He spent a good deal of time in the hold and—oddly—found it was a marvellous cure for seasickness. He became intrigued with this world of horses, rats and bilge that had been consigned to his care. It took on a life entirely its own—presided over by the booming B.S.M. and watched from its towers of hay by the pale and looming faces of the pickets in their masks. Robert soon became completely disengaged from the other life on the upper decks. He even went below off duty.
25 At last they came in sight of land. This was at 2 a.m. on Monday, 27 December—but the storm, that had somewhat abated, took on a new direction and the whole of that day the S.S. Massanabie rolled about helplessly outside of Plymouth harbour. The wind now blew in gales of up to 70 m.p.h. and in the midst of these it was decided all the men should be brought up top and onto the decks and into the lounges just in case. They also filled the corridors and passageways in double rows and stood leaning back with their stomachs sticking out or else slid down the walls and squatted with their knees apart. All were dressed in greatcoats over which they wore their life jackets. If two men turned sideways, the passageway was blocked. Light was forbidden. Some, in the ballroom, lighted matches from time to time and these flared up and showed somebody’s face and died. Nobody spoke. The piano rumbled and muttered every time a door was opened and the wind blew through its wires. Panic was perversely averted by watching one of the other ships in the convoy almost being sunk as she tried to make it into harbour past the rocks. This scene was lit by the moon.
Robert returned from the hold to his cabin at 4 a.m. on the Tuesday, so exhausted he could not remove his gloves. He lay on his bunk bemused by the sight of Captain Ord’s hand dangling down beside him like a spider on a thread. Half-an-hour later, Battery Sergeant-Major came and knocked at the door.
‘I’m sorry to say so, Mister Ross, but one of them horses of yours has gone and broke its leg.’
Second-Lieutenant Ross would have to go back down to the hold of the ship because the horse would have to be shot and, of course, an officer had to do it. They were the only ones with guns.
26 The B.S.M. waited at attention while Robert went to the bathroom. The door had no lock and it banged and banged and banged all the time Robert was in there. His mind took up its rhythm: stop, stop—forward—stop. He had never squeezed a trigger against a living creature in the whole of his life.
He stood there with his trousers open—leaning in above the toilet with his hand against the bulkhead. Nothing happened. His bladder, like his mouth, dried up. Robert thought desperately for ways of avoiding what had to be done. Why couldn’t Battery Sergeant-Major Joyce do this? Hadn’t he been in the army all his life? He was a marksman—famous within the Battalion. He must have killed a hundred times or more—men and rats and horses—whatever it was you killed in wars. Robert’s brain began its stammering.
Joyce had fought in the Boer War and had been left for dead in the battle for Paardeburg Drift. His jaw had been shattered and because there’d been no doctor it had been improperly set. It angled towards one side and his voice whistled up his throat and came out through his nose. Right now, he asked Robert: ‘Are you all right, sir?’ ‘Yes,’ said Robert. ‘I just felt ill for a moment.’ He turned around and came out of the cabinet doing up his buttons. ‘I been ill myself on several such occasions,’ the B.S.M. said. ‘Dry-ill, you know—when nothing will come up.’ Robert could see him in the moonlight that came through the portholes and reflected in the mirrors. He thought no one could have thought to say a more decent thing at that moment. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
Robert drank a glass of water and the Sergeant-Major said to him: ‘You put your hand up the back of my jacket, sir, and take hold of my suspenders. I’ll lead the way. Them corridors is full of men asleep.’ And so they left the comforting sinks and toilets and proceeded through the darkened passageways and gangways under people’s arms and over people’s feet down to the bowels of the ship—with the B.S.M. shining his torch on the sleepers’ faces and Robert behind him holding the elastic reins in one hand and his other hand haunting his holster.
27 The hold was filled with a moaning noise and many of its lamps had been extinguished by the violence of the storm. Baggage, stores and hay were lashed in gigantic piles and only the shapes of these could be seen in the faltering light. Seventy horses, somewhere in this dark, were trying to maintain their footing. (The other seventy were beyond the furthest bulkhead in another part of the hold.) They were all in makeshift stalls along the aisles between the cargo—roped off in sections like corrals—ten horses to a section—two sections to an aisle, back to back. Each of the horses was cinched to a single cable that ran the width of the ship, the cable being guyed at either end to hooks in the hull. Mangers were nonexistent. The horses fed from hay thrown down between their hooves. Water came in leather buckets. All the exercise they got was in trying to stay upright.
