AN: Here it is, if you liked this then why not check out some of my other stories, I don't have much up yet, but Only Time Will Tell is and it is War Horse also, ( but its an actual story I promise).
To this day he still remembered it well, the death, the destruction, the screams still echoed in his head. The sound of laboured breath filled the air as Barley fought for life,laying on a bed of soggy hay on a cold stone floor in a derelict barn. In his youth, he had been a strong, powerful stallion, he stood tall and proud with a coat the was so black it glistened like like the stars in the blackened sky. His mane and tail were white both cut short but clipped. Dying slowly on his bed of hay the cob horse stared at the wall miserably,wisdom swirled in his deep green eyes.
As he died, memories flooded his mind, Barley shifted uncomfortably and tried to stand, after a struggle he got to his feet and walked over to a little shelf of splintering wood that was even older than he was. Unconsciousness took its hold and the black cob collapsed and the glint of bronze filled the room as sun rays danced across the metal medal that resided upon the broken shelf. On it, the inscription read; ' Awarded for bravery, courage and loyalty in the face of battle.
The Dicken Medal was an honour; it was, but if you gave Barley the chance to go back he would rather have not fought in the war. True he was never physically injured, well nothing terrible, just a shrapnel wound that bled for days. The hole had healed, the chunks and flaps of skin had healed; even the scar had faded. But his mental scars had stayed with him, never fading.
Barley had watched his friends be gunned down one by one, with bullet holes through their heads causing blood to run from the wounds, past their open and empty eyes that portrayed lives that had stopped to short. Soldiers had died, fell, bled, never to breath again, smile,laugh,cry,live. The things that made them human, made them alive. There was no point dwelling on the lost, they were just bodies, some unrecognisable as shrapnel had blown their bodies to pieces. Each painted in their own blood, flung together to stew on a cart, making the stench of blood and gunpowder heavy, it had clogged up his throat and stung his eyes. And to make it worse he couldn't escape, in war it was either pull the cart or die, he was brave but not brave enough to die, so he pulled the dead to wherever his master wanted them.
But it didn't matter, no-one remembered , no-one cared,it was in the past now, old news. Barley remembered, wished he could forget he remembered so well. The muddy marshes once beautiful fields, the bullets that whizzed over his head as he did his duty,the blood, the gas, the never-ending war. The stallions vision blurred, he squeezed his eyes shut as he watched animals and humans die side by side, his friends. He'd been lucky,most animals who had fought had been shot dead once it ended, he hadn't though, he had been rescued by a French farmer who needed a plough horse. But his saviour had died a long time ago. But it all doesn't matter anymore, his friends were no more, killed in action and now he was going to join them. With a final breath he was gone, silently taken from the world of the living as the wind whistled loudly outside.