“It would weigh him down, you idiot!” Roy snarled. Michael writhed uncomfortably — the harness was pinching his chest. Roy saw him and ran forward to adjust it, forgetting all about the rope. It whizzed through the pulley and Michael fell. He landed back in his chair with a bone-jarring thump that resonated through all the parts of his body.
He groaned and cursed the child for his stupidity.
A rather penitent Roy rushed to his side. “Are you all right, sir?”
“You let go!” Michael said, in outrage. “You bloody idiot.”
“You’re all right then, nothing broken?”
“Nothing new. Only my bloody back. My surgeon would have a fit if he could see this!”
Katie’s anxious face peered out the window, her hands covering her mouth, and her eyes round with alarm.
Michael refused to be beaten. “Come on lads, let’s give it another try, shall we? This time we’ll get it right.”
Roy jumped to grab the end of the rope. This time Roy and Hammond hauled together, and Michael rose again into the air. The rope chafed under his arms and around his chest, though he had worn an old sweater.
“This is bloody agony!” he yelled. “I’m going to ask for modifications, if we ever attempt this again.”
Michael was suspended in midair, long legs dangling below. Somehow the rope had twisted, and now it decided to untwist. Michael found himself turning midair in a circle. He enjoyed a unique three hundred and sixty degree view of the stable yard before finally settling above the horse — facing toward her tail. The nag decided to emphasize the moment by lifting said tail and letting a prodigious quantity of horse manure cascade onto the cobblestones below.
“Look out!” yelled Roy, as the twins stepped smartly out of the way and stood gazing in horrified amazement at the steaming pile of dung.
“Oh my Gawd,” said Bob.
“Phew! Can you smell that stench?” said George.
“Why is it green?” Alfie asked.
“Excuse me,” Michael interrupted. “Now that we’ve all admired Midnight’s little offering, can we concentrate on the task in hand? I’m suffering from terrible rope burn up here!”
Hammond took the strain, as Roy took hold of Michael’s legs and twirled him round in a rather casual manner.
“Don’t let go, or I’ll be back to square one again,” ordered Michael. It took a while to get him into just the right spot, but at last they accomplished it.
“Lower away,” Michael commanded, glancing across to see if Katie was still watching — hoping she’d witness his moment of triumph.
“Wait a minute,” said Roy, trying to prevent Midnight from wandering away. “Get underneath him, there’s a good girl.”
Michael looked down. The wretched beast wasn’t cooperating, and she had a look of horsy disdain on her face.
“Gently, Roy. Don’t pull on her mouth. She hates that,” he instructed, from above. “Alfie? Why don’t you try? She doesn’t like bullies.”
Alfie shook his head. “I’m not going near her, Mister. She don’t like me at all. Look at her, giving me the evils!”
Michael sighed, fearful of another bumpy landing on the cobblestones.
So again Roy swapped places so that Hammond, a man who understood the workings of a horsy brain, could coax Midnight back into position.
“Hurry,” Michael urged. The rope clutched him around the chest like a boa constrictor and he feared any minute now he would admit defeat and demand release.
Finally, they lowered Michael down onto his horse, and a cheer went up in the stable yard. Michael shrugged off the rope, cursing a little, and pulled down his sweater where it had ridden up. He leaned forward and patted Midnight’s neck to reassure her.
“It’s me old girl. Back in the saddle. You’d like to go for a canter, wouldn’t you?”
“Is that wise, sir?” Hammond put Michael’s right foot in the stirrup for him, and then glanced up at his lordship with concerns. “You won’t have the control you used to have … ”
Michael stared at him coolly until the man glanced away. Hammond didn’t apologize for questioning his master, but he went round to the other side of the horse, and with a kind of mock obedience, he placed Michael’s left foot in the stirrup, and stood back.
His heart already racing with anticipation, Michael made a clicking sound in the back of his throat.
“Walk on,” he demanded, and Midnight lumbered into action. Michael shortened the reins and checked to see if Katie was still watching, which of course, she was.
Michael smiled and inclined his head, proudly, as if setting out for the show-jumping arena. The horse’s hooves clicked across the yard and out toward the paddock.
“Not too fast or you’ll be thrown, sir,” called Alfie.
