Lost in the Wood

Last night I dreamt of the horses. Running wild and free, those magnificent beasts, the thunder of their hooves even drowning out the terrible roar of the guns and the staccato blasts of the machine guns. For a while they were free again, running down a hillside in France, while bullets whizzed past them and mortar blasts lit up the sky. Their eyes wide and terrified, hearts pounding, jumping over their fallen comrades to escape.....running for their lives. I awoke shaking, wishing it were a dream, then as reality clawed though my unconscious state and the sound of the guns brought me back to where I was I realized how much I wished I was one of them, those wonderful wild and terrified animals, who for a few brief moments were free again, running wild in the woods.

We had taken up positions in Caterpillar valley soon after our arrival here, which was I suspect as close to hell as any living soul could enter. Every inch of the area was filled with guns. It looked sometimes as it they were growing in the mud in the fields at the side of the trenches. It seems strange to think that I was born and grew up in Birmingham, the city of guns. When hundreds of men and boys worked tirelessly in the dark and cramped back to back court houses, filing barrels and making parts for guns and rifles. As boys my brothers and I played games of war in the cobbled backyards hiding out in the outside privies and behind the copper in the wash house. We played with old discarded rifle barrels for our guns. Ducking and dodging for each shoot out. How very ironic that I was born in the city of guns and I shall probably die here in a field of them. Maybee some of them were made in Birmingham too. It's funny how things turn out in the end. If I could I would laugh at the irony of it all, but I don't think I know how to laugh anymore, I wonder if I will ever really laugh again.

I only ended up working with the horses by chance really, I didn't think I even liked horses. During our basic training we would sit outside the bunkhouse in the evenings, too tired out from spearing sacs with our bayonets and crawling through mud all day, to walk the two miles to the local pub. We would take it in turns to tell stories of our lives before, sharing sections of letters from home and reminiscing about our childhoods. When my turn came round I entertained them with stories of my dad, how he had worked on the canals leading the horses who pulled the great barges through the water. I would tell them tales of how he left the waterways of the Midlands to join the Royal Horse Artillery as a gunner, leading the horses to pull the guns right to the front of the battle. Of his bravery in Egypt at the battle of Tel e kippur and the uprisings in India. I told them of how we often traveled the canals catching lifts from the bargees who he knew making our way to visit family in the small town in Oxford where he was born.

I would occasionally be allowed to lead one of the huge horses that pulled the boats, but I loved it most when he would swing me up on the back on one and I would grip on tight to its soft main, my heart pounding with excitement. I almost felt I was flying I was so high up and I could feel the rippling muscles of the horse moving under my legs as we trotted along the towpath. One day however the horse got spooked by a dog running across his path and reared up snapping his guide rope. He took off like a racehorse down the canal that day with me yelling and clinging on to his halter for dear life. Dad had to run, chasing us for a couple of miles before someone was brave enough to grap the horses lead reins to pull him up. I don't know who was more scared that day, the horse, me or my dad at the thought of having to tell my Mam what had happened. In the end he made me promise never to tell her or else she would never allow him to take me with him again. I had learned a lot about horses from my dad during our travels along the canals, how to calm them, to rub them down, how to care for them and how to get them to trust you, even in the heat of battle when all they wanted to do was to turn and run. He knew a lot about horses, my dad did.

Anyway, when one of the officers came round asking if anyone had any knowledge of horses that day when we arrived here my mate John immediately shouted out about my experience and the others soon joined in remembering what I had told them in those warm spring evenings. Despite my protests I was told to report to the horse lines the next morning. Apparently men with experience of horses were far and few between in the regiment and the officer was so relieved to have found someone that the accounts of my peers were more than enough proof for him.

Truth was I never really knew my father. He died from a heart attack on the living room floor when I was just a few months old. The closest I had ever been to a horse was when I got paid a few shillings to hold the milkman's horse while he delivered to the houses at the end or our courts. That horse was so old and quiet that most of the time I'm sure he was asleep when he wasn't pulling the cart. I really cursed my habit of getting carried away telling stories that day, I had just wanted to fit in and before I knew it I had landed myself in hot water again.

I guess my brother William was the closest to a father I ever had. Funny how I always resented him growing up and now I miss him so much. He was always so much more than me. Smarter, taller, quicker, responsible, I always felt I was in his shadow, always tagging along.

