In the Line of Fire

by Collins, Ace;

  In November the Gnat pulled out of the harbor to patrol the Yangtze River. The crew’s job was to keep an eye on the Japanese Imperial forces, the Chinese military, a growing body of Chinese communist rebels, and pirates. While the crew was not worried about actually taking fire from the Chinese and Japanese, they quickly discovered the pirates were combative and lethal.

  A perceptive Judy learned to recognize the sounds of pirate vessels. When she heard the sound, she went into hunter mode—standing perfectly still and pointing in the direction of the potential attackers. For the first time she became more than a mascot; she had developed a skill. When Judy went rigid the seamen got ready for action.

  For a few months the river thieves were the thrust of the Gnat’s mission. Time and time again they would face off against the overmatched pirates, subdue them, put them out of operation, and move on. Yet the pirates were about to become the least of Judy and the crew’s problems.

  As the months passed the Brits began to witness more confrontations between the Chinese and Japanese. In late 1936 these games of chicken escalated to armed conflict. By the spring of 1937 the waters were red with blood as Imperial Japan declared war on China. With a ferocity not seen since the Great War (World War I), the Asian powers opened up what, in time, would grow to become a part of World War II. For the moment, the British were the observers, but that would not last long. As the powerful Japanese war machine chewed up the outmanned Chinese forces, the island nation began to test the English resolve.

  Over the course of the next two years Judy learned to mistrust the Japanese as much as she did the pirates. Though not at war with the British, the Japanese found excuses to steer their ships dangerously close to the aging English vessel. With each threatening act, Judy grew rigid and ready for action. During those tense moments the crew came to realize that if their lives ever were on the line, the dog would jump right into the fray.

  When not on duty, Judy the adult dog was very much the same as Judy the puppy. She grew bored and found ways to get in trouble. When the ship was docked, she would sneak off the deck and roam the streets. Local merchants and farmers drove her off the property and cats gave her a wide berth. There were times when her rambling junkets would turn into hours of exploring, but when she heard the ship’s bell she always hurried back to join her crew. She understood her place and loved her position.

  Though initially assigned a doghouse on the rear deck, Judy so quickly endeared herself to the Gnat’s crew she was given the run of the ship. She had a place in the galley where she ate, toys that littered all areas of the vessel, and a bed in the officers’ quarters. Her original crew spoiled her rotten and when a new group of seamen replaced them in 1938, the royal treatment continued. Judy might not have known how to salute or do any impressive tricks, but the white-and-liver-spotted hound had enough personality to win over even a skeptic.

  Judy was three when the Gnat was junked and the crew was given a new gunboat: the HMS Grasshopper. As this vessel had the potential for both river and open sea work, the Pointer expanded her horizons. She not only now pointed out possible hostile vessels before they came into sight, but she grew to distinguish the differences in the engine sounds of the British aircraft and those of Imperial Japan. Thus, Judy became the Grasshopper’s best plane spotter.

  The world dramatically changed on December 8, 1941, when the Japanese declared war on England and invaded Singapore. No longer were the members of the crew spectators; they were active participants in a life-and-death struggle for world dominance. The enemy had been defined and Judy’s barks, pointing muzzle, and rigid tail gave gunners a heads-up on the direction from which lethal aircraft were approaching.

  For the Grasshopper and its crew, the first weeks of the war were nerve-racking and disheartening. In the Pacific the British were outmanned and there wasn’t enough time to get reinforcements in place to hold the Crown’s territory in Southeast Asia. As their bases began to be overrun, the Grasshopper’s crew knew the odds of ever seeing England again were growing longer. Still, for two months they continued to hold their ground and inflict some damage. Yet, on February 13, it was time to admit defeat and retreat. Receiving orders to evacuate British subjects, including scores of women and children, the gunboat took hundreds of civilians on board and set course for Australia.

  In these tense times, Judy became the Grasshopper’s personal greeter and babysitter. She happily welcomed the hundreds of adults who fled to the boat in hopes of escaping the Japanese. She also played her part in keeping excited children occupied on the overflowing decks.

