Bonzo's War (26 page)

The story was told of ‘one little dog which had been captured from the Italians, sent across to Greece, evacuated to Crete, from Crete to Cairo, then to Syria and Palestine and back to Cairo – where it arrived on a 15 cwt lorry with eight big infantrymen and a corporal'. This ‘rough-coated brown and white dog of unknown breed' had had five puppies. The platoon had movement orders; their commanding officer had forbidden the little family to accompany them. One member of the platoon promised to return but the outcome did not look promising: ‘Instructions were left at the PDSA Hospital that should no one come and collect the dog and her family after one month, the puppies would be put to sleep and find the mother a new home. The platoon did not return,' it was reported starkly. Another, homelier account has the ‘little dog finding a home with another soldier' while her ‘babies were painlessly put to sleep'. A REME corporal in Cairo had a cat, which he kept in his stores. Twice it became ill and twice after treatment it recovered. Finally it died before the corporal could get it to hospital – ‘The grief-stricken owner cremated the body of his beloved cat. For weeks he was convinced that he had done wrong.'

There were two dogs ‘belonging to Tommies,' Hans Bloom, director of the PDSA Clinic in Cairo wrote, which had been brought back from Dunkirk and had seen Wavell's campaigns and the Syrian campaign – ‘They had changed hands many times.'

Superintendent Bloom painted a lyrical picture of kindly soldiers – British, Australian, Rhodesians – selflessly rescuing pets, easing the burden of abused pack animals, while ‘puppies for sale in the streets of Cairo by boys are bought out of sympathy for ten piastres each'. A Polish soldier had adopted a young desert fox. A wounded Greek soldier was adopted on the battlefield by a German police dog. He had woken from unconsciousness in a shell hole to find the dog licking his face. After that they were inseparable. With the ding-dong battle in the desert, there would be many more canine side-switchers.

The desert also had charms for homesick huntsmen. With not much to report from the English shires the sporting press printed lyrical letters from far-flung correspondents. An anonymous officer wrote from a camp in the Iraqi desert, inspired by the sound of ‘dogs circling in the darkness, their voices keening in song as they hunt the desert hares and jack[al]s'. His mind was taken off in reverie, ‘to summer days spent by the streams of Sussex with the Crowhurst Otterhounds'.

The presence of cats could also provide comfort. Three days after the Crete débâcle, Winston Churchill was at Chartwell, his house in Kent to which he made occasional wartime visits. For some years now it had been the home of ‘Tango', described as a ‘beautiful marmalade neutered
male cat'. Sir John Colville, his principal private secretary, was there for luncheon on 3 June as the Mediterranean disaster was still unfolding. He recorded:

I had lunch with the P.M. and the Yellow Cat, which sat in a chair on his right-hand side and attracted most of his attention. He was meditating deeply on the Middle East. While he brooded on these matters, he kept up a running conversation with the cat, cleaning its eyes with his napkin, offering it mutton and expressing regret that it could not have cream in war-time.

All this excitement in the Balkans and the Mediterranean meant that the air attacks on Britain were winding down. The
Luftwaffe
turned east to prepare for the titanic assault on the Soviet Union. It began on 22 June 1941.

The fantasy world of NARPAC had relocated meanwhile to Mr Edward Bridges Webb's own home in Golders Green in the north London suburbs, where the registration scheme was now headquartered. The bizarre task continued. Three days after German troops had crashed through the Soviet frontier defences, he boasted to the Ministry of Home Security that ‘with no statutory funding, the registration branch has enrolled some 47,000 voluntary workers, the National Animal Guard, who have raised £35,000, registered three million animals, and are now a part of urban life'.

He proposed turning the debt-laden registration branch into a limited company. But following the withdrawal of the Government's representatives, ‘serious doubts have
been thrown on its authenticity and indeed its honesty is now in question,' said Mr Bridges Webb. The members of his council feared a ‘grave scandal'. At least the veterinary profession had stayed loyal.

So should the Government disclaim all responsibility? ‘Although we could still have lots of trouble [and] in spite of these people's difficulties, they have, in fact, looked after pets,' so the Minister was informed by his officials. From the animal lovers' point of view, it was noted ‘an unfortunate impression' might be created by disbanding the organization.

Mr Bridges Webb had a new wheeze: metal collar badges costing a shilling each to ‘cover the cost of free veterinary attention and insurance'. The People's Dispensary's dream of a welfare state for pets might yet come true.

Mass-Observation's attitude-to-dogs survey could not have been more timely. Researchers asked: ‘Do you find your dog has been affected by the war? Does he mind you leaving him when you have to take shelter?'

‘I think it's made him rather nervous, but he's forgotten all about the raids now,' said one woman in north London. ‘I give him a couple of aspirins, but he's got a lot older and doesn't like games anymore. Funny, isn't it?'

Another owner's pet was not so calm. ‘He kicks up an awful row – I can hear him barking all down the street,' she said. One woman bent the rules for her pet:

Well, I have a little shelter I go to nearby so I'm allowed to take him with me. He's so small no one makes a fuss. He curls up under the eiderdown to get away from the noise, but he never makes any noise himself, he just shivers all the time.

There was a lady with a Pekingese called ‘Tinker Bell', who was ‘so well mannered, I take her everywhere with
me, and she's so small nobody notices her. I take her into restaurants, she loves that.'

