Morpurgo War Stories. Michael Morpurgo

I’m going to go on seeing her. I‘ll find a way no matter what that old cow says.” He turned to me. “Still friends?” he said.

      “Friends,” I mumbled, but I did not mean it.

      After that no more was ever said between us about Molly. I never asked because I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want even to think about it, but I did. I thought about nothing else.

      No one could understand why, but shortly after this Bertha began to go missing from time to time. She hadn’t wandered off at all until now; she’d always stuck close to Big Joe. Wherever Big Joe was, that’s where you’d be sure to find Bertha. Big Joe was frantic with worry every time she went off. She’d come back home in the end of course, when she felt like it, either that or Mother and Joe would find her somewhere all muddied and wet and lost, and they’d bring her home. But the great worry was that she’d start chasing after sheep or cows, that some farmer or landowner would shoot her, as they’d shoot any dog they found trespassing on their land that could be molesting their animals. Fortunately Bertha didn’t seem to go chasing sheep, and anyway up until now she had never been gone that long, nor strayed too far.

      We did our very best to keep her from wandering. Mother tried shutting her in the woodshed, but Big Joe couldn’t stand her howling and would let her out. She tried tying her up, but Bertha would chew at the rope and whine incessantly so that in the end Big Joe would always take pity and go and untie her.

      Then, one afternoon. Bertha went missing again. This time she did not come back. This time we could not find her. Charlie wasn’t about. Mother and Big Joe went one way looking for her, down towards the river, and I went up into the woods, whistling for her, calling for her. There were deer to be found up in Ford’s Cleave Wood, and badgers and foxes. It would be just the sort of place she’d go. I’d been an hour or more searching in the woods with not a sign of her. I was about to give up and go back — perhaps she’d gone home anyway by now, I thought — when I heard a shot ringing out across the valley. It came from somewhere higher in the woods. I ran up the track, ducking the low slung branches, leaping the badger holes, dreading, but already knowing what I would find.

      As I came up the rise I could see ahead of me the chimney of Father’s old shack, and then the shack itself at the side of the clearing. Outside lay Bertha, her tongue lolling, the grass beside her soaked with blood. The Colonel stood looking down at her, his shotgun in his hands. The door of the shack opened and Charlie and Molly were standing there frozen in disbelief and horror. Then Molly ran over to where Bertha lay and fell to her knees.

      “Why?” she cried, looking up at the Colonel. “Why?”

      

      There’s a sliver of a moon out there, a new moon. I wonder if they’re looking at it back home. Bertha used to howl at the moon, I remember. If I had a coin in my pocket, I’d turn it over and make a wish. When I was young I really believed in all those old tales. I wish I still could believe in them.

      But I mustn’t think like that. It’s no good wishing for the moon, no good wishing for the impossible. Don’t wish, Tommo. Remember. Remembrances are real.

      We buried Bertha the same day, where Big Joe always buried his creatures, where the mouse had been buried, at the bottom of the orchard. But this time we said no prayers. We laid no flowers. We sang no hymns. Somehow none of us had the heart for it. Perhaps we were all too angry to grieve. Walking back through the trees afterwards, Big Joe was pointing upwards and asking Mother if Bertha was up in Heaven now with Father. Mother said that she was. Then Big Joe asked if we all go up to Heaven after we die.

      “Not the Colonel,” Charlie muttered. “He’ll go downstairs where he belongs, where he’ll burn.” Mother darted a reproving glance at him for that.

      “Yes, Joe,” she went on, her arm around him. “Bertha’s up in Heaven. She’s happy now.”

      That evening Big Joe went missing. None of us was that worried, not at first, not while it was still light. Big Joe would often go wandering off on his own from time to time — he’d always done that — but never at night, because Big Joe was frightened of the dark. Our first thought was to look down in the orchard by Bertha’s grave, but he wasn’t there. We called, but he didn’t come. So, as darkness fell and he still had not come home, we knew there was something wrong. Mother sent Charlie and me out in different directions. I went down the lane calling for him all the way. I went as far as the brook where I stood and listened for him, for his heavy stomping tread, for his singing. He sang differently when he was frightened, no tunes or songs, but instead a continuous wailing drone. But there was no drone to be heard, only the running of the brook, which always sounded louder at night. I knew Big Joe must be very frightened for it was by now quite dark. I made my way home, hoping against hope that either Charlie or Mother might have found him.

      As I came into the house I could see neither of them had. They looked up hopefully at me as I came in. I shook my head. Out of the silence that followed Mother made up her mind what had to be done. We didn’t have any choice, she said. All that mattered was finding Big Joe, and for that we needed more people. She would go up to the Big House right away to ask for the Colonel’s help. She sent Charlie and me up to the village to raise the alarm. We knew the best place to go was the pub, that half the village would be in The Duke in the evening. They were singing when we got there, Farmer Cox in full voice. The hubbub and the singing took a while to die down as Charlie told them. By the time he had finished they were all listening in absolute silence. Afterwards, not one of them hesitated. They were putting on hats, shrugging on coats and heading homewards to search their farms, gardens and sheds. The vicar said he’d gather everyone he could in the village hall to organise a search around the village itself, and it was agreed the sounding of the church bell would be the signal that Big Joe had been found.

      As everyone dispersed into the darkness outside The Duke, Molly came running up. She had just heard the news about Big Joe. It was her idea that he could be somewhere in the churchyard. I don’t know why we hadn’t thought of it before — it was always one of his favourite places. So the three of us made for the churchyard. We called for him. We looked behind every gravestone, up every tree. He was nowhere. All we heard was the wind sighing in the yew trees. All we saw were lights dancing through the village, down along the valley. Beyond, and as far as the dark horizon, the countryside was filled with pinpricks of moving lights. We knew then that Mother must have persuaded the Colonel to mobilise everyone on the estate to join in the search.

      By dawn there was still no word of Big Joe, still no sign of him. The Colonel had called in the police, and as time passed everything was pointing towards the same dreadful conclusion. We saw the police searching the ponds and river banks with long poles — everyone knew Big Joe could not swim. That was when I first began to believe that the worst could really have happened. No one dared to voice this fear, but all of us were beginning to feel it, and we felt it in each other too. We were searching over ground we had already searched several times. All other explanations for Big Joe’s disappearance were being discounted one by one. If he had fallen asleep somewhere, surely he must have woken up by now. If he’d gone and got himself lost, surely, with all the hundreds of people out looking, someone would have found him by now. Everyone I met was grey and grim-faced. All tried their best to raise a smile, but no one could look me in the eye. I could see it wasn’t just fear any more. It was worse. There was desperation in those faces, a feeling of complete hopelessness that they could not disguise however hard they tried.

      Round about noon, thinking it was just possible Big Joe might somehow have found his way home on his own, we went back to check. We found Mother sitting there alone, clutching the arms of her chair and staring ahead of her. Charlie and I tried to raise her spirits, tried to reassure her as best we could. I don’t think we were at all convincing. Charlie made her a cup of tea but Mother would not touch it. Molly sat at her feet and laid her head in