“Good. That’s exactly what I’d have expected from a man like you. Use your Renni after his desert and he’ll ’scape whipping. Good-bye.”
George, who did not catch the reference to Hamlet, would have liked to assure the colonel that he had never struck Renni, but force of discipline curbed the impulse. He saluted and withdrew.
On the way back to his room he might have shouted for joy, but indeed his happiness was so deep and serious it kept him quiet. When Sergeant-Major Nickel inquired how things had gone, George only told him in a few words that the general had praised his dog’s services. Then he excused himself on the score of weariness and went to bed. But he lay awake a long time beside the sleeping dog, stroking his head, his neck, his back.
• • •
Early in the morning the regiment was under way, for they wanted to take advantage of the early morning hours before the heat became oppressive. George would have liked to see the major again but was not given time. It wasn’t for lack of courage. He wouldn’t now have been afraid to approach the major’s bed. After the distinction he had received, it would not have seemed presumptuous or a bid for praise.
To the accompaniment of regimental music they marched half the forenoon, stopped for a few hours’ rest, marched on until it grew dark. All in the best of spirits. They were getting plenty to eat and their quarters for the night were comfortable if simple. There was no work for Renni. The men who dropped out from sore feet or sickness did not have to be hunted up. They merely stepped out of the line, and the Medical Corps took care of them. Several times George met Nickel, and Renni met Hector.
“Your dog,” said Nickel, “is an exception to all rules. You certainly have a right to be proud of his training.”
It developed that Hector too was a product of Vogg’s kennels. Nickel had a small soap factory in the same town where George had his field and garden. His liking for dogs and his helpful attitude had afforded him the chance for this Red Cross work.
“That way I’ve escaped the nuisance of being just a high private in the rear rank,” he said good-naturedly. “Of course, military service is important. Of course. In case of attack we can’t be defenceless. But it’s just as important that . . . You know what I mean. Well, then, in case of need there must be men who can do what has to be done.”
They talked of Vogg. George told how he had been insulted by him without cause. Nickel took up the cudgels for the old breeder.
“Forget it, my friend, forget it. Vogg knows well enough you’re not the man to beat a dog. He knows it all right. He just has these spells when his temper gets poisonous and then he acts crazy. He starts abusing people right and left. He knows better. He’s just a peculiar kind of fanatic. Outside that he’s the best man on earth.”
It took them four days to march back to the point where the battalion had assembled, George’s home town. The staff officer in the Medical Corps who had snarled at him when they started off called him over with a brief nod.
“Just want to tell you,” he growled, “I was mistaken. Your dog went far beyond my expectations.”
Again he took hold of Renni’s leash, pulled him gently over, bent down, patted his back in friendly fashion. “Now, now, old boy. Nobody ever learns everything. So I owe you this much of an apology.”
“Will the Captain permit me a word?” asked George, hand at visor.
The answer was a sharp command, “Speak up! What is it?”
“I should like to beg the Captain’s pardon . . . . ”
“Pardon? What for?”
“For my attitude.”
Just the shimmer of a smile went over the officer’s stern features. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Forget it! Dismissed!”
• • •
George was home again at last. He opened the garden gate, and Renni charged through, almost upsetting the welcoming household. His greeting was not short of violent for everyone except Ludmilla and Vassili. Not till Kitty came out of the house, leaped onto Renni’s neck, and both of them rolled playfully on the ground, was George free to go in and speak to them all.
“It worked beautifully, Mother. Beautifully.”
“I was sure it would, son.”
“Where are Bettina and Vladimir?”
“They’re just now burying old Nemo. The poor thing died this morning.”
“Do you see?” smiled Ludmilla, offering George her hand; “if you had just followed my advice and killed him . . . ”
Vassili finished in his slow, solemn tones, “The poor beast would have been spared a great deal of suffering.”
“He didn’t suffer at all,” interrupted Mitya.
Mother Marie said quietly, “Dying is a holy thing. Nobody has the right to take it on himself to cut short the life of any creature that loves and trusts him, or to fix the hour of death.”
Ludmilla looked helplessly around until Vassili boomed, “An unsolved problem!”
“Anyhow, it’s a satisfaction to me that I could give him a few weeks of quiet life,” said George.
Tanya came to his aid energetically. “People who kill an old dog or a sick cat make themselves believe it’s out of pure sympathy. But they must know that they’re really doing it just for their own comfort.”
Bettina and Vladimir came in from their sad task. Vladimir said quietly, “We buried him under the big cherry tree. It was touching how nice he looked, good old Nemo.”
Bettina was silent. She petted Renni, who pressed close against her.
“Tell us about it, George,” urged Vladimir.
“Yes, do,” begged Bettina.
Renni went over to Tanya with a low growl of content.
She pushed him down. “Quiet now. We’re going to talk about you.”
The dog looked at her curiously, his ears pricked up.
“Let’s drink our tea first,” Ludmilla demanded.
“We can do both,” decided Mother Marie: “drink and listen.”
“You always find the best way out,” Ludmilla said affectionately. She had begun to fear she might have to wait for her beloved tea.
