THE AUF WIEDERSEHEN PET

A guest piece from our regular contributor – SW – enjoy

It started in the early days of the Great War, young men would

give their sweethearts, wives or their small children a tiny, tiny

kitten; they were perpetual kittens. In tearful farewells up and

down England, men would take the tiny kittens from out of a small

bag or from under a coat and pass over the tiny kitten to shaking

hands and tear-stained faces. They became known back then as

Auf Wiedersehen pets.

……………………….

Len Smith lay with his face down in the mud, clouds of lethal

Mustard Gas crept over his body, bullets slapped into mud around

him. And as his life slowly ended he saw coming towards him the

Auf Wiedersehen pet he had given his daughter. The tiny kitten

crept into his almost lifeless hand and it held the smell of his

daughter in its fur that he greedily sucked in. Men from all over

the Western Front reported they had seen these kittens crawling

along towards their fallen comrades. German snipers blinked in

amazement pressing their eyes into their sights in disbelief.

Hundreds and hundreds of kittens, but not a single one was found

later on. Back home the Auf Wiedersehen pets slowly began to die.

No one ever knew why.