The Dog Who Could Fly (31 page)

By the time C for Cecilia, the veteran Wellington bomber, was shot down over Berlin, man and dog had been deployed to a training squadron near Inverness.

A
s the two men neared the main gate, a bus pulled up to allow several servicemen to alight. Vladimir had his head down and shoulders hunched in despair, and his friend was the one who spotted it. One of the passengers was holding a frayed lead, on the end of which was a fine-looking German shepherd.

“Look! There’s the lovely little bastard!” he cried. “That’s Antis, isn’t it? I told you we’d find him!”

“Thank Christ for that!” Vladimir exclaimed. He couldn’t believe it. Where on earth had the dog appeared from now?

It was a fellow Czech airman, Sergeant Lazar, who had hold of Antis’s broken lead, and Vladimir knew that Lazar had just come back from leave.

They rushed over. “Where the hell did you find him?” Vladimir asked. “We’ve been up all night searching for the beast! Where was he?”

Lazar couldn’t help laughing. “You will never guess . . . I was at Cardiff station waiting for my train, when I spotted this dog nosing through the crowd and clearly searching for someone. The nearer he got the more I was certain it was Antis. I knew Robert was doing a course, so I went and grabbed him. As soon as I saw the broken lead I guessed what had happened. He didn’t like it, of course, but I wasn’t letting go and he knew he had to come . . .”

For the remainder of the day Vladimir kept Antis glued to his side. That afternoon Robert returned to base, and Vladimir was more than happy to hand over his charge to his rightful master. The reunion was a joyous one on both sides. For Antis it signaled that the lonely, torturous search was over. For Robert, it signaled that his wayward dog was safely back in his hands.

Robert didn’t have it in him to punish Antis for what he had done. He knew why he had behaved in such an extraordinary fashion, and if anything, it only went to prove how utterly inseparable he was from his master. But there was one thing that did have to change. With the help of a friendly local farmer—not Mr. Williams—Robert was going to teach Antis to break his habit of chasing sheep.

He took his dog into a field of the farmer’s finest ewes and told him to sit. He left the field, making sure the dog remained where he was. He repeated the process over and over, leaving his dog alone with the flock of sheep for longer and longer stretches of time. Over three days he trained Antis to stay among such animals and show them
total respect. At the end of his training Antis would lie in the field for hours on end, surrounded by curious sheep nosing all around him. If ever he had been a sheep worrier he’d certainly been cured of it now.

In a way this was the worst kind of punishment Robert could have devised to deal with his dog’s errant behavior. As the sheep gazed at Antis in insolent wonder—a dog that was separated from his controlling master, yet seemingly didn’t have it in him to chase them—Antis’s dignity was upset and his humiliation complete. To be mocked by
sheep
—animals of a tiny intellect compared to his own—was almost more than he could bear. But his master had his reasons, of that he was certain, and in any case his word was Antis’s command.

At the end of the third day’s training Robert strode into the field to fetch his dog. His smiles and his hugs were more than enough reward for the long-suffering animal.

“Come on,” Robert announced, “the torture’s over! I don’t think you’ll forget that in a hurry, will you, lad?”

Together they strolled back to base through the winter fields that had so nearly proved the death of Antis—more so in fact than the dog’s sojourns over German territory on flying missions for Bomber Command. His injuries from the buckshot had yet to heal, and some of the lead pellets remained embedded in his body. The base doctor had assured Robert that they would work their way free in time. But what with his ear, nose, and chest wounds resulting from German fire, and having been riddled with shot by an irate Welsh farmer, the dog of war seemed beset by enemies on all sides.

•  •  •

The scenery at their new assignment, RAF Evanton, lifted Robert’s spirits. The base was perched on the far northeastern shore of Scotland, surrounded by dramatic hills, deep lochs, and dark forests that reminded him very much of his native Bohemia, and once he’d gotten his dog settled he began to feel very much at home. As for Antis, he
was in heaven. During breaks from the training lectures that Robert was tasked to give, his master took him hunting for wild mushrooms in the forests that surrounded the base. For the dog who’d survived a long separation and being shot, followed by the threat of execution, it was wonderful to be back together with his master.