"Keep an eye on our Walter, watch what he's up to, make sure he don't get into any trouble"

No one had to keep an eye on William, he was the eldest, the man of the household who everyone relied on, and how I had resented him. Especially when he and his mates signed up and marched off to war, leaving me behind, frightened least it was all over before I had chance to join up. I need not have worried, there was nothing transigent about this hell.

Thats why I had been so scathing when he came to the training camp to see me. He had been sent home with trench foot and was still obviously in great pain, his face white against the Khaki green of his uniform. William wanted to get me into his battalion, said he had spoken to a few people and that it was possible, so that he could keep an eye on me, keep me out of trouble. You can imagine my response. I see now how I must have hurt him, the pain in his eyes, at my cruel rebuttal , but I was just a kid. I hadn't yet seen what he had seen on the field on France. I thought he was trying to spoil my fun, not save my life. In those days War was a great adventure, a game that I wanted to play with my mates, not his, I didn't want to tag along behind, I had no idea of the game I was about to get into.

When he walked away his shoulders were a little more slumped, his limp a little more pronounced. I had wanted to run after him, to tell him I was sorry and yes, I would join his battalion, but my pride got in the way and instead I had turned and gone back into the bunkhouse to rejoin my new friends. Pushing my sadness at the loss of my best friend to the edges of my subconscious. I wish I had gone after my brother, I wish I had listened to him.

I miss him every day, William and my sisters Rose and Ada and my other brother Harry. If William was my father, then I guess Rose was my mother. Mam worked from Dawn to dark from when I was born leaving Rose to care for me, and care she did. From Patching up scraped knees to dispersing liquid paraffin to keep me regular. Rose was the one I ran to when Alfie in the next street gave me a shiner, or Mr McDermott at the school gave me six of the best for drawing pictures in my math book. She was always on my side and I always knew no matter how much trouble I was in I could turn to her. 'Course I did get a clip round the ear when she found out that I had pushed Alfie over right into a puddle before he hit me. However she did snap Mr Mcdermott's ruler into two and tell him that she would do the same to him if he ever laid a hand on me again. He never did either, even when he caught me doing much the same a couple of weeks later, he was so scared of her.

I miss our little house in Witton, with it's cramped dark rooms and the outside privy that never seems to work. I even miss the way that the smell of cooking always seems to permeate through every wall even when everyone is fast asleep and even the fire in the grate is dead. But most of all I miss Ma, her laugh, the way she used to hum as she wheeled her cart through the alleyway. I used to listen for her humming, sitting alone on the back step in the evening waiting for her to come home. And no matter how many miles she had walked that day trying to earn money to feed us she always had a smile for me. She would always grab me and wrap her arms around me smothering me in one of her hugs.

"Aaar our Walter, give yer poor old Mother a big hug now" and I would rush into her loving arms happily.

I always loved it when she came home, loved it when the house was filled with my family, thats when everything seemed right. Everyone bustling round, Rose getting the supper on and Ada filling the kettle, Harry tuning the radio into the station ready for us to listen to a favorite program on the BBC while William read out stories from the newspaper that Mam had brought home with her. Sometimes it was a day or so old as she would have found it abandoned on her travels, having no money to waste on buying one. However that never seemed to matter, it was new to us and what difference did it make what was going on in the wide world around us as long as we were safe and loved in our little home together.

Then the world crept in, tearing apart our little family and sending us reeling to different corners of the globe. Like splinters of glass shattering in a mirror. Harry joined the Navy, while William and I joined the Army. Rose and Ada stayed at home with Mam, now she is the one waiting for me to come home to her, how I wish I could.

Fortunatley I was paired with Charles Harding to look after the horses. He grew up on a farm and actually had some experience of looking after them, and I became a quick learner so thankfully no one was any the wiser over my storytelling. Charles, for all his aptitude with the horses, wasn't the sharpest of the bunch and didn't seem to notice my inexperience. He didn't tell anyone that I had to ask him to show me the most basic of tasks. We became quite friendly he an I, and although I previously wouldn't have thought to seek him out as a pal I found him to be a good fellow. Trustworthy, always cheerful and extremely loyal.

What surprises me most about that day is that no one ever considered the idiocy of the positioning of the horse lines in the middle of Caterpillar Valley in the first place. Why did they think that the Germans would draw the line at shooting horses, they had no reluctance in shooting men. In fact seeing that horses are a such valuable commodity in this war it amazes me that they didn't think of it before.

