Scraps

Although Scraps provided a faithful fireside companion for my father, and a good-natured garden playmate for me, he was nevertheless born and bred as a ratter. Whether he was guided by sight, or sound, or scent, he rarely made a mis-step in hunting down the rodents that inhabited the disused factory yards that abutted our back garden.

When the air raids over Coventry began in late 1941, however, his ratting skills were turned to an altogether different purpose. Night after night he went with my father, the ARP wardens, firefighters, and the other volunteering locals, to seek out and rescue those who fell victim to the Luftwaffe’s bomb blasts, infallibly leading the search parties to the bodies that became trapped beneath the debris from collapsed buildings.

On the night of 14th November 1941– the night when St. Michael’s cathedral and much of the city centre was destroyed – Scraps led the search parties to Daimler munitions workers who were buried beneath the fallen factory flooring and blast-scattered machinery. As he barked to call attention to a man lying injured beneath fallen brickwork, a burning roof timber fell and brought his ratting days to an end.

My father carried his lifeless body home wrapped in old sacking.

On the following morning, we buried him toward the back of the geranium bed, and later marked the spot with a deep-blue hydrangea.

For long enough the hydrangea provided the only tangible reminder that we had of Scraps, but in the summer of ’62, when my father died and we got to sorting through his personal effects, we found an old hand-tinted photograph in his writing bureau. I treasure this picture, in part because it’s the earliest that I have of the two of us together, but also because it shows my wartime garden playmate – a scruffy little dog who lost his life helping to save those of others.

First posted on Booksie, attributed to Sheridan J. Wilde.