A Horse Called Hero

by Sam Angus

  Hero snuffled Wolfie’s shoulder, enjoying the attention.

  ‘A girl, a boy, a young horse, a father under arrest,’ Dodo said to herself.

  At dusk they made their way back to Hollowcombe. Mrs Sprig was waiting in the low porch.

  ‘Go upstairs.’ Seeing the look in her eyes, Dodo urged Wolfie on, pushing him past Mrs Sprig.

  ‘No, he’ll stay and hear what I’ve to say and no harm it’ll do him,’ said Mrs Sprig, backing up to the door. ‘I’ll not turn you out tonight, but I’ll be seeing the billeting officer and she’ll do what she can with you . . . I’ll not have you staying here and have people thinking badly of me for giving charity—’

  ‘It’s not charity!’ Dodo burst out. ‘Father and the government give you an allowance of ten shillings and sixpence for keeping each of us.’

  ‘I don’t need it and I’ll not have my son insulted by you being here.’

  ‘We’ll not risk your reputation by staying, Mrs Sprig. We’ll leave in the morning,’ said Dodo elegantly.

  ‘But . . .’ Wolfie was hissing, stricken, his eyes filling, ‘we can’t . . .’

  In the morning Mrs Sprig was a tornado of tidying and straightening things as if to purge her house. Two suitcases stood ready at the door.

  ‘Get your hair brushed and your coats on.’

  ‘But where?’ asked Wolfie. ‘Where’re we going?’

  ‘Where you end up’s no concern of mine. Where I’m taking you, in the first instance, is to church, then to the billeting officer.’

  Wolfie and Dodo, who carried her own suitcase, held hands, walking slowly behind Mrs Sprig, who swung Wolfie’s bag determinedly to and fro. Dodo cringed as they walked through the village, ashamed to be seen escorted away like this, bags in hand.

  ‘Hero,’ whispered Wolfie at the old bridge. ‘He – he hasn’t – the milk . . .’

  They trailed behind Mrs Sprig into the churchyard. Wolfie nudged Dodo, grateful to see Miss Lamb’s roan mare tethered at the gate. They went up the path between the sheep that nibbled amidst the gravestones – marvellous sheep with deep hill-country coats and ancient faces. Mrs Sprig dropped Wolfie’s bag in the porch, as if relieving herself of something distasteful. Leaving hers beside it, Dodo followed her inside. The church was half full, the service not yet begun. Mrs Sprig ushered them sniffingly to one pew, establishing herself, in a bustling, noisy sort of way, in another, further forward. She fell at once to her knees, sighing and bowing her head deeply.

  ‘There,’ whispered Dodo, seeing the tweed cape. ‘Miss Lamb’s at the organ.’

  A priest with a white beard and walrus whiskers crossed the transept, bowed his head, turned and gave a brief introduction, his eyes alive with intelligence and humour. During the sermon Wolfie dug in his pocket, found Captain and placed him beside his hymnal.

  After the last hymn was announced, ‘O God, Our Help in Ages Past’, and the priest had given the blessing, they filed out with the rest of the congregation, their heads bowed. In the porch Dodo collected their cases and they walked down the path, between the sheep and gravestones, towards the gate. Halfway between the gate and the porch, three figures, a family group, were standing in wait on the path: Mrs Sprig’s cousin Mary, arm in arm with what must be her husband, and, beside them, Ned Jervis. So Mary was Ned’s mother! The father was as white-haired as his son, but more meanly made, the whole of him lean as a whip. Mary’s darting gimlet eyes glittered with venom. Dodo and Wolfie stopped before the sinister trio. Mary whispered to her husband, who gave the merest nod in return, and moved, awkward, lame-legged, a step forward. Ned hung back.

  Dodo continued tentatively, Wolfie at her side. Mr Jervis stepped forward and spat. The vicious bauble fell by Dodo’s shoes. Dodo and Wolfie recoiled in shock. Behind them, Mrs Sprig and the priest, deep in talk, facing each other, had seen nothing. Dodo took Wolfie’s hand and turned her back on the Jervis family.

  ‘I’ll not have them back,’ Mrs Sprig was saying to the priest. ‘Your daughter assists the billeting people, she can . . .’

  ‘Well, Mrs Sprig, I’m sorry you feel you cannot help these two children . . .’

  ‘Henry’d feel insulted – when he’s out there doing his bit for his country, for his God . . .’ Mrs Sprig was visibly swelling, inflating with pride and indignation.

