Soldier of the Horse

by Robert W. Mackay

  Someone snickered. The instructors had ordered the reinforcements to grow mustaches, which were much the style in the regular army. The recruits had other priorities—they shaved clean before going off the base at night, then left their upper lips unshaved in the morning. Tom doubted that the barely discernible half-day growth fooled anyone.

  “Well, maybe you can’t grow facial hair. Can you ride, or is that too much to hope for?” Quartermain turned his horse to face Johanson. “So we have some riders here, do we?”

  Johanson sat rigidly. “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir, Private. You call officers sir. I am a sergeant, and don’t you bloody forget it.” The way he said it left no doubt about the relative importance of officers and sergeants.

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  Quartermain backed his horse so they could all see him clearly. “Pay attention. Take your feet out of your stirrups. Cross your leathers.” Suiting his actions to his words he reached down, pulled up his stirrups, and dropped them on opposite sides of the pommel of his saddle.

  Tom kicked his boots free of his stirrups and followed Quartermain’s example. Rusty danced sideways, bumping Johanson’s horse, which tossed its head. Tom grabbed leather to steady himself.

  “Let go of that saddle,” Quartermain shouted. “Follow me. WALK—march!”

  He turned his horse and started a slow walk around the perimeter of the parade square. Rusty and Tom followed. Tom felt shaky without stirrups but had no real problem at this pace. He could have sworn Rusty twisted his head to give him a once-over as they made the first turn to the left.

  After the second turn Quartermain reined his horse to one side. “Carry on,” he said as Tom went by.

  “No stirrups—big deal,” Johanson muttered from behind Tom.

  Tom glanced at Quartermain to see if he had heard. The sergeant had a sardonic grin on his face. “TROT—march!” he ordered.

  Tom brushed Rusty with his spurs so he’d increase the pace but kept the reins taut to hold him back from a canter. He began to bounce in the saddle, so he held on with his knees and thighs and cheated a bit by grabbing what he could of Rusty’s close-clipped mane. Rusty turned at the next corner and followed the line of the fence.

  As someone behind groaned with every bounce, Tom gritted his teeth and posted, lifting his rump off the saddle as best he could to ease the pain that was building in his thighs. There was a curse and a thump as a body hit the ground. Tom turned and saw Nickerson stumble to his feet, his horse pulling hard, trying to get away. Pale-faced, Nickerson fell again, flat on his belly, but he managed to keep a death-grip on the reins.

  “Keep on, you men,” shouted Quartermain. He looked at Nickerson. “You—who told you to dismount? Get back on your horse.”

  Tom kept going, inwardly furious with Johanson and the others in the troop who had been riding all their lives and made it look so easy. He could feel his breakfast sloshing around in his stomach, and within minutes the pain in his guts more than matched his burning thigh muscles. He was able to hang on, though, as two more riders hit the dirt. With each one Quartermain bellowed, “Who told you to dismount?”

  Tom reached the stage where he was too tired and sore to grip the saddle with his legs anymore, but he was able to balance, and bounce, in a fashion that kept him—barely—in the saddle. As they rounded the paddock again Rusty came to the open gate that led to the stables. Without warning he plunged sideways, and Tom fell headlong over his withers. He hit the ground hard and gasped for air, his wind knocked out. Rusty ripped the reins from his hand and galloped off. A watching corporal slammed the gate shut before he got through it, and Rusty headed around the parade ground, kicking and bucking, stirrups flying. Tom stood up, doubled over, and tried to breathe, spitting dirt while the laughter of his troopmates rang in his ears.

  Quartermain snorted. “God give me strength.” He spurred his horse away, his stirrup leathers still crossed, and cantered after Rusty. He and his horse looked as if they were one being, centaur-like. The sergeant cornered Rusty, leaned to grasp the trailing reins, and led him back.

  Without saying a word he brought his horse to a halt in front of Tom, who grasped Rusty’s reins and pulled his head around so he could look him in the eyes. Rusty had no choice but to stand still and not jerk away. Still holding the reins taut Tom gripped the saddle with both hands, vaulted, and swung his right leg across Rusty’s back. Pain shot through his thighs.