  Not long after the Grasshopper was steaming across the sea, Judy made her way back to the bow. With only the open ocean on all sides, she turned her gaze to the skies. Even though no human had spotted them, Judy seemed sure Japanese planes were just over the horizon. When she tensed and pointed, the crew realized the war was about to visit them once more. A few minutes later the sky was filled with enemy aircraft.

  The men of the Grasshopper fought hard but they were simply outmanned. As Judy barked and the crew battled, bombs fell and the ship’s decks were littered with machine-gun fire. In just a few minutes the ship took several direct hits. Knowing his badly injured vessel was doomed, the captain steered the boat toward an uncharted island in the Dutch East Indies. Running at full bore, he beached the Grasshopper and ordered the crew to evacuate the civilians. For several hours lifeboats ferried civilians and military personnel to the beach. While the Japanese planes were now gone, having moved on to other targets, prospects for survival, even without enemy fire, seemed long. The island offered few food sources and apparently had no fresh water. So desperate was the situation that only hours after landing did the crew realize Judy was not on the island. Most figured the dog had drowned while trying to swim to shore or had been badly injured and died on the ship. Yet, with the situation so desperate, there was no time to mourn.

  As the seamen and civilians dug in, the ship’s officers met to discuss their limited options. Without water and very little food, they had at most a week. But while the Grasshopper was too damaged to fix and refloat, the fires had somehow gone out without completely consuming the vessel. Thus, there was a chance there was still food and water on the gunboat. So the best option was sending a team back to the ship and scavenging anything they could find. After paddling a dingy out to the Grasshopper, the salvage party discovered one member of their crew still standing watch over British property. A very much alive Judy greeted the men with a happy bark and a wagging tail. A half an hour later her paws were back on firm ground.

  On Shipwreck Island, a small crew of trained marines who had evacuated along with the civilians used every tool at their disposal to find sources of fresh water but came up empty. As the exhausted and demoralized team rested, one of them observed Judy put her nose to the ground as if she was hunting. After several minutes she finally stopped along the beach and barked. When no one came forward to see why she was so upset, Judy began to dig. The curious marines finally rose and wandered over to the place where the dog had removed a couple of feet of sand. They were shocked to see her lapping water from the bottom of the hole. A quick test proved it was fresh. Judy had somehow done what the trained men could not and in the process bought the hundreds trapped on the island some precious time.

  Even with a source of water the days on the island would not be pleasant. The military personnel created a makeshift camp and tried to maintain some sense of order, but the civilians were completely unprepared for what they were facing. The weather was hot and humid, the island was home to poisonous insects and snakes, and food was scarce. One long day drifted into another and no ships were spotted on the horizon. On the fifth day after the battle, as morale sank even lower, an ancient trading boat pushed past the Grasshopper’s remains. Sailing under a Dutch flag, the crew of the ship set anchor and welcomed the refugees aboard. Once the hundreds of survivors were secure, they were taken to the island of Singkep.

  For the moment Sin
gkep was under Dutch control, but everyone knew a Japanese invasion would surely happen in the next few days. With no other choice, the Brits, including the civilian women and children, secured a boat and pushed up a river through the jungle. This water route soon proved impassible and, with Judy leading the way, the crew was forced to cut trails through the dense jungle. Along the way they battled crocodiles, snakes, and leeches. Weeks later, exhausted and sick, they finally reached Padang where they hoped to catch a ride to Sumatra. They were a few days too late; the Japanese were waiting. With no strength to fight, the men were taken prisoner as Judy escaped back into the jungle.

  For months, with the Brits now in captivity, Judy remained hidden, foraging for whatever food she could find. Yet she didn’t forget her crew. Everyday, when guards were not looking, she would sneak in and out of the prison camp. Her visits were like getting a letter from home. She was the only positive note in a place where rations were meager, rats plentiful, and treatment brutal.

