In Distant Fields

by Charlotte Bingham

  In the hurry that always follows a decision, he forgot to post the letter, and it sat behind the clock on his mantelpiece for some weeks. Finding it at last, just before his sailing, he quickly put it in what he had learned to call the mail with a PS on the back of the envelope: ‘I might be home before this!’

  It irritated Kitty that Partita was quite so good at knitting, particularly since she knew how much Partita hated it. But although she was still only-learning the skill, she could knit as fast as anyone else seated round the library fire – a number that included both Tinker and Bridie, who could both already knit – with her feet up in front of her on an ottoman, racing through ball after ball of wool while sighing deeply with boredom all the while.

  ‘I’ve always had this capacity to pick things up quite quickly,’ she said between sighs.

  ‘Quickly?’ Kitty laughed. ‘If there were an English Ladies knitting team you’d already be on it.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ Partita frowned. ‘I may look as though I can knit but you haven’t yet seen what I’m knitting.’

  She held up her handiwork for assessment. It was greeted predictably enough with amazement from Kitty and laughter from the maids.

  ‘May God help the poor lad who gets that,’ Bridie grinned. ‘Sure he wouldn’t know whether to wear it or put it on his tea pot.’

  ‘It is meant, I think, to be a body warmer,’ Partita said gravely.

  ‘Yes, but what part of the body is it meant to warm, Lady Tita?’ Tinker asked, poker-faced.

  ‘A foot, perhaps,’ Kitty said helpfully. ‘Or maybe an elbow?’

  ‘If we’re talking perhapses, then perhaps you all ought to wait until I’ve finished,’ Partita suggested. ‘At least it’s a cheery colour. Guaranteed to bring a smile to the face – and actually while we’re on the subject, you do wonder what the point of all this knitting is, if they’re all going to be home for Christmas. What is the point?’

  ‘Since it is now only two weeks away,’ Kitty said. ‘I don’t really think that prediction holds any more.’

  ‘No,’ Partita agreed. ‘I know it doesn’t. But then it doesn’t do any harm to keep thinking it – just in case of miracles. Have you any news more about Tommy Taylor, Tinks? Since he volunteered.’

  ‘Didn’t I say, milady?’ Tinker replied, casting off her knitting and holding it up to appraise it. ‘He come up from London two days ago ’cos he had some leave, and he looks so good in his uniform, I can tell you. He looks really smart.’

  ‘He’s bound to, Tinks. He always looked the part in his livery; took every eye.’

  ‘And he looks every bit as smart as a soldier, milady. His battalion’s part of Kitchener’s Third Army, and he says once they get over there, look out, Jerry.’

  ‘He’s not going out before Christmas, surely?’ Kitty wondered, looking up from her needles.

  ‘Ah, no, surely not, please God indeed,’ Bridie agreed. ‘Surely they’ll stick a white flag up for the Holy Season – please God so they will. They’d never be shooting at each other during the Nativity now, would they?’

  ‘I understood that no fresh troops were to be sent out until the New Year,’ Kitty assured her. ‘But that’s only hearsay. Something the Duchess said the Duke had mentioned.’

  ‘Papa is still simply furious, being stuck behind a desk in Whitehall,’ Partita reminded them. ‘Said it’s neither fish nor fowl, being a general and being given a pen instead of a sword. He told Mamma he had a very good mind to issue himself an order to go over to France and join his regiment, and when you think of it, it’s not such a bad notion, because who could countermand him?’

  ‘Tommy says his lot aren’t going to be sent over till May,’ Tinker said, casting on for a new garment. ‘He says he heard if they were sent sooner Jerry wouldn’t have a chance, but seems they’re being made to wait so that when they do all go over, the New Armies this is, they’ll be really certain of victory.’

  ‘And now who needs the wireless or the newspapers when you’ve got young Tinker here?’ Bridie wondered. ‘She’s a positive goldmine of information.’

  ‘What about Tully then, Bridie?’ Tinker wondered, glancing at her friend. ‘Still not made his mind up?’

  ‘He says he must see to the horses first, then he’ll decide,’ Bridie replied. ‘All this requisitioning, he says it’s a wonder they haven’t been up here yet.’