  Miss Lamb came out of the church into the shade of the porch and took the elderly priest by the arm. ‘They must come, mustn’t they, Father, to Lilycombe?’ She stepped into the sunlight. ‘We ourselves are not so Christian, are we, that they can’t stay with us?’

  ‘No, Hettie, we are not,’ he answered, smiling at his daughter. His voice rose and he added, clear and sure as a bell, ‘I don’t, in fact, see that the Christian faith and warmongering can so easily share a house.’

  Wolfie crept up to Miss Lamb.

  She took him by the hand and said, ‘Would you like that? Would you come to us?’

  Wolfie, standing on tiptoe, whispered back, ‘I’ve got a horse.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Dodo.

  Miss Lamb smiled again, amused. ‘Well, your horse must come too.’

  ‘You’ll find your eggs missing – and other things.’ Mrs Sprig was shifting, discomforted to find her cause not so readily embraced by the church as she’d expected.

  ‘Petticoat government. I do what Hettie says.’ Father Lamb’s blue eyes twinkled.

  ‘Do you have eggs?’ enquired Wolfie.

  They set off down the path towards the gate, a deflated, diminished Mrs Sprig following behind. There were no Jervises on the path now to bar their way.

  ‘And what is Hero?’ asked Father Lamb, placing a hand over the saddle of the roan mare.

  ‘My horse. He’s going to be a cavalry horse. He might be a Scots Grey.’

  ‘I see. And why’s he called Hero?’

  ‘Because Pa is a hero but the newspapers say he isn’t any more and no one will talk to us.’

  ‘I see. And where’s Hero now?’

  ‘He’s hiding in a barn,’ said Wolfie.

  ‘Not “hiding”. Hidden,’ hissed Dodo, nudging Wolfie to silence him.

  ‘At Windwistle.’

  When they reached the gate, Father Lamb paused while Miss Lamb tucked a Bible into her father’s saddlebag.

  ‘He likes condensed milk,’ said Wolfie.

  ‘Well, now I know. You’ve a Scots Grey with a very sweet tooth hidden in a barn.’ Father Lamb was smiling as he eased himself on to the roan mare. ‘Come along, Sunday –’ he caressed her ears – ‘matins in the next parish.’ He waved to his daughter. ‘Hettie, Sunday and I will deliver matins, and be home for lunch.’

  Rough grazing stretched right to the walls of Lilycombe. Sheep-bitten smooth as a lawn in parts, in others embroidered with gold gorse, it lay like an altar cloth before a long, low stone house. There was no boundary, no fence, only the mown path along which they walked. A tangle of rugged hill ponies, each almost identical in marking, ran alongside in a wild scuffle. Dodo paused to admire them. A young one, ears flat, eyes wide with suspicion, cowered belly down, mealy nose flaring, like a light against its dark bear-like fur, then suddenly shied away, snorting.

  ‘They’re wild as birds,’ said Miss Lamb, laughing. ‘Unbroken, untamed. True wild horses.’ She laughed again as the pack plunged and wheeled away as one, tails and manes streaming. Sure-footed as mountain goats, lissom as hawks, creatures from another, older world, they pounded over the turf, and dropped below the curve of the hill into a rough cleave.

  ‘There’s only fifty of them left now,’ said Miss Lamb. ‘Only fifty on the whole moor.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Some say they’re being poached, perhaps being taken for food.’

  Dodo looked at her in horror. For food?

  They walked on in silence towards a long, low whitewashed house. A dishevelled, elderly rose draped itself comfortably over the porch, beneath which sat a huge dog, grey and tall. Miss Lamb whistled – a good masculine whistle. Wolfie turned in admirat
ion. The dog paid no attention, but a sturdy biscuit-coloured mare trotted up, tossing her head, whinnying.

  ‘Scout doesn’t think much of the ponies. She’s rather above them and grazes only on the old tennis court.’ Miss Lamb dug a carrot out of her cape. Scout nuzzled her shoulder, then lowered her whiskery head to the carrot.

  ‘Do you ride her?’ asked Wolfie hopefully.

  Miss Lamb shook her head. ‘I grew out of her a while ago,’ she said. ‘But Lilycombe will always be her home. She’s a kind and compassionate lady, is old Scout, a brood mare through and through.’ She placed a hand on the dog’s head. ‘Hello, Dreadnought,’ she said.

