"Why didn't anybody ever tell me Germans was covered with fur?"

In a flash Mahan understood. Wheeling, he stooped low and flung
out both arms in a wide-sweeping circle. Luckily his right hand's
fingertips, as they completed the circle, touched something
fast-moving and furry.

"Bruce!" he whispered fiercely, tightening his precarious grip on
the wisp of fur his fingers had touched. "Bruce! Stand still,
boy! It's YOU who's got to get us clear of this! Nobody else,
short of the good Lord, can do it!"

Bruce had had a pleasantly lazy day with his friends in the
first-line trenches. There had been much good food and more
petting. And at last, comfortably tired of it all, he had gone to
sleep. He had awakened in a most friendly mood, and a little
hungry. Wherefore he had sallied forth in search of human
companionship. He found plenty of soldiers who were more than
willing to talk to him and make much of him. But, a little
farther ahead, he saw his good friend, Sergeant Mahan, and others
of his acquaintances, starting over the parapet on what promised
to be a jolly evening stroll.

All dogs find it hard to resist the mysterious lure of a walk in
human companionship. True, the night was not an ideal one for a
ramble, and the fog had a way of congealing wetly on Bruce's
shaggy coat. Still, a damp coat was not enough of a discomfort to
offset the joy of a stroll with his friends. So Bruce had
followed the twelve men quietly into No Man's Land, falling
decorously into step behind Mahan.