Читать книгу Smoky, the Dog That Saved My Life - Nancy Roe Pimm - Страница 9

PROLOGUE

SOLDIER BILL WYNNE entered the darkened tent in the 5212th Photographic Wing during World War II. He squinted, adjusting his eyes to the low light. A little dog tied to a truck tire jumped up and down. She bounced off his leg. “Her head was the size of a baseball, her ears resembled miniature windmill blades, and her weight was almost nothing at all,” he later recalled. “I was looking into a grinning, fuzzy face. Almond eyes laughed at me above a jet-black button nose, and a friendly pink tongue licked my hand.”¹

Bill asked a nearby soldier about the little dog. He was told that she was found trying to scratch her way out of a foxhole in the jungles of New Guinea. Bill loved dogs, all types of dogs, and he had never seen one like this. She was tiny, smaller than his army boot. That night, Bill slept fitfully thinking of the scruffy dog. What was she doing in a war zone? Was she a breed native to New Guinea or some type of Japanese dog? He pondered ways that he could make this dog his own. But what would I feed her? How could I fight a war with a little dog in tow? Should I bond with an animal only to watch it die?