Soldier of the Horse by Robert W. Mackay Read Free Book Online Page B

rattled the doorknob as he entered and closed the door behind him. As he walked into Zink’s office, the great man himself was sitting, hunched over his desk, whiskey glass once again in hand, and John Evans was pacing the room. Bernie Inkmann, tie loosened, lounged in a chair across the desk from Zink.
    Tom’s boss turned in his swivel chair and held out a hand. Tom gave him the package. “He says you owe him.”
    Zink raised an eyebrow, bent to open a bottom drawer in his desk and dropped the box into it. He seemed buoyed by Tom’s arrival, sitting straighter, looking pleased with himself. “Leave him to me,” he said with a chuckle. Tom glanced at Evans, who looked as though he’d rather be anywhere else. Inkmann was cleaning his nails with a penknife. “We’re talking to Kravenko again at nine o’clock tomorrow morning at the jail. Be there. He’s getting restless, the jailers tell me.”
    Tom figured Zink had to be at least half drunk, judging by the condition of the rye bottle Bernie had supplied. Evans told Zink he had an evening engagement and picked up his hat.
    â€œLeave, then, and you can go, too,” he thrust his chin at Tom.
    Tom silently followed John Evans down to the street, where the older man offered him a ride. Tom declined, as his home was in the opposite direction. Later, riding in the streetcar toward East Kildonan, he wondered what would happen next.
    â™¦Â Â â™¦Â Â â™¦
    So now, Tom was in the army, Zink and Bernie Inkmann were in jail, and John Evans was safe at home with the lovely Ellen. Once more, Tom was waiting for a streetcar, having survived another brush with Bernie’s older and far more powerful brother. He’d be a lot happier if he never had to see Cedric again.
    â™¦Â Â â™¦Â Â â™¦
    Damn the army. Tom rolled out of his bunk before the last notes of reveille sounded and stumbled to the washroom. A quick shave, throw on uniform and boots, stumble off to the stables. Damn again—forgot his puttees. Run back, grab them, wind them from just below the knees down, long cotton strips wrapped to cover trousers and boot tops, not from the bottoms up, because that’s how the despised infantry wore theirs. Feed and water Rusty. Clean his stall. Wash, line up at the mess hall for breakfast of porridge, eggs, bacon, and burned toast. Back to the stables, throw on Rusty’s blanket and saddle. Off halter, on bridle. Lead him out; mount up. Fall in. Wait for Quartermain.
    Tom and his fellow recruits had heard a lot about Lord Strathcona’s Horse in the few days they had been in the army. The original regiment by that name had carried the imprint of Lord Strathcona, the man behind the Canadian Pacific Railway, who raised a regiment in the west to fight in the Boer War. In 1914, when the Canadian Expeditionary Force was first mustered in Valcartier, Quebec, to train and travel to Europe, the Strathconas, now a regular regiment in the Canadian army, along with the Royal Canadian Dragoons and part of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, had been the first to arrive. As regular force regiments, they were instrumental in setting up the camp and getting the volunteers into some semblance of order. The Straths had then shipped to England on board the SS Bermudian . Quartermain had been sent back, in spite of his vigorous objections, and was now the senior noncommissioned officer responsible for bringing the recruits up to Strathcona standards.
    The men sat in their saddles, facing the rising sun. The horses pranced and tossed their heads, their pent-up energy mirrored by at least some of their young riders.
    â€œSo where’s our bloody Sergeant Quartermain, then?” asked Bruce Johanson.
    â€œDon’t look now,” Tom told him, “but he’s been sitting his horse at the other end of the parade ground the whole time. God knows when he gets up.”
    â€œMaybe he doesn’t