A Horse Called Hero

by Sam Angus

  ‘Of course he has a dark muzzle,’ said Wolfie indignantly, his mouth to the bugle. ‘Dodo, you must paint him for Pa, you must do his portrait so he can see.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Father Lamb always made breakfast. In his dressing gown, he’d prepare Camp coffee and stand with a steaming bowl of it at the window that looked down towards the churchyard. He turned and took Wolfie’s bugle down from the lintel and blew it to announce that breakfast was ready, then turned back to the window and his coffee.

  Wolfie rushed downstairs and raced across the kitchen to the yard window, whistling to Hero. The sun shone out of a cobalt sky but the ground was stiff with frost. A fringe of glistening icicles hung like dinosaur teeth from the stable roof. Hero was now tall enough to reach his neck over the stable door, and would always be there, watching the kitchen door, waiting for Wolfie. Hero now shared the same winter quarters as Scout, though they were separated by a stall. Scout would rest her whiskery head on the wooden bar, following Hero’s every movement with her gentle amber eyes. She never looked out into the yard, her eyes were always on Hero. Wolfie didn’t approve of Hero being in a stable. He said that Hero missed the prancing and the chasing he could do outside. Wolfie turned from the window and went to the larder, saying, ‘Hero will have apples today and celery and a carrot. That’s his Christmas treat. But he does not like to be in a box. He is restless in a box.’

  Thoughts of Hero always came with thoughts of Pa: Hero would have carrots and apples and celery for Christmas, but what would Pa have? Wolfie left the larder and joined Father Lamb at what they called the church window.

  ‘You see, Wolfie –’ Father Lamb gestured down to the churchyard where you could pick out, through mist that still clung to the hollows, the white sheep and the gravestones – ‘there’ll not be far for me to go when the time comes, only Hettie’s redcurrants between me and the grave.’ Father Lamb smiled. ‘Beneath that rowan there, all red and silver, is where I’ll lie . . . The rowan, you see, is not only the tree of the moor, but also the tree that stands sentinel at heaven’s gate.’

  It took Wolfie a minute or so to digest the thought of Father Lamb lying beyond the redcurrants, below the sheep and the rowan. He looked at Father Lamb’s rosy cheeks and white beard and decided that he was not entirely serious. Eventually he took Father Lamb’s hand and asked, ‘What do you do if you are in your barracks on Christmas day?’

  ‘We’ve not heard from your pa for a while, have we? We’ll pray for him today.’ He put an arm around the boy’s shoulder, rumpling Wolfie’s thick hair. ‘Will you ever be tidy, you tatterdemalion child?’

  Wolfie looked up at him, bewildered.

  ‘Must you always look as though you’ve slept the night in a manger, with the ass and oxen?’

  ‘I will . . .’ began Wolfie, patting ineffectually at his hair.

  ‘Come the Resurrection,’ said Father Lamb with a smile.

  The door opened and Samuel entered. There was no day of rest for Samuel.

  ‘They’ve gone, sir, two more gone. They were down in the cleave and they’ve gone – young ones – two fillies.’

  Father Lamb buried his face in his hands. After a minute he looked up and said, shaking, ‘Well, Wolfie, we’ll not tell Hettie today I think, nor Dodo.’ To Samuel he said, ‘Who’s taking them? They’re obstinate as camels – who is it do you think? It’s surely a local?’

  Samuel shook his head. As he turned to the door, he saw an envelope on the mat that he’d missed in his rush.

  ‘We’ll guard them every day,’ Wolfie was saying. ‘Every day when we’re not at school.’

  Samuel handed the envelope to Father Lamb. Wolfie leaped forward.

  ‘Is it another one from Pa?’ There was a Christmas card from Pa waiting to be opened on the table.

  Samuel glanced at Father Lamb, shaking his head. ‘It came by hand.’

  Father Lamb put the envelope on the Christmas breakfast table with the small group of envelopes that waited there. He embraced Samuel and wished him and his family a merry Christmas.

  When Hettie and Dodo joined them, the fire was lit, the boiled eggs ready and waiting. Father Lamb said nothing about the missing ponies.

  ‘It’s lucky Hero’s not a London horse, isn’t it?’ Wolfie said as he ate his egg. ‘London horses don’t get honey and eggs.’

