In Conflict

Chapter 2: At Camp

They dragged me across the cobbled square and tied me into a truck with other startled looking horses. As the truck trundled away, rocking from side to side I looked back, hoping that farmer Gray would be running desperately after me shouting:
"Alfred, oh Alfred I'm so sorry, come back to me!"
But he didn't. He had already gone.
We arrived at the local army camp where a rough man tugged at my reins and shoved me in a fenced off area, to be my home until I went to France to go to war.
I stood there, in the tiny confined space, for the best part of an hour. I waited for what the soldiers would bring next. Were they going to kill me, for meat? Was I going to be a cavalry horse? Or was I going to pull the artillery until my legs collapsed?
I was a proud horse. I was too proud. Why did they want me? If they were to make good use of me they wouldn't put me in a filthy paddock like this, surely?
A soldier walked up to me with a bundle of hay and a bucket of water. It reminded me of the time that Gray came to me with hay and my bridle the last time we saw each other. The soldier was young, about seventeen. He smiled at me and rubbed my nose. He put down the food and I ate. Then another man came, with clippers.
I felt the cold metal run over my head and remove my forelocks, and slither down my neck to cut off the rest of my mane. The man came round my left side and grabbed my tail roughly. He was smart, for he stood aside before my legs lashed out in terror and agitation. Then he held out the clippers and widened them, and cut short my tail with one slick snip. I wriggled as the blades tickled my rump, and they cut through my flesh and I screamed, more out of surprise than pain.
The man shouted, his gruff voice booming through the camp;
"Eric! Come over here right now and clean up this ugly knacker!"
'I'm only ugly because you made me so,' I thought.
The young boy who fed me earlier came over and spoke to me in his soft Irish tongue, comforting me as he dabbed the blood off my rump with a damp cloth.
"It's ok, boy. It's all done. Good thing those clippers didn't cut too deep, or I'd have had to go and get the vet."
I gently nudged Eric's shoulder and he dropped the cloth on the floor. He turned to me and looked at me. He ran his hand through my stubbly mane, as I lowered my head. He seemed to know what I was thinking.
"Don't worry, Alfred. Your mane will grow back."