Soldier of the Horse

by Robert W. Mackay

  All but a few of the prisoners were clear of the trench, so Tom stepped up onto a ledge to clamber out. Private Simpson held his hand out to help him up, then suddenly jerked it back, aimed his rifle at Tom, and fired.

  UNDER ATTACK

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Tom momentarily wondered if he was dead or alive. He lay on his right side, aware of a droning noise that grew louder and louder. He pulled his knees up, lifted his head an inch, then fell back as pain ricocheted through his skull. Blinking, he managed to focus on a bed two feet away, where a man was lying on his back, breathing deeply, apparently asleep.

  Hell, he thought. A hospital. He rolled his eyes so he could see more. Canvas walls and canvas ceiling. An aid station, then.

  The droning noise reached a rattling roar and he realized it was an aircraft. It sounded as though it were on top of him until the engine noise was suddenly obliterated by a loud explosion. The walls and roof buckled and billowed. The drone died away, and a minute later white-clothed figures he recognized as nursing sisters moved along the aisle between beds.

  One of them approached and took his wrist. “Awake, are we? Did Fritz wake you up, Sergeant?” She glanced down at a watch pinned to her breast.

  Tom had trouble talking. His mouth was dry. “Awake already,” he croaked. “Where are we? What day is it?”

  “Casualty Clearing Station Forty-seven,” said the nurse. “You arrived last night. And this is the twentieth of the month. Can you tell me the month and year?”

  “March, of course. Nineteen eighteen. Did I pass?”

  “Just checking. Now, let’s have a look.”

  She helped Tom roll onto his stomach, making the room spin around him, and touched the back of his head. A wound just below the occiput, she explained. A concussion, but no infection by the looks of it.

  “Do you often get bombed? I thought hospitals and casualty stations were out of bounds.”

  “The Germans are pulling out all stops, we hear. When they come over, Matron makes the staff get into a shelter. Afterward, we come out to see if any of our patients have been hit. She’s thinking of taking down the red cross so they can’t target us.”

  The nurse gave Tom painkillers and water to wash them down, and she was followed by an orderly who provided lukewarm soup. Tom wolfed it down, then dozed most of the day.

  Just at dusk Bruce Johanson came to see him. “Some guys will do anything to get attention.”

  Tom sat up. The room tilted, although the pounding in his head had eased somewhat since morning. “What the hell happened, anyway? Last thing I remember is Simpson shooting at me.”

  “He wasn’t shooting at you, Tommy. One of the prisoners still in the trench pulled the pin on a grenade. Simpson shot him over your shoulder and the German fell across the grenade before it exploded. Lucky for you. Guess you caught a fragment though.”

  “Glad you told me—I was going to go looking for young Private Simpson.” Tom managed a grin, or tried to. “Guess I’ll have to anyway. Look for him, that is. To thank him.”

  “Funny thing though, Tom. You went down in a heap and Captain Inkmann was into the trench in a flash. I never saw anyone move so fast. Slapped a hand over your wound and organized a stretcher real quick. The barrage was moving in our direction so we headed back as fast as we could. What’s the story with him? I thought he hated your guts.”

  “He does. All I know for sure is he acts stranger every time I see him.”

  Bruce left to return to the regiment, and Tom thought things over. Inkmann was a constant worry: he never changed his insistence that Tom somehow help out his brother, one minute badgering him and the next rescuing him. In the meantime, Tom hoped for a few days of recuperation. He didn’t have a serious enough injury to warrant a trip to England for hospitalization, but maybe time off would help get rid of the vertigo and the pain in his head.

  Next morning the usual artillery heralded dawn, but it slowly intensified during the day instead of fading away as it normally did. In mid-afternoon Tom stood to walk up and down the narrow aisle between the beds for a few minutes. For the first time in thirty-six hours, his head felt clear, but he was still having dizzy spells. He sat on the edge of his bed and waited for the walls to stop swaying.

  There was a burst of activity at the far end of the tent as nurses hurried in, followed by orderlies and uniformed soldiers with stretchers. They began transferring patients to the stretchers and carting them out.