  In the fall of 1942, when the military prisoners were loaded into trucks for a four-day ride to a prisoner-of-war camp called Gloegoer One, Judy followed on foot. At one point, when the caravan stopped, she even found a way to jump into one of the trucks. During these days the only thing to buoy the spirits of now-hopeless men was the Pointer’s loyalty.

  Gloegoer One had once been a Dutch military camp housing a hundred Dutch soldiers. Now it would be home to more than a thousand prisoners. The heat was oppressive, there was little health care, and the rations were a single bowl of rice a day. Under the command of Colonel Banno, the Japanese saw the Allied prisoners as slave labor and the men were put to work clearing the jungle. For seemingly no reason, they cut huge trees, hauled them away, and then cut more. As the months dragged by, Judy stayed with the imprisoned seamen. She was there when they worked and snuck into camp to sleep with them at night. The guards cursed and kicked her and even tried shooting her, but in the finest of British Naval traditions, Judy would not abandon her crew.

  One seaman, named Cousens, had a skill the Japanese desperately needed. He had once been a cobbler, and the terrain was hard on boots. Thus, Cousens was pulled off the jungle detail and given the tools needed to ply his former trade. He also began hiding leather scraps and giving them to Judy. On many days this was all the dog had to eat, but even as she suffered and her ribs all but poked through her body, she still remained with her men.

  When not cutting trees the seamen were digging graves. As the months passed, the Brits dropped like flies. There was no escape route and no end in sight. Most of the living came to believe they would die in the jungle and be forever forgotten. Then just about the time they were going to give up, they would spot their dog. Like them, she was little more than skin and bones, but she still kept going. When she growled at guards who cursed her, it came to represent resistance; when she came and went as she pleased, it represented freedom; and when she caught a snake or rat and shared it with the men, the act represented compassion. There were times she would even sneak into the Japanese food stores and steal a bag of rice to take back to her crew. Thus she was doing everything in her power not just to survive but to keep the men alive as well.

  After months of working in the oppressive heat, the seamen hatched a plan to steal food. They grabbed and hid several sacks of rice in a hut. One night they were enjoying the extra rations when two guards walked in. Employing the butts of their rifles, the Japanese began to beat the Allied prisoners. A second later Judy rushed through the door carrying a human skull. She darted between her comrades and their attackers, dropped her trophy, and began to growl. The guards had a deep-seated fear of the spirits of the dead and the skull caused them to panic. Forgetting about the stolen rations, they turned their guns on Judy. The dog, sensing her mission was complete, raced from the hut and back into the Sumatran jungle dodging bullets along the way. After that episode all the guards began to shy away from the dog.

  When Cousens died in the summer of 1942, Judy lost the one man she depended upon most, yet she still wouldn’t leave the camp. She stayed even as things grew worse. Judy observed men beaten to within an inch of their lives and others placed in cages for days at a time under the blistering sun. As the year dragged on, hundreds of men died from malaria, dysentery, skin ulcers, worm infestations, and beriberi. And then, a British airman, Frank Williams, was found hiding in the jungle and something almost miraculous happened in a world where there was no hope. Not surprisingly, Judy was the first to notice.

  Williams had grown up in Portsmouth, England. Raised by a widowed mother, he was a smart, shy lad who read books more than he played games. To serve a country he loved, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force. Too tall to become a pilot, Frank was shipped to Singapore to man one of the newest tools of war: radar. Placed in a hopeless situation, he escaped China only to be shipwrecked and wash up in Sumatra. When captured he was all but starving.

  In the prison camp, Williams noted the English Pointer that came and went as she pleased. With rations cut below what they had been just weeks before, the men no longer felt they could afford to share any food with Judy and the dog was obviously starving. While he had every right to feel sorry for himself, Williams’s heart was deeply touched by the dog’s plight. In spite of his own weakened state, he offered Judy a portion of his maggot-infested rice.

