Read Online War Horse by Michael Morpurgo - Free Book Online

grandfather busying himself about us she would prattle on merrily about how when she was older and stronger and when the soldiers had all gone home and the war was over she would ride us herself through the woods – one at a time, she said – and how we would never want for anything if only we would stay with her for ever.
    Topthorn and I were by now seasoned campaigners, and it may well have been that that drove us on out through the roar of the shell-fire back towards the trenches each morning, but there was more to it than that. For us it was the hope that we would be back that evening in our stable and that little Emilie would be there to comfort and to love us. We had that to look forward to and to long for. Any horse has an instinctive fondness for children for they speak more softly, and their size precludes any threat; but Emilie was a specialchild for us, for she spent every minute she could with us and lavished us with her affection. She would be up late every evening with us rubbing us down and seeing to our feet, and be up again at dawn to see us fed properly before the orderlies led us away and hitched us up to the ambulance cart. She would climb the wall by the pond and stand there waving, and although I could never turn round, I knew she would stay there until the road took us out of sight. And then she would be there when we came back in the evening, clasping her hands in excitement as she watched us being unhitched.
    But one evening at the onset of winter she was not there to greet us as usual. We had been worked even harder that day than usual, for the first snows of winter had blocked the road up to the trenches to all but the horse-drawn vehicles and we had to make twice the number of trips to bring in the wounded. Exhausted, hungry and thirsty we were led into our stable by Emilie’s grandfather, who said not a word but saw to us quickly before hurrying back across the yard to the house. Topthorn and I spent that evening by the stable door watching the gentle fall of snow and the flickering light in the farmhouse. We knew something was wrongbefore the old man came back and told us.
    He came late at night, his feet crumping the snow. He had made up the buckets of hot mash we had come to expect and he sat down on the straw beneath the lantern and watched us eat. ‘She prays for you,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘Do you know, every night before she goes to bed she prays for you? I’ve heard her. She prays for her dead father and mother – they were killed only a week after the war began. One shell, that’s all it takes. And she prays for her brother that she’ll never see again – just seventeen and he doesn’t even have a grave. It’s as if he never lived except in our minds. Then she prays for me and for the war to pass by the farm and to leave us alone, and last of all she prays for you two. She prays for two things: first that you both survive the war and live on into ripe old age, and secondly that if you do she dearly wants to be there to be with you. She’s barely thirteen, my Emilie, and now she’s lying up there in her room and I don’t know if she’ll live to see the morning. The German doctor from the hospital tells me it’s pneumonia. He’s a good enough doctor even if he is German – he’s done his best, it’s up to God now, and so far God hasn’t done too well for my family. If she goes, if my Emilie dies, then the only light left inmy life will be put out.’ He looked up at us through heavily wrinkled eyes and wiped the tears from his face. ‘If you can understand anything of what I said, then pray for her to whatever Horse God you pray to, pray for her like she does for you.’
    There was heavy shelling all that night, and before dawn the next day the orderlies came for us and led us out into the snow to be hitched up. There was no sign of Emilie nor her grandfather. Pulling the cart through the fresh, uncut snow that morning, Topthorn and I needed all our strength just