  “What’s happening? What’s going on?” shouted the man in the next bed.

  “We’ve been ordered to move back. The Germans have broken through,” said a nurse. “We’ll get to everyone as quickly as we can.”

  Tom heard the rumble of a familiar voice. Quartermain. The broad-shouldered sergeant marched into view.“How is Sergeant Macrae?” he asked a nurse who ran along behind him.

  “He needs bed rest, Doctor says.”

  Quartermain stopped at the foot of Tom’s bed and peered down at him, hands on hips. “You can sit up, I see. Can you sit a horse?”

  “I expect so.”

  “Then get your boots on, Sergeant. There’s work to do. Johanson is waiting outside with your new horse.” He turned and left the way he had come.

  New horse? Tom wondered. Why do I need a new horse?

  The nurse was still there. “Cancel one stretcher,” she said. “Your uniform is in the locker under your bed.”

  Tom scrambled to climb into his uniform, do up his boots, and quickly wrap on his puttees. His helmet was there too, and he clapped it on, momentarily staggering with a mild vertigo, then hurrying from the aid station to see Bruce Johanson sitting calmly on his bay gelding, smoking. All round him was a confusion of ambulances coming and going, stretcher-bearers sweating, and red-faced, harried nurses trying to bring order to the chaos. Bruce was holding a second horse, big and raw-boned, a dun with a white star on his forehead and a white, off-side fetlock. He had an independent air about him, and he carried Ranger’s tack.

  Bruce handed Tom the dun’s reins. “This guy’s name is Toby.”

  Tom held Toby’s bridle and scratched him behind his ears. “Ranger?”

  Johanson wheeled his horse to face Tom. “I was back with the horses during the raid, and we were shelled right after it. Took a terrible pounding. Lost three horses and two men. Ranger was killed. Direct hit.”

  “Ah, the hell you say.”

  “I knew you’d be upset.” Johanson paused and looked at his friend. “We tried to find you a good replacement. Seems kind of poetic. Toby’s soldier, a corporal in the 2nd Troop, was wounded in the same shelling. Figured he’s a good match for you.”

  Tom still stood by Toby’s head. He numbly checked the saddle, his sword in its scabbard, his rifle in its bucket, and mounted to ride beside Johanson, who brought him up to date. “Wouldn’t you know it, after our big trench raid, by some ugly coincidence, the whole German army attacked all along the line. The colonel said it was the biggest artillery shelling of the whole war. Bloody Huns are breaking through everywhere.”

  When they reached the regiment’s bivouac, Tom quickly located his section, whose members were already standing to their horses, ready to march. All around, men with their horses were doing their best to prepare for whatever was to come, stoically awaiting direction, with a sort of overarching, organized confusion in the background, orders countermanding orders in quick succession.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Tom was dead tired and could have dozed in the saddle if he had dared. If he let his attention wander, the rolling hills of Picardy might have been, in the early dawn, a frozen seascape in pinks and greys. A white mist, like the foam at the edge of a wave broken on a beach, swirled and ebbed with the rising sun. He reined Toby to a stop and raised his right hand as René Carbonnier and Reg Simpson brought their horses up on either side.

  The three mounted men stayed in the shadows of a grove of trees, where they’d be hard to spot. Tom pulled his binoculars from his saddlebag and scan
ned the edge of a forest a mile ahead. Between them and the woods was a rough pasture, with no cover except a clump of undergrowth with a couple of tall beech trees part way across.

  Nobody knew how far the Germans had advanced. There were rumours of scattered actions to the east, in the French section of the front—the former front, which had all but disappeared beneath the German juggernaut during the previous week. Tom’s scouting mission was a classic use of cavalry. Probing and reaching for the enemy and, with any luck, reporting back to the colonel.

  “Okay,” he said to Carbonnier and Simpson. “Let’s go. I don’t see anything.”

  They started forward at a walk, the horses’ breath streaming out in white gusts that were scattered by the breeze. For the first time in weeks there was a sunrise, the yellow globe visible through the fast-fading mist. Tom pulled his helmet down to shade his eyes, but even so he had a hard time seeing the forest ahead clearly. They came up to the grove with its two tall beeches and reined in.

