A Horse Called Hero (11 page)

Eventually Wolfie passed the bag to Dodo, his voice breaking as he whispered, ‘Captain wore this at Moreuil Wood.’

‘I’ve something for you, Wolfie,’ said Hettie. ‘Come.’

She led him into the kitchen. On the table sat a saddle, the deep seat and skirt darkened and softened with years of oil, the cantle and knee roll in a lighter tan, the pommel polished as a
chestnut. To the side lay a bridle, ribboned with a grey and white bow at the side of the gleaming bit.

‘We were lucky – this old saddle of Father’s fits. Unless Hero grows much more, it’ll last a while.’

‘Is he ready – can I . . . ?’ Wolfie leaped to the window. Father Lamb joined him and they looked out at Hero and Scout, standing muzzle to muzzle. Scout whickered gently at
Hero, then resumed her nipping and grooming of him.

‘Two years old, Wolfie, and he’s already tall for you . . . He’s going to be a horse to be reckoned with . . . but at two years he can be saddled.’

Wolfie yelped for joy, flung open the casement and whistled.

The horse raised his head and cantered between the snowy thorns, leaf light quivering over his flanks like stippling on water.

‘Bring the saddle, Wolfie,’ said Hettie, taking two apples and chopping them. She slipped the pieces into Wolfie’s pocket and picked up the bridle.

Wolfie leaped towards the saddle, his heart spinning like a Catherine wheel. He picked it up, staggering under the weight of it, and soldiered out across the yard.

That day Hettie and Wolfie began to break in Hero.

They took him to the lane where green glimmered in the beech hedgerows, Dodo ahead with Scout, Wolfie leading the young grey horse, feeding him apple as he went. Day by day, they walked him
through the magical dappled green of spring, a little more weight on his back each day. Hero’s eyes blazed with outrage when the saddle was first placed on his back, but Scout was always at
his side, steady and calm at his flank, so Hero accepted it. Later, he was astonished by the bit, outraged at the indignity of the bridle, but Wolfie whispered to him, and he listened with a
willingness to cooperate born of the unqualified trust he had in the boy who’d slept at his side, who’d fed him honey on his fingers, drunk milk from the same bucket.

Later, free of the saddle, Hero would roll on the cool turf, watched tenderly by Scout. The games of his colthood, the fawn-like leaping and starting, were now outgrown, his movements grown
rounder, more considered, more graceful. His chest had broadened, there was elegance in his stance, seriousness in his eyes, a patrician depth to his face.

If ever he stepped away from Scout, she’d squeal and he’d answer, standing kingly and tall, with the deep valley below, the purple curve of the common beyond.

He was shod in early June, and grew fizzy and proud at the sound of his feet clipping on the cobbles. He’d been an easy horse to break, Hettie said, because the trust he had in Wolfie was
absolute.

Mounted for the first time on Hero, looking as accidental atop the tall horse as a piece of thistledown, pride shone, wide as sunlight, in Wolfie’s smile. Dodo and he rode together, she on
Scout, leading him on Hero. If she loosed the lead rope, Hero would sniff and skitter, dart sideways from leaves and breezes, leap to avoid water. His flickering ears would betray his ignorance,
suspicion or astonishment at everything but as the summer ripened, his understanding of the world grew and he stepped out with confidence and pride.

When they cantered, for the first time, through golden brown grass waist high, laughter sprang from the boy like water from a spring. Hearing the boy’s laugh, feeling the current of it in
his own veins, Hero moved freely into a long, clean gallop, learning the strength he had in him, power surging inside, one ear turned as Wolfie’s laughter rolled and tumbled and crested in a
froth of joy. The boy’s trust in the horse, the horse’s trust in the boy, was each beyond question.

With Dodo and Scout they’d picnic in valleys ribboned with silver streams, the coat of the young horse silver as a moon in the leaf shadow. They’d ride to Hoar Oak, remote and
fairy-tale, to watch the firing practice at Larkbarrow. They patrolled the ponies at Pennywater, or rode over the Common to watch the troops and tanks on manoeuvres, or gallop across the high moor,
through feathery tufts of cotton grass, sweet as summer snow.

