Verdun Belle Rescues a Shell-Shocked World War I Marine
Verdun Belle fought in the trenches of Verdun along with French and American soldiers in World War I, birthed nine puppies, and saved a shell shocked Philadelphia Marine.
Verdun Belle wasn’t entirely white like an angel. She had a white coat dotted with large splotches of chocolate brown and brown and silken ears. Her pedigree was a question mark. Her Marine didn’t care about her pedigree or her past. Instead, he trusted her with his future.
Belle Befriends Her Marine
Belle joined the outfit of Marines in a sector near Verdun in northeastern France and chose one of them as her significant human. The young Marine and Belle had long and earnest conversations that both understood completely. Belle slept at his feet or silently kept him company at his listening post. She sat expectantly in front of him when he opened his heavy mess kit which the cook always heaped with her in mind.
Belle was trench broken. She didn’t whine or cry when the ground shook from gun fire and the whirr of overhead shells just made her twitch in her sleep. When gas attacks came, the Marine that author Alexander Woollcott wrote hailed from Philadelphia, cut down and twisted a French gas mask for Belle and once when she was trying to claw it off, she breathed a whiff of poisoned air. After that, she raced for her mask at the first gas alert and wouldn’t allow it to be removed until the Marine’s pat on the back reassured her that everything was all right.
Belle’s Marine Protects Her Puppies
In the middle of May, Belle introduced the regiment to her nine puppies. Seven of the puppies were alive and eating when orders came for the regiment to speed across France to help stem the German tide north of the Marne.
The Marine found a market basket and packed the puppies into it. He carried the basket for 25 miles down the hot and dusty French highway. When he hitched rides on the back of buses or trucks, he put the basket of squirming puppies in his seat and hung on the tail board. As the regiment neared the battle field, the Marine discarded the basket and put the remaining three puppies inside his shirt.
One night one of the black and white puppies died and the Marine stopped alongside the road to bury the puppy. The road teemed trucks, ambulances, and dusty gray columns of soldiers moving ahead into the horizon. Occasionally, a herd of cows or a clump of refugees trundling their possessions in wheelbarrows and baby carts passed in the other direction.
The next morning when Belle didn’t appear to feed her puppies, the Marine begged a cup of milk from an old Frenchwoman and tried to feed the two puppies with the eye dropper from his kit. The milk splattered on the Marine and on the pups, with just a few drops landing in their mouths. The wind carried faint sounds of cannon down the valley from thebattlefield. Soon the Marine would have to march ahead and Belle hadn’t appeared to feed her puppies.
The Marine ran up to the two soldiers sitting in the front seat and blurted out his story. He gave them a pleading look and thrust the puppies into their hands. Then he was gone to join the battle around Chateau Thierry.
Belle and Her Marine are Reunited
Later that day, the field hospital personnel were pitching tents and setting up kitchens and tables in a deserted farm. In the middle of all the preparations for the battle casualties to come, they worried about what to feed the puppies. They tried corned beef, but the puppies weren’t impressed. The first sergeant and a private who had grown up on a farm spent the evening chasing four alarmed cows around a pasture, trying to get milk to feed the puppies. They didn’t get any milk.
That evening, a fresh group of marines trudged by the farm and behind them, tired, but still moving ahead, trotted Belle. Six miles and two days ago, she had lost her Marine, and until she found him again she followed Marines at large. The marines didn’t stop at the farm, but Belle did. She stopped dead in her tracks at the gate, sniffed the air, and raced like a white streak along the drive to a distant tree where the two puppies slept on a pile of discarded dressings.
The first sergeant, the private, and the tired cows were relieved. The mess sergeant was greatly relieved, but the puppies were the most relieved of all as they answered their mess call.
Verdun Belle and her two remaining puppies settled down at the field hospital. The next day artillery fire moved the field hospital down the valley to the shelter of a hillside chateau, with Belle and her puppies riding in the first ambulance.
The hospital personnel pitched tents in a grove of trees beside the house and lined up cots for the expected patients side by side. Wounded soldiers arrived in a steady stream, hour after hour and the medical personnel worked on them day and night. Belle quietly hung around and investigated each ambulance that turned in from the main road and backed up to the door of the receiving tent.
One evening ambulance workers lifted out a young Marine, shell shocked and confused. To the overwhelmed ambulance workers, he was a case number and eventually a name. To Belle, he was her significant human, her own Marine.
Belle licked the dust from his face with her rough pink tongue and the ambulance workers shoved two cots together in the shade of a spreading tree. Belle and her two puppies occupied one cot and the Marine, with his arm thrown out to catch one silken ear, occupied the other.
