Apollo waited in the stable that seemed to be Queenie’s favorite playground and the very thought of that left Jack’s annoyance rising. This was the horse’s home, his sanctuary, not a place for drinking and assignations. From now on, Jack decided, Apollo’s stable would be looked after.
Jack was humming a tune, a ballad as ancient as the Shropshire Hills that Mrs. Byatt on the farm had taught him as a boy. It was about an old battle, a soldier far from home. And just as he began to sing the words, learned at Mrs. Byatt’s knee as she crimped the pie crusts, he heard footsteps approach.
“Here’s a lad who’s not afraid to sweat!” Captain Marsh’s voice boomed across the yard and Jack fell silent, praying that he wasn’t the subject of that comment. Apollo’s reaction was to scrape one hoof on the back of the stable door, ears flattening down. “And here’s a horse who’d be more use as glue than as a steed, horse and rider each as strange as the other!”
Trooper Woodvine saluted and stood to attention.
“Captain Marsh, sir, good morning.” He kept his tone as flat as possible, his face expressionless. “Were you looking for something, sir?”
“This thing—” He gestured vaguely in the direction of Apollo. “How do you do it?”
Marsh pushed his face toward Jack, that smell of sweat and tobacco and—
He knew without a doubt who owned that glove.
“He’ll let nobody near him, lassie, nobody but Thorne. You’ve tamed the stallion with your wicked, winsome ways.” Marsh’s rheumy eyes narrowed and Jack forced himself not to look away from the broken veins and blocked pores, the bloodshot lines that webbed into his eyes. “I’m known as something of a stallion myself, lass.”
There was a tremor in Marsh’s lips again, as if he had something in his mouth and was considering its flavor.
“I’m a farmer’s son, sir. I wouldn’t be much cop if I didn’t have a way with even the scariest of beasts.”
Jack took the broom and swept at the straw, hoping that by robbing Marsh of his audience he’d get bored and bother someone else. The unwashed odor of the man was still there as Captain Marsh continued to linger at the door. A thread of nausea rose in Jack’s throat.
He realized too late that he had cornered himself in the stable. Yet Marsh stilled on the threshold, frozen on the spot at the sound of Apollo’s warning snort. The horse paced around beside Jack, tail swishing with a rapier speed, those oiled hooves scuffing at the straw.
“If you cook and screw as well as you sweep, you’ll make a fine wife for some lucky soldier,” Marsh told him in a voice that almost oozed from his lips.
Jack stared at him. He was either going to be sick on him, or crack the broom over Marsh’s head and claim the horse had jostled him.
Jack adopted his best gung-ho Tommy voice.
“It’s very nice that an important officer like you chooses to chat with a groom like me, sir, but it’s not going to beat the Hun.”
“You’d do well to learn how things work around here, boy,” Marsh growled, though he remained outside the stable. “There are some people it doesn’t do to cross—”
“If you’re looking for a billet better suited to your table manners, Marsh, the search continues!” Thorne’s voice soared over the other officer’s tobacco-stained vitriol, silencing him mid-threat. “One might find a pigsty somewhere nearby but Apollo has no wish for a stablemate. Move along, Captain!”
“How’s your foot?” Marsh threw the question at Thorne like an insult as he stalked away.
“Happily not in my mouth!” Thorne’s reply was cheery and he strode to the open door to peer into the stable, his face lit by a bright smile. He looked from Apollo to the well-ordered straw and the full hay net then told Jack, “Bloody good job, soldier!”
Jack saluted, unable to hide his grin.
“Thank you, sir! Good morning, Captain Thorne, sir.”
“Good morning, Woodvine, good morning, Apollo.” The salute was returned with a swift confidence. “All ready to go. You’ve set a hell of an example, Trooper. The stable looks like new. Any luck on the source of those nasty scratches my boy’s been turning up with?”
Jack bit his lip. The threat of Queenie and his gossip nearly stopped up his mouth, but he had to say something. Sometimes one did have to tattle on a fellow.