If Hero had to stop and wait for Scout, he’d stamp and snort, and lift his head to survey the open grassland, proud as an eagle. Then Wolfie would blow his bugle, and they’d canter
on. Driven by gossamer whims, arms lifted to the sky, reins loose, laughing, Wolfie raced clouds, raced birds that swirled like scraps of paper, laughing, forgetting, the mother lost in babyhood,
the father under arrest.

In late summer they rode through fire-gold sedge, leaping the still black water that stood between the rush grass. They galloped and galloped and galloped, through sun and rain and shadow, as
though in and out of centuries, through time itself. The bracken blazed bronze-red, the beech leaves turned to golden coins that curled and darted and eddied down. Wolfie and Dodo would race,
laughing, reaching out to them, each captured leaf treasured, good luck for Pa.

On their horses they came to know and deeply love the moor, in mist and mizzle, in the sudden storms that snapped new growth like a knife, in the violent surge of spring, in heady summer, in
long, red autumn.

When the school year began again, they were forced once more into the uneasy company of their schoolmates, once more caught by the scrutiny and suspicion of a close village community. At
Lilycombe in the long autumn evenings, in the glow of the fire, they’d sit together, Dodo’s head bent over
The Lives of Artists
, but creeping, from time to time, to the window,
to look suspiciously into the night, a soft crease on her brow, Hettie’s ponies never far from her mind. Father Lamb, held in the golden halo of his oil lamp, would glance up and smile
gratefully at her. Wolfie toyed with Captain, or wrote long notes to Pa. He’d sent Dodo’s picture to Pa in the end, and Dodo hadn’t minded, said she was proud to think of it in
Pa’s lonely room. Pa had written back to say that he’d thought no horse could live up to Wolfie’s praise until he’d seen the painting. He’d advised, too, that Wolfie
use soap flakes as the best way to get the mud off a grey horse.

In November, Wolfie asked, ‘Haven’t they set a date for the trial?’

His voice quavered as he struggled to contain the flood of longing that could burst from time to time within him.

Father Lamb looked up from his sermon and shook his head. ‘It’s still not been set . . . it seems there is no man willing to sit in judgement on your father, but a long delay’s
helpful to him, and perhaps they know that – there’s more chance of a witness coming forward.’ He put his pen down and looked steadily at them both. ‘In any case, it
wouldn’t be right for you to think that you’ll see him straight after—’

‘Why?’ began Wolfie.

Hettie looked up from the Red Cross parcel she was tying and glanced at her father sharply. ‘His record, the medal, all that will surely stand in his favour, Father, even if there’s
no witness?’

He nodded and addressed the children. ‘Yes, all that will, I am sure, stand in his favour. But if it doesn’t, remember that he himself was prepared to pay the price of breaking the
law in the hope of saving his men.’

‘If it doesn’t go well . . .’ Wolfie said slowly.

Dodo bowed her head deeply over her book.

‘He can appeal,’ said Hettie quickly.

At nine, she turned on the wireless.

‘
The German army in North Africa is in full retreat, after suffering a comprehensive defeat in Egypt at the hands of the Eighth Army under General Bernard Montgomery
.’

Father Lamb leaped up, spilling his whisky. ‘Rommel’s on the run – we’ve taken El Alamein – our first victory – this is our first victory.’ Father Lamb,
childlike with glee, was hugging them all, now leading Wolfie to the map, as the radio news continued.

‘
Allied troops have captured more than 9,000 prisoners of war . . .
’

Father Lamb was moving enemy pins out of Egypt.

‘This is it, Wolfie! We’ve marched them forward and back, forward and back, for three years – but from now on, they’ll never go back.’

Wolfie mustered a smile.

