CHAPTER V
BILLY NEARLY KILLS THE COOK
WHEN Billy was sure he was not being followed, he went a circuitous way back to the dogs’ hospital that he might stop and have the fun of telling them how he escaped from the old General.
When at last he approached the hospital from the back, he saw no one about, not even a dog or cat. But all the windows and doors were open so he knew they were at home and around somewhere. He cautiously approached, keeping a sharp lookout for the cook, for he did not want him to catch him and deliver him into the old General’s hands. He was just rounding the pig pen when he saw driving into the lane one of the field hospital ambulances.
“I expect it has come with a load of wounded dogs. I’ll just stay here and watch,” pondered Billy.
The hum of the ambulance motor was heard in the hospital and presently a young doctor and two trained nurses appeared at the door ready to receive the new patients. Billy could hear the low groans and yelps of pain from the dogs as the stretchers were lifted and the dogs were carried inside. Several dogs tagged in after the stretcher bearers and as Billy had always wanted to have a look about the hospital wards, he determined to follow.
Presently he found himself standing in the doorway of a long ward with tiny beds like babies’ cribs lining the wall all the way around, and in each bed was a dog, either curled up asleep or sitting upon its hind quarters watching the newcomers.
Some of the dogs had their legs in slings; others had bandages over their eyes, while others were in plaster casts. Beside each cot was a little stand on which had been placed the medicine for that particular dog, along with a bowl of drinking water.
“Gee!” exclaimed Billy. “A dog would not mind being sick in these quarters with all this comfort and the pretty nurses and the kind doctors to wait upon him. But what is that? Do my eyes deceive me, or am I seeing things? If so, I am a sick goat and I shall crawl into the first cot I find that is big enough to hold me. If I am not seeing things, then that big, black cat on the window sill is my dear old friend Button from the United States of America. Such being the case, Stubby, the other member of our trio, can’t be far off. Perhaps he is one of these wounded dogs that just came in the ambulance. I know how I’ll soon find out. I’ll just baa and if it is Button sitting in that window and Stubby is in one of these beds, I bet it will surprise them so that even if they are half dead they will come to life long enough to answer my baa.”
Billy gave one long, loud baa that resounded down the big, bare room like a loud clanging bell. Every person and dog in the long hospital ward jumped as if a bomb had exploded in the room, and some of the weaker and more timid dogs fainted dead away from the shock. They were weak from loss of blood, and fatigued from their hard work on the battlefield, having been without anything to eat or drink for many hours. And I am sorry to say that Stubby was among them. Billy listened in vain for a familiar bark, but he was going forward to speak to the cat which meowed with joy in response to his baa when a doctor picked up a window pole and made towards Billy, while another grabbed the cat and threw it out of the window before the cat knew what was taking place. He had been so delighted to hear Billy’s familiar baa that he did not even see the man approaching.
The doctor chased out Billy and all the dogs that had tagged in, and shut the door behind them.
Now Billy had not heard the answering meow, and so was still in some doubt as to whether or not the cat was Button, or if his old friend Stubby was one of the wounded dogs. As he thought of this he walked toward the back of the hospital into the yard. All the dogs which had been driven out with him were following him and telling him how they had enjoyed the commotion he had caused, and were plying him with questions as to how he got away from the General and back so soon, and how far he had gotten on the journey before he was caught. Billy paid not the slightest attention to any of them. In fact, he did not even hear what they were saying, he was so busy thinking of his two friends and wondering how they ever got to France for when he had last seen them they were in New York state.
He had gotten just this far in his musings when he turned the corner of the hospital and saw the black cat sitting on a packing box, looking up at the window from which he had been thrown. Billy knew in a second that the black cat was his old friend sure enough. On seeing Billy, the black cat made one spring and lit squarely on Billy’s back. Then he jumped off and ran up a tree, then down and over and under a wheelbarrow that was standing near, then in among the dogs that were surrounding Billy as if to try to save him from the onslaught of this crazy acting cat which they all thought was having a fit.
Yes, it was a fit, but not from sickness, but rather from joy at beholding Billy alive and in the flesh when he had been given up long ago for dead.
Presently the cat quieted down and came and stood before Billy, and gazed and gazed and gazed into his eyes without saying a word. And Billy gazed back, wondering in his own mind what on earth had made the dignified Button act so crazily. After this long scare, the cat meowed, “Well, Billy, old fellow, I see it is really you in the flesh and not some other goat that looks like you. But how you ever managed to keep from being killed is more than I know. All of us had given you up as dead and mourned for you for months. Nannie, your poor little wife, is still bewailing your loss. You see, we thought you were done for from an item in the newspaper, which I heard my master read aloud one morning. I can’t give it to you just as it was written, but the gist of the matter was that the —th Regiment with its celebrated white goat mascot, Billy Whiskers, had marched to the front on May twenty-first but that, sad to relate, few returned and those that did were badly wounded. A great many had been taken prisoners and whether their mascot had been killed or captured, those returning did not know. Stub and I did not feel you were killed, and that if you were captured you would find some way to escape. We then and there made up our minds to cross the ocean and look for you, for we were bound to find you if you still lived. And here we two have stumbled into you just when we had given up all hope of you being alive.” And off went Button, running up one tree and then another, around in circles and jumping over and through hedges and flower beds. Once he made the dogs all laugh for by mistake he ran up an old gardener’s back as he was stooping over digging away, thinking it was a stump, he was so nearly the color of the trees and grasses of the garden. The old fellow was so surprised that he fell headlong into the ditch he was digging.
“You see, Billy, I am so delighted to see you I can’t keep still.”
“I am just as glad to see you, but I can’t jump around like a crazy loon to show it. Come here until we rub noses in the place of a kiss!” said Billy.