  Hettie took an envelope from the pile on the table. ‘Ten pints is a lot of milk for one horse in a time of war and rationing,’ she said. ‘Please teach him to be a normal horse and eat hay.’

  Dodo thought it would be better when Hero ate hay, if the milk had to come from the home of Mary Jervis. Mary Jervis delivered the mail to Lilycombe, but she left it in the porch outside, never coming in as she had at Hollowcombe.

  Hettie read the card and stood it up on the table, picking up the envelope beneath.

  ‘At least he doesn’t eat eggs now,’ Dodo said.

  ‘Do you think Pa gets eggs . . . ?’

  Wolfie’s voice shook a little and Hettie interrupted. ‘Look, there’s one for you both,’ she said, smiling. ‘And another. You open this one, Wolfie.’

  ‘From Pa,’ said Dodo, opening hers, and reading it out to Wolfie:

  Dearest Dodo and Wolfie,

  There are two small presents from me under your tree, but I know for you, Wolfie, the best present of all will be the moment your horse lays his head on your shoulder. There is nothing on earth like the moment a horse rests his head on your shoulder. Does Hero lay his head on your shoulder? For you, Dodo, I have something very special that once belonged to Ma.

  Have the happiest day. I wish I could be with you and see you opening your presents.

  With all my love to you both, Pa.

  When Dodo looked up, Wolfie’s lip was wobbling. In his hand he held a greetings card with a sprig of holly on the front. On the inside there was no writing, only a newspaper cutting pasted across both sides. A photograph showed Pa with the King, the medal in the King’s hands. Wolfie looked up, fighting back his tears, let the card fall and leaped up from the table, pushing the door open and running out across the yard, ice splintering under his feet.

  ‘For the love of God, on today of all days?’ Father Lamb said again, taking it and reading it to himself:

  SHAME OF A WAR HERO CAPTAIN REVEL TO BE CHARGED WITH DISOBEDIENCE AND DESERTION. CASE CONTINUES.

  Wolfie grappled with the icy bolt of the stable door, and fell sobbing into Hero’s box, a flood of grief and pain erupting over him. Hero nudged Wolfie, almost throwing him off his feet. The two of them stood, nose to nose, Wolfie smiling now, weakly, through his tears. Like eskimos they rubbed noses, exchanged breath, Wolfie blowing into Hero’s nostrils, Hero’s milky breath escaping in puffs over the tears on Wolfie’s cheeks. ‘Learn him by heart,’ Pa had said in one of his letters. ‘Learn your horse by heart.’ Wolfie tangled his fingers into the deep grey mane, ran them along the ridge of Hero’s back. He breathed the sweet apple scent of straw and hay and breathed deep and laid his head against Hero’s chest, letting his breath rise and fall, rise and fall with Hero’s. The tears dried on his cheeks, the raging and the churning inside of him calmed.

  Scout paced restlessly along the wooden bar, returning to the spot closest to Hero, then pacing again.

  When Wolfie looked up, Father Lamb was there, his arms resting on the stable door.

  ‘Wolfie . . .’ he began.

  Wolfie hung his head, fighting for words. Finding none, he reached for a glistening icicle and snapped it violently. He held it in his bare hands, the cold of it sticking and burning his hands raw. ‘They’ve taken it away, haven’t they? The King – he’s taken Pa’s medal away.’ His eyes were two swollen pools and his voice croaked.

  Father Lamb turned the boy towards him and placed a hand on each shoulder.

  ‘Wolfie,’ he said, ‘what your pa did was immensely brave. In what will be perhaps the last cavalry charge in history, he led his men through two lines of machine guns – did
that not once, but twice. He galloped at those guns with nothing but a lance.’

  Hero swung his head and nuzzled the boy for attention, his breath on the boy’s neck.

  ‘That takes unimaginable bravery. Whatever happens now, what he did that day, what he won that day, can never be taken away. A Victoria Cross can never be taken away, whatever happens.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Father Lamb sat in an old chintz chair by the door, a pink blanket over his knees, a sermon on his lap, his white beard and whiskers luminous in the sun, the first green of spring glimmering in the elderly rose over his head. Dreadnought sat at his side. Hettie patrolled her currant bushes, picking off caterpillars for her bantams. She favoured benign neglect, in both housekeeping and horticulture, in every respect other than the currant bushes. Dodo was in the kitchen busy with a sponge cake for the afternoon moss-collecting expedition cocoa, flour and milk to replace chocolate.

