A Horse Called Hero Read online

  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.

  Chapter Nineteen

  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.

  SHAME OF A HERO. CAPTAIN REVEL: COURT MARTIAL SET FOR EARLY SPRING 1943

  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.

  Chapter Twenty

  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.

  CAPTAIN REVEL SENTENCED FOR DESERTION AND INCITEMENT TO COWARDICE VC GETS TWO YEARS’ IMPRISONMENT WITH HARD LABOUR.

  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.

  My darling children,

  My war record did count in my favour. Two years will go fast. For the hard labour part of my sentence I have applied to work in the mines. I’d like the experience of doing that and from there I would be able to continue, at least in part, the work I was doing before the war.

  I’m truly sorry only on acco
unt of you both. For myself, I’m not afraid, nor am I ashamed. I pray that you too will feel there was no shame in doing what I believed to be right. My head is, as the poet says, bloody but unbowed.

  Your loving Pa.

  PS Wolfie: Does Hero look into your eyes? When a horse looks into a man’s eyes it’s as though he can see the very heart of you. There was a night at Moreuil Wood when I could scarcely look Captain in the eye because I knew for certain the strength of the German forces into which we’d ride the next day. Looking into Captain’s eyes that night was far harder than any prison could ever be, and I am sure that Captain knew that night, what I knew, that he could see into the heart of me.

  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.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  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.

  Fifty or so ponies stampeded, wild, wide-eyed and terrified, up the single, purposeful street, between stolid houses and boarded shop fronts. Rounded up yesterday, and branded, brood mares and stallions were returned to the moor, only the foals being brought to Bampton for selling.

  All year Dodo had watched the silent heartbreak of her friend and teacher – each month, two, three, four more gone from the herd. Yet no one had seen anyone or anything, no one knew how or when they went. ‘It’d be someone that knows them,’ Father Lamb had said. ‘They’re wild as snakes. Whoever it is knows these animals, really knows them.’ It’d been Samuel’s suggestion that they go to Bampton and see if they were being sold there. The price of ponies and horses had gone up and up with the war, he’d said.

  There was a wild tramp and thud of hoof on cobble as the ponies were corralled into sale pens, a separate pen for each herd, each pen labelled with the hill to which the herd was hefted. Caught up in the tightening crowd, Hettie and the children pushed and were pushed towards a pen.

  Hettie examined each stamping, snorting herd, each time shaking her head and moving on. Bidding had started, brisk and raucous. Farmers and dealers shouted advice. Somewhere a pen was broken, the crowd shrieking. A pony whinnied and broke free from the ring attendant, wheeled away from the crowd and burst into a tailor’s shop. Over the noise, the bidding continued.

  ‘Ten-Four . . . ten-four, ten-five?’

  ‘Ten-five.’

  ‘Ten-six.’

  ‘Thank you, ten six – going – going . . .’ The hammer came down. ‘Gone.’

  It began to drizzle. They moved on, past ponies, more ponies, parsons, farmers, gentry.

  ‘Are they all stolen?’ whispered Wolfie, distracted by a pair of bare-fist boxers outside a pub.

  ‘Shh,’ said Dodo.

  ‘It’s surely a great day for thieves and for rustlers,’ said Hettie, ‘but I don’t see anything of mine here.’

  The drizzle thickened and they returned, none the wiser, by train to Dulverton, in a carriage loud with singing and livestock.

  ‘Who could be taking them?’ whispered Dodo.

  ‘I don’t know, Dodo, I just don’t know.’

  At Dulverton they climbed into Hettie’s trap. They wound up and out of the deep wooded valley straight into the rays of the sinking sun, the sedge glowing fierce gold, flaming copper leaves above, a drift of gold on the lane. Hettie halted Scout. Against the skyline a herd of red deer, twenty perhaps, moved in silhouette, black against the orange sky.

  ‘Look.’ She took Wolfie’s hand. ‘As wild today as they’ve ever been. Like the ponies – here since William the Conqueror.’

  With tears in her eyes, she urged Scout on.

  As they took the lane to Lilycombe they saw, on the corner, a tall figure, an unlit lamp in one hand, a brace of rabbit in the other. Wolfie waved. As Ned waved back, Hettie said, ‘Two thousand rabbits a day, did you know that – three tons of them are loaded just at Dulverton. 2d a rabbit they pay . . . It’ll be a struggle for Ned to keep hold of that farm . . . he never wanted to take it on . . .’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Last week the mail had brought a letter from Pa. Vickers was alive but in a prisoner of war camp. Only if there were an exchange of prisoners and Vickers amongst them, would he be free to speak and testify in Pa’s favour. Though there could not yet be an appeal, at least they knew, for certain now, that there was at least one other man living who knew the truth. Pa had not yet been moved from Wormwood Scrubs.

