain Raye had reached a certain distant Pacific island with a code name. Joker, undaunted, slipped aboard the vessel of his choice and became a stowaway. At sea, he was speedily found and would have been destroyed if one of the officers had not adopted him.

The transport stopped at several places in the Pacific, but Joker made no attempt to leave until it reached a particular island. Then he rushed ashore and ran straight to his master. When the officer who had adopted him learned the astounding facts, he was glad to let Captain Raye have his dog. Both Joker and the captain survived the war and were inseparable until Joker finally passed away at the ripe old age of fourteen.

Another dog, a smooth-haired terrier named Hector, accomplished a similar feat in locating his master. The main difference was that Hector was a seagoing dog who was unfortunately left ashore at Vancouver, British Columbia, when his vessel, the S. S.
Simaloer,
unexpectedly changed her berth. The ship was forced to sail before he could be found.

Hector's one love was Willem Mante, the
Simaloer
's second officer. It must have been a heavy blow when the terrier reached the dock on schedule, after being given shore leave, and found both his master and the vessel gone. However, he didn't go tearing about in a frenzy and then give up in despair, as many a left-behind dog has done. Instead, Hector studied the situation, and began a careful inspection of the ships being loaded in the area.

The second officer of the S. S.
Hanley,
Harold Kildall, saw Hector come aboard and sniff thoughtfully at the cargo of lumber and sacked grain. While Kildall watched, the terrier went ashore and boarded four other ships along the same stretch of docks. The dog went about his inspection with a curious intentness that aroused Kildall's curiosity. Presently the officer forgot about him as the hatches were covered and the vessel was made ready for sailing.

The next morning the
Hanley
was plowing westward through the Pacific, well on her way to Japan. When Kildall came off duty, he was surprised to find Hector curled up in the corridor by the captain's cabin. The dog had chosen to go to sea on his ship and had managed to slip aboard unnoticed.

The reason for Hector's presence became clear eighteen days later, when the
Hanley
finally dropped anchor in Yokohama harbor and began unloading lumber. A short distance away another vessel was also unloading lumber. It was the S. S.
Simaloer.
At the sight of her, the dog, who had remained quiet and aloof all during the voyage, showed sudden excitement. Presently a sampan put out from the
Simaloer,
carrying two men ashore. As it neared the
Hanley
's stern, Hector barked wildly and leaped into the water. One of the sampan's passengers began shouting and joyfully pulled the dog aboard. It was Willem Mante, his master.

Like the travels of Tom and Clementine, the voyages of Joker and Hector are matters of historical record and a great deal has been written about them. It can be argued, of course, that Hector was such a smart dog that he was able to listen to conversations and pick another vessel bound for the same destination as his own. But somehow I do not believe that. I think Hector's knowledge of the right ship to take came from another source—the same source that guided the other pets, the same source that helped Zan's second dove find its mate.

11

THE BARRIER OF SPEECH

E
VERY TIME I GLANCE OUT
of the studio windows and spot one of the wild folk going about his daily business, I wonder if he is only an ordinary member of his tribe, or someone quite super. There are super ones around, I'm sure. There are some, I believe, with abilities so extraordinary that many humans will find it hard to accept the truth about them.

Otters have first-rate brains, and so have skunks and a number of nocturnal visitors like the foxes and raccoons, that I seldom see. Woodchucks are supposed to be very dull fellows, though I do not find them so. There is a woodchuck living directly across the creek from the studio, and the very fact that he is old, fat, and still very much alive in spite of the odds—wildcats, dogs, and trigger-happy humans—speaks highly for the quality of his gray matter.

I even suspect the raven of having a super brain. The ones in my valley have everything a crow has, plus something extra. Crows are smart enough, but whenever I find myself under the inspection of one of their glittering-eyed big brothers, my ego suffers. The only way I can account for it is that some of them are really smarter than I am and know it.

Anyway, be it woodchuck, fox, or raven, or one of a dozen other creatures, I'm certain that somewhere in these forested mountains there exists a wild mentality with incredible powers. Even though I am absolutely convinced of it, I cannot prove it, but neither can anyone disprove it. Study the wild all you wish, and you will learn only that wild creatures are much more intelligent than tame ones.

What's wrong with studying a caged animal? Practically everything. It's a sad story. Have you ever thought how you would feel if you were locked in a small enclosure, month after month, away from everything in the world that mattered to you—friends, relatives, home, your special foods, and even the privacy that every creature must have part of the time? A wildcat in the wilds is a happy, playful fellow, full of cunning and with a great love of life. Caged, he is a snarling, demented wretch.

If some of our pets and domestic animals are capable of breathless mental feats, it is reasonable to assume that nature has endowed certain wild animals with the same abilities. But since wild creatures are much smarter than tame ones of the same species—nearly a third smarter, according to some estimates, and they actually have larger brains—then it is safe to assume that most wild geniuses must be truly extraordinary.

