Loyal Creatures (12 page)

Posh hotels in Palestine didn't get many horses in them. Not from the looks Daisy and me were getting.

I didn't care.

Daisy didn't either. She stood there, head high.

‘You're right, she's got a few nicks,' I said to the Indian purchasing officer. ‘But deep down she's a gem. And don't be put off by her shape. She's a champ.'

The officer gave me a dark look. Apologised to the other two officers he was having tea with. Got up from the table. Led me and Daisy over to the other side of the hotel garden.

‘The consignment is complete,' he said.

I didn't need Otton to explain what that meant. It meant they were chokka with our horses.

‘You'll want to make room for Daisy,' I said. ‘She's something special. Plus you'll get me. No charge for either.'

The officer looked like his cake had gone down the wrong way. I pushed on, trying not to show how desperate I was.

‘Three-and-a-half years military experience, both of us,' I said. ‘Wells and pipelines. Don't tell me India hasn't got dry bits.'

‘This is absurd,' said the officer. ‘I'm reporting this to your senior officer.'

‘Fair go,' I said, putting my arm round Daisy. ‘Give her a break. Please.'

But I could see she wasn't going to get it.

Not in this posh hotel.

A couple of their security blokes were coming towards us, so I got her out of there.

‘Eighty quid,' I said to the British despatch sergeant at the railway depot. ‘Put her on the train for Blighty and I'll give you eighty quid.'

The sergeant pushed away a couple of other blokes who were trying to get his attention by grabbing his chin-strap. He looked at what I was holding out to him.

‘That's not eighty quid,' he said. ‘That's a piece of paper with your untidy scrawl on it.'

‘It's an IOU,' I said. ‘My demob pay will be at least eighty quid. Soon as I'm a civvy I'll come straight to England and give you the cash.'

I didn't tell him how I'd get myself there if I was using all my dough to buy Daisy her life.

I didn't know. But I'd do it.

‘Sorry, matey,' said the despatch sergeant. ‘I'm a loyal son of England. I only get corrupted by bits of paper with His Majesty's gob on it.'

He turned to the other two blokes, who were waving IOUs at him as well. So were a crowd of blokes behind them.

‘Serious customers only,' he said. ‘Hundred quid one way, neddie class, standing room only, payment up front, no home-made currency.'

I wasn't the only one without the cash.

The railway depot was swarming with dejected troopers leading their horses back towards camp. We walked past a train packed with English horses happy to be heading home.

‘Sorry, mate,' I said to Daisy. ‘I thought an IOU would do it. But some of us humans aren't as trusting as you lot.'

I led her away.

Not towards camp. My ideas hadn't dried up yet.

The local horse dealers fell in love with Daisy the moment I showed them the four pounds six shillings, which was every penny I had in the world till I got my demob pay.

‘Good home for lovely horse, effendi,' they said. ‘Much kindness. Much comfort.'

Trouble was, me and Daisy didn't fall in love with the local horse dealers. We didn't even like them. I was very tempted to do to them exactly what they did to their horses.

‘Much kindness, much comfort, effendi.'

Hanging from the belt of every dealer who said that was a vicious-looking whip and a couple of canes. And every poor nag we saw, in a whole street of dealers' yards, was in a tragic state.

Starved.

Beaten.

Diseased.

I could hardly look at the poor blighters.

Daisy looked at them for a long time, whinnying softly and blowing air at them.

Horses don't cry, everyone knows that, but Daisy came close that day.

I tried to think it through.

Healthy horse like Daisy would be sold quick. So she wouldn't spend much time with these cruel mongrels.

Plus the four pounds six shillings would pay for decent feed while she was here.

If she was lucky.

Then I remembered the working horses we saw the day we got off the boat. Dropping with exhaustion. Beaten where they lay.

Daisy had seen them too.

Which was why she wanted to get closer to the poor wrecked horses in the dealers' yards. To give them a moment of sympathy in their unhappy painful lives.

But she didn't want to be one of them. Not permanent. I could see that for a fact.

‘Come on, mate,' I said to her. ‘Let's get out of here.'

We got out of there alright.

All the way out.

After dark I led Daisy out of camp. She was saddled up and kitted out and loaded with extra food and water. Which technically I was stealing from the army. But as I wasn't going to be around to get my demob pay, it seemed fair.

‘Where's your pass?' said the guard at the gate.

I didn't have one so I gave him the four pounds six shillings, which did the trick.

Daisy and me rode into the desert.

South.

I wasn't exactly sure where we were heading. Not long term. When you leave school at eleven, you don't carry much in the way of geography around with you. I had a notion Africa was ahead of us somewhere.

Persia maybe.

Didn't matter. Important thing was we were headed away from the machine-guns. Which, if you were a horse, smashed your legs and punctured your lungs and left you in agony on the ground until some bloke with a pistol strolled over and finished you with a bullet in the head.

‘You alright, Daisy?' I said.

I could tell from her easy breathing and relaxed gait as we jogged across the sand in the moonlight that she was.

‘Dunno where we're headed,' I said. ‘But I'm glad we're going there together.'

Daisy didn't slow down, so she must have felt the same way.

Every so often I glanced over my shoulder to see if we were being followed.

We weren't.

But something was nagging at me.

Was there something I'd forgotten that could be coming after us?

It wasn't behind us, it was ahead of us.

In a shallow gulley. I didn't see it till we'd almost reached it. By then the moon had climbed a smidge and lit up the full horror of them.

Horses and men, on the sand.

I'd seen plenty of death, but I'd never seen the bodies of horses and men treated like these had been.

They were troopers and their walers, doing the same as me and Daisy.

Getting out.

But like me, they'd forgotten about something.

The Bedouin.

I buried the bodies. Couldn't leave them for the jackals. Not that the jackals could have done much worse to them.

Daisy stood patiently, watching.

While I dug, I explained to her about the Bedouin. Desert nomads. Of all the local people, they were the most angry. Felt the desert was theirs. Hated us foreigners coming in and shooting the place up. Wanted to make their point before we left.

‘We've got a lot of desert ahead of us,' I said to Daisy. ‘Lot of Bedouin ahead of us too. Can't promise we won't bump into them.'

I didn't tell her I thought we probably would.

She watched me drag a mutilated body into a grave.

‘What I can promise,' I said softly, ‘is I wouldn't let them kill you this way.'

Daisy didn't move.

I couldn't trust my voice to get any more words out, so I patted my rifle. I watched Daisy closely, to see if she understood.

I think she did.

She was looking at me calmly.

Like always, she'd thought it through.

While I finished the burying, Daisy had a nap. Head down, feet apart in the sand, knees locked.

Seeing her sleep standing up always made me smile.

Somehow I managed one now.

As I dug, I got to mulling over all the things I admired about her.

Her kindness. Her patience. How she'd go for fourteen hours across the scorching desert without complaining. Her loyalty. Her bravery. How she could sense danger in the dark.

But not while she was asleep.

Which is how come neither of us spotted them creeping up on us.