A Horse Called Hero (3 page)

‘You see?’ said Spud, disembarking. ‘Everyone’s going. Not just you.’ She took them by the hand and they joined the continuous stream of children and teachers that
crossed the footbridge on to the main line platform.

‘Barnstaple, Platform Five,’ she read from the announcement board, then forged a passage through the crowds of soldiers, children and mothers to the gate. Soldiers and children
swarmed along the platform. Row after row of seats were taken. Carriage after carriage was filled with forlorn, silent children.

‘Why are the soldiers coming?’ Wolfie’s gas mask bumped his hip as he struggled to keep up with Spud’s determined stride. A calm voice was issuing a series of admonitions
over a loudspeaker:

‘
Hello, children. Please take your seats. The train leaves in a few minutes. Don’t play with the doors and windows. Thank you.
’

Spud stopped and opened the door to the final compartment. She placed the suitcases in the corridor, beside a small tear-streaked girl clutching a yellow bucket and spade. ‘Sit on your
cases,’ she said, slipping a chocolate Slam Bar, probably from her own ration, into each of their pockets, then whispering to Dodo, ‘Stay together. Don’t let go. Don’t let
them separate you.’

Dodo was silent. Spud was eager to send them away. Hurt burned like a fire in her swollen, glimmering eyes.

‘Why are some mummies crying?’ asked Wolfie.

‘Because they can’t go on holiday too,’ said Spud, disentangling Wolfie’s hand from her own and placing him in the carriage.

Dodo allowed Spud a perfunctory hug, but averted her cheek from a kiss. She climbed in beside Wolfie and sat with her head bowed. Spud shut the door, her plump hand trembling on the metal bar as
she pulled the window down.

The train pulled out, and there was Spud, running and panting, breathlessly waving a piece of paper in her one hand.

‘Oh, Lord!’ said Dodo. ‘That’s the paper with the name – with where we’re going . . .’

After five minutes Wolfie asked, ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

After ten minutes, he unwrapped his Slam Bar.

‘It’s very far away,’ he said through a mouthful of chocolate.

‘Are we at the seaside?’ asked the girl with the yellow bucket. ‘
Where’s
the seaside?’

A lady with a clipboard picked her way down the carriage, checking her list. She bent to talk to the girl with the yellow bucket, then turned to Dodo.

‘Names?’

‘Wolfgang and Dorothy Revel.’

She scanned her list, tapping it with her pen as she moved from page to page. ‘You’re not down here,’ she said eventually, examining Wolfie’s label. ‘Who’s
looking after you?’

‘Dodo is,’ said Wolfie comfortably. The lady looked at Dodo sceptically.

‘We’re on a private scheme,’ Dodo said, ‘we’re going to be met at Dulverton.’

The lady made a note and moved on.

‘Spud’s not very good at arrangements,’ Wolfie commented.

‘Are we nearly there yet?’ asked Wolfie later. He held Captain in a sticky fist, clutching him like a talisman, at the same time eyeing the pair of soldiers that
lounged against the window, hemmed in by stacks of kitbags in the corner of the corridor. ‘Why is the war coming on the train?’ he began, turning to Dodo, but seeing the sadness of her
face, he took her hand and added, ‘There’ll be horses, Dodo.’ Then, ‘They’ll find Pa. Pa wouldn’t go missing. Definitely.’

It grew hot and fuggy. Morning turned to afternoon, as the train stopped and started, swayed and lurched westward.

In the early evening it shunted into a siding to allow a troop train past. Dodo heard, from the adjacent carriage, children cheering at the soldiers, saw soldiers waving their caps back.

‘Does Spud know that it’s a long way?’ Wolfie asked.

Dodo shrugged and cleared a patch of the window. They peered out and saw a row of suburban terraced houses, their windows bombed out, patched with cardboard. Searchlights fingered the sky.

‘We’re on a mystery tour,’ Wolfie said to Captain, holding him up to the clear patch of window. ‘It’s dark, there’re no signs and we don’t know where
we’re going.’

The gleam of a guardsman’s lantern flashed along the corridor of the train. ‘Bristol, Bristol.’

The door opened and a knot of pushing people swarmed up, servicemen hauling kitbags, civilians with suitcases. Luggage was jammed inside, piled high, the corridors now packed to the doors with
soldiers and airmen. The door shut and the train swayed away.

Later Wolfie woke briefly and looked inside the food bag. Finding it empty except for an apple, he asked Dodo, ‘But is this for all of the war? Is this all we have till the end of
it?’

Dodo ignored him.

‘I want to go home,’ he said after five minutes.