Robert had been hoping to find several others there to help them, but there was only a single picket. The B.S.M. explained that even though Robert had said the full complement of orderlies was to remain below—as soon as he’d gone to his cabin, the Brigadier had sent down to say the horses were to fend for themselves and the men were all to come up. That was when the horse had fallen.
The sole remaining picket was a pale and frightened boy named Regis from Regina. He was very much afraid of the ocean. The only body of water he’d ever seen was the yellow, flat shadows in the valley of the Qu’Appelle. He could not have been more than sixteen years old, in spite of what he must have told the induction officer. He was presently sitting on the steps with the rats at his feet and the wails of the fallen horse in the shadows beyond him. Regis had been weeping and his face was streaked with dust.
As they stood on the steps, the S.S. Massanabie began to crash and shudder—bang! bang! bang! The captain was striving to hold her back from the rocks and had turned her too quickly out of the wind. Regis said: ‘We shall all be drownded, sir’ and Robert said: ‘No we shan’t’—amazed at the authority with which he said it because he thought himself that the ship was sinking. The rats had fallen silent and Robert knew this was a sinister sign. The boy seemed mollified by the sound of Robert’s voice and he hardly spoke again throughout the whole incident.
They turned to find the fallen horse.
It was down on its stomach—trying to rise against the motion of the ship—the broken leg stretched out behind it, so badly smashed that it showed the bone. Robert tried not to see this.
The horse’s gaze was turned in their direction—white with alarm in the lantern light. It whinnied and tried to rise again but its efforts were completely useless. Its hooves could gain no purchase on the metal plates.
Robert could barely move in his panic but he knew that he had to show his nerve and his ability as an officer. Somewhere, afterwards, someone in an adjutant’s office would write all of this down in a book. ‘Lieutenant Ross did this and that and the other. He showed decisiveness—(or he didn’t). He gained complete control of the situation—(or none). He has proved his effectiveness—(or not)—as an officer. God Save the King.’
‘Sir—may I suggest before you fire—’ the Sergeant-Major said: ‘we’d best do all we can to separate the other horses from the sound of that gun.’
Robert realized this was correct and he waited with his back turned while the boy and the B.S.M. removed the other horses from the section and cinched them to the wire in the next aisle.
When this was done, the B.S.M. said: ‘Sir—we’re ready for you, now,’ and he stepped to Robert’s left-hand side as Robert drew the revolver. Something insidious remarked in Robert’s mind as he did this how crazy it was to shoot a horse with a Colt. He stood with his legs apart, braced against the impulse to turn around and run away. The B.S.M. was watching him—squinting out of the dark, just like something mad staring down from a tree. Robert suddenly realized he didn’t know where to fire at the horse and was about to ask when he remembered that somewhere in Chums—as a
boy—he’d seen a picture of a cowboy shooting his horse behind the ear. The image rose in his mind—black and white and clumsily drawn—a child’s world picture of exactly what to do.
Robert approached the horse with the hammer drawn back and held in place by his thumb. He stood above the horse’s neck and the horse looked back at him, lifting its head and rolling its eyes in Robert’s direction.
‘I shouldn’t straddle it, sir, like that,’ said the B.S.M., ‘in case it throws itself.’
Robert stepped aside and stood more or less at attention.
He took his aim. His arm wavered. His eyes burned with sweat. Why didn’t someone come and jump on his back and make him stop?
He fired.
A chair fell over in his mind.
He closed his eyes and opened them.
The air in front of him was filled with little fires but the horse was not dead. It had thrown itself forward, lurching towards the Sergeant-Major, who calmly stepped aside with his hands behind his back. Regis ran to grab at the halters of the section behind them where all the horses started to pound the decks with their hooves.
