Megiddo's Shadow (6 page)

The breakers ignored me, and soon the lights were out. Snuffles and snores filled the room, as if I were sleeping in a pig barn.
Thanks a lot, Uncle Nix
.

What would Hector have done? None of this, because
he'd been in the infantry. I was no longer following him; Hilts had sent me on a different path. Now I'd never know what Hector had experienced.

Our Father, who art in heaven
, I began. I said the Lord's Prayer in my head several times, and that brought me some comfort, but by midnight my arm throbbed so painfully I was unable to sleep.

In the morning I checked the tension on my puttees and made certain my buttons were shining. My wrist had swollen up—I hoped it was only a sprain.

Outside, I passed rows of stables. The
ting ting
of ferner hammers echoed through the yard, and the stench of dung woke me up once and for all. Horses neighed: colts searching out their mothers, geldings calling their brothers.

Corporal Grimes waited at the training corrals, a pack of breakers around him. “Bathe, be more punctual. Now, we've got an easy job for you, this being your first day and all.” He grinned, pointing at a horse tied to a snubbing post, struggling to break its reins. “Give number fifty-eight a ride.”

Another test. The young gelding was at least fifteen hands high, sable black with a white star in the center of his forehead. I nodded, climbed the fence, and approached the horse from the side so that he could see me. He glared, his ears back. His flanks were sweaty, so they'd already given him a workout.

I untied the reins and the gelding jerked back. With a sharp tug down I showed him who was master and pain shot up my arm. I switched the reins to my left hand and led fifty-eight around the corral, letting him get used to me. “Hey,
boy,” I whispered. “Hey there, pal.” Dad said horses were like women: they liked lots of talking. Fifty-eight snorted and showed his teeth. He could be a biter.

“Get on with it!” Grimes commanded. The breakers were halfway up the fence to get a better view

I ran my hand across the horse's mane, and he shook as if he'd been stung by a hornet. I stroked his neck. “Good boy. I'm your pal, fifty-eight. I'm your pal.” I launched myself onto the horse's back, automatically grabbing the rem with my right hand and sending a jolt of pam up my arm. The gelding threw his rear high in the air, landed hard, then lunged side to side, jumping up and crashing down, kicking away clods of dirt.

My grip weakened. My eyes blurred and I lost track of where I was in the corral, but was aware I could get brained here. The men hooted and hollered—cheering for me or the horse? Then fifty-eight bucked so hard I was tossed heavenward. I threw out my hands and hung in the air for a moment, then crashed to the ground. I collapsed on my right arm when I hit, and bashed my nose.

I rolled over, tasting my blood. The horse reared up and stomped just inches from my leg. Guller jumped m, grabbed the reins, and yanked fifty-eight away. I forced myself to get up, my forearms scraped and bleeding. I wiped my nose with the back of my left hand, looked disdainfully at the blood. My uniform would need a good soaking.

“You did well,” Grimes said, “Bixby didn't even stay on him that long yesterday, did ya?”

“He was more tired today,” Bixby said. The breakers guffawed.

Their laughter got under my skin. These men chose breaking horses over killing Huns. Most of them were young and healthy enough to fight.

“You're a bleedin' mess,” the corporal said. “Wash up at the barn, and if you need stitches visit the regimental aid post.”

I spat and turned toward the horse. Guller was leading him to the snubbing post.

“Wash up, breaker,” the corporal repeated. “Did you hear me?

I ran after Guller, grabbed the reins from his hand. The gelding had a wild look and neighed angrily, snorting a spray of snot. I swung onto him and the wild ride began again, but this time I heard my father's voice: “Always move with the horse; never fight against it.” I held tight and let my shoulders relax, waiting for fifty-eight to tire. The corrals were a blur; the men on the fence were silent. Soon the swirling slowed and the bucking stopped.

I slid off the horse and patted his head. There was still fire in his eyes, but he was too tired to snort.

The blood on my face had dried and I must have looked half mad. Perhaps I was. I threw the reins to Guller, stumbled to the barn, and washed myself off.

My wrist was already purple and black.

