CHAPTER 18
IN THE EUPHORIC DAYS THAT FOLLOWED OUR REUNION, THE nightmare I had lived through seemed to fade into unreality, and the war itself was suddenly a million miles away and of no consequence. At last there were no guns to be heard, and the only vivid reminder that suffering and conflict was still going on were the regular arrivals of the veterinary wagons from the front.
Major Martin cleaned my wound and stitched it up, and though at first I could still put little weight on it, I felt in myself stronger with every day that passed. Albert was with me again, and that in itself was medicine enough; but properly fed once more with warm mash each morning and a never-ending supply of sweet-scented hay, my recovery seemed only a matter of time. Albert, like the other veterinary orderlies, had many other horses to care for, but he would spend every spare minute he could find fussing over me in the stable. To the other soldiers I was something of a celebrity, so I was scarcely ever left alone in my stable. There always seemed to be one or two faces looking admiringly over my door. Even old Thunder, as they called the sergeant, would inspect me overzealously, and when the others were not around he would fondle my ears and tickle me under my throat saying, “Quite a boy, aren’t you? Thundering fine horse if ever I saw one. You get better now, d’you hear?”
But time passed and I did not get better. One morning I found myself quite unable to finish my mash, and every sharp sound, like the kick of a bucket or the rattle of the bolt on the stable door, seemed to set me on edge and made me suddenly tense from head to tail. My forelegs, in particular, would not work as they should. They were still and tired, and I felt a great weight of pain all along my spine, creeping into my neck and even my face.
Albert noticed something was wrong when he saw the mash I had left in my bucket. “What’s the matter with you, Joey?” he said anxiously, and he reached out his hand to stroke me in the way he often did when he was concerned. Even the sight of his hand coming toward me, normally a welcome sign of affection, struck an alarm in me, and I backed away from him into the corner of the stable. As I did so, I found that the stiffness in my front legs would hardly allow me to move. I stumbled backward, falling against the brick wall at the back of the stable, and leaning there heavily. “I thought something was wrong yesterday,” said Albert, standing still now in the middle of the stable. “Thought you were a little out of sorts then. Your back’s as stiff as a board, and you’re covered in sweat. What the devil have you been up to, you old silly?” He moved slowly now toward me and although his touch still sent an irrational tremor of fear through me, I stood my ground and allowed him to stroke me. “Maybe it was something you picked up on your travels. Maybe you ate something poisonous, is that it? But then that would have shown itself before now, surely? You’ll be fine, Joey, but I’ll go and fetch Major Martin just in case. He’ll look you over and if there’s anything wrong he’ll put you right ‘quick as a wink,’ as my father used to say. Wonder what he would think now if he could see us together? He never believed I’d find you, either—said I was a fool to go. Said it was a fool’s errand and that I’d likely get myself killed in the process. But he was a different man, Joey, after you left. He knew he’d done wrong and that seemed to take all the nastiness out of him. He seemed to live only to make up for what he’d done. He stopped his Tuesday drinking sessions, looked after Mother as he used to do when I was little, and he even began to treat me right—didn’t treat me like a workhorse anymore.”
I knew from the soft tone of his voice that he was trying to calm me, as he had done all those long years ago when I was a wild and frightened colt. Then his words had soothed me, but now I could not stop myself from trembling. Every nerve in my body seemed to be tense, and I was breathing heavily. Every fiber of me was consumed by a totally inexplicable sense of fear and dread. “I’ll be back in a minute, Joey,” he said. “Don’t you worry. You’ll be all right. Major Martin will fix you—he’s a miracle with horses, that man is.” And he backed away from me and went out.
It was not long before he was back again with his friend David, Major Martin, and Sergeant Thunder, but only Major Martin came inside the stable to examine me. The others leaned over the stable door and watched. He approached me cautiously, crouching down by my foreleg to examine my wound. Then he ran his hands all over me from my ears, down my back to my tail, before standing back to survey me from the other side of the stable. He was shaking his head ruefully as he turned to speak to the others.