  “Use your stirrups,” Quartermain ordered. “Now, TROT.” Tom got his feet into his stirrups and trotted after the boys. Quartermain might be a Limey son of a bitch, but the man could ride.

  DOMESTIC AFFAIRS

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Determined to make use of whatever time he had left before boarding a train to start his journey to war, Tom had sent a note to Ellen with an invitation that she had, to his relief, accepted. In uniform, he arrived early at the restaurant in the Royal Alexandra Hotel adjacent to the Canadian Pacific Railway station. The maitre d’ looked sideways at a mere private, but Tom slipped him a dollar and was led to a table for two by the window. A waiter pulled back his chair, and Tom eased himself down. His buttocks ached. A week of trotting with no stirrups was equestrian hell, but his body was hardening and the pain was less intense with each day.

  Tom’s uniform was brushed and pressed, his boots shined. He gave the waiter his cap to look after, thinking briefly of the lady on the streetcar who had looked down her nose at him, all those weeks ago. He would have her approval now, all right. But he was still mentally shaking his head at finding himself in uniform, his civilian life receding into the past.

  He relaxed, revelling in the quiet background murmur of polite conversation, the muted scrape of silverware on china. The room, with its crystal chandeliers and golden-brown, embossed wallpaper, was oddly calming, though it catered to a higher stratum of society than he was used to. The startling contrast between life in barracks and lunch in the upper-class dining room made him wonder how much different the war zone would be from his present challenging but safe existence. That is, if he actually got to the war, a distant and hard-to-imagine circumstance.

  The minutes dragged by. Tom’s thoughts wandered, as they often did, to his family. He had four brothers and one sister—or, at least, he used to have; Ray had drowned in a canoeing accident on the Red River, and his mother had never recovered from it. She had lost weight and was constantly listless. His father all too often took refuge in the bottle. Tom would have given anything to have Ray back and his mother restored, but that was not how things worked. And now she had a fresh worry, with Tom in the army and destined to go overseas.

  Tom looked out the window for the hundredth time. Would Ellen turn up at all? Suddenly she was there, on the opposite sidewalk, strolling with another young woman. Tom’s reflective mood disappeared and he felt his heart race.

  Tom saw her wave goodbye to her friend as she turned to cross the street. He lost sight of her as she approached the doorway, then found her again as she emerged into the room. As Tom stood, waved, then walked toward her, Ellen’s face broke into a smile.

  “Hello, Tom,” she said. “My, you do look different.”

  “I feel different.”

  Tom held her chair as she sat. She looked good, a vivacious young woman, dressed for lunch out on a sunny Winnipeg Saturday, in a long green dress with a narrow waist and a tight jacket.

  “Glad you could make it,” he said, sounding stilted even to himself. His mouth felt dry.

  “How could I not? A girl doesn’t get to eat lunch in the Royal Alexandra with a handsome soldier every day of the week.” She smiled again. “How are you?”

  “Well, to tell the truth, a lot has happened recently. But I expect you know most of it.”

  “Daddy doesn’t tell me very much,” Ellen said. She glanced at his uniform. “He said joining the army wasn’t your first choice, but I knew that. But what’s going to happen with that awful Mr. Zink? Oh—I’m sorry—perhaps
I shouldn’t be asking you about that.” She put her fingers over her mouth and blushed.

  It occurred to Tom that she might think he had been involved in the jailbreak. “No harm in asking. I really don’t know any more about it than what was in the papers.”

  Recent newspaper reports had confirmed that Bloody Jack was still on the loose. Cartoonists made merciless fun of the forces of law and order, given Jack’s colourful history and dramatic jailbreak. If he had still been in custody, his trial, presumably with conviction, would be over by now. In the meantime Zink remained in jail, as did Bernie Inkmann and a third man, a jailer. Their plight made the army look pretty good to Tom, sore buttocks and all.

  “Penny for them,” said Ellen.