But Michael trusted Midnight. With a sort of breathless, rising excitement, he tapped with his hand on her flank where he would have used the pressure of his knee in the old days.
“Go on, girl, they can’t stop us now,” he urged. She needed no more encouragement. He felt that incredible power ripple beneath him, and the horse took flight across the hillside in huge easy bounds, while Michael’s heart soared with her. He clung tight and let Midnight take him for the ride of his life. “Horsepower!” he bellowed.
He reveled in the feel of her warm coat under his fingers; the smell of the wet, damp earth; the thundering sound of hooves as they raced across the field. She’s roaring like my old Hurricane, he thought, as he leaned forward and laughed. He headed for the little stand of trees and did a circuit around them. He tried out everything he dared to do without losing his balance. He found that it was perfectly possible to ride, and ride well, even without the use of his legs.
He returned to the yard breathless and euphoric. The children were all sitting in a row on the fence, watching him closely. Alfie looked particularly pleased with himself. The twins were bobbing their heads in excitement and even Roy seemed flushed with success.
“Alfie, you’re a genius,” he said. “I could take care of the whole farm like this. I could check up on things every morning from horseback. Wouldn’t that be something?”
Everyone agreed heartily — all except for Hammond, who looked rather dismayed.
• • •
The escapade put Michael in a good mood as he rolled in for tea with the children. “Make way,” he teased, as he took up his duties at the head of the table.
He’s beginning to accept it, Katie thought. He’s beginning to see what he
can
do, instead of what he can’t. She smiled, and he smiled back.
Michael turned to Alfie and ruffled his hair. “If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I could take you lot out on the lake,” he said.
Katie looked up sharply.
“In a boat?” said Bob.
“Yes.”
“Sir, are you sure that’s … ” Katie stopped. She was going to say “wise,” but she thought better of it. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“Yes,” Michael said, the lordly tone coming back into his voice. “It is. I haven’t been rowing for ages. You’re not worried about the children’s safety, are you?”
“I didn’t say that,” she replied. No. But she thought it. Four highly excitable kids in a rowing boat with a madcap lord? Could there be a better recipe for disaster? Honestly, ever since she’d given Michael that talking to about being sorry for himself he’d been turning into a right daredevil.
“Good God, Katie, I was the champion of the rowing team three consecutive years. The trophies are in the other room.”
Roy looked up with interest at that.
Reluctantly, Katie could see she must muster some enthusiasm for Michael’s plan. “Have you got life preservers?”
“For heaven’s sake,” Michael laughed. “It’s been as calm as a millpond today. If it’s like this tomorrow, it’ll be impossible to capsize. That rowboat is virtually unsinkable.”
“Isn’t that what they said about the Titanic?” Alfie said, and regretted it when he saw the look on Katie’s face. “Sorry. I want to go, honest! We are still going, aren’t we?”
“Are them trophies made of silver, Mister?” Roy chirped up, unexpectedly.
“Keep your mitts off my trophies, Roy,” Michael said. “Yes. We’re going on the lake tomorrow. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Katie murmured, like saying amen at the end of a prayer. Which is what she would be doing every minute that those kids were out on that lake with Michael.
Michael relaxed in the stern of the boat, lying back against some old cushions they found in the summerhouse. It was warm and he trailed his fingers lazily over the side and into the water. This was bliss.
He smiled. Katie was right, as ever. He was lucky to be alive, and there was more to life than sulking about his legs. Someday he’d like to thank her.
After they’d been afloat about twenty minutes, Bob got fidgety and wanted to sit next to his brother. Roy, of course, didn’t want to relinquish his place near the front. Naturally Bob stood up to protest, and then tried to squeeze himself onto the seat beside George, wobbling the boat. The splash was almost inevitable. Bob was in the water, and the remaining children made things worse by leaning over the side, stretching out their hands for him to grab on to. The boy gasped and panicked in the water.
“Sit down or we’ll capsize,” Michael yelled. They all seemed to be screaming at the tops of their voices, and George was frantic with fear. “Bob can’t swim! Mister! Do something!”
