Curlie could not complain of his birds, nor of the coffee he drank.
“That,” he said, “is the best coffee I’ve had for a month!”
“An’ I wouldn’t doubt it!” exclaimed the little man. “Learned ’ow t’ brew it from a bloomin’ Australian bushman in th’ bloody war; right in th’ trenches.
“Ye see,” he went on, warmed by his own beverage and cheered by kind words, “I were in th’ signal service. Bein’ small, I was set to carin’ fer pigeons an’ sendin’ ’em away with messages a-hangin’ from their laigs or their necks.
“And y’ know, son, ’avin’ ’em always with ye like yer bloomin’ dorgs, makes ’em seem like yer bloomin’ pals. D’ ye understand that?”
“Yes,” Curlie replied, “I understand.”
“An’ ye know, son, if it weren’t fer ’avin’ one of them pigeons under me arm in a cage made of wood, I’d not be trappin’ foxes now.”
“No?” Curlie sat up. “Tell me about it.”
He did tell Curlie. And for Curlie that story held a special interest. It was no great story as stories go; just the account of one little underfed Irish boy soldier lost in a forest in No Man’s Land, with a leg half torn away by a shell, and a plain, drab carrier pigeon kept safe by the boy’s shielding body. The boy scribbled a note to his pals in camp, then released the pigeon that he might bear the message home.
“They found ’im safe,” he ended quite undramatically. “They found th’ message an’ after that th’ ’eathen enemy’s guns was silenced, an’ then they found me, too.