  Tom came back to reality with a start. Wool-gathering was not going to impress a desirable young woman. “Sorry. I was just thinking how lucky I am to be sitting here having lunch with the most beautiful girl in town.”

  Ellen blushed again, much to Tom’s delight. Maybe all was not lost—out of law, into the army, but life carried on.

  Later, as she ate, Ellen remembered her talk with her father shortly after Tom was implicated in the jailbreak.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Ellen had flushed as she put her teacup down in the exact centre of her saucer. “Really, Daddy. What are you thinking?”

  Her father had questioned her about her relationship with Tom, much to her surprise. She had thought of him as hopelessly Victorian, not given to prying into intimate matters.

  “I am thinking of you, my dear, as always. You have asked me to help young Macrae. I suspect you may have some feelings for him,” he ventured, and glanced at his daughter. He pushed on. “I am prepared to assist him, on one condition. That you have nothing further to do with him.”

  “Father, you’re being . . . ridiculous,” Ellen blurted, and wondered at herself. She had never before used such a term in conversation with any man, let alone her father.

  Evans frowned. “Perhaps I know you better than you know yourself,” he huffed. “I mean what I say. I will do what I can for Mr. Macrae—for no charge, may I add—but only on the condition that you have nothing more to do with him. I don’t like this mess he has gotten himself into, and I don’t much care for his prospects.”

  Ellen caught herself slumping forward so she deliberately straightened her spine to her full height. Her hands were in her lap, hidden from her father’s sight under the dining room table. She crossed her fingers the way she and her mother used to do when they played their game. If their fingers were crossed, they could tell a story with a fib in it, to see if the other player could figure out what was true and what was not. Even without her mother, Ellen still played the game in her mind. Her father had never been in on it. She uncrossed her fingers, flexed them, and picked up her teacup.

  Ellen stalled for time while she considered her quandary. There was something solid and reassuring about Tom, above and beyond his rather exciting physical presence, his strong-looking but sensitive hands, his steady grey eyes. And, of course, he had been well on his way to a good career, until the Bloody Jack imbroglio. She didn’t want to contradict her father, but after all, it was her life, not his. However, Tom needed her father’s help.

  “Very well,” she said, meeting her father’s worried gaze. “I won’t encourage him.”

  He had given her a sharp look but said nothing.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  After lunch the young couple promenaded down Main Street toward the centre of town. Leaves crunched underfoot as they crossed the park in front of City Hall, past the statue of Queen Victoria. Tom took Ellen’s hand as they navigated a bit of rough ground, and she didn’t take it back.

  “Do you think you’ll be sent to England?” she asked.

  “It’s just a matter of time. We’re training hard. If you can believe the rumours, they need reinforcements even at this stage, to bring the regiment up to full complement.”

  “There’s a trickle of wounded men coming in already.”

  “There’ll be a lot more,” Tom said. The Canadian army was not yet on the continent, so any wounded soldiers Ellen was helping would have served in British units. The Battle of the Marne and then a bloodbath at Ypres in Belgium had left the professional British army in tatters.

  “Some of the men I volunteer with are so pathetic, I don’t see how they and their families can face their futures.” Ellen stopped walking and clasped both his hands. “You won’t get killed, will you? Or crippled?”

  “Never thought of it. I’ve got some time to put in, that’s all, and then I’ll be back. In one piece.” Tom believed what he said, hoping he wasn’t tempting fate.

  “You’d better,” she said, and kissed him.

  Her lips were sweet, her kiss almost chaste but with the promise of more to come. They walked on, chatting, smiling, nodding at passersby. It was a glorious fall day, the sky blue, the air clear and crisp. Tom felt on top of the world as they walked, hand in hand.

  She asked about his family, and he told her about the early days of the Red River Settlement, long before Manitoba was a province. Family stories went back to the days when only the charity of the Indians and Metis had saved the settlers from starvation. His grandmother had been one of the first children born to the Highlanders in their new, often unforgiving land.

  “So now you know all about me. Where did your people come from?”

  “My mother and father grew up in Ontario and moved to Winnipeg when I was a little girl. I stayed with cousins in Toronto when I went to school there.”