S
hielding my arm, I pushed open the door to the regimental aid post. There were three other men in the cramped waiting area: one breaker who couldn't stop coughing, another with a cut hand, and a third man, a moaning yeomanry trooper. He was in the worst shape, his foot wrapped in blood-soaked bandages. He looked drunk. “Shot 'imself,” the sick breaker rasped as I sat down. “Dumb bugger.” He coughed again, bringing up a wagonload of phlegm.

I held my breath, not wanting to catch anything. The throbbing in my arm was unbearable.
God, just make it go away
, I thought. Then I worried that I'd said it out loud. I closed my eyes. The ache seemed to be filling the room.

“Edward,” a woman said, and an image of Mom flashed behind my eyelids. When I opened them a young, dark-haired nurse was in the doorway.

“Edward Bathe, come along now. Can you stand?”

“Of course.” I got up too fast, my dizziness adding to the general fog I was in. She guided me to a small examining room with curtains for walls.

“Sit down.” I sat on the cot. “My name is Emily Waters.”

“Oh, uh, I'm Edward.”

She gave a slight smile. “I know. Now, what have you done to your arm?”

“Sprained my wrist. At least, I think it's just a sprain.”

Her fingers were ghostly against my skin. She turned my wrist slightly and I winced. “How did you injure it?”

“I was bucked off a horse.”

“They don't call you breakers for nothing.” Even through the haze of pain I noticed she had green eyes. “You gave your nose a good smack, too. Doesn't appear to be broken, but you'll have a swollen sniffer for the next week. Are you usually this clumsy?”

“It was a wild horse!”

“Then why'd you get on it?”

“It's my job,” I grunted.

She patted my good arm. “Don't get all wound up; I'm teasing. Your wrist is probably fractured.”

“What? It can't be.”

“Why? Are you made of steel?”

She was pretty, but she was getting on my nerves.

“Shouldn't the doctor look at it?” I asked.

“Don't you trust me?”

“It's just that …”

Emily laughed. “Everyone wants to see Dr. Purves. It
makes them feel better. But today you're out of luck. There was an accident with a Mills Bomb; apparently they aren't meant to be juggled. Purves is in surgery trying to save a trooper's arm. Should I fetch him?”

“Of course not!”

“Good. We don't have an X-ray machine, so Dr. Purves would just be guessing anyway.”

She lifted my arm and I winced, then blushed, ashamed that I'd shown such weakness. She gave me a kind look as she wrapped my wrist with gauze. “Stubborn, aren't you? And I know how this works. I ask you to watch your arm and you carry on using it until it falls off. I'd like to put you on sick leave, but only Major Purves can do that. So I'll tell you what—I'll show you how to wrap and unwrap it yourself. Keep the bandages tight and don't do any heavy work. Understand?”

“Yes.”

She removed the wrapping and bound my arm again. I hadn't been this close to a girl since the one from Moose Jaw had kissed me. She'd had an earthy scent, but Emily smelled like a flower. Was she nineteen? Twenty? She certainly was headstrong.

“The gauze won't be much protection,” she explained. “It's really there to remind you not to use your arm.” She scribbled on my chart. “I'll write it up as a severely bruised wrist.” She handed me a small bottle of aspirin tablets. “Take two of these twice a day and come back tomorrow afternoon. I want to see if the bruising gets worse or if any bones poke out.”

“Thanks,” I said, searching my brain for something more clever to say.

On the way back to Remount, I kept rubbing my arm where her hands had touched me.

“We're breaking her flight instinct,” Grimes said, standing over a mare. She was on her side, eyes wide with fear, each leg bound, while breakers yanked on the ropes, using fence posts for leverage. “She's to learn we're not wolves. We're her masters.”

The mare lifted her head, foam specks flying from her mouth. Guller smacked her on the side of the neck with a cricket bat. “Stay down!” he yelled, and whacked her several more times. Each thud made me wince. We never hit our horses back home. Dad would have tanned our hides.

“You're cringing, Bathe. None of us like it, but it's the only way to crack the hard nuts. There's no permanent damage.” The mare kicked and the breakers grunted and tightened the leg ropes. “She'll lose her fight soon.”

“Did you do this to fifty-eight?”

“Ha! We got tired before he did.” Grimes spat in the straw. “I was tempted to send him to the sausage factory, but we hobbled him; worked him to the bone, and that did the trick. You're the only one that's actually ridden him. You're a natural.”

A compliment? Or was he setting me up for a fall?

