Tall, dashing, and a decorated war veteran, Robert knew that with his fine-looking and famous flying dog of war at his side he was a catch for the ladies.
In September 1942, Robert received his commission as an officer in the RAF. His work at the Air Gunnery School continued as before, and the only noticeable change in life was his and Antis’s move into the officers’ mess. While Robert lectured by day, his dog was free to roam the outskirts of the base, set as it was in wild countryside. Occasionally, he’d pop his head around the door of the lecture hall to check on his master, before wandering off to enjoy himself once more.
Antis’s favorite spot by far was the bank of an icy brook that tumbled from the nearby hill and gurgled beside the accommodation huts. The trees of a dark forest—the Darreuch Wood—swept down to the opposite bank, and above the forbidding woodland rose the wild and inhospitable folds of Cnoc-Fyrish, the hills all but bare of vegetation on their heights. Antis would spend hours lying by the water, watching the antics of a wild duck and her seven offspring as they took their daily swimming lessons.
At first the mother duck had been hugely alarmed at the appearance of this large and powerful-looking stranger. But over the weeks she seemed to relax, and at last she sensed that he meant them no harm. Soon the tiny ducklings could swim right up to the dog’s nose, and he’d do little more than twitch his muzzle in amusement as he watched over them benevolently, with mother duck rounding up the stragglers at the rear.
Antis’s behavior with those wild ducks typified the nature of the dog. He could chase rabbits with a hunter’s instinct and a burning desire to catch and to kill. He seemed to sense that was fair game, for rarely did he actually overrun one and the rabbits stood a sporting chance. But with anything like those ducklings—the helpless, the vulnerable, or the very young—his protective instincts came to the fore, and he wouldn’t dream of harming one.
• • •
Christmas 1942 came and went, ushering in a bitterly cold and frosty January. An icy wind blew off the rolling heights of Cnoc-Fyrish, bringing with it the first gusts of snow. It lay across RAF Evanton, deep and crisp and even, and brought all training flights to a temporary halt. The snowbound huts of the officers’ mess were double-skinned and had proper heating, and Robert was more than a little thankful for it now.
One early January evening he settled down in the room that he shared with his dog, a book in one hand and Antis sound asleep at his feet. The snow was falling, deadening any sound from outside, and the wind had dropped to a whisper. It was wonderfully still. Apart from the odd snuffle or shiver from his dog as he chased rabbits in his dreams, all was quiet. They had been together for three years now, and in spite of their recent misadventures Robert felt closer to his dog than ever before.
Eventually the book fell from his hands as Robert dozed off. He woke with a start, and with no idea how long he had been asleep. A distant sound had torn him out of his slumber. He strained his ears and there it was again. Somewhere out there in the icy wilds a dog was howling. Antis had pricked up his ears. He’d heard it too.
Without a word or a look to his master, the dog was suddenly on his feet. He crossed to the door and stood with ears thrown forward, head erect and body tense, facing the direction of that ghostly sound. Thinking he must need a pee, Robert got out of the chair and unlatched the door. It opened onto a corridor, with a door at the far end leading outside.
Normally, Antis would trot down its length and wait for Robert to open the far door, if he couldn’t manage it himself. But now he had stopped dead on the threshold of their room. The door at the far end lay partially open, a shaft of moonlight thrown across the floor, the snow outside glistening an unearthly blue-white in the light.
Antis gazed at the open door, the moonlight glinting in his eyes.
Then he raised his head and answered the call from the wild with a howl of his own.
It was deafening, especially in that confined space. Several doors flew open as fellow officers tried to ascertain the source of the racket. But before anyone could say anything, Antis was off. He flew down the length of the corridor, bounded into the snow, and was gone. Robert followed, reached the doorway, and gazed outside. He felt a strange sense of urgency bordering on panic, as if he knew already all was not right with his dog—or at least, not as Robert understood things should be.
Antis stood rigid, a coal-black silhouette against the crystalline mass of white, his body taut like a statue and his muzzle raised toward the nearby hill. He was barely twenty yards away, but Robert could sense how distant his dog’s mind was from him right then, and how great was the danger that he was about to lose him.
“Antis, come here, boy,” he tried. “Come here.”
He saw the ears flick back a second as his dog registered the sound of his master’s voice, but the head didn’t move a fraction of an inch. It remained glued to the distant hillside.
Robert called again, an edge of insistency creeping into his voice. “Antis, come here! Now, boy!”
In answer the big, powerful animal kicked out with his hind legs and raced away, his paws flicking up puffs of snow as he thundered into the trees, his thick tail streaming out behind him. Away high on Cnoc-Fyrish a bitch was calling for a mate and Antis had seen fit to answer the call.
For all of the following day Antis remained missing. Countless cadets offered to walk the slopes of Cnoc-Fyrish, once a thorough search of the base and surroundings had turned up not a sign. Robert himself had traced Antis’s paw prints as far as he could, before a fresh fall of snow had obliterated his dog’s passing. But the direction of travel had been quite clear: from what Robert had seen, Antis was headed for the bleak and snow-swept high ground.
