August 12th, 2018

“Allô! Tri! Réveillez-vous!”

Tri stirred and opened one eye drowsily. It was still dark out. Who would wake him at an hour like this? After the days they’d had here? Every muscle in Tri’s body ached, and just moving his head felt like a tremendous effort. He blinked several times, trying to clear his vision. The dark, blurred form in front of him slowly became apparent. It was Sprint. Of course.

”Sprint?” he groaned. ”It’s the middle of the night...”

”Oui, I know, but you said you wanted to see the aeroplanes. Now is the best time!” The little dog was far too energetic. She had obviously been awake for quite a while, if she had even settled down to sleep at all. Tri pricked his ears. Yes, he -had- mentioned, in passing, how he wanted to take a closer look at the flying machines, but he hadn’t expected it to become more than a wish.

”You mean we can see them now?” he said, suddenly not feeling as sleepy any more.

”Oui! I know where they are kept. Come with me!”

Sprint raced off in the same breath, but stopped at the edge of the garden enclosure when she realised Tri wasn’t behind her. “Allons-y!” she whispered, impatient.

Tri forced himself up on sore legs and plodded after the smaller dog.

The intense fighting for Amiens had continued over the course of the week, but only that first day had been so decisively victorious. The war continued its ebb and flow, and now the enemy had slowed the tide. They had been driven back to what had been their old defence lines years ago, and now, Tri had heard, it would be much more difficult to break through those lines. Sure, some of Fritz’ soldiers were surrendering - Tri had seen them pass, marching in long, sombre lines with their heads hanging low - but enough of them were still putting up a fight. The messenger dogs had been working hard, running many assignments over long distances, but, miraculously, they were all still in one piece. All tired, but alive.

Something that fascinated Tri were the flying machines the humans had been using in this battle. They were roaring metal birds, flying high above the ground. Tri had seen a couple before, but not nearly as many as he had seen over the past few days. He found them captivating. Imagine that - to be able to just fly right across No man’s land. Out of reach of barbed wires and gunshots. Maybe even fly home... He wondered what the world looked like from up there. If it seemed smaller, or perhaps bigger? Last night, as the dogs had nibbled on their scraps for dinner and licked their sore paws, Tri had mentioned this. Nell mainly saw the aeroplanes as just another strange human contraption that didn’t concern her. She cared about her own work, and the humans could do whatever else they wanted. Ginger shared Tri’s interest though, and had also thought about what sitting in one of the machines would be like. He wasn’t all that interested though. Notch had already been asleep. But Sprint had lit up and wagged her stubby tail. The glint in her eyes spoke volumes - she had an idea, and whenever she had an idea, Tri was afraid to ask.

This then, had been her idea. The two dogs crept quietly out of the village and trotted down the main road. The night was cool and clear, lit by moonlight. It sure was a welcome relief from the August daytime heat.

Before long, the dogs came upon a set of buildings where, outside in a neat row, airplanes were parked.

”Voilá!” Sprint beamed. Tri’s eyes widened. The planes were so different from what he had imagined them to be up close.

”You mean… you mean this thing flies?” he whispered breathlessly as he walked up to the nearest one. It was bewildering. Aeroplanes were small and flew in the air, not big and standing on the ground!

The two dogs were dwarfed by the size of the machine. It was incredible, yet it seemed so delicate. A thin, brittle structure covered in canvas and strings, with two sets of wings that looked like they might simply dissolve at the slightest hint of a breeze. Yet it soared. High above everything and everyone, where nothing could touch it. (Well, Tri had seen a few crashing down, but that was beside the point.) Tri walked a lap around the plane, studying its form and trying to make sense of how it could possibly fly. He sat down in front of its massive propeller. A tiny dog, and a big machine. Maybe the world still had its wonders. If this big, clunky thing could fly like a bird, perhaps it wasn’t impossible to hope for other impossible things. Impossible things like for the world to be made right again...

”I wonder what it’s like up there…” he said.

”Ah, it is a marvel.” Sprint replied, matter-of-factly.

Tri’s ears twitched. ”...what?”

”Oui! It is like the feeling of freedom, like you are in a world of your own. Everything else seems to distant, there is only you and the sky-world. And the aeroplane sweeps through the air and through the clouds. Ah, I can not describe it…”

”You’ve flown. In one of these?”

”Bien sûr!”

”And you didn’t think to tell me!?”

Sprint shrugged. ”You did not ask!”

Sprint then explained that as the rat-catcher and mascot, she had been brought along for all sorts of excursions beyond the trenches and broken villages. One such time was with a pilot who had taken one of Sprint’s humans along on a reconnaissance mission.

”It is funny” she mused ”How we all fight, and how we think that the Hun are so different from us. And yet, from up there, you can not tell which earth belongs to us and which earth belongs to them. It is all one. We are all here in this one world.”

Tri sat silently next to his friend. He thought about the ambulance dog he had met, and wondered if he was alright. Had he found shelter? Or a friend?

”You’re right…” Tri said. ”And yet we all fight…”

A moment of silence passed. Sprint scratched a flea from her ear.

”Well, I… I think we should be going back…” Tri then said. There was a hint of light on the horizon, and he knew they weren’t supposed to leave the village. Nell would have his head if she noticed them gone...