War Horse by Micheal Morpurgo

Chapter 2

THROUGH THE LONG hard winters and hazy summers that followed, Albert and I grew up together.
A yearling colt and a young lad have more in common than awkward gawkishness.
Whenever he was not at school in the village, or out at work with his father on the farm, he would lead me out over the fields and down to the flat, thistly marsh by the Torridge river. Here on the only level ground on the farm he began my training, just walking and trotting me up and down, and later on lunging me first one way and then the other. On the way back to the farm he would allow me to follow on at my own speed, and I learnt to come at his whistle, not out of obedience but because I always wanted to be with him. His whistle imitated the stuttering call of an owl – it was a call I never refused and I would never forget.
Old Zoey, my only other companion, was often away all day ploughing and harrowing, cutting and turning out on the farm and so I was left on my own much of the time. Out in the fields in the summer time this was bearable because I could always hear her working and call out to her from time to time, but shut in the lone-liness of the stable in the winter, all day could pass without seeing or hearing a soul, unless Albert came for me.
As Albert had promised, it was he who cared for me, and protected me all he could from his father; and his father did not turn out to be the monster I had expected. Most of the time he ignored me and if he did look me over, it was always from a distance. From time to time he could even be quite friendly, but I was never quite able to trust him, not after our first encounter. I would never let him come too close, and would always back off and shy away to the other end of the field and put old Zoey between us. On every Tuesday however, Albert’s father could still be relied upon to get drunk, and on his return Albert would often find some pretext to be with me to ensure that he never came near me.
On one such autumn evening about two years after I came to the farm Albert was up in the village church ringing the bells. As a precaution he had put me in the stable with old Zoey as he always did on Tuesday evenings. ‘You’ll be safer together. Father won’t come in and bother you, not if you’re together,’ he’d say, and then he’d lean over the stable door and lecture us about the intricacies of bellringing and how he had been given the big tenor bell because they thought he was man enough already to handle it and that in no time he’d be the biggest lad in the village. My Albert was proud of his bellringing prowess and as Zoey and I stood head to tail in the darkening stable, lulled by the six bells ringing out over the dusky fields from the church, we knew he had every right to be proud. It is the noblest of music for everyone can share it – they have only to listen.
I must have been standing asleep for I do not recall hearing him approach, but quite suddenly there was the dancing light of a lantern at the stable door and the bolts were pulled back. I thought at first it might be Albert, but the bells were still ringing, and then I heard the voice that was
unmistakably that of Albert’s father on a Tuesday night after market. He hung the lantern up above the door and came towards me. There was a whippy stick in his hand and he was staggering around the stable towards me.
‘So, my proud little devil,’ he said, the threat in his voice quite undisguised. ‘I’ve a bet on that I can’t have you pulling a plough inside a week. Farmer Easton and the others at The George think I can’t handle you. But I’ll show ’em. You’ve been molly-coddled enough, and the time has come for you to earn your keep. I’m going to try some collars on you this evening, find one that fits, and then tomorrow we’ll start ploughing. Now we can do it the nice way or the nasty way. Give me trouble and I’ll whip you till you bleed.’
Old Zoey knew his mood well enough and whinnied her warning, backing off into the dark recesses of the stable, but she need not have warned me for I sensed his intention. One look at the raised stick sent my heart thumping wildly with fear. Terrified, I knew I could not run, for there was nowhere to go, so I put my back to him and lashed out behind me. I felt my hooves strike home. I heard a cry of pain and turned to see him crawling out of the stable door dragging one leg stiffly behind him and muttering words of cruel vengeance.
That next morning both Albert and his father came out together to the stables. His father was walking with a pronounced limp. They were carrying a collar each and I could see that Albert had been crying for his pale cheeks were stained with tears. They stood together at the stable door. I noticed with infinite pride and pleasure that my Albert was already taller than his father whose face was drawn and lined with pain. ‘If your mother hadn’t begged me last night, Albert, I’d have shot that horse on the spot. He could’ve killed me. Now I’m warning you, if that animal is not ploughing straight as an arrow inside a week, he’ll be sold on, and that’s a promise. It’s up to you. You say you can deal with him, and I’ll give you just one chance. He won’t let me go near him. He’s wild and vicious, and unless you make it your business to tame him and train him inside that week, he’s going. Do you understand? That horse has to earn his keep like everyone else around here – I don’t care how showy he is – that horse has got to learn how to work. And I’ll promise you another thing, Albert, if I have to lose that bet, then he has to go.’ He dropped the collar on the ground and turned on his heel to go.
‘Father,’ said Albert with resolution in his voice. ‘I’ll train Joey – I’ll train him to plough all right – but you must promise never to raise a stick to him again. He can’t be handled that way, I know him, Father. I know him as if he were my own brother.’
‘You train him, Albert, you handle him. Don’t care how you do it. I don’t want to know,’ said his father dismissively. ‘I’ll not go near the brute again. I’d shoot him first.’
