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"Over There" with the Australians by R. Hugh (Reginald Hugh) Knyvett
page 23 of 249 (09%)
The fifth Britisher of our crew will growl himself into your favor,
being a well-bred British bulldog, looking down with pity on the tykes
of mixed blood. Even before the war he showed his anti-German feelings
by his treatment of a pet pig that we had on the schooner.

As I look back on it, our evening sport was a prophecy of what is
to-day happening on the western front. "Torres" would stand growling
and snapping at the porker, which would squeal and try to get away, but
his hoofs could not grip the slippery deck, and though his feet were
going so fast as to be blurred he would not be making an inch of
progress. The Germans have been squealing and wanting to get away from
the British bulldog but they do not know how to retire without collapse.

This pig had a habit of curling up among the anchor chains, and while
we only used one anchor he escaped injury, but one rough day when both
anchors were dropped simultaneously, piggy shot into the air with a
broken back. The Germans have withstood the Allies so far, but now
that America is with us, the back of the German resistance will soon be
broken.

Of course Torres enlisted! In the beginning he was with Chum, and
there was danger of his growing fat of body and soft of soul in the
quartermaster's store, but he was rescued in time, and after months of
exciting researches into canine history among the bones of the tombs of
Egypt he earned renown at Armentières, as his body was found in No
Man's Land with his head in the cold hand of a comrade to whom he had
attached himself, and I believe his spirit has joined the deathless
army of the unburied dead that watch over our patrols and inspire our
sentries with the realization that on an Australian front No Man's Land
has shrunk and our possession reaches right up to the enemy barbed wire.
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