“What do you think, Sergeant?” he asked.
“Same as you, from the look of him, sir,” said Sergeant Thunder. “He’s standing there like a block of wood, tail stuck out, can hardly move his head. Not much doubt about it, is there, sir?”
“None,” said Major Martin. “None whatsoever. We’ve had a lot of it out here. If it isn’t confounded rusty barbed wire, then it’s shrapnel wounds. One little fragment left inside, one cut—that’s all it takes. I’ve seen it time and again. I’m sorry, my boy,” the major said, putting his hand on Albert’s shoulder to console him. “I know how much this horse means to you. But there’s precious little we can do for him, not in his condition.”
“What do you mean, sir?” Albert asked, a tremor in his voice. “How do you mean, sir? What’s the matter with him, sir? Can’t be a lot wrong, can there? He was right as rain yesterday, except he wasn’t finishing his feed. Little stiff, maybe, but otherwise right as rain he was.”
“It’s tetanus, son,” said Sergeant Thunder. “Lockjaw they call it. It’s written all over him. That wound of his must have festered before we got him here. And once a horse has tetanus, there’s very little chance, very little indeed.”
“Best to end it quickly,” Major Martin said. “No point in an animal suffering. Better for him and better for you.”
“No, sir,” Albert protested, still incredulous. “No you can’t, sir. Not with Joey. We must try something. There must be something you can do. You can’t just give up, sir. You can’t. Not with Joey.”
David spoke up now in support. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said. “But I remember you telling us when we first came here that a horse’s life is maybe even more important than a man’s, ’cause a horse hasn’t got no evil in him except any that’s put there by men. I remember you saying that our job in the veterinary corps was to work night and day, twenty-six hours a day if need be to save and help every horse that we could, that every horse was valuable in himself and valuable to the war effort. No horse, no guns. No horse, no ammunition. No horse, no cavalry. No horse, no ambulances. No horse, no water for the troops at the front. Lifeline of the whole army, you said, sir. We must never give up, you said, ’cause where there’s life there’s still hope. That’s what you said, sir, begging your pardon, sir.”
“You watch your lip, son,” said Sergeant Thunder sharply. “That’s no way to speak to an officer. If the major here thought there was a chance in a million of savin’ this poor animal, he’d have a crack at it, wouldn’t you, sir? Isn’t that right, sir?”
Major Martin looked hard at Sergeant Thunder, taking his meaning, and then nodded slowly. “All right, Sergeant. You made your point. Of course there’s a chance,” he said carefully. “But if once we start with a case of tetanus, then it’s a full-time job for one man for a month or more, and even then the horse has hardly more than one chance in a thousand, if that.”
“Please, sir,” Albert pleaded. “Please, sir. I’ll do it all, sir, and I’ll fit in my other horses, too, sir. Honest I will, sir.”
“And I’ll help him, sir,” David said. “All the guys will. I know they will. You see, sir, that Joey’s special for everyone here, what with his being Berty’s own horse back home and all.”
“That’s the spirit, son,” said Sergeant Thunder. “And it’s true, sir, there is something special about this one, you know, after all he’s been through. With your permission, sir, I think we ought to give him that chance. You have my personal guarantee, sir, that no other horse will be neglected. Stables will be run shipshape, like always.”
Major Martin put his hands on the stable door. “Right, Sergeant,” he said. “You’re on. I like a challenge as well as the next man. I want a sling rigged up in here. This horse must not be allowed to get off his legs. Once he’s down, he’ll never get up again. I want a note added to standing orders, Sergeant, that no one’s to talk in anything but a whisper in this yard. He won’t like any noise, not with tetanus. I want a bed of short, clean straw—and fresh every day. I want the windows covered over so that he’s always kept in the dark. He’s not to be fed any hay—he could choke on it—just milk and oatmeal gruel. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better—if it does. You’ll find his mouth will lock tighter as the days go by, but he must go on feeding and he must drink. If he doesn’t, then he’ll die. I want a twenty-four–hour watch on this horse—that means a man posted in here all day and every day. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said Sergeant Thunder, smiling broadly under his mustache. “And if I may say so, sir, I think you’ve made a very wise decision. I’ll see to it, sir. Now, look lively, you two. You heard what the officer said.”