Wolfie crept barefoot and on tiptoe to the front door. He pulled his dressing gown close around him, then eased up the iron latch. Mary Jervis and her pony delivered to
Lilycombe first, leaving the mail in a wicker basket under the porch. There’d be a letter from Pa today, or soon, he was sure. Pa must know the date of the trial by now. Wolfie knew that,
because he’d overheard Father Lamb whisper so to Hettie last night. He’d also said to Hettie, ‘If he can prove the massacres happened, then Wormhout will, one day, go down in
history as one of the most horrific war crimes ever committed.’

Wolfie started. Pinned to the cotton sprig lining of the basket was a carefully cut article from a newspaper. He bent, slowly, to the basket.

Pa. He wouldn’t see Pa till spring. Pa wouldn’t see Hero till spring. Wolfie ripped off the cutting and screwed it into a tight ball in his pocket. His hand formed a
fierce tight fist around the ball and he blinked furiously, valiantly into the grey dawn, fighting the pricking in his eyes.

He said nothing to Dodo later because newspapers upset her and because Pa would tell them in a letter.

One morning in April, Ned was waiting for them at the crossroads.

‘I thought you’d like to know,’ he said simply, holding out a newspaper, the red of his cheek startling and violent in the cold.

Dodo shied away, fearful as a wild deer.

‘They don’t take papers any more at Lilycombe an’ I thought you’d want to know.’

Wolfie took the paper and Ned turned and left. Wolfie started to read, in a halting voice. Nauseous with dread, Dodo turned away.

Dodo grabbed the paper, sobbing and choking with relief. Wolfie was stock-still, rigid with shock.

‘Two years . . . Imprisonment,’ he whispered.

‘It’s all right, Wolfie, he’s all right . . . Hard labour, prison . . .’ She took him by the shoulders, smiling, her eyes sparkling through her tears. ‘Prison
– but that’s all.’

‘Sentenced . . .’ Wolfie stammered. ‘He wasn’t . . . he didn’t . . . he was—’

‘It doesn’t matter, none of it matters,’ she said.

‘Two years?’ repeated Wolfie in horror and disbelief.

‘Come on. Pick up your bag,’ she said. ‘Let’s not go to school today.’

Wolfie, thinking of the newspapers, and everyone knowing, nodded silently.

They met Father Lamb and Sunday on the lane, on his way to tell them.

Two officers had refused to be jurors, he said, as they walked home together, arm in arm. Two more officers had been brought in. They too had refused. Any decent man would have trembled to sit
in judgement on such a case, said Father Lamb, especially if they’d fought alongside Pa in the first war. The small print of the article, he said, was kinder than the headline. When they had
finally found an officer to preside over the court, he’d been young and inexperienced, rushed in on the case by a callous bureaucracy, embarrassed by the long and public detention of a
national hero. Pa had spoken in his own defence, the courtroom packed to the gunnels with men who’d served at one time or another with Pa in 1918.

The Times
said there were tears in many eyes when Pa was sentenced.

Wolfie thought later that Ned must have pinched one of the papers from his mother’s round. Maybe Ned knew about the cuttings in the basket and the Christmas card and perhaps he was trying
to make amends for his parents.

The next day they received a brief note Pa had written outside the courtroom.

Later, from Wormwood Scrubs, where he’d been sent, he wrote that there was a good library, that a piece of good writing was a ray from heaven, and that the morning
exercise was as good as dram of whisky.

Every newspaper in the land had followed Pa’s trial. The name Revel had become a byword for dishonour and shame. Hettie could stop the newspapers at Lilycombe but she
couldn’t stop the millions of copies that arrived in shops up and down the country. During the months that followed the trial, Wolfie came, gradually, to understand the risk that Pa had taken
on behalf of his men, the darkness of the shadow under which they’d now live, the burden of the name they carried.

The hills changed from brown to gold, the river parsley yellowing and straggling in the swollen currents.

Dodo, Wolfie and Hettie got off the train and joined the surge of fair-goers, horses, ponies and sheep towards the grey little village of Bampton.