Soldier of the Horse

by Robert W. Mackay

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  No sooner had Tom put his head down three nights later than he felt something clamp onto his ankle. He kicked out furiously, not knowing what was going on but sure he was in terrible danger.

  “Whoa, Sergeant,” said Ferguson, stepping back. “You’ve had enough beauty sleep, my boy. Time to rise and shine.”

  Tom groaned. “What time is it?”

  Gordon Ferguson had been on sentry duty. “Oh four hundred, and there’ll be no rest for the weary today. Word is we’re to be saddled and stood to by 5:30. René Carbonnier is back in the line, in spite of your rudimentary efforts at first aid. And you’ll be interested to know some mail got through. Here you go.” He tossed a battered envelope at Tom, who recognized his mother’s handwriting and stuffed it into his tunic.

  He kicked off his slicker, rolled up his blankets, and stumbled off to feed Toby. He felt like he’d gone ten rounds with Tommy Burns, the Canadian former heavyweight champion of the world. Or maybe even Jack Johnson, who beat him.

  Casualties and the resulting manpower shortages had changed the face of the 1st Troop. Sergeant Quartermain had been given a field commission and was in command of a troop of his own; Tom was now Troop Sergeant, under the command of Lieutenant Harrower, and he checked that his men were up and tending to their mounts.

  He ate standing in a light drizzle, tea and bacon provided by tired duty cooks as icy water dripped off the rim of his helmet. It was March 30, 1918, Easter Saturday, and the Strathconas were bivouacked on an east-facing hillside above the village of Guyencourt. His family would be at the little church in West Kildonan, across the river from their home. Remembering his letter, he pulled it from his pocket.

  “Dear Tom,” his mother had written. It was a miserable spring in Winnipeg, too, he’d be sorry to hear. Father, brothers, and sister were fine. Oh, yes—an afterthought—a recent story in the Manitoba Free Press recounted that Bernard Inkmann, one of the Kravenko escape conspirators, had committed suicide in jail. Wasn’t his brother also in the army?

  Holy smoke. Tom shook his head. Cedric Inkmann was pretty crazy already; this would really set him off. And poor Bernie. Tom had never liked him, given Bernie’s fancy clothes and slightly menacing air, but it had never occurred to him that Bernie wouldn’t be out of jail in due course. He would hardly be the first man to do hard time, then make something of himself afterward. Tom resolved to keep an eye out for Cedric. Maybe he should say something sympathetic to the captain when he next saw him. If he’d listen, that is, given his antipathy so far.

  Dawn approached, the cloud cover slowly growing brighter, now a lighter but cheerless grey. The regiment was camped in a slight hollow, lines of horses feeding, smoke from makeshift cook stoves hanging like a fog. Tom found his saddle and bridle, walked to the picket line where Toby waited, and dried his back with a spare blanket. He settled the saddle onto Toby’s dry blanket and was bent over to reach for the girth when his horse arched his back and crapped, a great steaming pile. Pungent steam arose, and Tom straightened.

  “Nice work, old boy,” he said, and felt his spirits lift. Against all odds, he was coming through the maelstrom of a world war. His luck was holding—not a scratch to speak of in nearly three years on the battlefield, much of it in the man-killing trenches. Now the cavalry brigade was actually being used in a mounted role, the one they had been trained for.

  He bent again to finish saddling Toby. Some of the men had stopped naming their mounts, afraid of an emotional bond that was inevitably shattered if horse was killed or rider was wounded. Worst of all was when a horse was badly injured and had to be put down. Cavalrymen hated performing the coup de grâce on their horses, but the inevitable suffering of the animal if they failed to do so was no alternative. They would never ask another man to do it for them, as the approach of a stranger would be upsetting for an already stricken horse.

  Tom grasped the reins in his left hand, the front of his saddle with both hands, and swung up. He rocked in the stirrups, walked Toby around the camp, checked his attached sword, rifle, and ammunition bandolier. When they moved out, the bandolier would go over his own shoulder. A day’s iron rations, food for times when they were away from cooking facilities, with its preserved meat, cheese, biscuits, and tea, as well as oats for Toby, would be buckled to his saddle.