References
Horne, Alistair, The Price of Gory: Verdun, 1916, Penguin, 1994
Martin, William, Verdun 1916: They Shall Not Pass, Praeger Publishers, 2004
Woollcott, Alexander,Verdun Belle
The Stars and Stripes, French Edition, Friday June 14, 1918
Verdun Belle wasn’t entirely white like an angel. She had a white coat dotted with large splotches of chocolate brown and brown and silken ears. Her pedigree was a question mark. Her Marine didn’t care about her pedigree or her past. Instead, he trusted her with his future.
Belle Befriends Her Marine
Belle joined the outfit of Marines in a sector near Verdun in northeastern France and chose one of them as her significant human. The young Marine and Belle had long and earnest conversations that both understood completely. Belle slept at his feet or silently kept him company at his listening post. She sat expectantly in front of him when he opened his heavy mess kit which the cook always heaped with her in mind.
Belle was trench broken. She didn’t whine or cry when the ground shook from gun fire and the whirr of overhead shells just made her twitch in her sleep. When gas attacks came, the Marine that author Alexander Woollcott wrote hailed from Philadelphia, cut down and twisted a French gas mask for Belle and once when she was trying to claw it off, she breathed a whiff of poisoned air. After that, she raced for her mask at the first gas alert and wouldn’t allow it to be removed until the Marine’s pat on the back reassured her that everything was all right.
Belle’s Marine Protects Her Puppies
In the middle of May, Belle introduced the regiment to her nine puppies. Seven of the puppies were alive and eating when orders came for the regiment to speed across France to help stem the German tide north of the Marne.
The Marine found a market basket and packed the puppies into it. He carried the basket for 25 miles down the hot and dusty French highway. When he hitched rides on the back of buses or trucks, he put the basket of squirming puppies in his seat and hung on the tail board. As the regiment neared the battle field, the Marine discarded the basket and put the remaining three puppies inside his shirt.
One night one of the black and white puppies died and the Marine stopped alongside the road to bury the puppy. The road teemed trucks, ambulances, and dusty gray columns of soldiers moving ahead into the horizon. Occasionally, a herd of cows or a clump of refugees trundling their possessions in wheelbarrows and baby carts passed in the other direction.
The next morning when Belle didn’t appear to feed her puppies, the Marine begged a cup of milk from an old Frenchwoman and tried to feed the two puppies with the eye dropper from his kit. The milk splattered on the Marine and on the pups, with just a few drops landing in their mouths. The wind carried faint sounds of cannon down the valley from thebattlefield. Soon the Marine would have to march ahead and Belle hadn’t appeared to feed her puppies.
The Marine ran up to the two soldiers sitting in the front seat and blurted out his story. He gave them a pleading look and thrust the puppies into their hands. Then he was gone to join the battle around Chateau Thierry.
Belle and Her Marine are Reunited
Later that day, the field hospital personnel were pitching tents and setting up kitchens and tables in a deserted farm. In the middle of all the preparations for the battle casualties to come, they worried about what to feed the puppies. They tried corned beef, but the puppies weren’t impressed. The first sergeant and a private who had grown up on a farm spent the evening chasing four alarmed cows around a pasture, trying to get milk to feed the puppies. They didn’t get any milk.
That evening, a fresh group of marines trudged by the farm and behind them, tired, but still moving ahead, trotted Belle. Six miles and two days ago, she had lost her Marine, and until she found him again she followed Marines at large. The marines didn’t stop at the farm, but Belle did. She stopped dead in her tracks at the gate, sniffed the air, and raced like a white streak along the drive to a distant tree where the two puppies slept on a pile of discarded dressings.
The first sergeant, the private, and the tired cows were relieved. The mess sergeant was greatly relieved, but the puppies were the most relieved of all as they answered their mess call.
Verdun Belle and her two remaining puppies settled down at the field hospital. The next day artillery fire moved the field hospital down the valley to the shelter of a hillside chateau, with Belle and her puppies riding in the first ambulance.
The hospital personnel pitched tents in a grove of trees beside the house and lined up cots for the expected patients side by side. Wounded soldiers arrived in a steady stream, hour after hour and the medical personnel worked on them day and night. Belle quietly hung around and investigated each ambulance that turned in from the main road and backed up to the door of the receiving tent.
One evening ambulance workers lifted out a young Marine, shell shocked and confused. To the overwhelmed ambulance workers, he was a case number and eventually a name. To Belle, he was her significant human, her own Marine.
Belle licked the dust from his face with her rough pink tongue and the ambulance workers shoved two cots together in the shade of a spreading tree. Belle and her two puppies occupied one cot and the Marine, with his arm thrown out to catch one silken ear, occupied the other.
References
Horne, Alistair, The Price of Gory: Verdun, 1916, Penguin, 1994
Martin, William, Verdun 1916: They Shall Not Pass, Praeger Publishers, 2004
Woollcott, Alexander,Verdun Belle
The Stars and Stripes, French Edition, Friday June 14, 1918