  Through the window she watched Wolfie crossing and criss-crossing the ground in front of the house. Hero followed Wolfie, and Scout followed Hero, jealous muzzle to his flank. Dodo smiled sadly to herself. Not a day went by without Wolfie writing to Pa. She pulled a letter out of her apron. Wolfie’s letter formation was higgledy and picturesque. A small pencil drawing, meant to illustrate the scale of Hero’s physical perfection headed the letter, beneath it Hero’s height in hands, then:

  Dear Pa,

  Hero always swings his tail. That’s the sign of a happy horse, isn’t it? His tail is long now and he doesn’t have his baby fur any more. He eats only grass and hay now and is very pleased with himself.

  Love, Wolfie

  PS I hope you can come soon.

  The mysterious buckets of milk had stopped coming after Wolfie wrote a message and pinned it to the stable door: I EAT HAY NOW. Dodo had been relieved about that because the milk probably came from a boy whose parents had spat at them. She’d asked Hettie about Ned, and Hettie told her that Ned had had to leave school early, that he’d had to take full-time work; his father’s leg had worsened and he was unable to work.

  ‘He does what he can, takes bits and pieces of work wherever he finds it. It’ll be a struggle for him to keep hold of that farm . . . He never wanted to take it on, you know, he wanted to stay on at school, but his older brother died at Dunkirk in those first months of the war. He was always a clever boy, and kind.’ She had smiled at her. ‘Still, he’ll be all right – he knows his way about. The peat water of this place runs in the Jervis veins – they know this moor like no one else and they take it as theirs.’

  Father Lamb had said that he feared that all the promise in Ned might wither under the strain of fending for his siblings, that he knew there were problems with the rent on the land.

  Dodo looked out as she sifted flour. She looked at Wolfie – at the smile on his face, the hand in his pocket fingering, probably, an apple. Hero was starting forward, nuzzling Wolfie’s pocket, now lifting his head, swinging his tail. ‘Look at me,’ he was saying. ‘Am I not a fine horse?’

  Pa wrote often from his barracks, mainly with advice for Wolfie, though sometimes there’d be bits about the progress on his case too. But still their understanding of what had happened at Dunkirk was partial and confused. Pa had written this week that he felt like a small boy standing in a corner of the classroom being punished for something he hadn’t done. They’d smiled at that, but Dodo felt that she too was being punished for something she hadn’t done, her love for Pa turning cloudy with anger and a sense of injustice. Wherever she and Wolfie went they were watched in silence, and silence would cling like a shadow as they left; then there’d be the whispering. The Causey girls no longer taunted openly. When Dodo came into the schoolroom they’d watch her in sinister silence, three dark witches that seemed to know something Dodo didn’t, something too terrible for words. She’d caught anxious glances between the Lambs as though they too knew something, Dodo thought, that she didn’t. If Pa were found guilty, would he go to jail, would that be the worst that could happen? The schoolroom tauntings angered and outraged Wolfie, but at Lilycombe he could forget. For Dodo there was no such rest, and the dark knot of fear inside her grew and spread its web.

  She looked out of the window on to the purple sweep of the common. She’d first admired, now loved, the savage beauty of these hills, each day the leafy whiteness and brightness of Holland Park receding further from her mind.

  Hero whickered and was answered by a whinny from Scout. Dodo smiled. Hero stopped and stretched, allowing Scout to nibble and caress him. He took her love as no more than his due and was sometimes domineering, sometimes loving and protective of the wise and gentle Scout. Now he tossed his head and cantered playfully away, his legs springy and dancing, improbable as a daddy-long-legs. Scout cantered after him, the two of them dodging the flowering may trees, dodging gorse. Wolfie was watching and smiling, the bugle in his hand winking and flashing in the sun.

  Hettie joined Dodo at the window and together they looked out.

  ‘Scout thinks of nothing but Hero. He is a prince to her,’ said Hettie, shaking her head and smiling. After a little while, seeing Dodo so quiet, she said, ‘Scout’s yours, Dodo, to ride, for as long as you’re here. Scout would love to be ridden and I would love you to ride her. You’ll come to no harm with her, she knows the moor better than anyone, it’s in her blood.’

  ‘Oh – !’ Dodo was too moved to speak, overcome with joy and gratitude.