  ‘Tommy’s brother, who lives down in Essex, he told Tommy they’ve taken just about every horse there is in Essex, so they’ll be bound to be up here soon.’

  ‘Just don’t tell Papa,’ Partita said. ‘Can you imagine?’

  She looked at Kitty, both of them knowing what a fell blow it would be if and when the purchasing officers finally came to call.

  The Duke had failed to persuade the powers above him to offer him more than his present desk job.

  ‘Anyone would think we were finished, Boodles,’ he confided aloud to his boon companion as the dog streaked ahead of him across St James’s Park. ‘Truly, anyone would think one had lost one’s marbles, instead of gaining a few more over the years. Still, might make it an excuse to kick on back to Bauders for a few days over Christmas, bit better than kicking one’s heels in London.’

  He was hardly home, and feeling once again oddly at a loose end, probably due to the busy nature of Circe’s hospital routines, and one thing and another, when Jossy, having picked him up from the Halt, reappeared before him as he walked about the park, Boodles dashing in front, much as he had been earlier in London.

  ‘Ah, there you are again, Your Grace. Sun’s bin up more than a few hours, so doubtless we’ll be going for a ride, won’t we?’

  ‘Will we, Jossy?’

  ‘I’m thinking that’s what Barrymore Boy just told me.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ The Duke nodded. ‘Good idea, Jossy. Blow the London cobwebs away, eh? Come on, Boodles, time to change for a ride.’

  When the Duke walked into his stable yard, Jossy had already saddled up Barrymore Boy, and was holding first his bridle by the saddling block and then the stirrup leather opposite to the mounting side as John swung into the saddle. Almost at once, and before they walked out of the yard, both horse and rider gave that particular sigh that men and their horses are wont to give when they are once more reunited.

  Just for a second, before Barrymore Boy’s hoofs started to touch the still damp grass, it seemed to the Duke that the park lay before them spread out as if on a vast table, with trees and deer merely toys. Yet they were real, just as his toy soldiers had been real when he was a small boy and playing on his own on the top floor of his father’s house, wondering at the sights and sounds of the grown-ups below him in the same park through which he now began to trot and then canter.

  The scenes through which horse and rider now cantered were those of winter, but a perfect winter in which the frost had hardly melted off the leaves of the magnificent old trees planted centuries ago by his ancestors. As Barrymore Boy started to canter, faster and faster, John knew that their spirits were as one, and as he flew over a wooden stile and increased his pace into a gallop, he happily surrendered thought for sheer sensation. It was as if all the worries and the cares of the past weeks had been pounded from under him, and he was ageless, a free spirit surrendering to the moment.

  Finally he eased his mount back to the first halt they had taken, now they were back in the park, John taking the view from the last rise that overlooked his home, the ancient stonework of the great house illuminated by a great watery midday sun.

  ‘Home, old fellow,’ John said quietly, pulling one of his horse’s big ears back gently. ‘Dulce domum. Home sweet home.’

  They were waiting for him in the stable yard, standing idly smoking cigarettes, one of them seated on a water barrel, the other leaning over an empty stable door. Hearing the clatter of hoofs on cobbles and seeing the upright figure of the horseman and the scurry of the grooms to take the horse and attend to the rider, the two men had little trouble gu
essing the identity of the new arrival, and extinguished their cigarettes at once, straightened their caps and marched down the yard to introduce themselves to the Duke.

  The purchasing officer, a small wiry man with an intense look to his eyes, a neat ginger moustache and prominent rabbit teeth, introduced himself officially to the Duke and stated his business.

  ‘Name – Thomas Dyke. We are here to requisition horses, sir.’

  The Duke eyed him. ‘Yes?’

  There was a way of saying ‘yes’, and another way of saying ‘yes’, and Jossy knew that way of His Grace’s saying ‘yes’ after a bit of a pause – and it was chilling. However it did not seem to have much effect on this Thomas Dyke.

  ‘We have already called on your tenant farmers, sir,’ Dyke stated, moving towards the Duke to show him the list of horses already earmarked for service. ‘You will be paid the sum of forty pounds for the ordinary horses up to fifteen hands three, and up to the top limit of seventy pounds for beasts deemed suitable as officers’ chargers. The animal from which you yourself have just dismounted, sir – a good stamp of a horse mark – should fetch you the seventy pounds.’