  The dog looked straight ahead, unblinking, upright and dignified as Father Lamb’s church tower. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, Scout was unlatching the front door with her nose. Wolfie gawped. Scout entered, negotiating, head lowered, the single stone step with care. Miss Lamb followed. Dodo and Wolfie hesitated on the porch, holding their suitcases.

  ‘Can we live here?’ whispered Wolfie, open-mouthed, to Dodo.

  Dodo glimpsed a hall. Piles of books stood floor to ceiling, canvases stacked one against another.

  ‘She went in – Scout – the horse . . .’ began Wolfie, wide-eyed.

  ‘Oh yes – she used to hunt, you see,’ said Miss Lamb, emerging with a small basket, ‘and the hunt like to take the short cuts through the house, rather than going round it, so she thinks it’s normal and of course she discovered the larder once on the way through so now—’

  ‘Can we live here, Miss Lamb?’ asked Wolfie.

  ‘I very much hope you will, and when we’re here, call me Hettie. Now, leave your cases there. Egg, did you say? Honey? And will evaporated milk suit your charger, do you think?’

  Chapter Twelve

  Father Lamb sat by the fire, his dog at his side. Dreadnought was a hound of such dignity as to betray interest in nothing other than his master, not even in the young horse that stood near the sink. Father Lamb, however, glanced, over half-moon glasses, from Wolfie, lining up jars of honey on the draining board, to Hero. He looked the foal over, from head to tail.

  ‘You’ll make a milksop of him,’ he said. ‘He’ll not grow up to be a horse. If he consumes more fresh dairy in a morning than Kensington sees in a month, he’ll never be a horse, especially if he grows up in a kitchen . . .’

  Wolfie beamed. ‘Look, Father Lamb, he’s losing his baby fur. His hoofs are hard and he’s too heavy to carry now.’

  Father Lamb’s eyes were still on Hero as the foal explored the surface of the table with his muzzle, then the door to the larder. ‘Most of England hasn’t seen a fresh egg since ’39, yet your charger takes a breakfast egg daily.’

  ‘Not tomorrow,’ said Wolfie. ‘No more eggs. Four weeks old.’ He beamed again and moved the honey to the sideboard. Hero’s head turned, monitoring the process of the honey. Hettie left what she was busy with at the Primus stove and went to light the copper in the washhouse for the hip-bath. Dodo watched her carefully, concern in her expressive eyes.

  ‘Bed time,’ said Hettie, ‘for the three of you. The Invasion Committee’ll arrive soon and perhaps we can persuade Hero to make way for everyone.’ She tightened the blackout curtains over the sink, lit her father’s lamp and adjusted the light-guard over it. Dodo put down her sketchpad.

  The door to the yard opened and Samuel, the first member of the Committee, appeared, running and breathless. Samuel was always in and out of Lilycombe, doing odd bits and pieces on the land.

  ‘Lower your lights. Bombs on this side,’ he urged. ‘Listen, anti-aircraft guns – Jerry’s close tonight – over the Channel somewhere.’

  ‘Up to bed,’ said Miss Lamb. ‘I’d like Hero in the boot room now, please, Wolfgang.’ Wolfie walked as slowly as he could towards the back door, Hero following, like a dog. Dodo tidied Wolfie’s sticky plate and spoon and dragged him from the boot room where Hero was currently stabled. They went upstairs as the back door opened and more men arrived.

  ‘The water’ll be ready now,’ called Hettie.

  ‘I don’t want a bath.’ Wolfie was predictable about baths. ‘Shall we tell Pa we don’t want to come to London?’ he asked, adjusting Captain on his bedside table so that his head faced Wolfie’s pillow. ‘That he must come here?’

  Dodo was silent, then she said, ‘Wolfie, it might be a long time till Pa can see us.’

  She’d sent a card to Pa’s barracks, another one to Spud, telling them both of their new address and of how much happier they were. Wolfie too had sent Pa a card giving Hero’s height in hands and his current dietary requirements. He’d left a note, too, on the barn door at Windwistle saying ‘GONE TO LILYCOMBE’. Dodo wondered about the milk – about its arrival at Lilycombe every morning – she wondered if it were brought by Ned Jervis, and if his mother Mary Jervis knew. She wondered too whether Pa had written to the Lambs: they seemed to know a lot about Pa now.

