There were many legends caught up in the events of the Great War. Some were true. Many were not. Some were never witnessed officially. Others were witnessed but never believed.
One such myth was that of the 'Specter Horse'...
Of course, as many German and English soldiers would attest, it was not the ghostly apparition of a horse that made men quake in the trenches as they stared out into the dense mist hovering over No Man's Land. The horse was most certainly real- it left streaks and prints as it fled in fear and rage across the desolate ground. It was the rider. Some would attest to seeing a soldier- a cavalry man, sitting atop his mount, calling the horse forward, or bidding him stay.
Most would further agree that it was a ghostly British soldier who haunted the shell-pocked ground between the trenches, where barbed wire forbade living things pass to the other side, and rains of hellfire and bullets scoured the land of all things that dare tread upon the blood-hallowed earth.
It was the Germans who first believed the cavalry man to be otherworldy. One moment visible, the next not. Something to see out of the corner of your eye, but that would vanish in the fog.
But then, was it a guardian angel of the battlefield, watching over the bodies of the men who had fallen, and not been retrieved by their corporeal comrades? Or perhaps an angel of death, reaping up the dead? Perhaps not. As many would eventually point out, angels (at least the traditional belief of angels) would not bleed. This apparition bore a bloodstained coat, The puddle of red standing stark against the mottled green.
The Britishmen were the first to see the face of the alleged ghost. Two tank drivers would describe the rider as being tall, sitting with lordly form atop his horse.
Yet his face was... Different than the pride of the cavalry. His chiseled features depicted...
Sorrow. That of a man who observed war. Ever haunted by the images of his friends and comrades who fell upon the consecrated earth. Unable to help. Merely to watch as more of his countrymen became the members of statistics that only historians would mourn in years to come...
Determination. That of a man obligated to a task incomplete. Whether he were pulled away from it by the war, or simply killed before he could fulfill his promise...
The legend would eventually end, as all legends do.
It was said that the horse, driven into a fearful delirium by the roar of the artillery, was caught in the barbed wire between the trenches. It was said also that both sides sent up one man to free the noble creature, and that the ownership of the horse was decided upon the toss of a coin.
The rider was never seen again.
...The horse, named Joey, was originally owned by a young British soldier named Albert Narracott, whom he would eventually be reunited with. The horse had been sold long ago to a Cavalryman for thirty guineas. The Cavalryman had allegedly died in the first few months of the war, and the horse was captured by German soldiers.
No one knew precisely how Joey had survived the years of the Great War, only his connection to the legend of the 'Spectre Horse'.
Albert Naracott gave only a few words on the subject of the legend, and his horse's involvement. "I used to know a man, years ago. He bought my horse, but he died in the war... As for your ghost... The man promised to return my horse to me... I suppose that he did."