Soldier of the Horse (26 page)

Tom cradled René's head awkwardly in his bound hands and forearms. “Hang on, René, hang on.” Raising his head, Tom couldn't see any living thing except Toby, but the incessant sound of the furious battle in the wood continued. “Help is on the way,” he said. “Don't die.” Tears coursed down his face.

“Don't bullshit me.” René's eyes rolled away from Tom as he shuddered, groaned, and took a breath. Tom waited, but there were no more. René's body relaxed in Tom's arms, and the light in his eyes faded.

Tom held René for a moment, then eased his head to the ground. He gently closed René's eyes and crossed his arms on his torso. “Goodbye, my friend.” Still kneeling, he rocked back and forth on his heels, hands clasped.

Another comrade gone. A man Tom had once thought of as less of a soldier, but a man with a code of honour all his own. Killed by Inkmann, for God's sake, a Canadian officer. But it was the war. It could as easily have been a German bullet or chunk of shrapnel or Krupp steel through the guts. He looked down at René. René had known what had to be done when the colonel was shot. René would know what to do now.

Tom jumped to his feet, hurrying to where Inkmann lay. He grasped the bayonet, still stuck in the corpse's neck, planted his boot on Inkmann's chest, and jerked the weapon free. He wiped it on Inkmann's tunic, then knelt with one knee on its handle, manoeuvring so he could saw the cord that bound his hands back and forth against the blade. It was awkward and painful, but eventually the fibres gave way and his hands were free. He tore the remnants of cord off his wrists, then chafed at them to restore circulation and jammed the bayonet into its scabbard. Looking around, he rubbed at his face where the tears had dried. He wasn't doing René or anybody else any good wasting time here; he had to get back to the general. As he turned to go after Toby, he spotted his revolver on the ground where Inkmann must have thrown it. He snatched it up, holstered it, and hurried to where Toby waited a few yards away.

He looked once more at René, muttering a silent prayer and becoming aware that blood was dripping from the fingers of his left hand. Stumbling, Tom threw the reins over his horse's head and hauled himself into the saddle. He was able to hold the reins in his left hand but kept his right on his upper arm to slow the bleeding. The wound needed attention, but that could wait. Together, man and horse weaved their way through the woods in the direction of General Seely's headquarters.

Clearing the trees, they cantered across the open field to the cluster of officers, who looked up expectantly. Two hundred yards away, his troop and the rest of C Squadron still waited, in reserve. Off to his left an artillery round exploded, throwing up clods of earth.

The colonel reached up and gripped Toby's bridle.

“Quickly, Sergeant!” barked Seely, who had hurried over.

“Heavy fighting a mile into the woods, sir. The Dragoons are making some progress but it's all on foot, hand to hand. They're taking casualties. The lieutenant said any help would be much appreciated.”

“What did you see by way of German arms, Sergeant?” asked the colonel.

“Machine guns and small arms. Lots of grenades.”

“That will do, Sergeant. Best get yourself attended to,” said Seely. He turned to the colonel. “The only reserve force we have is your C Squadron. Tell them to mount up.”

Tom dismounted and led Toby toward a group of men standing by a stack of stretchers. “Hey, you body snatchers,” he called out. “I have a wound that needs dressing.” He tied Toby to a stretcher.

A medical orderly named Blanshard sat Tom down on a box of supplies and helped him take off his tunic, right arm first. His left shirt sleeve was soaked in blood from the shoulder down, but most of it had congealed. Blanshard cut away the arm of his shirt with surgical scissors. “Can you move it?” he asked.

Pain shot up into his shoulder as Tom flexed his left arm a few degrees, and he cradled his left wrist in his right hand to take the weight off it.

Blanshard grunted. “You're lucky. No bones broken, that I can see. The bullet passed clear through.” He cleaned the area with alcohol and added a dollop of iodine, as Tom flinched. The medic picked up Tom's tunic, ripped loose the dressings sewn into it in the factory and pressed them to the wound, then topped it all off with a bandage wrapped around the upper arm.

