The Iron Stallions Read Online Free PDF Page B

the sweat flaps of saddles.’
    Josh drew a big grey with a rear end like a furniture van. It looked placid but Josh had long since learned that a horse could be dangerous at both ends and he soon discovered the grey was ill tempered and inclined to rear when he was mounting. Resenting the ministrations of curry comb and dandy brush, it could also kick the stars out of the sky when in the mood.
    In the saddle they were regarded by the riding instructor as if they were deformed.
    ‘You look like the bloody Salvation Army mounted section,’ he observed. ‘I can read the News of the World between your weak knees and the saddle flaps because there’s not an ounce of grip left in you! If you confined your riding to horses and not dirty sex-mad girls you’d be better for it!’
    Sometimes Josh was up before ‘Stables’ had sounded, making sure he got one of the few forks that existed for mucking out. At that time of day the air was thick with the stench of horse urine and, clutching armloads of soiled straw to his chest, he staggered outside to deposit it in the brick-surrounded dunghills.
     
    ‘Shit to the right of ’em,’ Dodgin sang.
    ‘Shit to the left of ’em,
    Shit to the front of ’em,
    Some bastard ’ad blundered.’
     
    He was a cheerful man, known as ‘Uncle’ because he was older than the rest, but though he knew all the tricks of the trade with women, he deferred to Josh every time when it came to the army.
    ‘Why’d you join, kid?’ he asked.
    ‘Because I wanted to,’ Josh said. ‘Why did you join?’
    Dodgin grinned. ‘Unemployed. Sick of bein’ cold and ’ungry and ’avin’ wet feet.’ He looked at Ed Orne whose name, shortened to Head-On, had eventually given rise to a more spectacular nickname. ‘Why’d you join, Crash?’
    ‘Much the same,’ Orne said.
    ‘’Ow about you, Pressy?’
    Prescott shrugged. Though he had put weight on, even now he didn’t seem to have been properly absorbed and remained pale, uncertain and the butt of barrack room humour.
    ‘You’ll settle down,’ Dodgin encouraged.
    ‘That’s what my boss said when I started work,’ Ed Orne observed.
    ‘It’s also a habit of warders and zoo-keepers,’ Josh smiled. There was little time for private activities. Life consisted of parade, drills, and the never-ending care of saddles, and harness, which were inspected by everybody from the section NCO to the squadron leader, while the horses themselves took up endless time.
    ‘They’ll tell you it’s a waste of time grooming, wisping and making an ’orse’s coat shine like a shillin’ up a sweep’s arse,’ the rough-rider sergeant informed them. ‘But remember ’e’s your ’orse. You bed ’im down nice on soft straw, fill ’is guts with good oats, linseed, bran mash and ’ay, and lead I’m to water and to piss–’
    ‘Then one day,’ Dodgin’s voice came from the next stall, ‘when you ain’t looking ’e’ll lash out with both ’inds and kick your bleedin’ brains out.’
    ‘Don’t you believe it,’ the sergeant said. ‘’Orses never let you down. So just you be careful with that there dock sponge, Dodgin. Mof, nostrils an’ dock in that order.’ Is dock’s ’is arse so don’t go spongin’ that first. You wouldn’t like ’aving your mouf cleaned out with an ’orse-pissy sponge and no more does ’e.’
    Though Josh remained happy, he hadn’t gone unnoticed.
    ‘Loftus,’ the sergeant informed Lieutenant Morby-Smith in an aside. ‘’E’s picked a lot up from somewhere. Watch ’im in riding school, sir. ’E handles ’is ’orse as if ’e was born on it. The others fall off and you can always read the paper between their backsides and the saddle, but not ’im. ’E’s part of the animal, sir. ’E’s been well taught. And if you chuck an order at ’em they’ve never ’eard afore, while most of them just mill around, or stop and look stupid, ’e knows exactly what to do.’
    ‘Give any trouble?’ Morby-Smith