‘Soldier,’ he whispered again. ‘Soldier, you’re named for my brother Tom . . . He should have been home by now . . .’
Da appeared, sudden and glowering, lurching at Soldier, swinging him up by the scruff of his neck, his tiny legs rigid and jumbled together. Da marched to the door and tossed Soldier out on to the cobbles. Stanley gasped, but in an instant, Soldier was up, bewildered, skittering lopsided towards the kennels, tail tucked down, anxious eyes and head curved to the door. Da tramped across the room and up the stairs.
Stricken, Stanley went to the pup. ‘He doesn’t mean it . . . Da’s only trying to hurt me.’ Filled with flinty anger, Stanley grew defiant. ‘But I’ll go, run away, go and find Tom.’ Stanley’s words took root. Yes, he thought, kneeling and stroking the pup. Yes, I’ll go away from here, then how will Da feel?
Soldier licked Stanley’s cheeks and that tiny, solicitous tongue, troubled eyes and milky breath put an end to all thoughts of leaving home.
Sunday, 21 August 1917
Lancashire
Outside all was grey midsummer mizzle, but Trumpet’s box was golden and warm. Stanley was filling some hessian sacks he’d taken from the potato shed with straw to make the puppies’ bedding plusher. Trumpet was harrumphing and tossing his head, displeased at so much commotion in his box.
Stanley watched entranced as Soldier skittered about, raising dust that glittered like confetti. Soldier feinted a crouch, sprang away, then crouched again, inviting Stanley to play. Rocket unravelled herself, legs stacked just so, a reclining empress surveying her mischievous troops with amused tolerance. Stanley stuffed a final handful of straw into the last sack. Tom said he slept on a palliasse, that the Army gave one to each man, and Soldier, too, would have a palliasse. Stanley pulled the string tight and knotted it, watching as a pup jumped up at Trumpet’s feathered forelegs.
‘Six weeks old today and you’ll have rabbit for lunch. Your first rabbit meat.’
Stanley stood and turned to Trumpet and blew into his large nostrils. Trumpet held his great head still. He liked it when Stanley did that. Stanley turned and unlatched the door of the box to fetch some water. His step faltered as he found himself face to face with Da.
‘Put the ’orse in the harness.’
Da’s voice was a guillotine. Soldier grew tremulous, and cowered. Wary, watching Da, Stanley fetched the harness. Why wasn’t Da in his Sunday bezzies? Weren’t they going to church? Eyes still on his da, Stanley fitted the harness.
‘It’s to Birdy Brow and the tinkers we’ll be going the day with your half-breeds.’
Stanley clenched his fists, flint flashing in his eyes.
‘N-no, no!’
‘You’ll do as I’m telling you, you daft clod. An’ stop your gabbing and sputtering. The tinkers’ll take ’em and they can take them for nought if there’s not a word said. I’ll have no Gypsy dogs in our house.’
Motionless with rage, frustration and fear, Stanley’s unformed words dried in his throat.
‘One hundred hounds shot last week. Hounds with thoroughbred in their veins. A fifty per cent reduction – aye, fifty per cent – in the numbers of hunting dogs, is what’s ordered. Breaking men’s hearts as have tended and fed those pure-bred packs – built them up over generations and – bang! – horse meat for France. An’ you’re thinking to keep mangy, good-for-nothing half-breeds, when thoroughbreds are being shot?’
Stanley looked at the pups, saw in a sickening rush how small they were, only two handspans high. Too, too early to take them from their mother. Da stepped forward and raised his arm.
‘I’ll clout you . . .’
Stanley turned away, his heart pounding, flashes of anger breaking over him in waves of molten lava.
He had no choice. If the pups went to the Gypsies, they would, at least, be safe, they wouldn’t be drowned. He’d lose Soldier, but this would be the last time he’d obey Da. Ever. If Soldier was given away, if they were all given away, then Stanley would leave home.
Pulling his cap over his eyes, Stanley backed Trumpet up to the trap, and spread some matting down. He lifted a pup and placed it in the trap. Rocket circled, nose raised. Avoiding Rocket’s eyes, Stanley gathered Socks and Biscuit, so small he could hold them both with one arm. Only Soldier still to find – there he was, beneath Rocket, tugging at her, struggling to keep up as she paced to and fro, her searching head straining up at the trap.
Stanley would have to pull Soldier apart from Rocket, to pull the son from the mother. Stanley bit his lip, braced himself and knelt. Rocket placed her nose on his lap, her trusting eyes searching his face. Stanley looked away as he tugged Soldier, feeling the resistance as the pup pulled at the teat. He held Soldier’s plush puppy coat to his cheek, smelling his milkiness, remembering the horror of losing a mother.
‘I won’t let them take you, I’ll find a way,’ he whispered. Turning and rising he fumbled his way to the back of the trap.
The trap joggled over the yard towards the arch.
Stanley gasped. There was Rocket trotting along beside them, questing snout reaching upward. Stanley winced – he should have locked her up, hadn’t been thinking straight – of course she’d follow her pups. Da turned Trumpet to the left. He was taking the drive that curved across the park, the drive the Chorleys called Park Drive. Still Rocket kept pace with the trap, at an airy trot, her feather-light paws barely disturbing the glaze of drizzle on the ground. Stanley lifted his hand to her in a motion to stay, hissing, ‘Go back, Go back.’
Trumpet lumbered onward, and still Rocket followed.
‘Go back, girl,’ hissed Stanley again.
They’d left the park and were almost at the new lake. Desperate now, Stanley stood and motioned again. ‘Go back, Rocket, go back.’
Da’s head turned. He saw Rocket.
‘Home. Go home, girl,’ he yelled.
Rocket stopped.
‘Gerraway. Back! Go back, girl.’
Da whipped the old horse onward. Rocket cringed and recoiled two reluctant paces. There was a crack as Da’s whip lashed Trumpet’s rump with shocking violence. The trap gathered speed. But there was Rocket again alongside, effortless and gossamer and lovely. Da lashed the ground inches from her nose. Rocket flinched, then followed, now at a hesitant, bewildered trot, tortured between her instinct for obedience and her anguish for her brood. Da turned to Stanley.
‘Are you still gawpin’? I’ll clout you too . . .’
The puppies skidded across the trap, drawn ever away from their mother by Trumpet’s awkward, uneven canter. Da jerked his arm up as though to hurl a stone. Rocket recoiled, quivering. She stayed there, one foreleg lifted and poised. There by the edge of the lake, in the unnatural, deathless shade of the spruce, she stayed and raised her nose to the grey sky, and howled.
Trumpet laboured up between the dry stone walls of Birdy Brow, then down between the humps of gorse where the ground was harder, the windswept thorns twisted and tortured.
They reached a simple stone bridge and joined a straight, Roman sort of track, known as the Ribble Way, running through tussocky grassland. Ahead lay the Bowland Hills. Boulders dotted the treeless bog, the colours of the shrub heath muted by the veil of mizzle. Above, outraged clouds scurried across the enormous sky.
The road began to climb. This was a long way for an old horse. Stanley strained to see through the mist and the drizzle – something was going on ahead; it was difficult to see what. They drew closer. Some sort of gathering.