Another day passed, and still no sign of Antis. When he wasn’t busy lecturing or out searching the snowfields, Robert made desperate inquiries as to where his dog might be. Could the mystery howl have come from a bitch on some neighboring property? Might Antis be ensconced there even now, lovesick but at least safe from harm?
His heart sank when he learned who the most likely culprit—indeed, the only one—might be. Several years back a German shepherd bitch had gone wild, and she’d lived in the wilderness of nearby Darreuch Wood. The bitch had been shot by a gamekeeper, but at the time she had a litter of pups who were some four months old. One had survived, and she still roamed those woods, hunting to survive. If Antis had answered the call of any female of the breed, it would be hers.
In a sense, who was Robert to complain if his dog chose a female companion over his master? Hadn’t Robert favored Pamela, briefly Ann, and then Betty and one or two others over his dog? And how many times when his faithful companion had come after him had Robert scolded and punished him for imposing his protective instincts on his master’s amorous adventures?
If Antis was gone for good—choosing a bitch over Robert’s love and human companionship—so be it. That wasn’t the worst of it. What tortured Robert more than anything was the thought of what Antis’s fate would likely be, out there in the harsh snowbound wilderness. Antis knew how to chase rabbits and to watch over ducklings. He was far from being a dog that lived by his killer hunting instincts. What were his chances of being able to last the bitter winter in the wild?
More to the point, Antis had teamed up with a wild dog—one born to the wild—but he himself was an irredeemably people-friendly animal. There was no way that Antis would keep his distance from any human who might venture into their domain. The first gamekeeper that laid eyes on him would very likely shoot him, and unlike farmer Williams protecting his sheep, any gamekeeper would likely shoot to kill.
As Robert knew well, he didn’t own his dog’s soul. At the end of the day he was a free agent, and if he chose another, so be it. But he feared that Antis’s amorous liaison could well prove the death of him, and he was beside himself with worry.
By the evening of the fifth day he was beginning to give up hope of ever seeing his dog again. He went to bed that night alone in his room, with Antis’s blanket folded neatly beside him. For a second time in their years together he reached out in the night, fingers hoping beyond hope to make contact with a warm flank of hair. But Antis was gone, and the little sleep that Robert got was plagued by dark dreams.
The following day a group of cadets was returning from their lunch when they spotted a four-legged form moving down the lane toward them. There wasn’t a man at RAF Evanton who hadn’t heard of the famous dog’s disappearance, and they realized in an instant that it was Antis. They’d spent long hours with Robert searching for the dog and they could barely believe that it was him. But the thrill of the wild was still in Antis’s blood, and as the cadets rushed forward to grab him he made a leap over a nearby fence to escape.
Weakened from his days in the wilderness, Antis mistimed the jump. He landed belly first on the iron railings and ended up impaled on the sharp spikes. As gently as they could, the cadets lifted him free and rushed him to the sick bay, one of them setting off at a tangent to summon Robert. By the time Robert reached the sick bay, Antis was already on the operating table being examined by RAF Evanton’s medical officer.
The MO shook his head worriedly. “I’m sorry, Robert, but this is beyond me. I can give you the name of a good vet in Inverness, but I’ve got to warn you . . .” He threw a pained look at Robert. “I don’t give a great deal for your dog’s chances.”
One of the spikes had penetrated the dog’s stomach, the MO explained, and it needed a veterinarian’s expertise. Robert couldn’t believe what had happened. His dog—faithful to the last—had come back to him, only to suffer an apparently life-threatening injury on a row of fencing that bordered their very base. It was the bitterest and most heartbreaking of ironies.
With the injured Antis cradled in his lap, Robert commandeered a friend’s car and they drove hell-for-leather to Inverness. The vet turned out to be a gray-haired and kindly looking fellow, but even he doubted whether he had the skills to save the dog.
“I’ll do all I can, of course,” he told Robert, “but it’ll be touch and go. His physical condition is in his favor. He’s strong and fit and young. But I don’t want to raise false hopes. Leave him with me and I’ll be able to tell you more in the morning.”
After a sleepless night Robert was back at the surgery early. But as soon as he laid eyes on Antis, he almost had a heart attack. He was a pitiful sight. Air had gotten into the dog’s stomach through the holes the railings had made, and he was puffed up like a balloon. As Robert bent to caress the dog’s head and whisper reassurances in his ear, he dreaded what the vet was going to tell him—but he needed to know.
“It’s too early to say,” the vet told Robert. “But don’t give up hope just yet. He looks bad, but I’ve seen—”
“Please, I’d far rather know the worst,” Robert cut in. “My dog means an awful lot to me, and I’d not like to be separated from him at the end, if this is the end.”
The vet paused, considering carefully what exactly he was going to tell Robert. “As I’ve said, he’s a healthy dog with a strong heart. At the very least I’d say he has a sporting chance. You can do no good by staying and I’ll phone the camp if he worsens.”
Robert had to settle for this, at least for now.