“I… When I brought Apollo in from the paddock, his stable was a mess. Like someone’d had a party in here. Bottles on the floor and it smelled of cigarettes. And…” Jack glanced over to the corner where he’d left the glove. “Sir, I wouldn’t want to get in trouble, but I know that if I don’t say anything, it’s just as bad. I’m in rather a bind, sir. Will you…will you go to that corner, sir? I found something in the straw. I think…I think I know who it belongs to, but perhaps you should see it first. Before I say anything. They can’t say I told tales on them then, can they, Captain?”
“What’s this blather, Trooper?” Despite his words, Thorne stepped into the stable and crossed to the corner. In the dim light he scooped his cap from his head and tucked it beneath his arm then leaned down, peering at the glove.
Jack spoke in a whisper, conscious that he sounded like a conspirator.
“I think I know who he was with, sir. He went to bed not long after I’d got up. I bet he’s still up there, sleeping.”
Jack pointed to the ceiling, even though Captain Thorne had his back to him, still staring at the glove. Finally, however, he bent over and picked it up with a murmur of, “Sleeping, eh?”
Jack couldn’t have avoided it if he’d tried—Captain Thorne’s toned bottom, the breeches straining to contain the shapely, muscular curves. Jack stared, hoping that the captain wouldn’t—couldn’t—notice. He was such a fine figure of a man.
A small sigh escaped Jack’s lips, but surely the captain was too engrossed in the glove to have heard.
“You did the right thing, soldier.” Thorne stood and replaced his cap, the glove clutched in his own leather-clad hand. He sounded furious, Jack realized, but in that quiet way that was somehow worse when the teachers at the grammar had used it. Better to be bellowed at than this controlled, seething anger. “About your business, there’s about to be a hell of a ruckus.”
“Sir… Sir, they won’t know it was me who told you, will they?”
Jack gripped the captain’s arm fearfully.
“Who told me what?” He furrowed his brow, studying Jack’s face. “I came into the stable to collect Apollo and found a glove in the corner and bottles strewn about, isn’t that what you saw too?”
Jack nodded, his face beginning to regain its color. He let go of the captain’s strong arm, realizing he’d held on for too long. But it had made him feel so safe.
“You might like to be somewhere other than this stable for the next ten minutes.” Thorne smiled despite the warning. “Leave Apollo in here and close the door, then get his halter back to the tack room. Better not to be seen at the scene of someone else’s crime.”
Thorne executed a quick salute then strode out into the yard and headed for the rickety staircase up to the grooms’ quarters with a shout of, “Trooper Charles! The Hun won’t wait for you to catch up on your damned beauty sleep, you layabout!”
Jack went to the tack room at a calm walk, even though his heart was racing. He hid himself in the shadows, but positioned himself so that he could see outside into the yard. If anyone asked, he was familiarizing himself with the room. Of course.
And all hell seemed to break loose.
The door to the grooms’ quarters was flung back and out came Captain Thorne, the rather shell-shocked figure of Queenie being marched ahead of him. Now at least mostly dressed, the barefoot trooper’s shoulder was held tight by Thorne’s hand as the unlikely couple descended the stairs into the yard, Queenie complaining every step of the way that the horses had kicked the wall and kept him awake, that the other grooms snored, that the light of the moon was too bright and that he, by order of Captain Marsh, should be allowed the sleep he had misse
d on the previous night.
It meant nothing to Thorne, of course, and as the whole world seemed to slow to a fascinated, horrified and perhaps amused halt, all was silent save the footsteps of Thorne and Queenie as the officer pushed the soldier across the straw-strewn yard toward the water pump.
“A sharp blast of cold will wash away the sleep, Trooper Charles.” With a firm push, Thorne sent Queenie sprawling. As the young man let out a howl of protest, the captain pumped the handle, sending a stream of freezing-cold water cascading over the by-now-apoplectic Queenie. He bawled a torrent of garbled abuse, his pale hands clasped over his hair as he buried his head against his narrow chest, yet still the water flowed until he was utterly drenched.
