Lord Morgan's Cannon

by MJ Walker

  The anteater didn’t move. The horse’s nostrils flared as it stretched its legs, veins and sinew rising beneath a foam of sweat on its neck. The man released a hand from the horse’s mane, revealing a thin leather stick that he raised next to the horse’s eye. As they closed the space, beating down upon him, Bear witnessed the fear in the horse’s bulging eyes, as the man smacked the whip down and across the horse’s hip.

  Bear froze. It was all he could do to flick his tongue across the pink scar on his face. The horse kept coming and Bear stood his ground. He heard the cries of more humans, further back, somewhere behind the horse, whooping and cheering as the tremors within the soil intensified. Suddenly Bear realised the horse had seen him, this strange black creature hiding among the wild grass and flowers. But it couldn’t stop. The horse tried to adjust its gait and pull back its head. But the human whipped it again, forcing the horse’s head down and onwards. Bear flinched as the horse ran upon him. He tried to duck and the horse tried to vault him.

  Both the horse and rider almost made it, except for a fetlock that caught the arch of Bear’s back, knocking the anteater on to his side. The horse landed upon three feet, a lost hoof catching at the soil, dragging back its knee then shoulder until the human was catapulted over the horse’s neck as his ride collapsed beneath him. The blow dazed the anteater and he lost the human and horse among the grass.

  Then Bear heard a second horse galloping on by, and a third swiftly followed by a fourth. He stood to see the chestnut horse flailing some twenty feet away in the meadow, kicking out a broken leg that had snapped half way between knee and ankle. The horse snorted and tossed its neck, not understanding why it could not right itself. The human climbed out of the grass, his face covered in sweat and mud. He grabbed at the horse’s mane, and shouted, as if that would calm his broken beast.

  More humans appeared in the meadow, running down a hill towards the rider, his horse and the giant anteater. Some were dressed in labourers’ clothes, others in suits, waving their hats about their heads as they tried to hop across the pasture, planting their feet into the unknown.

  Bear gathered his senses. He sucked in his belly and made himself thin. He slowly weaved through the wafting heads of grass, moving so his black hulk wouldn’t break their lines. He felt a pain in his shoulder and edged away, putting distance between the bellowing men descending on the fallen horse.

  The men gathered around the gelding, which had quietened, occasionally tossing its head, its ears appearing above the flowers. Some stood, hands in their pockets, while one ran his hand along the horse’s body, with slow deliberate strokes. The rider cursed at his charge and worked at the leather straps, trying to free his saddle and stirrups. He pulled at the horse, which winced and whimpered, and yanked his tack away, falling back with it on to his rear. Embarrassed he stood and ran a finger across his throat. An older gentleman, who had just joined the party, nodded. He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and threw it across the horse’s wild eye. A third man raised a broken shotgun, inserted a slug, snapped it shut and triangulated between the horse’s eyes and ears. He pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the discharging gun crashed like a wave upon Bear’s ear drums, forcing him to blink as the man ended the life of an animal that moments earlier had been running as fast as it had ever run in its life. The anteater froze again, immediately recalling the sight of the horse’s legs involuntarily kicking into the air at the final moment. He slowly lowered his body into the ground, all joy leaving him, as he curled his tail across his eyes. He listened as some of the men consoled the older gentleman, while others took out banknotes from their pockets, exchanging them for crumpled chits. After a few minutes, the men started to break away. Some turned, walking back through the grass in the direction they had come, cursing their wet trousers and bad luck. The rest jogged on, tracing the line taken by the other horses through the meadow and over a short fence, followed by the rider carrying his saddle, which he held tight as if it were his only possession.

  Bear couldn’t help himself. He fell into a pained sleep, no longer able to face this new world. He drew in the smell of the pasture and dreamed of home, fantasising what life was like in spring for a wild adult anteater that hadn’t been taught any tricks. He kept fidgeting, buzzed by the flies gathering around the horse. And he was sure he heard the sound of seagulls landing, imagining them pecking at the horse’s eyes as they cackled and snapped at each other, still fighting for the best bits among all the horse offered. So he squashed his eyelids tighter together, and pulled his tail in closer, taking slower heavier breaths.