That same day a sling was strung up around me and my weight supported from the beams above. Major Martin opened up my wound again, cleaned and cauterized it. He returned every few hours after that to examine me. It was Albert, of course, who stayed with me most of the time, holding up the bucket to my mouth so that I could suck in the warm milk or gruel. At nights, David and he slept side by side in the corner of the stable, taking turns to watch me.
As I had come to expect, and as I needed, Albert talked to me all he could to comfort me, until sheer fatigue drove him back into his corner to sleep. He talked much of his father and mother and about the farm. He talked of a girl he had been seeing up in the village for the few months before he left for France. She didn’t know anything about horses, he said, but that was her only fault.
The days passed slowly and painfully for me. The stiffness in my front legs spread to my back and intensified; my appetite was becoming more limited each day, and I could scarcely summon the energy or enthusiasm to suck in the food I knew I needed to stay alive. In the darkest days of my illness, when I felt sure each day might be my last, only Albert’s constant presence kept alive in me the will to live. His devotion, his unwavering faith that I would indeed recover, gave me the heart to go on. All around me I had friends. David and all the veterinary orderlies, Sergeant Thunder and Major Martin—they were all a source of great encouragement to me. I knew how desperately they were willing me to live, although I often wondered whether they wanted it for me or for Albert, because I knew they held him in such high esteem. But on reflection, I think perhaps they cared for both of us as if we were their brothers.
Then, one winter’s night after long painful weeks in the sling, I felt a sudden looseness in my throat and neck, so much so that I could call out, albeit softly, for the first time. Albert was sitting in the corner of the stable as usual with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up and his elbows resting on his knees. His eyes were closed, so I nickered again softly, but it was loud enough to wake him. “Was that you, Joey?” he asked, pulling himself to his feet. “Was that you, you old silly? Do it again, Joey. I might have been dreaming. Do it again.” So I did and in so doing I lifted my head for the first time in weeks and shook it. David heard it, too, and was on his feet and shouting over the stable door for everyone to come. Within minutes the stable was full of excited soldiers. Sergeant Thunder pushed his way through and stood before me. “Standing orders say whisper,” he said. “And that was no thundering whisper I heard. What’s up? What’s all the hullabaloo?”
“He moved, Sarge,” Albert said. “His head moved easily and he neighed.”
“’Course he did, son,” said Sergeant Thunder. “’Course he did. He’s going to make it. Like I said he would. I always told you he would, didn’t I? And have any of you lazybones ever known me to be wrong? Well, have you?”
“Never, Sarge,” said Albert, grinning from ear to ear. “He is getting better, isn’t he, Sarge? I’m not just imagining it, am I?”
“No, son,” said Sergeant Thunder. “Your Joey is going to be all right by the looks of him, long as we keep him quiet and so long as we don’t rush him. I just hope that if I’m ever sick, I have nurses around me that look after me like you boys have this horse. One thing, though: looking at you, I’d like them to be a whole lot prettier!”
Shortly after, I could use my legs again and then the stiffness left my back forever. They took me out of the sling and walked me one spring morning out into the sunshine of the paved yard. It was a triumphant parade, with Albert leading me, carefully walking backward and talking to me all the while. “You’ve done it, Joey. You’ve done it. Everyone says the war’s going to be over soon—I know we’ve been saying that for a long time, but I feel it in my bones this time. It’ll be finished before long, and then we’ll both be going home, back to the farm. I can’t wait to see the look on Father’s face when I bring you back up the road. I just can’t wait.”