Jack had been staggered by the concussion from the shell that took the sergeant’s life and half his face, but he hadn’t fallen into the mire. Stone Jack, he remained.
The torn body of the fallen sergeant stretched across the walk beside him. He nuzzled the rough cheek with his smooth muzzle. His pink tongue flicked out, a brief lick of remembrance and recognition of death, a state Jack knew well.
What Jack didn’t understand, though, was what he heard now. He had been taught to listen more carefully in that camp in Scotland. He never won the games that had been held for the smell dogs while he was there, but he had done all right with the seeing games, and he had been close to the top of the class with the hearing games. At the last of the camp, when Korpralpinsins had
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This time, the new human was asleep in it, too. He didn’t mind that the human was cold and went back to sleep.
The next time he woke, the new human lifted him down from the bed. There were sausages there in a cup, and water—lots of water. Jack was so thirsty, he thought he would never stop drinking. He drank and then he made water, then he looked at the new human and saw that he was baring his teeth.
All at once, Jack felt very good. His world was not shaking at all now that he was not on the new human’s bed. There were many new smells in this new place and he would find them all. He could run up and down the plank-covered trenches and find Korpralpinsins.
When he walked into the open, onto the boards, the new human reached down and picked him up and put him back inside the place where they had slept. Jack did not know if it was time for a mission and so he stayed and waited in this place—even though Korpralpinsins hadn’t told him. Maybe this new human would tell him when there was a mission and he could run again on the wood roads.
How would he know if he could not hear the new human? He ate the last sausage and started smelling all the new things in the