  Because the fearless Judy showed great disdain for the Japanese, Williams reasoned this attitude would soon lead to her death. Thus, simply to save her life, he began to train her using whistles. Eager to please the man sharing his food with her, Judy eagerly responded. When she heard a certain whistle, she raced into the jungle and hid. When she heard another she came back to Williams’s side. In this way the imprisoned airman was able to keep her out of harm’s way.

  Now that Williams had taught Judy the skills needed to avoid Japanese detection, she embraced this new skill to help Williams and the other prisoners. When the guards were in one area of the camp, she would go to another and steal their rations. She would then wait until she heard the “safe” whistle and bring a sack of stolen food to Williams who would share it with others. She also noticed men picking and eating fruit while on work details and began collecting fruit and sneaking it into camp. Yet because she was turning into such a lifesaver, Judy was also getting closer and closer to having the guards send out a hit squad to end her life.

  Because there were tribes in the area who had pets, Judy likely ran into one of their dogs during her time searching for fruit. The result was a pregnancy. The starving prisoners, touched by her condition, shared even more food during this time in order to give the expectant mother a chance at delivering her babies. When the puppies arrived, Williams sensed an opportunity to give Judy a much better chance of survival.

  Colonel Banno spent his off-duty hours visiting a woman who lived in a nearby village. When the commander’s mistress came to camp, she always smiled each time she spotted Judy. Several times she even asked to pet the unique-looking dog. As soon as the pups were weaned, Williams picked one up and marched to Banno’s office. Breaking every military protocol, he walked in unannounced and, while the colonel was on the phone, dropped the puppy in the middle of his desk. As the startled man hung up and rose from his chair, fists clenched, Williams explained the pup would be the perfect gift for the commander’s mistress. As Banno’s hands relaxed and his frown turned to a smile, the British airman then added a condition: he wanted Judy protected from the guards. Williams reasoned the best way to do this was make the dog an official prisoner of war. Banno looked at the puppy and then the bold prisoner, picked up a pen, and quickly filled out a form granting Judy of Sussex official prisoner-of-war status. She was now Prisoner of War 81A Gloegoer.

  Now, as long as Banno remained in charge of the camp, Judy no longer had to fear the guards. She also had access to a daily food ration. But when Banno was transferred and Captain Nissi arrived, things changed. Nissi saw no need for a dog in camp. In fact, he viewed Judy as a potential meal for a
banquet. When he caught her with Williams he went so far as to pull out his gun to shoot Judy. Before the shot could be fired, Williams produced the form Banno had filled out making Judy Prisoner of War 81A. Nissi, a stickler for military protocol, put his weapon away and allowed Judy to continue to have free reign of the camp. For months this arrangement kept the dog safe, but things dramatically changed in June 1944 when the Japanese were losing the war.

  After spending almost the entire Pacific war in the Sumatran jungle, the prisoners were notified they were being transferred to Singapore. With a cruel smile on his face, Nissi pointed out that Judy was a prisoner of war only as long as she stayed in Gloegoer. Once she left camp she could be shot for attempting an escape.

  Williams had a real problem. Without his presence, he was sure Judy would be killed. So he had to find a way to get her onto the prison ship. During his remaining nights in camp, the airman taught Judy to jump into a sack on command, and once she was in the bag to play dead. On transfer day, when the men went to the dock and were ordered to board the SS Van Waerwijck, Williams gave the signal. Judy raced to the sack and jumped in. Closely surrounded by fellow prisoners, the airmen smuggled the dog on board. The group was then led deep into the ship’s hold as the Van Waerwijck put out to sea.

  Not long after it departed on the afternoon of June 26 the Van Waerwijck was spotted by the HMS Truculent. Not realizing the ship was carrying hundreds of Allied prisoners, the submarine took aim and released a barrage of torpedoes. One scored a direct hit.

  As the Van Waerwijck broke apart, Williams opened a porthole and pushed Judy out. She landed with scores of other prisoners in the ocean. When Williams managed to escape the doomed ship, Judy was nowhere in sight. At that time he was sure his dog was dead, but that was anything but the case. In fact, Judy had turned into a canine Esther Williams.