With his extensive Bomber Command experience, Robert found that he was hugely respected and looked up to by the young trainee airmen at RAF Evanton. He was a decorated veteran of numerous sorties and the untested cadets held him in some awe. They found it easier being intimate with Robert’s hero of a dog, who quickly became everybody’s favorite. Robert was happy to show off his dog’s obedience and tricks. He had taught Antis to put out a cigarette with his paw without burning himself, and to open any kind of door with his teeth.

Life in the remote Scottish Highlands seemed far removed from the febrile wartime atmosphere that held the whole of England in its grip. The nearest city was Inverness, where the social scene was lively enough almost to allow Robert to forget there was a war on. The handsome foreign airman was both exotic and heroic in stature, and with his veteran war dog at his side Robert became hugely popular.

Man and dog won a prize at a dog show in the nearby town of Dingwall, which raised their profile considerably. It was reported in the local press: “Prizewinning Dog Flew with RAF on Raids.” For the first time the article identified both man and dog by name. The story was picked up by the national papers—first the
Sunday Mail
and then scores of rival newspapers. None of the press seemed to realize it was strictly against regulations to take a dog on RAF missions, and the coverage was overwhelmingly positive.

But during the guilt-ridden yet euphoric weeks after their release from flying combat missions, Robert found himself missing Pamela hugely. In an effort to fill that void he started to court the local Scottish lasses. Many a night out at dances led to him and Antis spending numerous evenings apart. Antis was proving so popular on the
base that he was starting to become everyone’s dog, and that in effect meant that he was no one man’s responsibility.

One night Robert decided that an evening at the Inverness movie theater was in order. He set out on the bus, leaving Antis in the care of some of his cadets. But as he walked through the streets to the Empire Theatre, he was shocked to hear the familiar
scratch-scratch
of paws following behind him. Antis had evaded the cadets, escaped from the camp, boarded a bus behind Robert’s, tracked him through the streets, and finally caught up with him.

Robert couldn’t exactly admonish him there and then. Not wanting to miss the movie, he persuaded the theater’s cashier to let his dog sit in the office while Robert settled down in the darkened theater to enjoy the show. But it hadn’t long begun when there was a startled scream from a lady seated below him. She’d felt something cold and damp snuffling at her legs, and in the ensuing panic someone trod on a mystery animal that had sneaked its way into the theater.

Antis let out a pained howl, and Robert knew for sure that it was his dog that was the cause of all the chaos. He jumped out of his seat in the circle, dashed below, and in the light of the flashlights being shined around the place he found the offender. Red-faced with embarrassment, he grabbed Antis’s collar and dragged him outside, where the doorman and the manager were waiting for him.

Robert gave a hurried explanation as to what had happened, aided by the cashier, who’d come to join them. Antis had sneaked out of the office when her back was turned, the cashier explained, and he must have gone searching for Robert. The theater manager was obviously a dog lover, for he seemed to take Antis’s side in all of this.

“Well, you can’t blame the dog,” he remonstrated. “He obviously felt lost and lonely left in a strange place, so he came looking for you. My dog would have done the same.”

“It was really my fault,” the cashier interjected. “I should have kept a closer eye.”

“Not at all,” the manager objected. He fixed Robert with a look. “The dog needs to be properly looked after. What’s his name?”

“Antis,” Robert replied. “And he’s not usually this disobedient.”

The manager seemed to be searching his mind for something, and then a smile lit up his face. “I thought I recognized him! Isn’t this the dog that appeared in the newsreel and in the papers? The one who flies?”

“It is,” Robert confirmed. “He was with me at 311 Squadron.”

Antis had been watching the exchange of words, sensing the tension in the air and knowing that he was the cause of all the trouble. At the mention of his flying adventures and his fame, the movie-theater manager seemed to have become far more conciliatory. Seizing the moment, Antis offered his paw for the man to shake.

The manager grinned. “Well, it’s not every day that I get to shake hands with a celebrity. Does he often go to the cinema?”

