The War I Finally Won

  I tried. “My muscles don’t loosen,” I said.

  “I see that. You’re very stiff.”

  I felt indignant. “Most people tell me I’m a good rider.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, “by English standards.”

  Which was an insult no matter how you thought about it.

  “I haven’t been riding very long,” I said. “Just since I came here. And you know I had a clubfoot.”

  Ruth looked at me appraisingly. “The clubfoot that doesn’t ever make you limp? The one there’s nothing wrong with?”

  “I’m better now,” I said. “I had surgery last year. Before that my whole ankle curled sideways. Without crutches, I could barely walk.”

  Ruth studied me. “Drop your feet out of your stirrups,” she said. “Swing your legs. Like this.” She demonstrated. I tried. “No,” she said, “swing from the top of your legs. The very top.”

  It hurt, in a good sort of way. “Better,” said Ruth. “Now loosen your knees.”

  “Fred tells me to keep my knees in,” I said.

  “In, but not pinching. When you post, lift from your stomach instead of your legs. From your muscles. Like this.” She demonstrated.

  I tried. “That hurts.”

  “Yes. Practice will make you stronger.”

  It hurt, but it was better. Even I could tell that. We rode down the length of a field.

  “Why do you hate to talk about your foot?” Ruth asked, her eyes on Butter’s mane.

  I took a deep breath. Loose legs, strong stomach. Ivy relaxed. I said, “Why do you hate to talk about your grandmother?”

  “I’m worried about her,” Ruth said. “Talking makes me worry more.”

  “Oh.” We rode on in silence. At last I said, “I’m tired of feeling ashamed. About my foot.”

  Ruth frowned. “A clubfoot is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “My mother was ashamed. Mam, I mean.”

  Ruth said, “She was wrong.”

  I shrugged. “I can say that,” I said. “It’s harder to believe it.”

  • • •

  Ruth kept riding, though not every day, and not always with me. We knew that if we were always gone from the cottage at the same time, and only when Lady Thorton was away, Susan would start to suspect. Some days I rode Butter alone, and other days Ruth did. I drew her a map of the Thortons’ estate and the roads around the village, just as Susan had once done for me. Dragons, I wrote, with an arrow pointing to the WVS office, Lady Thorton’s lair.

  Ruth chuckled. “I will be like St. Margaret. I am not afraid.”

  Chapter 34

  In July Maggie came home for two whole months. “At least two months,” she said. “If I get my way, I’m never going back.”

  The two of us walked to the stables on her first morning back. “I’ve been exercising Ivy for you,” I said.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said. “That’s super.”

  “I’ve been letting Ruth ride Butter.”

  Maggie froze. She turned toward me with her hand in the air. “Stop talking,” she said. “I didn’t hear what you just said. I do not want you to tell me again. When my mother finds out—and she will find out—I want to be able to say I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “I think you’d like—”

  “My mother would be far angrier with me than she will be with you,” Maggie said. She started walking again. “I’m not joking. I don’t want to know.”

  “I thought maybe you could ride Oban, and that way the three of us—”

  Maggie shook her head. “Not on your life.”

  “Coward.”

  “Realist.”

  “Ruth’s not afraid.”

  “Ruth has nothing to lose.”

  “Sure she does,” I said.

  “Less than me. Why should I get in trouble for her?”

  “I thought you were named after a dragon-slayer,” I said. “St. Margaret the Brave.”

  “No,” said Maggie. “I was named after her great-grandmother. Plain Margaret the Sensible. Not a saint, but also not a martyr.”

  “Ruth’s like us,” I said. “Horses help.”

  Maggie shook her head. “It’s not my job to help her, is it?”

  “Your father might think so. Your brother might.”

  “Might,” Maggie repeated. “But they aren’t here. While my mother is, and we all know how she feels.”

  • • •

  Weeks passed full of sunshine. The days were so long and the nights so short I rarely had to go fire-watching. I made sure Ruth still got to ride Butter sometimes, but only by curtailing how much I rode myself. Maggie wouldn’t let Ruth take out any of the Thortons’ horses and she wouldn’t let me do it either. “We’d have more fun with the three of us,” I said.

