War Horse by Michael Morpurgo Page A

I shouldn’t. Can’t think what came over me, and all for a muddy old horse too.’
    ‘But I can, I can speak a little bad English,’ said the older man, still holding out his cupped hand under my nose. It was full of black bread broken into pieces, a titbit I was familiar enough with but usually found toobitter for my taste. However I was now too hungry to be choosy and as he was speaking I soon emptied his hand. ‘I speak only a little English – like a schoolboy – but it’s enough I think for us.’ And even as he spoke I felt a rope slip slowly around my neck and tighten. ‘As for our other problem, since I have been here the first, then the horse is mine. Fair, no? Like your cricket?’
    ‘Cricket! Cricket!’ said the young man. ‘Who’s ever heard of that barbarous game in Wales? That’s a game for the rotten English. Rugby, that’s my game, and that’s not a game. That’s a religion that is – where I come from. I played scrum-half for Maesteg before the war stopped me, and at Maesteg we say that a loose ball is our ball.’
    ‘Sorry?’ said the German, his eyebrows furrowed with concern. ‘I cannot understand what you mean by this.’
    ‘Doesn’t matter, Jerry. Not important, not any more. We could have settled all this peaceful like, Jerry – the the war I mean – and I’d be back in my valley and you’d be back in yours. Still, not your fault I don’t suppose. Nor mine, neither come to that.’
    By now the cheering from both sides had subsided and both armies looked on in total silence as the twomen talked together beside me. The Welshman was stroking my nose and feeling my ears. ‘You know horses then?’ said the tall German. ‘How bad is his wounded leg? Is it broken do you think? He seems not to walk on it.’
    The Welshman bent over and lifted my leg gently and expertly, wiping away the mud from around the wound. ‘He’s in a mess right enough, but I don’t think it’s broken, Jerry. It’s a bad wound though, a deep gash – wire by the look of it. Got to get him seen to quick else the poison will set in and then there won’t be a lot anyone could do for him. Cut like that, he must have lost a lot of blood already. Question is though, who takes him? We’ve got a veterinary hospital somewhere back behind our lines that could take care of him, but I expect you’ve got one too.’
    ‘Yes, I think so. Somewhere it must be, but I do not know exactly where,’ the German said slowly. And then he dug deep in his pocket and produced a coin. ‘You choose the side you want, “head or tail”, I think you say. I will show the coin to everyone on both sides and everyone will know that whichever side wins the horse it is only by chance. Then no one loses any pride, yes? And everyone will be happy.’
    The Welshman looked up admiringly and smiled. ‘All right then, you go ahead, Jerry, you show them the coin and then you toss and I’ll call.’
    The German held the coin up in the sun and then turned a full slow circle before spinning it high and glinting into the air. As it fell to the ground the Welshman called out in a loud, resonant voice so that all the world could hear, ‘Heads!’
    ‘Well,’ said the German stooping to pick it up. ‘That’s the face of my Kaiser looking up at me out of the mud, and he does not look pleased with me. So I am afraid you have won. The horse is yours. Take good care of him, my friend,’ and he picked up the rope again and handed it to the Welshman. As he did so he held out his other hand in a gesture of friendship and reconciliation, a smile lighting his worn face. ‘In an hour, maybe, or two,’ he said. ‘We will be trying our best again each other to kill. God only knows why we do it, and I think he has maybe forgotten why. Goodbye Welshman. We have shown them, haven’t we? We have shown them that any problem can be solved between people if only they can trust each other. That is all it needs, no?’
    The little Welshman shook his head