The final leg of Robert’s epic flight from France was via a convoy sailing from Gibraltar, although it required ingenious subterfuge to smuggle Ant aboard.
Robert and Ant pressed ahead, trying as best they could to give the impression of a man and dog out for a relaxed evening stroll. Robert threw a stick so Ant could chase after it. He pounced on the wooden snake, tail erect and flicking back and forth excitedly as he grasped it in his jaws. They kept the game going until the brightly lit house hove into view once more.
As they neared the gate the guard stationed there spotted them, but he didn’t appear to suspect a thing. Robert threw the stick so it landed near him. The guard picked it up and threw it back to Robert in an effort to tease the prancing dog. As Robert tossed the stick back to the guard, Ant found himself bounding back and forth playing monkey-in-the-middle.
“Evening!” the guard called over. “Nice dog you have there. A German shepherd if I’m not mistaken. That’s the kind of breed that will endear us to our new masters.” A pause. “Want me to find him a good home?”
“Well, it certainly looks as if you’ve found yourselves a good home,” Robert replied, feigning nonchalance. “Seems like the good old days, what with the music playing and the partying.”
The guard tapped his temple as if to say there’s a brain in here. “Ah, well, some of us have used our heads.” With a smug grin he pointed at Robert’s uniform. “Tell you one thing, pretty shortly you’ll be wishing you didn’t have that on.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Robert mused.
He whistled for Ant and scooped him up, stroking him thoughtfully as if he was seriously considering giving him up. Over the guard’s shoulder, he caught a glimpse of Ludva and Jacques creeping out of the bushes.
He held the dog out before him, as if showing him off to the guard. “Perhaps he might just be in need of a new home. What’ll you give me for him?”
The guard shrugged. “I was thinking less of a payment, more of me doing you and the dog a favor—”
His words were cut off as Ludva struck from behind, snaking his arm around the guard’s neck and pulling hard to choke any attempt to cry out, while his other hand smothered the mouth. Robert saw the guard’s eyes bulge in alarm as Ludva tightened his hold, and at the same time Jacques secured his revolver. It was all over in seconds. Bound and gagged, the guard was thrown into the back of one of the vehicles. Theirs had been a plan built on a deception and it was one in which Ant had played his part perfectly.
A soft whistle from Robert summoned the others. A whispered discussion ensued. Ludva wanted to take the sportiest car for the speediest escape. Cooler heads were drawn to the cart standing to one side of the courtyard: it could be removed with no noise and pulled off the road whenever the way ahead became congested. It would also help them blend in with the scores of rural refugees. There wasn’t time to steal the pony as well, but the trap was light and the men were strong. They could haul it themselves.
Dusk had turned to darkness by the time seven Czechs, two Frenchmen, and a German shepherd joined the column of refugees heading south. Two men pulled on the cart’s shafts, and seven pushed from behind. As for Ant, he rode atop the heap of suitcases and gear, looking as proud as an Indian raja with his nine bearers around him.
They had resolved to head not for Tours, as the adjutant had suggested, but for the smaller town of Blois, on the Loire, which was closer. There was precious little time if they were going to beat the Germans to it, but if they succeeded they should be able to take a train from there to the southern coast. The south of France had yet to be occupied by the enemy, and there were rumors of evacuations being organized from the Mediterranean ports. Allied soldiers fleeing the German advance were being urged to get there as quickly as possible.
But the progress of the cart, first on crowded roads, then on rutted tracks, was anything but swift. Every time it tilted, Ant clawed furiously at the suitcases but rarely could he keep his balance. He tumbled off repeatedly and whined miserably when he was lifted back on. Not yet fully grown, the puppy didn’t have the energy or the endurance to make the journey on foot. He would have to ride the cart or be left behind. Nerves frayed with each delay and for the first time Ant became a source of division among the men.
“This is no bloody good,” the hotheaded Ludva snorted as Ant fell yet again. “At this speed we’ll all see the firing squad before morning.”
When Ant tumbled from the cart for the umpteenth time and howled out in pain, Vlasta’s composure deserted him. “He’s not hurt—he just wants to be carried! The enemy patrols will hear him. We’ve got to get rid of him.”
Without a word Robert scooped up the gangly pup and tucked him protectively under one arm while continuing to push the trap with the other. He was determined to carry Ant all the way to England if necessary. The dog’s whining ceased, and after a few minutes Uncle Vlasta fell into step beside Robert.
He glanced across at him, sheepishly, then down at the dog. “Sorry about that . . . I don’t know what got into me.”
“Forget it,” Robert replied. As for Ant, he turned his soft eyes on Vlasta and nuzzled his arm. “See.” Robert smiled. “Ant’s forgiven you already, so there’s no harm done.”