‘Dulverton, Dulverton. This train will shortly be arriving at Dulverton.’ The guard’s torch flashed randomly as he forced his way along the train. Dodo peered
out and saw a sullen station house, glimmering faintly through drizzle.

‘Reveille,’ she said, shaking Wolfie. ‘Reveille.’ They clambered out, stumbling into soldiers and kitbags. Swarms of cold, tired children spilt on to the platform,
squeezing into every corner. Drizzle shone in the dim beam of another torch. The train pulled away.

‘Where’re they going to put them all?’ the stationmaster with the torch wondered aloud to himself as he marshalled the tearful crew off the platform. Dodo and Wolfie wound
their way through shadowy uniformed figures.

‘This way, this way.’

The Somerset accent was strange and thick. Dodo waited uncertainly.

‘Can we go too?’ asked Wolfie.

‘I think someone’ll come to get us,’ said Dodo.

‘This way, this way. All on ’em. Get all on ’em this way.’

Dodo didn’t move.

‘Yes, miss. You too. Off you go. Another train’ll be here soon. Be quick if I were you – billeting officer’ll be squeezing a quart into a pint pot with all you
lot.’

They were herded up a slanting street lined with squat houses of stern grey stone, then lined up around the four walls of what looked like a village hall. There was the sound of sobbing from
most children as a nurse went round checking their heads.

‘We’re not supposed to be here,’ hissed Dodo.

A gaggle of women was ushered in, bobbing and clacking, pointing and picking out children. The lady with the clipboard was conferring with another clipboard.

‘A girl. I just want one girl,’ one of them said.

Another was pointing. ‘I’ll have that one, with the dark hair.’

‘Hold my hand, Wolfie, and don’t let anybody take you away.’

‘I’ll stand behind you, Dodo.’

Wolfie ‘disappeared’ himself, comically, behind her back.

As they waited, they heard the distant whistle and whoosh of a new train.

‘Oh, Lord,’ said the lady with the clipboard. ‘That’s another lot of them.’ The women were still all talking at once, haggling like housewives over meat.

‘Is anyone asking for a boy of eight?’ whispered Wolfie.

‘No. Of course not. They want girls.’

Wolfie watched a girl being ushered into a car. ‘Will we get a car, Dodo? I want to go in a car.’

The billeting officer led a woman towards Dodo. Dodo yanked Wolfie out. ‘We’re together,’ she said quickly.

‘Well, who’s got room for two of you?’ the woman said, turning her back. ‘No one’ll take two of them.’

‘Not if he’s not big enough for farm work,’ said another.

Again and again Dodo was picked.

‘No,’ she said each time.

There were only a handful of children left.

‘Can we go home now?’ Wolfie whispered.

The second clipboard approached Dodo. ‘You’ll have to be separated.’

‘No,’ said Dodo.

‘Who are you? Name? You’re not on the list. Revel – R, R, let me see . . . no, no, you’re not on the list.’

‘Our housekeeper – Spud – made arrangements – someone’ll come for us . . .’

‘Who?’

‘We – we don’t know her name, we weren’t given one.’

‘Well, we can’t wait all night and I can’t leave you here – never mind, we’ll find somewhere. Mrs Sprig? Mrs Sprig? – Where is she? – We’ll give
you to Mrs Sprig. – Mrs Sprig? – I hope you’ve got some proper warm clothes,’ she said with a doubtful look at their coats, then looked again at a woman who stood, empty
handed, near the door, tying her headscarf. Hairs strayed from an uncertain sort of bun at the back of her neck. When she turned, her face, set in a prepared attitude of distaste, quivered in
surprise as she took in the smart tweed coats and Dodo’s ribbons.

‘Oh no, I’m not having two,’ said Mrs Sprig. ‘No room.’

‘Now, Mrs Sprig, “three spare rooms” this list says.’

The women conferred in whispers, Mrs Sprig turning to look at the children from time to time, her eyes close set, her lips puckered, all her features contriving to be in perpetual motion,
twitchy and undecided.

‘Spud’s arrangements are never good,’ whispered Wolfie.

There was more confabulation between the women, Mrs Sprig relishing the attention, the commotion of the occasion, but reluctant to take a child home, let alone two.

‘Well, I’ll need the registration slips then,’ she said eventually. ‘That’s what I need to get the government food and lodging money.’

‘I don’t want to go with Mrs Sprig,’ said Wolfie.

‘She looks,’ Dodo whispered, ‘like a squirrel.’

They drew closer together.