  He woke an hour later, feeling the slobbering chops of Tony the fox-terrier excavating his fur, trying to reach and lick his mouth. Tony had come alone, having noticed Bear was missing, and he found the anteater by weaving through the meadow, taking random lines that always seemed to lead to the thing he was searching for.

  Two days earlier, Bear would have knocked aside any dog trying to nuzzle his gums. But here and now, the warm, moist currents of Tony’s breath felt affirming, and vital. Bear unfurled himself, grateful to no longer be alone. He told Tony about the horse and its rider and pointed to the gelding’s body still listless in the grass. As he did so, the clouds above moved faster. They fragmented, letting through shards of golden sunlight.

  The horses, said Tony, must have been racing towards the church spire situated beyond the woods, piercing the top of the trees. Tony recognised the gelding. He didn’t know him personally, but he had visited his stable. The gelding was a thoroughbred, one with a bad eye for the jumps. So the men who owned him had him done, and trained him for the point to points rather than the courses. He used to be a good horse, said Tony, in a matter of fact way, as if he was used to seeing dead animals.

  “But why was the man on his back whipping him so hard?” asked Bear.

  “To make him run faster,” said Tony.

  “But he was running fast enough,” said Bear.

  Tony then asked about the other horses and how close they had been to the gelding?

  “Not far behind,” said Bear, confused.

  “Then the man was making the gelding run faster,” said Tony.

  To the anteater, the dog wasn’t making sense. The rider appeared to be hitting the horse, just to make the horse run faster. And each time Bear asked why he was hitting him, or why the horse had to run so fast, the answer seemed the same. The horse was being whipped to run faster, and running fast was why the horse was being whipped.

  Bear thought back to Whyte and Wingate’s Big Top and how he had been whipped to run around the ring. He wondered if he’d had it wrong. All season he’d tried to please the crowds, by running well, despite it being unnatural to him. Perhaps he should have tried to run fast instead of well? Perhaps that would have pleased the Ring Master more? But he thought on and reasoned that if he had run fast, like the horse, he would have been whipped regardless. He would have been whipped to run fast around the circus and running fast would have led to him being whipped. And now the horse was dead.

  “Why did the horse do what the man on his back wanted?” Bear asked Tony.

  “I don’t know,” said the dog.

  “Why did he do what the man wanted if it led to his end?”

  “I don’t know,” said the dog.

  “Why didn’t the horse do what he wanted instead? Might he not still be alive?”

  “I don’t know,” said the dog.

  Tony realised Bear had begun to shiver, his convulsing body throwing droplets from the ends of his hairs.

  “Follow me,” said Tony. “In the woods there will be dry leaves you can roll in.”

  Bear looked around as the sun began to clear the skies. He sniffed a line of black ants marching out to confront the red ants, but he’d lost his taste for them. He saw the flock of seagulls cavorting above the body of the horse. He felt a ray of yellow light cross the meadow, away from the horse, and ignoring the terrier he pursued it, limping on his sore shoul
der.

  “This way,” said Tony gently, rubbing his tight white and black coat and brown head against the anteater’s thick shawl of fur.

  He cajoled Bear, directing him through the grass and flowers, commenting on the petals and dragonflies, occasionally jumping in anticipation of a passing swift, playing a game with the birds, hoping to draw Bear’s mood.

  They moved this way, the dog dancing, the anteater ambling, until the edge of the meadow. They crossed a brook full of croaking frogs and on they went, until the trees stood taller on the horizon. Tony barked and trotted upon his toes. He could see the outline of an elephant standing at the edge of Leigh Woods and a bird flitting around its trunk as it pulled at the grass, filling its mouth with some lush greenery.