So George told all that had happened.
Renni, hearing his name frequently, got up, went cautiously over to his master, sat down between his knees and looked up into his face, turning his head to one side and swinging his tail slowly as if he would testify to all the truth of the simple story.
PART III
Chapter XVII
RENNI WAS AT A LOSS in the peaceful days which followed. There was nothing to do, none to hunt for, no marching, no sleeping at night before the stove by his master’s side. He missed all that, and he missed the noisy, friendly soldiers, who praised him so and gave him so much credit. While he had been away at manœuvres his ambition had awakened. It was as innocent as it was eager, but it might easily have been mistaken for conceit. He had quickly grown used to doing important things, had come to expect that a man here and there would have need of him, and he liked being the centre of interest and attraction. Now he found himself forced to be idle. Nothing was asked of him now. He did not know what to do with himself.
The first night he had jumped into bed with George; he thought that his sleeping place was still close beside his master. Kitty, out in the hallway, called him, mewing pitifully.
George raised up. “No, old man. The manœuvres are over. Here at home we’ll do things the old way. Don’t you hear Kitty asking for you?”
And with that he ordered the crestfallen dog out of the bed, and showed him his proper place on the mattress. Renni, obedient as usual, did what was expected of him, though he was not a little disappointed. But Kitty made things easier for him. She welcomed her bedfellow warmly and affectionately, pressed against his side and purred loudly. She had had to do without him for two weeks.
George stuck close to home for the first few days, partly because he felt the need of a good rest, partly because his garden and fields needed him badly. Renni followed him step by step, looking at him all the time as if he w
ere eagerly waiting for something. He watched every movement, and his eyes said plainly, “When are you going to need me again?”
George tried to pacify him. “Yes, yes, you’re a fine fellow. You don’t have to work and worry any more. Take a good long rest and be happy.”
His master’s kind words hardly measured up to the praises they had given him away from home. Renni did not want to rest, he did not need to, and his eagerness to be doing something kept him unsatisfied.
They began their walks in the forest again. Just as soon as they left the house Renni would be as gay as he could be. Out here in the woods, he thought, he’d be needed again. There would be men to look for, find, and help. He trotted along, with his muzzle at his master’s left knee and often in George’s hand. But he would run repeatedly to the edge of the bushes, sniff the air with nose held high, ears pricked up, and tail waving energetically. Then in disgust he would turn back to the road.
“What do you want?” George would respond to his mute but insistent questioning. “There’s nothing there.” Renni took his word for it, but still kept looking for something. He would come back home in deep dejection, his ears close against his head, his tail hanging slack. Every walk in the woods began full of happy hope and readiness for service. But, after all the sniffing and trailing, every walk came to futile and disappointed end.
Once George could not resist Renni’s impatient desire to do something, and he started out through the thickets. The dog ran ahead, thoroughly in his element. Every moment he would stop, listen, test the air, thinking, “Now . . . now . . . ”
George meant well but must have gone about it the wrong way. Renni came out of the bushes sad, almost heartbroken. In the road he sat down on his hind quarters, his head hanging. He was in despair. The look he gave George seemed to say, “Does no one need me any more?”
George stroked his melancholy face. “Next year, Renni, next year . . . at manœuvres . . . ”
Ah, next year things were to be far more serious, nothing like the harmless play-war of the manœuvres. But no one had an inkling of that yet—certainly no one among the peaceful mass of common people.
Mother Marie, when George spoke to her about Renni, said, “He’ll quiet down after a bit.”
Bettina declared emphatically, “If Renni hasn’t anything to do for too long a time, he’ll forget everything!”
George replied, laughing, “Forget? That dog forget? To be helpful is in his blood. He won’t forget anything.”
Bettina shrugged her shoulders. “A year’s a long time, and it will be a year before the next manœuvres.”
Her words made George thoughtful. He told Vladimir and Tanya about it. Tanya said, “Don’t worry. You don’t forget how to ride a bicycle or a horse, do you? Do you think you would forget how to read and write even if you didn’t read or write anything for years?”
But Vladimir grinned. “Ever know a dog that could ride a bicycle? Or a dog that could read and write? Well, then! After all a dog is a dog, not a person. I’d be in favour of starting practice again with Renni. Bettina’s right.”
“Of course,” Tanya nodded. “Your Bettina’s always right.”
“So she is.” Vladimir’s grin spread wide.
“Your Bettina?” asked George, taken aback. “So that’s the way of it?”
“Oh, nonsense!” Vladimir grew red and left the room.
Now that his eyes were opened, George noticed that Vladimir was always around Bettina wherever she worked, even in the kitchen; and that she showed a fondness for his company, and seemed especially to like being alone with him.
George made no comment. He had nothing against it, only he thought now and then of the objections that Vladimir’s parents were bound to raise. But somehow George did not realise how much of the time he himself kept near Tanya, how pleasant the work was when she helped him, and how anxious she was to have Renni’s good will.
He decided to resume practicing with Renni and asked Kolya and Mitya to be wounded men again. When they fixed on a day, Tanya asked unexpectedly, “May I go to the forest with you?” She blushed prettily as she said it.