“I must run and tell Stubby. He will be so delighted it will help him stand his pain and he will get well sooner. But how am I to get into this blooming building again? Aren’t there some back stairs, fire escapes or something of the like I could go up to get to his ward?”
“No, there are no fire escapes on any of these country buildings that have been turned into hospitals,” replied the Red Cross dog. “What we need more than fire escapes is a bomb proof cellar large enough to carry our patients into when we have an air raid.”
“I’ll tell you how you can get in,” spoke up Pinky. “Wait until the nurses begin to carry suppers up to their patients, and then you can creep along at their heels and, being black, you can hide in the shadows until they leave the ward. Only the night nurse will then be on duty and she will soon fall asleep. Then you can creep out and go to your friend’s cot and tell him all the news.”
“Splendid idea! Thank you very much! Won’t some one introduce me to this dog?”
“Goodness gracious me! Do excuse me, Button, for being so impolite, but joy at seeing you drove all my good manners out of my mind. It is not too late now, and I wish to introduce you to all my friends you see standing around us.”
After they had all been presented to Button, they went over to the grove of trees where the dogs always went when they wished to talk without interruption, and they agreed to stay there until time for the patients to have their supper, for they were very curious to hear how the big, black cat got all the way from the United States of America to France, and also to hear how Billy got away from the old General.
They were all trotting along as fast as they could through the barnyard with heads down, thinking what a fine time was in store for them listening to the goat and cat relate their adventures, when the Red Cross dog heard a peculiar croak and, looking around, he saw the cook astride Billy’s back, trying to get a rope around his neck. Now the rope had just slipped over Billy’s head and the cook gave it a pull that nearly strangled him and made him make the croaking noise that caused the Red Cross dog to turn around.
“Gee, that is too bad!” sighed the dog, and Pinky said:
“Just my luck! I never counted on having a good time that something did not come along and spoil it! I expect the cook won’t rest now until he has delivered Billy to the old General.”
“I wonder where the cook is going to put him now he has him,” said one of the dogs.
“Goodness knows! I don’t!” replied Pinky.
“Why, look! He is going over toward the hospital with him,” said another.
“Let’s follow and see what he is going to do with him,” suggested the Red Cross dog. “But keep out of sight and don’t let the cook know we are following him,” he warned.
So they all separated, slinking along in the shadows, dodging behind trees, boxes and barrels, their eyes glued to the cook’s back.
Instead of hiding, Pinky walked out in plain sight, and trotted along at the cook’s heels, and she heard him mutter to himself: “I’ll just put this foxy old goat in that vacant room in the hospital and lock him in and then we will see if he is smart enough to butt down the hospital!”
“He might not try,” whispered Pinky to herself. “But I bet he could butt down the door if he took it into his head he wanted to do it.”
The cook got Billy to the foot of the stairs leading to the porch of the hospital. Here the cook went ahead and tried to lead Billy up. But all of a sudden Billy planted his fore feet straight in front of him and pulled back. His quick stop accompanied by the jerk nearly cracked the cook’s head off his shoulders and Billy, giving a second pull just then, jerked the cook backwards off the steps where he landed at the bottom, sitting straight up and facing Billy, with their noses not three inches apart. He looked so comical with his legs spread apart, cap on one side of his head and his hair standing straight up, that Billy had to laugh. Surely the cook’s startled expression was a study as he gazed into Billy’s eyes.
On seeing this, the dogs all laughed out loud. The cook jumped up and looked around to see who was making sport of him, but of course he saw no one. So he thought some one must have been leaning out of one of the upper windows, then quickly ducked after they laughed. Anyway, he would make Billy pay for his discomfort. He jerked him up the steps and was about to shove him into the room he had just unlocked when Billy gave a big, big pull and started to run off the porch. He ran so fast and was so strong that he jerked the cook along as if he had been a rag. Along the porch they went until Billy came to one end. Here there were no steps, so Billy just gave a big leap and landed in the middle of a flower bed, the cook sailing on behind, hanging on to the rope that was still around Billy’s neck. And it was a lucky thing for the cook that there happened to be a nice soft flower bed right there for him to fall in; otherwise he might have broken his back.
Billy gave another pull to the rope which brought the cook to his feet, and away went Billy across the lawn and down the lane, jerking the cook around trees, over stumps and beehives, upsetting them and causing all the bees to come out to see what was the matter. For a while the air seemed to Billy to be black with bees. Then they stung the cook so that he let go the rope and rolled in the grass to try to keep them off his face. But they settled on him thick as flies on a molasses covered paper.
“Run for the watering trough in the barnyard!” called a nurse who saw all this, and the cook did, diving headfirst into the water to drive off the bees, which it did effectively.
Billy thought they could not sting up through his long hair, and he stood enjoying seeing the cook trying to fight them off. But all of a sudden one bee stung him on the ear. The pain made him frantic and he started for the watering trough, regardless of the fact that the cook was still sitting on the edge, rubbing his swollen face and hands and putting mud on them to take out the burning, stinging pain. Strange as it may seem, neither the cook nor Billy paid the slightest attention to each other. They were too much occupied each in trying to stop the pain of the bee stings.
Presently the cook got up and limped into the kitchen, saying to himself as he went, “That goat sure has the devil inside of him! I’ll never try to capture him again for the General. No, not for the President of the United States himself! I am done! What with having my head jerked off, my spine driven through the top of my head, and my legs nearly broken off, to say nothing of running me into stumps, trees and beehives, I’ve got enough of that goat, even with one thousand dollars as a reward offered for his return. No! No more at all, at all, do I ever have anything to do with goats!”