  ‘The horse to which you refer, sir, is already spoken for and will not be going to you,’ John replied, nodding to Jossy to take Barrymore Boy away. ‘The horse has been loaned to Captain Harrington of the Dragoons, a neighbour of mine, and that is where he is to go.’

  ‘That is a matter for debate, sir,’ Dyke replied, regarding the Duke with a pair of singularly mean dark eyes. ‘My instructions are to requisition all suitable beasts, after which they will be sent to the remount centre to be trained for service and to be allocated as the army sees fit.’

  ‘You aware who you’re addressing, man?’ Jossy asked, stepping in between the two men, while still holding hard to Barrymore Boy. ‘His Grace has made his wishes perfectly clear.’

  ‘Horses away, Jossy, horses away.’ The Duke nodded his appreciation and Jossy, taking the hint, moved off.

  ‘Those are my orders, sir,’ Dyke insisted, with a sly half-smile. ‘I’m only obeying my orders, sir.’

  ‘I am sure you are, sir, but no one questions my honour in my stable yard. I have told you – Barrymore Boy is promised to Captain Harrington of the Dragoons.’

  ‘Can’t disobey my orders, sir.’

  ‘Your Grace!’ Jossy muttered as he passed them once more.

  ‘My horse is going to war under my terms,’ John persisted. ‘I don’t wish to be paid. The army can take every saddle horse here that is sound enough to do service, but if I say this horse of mine is already spoken for, that is all there is to it. He goes to Captain Harrington this afternoon, and if you wish for confirmation you may have it in writing. Is that understood?’

  ‘The beasts must all go—’

  ‘The horses that are not already on loan may be requisitioned.’ The Duke turned to Jossy. ‘Be so good as to arrange a parade of horses, please, Mr Jocelyn.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Your Grace.’

  The Duke watched as his horses were trotted up, one after another for the wretched Thomas Dyke, who stood with his corporal at his side, writing down sizes, marks and names. The Duke watched with a mixture of pride and heartbreak, proud at the quality and good temperament of the animals, most of which he had bred, and heartbroken at the thought of what lay ahead for creatures used to the best of lives, the kindest of treatments. Where they were bound there would be no great hedges and ditches to leap, no fine turf on which to gallop, no lush pastures in which to doze and graze. Instead, they would be hauling cannon, carrying men with guns, fighting their way through mud, deafened by the pounding noise of huge guns, terrified by the screaming of shells and explosions, fed on poor rations and made to sleep where they could, when not exposed to the winter elements and the never-ending scent of death.

  His heart went out to the beautiful animals whose only real desire was to carry their masters for pleasure, pull ploughs and harrows, carts, carriages and buses for their labours, and finally to graze quietly in good pastures. He tried not to look in their eyes as they were trotted up. He knew that to them it was just another day, a time when they would be groomed, exercised, groomed again, fed, given fresh bedding and water and settled back in their boxes for another evening of equine contemplation, finally to fall asleep in a deep bed of fresh straw.

  Doubtless this was the last day they would enjoy such comforts before being transported away from their homes, from a place they had always known to distant hostile environments, where they would become a number rather than a stable name, and where their only task would be to help slaughter innocent people whom politicians called ‘the enemy’. It would be very different country to Bauders country, and it would be a very different form of hunting.

  ‘These are fine animals, Your Grace,’ the corporal, who up to now had remained silent, remarked. ‘Wish we had access to more stock like this.’

  ‘Kind of you. However, they were not bred for war.’

  ‘Seen the stuff they sent us from Ireland,’ the corporal continued. ‘Had to spin near fifteen per cent of ’em.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘You should have seen the state of some of ’em, Your Grace. Barely got off the boat, poor creatures.’

  ‘Need to see the rest of your stock, sir!’ Dyke interrupted them, calling down the yard.

  ‘Those are my stock, sir.’

  ‘Draught horses, shires and the like! Oh, and any ponies you may or may not have!’

  ‘I dare say your children have grown out of their ponies, have they not, Your Grace?’ the corporal suggested under his breath. ‘If you get my meaning.’

  ‘Perfectly, and you happen to be right, in the main, you are right.’

