CHAPTER VI
THE RESCUE
AS Pep trotted away into the shell-raked woods he was probably the most heartbroken dog that ever slunk away to do his master’s bidding. He had traveled so far to find his beloved master, his feet had been sore and his tongue parched with the long journey and he had watched so faithfully by the doctor’s side all through the long night. And now his master had sent him away. He knew that his master needed him also, for he was so weak he could not even bring his canteen with water, or hold up his head to drink.
The blow on his shoulder had been a very light one, but it had wounded Pep more than any blow he had ever received before.
Why did his master send him away? He had been a faithful dog. What should he do? Where should he go? He was not quite sure of the way back to the hospital. The woods were full of frightful sounds, full of lightning and thunder, the kind that tore the limbs from great trees, stripped the leaves from their branches and plowed holes in the ground, holes so deep that if he ever fell into one of them he might not be able to get out again.
For several seconds he stood whimpering under a bush, uncertain, but his terrier fighting blood soon asserted itself and he began picking his way slowly forward in the direction which he thought would take him back to the road that led to the hospital.
For fifteen minutes he went forward managing by his clever dog instinct to keep going in the same direction, where a human being might have gone round and round in a circle. Then something happened that quite changed his course. It came so suddenly that he did not know where it came from. He only realized in a dim way that it was a part of this terrible night, more of the frightfulness that was all about him, only this time it nearly got him.
Suddenly, and without any warning, there was a bright flash of light over among the bushes. The air was filled with broken limbs and flying leaves and dust, and hundreds of small missiles, and one of these which was really a fragment of shrapnel, caught Pep in his hind leg, and left that member limp and broken, as useless as a stick.
He was so stunned and shaken and the breath was so knocked out of him that he lay still for several minutes, but finally he dragged himself up on three legs and tried to discover what had happened to him, and where he was. There was such a tangle of brush about him that it was difficult to extricate himself, but finally he dug his way out. Then it was that he discovered the accident to his leg. It pained him frightfully and the blow had partially paralyzed his back, so it was many minutes before he could even drag himself forward, a few feet at a time.