Descendant Read Online Free PDF

just as hesitant as Frank, and kept swinging from side to side, there was no question that it was pointing in the general direction of Centraal Station, and the Antwerpse Zoo.
    “Maybe they thought they could get away by train,” Corporal Little suggested.
    I shook my head. “There’s no civilian trains running. And even if they managed to ride a military train, where would they go? Mechelen? Brussels? There’d be a very strong risk of them being caught, if they tried to go south.”
    All of a sudden, as he snuffled his way across the wide cobbled expanse of Koning Astridplein, Frank must have picked up a much more definite scent, because he started to run ahead of us with a curious lope, his head down and his ears swinging. By the time he had reached thesteps of the Centraal Station, he was galloping so fast that Corporal Little and I could hardly keep up with him.
    The Centraal Station was an extraordinary building, like a richly decorated Renaissance palace, with a high glass dome which covered the platforms, and six elaborate spires. The square in front of it was jam-packed with Canadian and British trucks, as trainloads of troops were unloaded from Brussels. I can remember that night as if it were a dream: trying to follow Frank through all of those jostling soldiers and diesel-smelling trucks, all the lights and the shouting and the revving of engines. Some of the soldiers whistled at Frank and clapped their hands and called out, “Here, boy!” but Frank was man-trailing and he wasn’t going to be diverted by anything, not even lonely young Canadian soldiers who were missing their dogs from home.
    He didn’t run into the station. Instead, he skirted around it, and headed toward the entrance to the Antwerpse Zoo. We left the noise of the Centraal Station behind us, and followed Frank to the Zoo’s main entrance. It was much quieter here, although I could still hear the distant grumbling of artillery fire. The Zoo was in darkness, but Frank ran straight through the turnstiles and disappeared.
    “Frank!” shouted Corporal Little. “Frank, you’d better come to heel, boy, or else there’s no more marrowbones for you!”
    We heard him bark, but he didn’t come back. Then we heard him bark again, even farther away.
    “He’s found one, for sure,” said Corporal Little.
    “We’d better get after him, then.”
    I opened the stud of my holster and tugged out my Colt .45 automatic. This was only the third time since we had landed in Normandy that I had taken it out, and I had never fired it at anyone. It was loaded with bullets that had allegedly been cast from the pewter goblets from which the Disciples had drunk during the Last Supper, so it wasn’t the kind of weapon that you would fire indiscriminately. But the Zoo grounds were impenetrably black and very extensive—nearly twenty-five acres of parkland and trees and animal houses, and if there were Screechers here I didn’t want to be caught by surprise.
    Corporal Little and I climbed awkwardly over the turnstiles and made our way along the path to the mock-Egyptian square where the elephant house stood. Our flashlights made shadows jump across the buildings like hopping hunchbacks, and a couple of times I was tempted to fire.
    “
Frank!
” called Corporal Little, in a hoarse stage whisper. “
Frank—where the hell are you, you disobedient mutt?
”
    We heard him bark again, and this time his bark echoed, like somebody shouting in a swimming pool.
    “He’s in there,” said Corporal Little, shining his flashlight on the elephant house.
    There were no elephants in there, of course. When the Germans had first entered Antwerp, the zoo staff had shot all of the animals—elephants, tigers, gorillas, giraffes—in case they broke out of their cages and escaped. Apart from that, there was little enough food for the human population, let alone animals.
    We entered the elephant house cautiously, with ourweapons raised. It was like walking into