  Jossy had been just about to say, ‘We have no ponies,’ when Dyke’s eyes alighted on Trotty, standing looking over his box, a hay wisp hanging from his mouth, his large intelligent eyes taking in everything that had been happening, knowing, as horses and ponies sometimes sense when the routine of their lives was about to be shattered, that as Jossy would say, ‘summat was up’.

  Dyke turned to Tully. who was standing looking as if the earth had opened up under him and he had glimpsed hell.

  ‘Let’s have a look at him then, lad, and quick about it.’

  Tully produced Trotty from the pony’s box at the end, leading him up at the walk.

  ‘He’ll do us,’ Dyke said, with a nod. ‘He’s a strong enough sort, and sound. No doubt of that, I’m sure. Lead him up at the trot.’

  Tully took hold of Trotty’s bridle and began to trot him up.

  There was a long silence, which the Duke took care not to break.

  ‘He’s as lame as an old soldier,’ Jossy announced, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice.

  ‘So he is,’ the Duke agreed, taking care not to look at Jossy. ‘So he is. What a pity.’

  ‘Put him away. He’s no use to anyone except the meat man,’ Dyke announced, turning away.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Dyke turned to the Duke.

  ‘We’ll have the manifest with you this after-noon, and the beasts off your hands by morning, payment as agreed.’

  ‘These horses are on loan, as a gift from me, the Duke of Eden, to the army. They are to return here when their work is done.’

  ‘I am empowered to procure animals by compulsory purchase.’

  ‘And as a general, sir, I am empowered to tell you I am gifting them to the army. Is that clear? You do not have to pay a penny for these creatures!’

  The Duke turned on his heel and walked off. He had produced his trump card when it was needed.

  ‘Typical general,’ Dyke muttered, remaining unabashed. ‘Changes the rules to suit himself.’

  He had hardly finished speaking when Tully led one of the older horses a sight too near him.

  ‘Be careful, you idiot!’ Dyke yelled, clutching his foot. ‘Watch what you’re doing!’

  ‘I’d say it’s you what wants to be more ca
reful,’ Jossy replied, without apology. ‘You obviously don’t know your way round horses. Get too close to ’em and they’re sure to tread on your corns.’ He turned back to Tully. ‘Same as what he’s doing to other people, wouldn’t you say?’

  Jossy found his son in Trotty’s stable, fixing the pony a fresh hay net.

  ‘Want us to get the veterinarian, son?’ he asked, going to feel the pony’s leg. ‘He’s hoppin’ lame, is our Trotty, and that’s plain to see.’

  ‘Thought you didn’t agree with veterinarian, Pa?’

  ‘I don’t, son, but he is well lame, and seeing that—’ He picked up the pony’s hoof and stared at it, shaking his head. ‘And seeing that—’ He stopped. ‘Ee, but that was lucky,’ he murmured then, carefully removing a tack from the foot.

  ‘Lucky, Pa?’

  ‘Oh, yes, son, lucky.’ Jossy straightened up. ‘Lucky that the commissioning office didn’t do what I just did. Long as no ’arm’s done,’ he growled, giving the pony a pat on the neck.

  Tully had decided to join up long before the horses were led away from the yard.

  ‘You don’t have to go till you’re called, son,’ Jossy told him the following evening. ‘From what I heard, army’s not looking for recruits right now. They got men enough.’

  ‘It’s not the point, Pa.’ Tully searched within himself for a minute to express what he felt. ‘I – I just feel if they’ve gone, if horses have gone, and this in’t their quarrel, then most I can do is go as well. Maybe I can join a mounted regiment with horses and do my bit that way. Else – I’m just going to be idle here, and with most of my friends volunteering, it just don’t seem right to stay behind.’

  Jossy could not look at him, could not reply, could not say what he wanted to say – that it was enough that Ben, his younger boy, had gone; it was enough that all the horses – setting aside Trotty and the old carriage horses – had been taken; and now he had to lose Tully.

  ‘As you wish, son, as you wish. Nothing a parent ever said could stop their children doing what they want, Mother used to say. Not a tear, not a cry, not a pleading, nothing – that’s what she used to say. And wasn’t she right?’ He stood up abruptly.