Pierrot, Dog of Belgium

by Walter A. Dyer

This did Pierrot a world of good, for though Conrad Orts was a good master he seemed to have no time for caresses, and in Pierrot’s heart there was a mighty craving for the love of man. When the brown khaki man was gone Pierrot stood looking after him and whining. Then he lay down, whimpering a little, and the great wave of homesickness swept over him afresh.

If a dog cannot fully reason, he can at least remember, and Pierrot felt that he had lost what was best in life and he could not understand why. He saw it all again—the peaceful dairy farm with Medard and the cows; Mère Marie, with her fresh face and the shiny milk cans; the busy city and the laughing newsgirls; mild old Gran’père and merry little Lisa; the gentle hands and voices and the joy of being loved. But of course Pierrot was only a dog and war is war. One cannot be bothered with such trivial matters when the fate of dynasties is at stake.

Soon the fighting began again, only now there were no gallant dashes along hard roads or across green fields, but weary plodding through the mud, climbing in and out of trenches, short, heartbreaking charges, and hasty retreats. It was close-range fighting, and almost continuous. There was a constant roaring of big guns and the sickening bursting of bombs near at hand. The dogs were seldom unharnessed, slept by snatches when they could, and were often obliged to go hungry.

During one of the many encounters, a miserable little affair among the dunes ungilded by any of the fabled glory of battle, Conrad Orts suddenly tumbled over in the wet sand and lay still. The order to retreat was given, but no word came from Conrad. Jef and Pierrot stood perplexedly watching the other men and dogs flounder back around the sand-hills. Then came shouts and the sound of running feet behind them, and of hostile firing. Turning about, they saw the men in gray coming on, rushing from dune to dune. Partly through fear and partly through an instinctive feeling that they should return to their friends, the two Belgian dogs started off on a mad gallop after the retreating carbineers, leaving the silent form of their master where it had fallen.

By a miracle they reached the trenches in safety, though a rain of bullets fell all about them, and a man named André Wyns took charge of them and their gun.

And now a new burden was laid upon Jef and Pierrot, for André was a rough man and knew little about the handling of dogs. He beat and prodded and kicked them, not in anger but in the mistaken belief that such treatment was necessary to get the most out of them. At first Pierrot was terrified and enraged and showed his resentment, for he had never been beaten in this manner before; but he soon learned the uselessness of rebellion and submitted with what grace he could. Eagerly he waited for the coming again of Conrad Orts, but Conrad never returned. As for Jef, he bore it all in sullen silence, but it was plain to be seen that he bore no love for André.

When the cold winter weather came there was added misery for dogs and men. Icy water stood in the bottoms of the trenches and the nights were raw and chill. It was fortunate for Pierrot that he had always been an outdoor dog, used to rain and frost and sleet, and that his rough coat was thick and matted. But that did not save his feet from getting frost-bitten after his runs through the water, and cut by the frozen mud and ice-crusted pools. Little balls of ice would form between his toes, which hurt him cruelly. Some of the men bandaged the feet of their dogs, but André Wyns seemed to have no time for that. He only beat them the harder when they started out stiffly or showed signs of weariness on the return. At night the men drew blankets around them and huddled about such small fires as they could find fuel for, but there were neither fires nor blankets for the dogs.

If Czar and Kaiser can bring such suffering to men, what chance that they will heed the aching limbs and bleeding feet of shivering dumb brutes?

The days and weeks slipped by and some of the dogs died of pneumonia, or, weakened by hunger and exposure, had to be shot. Pierrot, grown gaunt and haggard, was nearing the end of his strength. He had become almost insensible to Andre’s beatings, and his mind had become so dulled that he worked mechanically and without initiative. The happy days on the Waterloo Road seemed now so dim and unreal that he scarcely thought of them; only in the back of his brain there was always an aching, hopeless longing.