The horse was trying to stand. Robert threw down his hat. Jesus; for Christ’s sake—die. ‘I need more light,’ he said. He was shaking; his voice full of anger. The Sergeant-Major turned the beam of his torch on the horse at his feet. Snakes. Snakes. Rattlesnakes. Its mane was a tangle of rattlesnakes. The horse was beating its head against the plates. Some sort of noise was emerging from its teeth. The B.S.M. said to Robert: ‘Just be very quick about it, sir. Just be very cool and quick.’ Robert forced his eyes to open: aimed—and fired again. This time the horse was hit on the withers. Robert sank to his knees. He could hear himself breathing. He held the gun in both hands. He pressed it hard behind the horse’s ear and swore at the horse: ‘God damn it, damn it, damn it—stop.’ His knees were wet and he drew himself into a ball and pushed with all his strength. He began to squeeze the trigger and he squeezed it again and again and again—so many times that when the Sergeant-Major pulled him away the gun went right on clicking in his hands.
And then all hell broke loose. Robert stood in the centre of the roped off corral with the dead horse quivering beside him and all the other horses rearing back and pulling against their cables so that Regis was nearly trampled. But the B.S.M. ran through and got the boy away. Robert was left alone with the pounding and the sound of it went around and around the hull like an endless ringing down an iron rail while the horses rose and fell like rocking horses in a crazy nursery till Robert kicked his hat through the straw and walked away with the gun dangling down from his finger.
While the Sergeant-Major clambered up to commandeer some men to come down and help, Robert and Regis stood beneath the iron steps in the dark. ‘Shall I light us a lantern, sir?’ said Regis. ‘No,’ said Robert. ‘Not for a moment, anyway.’ He didn’t want to see the other man’s eyes just yet—though he didn’t know why. For a long, embarrassed moment there was a silence which Robert finally broke by saying ‘If this damn ship would sell us one I’d buy us both a drink.’ But Regis answered him: ‘No thank you, sir. I promised my mother I wouldn’t.’
28 Shortly after dawn the storm abated and the sun came up in a cloudless sky. About 8 a.m.—(this was on the Tuesday)—the captain made his final bid for the harbour. The next two hours were the worst of the whole voyage if only because the rocks could now be seen and the waves, even though the wind had died, were still over twenty feet high. The ship’s First Officer told the Battalion C.O. this was the closest call he’d ever had in thirty years at sea. They missed the rocks by only forty feet and all at once there was a calm and a great resounding cheer went up.
Just as they were going through the gap, Robert and Regis started up the steps. The ship gave one great lurch and Robert fell. Regis started back down but Robert got to his feet and said he was fine. He thought he was. He hadn’t felt a thing.
Since there were other ships as well, the S.S. Massanabie sat at anchor for several hours before the tenders came to unload the troops. Robert went to his cabin where Captain Ord was packing away his books. He had got all the way to being With Wellington at Waterloo and he offered Robert a silver cup of brandy. ‘That’s where we’re going, you know. I mean—it’s sort of the same thing. Ypres is only sixty miles from Waterloo. Makes you feel better, doesn’t it…’ Why? Robert wanted to ask—but he didn’t. His legs were sore, he pulled down his trousers to examine them. ‘Good God,’ said Ord, ‘what happened to you?’ Robert explained about the fall. His legs were black and his feet had begun to swell. He was afraid he would not be able to get his boots back on for days if he took them off. But Captain Ord was adamant: he relieved Robert of all his duties and sent him packing to the infirmary. Ord was alarmed. He had never seen such bruises—but he didn’t say so to Robert. At any rate, it was because of this that Robert and Harris were disembarked together and in this way began their curious friendship that ended in ashes. They were taken off the S.S. Massanabie in stretchers and lowered into the tender much as the horses had been brought aboard—‘in a kind of harness.’
Looking back towards the ship from the quay where their stretchers had been laid side by side, Robert propped himself up on his elbow and then, when he realized what it was he was seeing he pulled himself up against the parapet. All the horses—who knows how?—were in the water and swimming desperately towards the land.
‘What is it?’ Harris asked.
‘Come and see,’ said Robert.
He wrapped himself and Harris in blankets and they sat on the parapet, just like football fans, waving their arms and cheering the horses ashore.