  Toby was skittish for some reason, tossing his head and prancing sideways, and Tom had to keep him firmly under control. “Steady, boy,” he said, and patted his horse on the neck. Toby snorted.

  Tom still missed Ranger, his big bay. He and Ranger had had lots of good times, riding the French countryside, training together. Tom had looked after Ranger for hours every day, and Ranger had looked after him. Thank God he went quickly, a direct hit.

  “How far we going, anyway?” Simpson asked.

  “Until we bump into Fritz,” Tom replied. “Nobody knows how far he’s penetrated.”

  The regiment had been on the move for days, fighting a rear-guard action on foot one day and dashing forward on horseback the next, looking for weaknesses in the German lines. The enemy had advanced across a broad front, the Allies forced to fall back by the sheer weight of the offensive. Men and horses ran on nerves and instinct, short of sleep, snatching food and shelter where they could. Allied High Command was desperate, and their desperation had passed down the line to division, to brigade, to regiment.

  The Canadian officer corps had long since realized that every man in the army had to know what the immediate objectives were, what was at stake. Tom understood how bad things were, and so did his men. They were in muck up to their chins.

  He glanced left and right at Carbonnier and Simpson, nodded, and nudged Toby with his spurs. The three of them moved forward at a walk. Tom kept his eyes fixed on the forest; the open country made him nervous. “Better speed it up,” and he urged a reluctant Toby into a slow trot. The others followed suit.

  Two hundred yards from the trees, Tom glanced right and saw something move. A dark, indistinct figure against the line of trees, then another.

  “Shit!” he yelled. “Germans. Get out of here.” He yanked Toby around to the left and spurred hard, bending low over his horse’s neck and giving him his head. He glanced around and saw both privates, eyes wide, kicking their horses into a mad gallop. A bullet zipped somewhere close, then he heard the sound of rifle fire from the woods behind them. Another few seconds and they’d put the grove of trees between them and the enemy. Tom heard a cry and looked to his left.

  René Carbonnier’s horse was hit, its gait slowing. Without warning it collapsed and René was thrown headlong, face first into the turf. The Germans gave a shout of triumph and let go with a renewed fusillade. Tom pulled on his reins, but Toby had his head and was not to be stopped. Tom yanked harder, got his excited mount under control, and swivelled in his saddle. René was on his feet, taking a slow step back toward his fallen steed when he spun around and fell to the ground, bullets kicking up dirt around him. Tom brought Toby to a halt and Simpson pulled up beside him. They were now well out of accurate rifle range, although bullets still zinged through the air. Tom looked back to see René struggle to his feet and begin a halting run toward them.

  “Let’s go,” Tom shouted, and he and Simpson spurred back toward René. Tom swung Toby wide to the left and when he had thundered up even with the limping trooper, hauled his horse around to the right to come up beside René, who was running awkwardly, holding his hand over a bloody spot on his right leg. Simpson galloped up on René’s other side, and pulled his right boot out of his stirrup, which René immediately grabbed with his free hand. Tom freed up his left foot, and René let go of his leg and seized Tom’s stirrup with his right hand. The two excited horses had hardly slowed and were now running flat out, René being dragged between them. The enemy’s bullets whistled around them for another hundred yards before dying away.

  They didn’t slow their horses until they were once again in the trees where they had started their reconnaissance, and Tom called a halt. René let go his desperate grip on their stirrups and slumped to the ground, chest heaving, grimacing.

  Tom jumped down off Toby, handing his reins to Simpson, who was still mounted. Their horses pranced around, energized by their gallop and the excitement of the riders, who were jubilant after their bare escape and the improvised rescue of their comrade. Tom cut René’s trouser leg away around a wound in his lower thigh, to reveal an entry hole in back and a slightly larger exit wound in front.

  “Thanks, boys,” René gasped. “I figured I was done for.”

