So we
came out, but the firing was not over at all, as we found out at
once. So we went down a bit deeper, into concrete dugouts.
This trench had been a part of the intricate German defensive system
far back of their old front line, and they had had the pains of
building and hollowing out the fine dugout into which I now went for
shelter. Here they had lived, deep under the earth, like animals--and
with animals, too. For when I reached the bottom a dog came to meet
me, sticking out his red tongue to lick my hand, and wagging his tail
as friendly as you please.
He was a German dog--one of the prisoners of war taken in the great
attack. His old masters hadn't bothered to call him and take him with
them when the Highlanders came along, and so he had stayed behind as
part of the spoils of the attack.
That wasn't much of a dog, as dogs go. He was a mongrel-looking
creature, but he couldn't have been friendlier. The Highlanders had
adopted him and called him Fritz, and they were very fond of him, and
he of them. He had no thought of war. He behaved just as dogs do at hame.
But above us the horrid din was still going on, and bits of shells
were flying everywhere--anyone of them enough to kill you, if it
struck you in the right spot. I was glad, I can tell ye, that I was
so snug and safe beneath the ground, and I had no mind at all to go
out until the bombardment was well over. I knew now what it was
really to be under fire.
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