They came ashore where the fishermen’s boats had been hauled out for winter and a section of soldiers was waiting for them with brightly coloured flags. The soldiers whirled the flags above their heads like cowboys at a round-up—driving the horses off towards the nearest street. There were also a number of townsfolk gathered to watch all this—some on cobblestones—some in windows—some who came running out of houses and pubs and shops—all of them calling: ‘horses! horses! horses!’ Children dashed across the road to touch the horses’ tails and ran away squealing and laughing—everybody holding up their hands and faces under the sheets of dazzling rain that shook and shimmered off the horses’ backs in the sunlight.
When the horses had gone, Harris lay down again and turned on his side. But Robert waited—watching. He wanted something more, not knowing what it was. Then Clifford came and said that Robert must return to the stretcher so he and Harris could be carried onto the waiting train. Later, when Robert put the voyage down on paper for his parents, this is all he said: ‘here we are at last! It was an evil trip. I caught a cold and the doctor thought it might become bronchitis. There were storms. Someone put me in charge of the horses. England is black from end to end. We travelled through the dark for hours by train and not a single light was seen. I think perhaps you’d like this place where we are. It’s in Kent. There’s a grand country house with open fields on every side and an old, chalky town down below the cliffs. The war seems awfully far away. Even further off than when we were at home.
P.S. Do you think you could send the automatic soon? I want it very much. Battery Sergeant-Major says if you could get a Webley .455 Mark I they’re the best there is. They’re wonderful to fire, and they kill at fifty yards.’
29 Mrs Ross’s only brother—a boy called Monty Miles—had been killed while walking home on Shuter Street. This was many years before, when Mrs Ross was in the process of getting engaged and married to Tom. Monty Miles Raymond was everyone’s favourite young man. All the girls loved him—all the boys wanted to be his friend. He wore brown suits and shoes with spats. He carried a walking stick. He whistled all the way to work and back. A wayward trolley left the tracks to strike him down. The mourning had gone on for years. ‘Do you remember Monty Miles…?’ and everyone would cry. Miss Davenport could still be brought to tears at the thought of how he’d strutted down
the street with his cane across his shoulder. Now, the world was full of trolley cars and Mrs Ross could hear their brakes and see them jump the tracks in all her dreams. She began to wear dark glasses so her eyes could not be seen. Miss Davenport was moved from her rooms at 74 St George to the rooms at the top of 39 South Drive. Mister Ross was very solicitous. He would do anything for his wife—but his wife would have none of it. All she wanted was to sit in the corner of the room and watch the door for Robert’s return.
When Robert had been posted overseas—just like that—Mister Ross called up everyone he knew to discover where he might meet the troop train. His idea was to let his wife have one last reassuring look at her son. And no child of his was going to be swept away without goodbye; he’d be damned if he’d allow that to happen. So he exerted the pressure of his Government contracts and at last the news came through. Mister Ross could see his son in Montreal. He and Mrs Ross got on board their private railway car and rode through the night. She exhorted him to read to her. He read her Huckleberry Finn. When it was morning and the private car was on its siding in the Montreal freight yards, Mrs Ross put on her opal dress and tried to fix her hair. She dropped a lot of pins on the floor and couldn’t see herself in the mirror. She decided to put on a large fur hat that would cover her head and hide the fact that she could not fix her hair the way she wanted to. Then she went into the salon and sat with her legs tucked beneath her in one of the pullman chairs and drank a third of a bottle of scotch. When Mister Ross came in and said it was time to go, Mrs Ross stood up—and fell down. ‘I can’t,’ she said. Her legs had fallen asleep. Mister Ross was determined, nonetheless, that he should go—even if he had to go alone. He had brought Robert down a hamper of food as well as the Colt revolver in its wooden box. He wanted these gifts to pass from hand to hand. And so he went out and met his son—and afterwards, he stood on the platform—with the thought of Mrs Ross beside him, waving. But Mrs Ross just stood at the windows of the private car and was afraid to go outdoors. Her mind was full of trolley cars and she knew that if she tried to cross the tracks, then she and everyone would be struck down. Instead, she waved from behind the glass and she watched her boy depart and her husband standing in his black fur coat—it seemed for hours—with his arm in the air and the snow falling down around him. ‘Come on back to the raf’, Huck honey.’ And this was what they called the wars.