“Why, of course,” George answered quickly and gladly. “I was just thinking of asking you.”
Kolya and Mitya suppressed a laugh. Vladimir asked, “Want to play wounded?”
“I’d like to,” replied Tanya seriously.
They went out to another forest, one where they had never been before. As he saw them start together, Renni guessed instantly what was afoot. He marched along beside George, as he was supposed to, for only a little way. Then he broke out in wild leaps around them, darted first to one side and then to the other, rolled in the grass, and carried on all manner of foolishness.
“Here you, what about discipline?” George called Renni and snapped the leash to his collar. The dog crept along, quite crestfallen. When Kolya and later Mitya turned aside into the woods, he sent a keen glance after them. And when Tanya vanished, he lifted his head, pricked up his ears, and waved his tail with joy. Playfully he found them all—Tanya first, with special delight. No matter how desperately they pretended to need help, he was not to be fooled. He pushed his muzzle gaily against their hips and shoulders, washed their faces with his tongue and would not give up till they admitted they were in perfect health.
Renni had mastered his job and carried it out in the easiest possible way. Once he had found them he was through, and with such good friends as Kolya, Mitya and Tanya, especially Tanya, he felt it was time for a romp. He had been through serious trouble, real duties, bloody wounds. He knew the difference between actual need of help and this game his friends wanted to play.
Twice more he plunged from the road into the thickets.
The first time George and the others heard a woman scream and children crying near by. Renni had run onto a mother having a picnic in the woods with her family. He came back with his tail between his legs. The second time they heard a roar followed by a man’s angry curses. He had been taking a nap and the dog had woken him up. Renni was utterly downcast, his eyes full of trouble, after his second failure to be useful.
“This is going to ruin him,” said Tanya as they started home.
In a discouraged tone George said, “I just don’t know what to do.”
But Nickel, the soap-maker, solved the problem when he came with his dog Hector to pay a visit. Everyone liked Nickel, and soon he was everyone’s good friend. Mother Marie especially smiled at him and listened to him with approval, for not only had Hector exchanged cordial greetings with Renni, but he had spoken very politely to her beloved Kitty, too.
Kitty lay down on her back between the two dogs, shared her graceful, coquettish slaps with them both, and purred loudly and happily.
Mother Marie and the others were frightened when Hector took Kitty’s head in his powerful jaws, so that it was quite out of sight and seemed in a fair way to be crushed to bits. But Kitty herself did not seem at all worried; she clawed playfully at Hector and then let him wash her face, a task he performed with gravity and care.
“He won’t hurt her,” Nickel assured them. “He always does my cats that way. A dog makes up these little tricks on his own.”
Mother Marie hid Kitty in her protecting arms; but in a moment the kitten wanted to get down to Hector again. She pressed close to his side, bracing her feet against Renni’s breast.
When George asked his advice, Nickel laughed good-humouredly. “Why worry yourself and your dog? You’ll only confuse him. Either a dog has it in him or he hasn’t. Well, Renni has already showed that he has it all right! He won’t ever forget any of it, lose any of it, not his whole life long. Look at my Hector. He’s served in six manœuvres, six different years. All the time in between I’ve just let him play around and loaf as much as he pleased. And every year when the manœuvres begin, he acts as if he’d been in service no longer ago than yesterday!”
“That’s just what I said,” said Bettina smoothly, though, to be sure, she had said just the
opposite. George was very much relieved.
With just the faintest trace of his grin Vladimir said, “Bettina’s the cleverest person I know.”
Nickel looked at them in some surprise, but heedless of Vladimir’s and Bettina’s embarrassment, he turned to George. “I’m really here because Vogg sent me.”
George felt jolted, but quickly pulled himself up and said carelessly, “He did? What does he want with me?”
“He sends you his regards and wants you to bring Renni to see him.”
“Well, he’ll wait a long time.”
“Come now, don’t be hard on him. He’s an old man.”
“Does he expect me to swallow his insults and come running the minute he waves his hand? Not if I know myself!”
“He’s an old man . . . ”
“We all get to be old men, if we don’t die first. It’s no particular credit to him, and it gives him no rights at all.”
“You ought to be grateful to him . . . ”
George started up, then bethought himself, and said coldly, “I owe him nothing! I had the highest respect and regard for him. I proved it over and over. But when he accused me of lying . . . all that was wiped out. Everything. Gratitude, respect, everything! We’re even, Vogg and I!”
“I’d never have thought you’d hold a grudge,” Nickel said.
“Neither would I,” said Mother Marie quietly.
The others too were surprised at George’s refusal. He defended himself. “You’re wrong. If I nursed a grudge, I’d be trying to think up ways to get even with die old man, wouldn’t I? Well, I don’t dream of it.” He asked his friends, “Have you ever seen me do anything low or mean? He said right to my face that he wouldn’t believe me on oath! That’s enough for me! And you”—George looked at Nickel—“would you look up a man again after he’d told you to go hang yourself?”
Nickel answered after a pause, “He’s sorry now.”
George shrugged his shoulders. “A bit late!”