Frankly, I believe that there are many more super-intelligences among our pets than anyone dreams. Most owners of these animals never suspect what they have and fail to put their pets through a test.

Chris, a famous dog owned by the Woods family of Warwick, Rhode Island—he was known as the Mathematical Mongrel—was five years old before his talents were discovered. Yet Chris himself said he would have been able to do the things he did three years earlier if anyone had asked him. Communicating by taps of his paw, he could quickly solve intricate problems involving large numbers that would stump people like me for hours. Once, when being tested by a pair of top engineers from the Du Pont Company, he solved an involved calculation in four minutes that took both men ten minutes to work out on paper.

The thing that really staggers me about Chris was his incredible foreknowledge. He knew exactly what the weather would be long ahead of time. He could predict the outcome of races, and he even foretold the day of his death several years before it happened. Curiously, he missed this last prediction by twenty-four hours.

There have been many genius dogs on the order of Chris, as you will find by checking the pet books at almost any large library. Nearly always their abilities were discovered by accident, and though their talents vary, many of them have two things in common: they are mathematical wizards, and they can foretell future events. Some are clever conversationalists, communicating by paw taps or barks to indicate numbers and the letters of the alphabet. This, of course, is a terribly slow method of responding to the spoken question, and it is a wonder that any animal would have the patience to bother with it. So it is not surprising that a few dogs have managed to get around this difficulty by actually learning to speak.

Now, I believe that many of these animal geniuses, along with their other talents, have an exceptional ability to read minds. I'm certain this was true of Jim, the Wonder Dog of Sedalia, Missouri. Jim, a setter owned by Sam Van Arsdale, was not only an incredible prophet (he predicted Kentucky Derby winners for seven straight years, along with the winner of a presidential election, as well as scores of other happenings), but he could always give correct answers to questions put to him in foreign languages.

How was this possible for a dog that knew only the English that was spoken around him?

No one could understand it at the time, for in Jim's day few people realized that dogs were mind readers. Now the truth is evident. The only way Jim could have understood a question in French or German was to know the thought behind each one. Languages are only systems of symbols that stand for thoughts. The symbols change with every language, but the thought remains the same.

That there must be thousands of geniuses and near-geniuses in the animal world, existing practically under our noses, is borne out by the experience, early in this century, of Karl Krall, of Elberfeld, Germany. In 1909, Krall inherited a horse named Hans from his friend, Wilhelm von Osten, a mathematics teacher. Hans had become famous all over Europe because Von Osten had taught him simple mathematics, as well as how to spell and compose sentences. Immediately upon inheriting Hans, Krall, who loved animals, bought four more horses and began to train them. The new horses, who were not known to have had any special abilities, were soon the equals of Hans. In six months all the horses had leaped into a far higher mental realm and were actually doing difficult mathematical problems and rapidly stamping out conversations with their hooves.

One of them, an Arabian named Muhamed, became impatient with the stamping method and tried his best to learn to speak. However, he gave it up as soon as he discovered that a horse's mouth is not properly shaped for making human sounds. Other than dolphins, only a rare dog can manage it, and a few birds. But for this barrier of mouth shape, I expect we would be constantly startled by dogs and horses giving us the benefit of their wit—for some of them, to judge by recorded conversations, have sharp wits indeed and a fine sense of humor. Surely there are great numbers of them, undiscovered, with an intelligence level far higher than we mighty humans have ever guessed.

The Elberfeld horses, as they were called, became famous the world over, and a great deal has been written about them. But since their day, no doubt because the automobile has replaced the family horse, and few of us ever come into contact with horses, I can find no record of anyone taking the time and trouble to do what Karl Krall managed to do, and so the only animal geniuses that have come to light are those that have been discovered by accident.

Among the incredibly brilliant ones of more recent years, whose achievements will never be forgotten, are two horses: Black Bear, a little Shetland pony from Briarcliff, New York, and Lady Wonder, the famous “talking horse” of Richmond, Virginia.

Lady Wonder could not actually talk. But her owner, Mrs. Claudia Fonda, rigged up an apparatus something like the keyboard of a giant typewriter, which saved the mare all the extra work of tapping that slowed other animals in their communications. She had only to touch her muzzle to the lever, and the right number or letter would be flipped up for everyone to see. Black Bear was given a similar arrangement with numbered or lettered tabs hung on bars.

Many famous people—writers, scientists, and psychologists—came to study these horses and test them with hundreds of questions. Their almost miraculous accomplishments would fill a thick book. Black Bear, besides being able to read cards, face down, and reveal the contents of unopened letters, could always tell what a stranger was thinking. Lady Wonder was even more astounding. Her mind-reading ability left people shaken, but of far greater importance was the accuracy with which she could locate lost valuables and solve the fate of vanished children. Whatever was lost might be a thousand miles away, but no matter. She did not have to leave her Virginia stall to tell you exactly where to find it. Ask her, and she would consider the matter a few seconds. Then she would begin nudging the levers, and letter by letter the answer that may have baffled hundreds of people would be spelled out for all to read.