It was Robert’s turn to smile. “Not at all. This is his first and very likely his last visit!”

“Well, why not let him stay and watch, now that he’s here,” the manager suggested. “As long as you keep him under control we should be all right.”

There were two seats on the end of an aisle normally reserved for usherettes. Seated beside Robert, Antis leaned his body against that of his master as the film played. With ears pricked forward and eyes glued to the screen, he seemed almost hypnotized. At one point he stirred and growled protectively as a man carried a crying child across the screen. A few minutes later a forest fire crackled and burned, and Antis pressed closer to Robert, shaking and whining at what he was seeing.

But the final straw was when a herd of frightened animals came charging out of the forest fire right through the screen toward him. Fearful that he was about to be trampled in the stampede, Antis tensed his muscles to jump, and Robert had to slip a reassuring arm around his dog to keep him in his seat. Just as quickly as it had appeared,
the scene was replaced by peaceful countryside views, and Antis was able to settle down once more.

Though it had started out badly, their trip to the movies had been redeemed by the good fortune that the Empire Theatre’s manager was a dog lover, but it might not have gone so well. Antis’s wandering ways needed to be curtailed, but the trouble was their present assignment. At their previous base there had been the all-consuming rigor of a war to fight, plus the matchless company of fellow warriors of the air in which to share the evenings. Here at Evanton there was neither, and both man and dog were increasingly unsettled.

Released from the intensity of flying death-defying missions, and deprived of the kind of brotherhood they had found within 311 Squadron, both Robert and Antis felt strangely lost. They had undertaken their epic escapes—first Robert from Czechoslovakia, then both of them from no-man’s-land, and finally from war-torn France—for one reason only: so they could take the fight to the German enemy. Training others to do so—while undeniably worthwhile—just didn’t satisfy that burning need.

While Robert spent his days lecturing trainees on gunnery skills, he knew that his Czech, British, and other colleagues were daily risking their lives in the air fighting the good fight for real. He hungered to get back into action alongside them. As for Antis, he could sense Robert’s disquiet and it unsettled him. There was trouble brewing for both the flying dog of war and his master.

•  •  •

A few weeks after the incident at the movie theater, Robert was determined to go to a dance at nearby Dingwall, the place where Antis had won the dog show. At the show Robert had met a local girl, Betty, and he had a date to join her at the dance. Frustrated by the lack of any chance to go into action against the enemy, and missing Pamela, Robert decided to risk an evening away from his dog.

He headed to the railway station, leaving Antis stretched out in the sun with seemingly not a worry in the world, and in the care of the cadets. But no sooner had his master disappeared from view than Antis went into action. He slipped away as if going for a pee in the nearby forest, then cut back through the base. He picked up Robert’s scent and tracked him to the station, where he was just in time to see a train pull up and his master climb aboard.

This time Antis’s dash for the nearest railcar was thwarted by a hyperalert porter. The man seized Antis by the collar and held him back until the train had pulled away. Thinking the dog would now have no choice but to return to base, the porter released him, but Antis wasn’t to be so easily thwarted. He leaped onto the track and started to run after the train. In spite of all the injuries he’d suffered Antis was in the peak of physical condition, and he was soon able to catch the train.

It was seven miles to Dingwall, and as the train puffed into the station, so did Antis, barely a few yards behind the rear coach. He was swiftly up on the platform, sniffing out his master among the sea of air-force blue uniforms, and moments later he was on Robert’s tail. He threaded through the streets of Dingwall, and by the time he’d caught up with the young Czech airman he was strolling arm in arm with his date. Antis knew better than to intervene when his master was courting. He held back, tracked them from a distance, and bided his time.

At first glance the pale-skinned Betty didn’t seem to hold a candle to Pamela, but his master was sure to have his reasons. In any case, Pamela seemed to have disappeared from their lives completely, which pained Antis, for Pam had fallen as much for the dog as she had for his master. The dance was being held in Dingwall Town Hall, the same venue where Antis had won the dog show. As a result he knew the place passably well. But he missed one of the turns that his master had taken and ended up losing himself in the maze of corridors.