Loyal Creatures by Morris Gleitzman Page A

probably would.
    She watched me drag a mutilated body into a grave.
    â€˜What I can promise,’ I said softly, ‘is I wouldn’t let them kill you this way.’
    Daisy didn’t move.
    I couldn’t trust my voice to get any more words out, so I patted my rifle. I watched Daisy closely, to see if she understood.
    I think she did.
    She was looking at me calmly.
    Like always, she’d thought it through.

    While I finished the burying, Daisy had a nap. Head down, feet apart in the sand, knees locked.
    Seeing her sleep standing up always made me smile.
    Somehow I managed one now.
    As I dug, I got to mulling over all the things I admired about her.
    Her kindness. Her patience. How she’d go for fourteen hours across the scorching desert without complaining. Her loyalty. Her bravery. How she could sense danger in the dark.
    But not while she was asleep.
    Which is how come neither of us spotted them creeping up on us.

Not the Bedouin, the military police.
    â€˜You’re nicked,’ said a triumphant voice, and a couple of sides of beef walloped me into the sand.
    The jacks had twigged what was going on. Distraught troopers and army property making a break for it.
    Deserting, they reckoned it was.
    They stuck a bag over Daisy’s head and one over mine.
    I reached out and found Daisy’s neck and gave it a stroke.
    â€˜I won’t desert you,’ I whispered to her.
    â€˜That’s rich,’ said one of the jacks. ‘A deserter’s still a deserter even when the war’s over. We don’t shoot you bludgers like the poms do, but you’ll grow moss on your north side in jail.’
    I was quiet as they took us back to camp.
    They probably thought I was a wuss.
    I didn’t care.
    Important thing was, I had a bit of time. They wouldn’t be machine-gunning Daisy straight away. I heard the jacks talking about the backlog that had built up. Other camps were sending some of their horses to us.
    â€˜Lazy mongrels,’ said one of the jacks. ‘I mean how much effort is it to pull a trigger?’

    â€˜Welcome back,’ said the lock-up sergeant as he locked me up.
    I was in one of the few brick buildings in the camp, but sounds from the outside still made it through the wall.
    Machine-gun sounds mostly.
    Every half hour. Right through the day.
    I tried to block them out. I tried to block everything out. I couldn’t.
    I kept thinking of Dad in his trench at Gallipoli. How much he probably hadn’t wanted to take his next step.
    But he took it.
    I banged on the cell door with my fists.
    â€˜I need an hour,’ I said to the lock-up sergeant.
    The sergeant unfolded the eighty quid IOU I pushed at him through the slot. He looked at it for a long time.
    Then he shook his head, folded it up and pushed it back through the slot.
    â€˜Just one hour,’ I pleaded.
    In the distance the machine-gun started up and I saw the sergeant flinch.
    I was going to explain there wasn’t any other choice. That I wasn’t letting a stranger do it. Someone who didn’t know how. Someone who didn’t care. Someone who’d hurt her.
    But then the sergeant unlocked the door, and I didn’t need to say a word.

    They were taking Daisy when I got to the line.
    Trying to.
    Two infantry blokes had ropes round her and were hanging on wide-eyed. They’d have had a better chance trying to rope a sandstorm.
    Daisy was magnificent.
    Up on her back legs, eyes like liquid fire.
    A third bloke was poleaxed on the ground, blood on his head. Next to him, a pair of shears. This mongrel must have been the tail and mane lopper.
    I was tempted to kick him in the head myself.
    Orders were orders, but bloody hell.
    I was also tempted to let Daisy make her point to those that needed to see it. Take her to the officer’s mess and let the brass know what she thought of orders like that. Except the brass she needed to kick were oceans away.
    A movement over my