 
Belle was a setter, shabby white, with great splotches of chocolate brown in her coat. Her ears were brown and silken. She was under size and would not have stood a chance among the haughtier breeds shown in splendor at dog shows in Madison Square Garden. But the marines in the regiment to which she attached herself thought there never was a dog like her since the world began. No one in the regiment knew whence she came or why. When she joined the outfit in a sector near Verdun, she singled out one of the privates as her very own and attached herself to him for the duration of the war. The young marine would talk long and earnestly to her, and every one declared that Belle could "comprÈ" English. She used to curl up at his feet when he slept or follow silently to keep him company at the listening post. She would sit hopefully in front of him whenever he settled down with his laden mess kit, which the cooks always heaped extra high in honor of Belle. Belle was as used to war as the most weather-beaten French poilu. The tremble of the ground did not disturb her and the whining whir of the shells overhead only made her twitch and wrinkle her nose in her sleep. She was trench-broken. You could have put a plate of savory pork chops on the parapet and nothing would have induced her to go after them. She weathered many a gas attack. Her master contrived a protection for her by cutting down and twisting a French In the middle of May, Belle presented a proud but not particularly astonished regiment with nine confused and wriggling puppies, black-and-white, or, like the mother, brown-and-white, and possessed of immense appetites. Seven of these were alive and kicking when the order came for the regiment to pull up stakes and speed across France to help stem the German tide north of the troubled Marne. In the rush and hubbub of marching orders Belle and her brood were forgotten by every one but the young marine. It never once entered his head to leave her or her pups behind. Somewhere he found a market basket and tumbled the litter into that. He could carry the pups, he explained, and the mother dog would trot at his heels. Now the amount of hardware a marine is expected to carry on the march is carefully calculated to the maximum strength of the average soldier, yet this leatherneck found extra muscle somewhere for his precious basket. If it came to the worst, he thought, he could jettison his pack. It was not very clear in his mind what he would do with his charges during a battle, but he trusted to luck and Verdun Belle. For twenty-five miles he carried his burden along the parched French highway. No one wanted to jeer him out of it, nor could have if they would. When there followed a long advance by camion, he yielded his place to the basket of wriggling pups, while he himself hung on the tail-board. But there was more hiking, and the basket proved too much. It seemed that the battle line was somewhere far off. Solemnly the young marine killed four of the puppies, discarded the basket and slipped the other three into his shirt. Thus he trudged on his way, carrying those three, pouched in forest green, as a kangaroo carries its young, while the mother dog trotted trustingly behind. One night he found that one of the black-and-white pups was dead. The road by this time was black with hurrying troops, lumbering lorries jostling the line of advancing ambulances, and dust-gray columns of soldiers moving on as far ahead and as far behind as the eye could see. Passing silently in the other direction was the desolate procession of refugees from the invaded countryside. Now and then a herd of cows or a little cluster of fugitives from some desolated village, trundling their most cherished possessions in wheelbarrows and baby carts, would cause an eddy in the traffic. Somewhere in this crowding and confusion Belle was lost. In the morning there was no sign of her, and the young marine did not know what to do. He begged a cup of milk from an old French woman, and with the eye dropper from his kit he tried to feed the two pups. It did not work well. Faintly the wind brought down the valley from far ahead the sound of cannon. Soon he would be in the thick of it, and there was no Belle to care for the pups. Two ambulances of a field hospital were passing in the unending caravan. A lieutenant who looked human was in the front seat of one of them, a sergeant beside him. The leatherneck ran up to them, blurted out his story, gazed at them imploringly and thrust the puppies into their hands. "Take good care of them," he said; "I don't suppose I'll ever see them again." And he was gone. A little later in the day that field hospital was pitching its tents and setting up its kitchens and tables in a deserted farm. Amid all the hurry of preparation for the big job ahead they found time to worry about those pups. The problem was food. Corned willy was tried and found wanting. Finally the first sergeant hunted up a farm-bred private, and the two of them spent that evening chasing four nervous and distrustful cows around a pasture trying vainly to capture enough milk to provide supper for the new members of the hospital staff. Next morning the problem was still unsolved. But it was solved that evening. For that evening a fresh contingent of marines trooped by the farm and in their wake, tired, anxious, but undiscouraged, was Verdun Belle. Six miles back two days before she had lost her master, and until she should find him again she evidently had thought that any marine was better than none. The troops did not halt at the farm, but Belle did. At the gate she stopped dead in her tracks, drew in her lolling tongue, sniffed inquiringly at the evening air, and, like a flash, a white streak along the drive, she raced to the distant tree, where, on a pile of discarded dressings in the shade, the pups were sleeping. All the corps men stopped work and stood around and marveled. For the onlooker it was such a family reunion as warms the heart. For the worried mess sergeant it was a great relief. For the pups it was a mess call, clear and unmistakable. So with renewed faith in her heart and only one worry left in her mind, Verdun Belle and her puppies settled down with this field hospital. When the next day the reach of the artillery made it advisable to move down the valley to the shelter of a fine hillside chateau, you may be sure that room was made in the first ambulance for the three wanderers. Two Cots Were Shoved Together Under a Spreading Tree In a grove of trees beside the house the tents were pitched Then one evening they lifted out a young marine, listless in the half stupor of shell shock. To the busy workers he was just Case No. Such and Such, but there was no need to tell any one who saw the wild rejoicing of the dog that Belle had found her own at last. The first consciousness her master had of his new surroundings was the feel of her rough pink tongue licking the dust from his face. And those who passed that way on the following Sunday found two cots shoved together in the kindly shade of a spreading tree. On one the mother dog lay, contented with her puppies. Fast asleep on the other, his arm thrown out so that one grimy hand could touch one silken ear, lay the young marine. Before long they would have to ship him on to the evacuation hospital, on from there to the base hospital, on and on and on. It was not very clear to anyone how another separation could be prevented. It was a perplexing question, but they knew in their hearts that they could safely leave the answer to some one else. They could leave it to Verdun Belle. —"Stars and Stripes."
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