Without another word Vlasta took the puppy from his master, hoisted him onto his broad shoulders in a fireman’s lift, and carried him for the next hour or more, after which another of the airmen took his place carrying the dog.
It was well after midnight when they heard the sound of a railway engine pulling out of a nearby station. It looked as if they’d just missed one of the last trains heading south. They roused the stationmaster by hurling stones at his shuttered window, only for him to confirm somewhat grumpily that there would be no more trains that night. He seemed deeply suspicious of their party. It was hardly surprising in a country that was rife with collaborators, turncoats, and quislings.
Pierre explained that they were French airmen fleeing the Boche, and that the enemy was close on their tail. If they had to spend the remainder of the night waiting for a train, it might well prove the death of them. The stationmaster seemed finally to relent. He directed them to a short stretch of track two miles farther on, where he thought they might find one of the last trains preparing to steam south—that’s if their luck held.
The airmen pressed on into the night, heaving the cart over muddy ruts and rough ground, their exhaustion temporarily forgotten in the chase after this elusive night train. Behind them they could hear the growls of heavy engines in the distance and the odd burst of gunfire as the German panzers ground onward. It was deeply ominous.
They were on the verge of giving up hope when Ant’s hypersensitive hearing detected something. He leaped off the cart, leading the men toward a shadowed ravine. It turned out to conceal a deep railway cutting. Hidden within its depths were thirty railcars, with three engines coupled to the front and working up a head of steam in preparation for imminent departure.
The entire train was full to bursting. Still, a mob of desperate servicemen and their families besieged it, demanding to be allowed onto carriages that could hold no more. As the nine airmen surveyed the scene, it looked pretty hopeless. On a first-come-first-served basis they were at the very back of the line, and there was no way that they would push women and children aside so as to claim their own place on this train ride to safety.
It was then that Ant took the initiative. Steering a path through the crowd, he headed toward the rear of the train, with Robert following. The final few cars were cattle cars, which the airmen presumed had to be crammed full of livestock. Unlike the passenger cars, there were few if any people milling around, and the rear of the train was a place of relative calm.
Ant reached the very last of the cattle cars, plunked down his rear, and glanced back at his master, his eyes aglow. There’s a gorgeous smell in here. Irresistible, actually! Open up and let’s see what it is!
When Robert tried to slide the door aside it failed to move. He banged on it a few times, but with little hope that the animals he presumed were inside would respond. Then, miracle of miracles, the door slid open a crack. A well-dressed woman poked out her nose, peering guardedly at Robert. An instant later her face lit up when she saw the puppy sitting obediently at his side. She slid the door open wider and beckoned Robert and his dog to enter . . . perhaps not gambling on the eight fellow airmen who accompanied them!
Robert and Ant took a place in one corner of the carriage. It was devoid of livestock, and apart from the woman and her two teenage daughters, plus a large quantity of luggage, it was completely deserted. Hardly daring to believe their luck, the nine airmen piled in their own suitcases and slid shut the door.
With the car door firmly closed and bolted, the girls revealed the source of the smell that had drawn Ant to them. They had been feasting on a bar of chocolate. Noting how the puppy eyed it hungrily, the older girl broke off a piece and offered it to him. The ravenous dog needed no coaxing with fingers dripping in melted chocolate this time; instead, he took the piece gently from her hand and wolfed it down.
“Mais il est mignon!” she exclaimed, breaking off another square of chocolate—but he is so cute!
With Ant having broken the ice, the woman explained that her husband was a publisher in Brussels, but that he had been called up by the Belgian Army. She had heard nothing of him for two months, and so was fleeing the family home for the south of France, where she hoped to find sanctuary. Her daughters were delighted to be able to make a fuss over Ant, and the woman seemed happy enough at the extra company.
The elder of the two girls let the tired dog rest his head in her lap. She soothed him to sleep with a soft Belgian lullaby, one that partially drowned out the shouts of people farther up the track fighting for seats that did not exist. Just before dawn the overloaded train finally lurched into motion, using the only undamaged track going in the direction of intended travel—south to safety—and leaving hundreds of desperate would-be passengers behind.
But so great was the weight of those who had squeezed aboard that at the first gradient the long line of cars broke apart in the middle. Those cars nearest the break lurched backward into the cattle cars at the rear, Ant being buried under a heap of falling suitcases.
His yelping was pitiful. Hey! Hey! I’m here! Get me out of here!
