Soldier of the Horse (23 page)

Eight men, he thought. No, five. One was already in an aid station with wounds suffered the previous day and Johanson was away holding the horses. Ferguson had been ordered to the rear. Not good odds: mostly men newer to the regiment, although, like Simpson, many of those were proving their metal.

The field in front of him looked like an anthill with its top kicked off. Everywhere, grey-clad figures tramped and crawled. As soon as the Germans realized that the bulk of the Canadians had withdrawn, they would overrun Tom's section. He glanced left and right again. Ferguson still lingered with Slade's Hotchkiss. It would take two men to move it, one for the rifle itself and one for the mount. Simpson was crouched, ready to grab the mount once Ferguson unclipped the automatic gun, but Ferguson didn't look like he was in a hurry.

Somebody came up beside Tom, and he turned to see Lieutenant Flowerdew, inserting fresh cartridges into his Webley.

“Won't be long now,” he said.

“No, sir.” Tom pulled the magazine out of his rifle and refilled it, then smacked it back in and cycled a round into the breech. He spoke to the men lying or crouching to his left and right. “It's up to us, boys. Just a few minutes. Fifteen rounds per minute, like the book says.”

Another whizz bang passed overhead, and there was a great shout from the direction of the German formation. They were on the move. Tom aimed at the first man he saw, only fifty yards away, and fired. Too bad we don't have the Hotchkiss, he thought, when there was a shattering wall of sound from his right. It was Ferguson and Simpson, still there, in spite of Quartermain's order, displaying the flexibility, even insubordination, to superiors' orders that was the bane of the officer corps and a major attribute of Canadian soldiers. The riflemen blazed away, putting up a furious rate of fire, kneeling or lying prone. Flowerdew was on his feet, revolver outstretched in his right hand, striding forward. Tom gulped, jumped up, and followed, shooting as he walked, bullets buzzing around him like demented hornets.

Flowerdew stopped firing, broke his weapon open, and inserted fresh cartridges. He wheeled back toward Tom and looked past him. “There's our signal.” He shouted at Ferguson. “Pack that gun up and get back to the others. Now!”

Ferguson looked sheepish as he jumped up, grabbed the Hotchkiss in both hands, unclipped it and ran like a startled deer. Simpson was right on his heels, the gun mount over his shoulders. A rattle of covering rifle fire flared from the Strathconas who had withdrawn minutes earlier.

“Let's go, boys,” Tom yelled, and the remaining men of his section leapt to their feet and ran pell-mell. Simpson stumbled under the weight of the Hotchkiss mount. Tom clutched him by one arm and Flowerdew got hold of the other to steady him as they ran toward the Canadians, who kept up a constant fire. Hope I haven't made any enemies, Tom thought, the covering fire whistling around him.

Just as Tom reached the line of Strathconas, the horse-handlers trotted up with their excited charges and his section scrambled into their saddles, jamming their rifles into their buckets. Toby snorted and stamped, caught up in the frenzy.

“Off you go!” Flowerdew shouted at Quartermain, who led the mounted troop away. Tom and Toby thundered after them. Flowerdew waited until everybody was clear, then brought up the rear.

♦  ♦  ♦

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.