  “I need to stay on my mother’s good side,” Maggie said. “If I annoy her I go back to school in September for sure.”

  • • •

  Maggie and I picked berries on the wild hillsides, and Susan taught us how to make them into jam. You could get extra sugar rations to preserve fruit. Susan had bought three whole kilos.

  Jamie flew in, banging the back door behind him. “Mum, Mum!” he said. “Mrs. Rochester had her babies! Mum, come see!”

  I flinched. All these months of Jamie calling Susan Mum, and I still couldn’t get used to it. “Mum!” Jamie said, pulling on Susan’s hand. “Come see, come see!” He dragged Susan outside.

  “Why do you mind what he calls her?” Maggie asked, watching me.

  I shrugged. Some things were too complicated to explain.

  • • •

  Mrs. Rochester gave birth to eight piglets. She lay on her side, grunting, suckling them all in a long row and looking pleased. “What should we name them?” Jamie asked.

  “We aren’t naming them,” Susan said. “They’re pig club pigs. We don’t name animals we plan to eat.”

  “I don’t mind,” Jamie said.

  Susan said, “I do.”

  • • •

  “Mum loves us,” said Jamie. He sat curled on the sofa at night, reading Swiss Family Robinson again. Maggie was upstairs in the bath. Ruth had said she was going for a walk but was actually riding Butter, and Susan and Lady Thorton had taken chairs outside to sit on the lawn. It was a beautiful evening. “And Becky,” Jamie said. “Becky loves us too.”

  “Oh, Jamie.” I sighed. “That’s a stupid thing to say. Becky never met us.” She’d died before she could.

  “She loves us from heaven,” Jamie said.

  “What about Mam?” I said bitterly. “Does Mam love us from heaven too?”

  “Probably,” Jamie said. “I think she’s capacitated now.”

  • • •

  Jamie repeated to Susan that Becky loved us. Susan put her arm around Jamie and said, “Of course she does.”

  When I complained about it later, Susan looked at me and said, “Do you really want me to tell him that he isn’t loved?”

  What was I supposed to say to that?

  I wouldn’t have told Susan I loved her even if I thought it was true. Words could be dangerous, as destructive as bombs.

  “Do you think Mam’s capacitated, now that she’s dead?” I asked instead.

  Susan tilted her head. “That’s a nice thought,” she said. “Maybe we all become better versions of ourselves after we die. Maybe we all reach heaven eventually.”

  Chapter 35

  In mid-August Lady Thorton and I were supposed to fire-watch, but I convinced Maggie to go up with me instead. The moon was half-full and the air clear and warm. The wind blew in from the sea.

  The sky was still so light that even the brightest stars were faint. I held on to the parapet and steadied myself. “Have you ever had a bomb, or an actual fire?” Maggie asked. She walked a
round the steeple, completely at ease.

  “No.” Since the end of the Battle of Britain, most of the fighting had moved to other parts of England. The Germans had only dropped three bombs anywhere near our village in the past year. None had hit buildings and the only thing that died was a sheep.

  Maggie looked at me. “Then why are you afraid?”

  “I’m not—”

  “Be honest. I see you’re afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid of the bombs,” I said. “I’m afraid of being trapped.”

  My own words startled me. I didn’t know where they came from, but I knew they were the truth.

  I was afraid of being trapped.

  “Trapped by what?” asked Maggie.

  “I don’t know, I—” I spread my hands out. “Everything. I have dreams about walls falling down on top of me. Pinning my leg again. Or bombers come, and I can’t move—or I’m back in our flat, stuffed under the sink—I can’t ever get away.” I took a deep breath. “I grew up like that. In our flat. I couldn’t get out.”

  Maggie said, “But you did.”

  My laugh came out shaky and close to tears. “I suppose,” I said. “Only I still have to keep watch. I have to be careful, to keep bad things from happening again.”

  Her eyes were dark with sympathy. “You couldn’t keep bad things from happening before,” she said. “You still can’t. It isn’t really up to you.”