  Returning to the horse lines, he dismounted and tethered Toby. He loosened the girth, then unbuckled the spare saddle wallets, the leather bags that were strapped to the front of his saddle. Draping them over one shoulder, he headed for the camp kitchen—a tarp hung between trees, over a cook stove hastily constructed of found sheet metal and banked-up earth. He found the sergeant cook supervising breakfast cleanup, inhaling tea and cigarette smoke in equal parts. Judging by the scant breakfast that morning, Tom knew the supply wagons had once again not caught up to the regiment.

  “I suppose you’re here to complain, too?” the cook barked.

  “Nope. I wouldn’t do that. I know better than to bite the hand that feeds me—even if what it feeds me can be a little thin at times.”

  “Well, I’m all out of coffee and I’m all out of time. Don’t you have horses to attend to?”

  “We’re standing to, that’s all I know. Could get the word to take off any time.”

  Tom casually slid the wallets off his shoulder and lifted the flap on one of them to show the cook a bottle of French brandy. “Would this improve your mood any?”

  The cook’s eyes lit up, but his face stayed neutral. He was known as a good bargainer. “What do you want for it?”

  “I could use some extra grub. No telling where we’ll be by tonight.”

  “Maybe we can do business.”

  The cook prodded a wooden crate with his boot, turning it so Tom could read the label. Cans of Argentine corned beef, a staple of iron rations and their main source of protein. Tom figured he had eaten a thousand pounds of bully beef, but it was a lifesaver for hungry soldiers.

  Together they broke the crate open, and Tom stuffed his wallets until they were stretched tight as drumskins, lumpy and angular-looking. He whistled as he made his way back to the horse lines and secured the bags to the front of his saddle. He felt as rich as a British lord, his future assured.

  The rain had let up and the sun was trying to break through, the sky patchy with light. While faraway artillery drummed from time to time, Tom made the rounds of his troop, checking rifles and ammunition, swords and water containers, rations of oats and feedbags for their horses.

  Young Simpson’s face looked haggard. “You ready for another day of fun, trooper?” Tom asked.

  “Didn’t get much sleep, Sergeant.”

  “Neither did anybody else. You’ll be all right once we get on the move.”

  “I reckon.”

  Simpson would be fine, but Tom was worried about the other younger men, recent replacements not yet hardened to the demands of battle and the deprivation that was the lot of the soldier. They could bounce back if they got some rest, but when they spent all day in the saddle and had only three or four hours of sleep for days on end, they got run down fast. He would make sure old hands like Ferguson, Johanson, and Carbonnier kept an eye on them.

  He reported to Lieutenant Harrower. The troop was ready.

  AT THE GALLOP

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Stand to your horses.” God, if there was any order that would stay in his mind, it was that one. They had been hanging around for three hours, with no word yet on what the day would hold, just like so many days, weeks—hell, years—before. Tom thought again about Strathconas who had tired of standing to their horses and transferred elsewhere. Some were dead already, victims of the war in the trenches or in the air. Maybe some were among the pilots in the aircraft that, incongruously, whined and roared overhead, looking down as cavalrymen, symbolic of military strategy for centuries, galloped across the European landscape.

  Tom’s mind snapped back to the present as he heard hoofbeats pounding in from the
east, up the hill toward the camp overlooking Guyencourt. Two riders came into view, a corporal and a private, the corporal in the lead by fifty yards. Their horses were sweating and lathered, foam dripping from their forequarters. Tom recognized the corporal, a member of General Seely’s signal troop, as he swept past and reined to a halt at the headquarters tent. A minute later a trumpet call rang out—“Mount up.”

  Tom hurried to Toby, freed him from his tether, and climbed aboard. Mounted men milled around, forming up. They had responded to the bugle on countless occasions, but each time sent a shiver of excitement through Tom and, it seemed, the horses as well. They were all business as they awaited further orders: orders that could mean standing to, or thundering into battle, or any variation in between.

  At Tom’s signal the 1st Troop formed behind him in a paired column, side by side, that would straighten and line up when they moved out. He reported to Lieutenant Harrower, who took his place at the head of the troop while Tom rode Toby to his station at the rear of the formation.

