Dog Diaries 07 - Stubby Read Online Free PDF

a half dozen ladders while holding a quivering dog, you’re wrong. How Conroy managed to do it I don’t know. But eventually he did, and we were up on deck.
    Fresh air! Birds! Sunshine! Ocean waves!
    I leapt out of Conroy’s arms. I was free!
    Some soldiers were standing around. “Stubby!” they cried when they saw me. They were all grinning, ear to ear.
    Before I could say hello, I had to shake myself out. Black coal dust, like a storm cloud, billowed off of me. The soldiers stood back and laughed.
    “Conroy, you’re a genius!” one of them said.
    “Stubby’s a stowaway!” another said.
    “Hurray for Stubby!” they all cried.
    I ran back and forth, jumping up and licking everyone. I was so pleased to be out of the coal room and back with my boys that I got up on my hind legs and did my happy little bandy-legged jig.
    The men circled round and stomped their feet and cheered. “Stub-by! Stub-by! Stub-by!”
    Suddenly, the cheering stopped.
    A tall, thin man marched over and broke through the circle of soldiers. Everybody pulled back. Only Conroy stuck by my side. But he looked plenty scared. The tall man was dressed differently from the soldiers—all in white. Something told me he was the man in charge. This was the seagoing Brass.
    I stopped dancing, dropped to all fours, and hung my head. From the look on the man’s face, I was in for it.
    “What’s THIS, Private?” the man roared atConroy. I tried to hide behind Conroy’s leg.
    “It’s a dog, sir,” Conroy said in a small voice.
    “I’m aware of that, Conroy. But how did THIS DOG get on board my ship?”
    Conroy gulped. “I smuggled him aboard, Captain, sir.”
    I looked up at Conroy and whimpered.
    “I don’t know how you do things in the army, Private, but in the navy, we don’t allow dogs. The last dog that snuck aboard this ship got fed to the sharks.”
    The captain pushed his hat back and wagged his head, like he was sorry for what was about to happen but there wasn’t much he could do about it, was there?
    My heart skittered in my chest. I was sorry, too. I looked to Conroy. Couldn’t he do something?
    Conroy said, “Don’t just stand there, Stubby.You’re in the presence of the captain of the SS Minnesota. Atten-TION!”
    Pulling myself together, I sat down and looked lively.
    “Present ARMS.”
    I lifted my front leg and snapped that captain the smoothest military salute ever made by a dog, on land or sea.
    Before he knew what he was doing, the captain answered with a salute of his own. Then he caughthimself and began to laugh. “Well, I’ll be horn-swoggled!” he said. “If it isn’t a little soldier dog!”

    The men fell all over each other, joining in the mirth. I didn’t see what was so funny. That salute was close to perfect. And it had saved my neck.
    The captain shouted, “Machine mate—front and center!”
    A mate ran up and saluted. “Yes, sir!”
    “Go below and make this soldier a dog tag.”
    I know what you’re thinking. When you hear the words dog tag, you think of those metal tags people put on their dogs with their address on them. But this here was another kind of dog tag. It was the kind the U.S. Army issues to soldiers. Stamped into the metal are their name, rank, outfit, date of birth, and the proud letters USA.
    Conroy was grinning like crazy later that day when he attached my dog tag to my collar.
    If only my buddies back in New Haven could see me now!
    —
    After a few more weeks at sea, the ship finally docked in a place called Saint-Nazaire in the faraway land of France. Now we had a whole new set of commanding officers to hide me from. To get me off the ship, Conroy tried something different. He dressed me in his coat with my head sticking out of the collar like I was a soldier. I was nowhere near as tall, so he and his buddy had to hold me up. They walked me down the gangplank like they were supporting a guy who was unsteady on his feet. There was so much happening on the dock that nobody