Two days later Robert got the call he’d been dying to hear. “You can come and get your dog,” the vet told him. “He’s weak and needs nursing, but he’ll do.”
• • •
Robert took Antis back to RAF Evanton, where a long convalescence ensued. With the help of the MO, Antis was gradually nursed back to full health. It was April by now and spring was in the air. Bit by bit Robert started to allow Antis on some of their favorite walks around the base. Gentle exercise and fresh air would be vital to ensuring a full recovery. Every so often Robert allowed his dog to lie on the riverbank across from Darreuch Wood and bask in the spring sunshine.
As far as Robert could tell, Antis had satisfied his call to the wild and had no desire to return to those ancient forests and hills. But one day in June Robert surprised his dog on the far side of the river, nosing excitedly in the undergrowth. By now the ducklings were almost fully grown, and Antis wasn’t in the habit of crossing the water. He’d lie on the nearside, nose to the stream, and watch the birds dabbling about in the shallows.
Something must have drawn him across, Robert reasoned. He settled down to watch. Antis went down on his stomach at the fringe of the woodland, nose snuffling and rear haunches raised, as if to pounce. His ears were flicked forward, his head twisted slightly to one side, and his eyes fixed on a point just a few feet in front of his forepaws. Every now and then he’d shuffle forward on his belly, and Robert could only imagine he was trying to play with a hidden friend of some sort.
The question was, who or what? It could hardly be a duckling, in the dry brown bracken. It was unlikely to be a baby rabbit either. He tended to ignore the babies in his hunger to chase the adults. But every now and then Robert could see something rustling among the very fringes of the vegetation. It would almost poke through, Antis would make a play lunge, and it would dart back inside, only to emerge a little farther along. Antis was clearly playing with something, but what?
The dog repositioned himself and the mystery beast rustled the undergrowth, whereupon Antis let out an excited bark. Up and down the wall of bracken the game went, until Robert managed to get a better glimpse of just what was hiding in there. The tiny, moist black nose; the flopped-over V-shaped ears; the paws far too large for the chubby body; the tiny, stubby bare finger of a tail. It was a carbon copy of how Antis had looked when Robert had first stumbled upon him, back in a shell-blasted French farmhouse in no-man’s-land.
Quietly and in wonder Robert watched the two at play. The dark streak along the puppy’s back was unmistakable, and Robert had no doubt he was watching father and son. Robert whistled softly to Antis, in an effort to coax the little bundle of fur to follow his father out of the bushes. But the wild ancestry of his mother clearly held sway. The puppy would not be tempted, and as the late afternoon sun dipped below Cnoc-Fyrish he slid back into the woodland and was gone.
That evening Antis and Robert relaxed outside their hut, Robert mentally congratulating his dog on his fatherhood. Antis was now pushing into his thirties in terms of human years, and it was about the right time for him to have become a dad.
The following morning the puppy was back. Over several days Robert was able to woo him with gentle words and tidbits of food left on a saucer at the edge of Darreuch Wood. After a week of such enticements, the tiny pup was coaxed to the edge of the doorway leading into Robert and Antis’s quarters, but he would come no farther. Antis stood there trying to urge his son to cross the threshold into his domain, but the wild within him wouldn’t let him pass.
As for Robert, he was watching with bated breath. The education officer on the base had long admired Antis, and if he could just tame the pup enough he knew the man would jump at the chance of having him. Robert felt certain that between him and Antis they would in time manage to woo him.
But a couple of days later a group of youths came along the edge of the woodlands hunting rabbits with a slingshot. Spotting a flash of fur waiting patiently for his father, they unleashed several shots, and with an anguished yelp the puppy was gone. In one fell swoop the puppy’s barely nascent faith in the human species was destroyed, and he fled deep into the sanctuary of the wild. Robert and his dog searched many a day for the puppy, but Antis’s son was not to be found.
• • •
By autumn, Antis seemed to be one hundred percent recovered from his injuries. It was fortunate, for that October RAF Evanton was to close, and Robert and his dog were to leave the magical valley set at the foot of the wild hills. Their next destination was all that they had longed for. Robert—now a flight lieutenant—and Antis—still a dog fit to represent a fighting regiment—would be rejoining their original unit, 311 (Czech) Squadron.
Few of the Original Eight were left alive, and none were still with the squadron. But at least one of Robert’s old crew—those who had flown and cared for C for Cecilia so well—was around. Adamek, their chief ground crewman, was still with the squadron.
311 Squadron was now based at RAF Tain, to the north of the Moray Firth—just a few dozen miles farther up the coast from RAF Evanton. The squadron was no longer flying Wellingtons. Instead, they’d been equipped with the four-engine, long-range American heavy bombers, the aptly named Liberators. The squadron now formed part of RAF Coastal Command, and its mission was to fly out over the bleak expanse of the North Sea in search of enemy shipping, in particular the U-boats that menaced those waters.
Robert couldn’t wait: finally he and his dog had gotten a second combat tour. Once again they would be flying into battle against the enemy.