A Horse Called Hero (13 page)

Dodo covered her face with her hands. Hettie nudged her and she separated her fingers a fraction. She saw clods of flying turf, opened her fingers a fraction more, saw the glittering eye and
reaching neck.

‘
Number Five’s young but he’s fast. Look at the energy of him, the ambition of him – but he’s a long way behind . . . If he’s rideable at three,
what’ll he be as a five-year-old . . . ?
’

The field was curving, more strung out now, on to the leftward, downward slope.

‘
Up at the front’s Number One, Four’s closing in on the inside, a promising young chestnut – they’ve still the third lap to go . . .
’

‘He’s making time on them, Dodo,’ whispered Hettie.

‘
Something’s happening at the back, Five’s coming up on the outside, he’s making time, he’s catching the rump of the race. Look at that – he’s past
Four – making time on One – they’re neck and neck . . . see the fierce youth of Number Five, both horse and rider . . .
’

The fields were a blur, Hero’s hoofs didn’t touch the earth, the ground spun beneath them, insubstantial as a toy globe, they were suspended above the turf, they belonged to the sky,
to the tattered gold-trimmed clouds.

‘
A feather – or a breeze – might knock that child off . . . We’re into the third and final lap . . .
’

Wolfie leaned low over the straining neck and whispered, ‘For Pa – Hero, let’s go.’ He stayed low, his hands stretched forward, breathing with Hero, in with him, out with
him, becoming part of the flow of the horse.

‘
The young grey’s coming up on the inside – Number Five’s on the inside, he’s found a gap – he’s coming up fast, he’s passing them! Have you
ever seen anything like it here at Comer’s Gate? He’s a streak of light – he’s neck and neck with Seven. We’re into the final furlong and Number Five –
there’s fire in him – he’s a head ahead, he’s a length ahead, he’s found another gear, he’s got another speed he didn’t know he had! He’s leading the
field, he’s leaving the field behind . . . He’s left it behind – they’re on the home straight and he’s found he’s got wings – he’s outlasted,
out-strided, outpaced all others . . . This horse didn’t know he could run, and now he’s running as though he’s been doing it all his life . . .
’

The crowd broke into a roar. Wolfie was laughing, tears streaming from his eyes. He and Hero were the sun and the wind and the sky.

‘
He’s past the finish! What a horse – the courage of him! What a race! It’s Number Five, young Revel on the dappled grey . . .
’

Dodo saw her brother atop the sweat-streaked horse, the handsome grey head framed by the dark loose mane, the tail a streaming banner and tears sparkled on her cheeks. Wolfie braced his reins
and pulled, slowing Hero up, bringing him back to a canter, now turning and trotting back to Dodo, waving, careless, the reins loose.

‘
A run to make a father’s heart burst with pride – the courage of the Victoria Cross runs in this boy’s veins, the mettle of it’s in his marrow. His father led
the last great cavalry charge the world’ll ever see – was awarded the highest honour this country can bestow, and – now this! What a horse – have you ever seen such a thing?
– what a horse, what symmetry, strength, grace! What a horse! And young Revel on him, the spirit of his father . . .
’

He’d said it – a man who’d been there at the time had said it, in front of everyone – ‘
The courage of the Victoria Cross
’ – here to the sun, to
the stripy tents and golden clouds, to the purple hills and coconut shies, to schoolmates and to neighbours.

‘
And now the lap of honour . . . Behind him follow the Hunt staff, the hounds – Look at him, a horse with stamina, with speed, with grace – a horse that’ll be the
envy of all England . . .
’

As the hounds bayed and the bugle sounded and the crowd roared, Hero halted beside Dodo, snorting and heaving and steaming, nostrils wide and pink. Wolfie whispered, ‘Will you tell Pa,
Dodo? Will you tell him everything?’

To the baying of the hounds and the sounding of the bugle and the cheering of the crowds, Wolfie and Hero rode the lap of honour. Father Lamb smiled at his daughter and winked. She took his arm
and he leaned against her as they watched.