  I walked to the corner of the parapet. I looked out at the coal-black sea. “I’m fire-watching to keep Jamie safe,” I said. “Jamie and me and everyone.”

  “You aren’t,” Maggie said. “You’re taking a turn watching for fires. That’s all. If you weren’t doing it, someone else would be. You could be home sleeping and you’d be just as safe.”

  “Please stop talking,” I said.

  Maggie didn’t. “It isn’t all only up to you.”

  I looked at her. “It feels that way.”

  “So?” She handed me the binoculars. We kept watch. No bombers came.

  Chapter 36

  Very early one morning near the end of August, a rattling against the bedroom window startled me awake. I jumped out of bed. Maggie did too. I thought the noise sounded like gunfire, but Maggie was grinning. “Pebbles,” she whispered as she took the blackout down.

  It was almost dawn. Indigo shadows stretched across the back garden. A quarter moon still hung low in the sky. Jonathan Thorton stood beneath our window, looking up.

  “Shh,” Maggie hissed, before I could shout. She opened the window and put her head out.

  “Get your jods on,” Jonathan said, low. “It’s a secret. Not a word.”

  Jods meant jodhpurs. We slipped into them. “What are we doing?” I whispered to Maggie.

  She whispered back, “No idea.”

  At the top of the stairs I heard a door creak behind us. I turned to see Ruth standing in her nightgown, wide-awake. She looked us up and down.

  Maggie and I froze. Then I grinned. “Get your jods on,” I whispered.

  Ruth looked from me to Maggie. Maggie shook her head. I said, “You expect her to keep quiet if we leave her behind?”

  Maggie sighed. She nodded at Ruth. “Jods,” she whispered.

  Ruth slid back into her bedroom. Maggie said, low, “You’ll be the death of me.”

  Ruth reappeared, grinning, dressed to ride. We crept down the stairs and out the back door.

  If Jonathan minded that Ruth was with us, he didn’t say. He lifted his finger to his lips, then led us down the path toward the stables. A little ways from the cottage, we met a second pilot standing beside two parked motorcycles. “Hop on,” Jonathan said to Maggie. He straddled one of the motorcycles. “You get behind me. Ada, you sit in front. Ruth, you get on behind Stan.”

  “What’re—”

  “Just do.”

  I balanced myself on the front edge of the seat of Jonathan’s motorcycle. Jonathan gripped the handlebars. I held on to his arms. We roared down the road until we were almost to the stables. Jonathan lifted a hand, and he and the other pilot coasted to a stop. “Wait just here,” Jonathan said to him. “Back in a bit.” To Maggie and Ruth and me he said, “Quiet, now.”

  “What are we doing?” Maggie asked him, but he didn’t answer. We almost had to run to keep up with his long stride.

  He looked, I thought, terrible. Run to earth. Even thinner than before, and every muscle of his face clenched tight. The sparkle in his eyes held an edge that was almost frightening, but when he saw me staring at him he smiled, and his eyes smiled too.

  In the stable yard, the dogs greeted us quietly. Jonathan opened the tack room. He directed Maggie to tack up Ivy, me to tack up Butter, and Ruth to tack up one of Lady Thorton’s horses.

  “Ruth should take Butter,” I said. “She’s used to him.”

  “Sure,” Jonathan said. “Whatever suits.”

  Jonathan tacked up his own horse, Oban. Next we walked the horses very slowly over the cobblestones—if we were trying to be secret, which it seemed we were, this was the trickiest part, since the clank of shod hooves against stone might wake Fred. In a moment, though, we were on dirt again. Jonathan shortened the stirrup leathers on his saddle. “Here you go,” he said, handing me Oban’s reins. “I’ll give you a leg up.”

  I froze. “Me?”

  He chuckled. “What do you think I’ve cycled through the night for? I promised you we’d go riding.”

  “I didn’t think you’d let me take Oban,” I said.

  “Scared?” he asked.

  I laughed. I loved Oban. “No. Well, maybe. Some. Not so scared that I don’t want to.”