Tom felt dizzy. Get hold of yourself, he thought, as his mind wandered back to the death of René just minutes before. He tried to push it out of his mind, but couldn't. René—dead. René, who could have gone to an aid station, maybe even to hospital, with his leg wound. But René had stayed behind and fought on, and now he had died, on Tom's account. He'd get help, go and bring René back once the battle eased off.

“Aren't you the lucky one.”

“What?” asked Tom.

“I said aren't you the lucky one,” Blanshard repeated. “You'll have to sit tight here, though, until things settle down. Walking wounded. There'll be lots more coming in, by the sound of that . . .” and he gestured toward the wood, where the battle was growing louder by the minute. “Then we'll get you away, maybe even to hospital.”

Maybe even to hospital. So
he
had a Blighty, courtesy of Inkmann, for god's sake. Something many a man, maybe most of them, dreamed of when the shells were flying and the German bullets were zipping past. He'd be out of here in no time. Maybe the war would end before his arm recovered—a happy thought, but probably a forlorn hope; it looked as though the war would go on forever.

Blanshard interrupted again. “Here you go, Sergeant. First today, I expect. Courtesy of the colonel.” He held out a tin cup, half full of rum.

Tom tried to reach with his left hand, winced, and grabbed the offering with his right. He drank. The wooziness passed as he gazed around. Toby was standing patiently a few yards away, still tethered to an unused stretcher. The world was full of possibilities. He would go home, might never see action again. He'd write to Ellen with the good news; he had a wound, not a major wound but a real one. She'd come around, see things his way. If there was someone else—well, leave that for another day.

Tom realized he was smiling: sitting on a wooden box on the outskirts of a battle and smiling. He glanced down at the tin cup in his hand—nearly empty. He tossed it back. Maybe he could get some more from Blanshard. Looking around, he saw C Squadron, his squadron, showing a flurry of activity. The men were tightening girths, checking equipment, mounting up. As he watched, the confused mass of men and animals took shape, formed up in double ranks, and walked toward him.

The squadron was led by Gordon Flowerdew, former farmer, sergeant, and now lieutenant. Right behind him was Dunnett, acting as troop leader for the 1st Troop, with both Tom and Lieutenant Harrower away. Tom stood up, his bare left arm cold in the biting March wind.

Two by two the mounted squadron passed by, Tom watching as his comrades followed Flowerdew, faces set. Beside Flowerdew was Longley, the boyish bugler who had lied about his age to get into the army. He saw Tom, and waved.

Bruce Johanson went by, touching two fingers to the rim of his helmet when he saw Tom. He looked drawn, like all of them. Haggard, with lines etched in their young faces. Exhausted. A lot of them were just boys going in over their heads, beaten up, ranks depleted. A lot of the senior noncoms were dead, or wounded, or away at officers' school. Or standing and watching.

“Blanshard!” Tom's tunic was on the ground where it had been tossed. “Help me.” He struggled to hold the tunic with his right hand and get it up over his left arm.

“What do you think you're doing, Sergeant?” Blanshard hurried over from where he had been unpacking medical supplies.

“Get this goddamn tunic on me.”

Blanshard pulled the tunic from Tom's hand as he clenched his teeth with pain. He eased it up Tom's wounded arm, then held it so Tom could get his right arm in and do up the seven buttons, one-handed. Tom hurried to Toby, freed him, and clutched the reins and the pommel of his saddle with his right hand. Another bout of dizziness engulfed him. He didn't know if he could mount or not.

Blanshard came over and bent close to him, hands clasped in front. Tom nodded, put his left boot in the proffered hands and pulled on the saddle as Blanshard boosted him. He settled into his seat, right behind the saddle wallets still crammed tight with tins of bully beef. He took the reins in his right hand, left arm slightly bent, the weight of his left hand on his pommel. He touched his spurs to Toby, who broke into a trot, then a canter, and they followed in the tracks of Flowerdew's squadron.

With Tom urging Toby on, they quickly cut down the half mile that had opened up between them and the last of C Squadron. Too quickly, maybe. Toby seemed reluctant, but the die was cast, and Tom struggled with a feeling of foreboding, accentuated by the dark wood, the gloomy sky, and the carnage he had witnessed with the Dragoons in the forest. He swung to the left of the double column as he closed the gap and kept going, passing his friends and troopmates. As he neared the head of the column, Flowerdew turned in his saddle and nodded at him.

