Pep: The Story of a Brave Dog

by Clarence Hawkes

The region had been the scene of heavy fighting for two days, and the signs of war’s horrible devastation were on every hand. Shrapnel had stripped the trees of much of their foliage. Many of them were down while others were torn and broken, with limbs hanging or strewed on the ground. The whole face of nature was scarred and furrowed, seamed and made hideous by the passing of the hurricane of battle.

How beautiful was the fair face of France in peace, yet how terrible in war.

But now the heaviest fighting had rolled away to the north and the immediate work was that of the regiment in front of them which was clearing out the hornet’s nest of machine-guns that the Boche had left behind.

But the doctor was a man of courage, deeply absorbed in his profession, and he soon found himself cutting out proud flesh and bandaging up gaping wounds, with the bullets whistling through the treetops above him, just as unconcerned as though he were still in the hospital at Brest. From point to point these brave men followed in the wake of battle, here and there snatching a desperately wounded man from the very mouth of hell. No bands played to divert them. There was no glitter of uniforms, or bright flag to inspire them, only the call of duty and the pathetic gratitude of the poor fellows whom they succored.

Just at dusk the doctor found himself alone in a narrow gulch. Deep shade was overhead, and a little brook babbled softly through the gulch, but now its cool waters were red with blood and roiled with the passing of many feet. In this gulch the surgeon found several dead and wounded men, and it was while binding up the wounds of a Tennessee mountaineer who had been shot through the hip that a stray bullet found the surgeon and stretched him beside the man whom he was trying to save.

At first he was not in great pain, only paralyzed, but as the hours passed and the stars appeared up among the tops of the trees, fever mounted in his veins and finally delirium seized him and he talked incoherently to a dead man beside him of home and friends far away.

Meanwhile faithful Pep still galloped on to the northeast, obedient to the strong magnet that pulled him, the call of his master’s heart to his own loving dog heart, which knew but this one strong passion.

All through that night he galloped, only occasionally slowing down for a few kilometers to rest. He did not know to what place he was going, or what it would be like when he arrived, but he did know that at the end of the long road his master was calling for him. By noon of the day following his escape from the hospital he was so foot-sore he sometimes had to stop to lick his paws. They were stone bruised and bleeding at the roots of the nails. But he did not pause for long, he could not with his master calling.

By evening he had reached the small station where his master had deployed with his unit at noon the day before. He immediately struck into the partly wooded undulating country. The sight of trees and woods pleased Pep. All the way he had been fearful that some one would catch him and carry him back to the hospital before he should find his master. In the woods he felt more secure for here he could hide, besides something told him that somewhere here in the forest he would find the doctor.

It was now ten o’clock at night, and the Boche had decided that they did not want the enemy to bring up fresh troops and occupy the woods, so they were sweeping the thickets and gulches with shrapnel and shells. Pep was terrified with the deafening noise and the bright flashes all about him. Occasionally he would stop and whimper and crouch close to the ground. The earth was friendly. It would not let these fierce bolts of lightning or the terrible thunder get him. Occasionally he would stand uncertain for several seconds and whimper softly.