Another smack echoed through the barn. The horse made a gurgling noise as though the rope was choking it.

“You should have washed up when I ordered you to. It wasn't a direct order, but you will do
what
I tell you
when
I
tell you. We've some pigheaded breakers, but every last one of them does what he's told. Understand?”

“Yes, Corporal.”

“Good.” He whistled sharply and Guller looked up at us. “Bathe is going to take a turn.”

Guller, sweat on his brow, held out the cricket bat.

“Get to it, Bathe,” Grimes said.

I crossed the straw, my feet heavy. The mare was still trying to raise her head. I took the bat and held it with both hands to protect my wrist. The worst I'd ever done to a horse was shout or give the reins a good yank. Dad had told me long before, “Hitting a horse will put fear in its heart, and then you can never trust it.”

“Discipline the horse, Bathe.”

But I was in Remount now, and Father wasn't here. I swung the heavy bat and hit the mare's flank. Agony shot up my arm. “Harder, Bathe!” Grimes barked. “Harder! She has to know who's boss.”

I hit her again.

“Harder!”

I swung, striking her neck, her sides; gritting my teeth to overcome my own pain. “Stay down!” I hissed. “Stay down, damn you! Stay down!”

The breakers held their ropes tight, sweating and swearing. “Stay down!”

Eventually, she did.

“We'll have to do the same thing tomorrow,” Corporal Grimes said. “Then maybe we'll be able to get a saddle on her.”

It wasn't until later that I checked my arm. I undid the
bandage to find that my wrist had darkened, but I could make a fist. I figured that was a good sign. I bandaged it again, tightly. It was just like wrapping my puttees.

The following morning I faced fifty-eight again. He shook off my every attempt to slip on a halter. “You're the king,” I said, and he seemed to like it. “You're the king of horses.” With kind words and a handful of oats, I was able to halter him, then get the bridle on him. I spent most of the morning leading him around the snubbing post. I even sang a bit to soothe him.

He was such a beautiful horse; so perfectly muscled and strong, as though he'd been chipped out of marble. God had had a good day when he designed fifty-eight.

After the midday meal I went to the barracks and changed into a clean uniform. I combed my hair and squinted in the mirror. I could pass for twenty, especially now that my nose was swollen. I smiled and was reminded of how much I looked like my mother and Hector. Perhaps they were watching me.

“Lucky me,” I whispered. “I'm going to see a girl.”

I hummed all the way to the regimental aid post. Two yeomanry troopers sat inside. Both seemed healthy. While I was breaking horses, these men trained with guns, lances, and sabers, learning to be mounted infantry.

“Isn't that grand news about Jerusalem?” I asked. The announcement that the British army had liberated the Holy City from the Turks had been in the paper the day before.

“It's splendid, breaker,” a trooper replied. “Maybe one of your horses is over there.”

Was he making fun of me? I wanted to explain I was really an infantryman, but I kept my mouth shut.

Emily strolled down the hall and said, “This way, Breaker Bathe.” I followed her to the examination room. The sash around her hips showed off her slimness, and her ankles appeared and disappeared under the skirt of her dress. She turned suddenly and I looked at the wall. “Have a seat, Mr. Bathe.” She gently unwrapped my arm and examined it, a pleasant, painful feeling. “Well, it didn't fall off!”

“It did, but I jammed it back on.”

She laughed. “Any sharp pains?”

Only in my heart
, I thought, but then said, “No. I've been very careful, just like you ordered.”

“I bet. Do you know what the most common breaker injury is?”

“No.”

“Bruised pride. When he gets tossed off a horse.”

I smiled.

“Well, your wrist isn't any worse, but be careful for the next few weeks. If you remjure it, don't wait until it's completely black to come back.” She bound my wrist again, pulling the gauze until it pinched.

“I'm free to go?”

“Yes,” she said, but neither of us moved. The corners of her lovely lips turned up. “I'm about to take a break. Will you join me?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” I sounded too eager. “I've a bit of spare time.”

She led me farther down the hall and we passed several
cots. On one lay a naked man, his back plastered by bandages. Why wasn't he covered in front of the nurses? An old urine smell reminded me of Dad's room.

Outside, a few wicker chairs had been set in the sun. Two other nurses wearing thick sweaters chatted with the yeomanry troopers.