  Flowerdew trotted over. “C Squadron, walk—march!” he ordered, and turned his horse east.

  Lieutenant Harrower passed on the order to the 1st Troop, and they followed behind him and Flowerdew, heading down the hill toward the Noye River. Once the whole troop was on the move, Tom spurred to catch up and stay close. It was his job to make sure horses and riders maintained the pace and to be ready to lend assistance if there were problems.

  The remaining troops of C Squadron followed, along with the rest of the Strathconas. The whole of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade was under way. They forded the Noye at Remiencourt, where they watered the horses and the men filled their water bottles.

  The Dragoons were leading, so the ground was well chewed up by a myriad of hoofs when Tom and the rest of the Strathconas climbed up the slope from the valley of the Noye. The brigade moved northward, staying off the skyline of a prominent ridge to their right. An hour out of camp they swung east, around a shoulder of the high ground, riding on a winding, hard-packed road that gave them better footing, and increased their pace to a steady trot. The promise of sunshine had faded, a uniform layer of high cloud covering the sky. Tom kept one eye on Lieutenant Harrower at the head of the troop, and one eye on the riders between him and the lieutenant. The 2nd Troop was right behind Tom, with the Fort Garrys in the rear of the Strathconas.

  As they crested a small hill Tom caught glimpses of a motorcycle coming from the south to intercept the brigade. The lead horses paused while the Dragoons took in the message, Tom assumed, then abruptly wheeled south, the rest of the brigade following.

  An hour later the troop topped a rise and Tom had a clear view of a broad valley, with fields and woods in a random pattern. Lieutenant Harrower showed Tom his map. Directly below them, the road led to the village of Castel and a bridge over the Avre River, which flowed roughly south to north. On the far or eastern side of the Avre was the village of Moreuil, a mile or so away, and on top of the ridge east of the village was a large wood, the Bois du Moreuil. The lowering sky lent a gloomy atmosphere to the scene, made more sombre by the rumble of desultory artillery.

  Movement at the north end of Moreuil Wood caught Tom’s eye, directly across the valley. He could just make out a group of horses and men, tiny in the distance, and perhaps even a red pennant. The pennant would be the flag of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, marking General Seely’s position.

  The Dragoons led the way down the slope toward the bridge at Castel, the Strathconas and Garrys clattering down the cobbled road behind them. They crossed the stone bridge and started up the eastern hillside toward General Seely’s headquarters at the northern edge of the wood. The horses worked hard, pushed by their riders. Suddenly, a trumpet sounded and the brigade thundered ahead at the gallop as they came under fire.

  Bullets whistled by Tom, seeming to come from his right, the general direction of the forest. Out in the open, he felt like a target in a shooting gallery. Bending low over Toby’s neck, he tilted his helmet to protect his face from the flying clods of earth and stones thrown up by the hoofs of the horses ahead of him.

  Something to the right caught his eye. He turned his head and saw a horse down, not moving. A soldier sat on the ground, legs stretched out in front of him, back against the saddle still on his horse’s body. The trooper waved an arm as the riders swept by.

  Tom concentrated on the horse and rider ahead of him as fear rose in his belly, clenching tight. A bullet could find him at any moment, and he’d be down on the ground, trampled by the following horses. There’d be no stretcher-bearers on this open hillside, raked as it was by enemy fire.

  He heard a cry behind him and looked back to see a horse and rider break ranks and quickly fall behind. He didn’t know who it was, but he thought of the new men in the troop and the fear they must feel, with no experience to fall back on. Tom, Toby, and the brigade spurred on, up the hill, following the lead riders toward Moreuil Wood.

  Nine days before, German forces had broken through where the French and British lines intersected. They were advancing in a southwesterly direction, looking to take the key city of Amiens, which was so close it could be seen from Seely’s headquarters. One hundred kilometres south of Amiens by arrow-straight railroad was Paris, the grand prize. The Canadian Cavalry Brigade—Dragoons, Strathconas, Fort Garrys—had been ordered into the breach.