  Tom was still bent over, looking at René’s wound. “Lucky man. They won’t have to dig out a slug, or set a bone. Good thing for you Fritz wasn’t using a dum-dum.” Rumour had it that the Germans would illegally doctor their rifle bullets so they’d spread open on impact and rip a ghastly wound in the flesh of man or beast; the rules of war required steel-jacketed bullets that should pass cleanly through, as if that wouldn’t be bad enough. Tom got a gauze bandage and iodine from his kit and put an emergency dressing on René’s wound.

  “Might even qualify as a Blighty,” said Simpson. “You are a lucky man.”

  René was a man of few words. He reached up and Tom hauled him to his feet. René tried a few steps; he was limping but able to put weight on his leg.

  “Get ready to ride, Simps,” Tom ordered. “Next order of business is to get back to the regiment and report to the colonel. René—get up behind him. You can change round halfway and ride behind me.” The reality was that a horse could carry double for a time but would not be able to keep up over the ten miles back to the regiment’s camp.

  “Glad you came back for me, boys. But I’m not going,” said René. He looked at Tom. “Give me your rifle.”

  “What the hell do you mean, you’re not going?”

  “Gabriel—my horse—he’s not dead. I’m not going to leave him.”

  René was a superior horseman, as befitted a Metis. His forefathers had roamed the prairies, living wild and free. It was a source of some amusement among the Strathconas that he always named his horse Gabriel. A tribute to Gabriel Dumont, war leader of the Metis in the rebellion of 1885, Tom assumed.

  “Your horse is dead.”

  “No, he’s not—he’s gut shot. He can’t get up. I’m not leaving him like that.”

  Tom hesitated. René was a free spirit, often in trouble with army discipline. He could be led but not pushed. The most crucial thing now was to get word of the enemy’s location back to the colonel as soon as possible, but Tom had also learned never to give an order that would not be obeyed. He turned to Simpson.

  “Get back to the regiment as quick as you can. Tell the colonel we saw a large German patrol ten miles northeast of the camp, just east of the Avre River.” There would be consternation in his troop when he and René didn’t appear, so he added, “And tell Flowerdew that Carbonnier and I will be a couple of hours behind you, riding double.”

  Simpson trotted off, and Tom tied Toby to a tree. He took his Lee Enfield from its boot and his water bottle from his bag. He and René both drank, then he handed the rifle to René, who acknowledged it with a nod and started off across the field toward the clump of trees, favouring his right leg as he went. Tom hurried after him, drawing his Webley, hoping not to need it, thinking that if a German patrol was
close enough for him to hit them with a revolver they might as well just slit their own throats.

  René got down on hands and knees when he was nearing the beech grove, and Tom did likewise, staying close. He could hear René’s heavy breathing, interspersed with the occasional moan. Tom felt like moaning himself. He could feel the hair standing up on the back of his neck as they reached the undergrowth at the base of the trees and crawled carefully forward. For all they knew the Germans could have advanced across the open field and be right on them.

  René again took the lead, now down on his belly, Tom’s rifle alongside him. As Tom watched, he reached out and with great care bent a clump of grass in front of him. There was no sign of the enemy. Gabriel was a hundred yards out on the field, legs pulled under his body, nose resting on the ground. As they watched he raised his head, struggling to get his forelegs under him, and heaved his front quarters off the ground. His back legs scrabbled at the ground but could not find purchase and he collapsed again. He screamed, a long, horrifying scream. Again and again he shrieked, as if he knew they were near and was crying for help.

  “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Tom cursed. He had lived with men now dead and gone. Shattered, blown apart, dying of wounds and infection. Men had some control over their own actions, some sense of what they were fighting for, but horses did not. He could not bear the suffering of the horses, creatures that only did the bidding of men. Innocent, somehow. He had seen horses gutted, legs blown off, blinded, shot, even gassed, and he knew he would live with their screams for the rest of his life.

  René brought the rifle to his shoulder, steadied the forestock with his left hand, elbow on the ground. He thumbed the safety off. Tom saw Gabriel toss his head, lower it. The Lee Enfield cracked.