  Hettie smiled and began to collect provisions for the afternoon’s expedition, raising her head again to look out. ‘Why not ride her out today and lead Hero behind you on a halter and rope – what do you say?’

  Dodo was dizzy at Hettie’s kindness.

  ‘Will you ride her? You’ll love her – she’s as surefooted and lion-hearted as any horse.’

  When Wolfie came inside, horse slobber in his hair, straw clinging to his jumper, he asked, ‘Why do we have to collect moss?’

  ‘It’s for dressings. The Red Cross needs a million dressings a month for the wounded.’

  ‘A million is a lot,’ said Wolfie.

  ‘It grows right here, up on the moor. Sphagnum holds more than twenty-five times its weight in water, so you see, it can hold more blood than cotton can . . .’

  The children were silent. Down herein the country, and especially so now that Pa was in England, the war felt far away. The distant rumbling over Bristol, Hettie’s moss and the Invasion Committee meetings were the only reminders that the country was at war.

  Later, as they left, Wolfie said proudly to Father Lamb, ‘We’re going to collect moss for the wounded. Hero is coming and Dodo’s going to ride Scout.’

  ‘Good for you. Sphagnum stops infection,’ said Father Lamb. ‘Did you know that? The Highlanders, after Flodden, stuffed their wounds with moss. Up here, a wounded deer will drag himself to a sphagnum bog with his last breath because he knows it will help heal him.’

  ‘Bogs preserve men,’ said Wolfie unexpectedly. ‘I am learning about Bog Man at school. Ancient man used bogs to keep his butter fresh but Hero won’t like bogs because he does not like to get his feet wet.’

  ‘And with good reason – water on the hills can be dangerous in these parts. Up on the Chains, the bogs can be twenty foot deep after rain.’

  ‘Scout will look after them,’ said Hettie. ‘Dodo will ride her there and Scout will carry the moss back in baskets.’

  ‘The soldiers need a million dressings a week,’ said Wolfie.

  ‘A million. Is that so, Hettie?’ Father Lamb looked up at his daughter. ‘A million a week?’ He took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead, ‘Do you know, H. G. Wells says that every decision should be made in the presence of a wounded man, so that the War Cabinet is reminded what war does. I think that’s right, Hettie, I think that’s right.’

  ‘When can I ride Hero?’ asked Wolfie.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Hettie. ‘But it’s the first step, haltering him to Scout. Today we’ll teach your proud emperor a
thing or two.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Prepare to mount . . .’ Dodo commanded. ‘Mount!’

  The forbearing Scout waited as Wolfie scrambled up on to the saddle in front of Dodo. Hettie handed up a saddlebag, bulging with jam jar, magnifying glass, paint box, sketchpad, and lunch.

  ‘Destination Pennywater,’ said Dodo to Wolfie. ‘Mission Pony Patrol.’

  Sun touched them that summer, alighting on their young and troubled lives, unexpected as a butterfly, and staying. After the foamy white hawthorn, the grassy slopes around Lilycombe had grown thick with yellow buttercups. Fear for Pa receded as endless sunlit days passed in a galloping succession. Pa had written that he thought the case against him might be dropped or forgotten since it seemed to be taking so long. There’d been nothing in the papers for a while and, for a time, the children found that out riding, with Scout, they could together forget and be free.

  Almost every day they rode together on Scout, Hero roped alongside, haughty as a captured princeling. The horses, Scout and Hero both, taught Wolfie and Dodo to love the place, to love the summer pink and purple hills, the silver rivers that laced the dark combes like streamers. In and out of cloud shadows, they wandered like will-o’-the-wisps, Hero ahead, frolicking, defiant, wild as a hawk, lissom as a goat, the iron-grey tail a streaming banner. Above and far away, fighter planes flashed and winked like silver blades, unheeded.

  Pennywater was their secret place.

  Scout carried them down over the soft nibbled turf through musky clouds of gorse, to a stream, their stream, a stream that never ran dry, a hidden place of glittering amber water, that flashed between cushions of deep and dripping moss. Fizzy with curiosity or fear at each new thing, Hero followed, dainty on his butterfly legs.

  Dodo settled herself on a rock and looked out for Hettie’s ponies. They came to drink at Pennywater, for this was their place, too. She stretched out, face to the dappled sun, listening to the sounds of sheep and water, waiting. After a while, she said, ‘Time passes more slowly here.’