‘Come along, come along. You can’t stay here,’ said the lady with the clipboard, picking up their cases and depositing them by the door.

Mrs Sprig turned to them and said, ‘I don’t expect you’ve been to the countryside before?’

She paused, ready to enjoy the negative she expected. Dodo bridled and remained silent. Mrs Sprig chuckled, pleased that the city children, though cleaner than she’d expected, might
conform in other respects to her expectations.

‘It’s got horses,’ said Wolfie. ‘The countryside has horses.’

Mrs Sprig led them through the dark, to the back of the building where her pony and trap sat waiting. ‘There’s a blanket in the back. It’s a bit of a way and the pony’s
old.’

They climbed up and she tucked the blanket around them.

‘I expect your father’s away fighting, is he?’

Wolfie felt Dodo flinch, saw her turn her head. They said nothing.

‘I hope you’ll be tidy and quiet children,’ said Mrs Sprig as they set off. ‘You’re to start at school tomorrow, they say.’

Wolfie turned to Dodo in horror and echoed, ‘School?’

They were both silent, neither having contemplated the possibility of school in the countryside.

‘I have responsibilities to the church and the parish and I’m sure you’ll want to respect my position in the community,’ continued Mrs Sprig.

Again the children said nothing, huddling together, tired and cold.

They had no light of their own, but Mrs Sprig’s pony knew her way and they rumbled through the dark along an unmade road that curved tightly through a wooded valley, then
climbed out on to open moor. Through mizzle silvered by fleeting moonlight, they glimpsed the dark curves of distant hills outlined against the darker sky.

Occasional rifts in the cloud bathed the bare moor in a ghostly light. Drizzle billowed like smoke drifts. Wind-bitten thorns grasped stubbornly at the bony hill.

They crossed the brow of a hill and the cart took a plunge, unexpected and steep. Below to the right huddled a coven of gnarled and twisted trees, blacker than the black sky. The trap slowed,
Mrs Sprig pulling hard on the rein, turning her head to them. A light flickered between the fragile, intricate branching. Wolfie clasped Dodo – she’d seen it too – they’d
all seen it: amidst the gnarled joints and claws of the thorn trees, a beam, ghostly and floating as though not borne by any human hand. Again it flickered, and swam, fast as a phantom, uncovered
perhaps by a coat caught in the wind, leaking light where it shouldn’t, revealing a head of white hair, a white face strangely blotched on one side.

The light died. But that white face and white hair, the flickering beam, had left the moor stiller and stranger than before.

Mrs Sprig turned back to the road. Clicking her tongue and whipping the pony on she was saying to herself, ‘Wild as a stoat, that one, wild as a stoat.’

They dropped more steeply now, then took a turning through an arrangement of gates that had something to do with cattle. The track, sheltered by an overarching canopy, followed a tight, rising
valley into a yard, the gate held loosely to its post with twine. The yard, half mud, half cobbled, was formed on one side by a house that had, once upon a time, burrowed itself into the hillside,
and clung there obstinately ever since.

‘Dodo, can we go home tomorrow?’ whispered Wolfie.

Wolfie and Dodo crept downstairs to the big room at the back of the cottage. Mrs Sprig was fussing about at the kitchen range. She hurried them to a huge scrubbed table and
they sat quickly, sensing that she liked everything and everyone to be in their place at all times.

Wolfie stared at the huge open fireplace, the hearth oven set into it, the iron cooking pots on chimney hooks above. He thought if Spud were here, she’d be sniffing and harrumphing at
everything. Mrs Sprig placed two bowls on the table, each with a slice of bread in it. She took the milk jug and poured milk over the bread, then thick cream, from a second jug, over the top.

‘What’s that?’ whispered Wolfie in alarm at such a dish, in amazement at the cream and milk.

‘Sops,’ said Mrs Sprig with pride.

Dodo wondered what Spud would think about so much fresh milk and cream in the countryside. They ate cautiously, then finding it delicious, ate on.

Outside there was a patter of unshod hoofs on cobble, and a greeting whinny from Mrs Sprig’s pony.

‘That’ll be Mary with the post,’ said Mrs Sprig, folding a dishcloth, corner to corner. ‘Early with the mail today – she’s probably got something from my
Henry.’ Then she added to herself, ‘Or maybe wanting to get a look at the London children. Nosy old Mary.’

Mary pushed open the door, placed a newspaper on the dairy slab by the door and approached the table, surveying Dodo and Wolfie from a distance as though they were exhibits. She was large and
shapeless, her eyes half buried by her cheeks. Dodo felt for the pony that carried Mary and her mailbag from house to house.