Messenger Dogs in the Field 12a 



Headquarters. It was here men and dogs had a rough 

 time, as the enemy was doing a lot of heavy shelling, reach' 

 for his attack and capture of Kcmmel Hill, 10 days later. 

 My own dogs were ' Major,' ' Rab,' and an unregistered dog. 

 The work was difficult for the dogs, as Brigade Headquarters 

 moved about so much, on account of so much shifting. 

 After the dogs had done about 6 journeys, Headquarters 

 moved, so that the dogs had to turn to the right on the 

 Dickebusch Road, instead of to the left, where they had 

 been running before, but four out of the six dogs did it all 

 right. My bitch ' Rab ' was hit by a piece of shell on her 

 second journey. She managed to stagger in with her 

 message, but I could see there was not much hope for her. 

 I bound her up, and carried her down to Brigade Head- 

 quarters, but she died the next day. 



" I was watching for the dogs the next day, to come in, 

 and saw ' Major ' and that fast bitch of Ferriby's, I 

 forget her name, racing back over the ridge. As they 

 were passing a battery of artillery, the enemy opened out 

 with eight-inch stuff. 



Ferriby's bitch was killed, but ' Major ' got through- 

 I could see that ' Major ' was actually dodging the shells. 

 He took a wide sweep from where the first shell fell, and 

 kept working out further. The time for that run was a 

 record, about 6 minutes. It took me an hour to walk 

 and run the distance. Radford's dogs were doing the 

 night duty, also Ferriby's, and never made a mistake. 

 Hedley's dogs also did all that was asked of them. They 

 were on day duty. 



" I might mention here, that I found one or two of the 

 dogs were losing time, so I went forward to find out the 

 cause, and found them in a trench, on their chains, and a 

 lot of pieces of bully beef put in a tin in front of them. 