  For those nine days the cavalry had fought skirmishes and delaying actions, usually in formations of a squadron or troop. A hundred, or thirty-five men and horses, or even fewer. The nimble cavalry could dash in, fight, and retreat. But this time the whole brigade was committed, and they were already under fire.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Ellen sat in the foyer of her father’s house, her blue coat on, one knee crossed over the other to allow a black, low-heeled, fashionable walking shoe to bounce up and down. Confining her hair was a matching blue bonnet that she thought of as jaunty, but she didn’t feel at all jaunty as she drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair. The otherwise somnolent house was disturbed only by the ticking of the tall clock down the hall and the vague scent of bleach and furniture polish, a leftover from the cleaning lady’s ministrations earlier in the day. She tried to calm her chaotic thoughts, impatient for Harry to arrive.

  Just when she was ready to leap from her chair and throw something at the wall, she heard approaching footsteps. Confident steps, that crunched on the frosted front walk. She waited until the knocker banged, counted to ten, rose, and opened the door.

  “Harry,” she said. “I was waiting for you.” Annoyed that he was late but relieved he had showed up, wanting to bring things to a head.

  Harry gave her a hug, but she turned her head as he tried to kiss her, so his lips brushed her cheek.

  “Let’s go. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you.” Harry had a broad smile on his handsome face, his eyes dancing.

  They set off on their walk. Ellen had agreed to see Harry yet again; he was fast becoming part of her life. Since their first kiss Ellen had melted. She was torn by Harry’s ardent attentions and the fading memory of Tom. She had a picture of Tom in her room, where she kept his letters. She gazed at the picture and reread the letters when her mental picture of him faded, but it was harder and harder to relive the joy she had felt with him.

  Harry held Ellen close, one arm around her shoulders. She kept her hands in her pockets as if they were cold, refusing to let her body relax against his.

  Only the night before, during the night shift at the Winnipeg General, Ellen had been taking a tea break with her friend Winnie when they were joined by two other girls, Sharon and Carol. They volunteered on another ward, though they had jobs elsewhere, and Ellen had come to know them at the hospital.

  Sharon had the reputation of being a bit fast but she was always good company. “Guess who has a new boyfriend?” she asked, glancing sideways at Carol.

  Carol was a short, curvaceous blonde. “He’s not a boyfriend. I hardly know him.”
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  “Tell them about it,” teased Sharon.

  “Never mind.”

  “Then I will. Carol was working last Saturday and had to stay late to put away some stock. She was bending over a shelf in a storeroom when a man came up behind her—and when she straightened up he grabbed her and kissed her.”

  Carol was beet-red. “He didn’t grab me. I wouldn’t stand for that. But he did kiss me, and I kissed him,” and she shot a venomous look at Sharon. “And you’d better not tell anyone else.”

  “And just who is this new man of yours?” asked Winnie.

  “I wouldn’t call him my man, but I can’t wait to see him again. He works for the Bay too, in the accounting department. He’s really good looking. Harry something.”

  Ellen had somehow kept her composure, as blood rushed to her face and her hands shook. She wanted to reach across the table and slap Carol, the lying little . . . little . . . hussy. My God, what if it’s true? She could hardly bear to sit and drink her tea, and as she finished her shift, she kept her mind busy with work.

  Now, as she walked with Harry, her feelings welled up again. It wasn’t that she had totally made her mind up about him, but she didn’t want to be made a fool of, either. She planted her feet. Harry, surprised, stopped and looked at her. She stood, tall and rigid, chin elevated, searching his face.

  “What? What is it?” he asked.

  “Do you know a girl named Carol?”

  “The only girl I know named Carol works at the Bay.”

  “Did you kiss her?” Ellen’s voice cracked. “What does she mean to you?”

  “Did I kiss her? Did I kiss her ? Absolutely not.”

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  Harry looked like a dog that had been kicked. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, Ellen.” His voice got stronger as he went on. “All I know is some girl named Carol, who’s a part-time salesgirl, has a crush on me. She left me a note, for heaven’s sake. Of course I threw it away. I’ve never been near her.”