After the race Pa had written to Wolfie that the fame of Hero had reached even the darkest corner of London, and that Pa sat purring like a cat in the sun with the pride of it
all. Pa thought that Wolfie must have breathed with Hero, in with him and out with him, so that they were at one.

The winter that followed was cold and slow, March long and bitter. When April came it was wet and grey.

Anti-aircraft batteries, artillery ranges and search light positions were established on the open ground of the hills. The moor itself became a training ground for infantry and artillery. The
noise of gunfire, shells and mortar, became, for a while, a constant background that spring. The village filled with troops, British first, then American. Rumblings filled the valley, echoing and
growing as convoys of monstrous tanks crawled across the old pack bridge. The old houses, smaller than the giant tanks, seemed to tremble with fear to see such things.

‘Fifteen troop trains a day,’ said Father Lamb wistfully. ‘Each one with a thousand troops.’

Stacks of ammunition stood outside the Village Stores. Blocks of gelignite piled up on roadsides like pats of margarine. Anti-aircraft shells, hand grenades, dynamite and mortars gathered on the
roadsides. American jeeps burned and screeched down the narrow lanes. DUKW vehicles arrived, strange mongrels, armoured cars crossed with boats. GIs sauntered through the villages in soft
rubber-soled shoes, hands in their pockets, chewing gum, smiling, singing, lavish with tinned peaches, ‘candy’ and cigarettes.

In the kitchen at Lilycombe, Wolfie looked over the Common, the brown moor beyond, a landscape as unwarlike as he could conceive. Father Lamb stood at his side, listened to the rumblings of the
tanks through the open window, and said, ‘Twenty thousand troops up here, they say, and half of them American.’

‘Are we going to invade soon?’

‘No. Not soon, not unless it stops raining.’

Wolfie sat at the table and wrote to Pa.

Dodo, in secret, wrote a short note along the bottom of his letter before sealing the envelope:

The weather grew wetter and wetter, Hero more fretful and bored. By May it seemed the country was running with water. Meanwhile, almost on the doorstep of Lilycombe, General
Eisenhower gathered the largest ever amphibian force. Piles of ammunition grew in fields among the bluebells. Tanks and jeeps waited in woods, camouflaged with netting and foliage. More tanks
arrived, more troops, more jeeps, more lorries.

Still Eisenhower waited. Still the whole country waited.

Every morning Wolfie asked the same question.

‘Will it be today?’

‘Look.’ Father Lamb was peering at the map, Dreadnought at his side, looking up too. Dreadnought noticed no one else but Father Lamb, did everything that Father Lamb did.
‘Where d’you think we’ll land?’ He ran his fingers along the French coast. ‘We might pretend to go to Calais, then quietly go somewhere else. And how’ll we
land?’ He tapped his fingers on the map. ‘Where can we land two and a half thousand vehicles in a single day?’ He turned and said, ‘Wolfie, it’s going to be like
nothing the world’s ever seen before – it’s the most critical operation of the war, Eisenhower’s got to get it right first time, got to get the right moment . . . he needs a
calm crossing.’

He took his coffee to the table, sat down and drank, then said, ‘That man must be beside himself with fear that it could all go wrong. As he sits down there, in the Royal Oak, he must fear
that this could be another Somme, another Gallipoli.’

Pa wrote that there was to be a second exchange of prisoners, that perhaps Major Vickers might be among them. Free then at last to talk, he’d say what had happened.
Pa’s story would at last be proven, and he could then appeal and clear his name. For Wolfie, he’d added an extra note:

The weather stayed bad. The country waited, tense as a coiled spring. On Sunday Samuel told Hettie that Monday and Tuesday would be fine, that there’d be a storm today,
but the following days would be clear. Samuel always knew when to take sheep off a hill, when to harvest, when to sow.