But when Albert came into the stable it was not to smoothe me as he usually did, nor to talk to me gently. Instead he walked up to me and looked me hard in the eye. ‘That was divilish stupid,’ he said sternly. ‘If you want to survive, Joey, you’ll have to learn. You’re never to kick out at anyone ever again. He means it, Joey. He’d have shot you just like that if it hadn’t been for Mother. It was Mother who saved you. He wouldn’t listen to me and he never will. So never again Joey. Never.’ His voice changed now, and he spoke more like himself. ‘We have one week Joey, only one week to get you ploughing. I know with all that thoroughbred in you you may think it beneath you, but that’s what you’re going to have to do. Old Zoey and me, we’re going to train you; and it’ll be divilish hard work – even harder for you ’cos you’re not quite the right shape for it. There’s not enough of you yet. You won’t much like me by the end of it, Joey. But Father means what he says. He’s a man of his word. Once he’s made up his mind, then that’s that. He’d sell you on, even shoot you rather than lose that bet, and that’s for sure.’
That same morning, with the mists still clinging to the fields and linked side by side to dear old Zoey in a collar that hung loose around my shoulders, I was led out on to Long Close and my training as a farmhorse began. As we took the strain together for the first time the collar rubbed at my skin and my feet sank deep into the soft ground with the effort of it. Behind, Albert was shouting almost continuously, flashing a whip at me whenever I hesitated or went off line, whenever he felt I was not giving it my best – and he knew. This was a different Albert. Gone were the gentle words and the kindnesses of the past. His voice had a harshness and a sharpness to it that would brook no refusal on my part. Beside me old Zoey leant into her collar and pulled silently, head down, digging in with her feet. For her sake and for my own sake, for Albert’s too, I leant my weight into my collar and began to pull. I was to learn during that week the rudiments of ploughing like a farm horse. Every muscle I had ached with the strain of it; but after a night’s good rest stretched out in the stable I was fresh again and ready for work the next morning.
Each day as I progressed and we began to plough more as a team, Albert used the whip less and less and spoke more gently to me again, until finally at the end of the week I was sure I had all but regained his affection. Then one afternoon after we had finished the headland around Long Close, he unhitched the plough and put an arm around each of us. ‘It’s all right now, you’ve done it my beauties.
You’ve done it,’ he said. ‘I didn’t tell you, ’cos I didn’t want to put you off, but Father and Farmer Easton have been watching us from the house this afternoon.’ He scratched us behind the ears and smoothed our noses. ‘Father’s won his bet and he told me at breakfast that if we finished the field today he’d forget all about the incident, and that you could stay on, Joey. So you’ve done it my beauty and I’m so proud of you I could kiss you, you old silly, but I won’t do that, not with them watching. He’ll let you stay now, I’m sure he will. He’s a man of his word is my father, you can be sure of that – long as he’s sober.’
It was some months later, on the way back from cutting the hay in Great Meadow along the sunken leafy lane that led up into the farmyard that Albert first talked to us of the war. His whistling stopped in midtune. ‘Mother says there’s likely to be a war,’ he said sadly. ‘I don’t know what it’s about, something about some old Duke that’s been shot at somewhere. Can’t think why that should matter to anyone, but she says we’ll be in it all the same. But it won’t affect us, not down here. We’ll go on just the same. At fifteen I’m too young to go anyway – well that’s what she said. But I tell you Joey, if there is a war I’d want to go. I think I’d make a good soldier, don’t you? Look fine in a uniform, wouldn’t I? And I’ve always wanted to march to the beat of a band. Can you imagine that, Joey? Come to that, you’d make a good war horse yourself, wouldn’t you, if you ride as well as you pull, and I know you will. We’d make quite a pair. God help the Germans if they ever have to fight the two of us.’
One hot summer evening, after a long and dusty day in the fields, I was deep into my mash and oats, with Albert still rubbing me down with straw and talking on about the abundance of good straw they’d have for the winter months, and about how good the wheat straw would be for the thatching they would be doing, when I heard his father’s heavy steps coming across the yard towards us. He was calling out as he came. ‘Mother,’ he shouted. ‘Mother, come out Mother.’ It was his sane voice, his sober voice and was a voice that held no fear for me. ‘It’s war, Mother. I’ve just heard it in the village. Postman came in this afternoon with the news. The devils have marched into Belgium. It’s certain for sure now. We declared war yesterday at eleven o’clock. We’re at war with the Germans. We’ll give them such a hiding as they won’t ever raise their fists again to anyone. Be over in a few months. It’s always been the same. Just because the British lion’s sleeping they think he’s dead. We’ll teach them a thing or two, Mother – we’ll teach them a lesson they’ll never forget.’
Albert had stopped brushing me and dropped the straw on the ground. We moved over towards the stable door. His mother was standing on the steps by the door of the farmhouse. She had her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh dear God,’ she said softly. ‘Oh dear God.’