Great Britain—The Black Dog [The Blitz, 1940-1941]
England first saw it when him and France tried to defend Norway from Germany. A dog of an undetermined breed, black as the night, with bright yellow eyes. What is a dog doing in the middle of the battlefield, curiously insensitive to the explosions? But there it was, calmly sat, its tongue out, dripping drool, watching as they spilled their blood to protect their Northern neighbor from that psychopath. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to it. England even wondered if he was the only one who could see it. He found something very unsettling about it, but didn't allow himself to get distracted, because a lot was in risk in here to mind about a dog.
Though his full focus on the battle didn't help. He was left alone with all of this, when Germany and Italy invaded France.
He had never been friends with France, or couldn't even say he liked him, but falling into the hands of those barbarians...he didn't wish it to anyone. Giving the orders of evacuating as much people as he could at Dunkerque, knowing that France couldn't be in one of those boats, was extremely painful. Retreating from Norway's coasts, leaving him unprotected, left him a permanent weight in his stomach. Churchill said anything else would have been suicidal, but...
He found the dog once again, by the end of that month, on his way back home from the Parliament. Either in battle or in the street, it sat without a worry, gazing at him with its shining yellow eyes and its tongue out, panting like happy at his misery. Maybe it was all in his head and he was projecting his frustrations into that poor mutt, but he hated it with all of his might, looked for a rock to throw at it. The dog just moved out of the trajectory and sat back a few meters away, to keep on staring at him, insensitive to his shouts to go away. That happened on September, 7th—the night when bombs started falling from the sky.
There was so much to do and plan, so much to keep his mind busy with, it should have been enough to bury that haunting apparition, but the dog found a way into his house.
He saw it through the window, in his garden, watching him from above, like he was its owner and was waiting for him to take it for a walk, unmoved by the destruction around it.
'Keep calm and carry on', they said to him...But that dog was around, following him everywhere he went, with that canine smile of his, while the attacks damaged his locomotor system to the point that his legs did not respond anymore, while everyone around him died in horrible ways.
He couldn't save anyone. He couldn't even defend himself.
Tears started flowing when, one more night, on the bed he was bound to, he heard its long howl, announcing death.
"The Luftwaffe is coming! To the refuges!"