Old Soldier

I was helping Ma in the pub when we heard the shouting. The ground shook like someone was driving a hundred cows through the lanes. Before anyone could go and see what the fuss was about the windows filled with a great shadow. Ma went pale, but she still opened the door. It scraped the ceiling as it came in, bent double. I’d seen a picture in the schoolhouse library of the apes that live in the jungles. The machine looked like that, only it was much bigger, especially the arms, and covered in brass instead of hair, and it didn’t have a head or a face, just a smooth patch of nothing. Truth be told, I was rather scared of it – although it did nothing to me. It only trembled at the bar, like some of the punters do when they’ve gone a few days without a drink.

We all watched it, holding our breath, waiting, until one of the old boys in the corner stood up and said “God is good.” Everyone else in the pub made serious faces and said it after him, and that seemed to be enough. For the rest of the night people would go up to the machine and rub on it. They were gentle, much gentler than how I’ve seen them treat their horses. I guess a lot of people had touched it before because the brass was all shiny in places. Other parts were black with soot and dirt and one shoulder had a big scratch running through, all drippy like a melted candle. Once they had finished, they would pay Ma and ask her for another round – one for them and one for the old soldier. It couldn’t drink any, though, and by the end of the night there were a lot of warm pints Ma had to pour down the drain. When we closed up the machine walked out into the road with everyone else, but there it stayed, planted in the mud. I figured it didn’t have anywhere else to go to. That it was lost.

When Ma was putting me and Peter to bed I asked her about the war.

“What war?”

“They called it an old soldier. So there must have been a war.”

For a minute I thought she was going to scold me, like she normally did when I got too clever, but instead she sighed.

“It was a very long time ago. Lots of young men went out to fight. Most didn’t come back.”

I put on a serious face like the old boys had earlier and she smiled, but it was a sad smile.

“Some of the young men got hurt. They were put into those machines, so they could keep going. Keep fighting. But then all of a sudden there was no war, and no one knew how to take them out again.”

“There’s a man inside it?”

Ma wrinkled up her mouth.

“Yes. I suppose there is. Hard to believe it, now.” She stroked my head. “I don’t want you talking to it, okay? Just be polite and it will go away soon.”

“He’ll go away.” Said Peter.

“Yes. They always go away.”

But the next evening the machine came back. This time nobody seemed to pay him much mind, although some of the old boys went up to rub him again, and people had to queue at the other end of the bar and the mugs all rattled on the tables. We were doing a good job of ignoring him like Ma said, I even forgot he was there once or twice. At least until the widow Brownlea arrived. Ma told me we should stay away from her cottage, because she’s very old and sometimes she can’t control what she says, or does. So I wasn’t too surprised when she limped straight up to the machine and put both her hands on him, but not in the same way the others had done.

“Terrence,” She leaned in closer. “It’s me. Can you hear me? Are you in there?”

Maybe the machine moved a little when she said that, and maybe the mugs shook a little less. I’m not sure because soon everyone started shouting. Some of the men jumped up and took the widow by the shoulders and marched her to the door. They were murmuring something to her I couldn’t hear, but their faces were red and their hands on her shoulders looked tight, and she was shaking her head slowly, like she was confused. It was strange because normally people were very respectful to her, not kind, perhaps, but respectful. After she was gone the mood was different. People still talked, still laughed, but all night their eyes wouldn’t stop flicking back to the machine, even when it was time for me and Peter to go to bed.

When Ma was tucking us in I asked her about the widow. She shook her head.

“She lost her husband in the war.”

“Why was everyone angry at her?”

Ma frowned, and didn’t speak for a moment.

“Well. What Mrs Brownlea did was foolish. Very foolish. She’s been warned before. You mustn’t ever remind them of who they were.”

“What happens if you do?” Peter asked.

“Even if it’s really them?” I asked.

“They might remember – and it hurts them to remember, it makes them…cause trouble.” She paused. “And yes. Even if it’s really them.”

I had other questions but Ma looked very tired and she still had to clean up downstairs, so I just shut my eyes and pretended to fall asleep. Eventually I did, and I dreamt I was inside a machine, and it was hot and silent and whatever I picked up in my hands got broke into pieces.

Me and Peter followed him the next day after the schoolhouse closed. Our plan was that we would wait until he walked far away from the village, and then we would shout his name and run. Terrence. I don’t think we meant anything cruel by it. We just wanted to see what would happen. He wasn’t hard to find. He was a slow walker, and he’d ploughed furrows in the dirt along the main road with those heavy arms of his.

“How does he know where he’s going?” Peter asked me. I shushed him, but I didn’t really know myself.

Sometimes he would stop at a sign or a locked gate before trudging on, so he must have had some plan. The path he took lead out of the village, and the lanes got narrower and the stretches of hedgerow between the cottages got longer. We must have followed him for a long while, working up the nerve, because we got quite parched and hungry by the end. I didn’t realise where he was going until we caught sight of the widow Brownlea’s house, poking out of the forest like it the trees had grown around it. She was waiting in the doorway. We weren’t scared of the machine by then, he didn’t seem to care about us, but she was another matter, and so we pushed our way into a thicket before she could spot us.

We watched from the branches as the widow walked out into the lane. She touched that big scratch on his shoulder and he froze. That noise he’d been making, the one you felt in your chest more than you heard – it stopped, and all you could hear were the birds. I’m not sure how long they stayed like that. Then she put her head against one of those arms. Her back moved up and down and then she began to shake. I suddenly felt very guilty, like I’d seen something I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t fancy going on with our plan anymore. I told Peter and I think he had the same idea, because he didn’t say a word, he just nodded. We couldn’t find our entrance, and by the time we’d crawled out of the bushes and back onto the path the machine was gone, and the door to the cottage was shut.

Ma would be annoyed if we hadn’t swept the floors before she opened up and the sun was getting low, so we ran home. She looked up from the glasses she was washing when we got in, covered in dirt and scratches, but she didn’t ask us where we’d been, and we didn’t tell her.

A few weeks later the schoolmaster told us that the widow Brownlea had passed in the night, and we were all to pray for her. I don’t know what happened to the machine. People will tell tales, say their cousin saw one the next village over, or out on the road, but not often, and never the same machine. Always just passing through, not going anywhere in particular. Lost. And I used to believe that too, but now I’m not so sure.