  A few paces more and Doris saw Tony and Bear approaching. She waved her head and tossed some grass, some of it falling on to Bessie’s wings. She waited at the verge to the woods, more conscious now of the open spaces. As Bear emerged from the golden grass and into the shadows, Doris ran her trunk along his back, feeling his bruised clavicle and underlying pain.

  At first, the animals didn’t speak. Doris had a sense of these things, as elephants do, and Bessie read her body on behalf of Bear’s, deferring to her soft stance and gentle touches. They retreated past the first line of trees and Tony went on, until he located a decent pile of leaf litter. He stood to its side and with his rear legs he kicked at it, sending last year’s leaves up and over themselves, creating a bed of brown, yellow and red.

  Then Tony spoke, encouraging Bear to rest. Bessie joined him and in her own way she pleaded over and over for Bear to sleep upon the leaves. Bear said he couldn’t, because the humans might come running again through the fields, tossing their hats and money.

  Doris didn’t understand why Bear was saying these things. But she knew the anteater well enough to know how to reassure him. She offered to stand guard over her friend. If anyone came while he slept, she would snort and bellow. She would charge if she had to and if that wasn’t enough she would trample the interloper.

  As Bessie watched from a branch on a tree, Bear staggered below her into the leaves. He pushed himself into them until he was almost gone. Doris moved close and stood straight while Tony lay down, head on his paws, eyes wide open, just as he used to behind the gate at Lord Morgan’s house.

  For a while the animals forgot about Edward.

  Not because they couldn’t remember. Elephants have excellent memories. Doris could even recall her own birth, the feeling of dropping six feet on to a bed of spiky juniper, blowing the fluid from her lungs, and the joy at being able to stand supported by her mother’s trunk. She still knew the routes to the best watering holes in Kerala and occasionally wondered if they filled each spring.

  Bessie too evoked memories of her recent youth, reminiscing about walking on a ball and sitting on a swing and her first taste of various seeds and cereals.

  Tony the terrier knew the location of every comfy cushion in Lord Morgan’s house, what time dinner was served and the daily movements of his master.

  But being animals, they occasionally forgot to remember each other. And it took Doris until late afternoon to realise their cheeky monkey was still not with them. That he had been taken by Lord Morgan, and that they were trying to find their way to the college, on a hill, in the city, to see Edward again.

  Doris thought about making the journey alone, leaving Bear to sleep in the leaves, the dog and bird slumbering alongside. Then she thought ahead, envisaging what that would be like. Immediately she became concerned, unsure which way to walk or what to do if she found a street full of humans that hadn’t paid to see her. So she took a deep breath and blew away the leaves, waking the others, who seemed surprised to be resting on the edge of a wood.

  Bear had been dreaming about Edward and his plan to find Lord Morgan’s cannon. In his tired mind, the anteater imagined the cannon to be longer than three llama’s standing head to tail in a line. It was a big black cannon that could be raised upright, to point straight up in the air. It could take cannon balls so big they couldn’t be lifted by the gorillas the old leopard sometimes spoke of. And when fired, it would sound louder than thunder breaking over the peaks of the Andes.

  He then dreamed of being strong and well fed. He was home again, roaming the grassy plains, pain absent from his shoulder. He was searching for a site, a clearing in the pampas. It needed to be big enough to take a tent, a tall canvass construction held true by a centre pole and guide ropes. He wanted space for his wagons and some trees to attach billboards to.

  He would set up his very own Big Top and invite a local audience. The armadillos and anacondas would arrive, followed by the rhea, capybara and puma and a lone Geoffroy’s cat, which didn’t recognise its name. They would sit in a circle, around the ring of sawdust, a few opposums taking the cheap seats, and they would watch the humans put on a show.

  First would come the high wire girls, who amazed the animals by keeping their balance despite being whipped by a tufted capuchin. Jim the Strongman would sit atop an iron stool, pulling faces while wearing a red hat and shawl with sequins. The Ring Master would then run in circles, faster and faster until a herd of small orphan children wheeled in the huge cannon, and fired it.