Tom slowed to a trot, transferred his reins to his left hand, gave a casual salute. “Reporting back for duty, sir.”

“Take your place, Sergeant.”

Tom reined to the right, signalled Dunnett to move to the rear of the troop, and settled in to the troop leader's position behind Flowerdew. His left arm was more painful by the minute, but if he kept it slightly bent at the elbow and rested his hand on his thigh, he could at least cushion it from the shock of the awkward trot set by Flowerdew.

The column now had Moreuil Wood on their right. The forest resounded with the noise of the ferocious fight raging out of their sight. A constant staccato background of rifle fire was overridden at times by the stutter of machine guns and the thump of artillery. An aircraft circled overhead, pistons hammering.

Flowerdew sat bolt upright in the saddle, his gaze straight ahead. Tom did a quick count. The squadron was down to well under a hundred riders, his own troop at less than thirty. He slowed Toby a little so he could drop back to talk to Johanson. “Where is Harvey's troop?”

“Flowerdew detailed him and the 2nd Troop to reconnoitre, occupy the northeast corner of the forest.”

Not good news. With Lieutenant Fred Harvey and his troop gone, the squadron was down to only three out of four troops, and even they were below strength. They had been fighting constantly for days, their ranks thinned out by men wounded and killed.

A rider cantered up on his left and Tom realized with a start that it was General Seely himself. Seely slowed his horse to match Flowerdew's pace and rode alongside him. The two men talked briefly, then Seely wheeled away and rode back the way he had come.

Flowerdew was considered a good officer by the troops, thoughtful of their welfare and a motivated leader. The men had heard that he had told the colonel, the regiment's commanding officer, that if necessary he and his squadron would stand fast in the face of the German breakthrough—fight to the last man or last bullet.

The three remaining troops of the squadron trotted parallel to the side of the wood toward its northeast corner, a half mile ahead and to the right. All around the wood were farm fields, some dark and fallow, others with yellow stubble from last year's grain crop. Jutting out from the corner of the wood was a gradual embankment some thirty or forty feet high; the squadron would have to climb it to get around the corner of the wood. A shallow draw led from their present position to the embankment. As they neared the mouth of the draw Tom saw Lieutenant Harvey and his 2nd Troop, off to the right. They were dismounted and exchanging fire with unseen forces in the trees, fighting their way into the wood. Flowerdew led his troops over in Harvey's direction.

“Hello, Flowers,” Harvey shouted over the noise of the battle as the squadron trotted up. “Bunch of Huns just inside the forest but I think we can deal with them.”

“Go to it, Fred! Drive them out the other side if you can. We'll catch them when they come out.”

Harvey nodded and turned away to join his men, pushing into the trees in the face of German fire. They were soon swallowed up in the forest. Constant small-arms fire and even sporadic artillery reverberated, and bullets whistled around the mounted men of the squadron as Flowerdew led them, now at a canter, toward the corner of the wood.

Tom followed right behind Flowerdew into the draw, the ground rising on either side of them. They were out of sight of the trees, and gained a welcome respite from the random but deadly small-arms fire. Tom noted with alarm that Toby was snorting and shaking his head, just as he had done when René's Gabriel had been shot out from under him, but he couldn't worry about that now. He patted his horse on the neck, turning in his saddle to check on his troop. The horses were coping well, riders concentrating on staying formed up.

Flowerdew put his horse to the upward slope at the end of the draw, and Tom spurred Toby, who lunged at the embankment. Tom leaned forward to transfer his weight, shifting his reins to the more familiar left hand. His left arm still hurt but he could handle it. He could hear the men behind him urging their horses on.

As the slope eased Tom could see the corner of the forest to the right, and a broad field flattening out in front of them with a narrow road angling across it. Flowerdew, two lengths ahead, suddenly turned in his saddle and past him, around the corner, Tom saw a mass of grey uniforms not three hundred yards away. Christ, we're into it now! He turned, bellowing at the men following, “Sections right! Sections right!” He waved his right arm to try to get the men and horses spread out to the side so they'd be a more dispersed target. Toby tossed his head and veered. Tom reined him back on course, the pain in his arm forgotten.