  Wolfie kept Hero in a perpetual state of gleaming readiness in case Pa should suddenly be released. Father Lamb, sitting by his window, watched the boy run out to check the mail basket, then wander out into the garden, disconsolate. He saw the grey horse canter up and Wolfie sink his head against the dappled neck, twisting his hands into the long mane.

  Dodo noticed that Father Lamb now sat at that window for his coffee, where once he’d always stood. Dreadnought’s watchful head was now level with his master’s shoulder. She turned, too, to watch Wolfie.

  ‘That little boy’s big heart will break if we don’t have some good news soon,’ said Hettie.

  ‘Why don’t they at least send Pa to the mines?’ asked Dodo. ‘He’d be happier there.’

  ‘It’s probably only because of the difficulty of getting anything done in wartime conditions.’

  Father Lamb turned to his daughter. ‘Hettie, Hettie! Is it not race day today? Is it not today that Drew comes to do the judging? I should like to see my old friend. We could ride over there. Besides, Drew’s a keen appreciator of horse flesh and he could look over that beast of young Wolfgang’s.’

  Hettie watched him anxiously. ‘You should rest, Father.’

  Father Lamb took no notice. ‘You know, Hettie, the boy’s got something special there – you can see the build of the horse now, the make of him . . . besides, the races would cheer us all up.’

  On the road to Comer’s Gate, the sky opened and the sun broke through. Horses and ponies of all shapes and sizes converged in cheerful droves at the gate to a field that skirted the far side of the common. There they left the cart, tethered the horses and wound their way between carts, farmers, dogs and children towards striped sunlit tents, flags and coconut shies.

  Hettie and her father went first to the ale tent in search of Drew, then to the judging box. Dodo and Wolfie wriggled through the crowd to the edge of a makeshift grass track, where farmers, wives and children sat on straw bales, watching and cheering. Among them were Mary Jervis and her husband.

  Dodo stiffened. ‘Everybody’s here today,’ she whispered.

  The two drew closer together, wary and guarded.

  A dark clot of horses was approaching, the crowd tensing and quieting. The field, all bone and muscle, flashed past, flanks steaming, turf flying, mud splattering onlookers.

  ‘Hero would like to race one day,’ announced Wolfie.

  ‘Wolfie, Hero has never run a race.’ Dodo bent her head and read from her programme: ‘Hunters. Fifteen hands and over.’

  A hurdle race was to be next. Father Lamb, his hands behind his back, spied Dodo and Wolfie by the rope. Accompanied by a shorter, stouter man – his friend Drew – he made his way towards them. Dodo, seeing Father Lamb from a distance in a crowd, noticed for the first time his frailty, the pallor of his skin.

  ‘Dodo.’ Wolfie put his hand
on her arm. ‘Behind you!’ he hissed urgently.

  She turned. The three Causey girls, garishly dressed, stood together. Dodo backed away. The Causey girls stared and whispered behind their hands.

  ‘’Ee ran away,’ Chrissie said loudly. ‘Their father ran away an’ now ’ee’s in jail for it. That’s why she’s the teacher’s favourite.’

  Dodo’s cheeks burned.

  ‘An’ ’ee’s lucky just to be in jail, my mum says. She says shootin’ in’t good enough . . .’

  Wolfie stepped forward and shouted, fists clenched, eyes blazing. ‘He isn’t – he’s not—’

  ‘Wolfgang.’ Father Lamb put a hand on his shoulder and turned him around. ‘Dodo, meet my old friend Drew.’

  ‘I knew your father,’ said Drew.

  Wolfie’s eyes glittered, still on his guard. Dodo hung her head.

  ‘Pa’s got a witness, one day there’s going to be—’ began Wolfie.

  ‘I saw him. I was there, I saw him ride at Moreuil Wood.’

  Wolfie leaped forward.

  ‘I saw him lead that squadron into the firing line,’ Drew continued, taking Wolfie’s hands. ‘He had a fine grey that day. Fine and brave. Together they rode into the fire of five artillery companies, five of them. Never seen anything like it. Never will again.’

  ‘I’ve got a grey . . .’

  ‘So I’ve heard. Would you mind if I took a look at him?’

  They made their way to the edge of the field, where the horses grazed. Hero’s head rose at Wolfie’s whistle. Drew halted at a distance and surveyed Hero in silence. Wolfie waited, breath held.

  ‘There’s nothing on earth like a good horse, Wolfgang,’ Drew said eventually, placing an arm round Wolfie’s shoulders. ‘Now, you’d make my day if I could see that horse run.’ He picked up his list, and turned to Dodo. ‘Will you give permission for your brother to race? What do you think he should do? The Maiden – the Novice Stakes?’