Not Bad for a Bad Lad (6 page)

There were dozens of horses coming towards me in twos, one of each pair being ridden, the other being led. As they came closer I could see there were soldiers riding them, all in khaki uniforms, with peaked caps. They trotted right past me. The horses were magnificent, not big sturdy Suffolk horses like Mr Alfie’s, but sleek-looking thoroughbreds with shining coats and tossing heads. None of the soldiers spoke to me as they rode by, except for the last one, who wasn’t leading a second horse like all the others – and that was just as well, I was thinking, because the horse he was riding was really playing up. All wild-eyed and skippy and up on his toes he was.

“Nice morning,” said the soldier. And that’s all he had time to say, because that’s when it happened, just as he was talking to me.

Suddenly this dog came charging out of the trees from behind my bench, barking his head off, a little scruffy-looking thing he was. Well of course that skippy horse took one look at him, shied, reared up, then threw his rider and took off into the park. I did the first thing that came into my head. I went after the horse. I caught up with him in the end, just before he reached the road. I was a bit puffed out by this time. He was still quite upset, but I could see that he had 
calmed down a little, enough to be nuzzling at the grass. I sweet-talked him as I came towards him, just like I’d learned to do with Dombey.

When I got close enough, I managed to smoothe his neck and stroke his ears and finally I got hold of his reins and began to walk him back. The whole
column
of horses had stopped by now and I saw the
soldier
who’d been thrown limping towards me.

“You all right?” I asked him.

“Bit knocked about, but I’ll be fine. Stupid ruddy dog,” he said. “But you did well to catch my horse before he got on the road. I owe you one. He was a bit full of himself this morning. He gets like that.” He took the reins from me. “You know horses, don’t you?” he went on. “I mean you’re really good with them. We could do with a fellow like you in the
regiment. 
Ever fancied being a soldier?”

“What, with horses?”

“Why not?” said the soldier. “It’s what I am. I get three square meals a day, and a warm bed to sleep in. Pay’s not brilliant, but it’ll do. We have a pretty good time, us and the horses. You should try it.”

And I remembered then that Mr Alfie had been a soldier once, and with horses too.

“Maybe I will,” I told him.

“Tell you what you do then,” he said. “Just go down the road to that big building there beyond the
trees. It’s where we’re headed now. Follow where the horse poos lead. You can’t miss it. Ask for the duty officer. I’ll tell him what’s happened, tell him to
expect
you.”

Well, I’d got nothing much else to do, had I? Why not give it a go, I thought. So that same morning I did what the soldier had said, followed the horse poos, and went along there. To cut a long story short, that’s how I joined the army.

A few weeks of being shouted at and marching up and down and polishing boots and badges, a few more weeks of driving around in armoured cars, and then they let me have a go on the horses.

I could not believe my luck. From sleeping rough on a park bench to sitting up there on my shiny black
horse, with a shiny helmet on my head, and a shiny breastplate to match, in a pair of the longest, shiniest, blackest boots you ever saw, and a shining sword over my shoulder. I just didn’t think life could get any shinier.

But it did.

It was the day of my first big parade, the Queen’s Birthday Parade it was, and the band was there too. I heard them before I saw them, the big drum
thumping
away. Then they came round the corner, the full
regimental mounted band, all of them playing their instruments, on horseback. What a sound it was! What a sight it was! And out in front of the band was this huge drum horse, a silver kettledrum on either side of him, and the Drum Major banging away on them, like he was having the time of his life. Then I looked again. I can tell you, I nearly fell off my horse. That drum horse was brown and white! That drum horse was a skewbald! It was Dombey! No
mistake
, it was my Dombey!

I sat there on my horse during that whole parade, making up my mind there and then that one day I’d be up there riding Dombey, that one day it would be me banging away on those shiny silver kettledrums.

When the parade was over I went to see Dombey in his stable. He knew me right away and I can’t tell you how happy that made me.

It took me a few years of course, and I had to work hard, but I got there in the end. It was the proudest day of my life that first time riding out as Drum Major on old Dombey – and he was quite old by then – banging out the rhythm for the band, the whole of London echoing with it. As I rode along the Mall up to the Palace, there were crowds everywhere, clapping and smiling. They weren’t looking at me, they were looking at Dombey – I know that.

 I kept thinking all the while of Mr Alfie and Miss West, and all they’d done for me, how they’d kept faith with me, and I just hoped they were somewhere in the crowd out there and watching me. More than anything I wanted them to be proud of me. I swear I kept hearing Mr Alfie’s voice in my head, saying the same thing over and over, the beat of the drum in every word:

“Not bad for a bad lad, Not a bad lad at all.”

So now you know my whole life story – well, most of it anyway. Of course I had my ups and downs, as you do. Life’s not simple. Things don’t
always
work out exactly as you hope they will. I never saw Ma again. I was angry with her and she was angry with me. It’s my worst regret. Terrible thing, anger. My little brother told me at her funeral, that she did come to see me once on parade in Whitehall. He said she talked about me all the time after that.