As the airmen pulled the suitcases off him Robert dragged the puppy clear. The engineless railcars gathered speed, careering backward down the incline, with those in the runaway part of the train fearing that they had been abandoned. How could the drivers know that the rear section had become uncoupled? Fortunately, the train’s conductor had been alerted, and once the runaway train came to a standstill the errant cars were reattached.
But their onward progress was dogged by delays. An axle snapped, and they were forced to stop for repairs. There were frequent halts due to air-raid warnings—for a train steaming at speed would make an irresistible target for marauding German warplanes. They also seemed to stop at every station—not that the train was capable of accommodating any more of the desperate people who thronged the platforms. Finally they reached a section of track that had suffered such serious bomb damage as to make it impassable, and long hours were spent repairing it.
In three days they covered just sixty miles. Progress was barely faster than walking pace, and all the while they feared being overtaken by the German forces at their rear. The nine airmen had been reduced to a starvation diet by now: all they had to feed themselves and their dog were a few tins of sardines and bars of chocolate. Ant was becoming listless due to the lack of proper food: his eyes had dulled, his nose had gone dry and flaky, and his coat was losing its customary luster.
After a twenty-hour delay for no discernible reason in the midst of a town, it was almost a relief to come to a halt in open countryside due to yet another air-raid warning. Pushing the door open to let in some fresh air, Robert spotted a herd of cows grazing nearby. He seized the opportunity.
“Come on, chaps,” he called. “Here’s our chance to get some milk. Ant, stay.”
The airmen needed little encouragement, not least because their beloved canine companion looked to be in such a bad way. The Belgian woman fished around in her bags and pulled out a baby’s bottle, which she said would be ideal for feeding Ant the cow’s milk. But the herd was understandably wary at the sight of nine wild-eyed airmen dashing toward them, hunger burning in their eyes. Their attempt to corral the cattle only caused a stampede. Just one of the beasts failed to join the mad dash away from the direction of the train. She strolled over to the hedge, stood ruminating for a moment, and was cornered.
But the question was, who would milk her? In Czechoslovakia, milking was considered woman’s work and none of the men knew what to do. Urged on by the others, Robert tried his hand. Four of his comrades held the cow, two at the head and two at the rear, as he positioned the bottle directly beneath the udder. But no matter how he might pull on her teats, he failed to coax a single drop of milk from them.
Laughter came from behind a nearby hedge. Two elderly Frenchwomen were watching the performance in something close to astonishment.
“She’s the grandmother of the herd,” announced one, stifling a giggle. “She’s dry! Her milking days are long gone.”
Then her friend spotted the bottle and seemed to take pity on them. “Oh, is it for the baby you need the milk? Wait, we have plenty for a little one.”
She held out her hand for the baby’s bottle, which Robert passed across to her wordlessly. She vanished into a nearby cottage and reappeared holding it aloft, brimful of milk. She had filled a wine bottle with some more and sealed it with a stopper. Back in the train car, Robert offered Ant the bottle, having first squeezed out a few drops onto the rubber nipple. The dog took one sniff, his eyes brightened, and he began to suck greedily. Robert felt a flood of relief wash over him.
So a pattern was established. Whenever the train stopped, Robert had only to show the baby’s bottle at the doorway of the cattle car for some kindly soul to fill it. Anyone who inquired after the infant’s welfare was left with the impression that “baby Antoine” was bearing up admirably under the circumstances.
The milk proved a lifesaver for Ant, who began to strengthen, which in turn proved a major morale booster for the men. But when the train finally reached Montpellier, on France’s Mediterranean coast, the nine were to lose two of their number. Jacques and Pierre felt unable to abandon their families to the vagaries of the German occupation: they left the train, vowing to the Czech airmen to be reunited one day when all of Europe would be free again.
Pierre and Robert shared an especially emotional parting. “Vive la France,” Robert announced, shaking the Frenchman’s hand for what he feared was the last time.
Pierre smiled through the tears in his eyes. “Vive l’Angleterre.”
As for Ant, he was sad to see the French pilot leave. Together, the three of them had survived so much, and had Pierre not chosen to fly his aircraft low over the German lines on their doomed reconnaissance mission, Ant would never have been discovered and rescued by his master and protector.
From Montpellier the party made for the port city of Marseilles. The scene all around them was chaos, with French servicemen discarding their uniforms and declaring that any further resistance against the Boche was futile. But the seven stoic Czechs ignored the febrile atmosphere that swirled around the city and made directly for the docks. There they were able to catch one of the last ships bound for the nearest free British territory—Gibraltar.
“Gib” lay nearly nine hundred miles along the Spanish coast. Spain was in theory a neutral party in the war, so at least the voyage wouldn’t be menaced from the Spanish coastline. To the Czechs, the last leg of their epic journey to freedom—one that would enable them to continue to take the fight to the loathed enemy—seemed the least daunting. But for Ant, one of the greatest dangers of their perilous flight was still to come.