  A while later, half thinking about Pa, half listening to the rattle of anti-aircraft guns and unable to sleep, Dodo crept to the window. From the first-floor windows at Lilycombe you could see the Bristol Channel and sometimes all the way to Wales. There was a red glow, far away, at the mouth of the Channel. Above it, searchlights scraped the dark. Bombs were falling somewhere.

  No one talked to her at school now. Chrissie Causey no longer sat next to her. Dodo minded it all a little less since moving to Lilycombe, though she would never go into a shop again unless she was with Miss Lamb. Did Pa guess that people would be cruel to them? she wondered. Did he know that Spud had forced them out of Addison Avenue, did he suspect that their leaving Hollowcombe had anything to do with him?

  She watched the searchlights, crossing and crisscrossing, and hypnotic. The droning had grown in volume, the planes must be close. Suddenly there were bombs falling nearby, the floors of the house rattling as in an earthquake. Wolfie was calling to her, reaching out to the bedside table for Captain. She took his hand and they crept halfway down the stairs, shivering, and sat listening to the voices beyond the door, thinking of the fire in there, of the comfort of being in there.

  ‘That’s over two hundred incendiaries,’ Father Lamb was saying. ‘Close.’

  Dodo and Wolfie shifted down another step towards the door. ‘Who has the Minute Book? Good. Note. Twenty shovels,’ Samuel was saying. ‘Twenty spades. Ten pickaxes. Ten wheelbarrows.’

  ‘How many horses?’ said Father Lamb.

  The roar of the planes was dimming.

  ‘Thirty.’ Samuel’s voice.

  There was a pause, as the figure was noted down, then Father Lamb spoke again. ‘How many carts in the village?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Five carts. Good. Next item.’

  ‘Plans for burial of the dead?’ someone asked.

  Wolfie wriggled under Dodo’s arm like a puppy. As he did so, the small lead horse fell from his lap. It tumbled from step to step, clanked against the door at the bottom and came to rest.

  A chair scraped, the door opened and the children were revealed in a pool of yellow light. Father Lamb paused, then stooped to pick up Captain. Tenderly he turned the figure over in his hands, pulled the door to a little way, then climbed the stairs and sat beside them. Studying Captain thoughtfully, he was silent for a few minutes. Then he looked up and said, ‘Your father’s as brave a man as ever walked this earth. It takes all kinds of courage, you see, to lead a good life. It takes great courage to lead a cavalry charge into firing guns but it takes courage, too, to go against what other men do and say and think. It’s always easier to do what everyone else does. But it’s this second kind of bravery, the not thinking what others think, that it takes to lead a good life.’

  Wolfie didn’t really see at all but he liked being talked to as if he weren’t a child and he loved to hear talk of Pa. Father Lamb led them upstairs. At their door, once Wolfie was in bed, Father Lamb placed a hand on Dodo’s head.

  ‘Will you help guard Hettie’s herd
? Two more were gone this morning, taken for God knows what . . . It’s taken twenty years to breed that herd and it’d break her heart if . . .’

  Dodo nodded.

  ‘God bless you,’ he said. They listened to his tread on the stairs as he returned to his Invasion Committee.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wolfie tugged at the string on the parcel. He scrabbled through layers of brown paper. A letter fell out. He handed it to Dodo and continued unwrapping.

  Dodo read:

  Britannia Barracks

  Mousehold Heath

  Darling Wolfie, Darling Dodo,

  Spud found this in one of Ma’s cupboards and she sent it to me to send to you. She thinks and I think too that you might have fun with it. Take good care of it – it reminded Ma of the holidays she spent on the moor – it was her father’s – your grandpa’s – when he was Master of one of the packs where you are.

  Wolfie, tearing through sheets of newspaper, unearthed a bugle, shiny as the day it was made. He took it, put it to his lips and blew.

  Last night and the night before, immense numbers of enemy planes filled the sky over London, like storm clouds. Fire engines were everywhere. White smoke ballooned over the East End. I’m glad you’re both safe and far away.

  I’ve made my statement and now I have to wait for the Army’s decision. These things can take a long while in wartime and everything is more difficult in this case because there are no witnesses – because no one except me saw what happened. Things may get public and nasty. Please take no notice of newspapers, you must learn to look and think for yourselves, never to be affected by what other people say or write.

  Your loving

  Pa

  PS Wolfie: Does Hero have a dark muzzle? A grey horse always looks finer with a dark muzzle. Place your head against his and breathe with him. In with him and out with him. Be at one with him.