  Jonathan laughed too. He legged me up, then quickly mounted the horse I’d saddled. “Away quiet like, then we’ll have a run.”

  “How long are you here?” Maggie asked. “Mum’ll—”

  “No,” Jonathan said. “I have to be back at the airfield by ten. It’s going to be tight enough as it is. This’ll be our secret. You’re not to tell her. Promise me, all right?”

  “All right,” Maggie said. Flicking a glance at me, she added, “Ada’s been letting Ruth ride. All summer.”

  “Good,” said Jonathan. “Why shouldn’t she?”

  “Mum said no,” said Maggie.

  “That’s silly,” Jonathan said. “When our horses are just standing around. They could use the exercise. I’ll write Mum about it.”

  Mist rose with the sun over the green-gold fields. The broad leaves of potato plants stretched far and wide, and in the hedgerows birds sang loudly. Oban walked beneath me with a marvelous loose swinging stride. I gathered the reins until I could just feel the edges of his mouth, and he softened his neck and relaxed into my hands. I let my hips swing and made myself breathe quietly.

  “See?” Jonathan said to his sister. “How could we miss this?” He nodded at me. I smiled. It was so glorious, so unexpected, so perfectly right, the walk, the fields, the horse—

  —the hedge exploded.

  It was a grouse, not a bomb. A grouse with a nest in the hedge, who took exception to the horses coming so near, and flew out squawking and flapping straight for Oban’s head.

  Oban spooked, and ran.

  I nearly came off him with the first leap, but I saved myself with a double handful of mane. The hedge flew past. Maggie screamed. Oban stretched out. He ran faster and faster, swallowing the ground. I pulled myself up like a jockey, legs straight in the stirrups, fighting panic. I hauled on the reins. I wasn’t strong enough to stop him, not when he’d lost his head so completely. “Sit up!” Jonathan roared, far behind me. “Hold on!”

  The wind made my eyes tear. The hedge blurred. My breath caught in my throat and the pounding of the horse’s gallop echoed in my bones.

  We were flying.

  Flying, really flying. Butter never in his life could have
gone so fast. Oban was a Thoroughbred, bred to run. He stretched his neck out farther, lengthened his stride even more.

  Suddenly my fear fell away. Oban was flying, and I was flying with him. Flying. I was flying! It was the best, most joyful feeling in the world.

  I dropped my hands to Oban’s mane. I let the reins run out, let my hands surge with the movement of his mouth. Instead of pulling him in, I kicked him forward. He bunched his hindquarters and ran harder.

  Oban loved to run. I loved Oban running.

  I kicked again. I whooped. His speed increased until his stride began to feel as smooth as rushing wind, as effortless as flowing water. I moved with him, effortlessly.

  On the day I was evacuated, I’d looked out the window of our train and seen a girl galloping a pony, racing the train. Now I was that girl, galloping, laughing, my head thrown back, the wind tugging my hair.

  I’d become the person I’d longed to be.

  At the far, far end of the field, Oban’s breath started to come in gasps, like mine. I sat up. He dropped to a trot, and then a walk, his sides steaming, dripping with sweat. I turned him toward Maggie and Ruth and Jonathan, who were cantering toward us half a mile away.

  “You all right?” Jonathan called. I waved to him, then ran my hand down Oban’s sweating neck.

  “Good boy,” I whispered, patting him. Good girl. “Good boy.”

  “Sorry,” Jonathan said, coming closer. “Are you really all right? The grouse spooked him, but I don’t know what made him keep running like that.”

  “I did,” I said. “I told him to go faster.”

  “You did?”

  I nodded. “It was wonderful!”

  Ruth laughed, and so did Maggie. “Told you,” Maggie said to Jonathan.

  He grinned at her. “Yes, but I didn’t believe you.”

  We turned and walked back toward the stables through clouds of the horses’ own steam. “Are you always so brave?” Jonathan asked.

  “That wasn’t brave,” I said. “I just—I didn’t fall off, and then we were flying. We both wanted to run, so we did.”