  Too soon the sun dropped toward the western horizon. Ellen was due to meet her father at his office for the drive home, and Tom was apprehensive. The last time he had seen John Evans, the older man had shepherded him out the back door of the courthouse after the meeting with Judge Paterson. He didn’t know how it had been managed, but the charges against him were dropped. “I’m not sure what your father thinks of me.”

  “Your name did come up. But don’t worry. I’ll have a chat with Daddy. He usually goes along with my . . . foibles, he calls them.”

  So that’s what he was. A foible. A weakness, a fault. A black mood descended like a curtain in the night. “I wouldn’t be a very good catch.”

  Ellen pulled him to a stop. She frowned at him and waited until he met her gaze. “You may be the least of my foibles,” she said. “Don’t be so sensitive, Tom. It was just a manner of speaking.”

  Then he felt silly. He was still off balance and edgy when they reached the McIntyre Block on Main Street and met Ellen’s father as he came out of the lobby. In the short time Tom had known him, John Evans had aged. He looked careworn, the lines in his face more pronounced.

  “Hello, sir,” Tom said, as Ellen let go of his hand and stood beside her father.

  “Good evening, Mr. Macrae.” Evans and Tom shook hands.

  Evans cocked his head and looked at Tom like a tailor sizing a customer. “A pleasant afternoon, I trust, Ellen?”

  “Yes, Daddy. Mr. Macrae was telling me tall tales about Winnipeg before it became such a metropolis.”

  Evans raised his eyebrows. He didn’t look amused. Tom doubted that a client had ever had lunch with his daughter, and obviously it bothered him. Or maybe it was just Tom who bothered him.

  “It’s fortunate that we meet now, Mr. Macrae,” said Evans. “It is imperative that we speak as soon as possible. Can you come to my office at eight o’clock tomorrow morning?”

  “Of course. I’ll be there.”

  Evans nodded and turned to his daughter. “Come along, Ellen. Mrs. Connelly will have dinner waiting for us.”

  “Thank you for a delightful lunch,” Ellen said, reaching to brush Tom’s arm with her hand, lingering an instant when their fingers touched.

  Surprised and pleased at the display of affection, Tom’s hand tingled, or at least he imagined it did, as he watched Ellen and her father walk around the corner. His spirits took wing on his own walk to his streetcar, already t
hinking about when he could next see Ellen.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Next morning, a Sunday, Tom was due to report to barracks at noon, so after spending Saturday night with his family, he was in uniform when he arrived at Evans’s office, ten minutes early. The outer door was locked, but when he knocked it was opened by John Evans himself. They shook hands, then the lawyer ushered Tom through a well-appointed reception area, down a hall lined with law tomes, and into a corner office. Tom couldn’t help noting the contrast between the posh, dark oak panelling and Henry Zink’s chaotic premises.

  Evans waved Tom into a clients’ chair and sat behind his broad desk. It was clear of paper and clutter but for a neat stack of files off to one side. Tom had a moment’s regret at the thought that, but for the Kravenko jailbreak fiasco, he might now be practising law in an office with organized files and affluent clients. He placed his peaked cap on the desk in front of him and waited.

  Evans spoke without preamble. “Bloody Jack has been apprehended. Your erstwhile principal, Henry Zink, has been formally charged with assisting his escape, as has his employee, Bernard Inkmann, and one of the jailers, who was apparently in on the conspiracy. The jailer has given the police a statement implicating them all. All four are in cells.”

  “I’m surprised Bloody Jack didn’t make it out of the jurisdiction, even though the police were buzzing around like a bunch of angry hornets.”

  “I have been told he was badly injured in his fall from the police station. No doubt it will all be in the papers tomorrow.” Evans gave Tom a sharp glance. “Which brings us back to you and me. We’ve both been tarred to some extent with the muck of the whole affair, and I wanted this opportunity to drive home to you how lucky you are to be well out of it. But Inkmann and Zink may yet try to paint you into the plot while attempting to exonerate themselves. And there’s Inspector Boyle, who was embarrassed by Kravenko’s escape and is looking for blood.”