WOUNDED WARRIORS
"This one isn’t just any old horse.
There’s a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him.
Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be?
I tell you, my friend, there’s divinity in a horse,
and especially a horse like this.
God got it right the day he created them.
And to find a horse like this in the middle of this filthy
abomination of war,
is for me like finding a butterfly in a dung heap.
We don’t belong in the same universe as a creature like this.”
Michael Morpurgo – war horse
I see everything through a red haze. I am beyond pain. I am beyond terror. I hear my blood pounding in my head. I hear my breath coming in heaving gasps. I look into the bloodshot, glazed eye of the one running next to me. There is none of the earlier desperation, none of the blind panic - just a blank, hopeless resignation that death is waiting. The frenzied drumming of hooves seeps into my clouded consciousness, along with the screaming of the blood-crazed monsters lining the narrow streets upon which we run. I hear the groan before I feel blood spraying into my eyes and onto my face, and the one who runs alongside me dips and plunges as her legs give way and she ploughs headlong into the burning pavement. Her scrambling feet catch my front legs and I see the broken road rushing up to meet me. Everything is black.
Chapter 2 — REMEMBER
“Where ever you are, I will find you and I will bring you home.”
It is a familiar scent that lifts me out of the darkness. It is faint and mixed with the stronger stenches of blood, fear and death. I want to sink back into that comforting darkness, away from the overwhelming pain, away from the absolute horror of the world in which I have found myself. It is the sweet scent of happy days past, of safety and hope, that stops me from letting go and sinking back into the abyss…….
Maddi was there the day I was born. Her kind, reassuring hands helped me to stand upon my wobbly new-born legs. Her strong, safe arms prevented me from falling headlong into the stable wall. Maddi was there the first day my mother and I went outside – into a grassy field to enjoy the warm sunshine. I would skip and play, and Maddi would laugh. The other babies and I would all jostle each other to be near her when she entered our field. When the time came to be weaned away from our mothers, Maddi was our comfort and the constant in our lives.
Maddi taught us many things from the day we were born. Her piping voice would ring out from before breakfast time – she was a great organizer! Maddi made sure that we were all treated well and handled with professionalism and kindness. We were champions in the making, after all; we were the next generation of racehorses destined to grace the race tracks. We were royalty, and our exciting lives were set before us. As youngsters we would run, racing one another around the fields. Fighting to be the winner. The feel of my muscles stretching and burning as I strained to get to the front was glorious! My speed was exhilarating; the wind howled in my ears as I ran, as I flew.
There is that waft of sweetness again. Not the sickening sweet smell of blood, but the light, fresh, warm smell of comfort and hope. I try to focus my eyes, try to see. My eyelids are stuck shut; they feel sticky. White-hot pain floods through my entire body as I lie broken on the roadside, in thick darkness ….
I feel icy rain beating down on me; pinpricks of brightness stab at my eyelids. I hear the rumble and the hissing of traffic, the excited chatter of people.
“So much blood! How can he be alive?”
“Where is that policeman? He was here just a minute ago.”
“He went to fetch the doctor – she is still busy checking that dead horse at the end of the road.”
“……. they have been out here all night……”
“Is this other one dead? It looks like they came down together.”
The other one…… the one who was running next to me. I remember her. I remember her fright and panic. I remember her wide, rolling eyes. Her mouth was already ripped and bleeding before we even started running and her gray coat was dark, dripping with sweat and blood – full of welts and cuts from that evil long whip that her rider was wielding.
She ran alongside me. The monster clinging to her back was slicing me with his whip. Whatever was sitting on my back (he could not have been human), grabbed the flying whip, and we all collided. There was the flash of a blade, and blood splattered……
Terror and horror crash down on me. I smell fear, fear that has no words. I smell death. I must escape this place! I must run! I must run! Heat surges through my broken, bloodied body. I cannot see! I cannot move! Something is heavy on my thrashing legs, something holding me down. In my blindness and panic, I am completely alone. In my blindness and panic, there is no one………