• • •
They reached Gibraltar on June 30, 1940, after a largely uneventful voyage. As luck would have it, a convoy was preparing to set sail for Britain. Gibraltar was the airmen’s first-ever taste of British territory, and they learned that they would be transferred to the British collier ship, the Northmoor. She lay at anchor one hundred yards offshore, and final preparations were being made for her departure for England.
A ferryboat was shuttling back and forth to the busy vessel, and as the seven men shuffled up the gangplank they felt overcome by the sheer thrill and exhilaration of having pulled off a seemingly impossible escape. But Robert’s joy was to be short-lived. As the servicemen operating the ferry checked over their papers, one spotted Ant waiting patiently at Robert’s heel.
He gave a curt shake of the head. “Sorry, no dogs allowed. Captain’s orders.”
Robert tried to reason with the man but he was adamant. “Sorry, my friend, but we’ve had to stop a full colonel for the same reason today. You haven’t got a hope.” Seeing Robert’s face fall, he tried to console him. “He’s a good-looking animal; plenty of people ashore will be glad to have him. Gibraltar is British territory, and the people here are dog lovers. Rest assured he won’t starve.”
Robert understood that the man had his orders, but no way on earth was he about to leave Ant behind. After all they had endured—and after the many ways in which Ant seemed to have safeguarded their journey so far—Robert was not about to be parted from his dog. He handed his gear to Joska and headed back down the gangplank to shore.
Robert and Ant sat side by side on the quayside, the airman resting on a heap of timber, Ant lying in his customary position at his master’s feet. Robert stared out at the Northmoor. So near and yet so far. He could see their six friends waving to him across the short stretch of water as they neared the vessel. Robert was not only the master of this adolescent pup: he felt as if he had become its father figure, and as if the fates of man and dog were inextricably intertwined.
He felt his dog’s eyes upon him. Ant was scanning his face with a searching look. I thought we were on our way out of here, Dad. So, what’s happening?
Robert reached down and ruffled his dog’s ears. “I’m not sure, boy. Give me a few minutes to think up a plan. But one thing’s for sure: there’s not a hope in hell I’m leaving you behind.”
Ant’s tail made a few reassuring thumps as he wagged it back and forth, banging it against the woodpile. Then he got to his feet, galumphed over to the water, seemed to gaze from it toward the waiting boat for several seconds, before turning back to the woodpile. Robert watched, fascinated, as the dog chose a piece of wood, pulled it free from the pile, turned back to the harbor, and launched it into the water in the direction of the ship. The current carried the length of wood out toward the vessel, until finally it was lost from view.
Ant turned his head, fixed his master with an intense look, and barked, once, excitedly. See, Dad, it’s not so far. If that dumb lump of wood can make it, so can I!
“By Christ, you’re right,” Robert muttered, shaking his head in amazement. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
The one hundred yards would be an easy swim for Ant. Robert could board the ship, telling the ferry crew that he’d left his dog to be adopted by a local family. Once safely aboard, he could whistle for Ant, who’d be sure to swim out to the ship following his master’s call. There was just one problem: fierce arc lights lit up the entire harbor. His dog was bound to be visible in their glare as he waited patiently by the dockside, then dived into the harbor.
For the first time in his life Robert found himself longing for an air raid—for then the arc lights would be extinguished, enabling him to smuggle Ant across the darkened water unseen. Robert reflected upon the incredible closeness that had formed between him and his dog, one that made him actively wish for enemy warplanes to attack. He chided himself for doing so. Good men might die under the German bombs. Their transport to Britain might even be sunk. But such was their bond that he would have welcomed a flight of Dorniers right now.
Robert squatted down and took Ant’s head in his hands, staring into the depths of his eyes in the hope of finding some added inspiration there. Ant it was who had first thought up the idea of swimming across the harbor and sneaking aboard the ship, so why not a plan to avoid the arc lights too? But the dog returned a gaze that was as empty and desperate as Robert’s. It was as if he was saying: Search me, Dad. On that one I haven’t got a clue.
Robert let his eyes rove around the dockside. They came to rest on an old and blackened cinder bucket. Now here was a possibility. It was a good two feet high and had a coiled rope attached to it. A plan began to form in his mind, and the more he mulled it over the more plausible it seemed. By the time he got to his feet he was very much a man with a mission. He couldn’t be sure it would work. It would be the ultimate test of Ant’s obedience, loyalty, and training.
But right now it was the only hope he had of keeping his dog at his side.