‘And tae you, sir.’
William gripped the sword, and a flood of memories surged through the turmoil of confusion in his mind. With fumbling hands, appendages that seemed almost numb and foreign, like mechanical items grafted onto his body, he attached the scabbard to the sword belt around his waist.
He stood there for a while, almost in a trance, unaware of where to go or what to do; everything had been ripped away from him, everything was lost. The warmth of the sun on his face did not register at all; everything was cold, the green, sun-washed landscape around him suddenly as frigid as the snowy wastes of the Arctic.
After some time, he turned and stumbled back into the tent. He stared for many long moments at the muddy, irreparable fragments of the torn-up letter in the mud, feeling nothing but an almost suffocating numbness. Eventually he trudged over to his bed, and began sifting listlessly through his possessions. There was Captain Liversage’s embalmed heart in the jar in the rosewood box, and there was the drawing – the last one Andrew had ever done – of the four friends, the crumpled paper stained with bloody fingerprints and splotches of mud. In addition, there was a water canteen, spare socks and underwear, a few items of cutlery, a knife, a handkerchief, and some other standard-issue items.
There were no doctors or their assistants in the tent, but one of the doctors had left his satchel next to one of the troopers’ cots. William walked over to it, dumped everything that was in the satchel out onto the floor, and then took it back to his own cot, where he stuffed all of his possessions into it. He then slung the satchel’s strap over his shoulder and marched out of the tent.
As he continued to float through this dream-like reality, he found himself heading over to a large pen where a number of horses were kept. He looked up at the sky as he limped along, and noticed that it seemed to be darkening with ever-denser masses of cloud. He then hobbled over to a teenage groom, who was busy polishing a saddle, and knelt down next to the boy. William heard himself speaking to the lad, but it seemed as if his voice was not his own, and that it was echoing from somewhere far away.
‘Excuse me lad, dae you know if a horse by the name ay River King is here?’
The boy paused in his task and looked up.
‘I don’t know none of their names, soldier. I just take care of ‘em and what not, I do.’
William nodded and stared out at the mass of horses for a while, his eyes locked on some undefined point in the far distance. Eventually he spoke again.
‘Are any ay these horses survivors ay the battle at Balaclava?’ he asked.
‘A few, yes. But not many, like. Most was killed in the Light Brigade’s charge, they was.’
‘Could I go inside the pen an’ have a look at the horses? I’m desperate tae find out about the fate ay my poor mount, who I rode in the charge. He brought me through the gates ay hell an’ deep intae its depths, an’ he carried me back, but I dunnae know what has become ay him.’
The boy’s expression changed at once.
‘You survived the Charge of the Light Brigade?! Cor blimey, you’re a proper hero!’ he exclaimed, a bright gleam of admiration sparkling in his blue eyes.
‘I’m no hero,’ William muttered darkly. ‘No, I most certainly am not.’
‘Whatever you say, soldier,’ the lad said, his eyes still aglow. ‘Well listen, I’ve got to get back to this work, I do. You can go in there and ‘ave a look at them ‘orses, I’m not going to stop you. We did have to shoot a fair number of them what survived Balaclava though, we did. There was some terrible wounds on the poor beasts, there was. Was kinder to put ‘em out of their misery, see? You know what I mean, yeah? So don’t get your ‘opes up about finding your mount. Just warning you, like.’
‘I’ll keep tha’ in mind. Thank you.’
Overhead the clouds were growing heavier, and a chilly wind was starting to blow in from the north. As William made his way into the pen and started to wander through the mass of horses, small flakes of snow began to traverse their whirling, languid paths earthward from the heavens, dusting his head and shoulders with white.
He trudged through the pillars of living flesh, navigating his way through this equine labyrinth, drinking in the rich, earthy scents of the beasts, and recalling earlier, simpler days in the stables at Sir MacTaggart’s estate in the Highlands. It was impossible not to drown in the sea of memories; they were all he had now. The present was death made incarnate; he himself a mere wax replica of whatever he used to be; an inanimate thing somehow gifted with the ability to move, to be – yet not to be alive. The future was enshrouded in impenetrable blackness and suffocating shadow, altogether too terrifying and crushingly depressing to contemplate.
The snowfall grew heavier as William continued to push through the mass of beasts. Soon his head, shoulders and the ground beneath him were all dusted with a powdery covering of white.
‘Come on boy,’ he whispered under his breath. ‘Please be here. Please … I cannae truly ha’ lost everything.’
At that moment a familiar neigh broke the cold silence. With a sharply inhaled breath of suspense, William spun around to his left. The instant he saw River King standing there, staring intently at him with his big, soft eyes of chestnut brown, his heart soared, and he rushed over and embraced the horse’s neck, with tears rimming his eyes.
‘River King, River King, my beautiful, beautiful lad!’ he gasped. ‘I’m so happy tae see you, so happy, so happy!’
Tears flowed freely down his cheeks as he hugged the great stallion’s neck, and he could
