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Authors: Michael Morpurgo
Tags: Fiction
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us and we recognised them as the orderlies, nurses and doctors from the field hospital. As the convoy stopped in the yard we galloped over to the gate by the pond andlooked over. Emilie and her grandfather emerged from the milking shed and were deep in conversation with the doctor. Quite suddenly we found ourselves besieged by all the orderlies we had come to know so well. They climbed the fence and patted and smoothed us with great affection. They were exuberant yet some-how sad at the same time. Emilie was running over towards us shouting and screaming.
‘I knew it would happen,’ she said. ‘I knew it. I prayed for it to happen and it did happen. They don’t need you any more to pull their carts. They’re moving the hospital further up along the valley. There’s a big, big battle going on up there and so they’re moving away from us. But they don’t want to take you with them. That kind doctor has told Grandpapa that you can both stay – it’s a kind of payment for the cart they used and the food they took and because we looked after you throughout all the winter. He says you can stay and work on the farm until the army needs you again – and they never will, and if they ever did I’d hide you. We’ll never let them take you away, will we, Grandpapa? Never, never.’
And so after the long, sad farewells the convoy moved away up the road in a cloud of dust and wewere left alone and in peace with Emilie and her grand-father. The peace was to prove sweet but short-lived.
To my great delight I found myself once more a farm horse. With Topthorn harnessed up beside me we set to work the very next day cutting and turning the hay. When Emilie protested, after that first long day in the fields, that her grandfather was working us too hard, he put his hands on her shoulders and said, ‘Nonsense Emilie. They like to work. They need to work. And besides the only way for us to go on living, Emilie, is to go on like we did before. The soldiers have gone now so if we pretend hard enough then maybe the war will go away altogether. We must live as we have always lived, cutting our hay, picking our apples and tilling our soil. We cannot live as if there will be no tomorrow. We can live only if we eat, and our food comes from the land. We must work the land if we want to live and these two must work it with us. They don’t mind, they like the work. Look at them, Emilie, do they look unhappy?’
For Topthorn the transition from pulling an ambulance cart to pulling a hay turner was not a difficult one and he adapted easily; and for me it was a dream I had dreamed many times since I had left the farm in Devon.I was working once more with happy, laughing people around me who cared for me. We pulled with a will that harvest, Topthorn and I, hauling in the heavy hay wagons to the barns where Emilie and her grandfather would unload. And Emilie continued to watch over us lovingly – every scratch and bruise was tended to at once and her grandfather was never allowed to work us for too long however much he argued. But the return to the peaceful life of a farm horse could not last long, not in the middle of that war.
The hay was almost all gathered in when the soldiers came back again one evening. We were in our stables when we heard the sound of approaching hoofbeats and the rumbling of wheels on the cobble-stones as the column came trotting into the yard. The horses, six at a time, were yoked to great heavy guns, and they stood in their traces puffing and blowing with exertion. Each pair was ridden by men whose faces were severe and hard under their grey caps. I noticed at once that these were not the gentle orderlies that had left us only a few short weeks before. Their faces were strange and harsh and there was a new alarm and urgency in their eyes. Few of them seemed to laugh or even smile. These were a different breed of men from those we had seenbefore. Only one old soldier who drove the ammunition cart came over to stroke
‘I knew it would happen,’ she said. ‘I knew it. I prayed for it to happen and it did happen. They don’t need you any more to pull their carts. They’re moving the hospital further up along the valley. There’s a big, big battle going on up there and so they’re moving away from us. But they don’t want to take you with them. That kind doctor has told Grandpapa that you can both stay – it’s a kind of payment for the cart they used and the food they took and because we looked after you throughout all the winter. He says you can stay and work on the farm until the army needs you again – and they never will, and if they ever did I’d hide you. We’ll never let them take you away, will we, Grandpapa? Never, never.’
And so after the long, sad farewells the convoy moved away up the road in a cloud of dust and wewere left alone and in peace with Emilie and her grand-father. The peace was to prove sweet but short-lived.
To my great delight I found myself once more a farm horse. With Topthorn harnessed up beside me we set to work the very next day cutting and turning the hay. When Emilie protested, after that first long day in the fields, that her grandfather was working us too hard, he put his hands on her shoulders and said, ‘Nonsense Emilie. They like to work. They need to work. And besides the only way for us to go on living, Emilie, is to go on like we did before. The soldiers have gone now so if we pretend hard enough then maybe the war will go away altogether. We must live as we have always lived, cutting our hay, picking our apples and tilling our soil. We cannot live as if there will be no tomorrow. We can live only if we eat, and our food comes from the land. We must work the land if we want to live and these two must work it with us. They don’t mind, they like the work. Look at them, Emilie, do they look unhappy?’
For Topthorn the transition from pulling an ambulance cart to pulling a hay turner was not a difficult one and he adapted easily; and for me it was a dream I had dreamed many times since I had left the farm in Devon.I was working once more with happy, laughing people around me who cared for me. We pulled with a will that harvest, Topthorn and I, hauling in the heavy hay wagons to the barns where Emilie and her grandfather would unload. And Emilie continued to watch over us lovingly – every scratch and bruise was tended to at once and her grandfather was never allowed to work us for too long however much he argued. But the return to the peaceful life of a farm horse could not last long, not in the middle of that war.
The hay was almost all gathered in when the soldiers came back again one evening. We were in our stables when we heard the sound of approaching hoofbeats and the rumbling of wheels on the cobble-stones as the column came trotting into the yard. The horses, six at a time, were yoked to great heavy guns, and they stood in their traces puffing and blowing with exertion. Each pair was ridden by men whose faces were severe and hard under their grey caps. I noticed at once that these were not the gentle orderlies that had left us only a few short weeks before. Their faces were strange and harsh and there was a new alarm and urgency in their eyes. Few of them seemed to laugh or even smile. These were a different breed of men from those we had seenbefore. Only one old soldier who drove the ammunition cart came over to stroke
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