Photo credit: https://www.oscarchamps.com/2017/11/12/2011-war-horse/
I paced around the many tall trees in the forest; trees that seemed to be a dark cloak, closing around me, almost touching me, the bony fingers of the grim inevitable. The electric anticipation in the air chocked the mere breath out of me. Men where murmuring quietly to each other, some whispering their final prayers. But my Captain Nicholls patted me on the neck and said ‘You’ll be alright Joey. We’ll pull through. I know it.’ He said it with a lot of grit, deep in his voice. Yet, there was something wrong, he felt heavier than usual, like a rock on my back weighing me down. He wasn’t like usual, when he was riding me. Normally he was like a part of me when riding, he fit perfectly on me, but now his knees held me in an iron grip, legs rigid and stone-still.
Finally, it was time to assume formation. The calm before the storm – though I knew how briefly it would last – had begun. The chatter died down and everyone had their brow furrowed in worry. As I looked round at some of the men and the horses, some for the last time, a talisman grew and burned in my chest, a passion to win the charge for those innocent men and horses. The men were told to ‘draw swords’ and as one, as if in a trance they drew their flimsy swords, but the horses were restless and they were stamping their hooves and snorting ceaselessly; they knew what was coming.
The shrill cry of ‘charge’ was almost blotted out by screaming men and neighing horses. I heard and felt Captain Nicholls let his battle cry loose in amongst the first of the shells. Out of the blue, horses and men alike dropped like dominoes across the battlefield. Carnage took full reign. The deafening noise all around me had woken the Grim Reaper from it’s deep slumber. In one gigantic swipe of his scythe, he released all his caged rage onto the chaos that was unravelling. Men in their hundreds fell to the great, sharp, bloodied blade. Riderless horses were either pelting out of the battlefield or scattering the ground, breathing their final breaths.
Out of all the hoarse yelling and the pitched and terrified whinnying, an enormous shell plummeted from the sky from kingdom come and erupted right beside me. I felt the shrapnel graze the side of my neck but a bullet, out of nowhere slammed into Captain Nicholl’s arm and he flew out of the saddle and splattered into the mess of blood and mud at the ground. But his hand was still on the right rein as he fell, jerking the corner of my mouth, digging into my skin. This set me off on such a frenzy and I found that I couldn’t stop amongst the guns and the shells. Blind terror drove me on. Towards a sea of piked helmets. Towards bullets that seemed to be missing me, but there would always one stray stroke of death. Towards a certain death - surely. And as quickly as it started the bedlam of battle had died away. The last of the shots rang out and I ceased my flow. I glimpsed Captain Nicholls groaning in the devouring mud and I yearned to race, to his side, to help him. But instead, hard and rough hands tugged me back, we had lost.
~ The End ~
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