Bel Ria Quotes

“Loss of life was an accepted gamble that men took when they went to war. But no animal went to war: caught up in man's lethal affairs, they were an irreconcilable aberration.”
― Sheila Burnford, Bel Ria: Dog of War

“Yet another indomitable little dog had risen from the ashes.”
― Sheila Burnford, Bel Ria: Dog of War

“On the fourth note the toe began to tap, and the dog rose to his hind legs and began to dance. The tune had a lilting rhythm, and in perfect time he pirouetted in a circle, forepaws held out and head held high. The music changed in tempo, slower now, and at the end of each phrase the dog nodded his head so that the silvery bells accompanied each last three notes of the repeated phrase. Now he brought the forepaws into action, one at a time, each cluster of bells set in a different pitch to the nodding head.

It was the performance of a virtuoso. The strangest thing was that there seemed nothing preposterous, only an inherent grace and precision. The little dog danced as though he lived for it, as though he would will his audience to listen to his bells and live for it too.

Not far away, guns rumbled a reminder. Three-quarters of the western world lay reeling in the bonds of occupation, the wake of smoldering destruction left by these gray-green uniforms. A few short miles would soon end the agony of France, and then all Europe would be overrun — yet for this moment, in this one place, there was nothing but a silvery tinkling and a lilting tune and an audience who had become children again, spellbound before a dog who danced on a sunlit road to the bidding of the flute.”
― Sheila Burnford, Bel Ria: Dog of War