A cat in the time of war

Blitzcat
By Robert Westall
Macmillan Children’s Books
228 pages, Available at Goodwill Bookstore

Aside from the trademark detachment that grants them the air of owner instead of pet, cats are also known, like carrier-pigeons, for their ability to find home several hundred miles away. Of late, however, studies have supported the ability of cats in psi-trailing. Blitzcat author Robert Westall explains in his foreword: "In America in the late Fifties, a Mid-Western vet saved the life of a cat brought in after a road accident, and adopted her. The only after-effect of the accident was that the cat had an enlarged fifth neck-vertebra. Later, moving to the West Coast, the vet left the cat behind with friends. Several months later, a cat of the same color and marking dropped in through the window of his West Coast surgery. Incredulous, he felt her neck and found the same enlarged vertebra. The cat had psi-trailed him over 1,500 miles." It is this amazing psi-trailing ability of cats, set in the rich background of World War II, that propels this book’s adventure.

Lord Gort is a smart, finicky creature who gets left behind by her "person" when he leaves for France with the RAF. Instead of staying with her owner’s wife and baby in London, the cat typically makes up her own mind and takes it upon herself to run away to find her "person" – jumping straight into an adventure that takes her along the pages of what is now history, touching and changing the lives of many along the way. At a train depot, for example, Lord Gort is hailed as a bringer of good luck by returning soldiers. The cat stays with a Scottish captain whose division is taking over a small town. Lord Gort also witnesses the bombing of Coventry, where she manages to save people who took her in their care. Her adventures in pursuit of her owner, and of the pre-war life they both enjoyed – complete short stories in themselves – take her from England to France to Spain.

Given the rich backdrop with which Westall works from, the cat’s adventures make a good vantage point for depicting many of the realities of war. What makes this book a more interesting read, however, is that unlike most animal stories, Lord Gort is not anthropomorphized, or given human qualities, like speech or human-level insight. Throughout the tale, she behaves like a cat (at least the way the author believes cats behave), so reading the novel is as close as a reader can get to a cat’s eye view of the war. More than that, however, Lord Gort also becomes a device for Westall to unfurl his many touching vignettes of human life in wartime.

It is amazing how the author captures feline idiosyncrasies with so much authenticity in this book – a feat that can only be explained by the fact that he is a self-confessed cat lover. What is more commendable, however, is the way he manages to bring down war stories to the most important level, the personal one. From one cat’s yearnings for her good old life with her master to a young widow’s almost suicidal state to simple people running for their lives during the German air raids, Westall has successfully conveyed how war affects the world’s simplest creatures. Given today’s realities, Blitzcat should be on young readers reading lists. – Althea Lauren Ricardo