  At that moment in his dream the cannon ball shot through the roof of the tent. But instead of saving the circus, and all the animals in it, the cannon ball went up towards the clear blue sky and then came straight down again. It hit the pole holding up the Big Top, snapping it. The cannon ball fell back upon the gun that had fired it, iron smashing against iron, deforming itself. Down came the canvass, trapping all the creatures within. As blackness fell upon Bear’s dream, he woke with a start to see Doris blowing at him below the shade of the trees.

  As the anteater shook his head, Tony then uttered the most remarkable thing he’d said since meeting the animals from the circus. He declared, with the utmost confidence, that Lord Morgan would by now be taking tea at the college. Bessie asked him how he knew such a thing. Tony replied that dogs always knew exactly how long they had been asleep for. He had often accompanied Lord Morgan to his laboratory at the college. And he knew when Lord Morgan had set off there carrying Edward in his puzzle box. From that, it was quite easy, said Tony, to work out that by now it was tea time, and that Lord Morgan would be in the long room of the college, eating his regular slice of lemon cake, drinking an Assam blend.

  Bear remembered their first ever plan, the one Edward had helped conjure. To find the circus, the animals had decided to climb the trees and look out beyond, for the Big Top poking above the city. He also recalled that the plan had a point, to save the circus. So he took that original plan and adjusted it. To find the college they would ask Tony the terrier what it looked like. They would follow him and, when they could, they would look out beyond, to see if it was poking above the city. And the point of this new plan was to save Edward.

  He told the others of this new plan and they immediately agreed. It tallied with what was already in their minds. But each of them found it useful to organise and direct their thoughts: to fix in their heads that Edward was not with them and that he was at the college, to decide that was not a good thing, and to banish all doubt that saving the monkey from the humans was the right thing to do.

  With this new plan they set off at a pace through the woods. Bessie flew from tree to tree in as straight a line as she could muster, as below the terrier weaved and bounced through an understory of fallen logs, leaves and deer dung. Behind him Bear trotted, with Doris following.

  In years past, when Doris had been free to travel with other elephants, she had naturally taken the lead. She liked, as the third oldest of her sisters and cousins, to head the herd as they roamed the foothills of home, taking responsibility for each next step of their adventure. But her life in England, at the circus, had irrevocably changed her nature. There she became a follower. But while she wandered the wood of elm and ash, passing trees such as redwoods and noble fir
s that were alien to even her, she began to find meaning in her new character. She was approaching a reflective age. Her ability to mother had long been stolen, but not the urge. And she recognised the power she held in her huge frame. She followed, but she looked over the others as she did. And she began to feel content.

  From her vantage point, she was the first to recognise the unnatural structure in the forest. Tony was leading them towards a hill, with a deep channel excavated around it. Atop the hill crumbled the remains of a wall, grey and covered in green lichen.

  Doris asked the dog if he knew what it was. Tony replied that it used to be the site of an old fort. He didn’t know what a fort was, but he’d heard Lord Morgan describe it as a home to a whole community, a race of people that had once, in the distant past, abandoned all they knew. These people, his master had said, kept cows and sheep and may have been protected by dogs, Tony proudly reported. They had come to live in the forest and they happily spent all their days here, living upon this hill, surviving on the fruits of the forest, its berries and bird eggs, root vegetables and fungi. He knew all this, because his master had told him.

  “Does Lord Morgan know everything?” inquired Bessie. “Does he know everything there is to know about everything?”

  “He learned about the fort from other professors at the college,” said Tony. “That’s one of the things that makes humans special, my master says. Humans learn things from each other, whereas animals do not.”

  “But that isn’t so,” said Bear, speaking over the dog. “It can’t be so.”

  Doris began to wish she hadn’t asked the terrier about the fort. She wasn’t used to thinking about more than one thing at once. She had been concentrating on walking through the wood, trying to find the college and monkey. But now the appearance of the fort had forced her to think of these other things.