Only then did Thorne address the yard in general, his eyes blazing.
“These stables are not drinking dens. You’re in the bloody army now, you don’t sleep, eat or breathe unless an officer tells you to!” He snatched the whip from his boot and cracked it down hard, gesturing toward Queenie. “Trooper Charles will transport the manure down to the muck heap today alone, no one is to help him.
“Standards here have become sloppy.” He cracked the whip again, then tucked it beneath his arm. “Keep in line, gentlemen, or there’ll be hell to pay!”
It was only then that Jack realized that he hadn’t been breathing. He inhaled, the sudden lungful of morning air rasping in his throat. Each whip-crack echoed in his ears.
God forbid that he should ever rile the Captain.
The door creaked ajar, admitting Trooper Cole. Jack tried a smile.
“Morning, Wilfred.”
Wilfred slapped Jack on the shoulder.
“Morning, Jack. Cor, your Captain Thorne’s got batey!”
“Yes…I saw.”
“I’ll wager you’re wondering what you’ll have to do for him to take on like that against you?”
“Lord in Heaven—no!”
The whip-crack still sounded in his ears.
Wilfred gathered up a bridle, watching Jack.
“Looking for something?”
Jack had been asked that once in some public conveniences in Shrewsbury, by a silver-haired man with lonely eyes. He shook the image of the man’s pale hands from his head.
“I…I was just…”
“It’d be a shame, wouldn’t it, if the new boy made a habit of running to teacher.”
Wilfred’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. He banged the door shut behind him as he left.
“Trooper Woodvine!” The captain’s voice rang out across the yard like a thunderclap at the departure of Wilfred. “Show yourself!”
Jack came outside into the sunlight and stood to attention.
“Captain Thorne, sir!”
Standing in the center of the yard, the captain clicked his fingers to indicate Jack should follow him. They set off at a brisk pace toward Apollo’s stable. The horse watched all of this with interest, his head protruding from the open top of the door as he took in all the new drama.
Jack followed at a march, feeling the stares of the other grooms on him. Only when they had reached the stone stable building did Thorne stop and turn. His dark eyes moved this way and that, watching the scurry of the soldiers. They did their best not to look at Queenie as he tied his boots. They always did their duty to the letter while Thorne was in the vicinity. The pump water was cold as ice, after all. No man would risk a dunking.
“The state of this stable this morning was a bloody disgrace, soldier, consider your copybook blotted.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew the glove, holding it up with a grimace as though it was a foul-smelling carcass he had found beneath a hedge. “Is this yours?”
Trooper Woodvine couldn’t speak. An unnameable terror gripped his heart. He stood to attention but his spine wouldn’t hold straight and his head drooped.
“S-sorry, Captain Thorne. It won’t happen again, sir.”
Thorne didn’t reply, but continued to hold Jack’s gaze with his own, those dark, bright eyes seemingly seeing right into him. He would know, Jack thought with dismay, know about the thoughts, would see right into his very heart. A muscle in the captain’s smooth, strong jaw twitched and he asked again, as though addressing an imbecile, “Is. This. Yours?”
That dirty, stinking glove hung there between them like the remains of a bat, leathery and decaying, entirely at odds with the elegant man who now had it in his possession. Captain Thorne would never allow his kit to look like that, Jack knew, and he felt a new surge of horror that Thorne might for a moment imagine it belonged to him.
“No, sir.” Jack managed not to stammer. He was telling the truth, after all. Doing the right thing, even though he had no idea what he had done for the captain to turn on him so abruptly. “It’s not my glove, sir. I have mine in my pocket, sir.”
“No, sir!” Thorne barked an echo. “Not my glove, sir! Then we find ourselves with a mystery, Trooper, that might never be solved.”
He spun on his immaculate heel and swept his whip from where it had been resting in his boot, nestled beside one smooth calf. With a gesture to the stable door, he snapped, “Get the door unbolted, Woodvine. Let us inspect your handiwork properly!”
