Read Online Judy: The Unforgettable Story of the Dog Who Went to War and Became a True Hero by Damien Lewis - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Damien Lewis
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jump faced a long swim in the rough waters churning through the Xling Gorge, a christening far more fraught with risk than the one suffered by Judy of Sussex a few days previously. As the pirate junks drifted away into the gloom, triumphant cheers rang out from the deck of the Gnat . The feeling aboard was unanimous: it was the early warning provided by their intrepid ship’s dog that had enabled them to vanquish their enemy so comprehensively.
Whether Judy would be of any use on the hunt no one yet knew, but tonight she had proved her worth ten times over—for her actions had been truly those of a lifesaver.
Prior to domestication dogs used their acute sense of hearing to track both prey and predators in the wild. They can hear a far greater range of frequencies than humans, they can do so over far greater distances, and they can pinpoint accurately the direction the sound is coming from—just as Judy had done. In fact, a dog’s hearing is ten times more effective than ours: a sound a human might hear at 20 meters they can hear at 200. Had there been a mouse livingaboard the Gnat , Judy would have been able to hear it squeak from many meters away.
Using their large, movable ears, they can pinpoint the source of a sound pretty much instantaneously—in one six-hundredth of a second—hence Judy’s rapid-fire actions aboard the Gnat , which had allowed the ship’s crew to repel the river pirates without injury or loss of life. In the fight of the Xling Gorge, Judy’s canine senses truly had saved the day.
Over the coming week the diminutive British warship—the gunboats were among the smallest vessels in the Royal Navy’s fleet—pushed onward through the Wu and Qutang gorges and moved into the complex system of lakes, marshes, and tributaries of the Hunan province beyond. Prior to reaching her first major stopover and possible turn-around point—the bustling treaty port of Hankow (now Wuhan), some 900 kilometers inland—the Gnat was set to rendezvous with the flagship of the British gunboat flotilla, the Bee .
Being the flagship of the fleet, the Bee had lost some of her main guns so that more space could be given over to officers’ accommodation. In spite of this, on several patrols the illustrious Bee had pushed as far inland on the Yangtze as Yichang in the west and Changsha in the south, both approaching 1,500 kilometers from Shanghai and the sea. Those had been truly voyages into the wild and the unknown.
Unusually for Royal Navy ships, the Yangtze gunboats tended to sail—and to fight—as lone operators, cruising the river many days or weeks apart. Mostly, their commanders and crew had few if any senior officers watching over them. This tended to lead to a tight-knit familial atmosphere aboard ship and to a degree of independence of action rarely seen in the Royal Navy.
But without firmly enforced procedures to keep the gunboats shipshape, long weeks spent in isolation upriver could render such busy, crowded vessels decidedly unpleasant places to be. As with all gunboat commanders, Captain Waldegrave had a strict routine in place for keeping the Gnat spick and span. Hands were ordereddaily to clean—sluicing down the decks, polishing brass, making good the paintwork, generally clearing up the decks, stowing gear, refreshing brightworks (the polished metal parts of the vessel), and servicing the Maxim machine guns.
As the captain of the Gnat knew well, a biannual Admiralty inspection could be sprung on any Yangtze gunboat at any time. Rear Admiral Reginald Holt, the senior naval officer (SNO) Yangtze Fleet, happened to be aboard the Bee when the Gnat docked alongside her, and he must have decided there was no time like the present to put the newly arrived gunboat through her paces. Needless to say, this would be the Gnat ’s first such formal ship’s inspection with her new crew member, Judy of Sussex, aboard.
It was the crack of dawn when the rear admiral came aboard the Gnat , complete with his
Whether Judy would be of any use on the hunt no one yet knew, but tonight she had proved her worth ten times over—for her actions had been truly those of a lifesaver.
Prior to domestication dogs used their acute sense of hearing to track both prey and predators in the wild. They can hear a far greater range of frequencies than humans, they can do so over far greater distances, and they can pinpoint accurately the direction the sound is coming from—just as Judy had done. In fact, a dog’s hearing is ten times more effective than ours: a sound a human might hear at 20 meters they can hear at 200. Had there been a mouse livingaboard the Gnat , Judy would have been able to hear it squeak from many meters away.
Using their large, movable ears, they can pinpoint the source of a sound pretty much instantaneously—in one six-hundredth of a second—hence Judy’s rapid-fire actions aboard the Gnat , which had allowed the ship’s crew to repel the river pirates without injury or loss of life. In the fight of the Xling Gorge, Judy’s canine senses truly had saved the day.
Over the coming week the diminutive British warship—the gunboats were among the smallest vessels in the Royal Navy’s fleet—pushed onward through the Wu and Qutang gorges and moved into the complex system of lakes, marshes, and tributaries of the Hunan province beyond. Prior to reaching her first major stopover and possible turn-around point—the bustling treaty port of Hankow (now Wuhan), some 900 kilometers inland—the Gnat was set to rendezvous with the flagship of the British gunboat flotilla, the Bee .
Being the flagship of the fleet, the Bee had lost some of her main guns so that more space could be given over to officers’ accommodation. In spite of this, on several patrols the illustrious Bee had pushed as far inland on the Yangtze as Yichang in the west and Changsha in the south, both approaching 1,500 kilometers from Shanghai and the sea. Those had been truly voyages into the wild and the unknown.
Unusually for Royal Navy ships, the Yangtze gunboats tended to sail—and to fight—as lone operators, cruising the river many days or weeks apart. Mostly, their commanders and crew had few if any senior officers watching over them. This tended to lead to a tight-knit familial atmosphere aboard ship and to a degree of independence of action rarely seen in the Royal Navy.
But without firmly enforced procedures to keep the gunboats shipshape, long weeks spent in isolation upriver could render such busy, crowded vessels decidedly unpleasant places to be. As with all gunboat commanders, Captain Waldegrave had a strict routine in place for keeping the Gnat spick and span. Hands were ordereddaily to clean—sluicing down the decks, polishing brass, making good the paintwork, generally clearing up the decks, stowing gear, refreshing brightworks (the polished metal parts of the vessel), and servicing the Maxim machine guns.
As the captain of the Gnat knew well, a biannual Admiralty inspection could be sprung on any Yangtze gunboat at any time. Rear Admiral Reginald Holt, the senior naval officer (SNO) Yangtze Fleet, happened to be aboard the Bee when the Gnat docked alongside her, and he must have decided there was no time like the present to put the newly arrived gunboat through her paces. Needless to say, this would be the Gnat ’s first such formal ship’s inspection with her new crew member, Judy of Sussex, aboard.
It was the crack of dawn when the rear admiral came aboard the Gnat , complete with his
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