Charles and I were a few hundred yards away stacking food sacs when the first of the bullets whizzed through the air. Immediately there was uproar and the animals started to panick. Officers started shouting instructions about getting the animals undercover but by then it was too late, a few brave soldiers tried to get to them but were either cut down by the snipers or forced to take cover in the trench at the side. Meanwhile the horses were trapped, sitting ducks waiting to be picked off by the Germans. Frantically they strained at their leads, desperate to get away from the bullets that whizzed past them. They where a disreputable group of animals, their coats shaved almost bare to avoid the lice, covered in sores with their ribs poking out of their emaciated bodies. But they had stood alongside us through the mortar bursts and the roar of the guns, uncomplaining as they dragged equipment through the mud. Once they had homes and love, food in their bellies and grass beneath their hooves before they had been plunged into hell alongside us. And then to die like this......

Ominousley we had looked at each other, we didn't need to speak, we knew what had to be done. Crawling through the mud on our bellies upto the fence where they were tethered we finally reached them, and sheltering in the long grass we took our pocket knives and cut the straps that restrained them. After that it didn't take long for them to work out that they were free and stampede down the hill away from the snipers Horses are very intuitive animals, they know to run away from bullets, I sometimes think they are far more intelligent than humans.

We fully expected to be courtmarshalled for our actions, setting the horses free was something we hadn't really had time to think out, but I'm glad we didn't because we may have hesitated and not cut the ropes. As it turned out none of the horses were injured and were all safely rounded up a few hours later, because of this we were celebrated. In fact one of the officers even seemed to remember giving us the order to cut them free. We didn't contradict him, no matter who thought of it, we just couldn't let them be picked off trapped like that, they deserved a chance to live, to feel the air streaming through their mains as their hooves pounded the earth beneath them. To feel like they were flying as they galloped down a hill in a wood in France.

Tonight there is a big push coming, we don't know much about it, perhaps it's best if we don't. Most of today has been spent in sorting out kit and packs to be sent back down the line. No one talks about it but its in case we don't come back after the attack tonight. That way our personal effects can be catalogued ready to send on to our next of kin at home. I counted up my money and I have one pound eleven shillings and eight pence left in my pack. I guess it's not much to show for my 19 years is it.

I always told Mam that one day I would make it rich and take her and the girls away to live in a big house in the country, and there would be no more muck and dirt to scrub off the front step. Just lots of clean air and trees and fruit that you can just pick and eat whenever you want. I remember her laughing at me and shaking her head saying that she quite liked scrubbing her front step and that she was just fine where she was, she had all that she needed already. Mr Brown at the fruit stall in the Bull Ring market always saved her the best of the bruised fruit anyway. Perhaps I should have really listened to what she was telling me and realised how lucky we all were back then. Instead of wishing for excitement and fortune I wish I had realised what I had got, instead of always looking for something more, when the little things were so much more important.

Ada always used to say be careful what you wish for, I think she heard it in a picture she went to see. Most of her sayings come from the pictures. Now I am about to go into the barrels of hell and the worst is I ran eagerly towards the devil, I couldn't wait to get over here and fight for my country. I was afraid I was missing out on my chance of excitement and that Harry and William were having all the fun.

There is a heavy lump in my chest as I finish my smoke and lie down on my bunk to try to get a few hours sleep before the attack. As I close my eyes the faces of my family swim through the darkness. With deliberation I push them away, unable to deal with the memories and the knowledge of the pain my loss will bring them. Perhaps I will finally get to meet my father, I deliberate, thinking of the picture of the distinguished soldier on my Mother's Mantle piece. Slowly I feel myself slipping into unconsciousness as the exhaustion of my body wins over the turmoil of my thoughts. I feel a tear slide slowly down my cheek as I lose myself in the dark thankful oblivion of sleep.

Tonight I will dream of those horses. Running wild and free, those magnificent beasts, the thunder of their hooves even drowning out the terrible roar of the guns and the staccato blasts of the machine guns. For a while they are free again, running down a hillside in France, while bullets whizz past them and mortar blasts light up the sky. Their eyes wide and terrified, hearts pounding, jumping over their fallen comrades to escape.....running for their lives. Oh how much I wish I was one of them, those wonderful wild and terrified animals, who for a few brief moments are free again, running wild. Lost....in the hell they call High wood.