On Sunday the fields and roadsides and woods began to empty of ammunition and vehicles. By Monday, the lanes and villages were as empty as if the whole country had gone across the Channel to
settle with Hitler. There were no tanks in the playing field at school. That night, as the children wished him goodnight, Father Lamb said, ‘Churchill will be a worried man tonight. At least
three hundred thousand men will cross that Channel tomorrow. By the time the country wakes, what will’ve happened? Will twenty thousand men be dead? Will the Channel run with
blood?’

‘Father . . .’ interrupted Hettie, shocked.

‘You must pray for them,’ said Father Lamb.

At eight next morning, the BBC bulletin announced that paratroopers had landed in Northern France. Wolfie bought a Red Cross flag at the crossroads and dropped a penny in the
tin. All the way to school Wolfie chanted Eisenhower’s words: ‘
The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you . .
.
’

At 9.45, on the wireless in the schoolroom, Wolfie heard Eisenhower call to the Allies in France, Belgium and Holland, ‘
Be patient, be patient, we are
coming
.’

At ten o’clock the D-Day landings were announced. They heard cheers in the streets, people singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. In the village that evening,
Father Lamb gave an impromptu service of thanksgiving, the church filled to overflowing, tears on everyone’s faces.

Dodo and Wolfie were quiet, holding hands, thinking of Pa, alone in a military jail.

After the Normandy landings, the summer had greyed and sagged. Rationing had taken a tighter grip. Germany was firing sinister, pilotless bombs on London.

There’d been no good news from London. Pa was still waiting to hear if Vickers was to be among the prisoners exchanged, still waiting to be moved to the mines. Wolfie and Dodo had
picnicked at Pennywater with the ponies. Their mood was subdued and melancholy and when the sky grew thick and woolly, they mounted their horses and headed for home. The first fat round drops of
rain began to fall. The sky grew violet. Gunmetal clouds rolled and heaved in monstrous towers.

They rose from the wooded droveway on to the brow of the hill, and into a solid wall of wind and rain. Over the hill beyond Lilycombe, clouds reared, menacing as wild animals against the
ribboned sky. Wind battered the heather, bending and shaking the rush, nerving them homeward. They kicked onward.

A summer gale was gathering. Rain billowed like smoke.

‘Hurry, Wolfie!’ called Dodo, alarmed by the sudden transformation of the day, by the driving rain, the rearing, bucking wind. Finally they reached the lane and took the short cut
home.

As they reached Lilycombe, there was a savage crash, a heart-stopping flash, the yard brilliant with white light. The door of the farm was flung open and Hettie ran out, two oilskins in her
hand.

‘Father – the lines are down – the cables down – no telephone – will you go for me – to the doctor – fetch the doctor . . .’

Dodo nodded. They fumbled with the coats, the sleeves of them spinning and flapping in the wind, and turned their unwilling horses out of the yard down towards the river and the next
village.

Again they rode into the guttering, streaming wind, unnerved by the crying, the raging of the river, the straining and the creaking of the trees. Shivering and streaming with water, they arrived
at the little house beside the Post Office.

‘It’s wind to blow the sea on to the land,’ said Doctor John doubtfully, unlatching his stable door.

When they made their way back, the river had swollen to a torrent, the narrow track high above it slipping and sliding beneath their hoofs. The wind screamed in their ears, caught up a myriad
hectic, swirling leaves around their feet. Somewhere in the whirling night there was a savage crash, a tree pulled mercilessly from its socket.

Lovely Lilycombe was a beacon of amber light and warmth. Hettie hadn’t closed the curtains, but she had managed to lift her father, to carry him from where he’d fallen, to a
makeshift bed on a sofa by the fire. At his master’s side, Dreadnought whimpered softly.

Later, the children were sent to bed while the doctor and Hettie spoke quietly, her face drawn and grey. Outside the wind whined around Lilycombe like a coven of witches. The
old windows rattled, the old house creaked like a boat on a stormy sea.