Spitfire

Chapter One

Welcome to my new story! It might seem crazy but this is a book I'm hoping to publish. It's going to be something I'm going to stick with and finish. Now,  lets see what I have conjured up recently! Cover by  TheLlamaPope

I am not a coward.

I am not a coward.

I am not a coward.

But I am.

I hold the white feather in my hands, I can't tear my eyes away to look at the sobbing shape of my mother. I want to drop it, it feels like its burning a hole in my hands but I can't let it go. It rests there so innocently, it has no idea how much it just changed my life. A seemingly beautiful feather can bring my life crashing down,

"You shouldn't have to go! You're only a boy!" My mother cries, a hanky to her eyes, she backs herself into a sagging arm chair. Her small weathered shape folding in on herself.

"I'm seventeen and one day," I correct her, my eyes still locked on the long delicate feather resting on my rough, hardened hands. The burning hotter than a thousand suns. But still I can't let it fall.

"What about the farm, the family?" Mother pleads in a desperate attempt to discourage my thoughts, but my mind was set. I am not a coward, I'll prove that to them all!

"No, I am to go, me and Doug Parsons have been talking about it around the yards. We want to go mum," I comfort her absently. I am locked in this never ending staring contest with the feather, the stupid, stupid feather. Realistically, yes, who wants to go to war? But I will, it's my duty, and I must fulfil my duty, I told my mother so.

"What about your duty here, on the farm? Natalie, Kevin...me?" She challenged, her tone cold and strict, but it couldn't hide the sadness and despair n her voice. At this point, I leave. I loved my mother and she loved me but I wasn't going to be called a coward. Call it pride, I don't care.

My feet cary me to the yards, where the working horses are kept for the night. Our farm, once a prized stud has fallen onto common ground. Dad had seventy horses and they all had a place from working horses, broodmares and studs. They were his pride and joy up until the day he died, he died with the horses. The way he would have wanted it to be, but he left behind valuable horses, and a family who didn't know them half as well as he did. Then came the war, it came unannounced and horribly unwelcome. With a sense of great regret and heavy hearts we sold nearly all our horses to the cavalry. Sending them to war torn countries and the imminent death fighting another mans war. A war they never started.

The day has fallen to dusk, the sun sneaking away below the horizon dulling the magnificent coats of the horses who were stand quietly resting after a hard days work.

"Spitfire!" I call to a grey wiry looking colt standing away from the herd. He was a colt I brought down from the mountains last spring. Named after a deadly bomber plane, and boy he lived up to be deadly, viscously attacking anyone he thought were fit to be despised.

"You should let him go," a soft voice tells me. I look down to see Natalie, my sister, from the time she could run she was up on her pony working the cattle. It was as if she was born there, in the steep mountain gullies, the dusty plains, no one questioned her uncanny knack of cattle sense.

"Nah, he'll come round. I bet before your front tooth grows back," I bargain with her.

"Mum is crying, did you make her cry?" She accuses me, poking my leg pointedly and I glance down at her, her brown hair short and choppy framing her unnerving brown eyes.

"No, something else did," I reassure her, "shouldn't you be helping her with dinner?"

"Peeling potatoes is boring," she huffs toeing the dirt with her boot.