His hand only shaking a little, Jack unbolted the stable door and stood to attention, allowing Captain Thorne to enter before him. The whip was still in his gloved hand, and Jack’s heart beat faster. He mustn’t think of it, mustn’t even look at it.
“In, and close the bottom door before the bloody horse escapes!” Thorne’s furious tone was at odds with the gentle touch he offered Apollo when he lifted his free hand to stroke the horse’s shoulder. “Now, Trooper, the war won’t wait for you!”
Jack pulled the door closed with a smart bang, which surprised even himself. He stamped his foot as he turned to the captain and stood to attention again. This time his stance was perfect. He would weather this, he would endure, even if later he took himself off to hide within the willow by the stream.
“At ease, although I should bloody keep you at full stretch until the sun sets!”
Captain Thorne continued to glare at him, his voice now dropping to a low growl. Anyone passing by would not hear what was being said, but by its tone it would unmistakably be a hell of a telling-off. He gestured this way and that with the whip, giving a very good account of a man indicating every single fault, real or imagined, in this immaculate stable.
“Don’t look so wounded, Trooper Woodvine.” He turned a little, peering around the stable with a critical eye. “Better that your pals see you getting a good roasting, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack understood at last—this was all an act. Captain Thorne was only doing this to protect him. But the officer’s fury had not felt fake, and the anguish in Jack’s heart had been real.
“Well, you’ve done a fine job for a new ’un.” Thorne nodded his approval and took up Apollo’s reins. “The yard’ll keep you busy in my absence, I have no doubt, and if you could give Apollo’s second tack a polish, it’d be a job well done. The door, if you would!”
“Yes, Captain Thorne.”
Jack opened it for him and followed the captain into the yard behind Apollo. He still felt dazed, as if he had received a stinging slap across the face. It was as well. If he had reappeared from the stable with a smile, then it would have been all the worse for him.
“Should I fetch a mounting block, sir?”
“Don’t be a damn fool, Trooper!” At the overheard exchange, the redheaded groom who had provided Apollo’s water bucket just a day earlier dared to chuckle, no doubt glad it was Jack and not him who was on the end of the tongue lashing.
Thorne’s arm shot out. The whip was fully extended toward the hapless lad, who cowered, though it was still inches from him. “Get about your business, soldier, or your arse’ll taste this crop!”
As the groom scurried back to his sweeping, Thorne tucked the whip into his boot and told Jack, “An officer in need of a mounting block is an officer in nee
d of a swift trip to no man’s land. It’s a bloody disgraceful show for a chap of rank!”
He lifted one polished boot to rest in the stirrup and reached up to take a firm hold of the cantle. Then, in one fluid movement, he hauled himself up into the saddle with a creak of leather, leaving Jack with another impression of that unmistakable scent he carried with him. With a moment to slightly straighten his cap, Thorne took up the reins and looked down his long nose at Jack, his face hard as granite.
“About your business, Trooper. Apollo wants to see his tack gleaming!”
Jack saluted and held his hand to his forehead until Captain Thorne had gone. He kept it there some moments afterward, some essence of the captain still remaining in the air.
Jack stepped over a pile of sweepings and the red-haired groom threw him a sympathetic grin.
“Is he always like that?” Jack knew the captain wasn’t, but he was willing to play along.
“That’s him on a good day!” The groom’s north Wales accent was at once recognizable to Jack.
“Trooper Woodvine—Jack.” He held out his hand. “I’m a Shropshire lad. You’re from—?”
“Flintshire. The name’s Bryn, by the way. Bryn Pritchard, but everyone here calls me Taffy.”
“Taffy?” Jack rolled his eyes. “Bryn’s a nice name—doesn’t it mean ‘hill’?”
Bryn laughed as they shook hands.
“You’ve bloody impressed me, you have. An Englishman who knows a word of Welsh!”
“But of course—I can almost see Wales from my front door. Our housekeeper—”
The NCO was hovering, so Jack gave Bryn a friendly nod and went into the tack room.
The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper Page 5