There was but one course of action open to Michael under the circumstances. He let out a sigh of resignation, almost boredom, and flipped himself over the back of the boat and into the water. It was a most peculiar sensation diving into the water. Michael hadn’t swum since before his accident, and though he couldn’t kick with his feet, he found that he could swim pretty well using his arm strength. The noise of the water made a rushing sound in his ears, and a corresponding rush of adrenalin coursed through his body.
I still love the water.
His arms swooped back as he swam under the boat — the quickest way to get to the boy. His hair streamed from his face. Above him, light filtered through the murky water, and he was faintly aware of the children’s voices, muffled and distant. Michael swam upwards now, toward the surface until he reached the boy.
He had Bob in his arms in an instant, and they both surfaced, splashing and gasping. He caught hold of the boat with his free hand, and tried to get Bob to heave himself on board, but the little child clung, terrified, to Michael.
“Drag him up, Roy, for heaven’s sake. George and Alfie, don’t move — we need you to balance Roy’s weight.”
As they hauled Bob onboard sopping wet, his waterlogged shorts fell down, revealing, to Michael’s shock, that Bob was a little girl. Bob hauled up his — no, her — pants as soon as she was aboard the boat, but it was too late.
Michael laughed out loud. It certainly was a week of surprises. He swam to the back of the boat, wondering how he would manage to climb back in. Luckily, Roy’s help and his own strength were sufficient.
Bob was hysterical. “Don’t send me back, Mister. Please don’t send me back.”
Michael looked at the little waif, shuddering in the front of the boat. “Why would I send you back?” Michael asked.
“Coz you said you didn’t have no room for girls here,” Bob said.
Michael had not in fact had anything to do with the decision to send only boys to Farrenden Manor. That had been Mrs. Mallory’s idea.
“I take it your name isn’t Bob?” Michael enquired, sardonically.
“Back in Stepney, it was short for Roberta.”
To Michael, her pronunciation of
Roberta
sounded like a threat on the lips of a London thug, but he kept that thought to himself.
“Thank you, sir,” said George. “For rescuing my sister.”
Michael rowed back to the shore. His wet shirt stuck to his arms, his trousers were covered in bits of pondweed, and he was sitting in a pool of water, but he couldn’t have been happier.
As they rowed back to the jetty, the children filled him in on the story.
It had been Alfie’s idea, of course. While waiting for a billet with all the other evacuees, he had noticed that siblings of opposite sexes were split up. The twins couldn’t bear the idea of being separated, so Alfie suggested they disguise Bob as a boy. Roy filched the scissors from Mrs. Mallory’s desk, and they chopped off Roberta’s hair and flushed it down the toilet, which caused the mysterious blockage that day in the village hall.
“We felt a bit guilty about that,” Alfie explained, “but it couldn’t be helped.”
“No, no. The end justifies the means,” Michael interjected. “Tell me the rest.”
The children hid Bob’s suitcase behind a gravestone in the churchyard next door, and dressed her up in her brother’s spare clothes. Then came the hard part: remembering to say
he
instead of
she
.
“George was useless,” Alfie said. “I told him not to speak at all if he couldn’t get it right.”
“I’ve only just got the hang of it, and now I have to change back,” George grumbled.
“I could stay as a boy, honest,” Bob offered. “I like my school uniform. I don’t want to wear no stupid dress.”
“Them clothes cost a lot of money,” George said. “It would be a waste if she had to have a dress.”
There was a sort of poetic logic in their rash course of action that rather impressed Michael. “I think Katie will be interested to hear all of this,” he said, as they pulled up the boat alongside the jetty. He was rather looking forward to telling her.
The despised wheelchair was there, tied to one of the mooring posts so it couldn’t go anywhere. Michael frowned when he saw it. The incredible freedom he had felt in the water was still in his veins. He didn’t want to be stuck in that thing again.
• • •
Katie came running down from the house to meet them. She had witnessed the whole thing from an upstairs window: the children rocking the boat, one child flipping overboard, Michael throwing himself in the water. She’d been helpless through the kafuffle to do more than watch it unfold. She’d stayed where she was, holding her breath, until Michael had got Bob back in the boat. In fact, she’d held it a little longer, until she was sure that Bob was breathing. Only then did she spare a thought for Michael, the hero of the hour.