Endal: How one extraordinary dog brought a family back from the brink

‘Well, I haven’t got any clothes,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’ Was this a joke?

‘I haven’t got anything to wear.’ His voice sounded panicky.

I frowned. ‘You must be wearing something just now. Won’t that do?’ In the Navy they often lived in the same set of clothing for weeks on end and just learned to live with the smell of themselves and each other. Besides, Allen wasn’t the kind of person to bother about having a clean set of clothes. If he only had one pair of underpants for a week, he’d joked to me, he’d wear them right way round, wrong way round, back to front, upside down, and make do.

‘I’ve got no clothes,’ he repeated.

I was starting to get alarmed. ‘Allen, what’s happened? Why are you in hospital?’

‘I don’t know why I’m here. I can’t remember.’

I asked more questions but couldn’t get anything out of him. He just kept returning to his anxiety about his clothes.

‘I have to go, darling,’ I said at last. ‘This call is costing a small fortune. I’ll ring you back tomorrow, OK?’

‘Right, bye!’ he said and the line went dead.

This was very strange behaviour, and not like him at all. Our international phone calls were precious and we always ended them by saying ‘Love you!’ but he hadn’t given me time. He hadn’t asked about Valerie’s funeral or how I was coping or mentioned the kids. This was all so stupid. It felt unreal, as if it couldn’t be happening. I started phoning around everyone I could think of to find out what had happened, but I just kept hitting blank walls. No one seemed to know.

I hardly slept a wink; my stomach was tight with anxiety and my thoughts raced through endless possibilities. The next day I called the hospital again, hoping to get more sense out of Allen, but someone I presumed was a nurse explained to me that he’d been moved.

‘Where to?’ I asked.

‘We don’t know,’ came the reply. ‘You’ll have to ask his ship.’

I rang the British Embassy, and after some delay they called back to tell me that he was in a hotel room in Dubai. It was two hours before I could get through to him, and we had another brief, bizarre phone call in which he sounded vague yet on edge.

‘Someone’s stolen my stuff,’ he said.

‘I’m sure they haven’t. It’ll be on the ship waiting for you.’

‘It’s gone,’ he said, slurring a bit, which I presumed must be a side-effect of the painkillers he was taking.

He still didn’t seem to have a clue how he had been injured. It was most peculiar.

‘Should I fly out to see him?’ I asked the woman at Family Services. ‘I could find someone to look after the children for a few days.’

‘There’s no point in you going out because I think they are planning to medevac him home.’

‘When will that be?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

I had a conversation with an officer at the base, who said something I found very strange. ‘We’ve got no idea what he was doing off the ship that night. He and a friend seem to have gone ashore without permission and been involved in a car accident.’

‘But how is that possible?’ I asked. ‘How did they get off the ship? Where would they have got a car from?’

‘We don’t know. We’re running an investigation and we’ll find out more in due course.’

I didn’t believe for one second that he had gone AWOL. First of all, it would have been totally out of character for my ambitious, responsible husband, and secondly, I knew how difficult it was to get on and off naval bases. Whenever I went to pick Allen up after work at Collingwood or Rosyth or wherever he was, I had to get through strict security, showing photo passes and being noted and documented. You didn’t just wander on and off ships at will, especially in a war zone. There had to be more to it than that.

During the next two weeks, I only had a few more worrying phone calls with Allen, but dozens of frustrating calls with the naval authorities, without getting to the bottom of what was going on. I seemed to get different people every time, so I had to explain the situation from scratch, then they’d go off saying, ‘We’ll have to see if we can find anyone in the office who knows anything about this.’ It was all horribly frustrating. My husband was injured overseas and I couldn’t be with him and there was nothing I could do to help.

I tried to keep myself busy, doing endless housework, cooking, sewing, covering Liam’s school notebooks with coloured paper – anything to keep my mind occupied. I couldn’t bear silence and stillness because then the anxiety fluttered in like a big black moth. If they were going to medevac him home that meant the injury must be serious. Head injuries can cause brain damage. Why had he sounded so odd when I spoke to him?

‘He’ll be fine,’ I told people who asked. ‘We just need to get him back in this country for some proper TLC.’ If I said it often enough, I could try to believe it.

On 7 September I was told that he was at last being flown home to the UK. I was desperate to see him, and pleased that I would be able to do so soon, but deeply apprehensive about what condition he’d be in.

A random thought occurred to me: this might be a ruse on Allen’s part to get the home leave we’d requested and been denied after Valerie died. Could he have put his career on the line by faking injury in order to get back and support me? Allen was a bit of a comedian, with a taste for practical jokes. He’d say, ‘Do you think this smells funny?’ and you’d lean in and next thing whatever it was would be on your nose, and I used to fall for it every time. But I knew he was far too much of a professional to fake an injury. That couldn’t be it.

I so wanted for him to walk in the door and make my life better. I needed looking after since Valerie had died. I needed my husband.

Once again I was pacing the house, waiting for news. At last the call came to say that his plane had taken off and on arrival in the UK he would be admitted to Haslar, the military hospital in Gosport, where I could go in to see him the following day.

I tossed and turned, wide awake all night long, and my heart was in my mouth as I drove the few miles to the hospital. I couldn’t wait. I was as nervous as a teenage girl on a first date.

I found the ward and picked him out straight away, sitting up on top of his bed and wearing a neck brace. He saw me at the same time and watched as I walked across the room, but he didn’t smile at me or wave hello.

‘How are you?’ I asked, and kissed him on the lips. There was a big bump on his temple that looked more recent than three weeks old. ‘How did you get that bump?’

‘Fell,’ he said, and the word was oddly slurred.

‘When did you fall?’

He thought about this and shrugged.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Funny,’ he said, and I could hear it was an effort to get the word out. He was almost barking, forcing his throat to emit sound. Then he twitched compulsively, his right shoulder jerking and his face contorting.

I looked into his eyes but could see no spark of my husband, my rock, the man who always looked after me. He looked blank. There was something seriously wrong.

‘You’ve been on an overnight flight,’ I said soothingly. ‘You’re probably just tired.’

He twitched again, a kind of irrepressible shudder. I chatted a while longer then went to find a doctor. ‘What’s wrong with my husband?’ I demanded. ‘I’m a nurse and I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me straight.’

‘We don’t know exactly,’ he said. ‘There’s obviously been some trauma to the brain and we’re keeping him under observation and running tests.’

‘How did he get that bruise on his temple?’

‘I’m told he fell the day before yesterday. Have you seen him walking yet?’

I shook my head.

‘He’s having significant problems controlling his legs. We’ll just have to keep an eye on it all. Meanwhile, I see no reason why you can’t take him home for the weekend. With your nursing background, you should be able to care for him.’