Not all stories were so happy. ‘I used to have a dog, a Bull Terrier. He was so sweet I called him “Sugar”,' said an interviewee.

I adored him. He loved me so much. He didn't really like anyone but me, but the trouble was he couldn't bear to be alone and when the war started I became an [ARP] warden. Well, I couldn't have him with me at the post and he started to mope.

I felt he was so miserable, so I made up my mind to have him put away. I nearly died myself. I took him for a little walk, he was so happy. But it was the only thing I could do. He would have gone mad in an air raid. Poor Sugar.

But a non-pet owner in Cricklewood felt that: ‘When a country is in great danger it's ridiculous to clutter up the place with dogs. They should be looked after by the Government or destroyed. Food is so short for ordinary people it isn't right to give it to animals who are for the most part useless.'

The interviewer concluded there was ‘no really strong feeling that dog-keeping is unpatriotic'. The majority of people interviewed however, dog owners or not, felt the Government's attitude was anti-dog. But there was a strong feeling that whether or not people kept dogs in wartime, it was none of the politicians' business.

The food issue was the big one. Profiteering was rife. An anonymous female M-O diarist recorded: ‘Rush to shop to get fish for cats. I'm offered cod's head for 2s 4d a pound, which I decline on principle (although I need it). It would have been 4d before the war or given away for nothing.'

At a pet shop in Neasden, north London, researchers found an expectant queue. There was plenty of horseflesh but no dog biscuits. One woman said: ‘There's that notice up saying the green colouring [dyed so by law since the start of 1941 as not for human consumption] is perfectly harmless though people are very sceptical. They just wouldn't believe it isn't poisonous.'

The Neasden housewives had no inkling of course of the existential decisions being made at the Meadowcroft Hotel in breezy Colwyn Bay on the future of their pets. That spring there had been a deeply horrid moment when the Ministry of Food spelled out that it was ‘a serious offence' to offer food fit for human consumption to a sick dog. Any vet giving such advice and any pet lover doing so would be liable to heavy penalties. Keith Robinson, secretary of Our Dumb Friends' League, waded in, asking ‘in reply to inquirers to our society, am I to say that His Majesty's Ministry see no alternative but to allow such dogs to die?' What a heartless Government, denying food to sick pets!

There was a big policy conference on 23 July 1941 to discuss the position of so-called ‘non-essential animals'. It was very sensitive and highly secret. Sir Bryce Burt, veteran colonial agronomist, director of the Feeding Stuff Division, was in the chair. Mr Howard Marshall, the Ministry's public relations specialist, reported that it was still the feeling of the Minister that ‘any interference with dogs and pets' was liable to ‘cause a public outcry'. They must ‘proceed with circumspection'. The zealots noted:

The question now arises if dogs are
not
to be interfered with, they must be fed – with bread, oatmeal and milk, no doubt by their owners, all of them subsidised foods.

Mr Irving of the Ministry's Milk Division reported that
the milk consumed by cats was the equivalent of one week's human consumption. Mr Smart of Cereal Production said the flour released for dog biscuits was equivalent to two days' human consumption. Something must be done. Whatever the Minister had decided, it need not stop steps being taken to prevent there being more non-essential animals. A ‘reduction by regulation' programme might just get the required results. It was therefore decided: There should be no encouragement by charities to find homes for strays, active propaganda for no more than one dog per household, no breeding of pedigrees, an outright ban on dog shows, no new dog licenses
[sic]
– and even ‘penalising breeding by mongrel bitches by fines and destruction of the litter if breeding occurs'. So far there had been ‘no important enforcement cases' over feeding dogs, it was noted. There had been a case in Scotland where a woman had kept fifty dogs, which she fed on meat and milk, but prosecution had been thought inadvisable. Prosecutions of pet martyrs might cause a public outcry.

But the public mind should be prepared for such a reduction by stealth – while release of any hard figures to the public would be ‘dangerous' until a final policy was determined. There should be consultation, it was agreed, with the animal charities, with ‘sensible' dog breeders, with dog-food makers and with ‘the man in the street'.

The secret memorandum concluded:

In regard to cats, it was the general opinion that no particular action was possible, but the possibilities of the use of
propaganda in the case of cats would be explored
.

So expect some anti-cat stories to start circulating.

But first, a pro-cat story, like this, about ‘Tinker' the railway cat at Teviot Dale Station, Stockport, who had lately passed away to the great sadness of the porters. But he had not been struck by a train, the usual fate of such cats. Tinker, known as ‘the biggest cat, as well as the oldest on the railways', was an exemplary ratter. ‘Thousands in his time he had, and nine in a day was his best bag,' it was said.

Tinker had been on loan to Cheadle Station to do what he did best. Then he had just died. ‘If you want a reason – well, there wasn't a rat left on the station to kill,' said his master. ‘He kind of lost all interest in life after the last rat had gone.'

Tough on rats and mice they might be, but just as the Ministry had secretly contrived, angry letters soon began to appear in the press about cats being ‘pests with which the gardener and allotment holder has to contend and guard against'. Straightaway,
The Cat
fought back.

‘The Cats Protection League has always advocated keeping cats in at night,' said a stirring editorial. ‘In the towns and suburbs, where the back gardener and allotment holder flourish, it is far better for the cat that it should be in at night. Do not let it be said that cat lovers stood in the path of victory for want of a little consideration and co-operation.'