No Women Allowed, A Fanfic of War Horse
Author's note: This is my first story for War Horse. I just watched it all yesterday and I simply fell in love with it. Well, I like all movies based on horses like Spirit, Black Beauty and Dreamer. But to make my point clear, I am not a British person, so I have no clue about the differences that they have other than the currency being pounds instead of dollars and the football/soccer difference. If you are British and know about what I did wrong, please let me know and I will get onto changing it PRONTO! The story maybe sent to M just for the violence and the swearing. Will try not to put any fluff into it.
Disclaimer: I do not own any members from War Horse (both the movie and the book), but only Terry, Aunt Judy, General Black, Louise, and the boy Jamie from the stables.
Chapter One: Into the Military, Into a Nightmare
It was pretty cold out when considering it was the first day of spring. A girl, who was nineteen, decided to join the army. The date was March 20, 2013 as she walked into the recruiting station in London.
"Name." the recruiter ordered.
"Heath, Theresa." she noted proudly.
"Date of Birth."
"March 15, 1994."
He nodded and handed the paper required for her to enlist. The paper asked her if she was born in the UK, she noted no. She was born in Canada at the general hospital in Ottawa that later burned down after she was born. Her family, but it was really her mother and step-father that moved to the UK when she was only three. Her real father didn't know she was alive.
Are there any illnesses that can be transferred from you to another person in the core? No, she wrote. The only illness she had was the chicken pox at five.
After the three pages of information and questionnaires, Theresa, or Terry handed the package to the recruiter.
"We will give you a call when we need you back in." he said and she walked out, glad to be away from the deadly quiet place. Her phone began to ring.
"Hey, what's up?" she asked the caller.
"How did the enlisting go, girl?" her aunt asked.
"It was fine, Aunt Judy. Did dad tell you that I was enlisting?"
Judy laughed. "He did. You can never keep anything from me, Terry. But I know you love me with your heart."
"No, I couldn't keep my boyfriend from you and you nearly gave dad a heart attack from the news."
"I'm just glad you are getting through life so well. At least Grampa John would be happy for you."
"Alright. Julie, I'm heading into the car to drive. I'll talk to you when I'm safely home, okay?" Terry got into the car and headed out onto the highway to the outskirts of London to visit her riding buddy.
"Hi, Louise." she called into the farmhouse. An elderly woman came out to give the 5 foot 4 woman a hug.
"Terry, I'm so glad you're here. I was just reviewing what lessons I'm having when I realized that there was a lesson today with ten students. Can you help me?"
Thinking about that, Terry gave an answer, "I will, but will it be okay if I have my cell on me? I'm expecting a call from the recruiting station."
Louise, who stood a little taller than Terry with snow white hair and grey eyes, nodded and pushed the younger woman to the stable. "Hurry up or I will be late, Terry."
Terry scurried to the barn, giving a low whistle in greeting to all of the horses nickering from their stalls as she stood in front of a mare with a white star and muzzle.
"Hey, Cloud, ready for a lesson?" Cloud gave a whinny and Terry allowed herself into the stall to place the halter on.
"Hello?" a gruff voice asked. She poked her head through the opening to the stall and blue eyes met gray. The boy, more like a seventeen year old man, shuffled from side to side.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"I was here for a lesson. Are you Louise?"
Terry laughed, "No, I'm her helper with the bigger groups she has. How well do you ride?"
The boy looked down, a little embarrassed. "I've never ridden a horse before."
"That's okay. We have a gelding that you can ride. Come and meet Gopher." she led him, with Cloud on the lead line, over to the twelve year old gray-gopher-colored horse and the old man nickered at the boy.
"I'm Terry."
"I'm Jamie. Are you going to teach me how to do everything that I'm supposed to know?"
"I'll show you with Cloud, but it's up to you to take care of Gopher." she taught him how to properly groom a horse; starting from the curry comb to the soft brush. He learned very fast. Jamie was younger than her, but he was determined to learn.
"Great, go and deal with Gopher and if you need any help, come get me from the ring." Terry led the already-tacked mare into the twenty-foot arena and sent her into a trot.
Two other students came by, noticed it was Terry, and went to deal with their own horses.
Oo
"Send your horse into a trot, but remember to keep him in control." Terry called and three of the riders went straight into the trot while the rest of the group walked their horses before heading into the trot.
The lesson nearly over, Louise called the group to her and asked them to dismount and to see what Terry meant by keeping her horse in control.
Cloud was very professional, even though she was only a five year old. If she was to qualify for the Olympics, she might just scare the judges by how good she was.
After the third circle of trotting, she sent the mare into a canter to be brought back down to the trot and walk.
"That is how to control your horse. Terry, cool down Cloud and you can head on home. I'll deal with these special kids." Louise joked and watched as each rider began to gain more control at the trot.
It was already nearly five o'clock when Terry got home to see she had a message from the station.
"Miss Heath, we would like for you to come in and further your process into being accepted, and to arrive at the fire range near the recruiting station for your physical evaluation at 0700 tomorrow."
"Well," she sighed out loud, "I might just get into the Military like a piece of cake."
Oo
The next morning, with a four o'clock wakeup call from her aunt from the States wishing her luck in getting in, Terry got showered, changed into a nice business suit, while bringing her gym outfit just in case, and headed back onto the highway to get into London.
Going by the recruiting station, she pulled into the fire range, though why they had one in the middle of London, she will never know.
"Miss Heath, I presume." the General said. Squaring her shoulders, Terry said, "That I am."
"Alright, so from visual outlook, you are in tip top shape, am I right?"
"I do lessons and train myself in Dressage, sir."
"Horserider, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
The General nodded and said, "There is an obstacle course and to pass, you must get through it in twenty minutes, understood?"
"Yes, sir!" she said. When General Black noticed she was in a business suit, he asked, "Do you have any exercise clothes with you?"
"Yes, sir, I do have an extra set of clothes." Terry ran to her car, pulled out the bag she brought with her everywhere just in case she wanted to let some heat from her fights with her mother because of her heading into the Army, and headed to the closest changing room to get changed.
Oo
The obstacle felt like it was no sweat to Terry as she ran through, climbing over, jumping, crawling, and hanging each obstacle she came to. She finished in less than twenty with a nineteen minute mark.
"Welcome to the Army, miss." General Black said. Then he added, "Soon will be a reenactment of a calvary charge that went through during the first world war. Will you like to participate?"
"Sir, I would be glad to join in." she said and raced away to go and have a drink with Aunt Judy.
"Well, the little girl finally got a position in the Force. To your good health and luck." Judy rose the glass of ale in the air to toast to her niece.
"I might be gone for a good while, but not before the Calvary Charge from 1914. I don't know why they do that every year." Terry sighed, hoping the night will get over so that she can leave the pub, go home and properly get a good night sleep.
"Didn't you pay attention in your history class?" Judy asked. Terry shook her head to say, "I guess even though I did pay attention, I lost the information."
"Well, it was the first charge that the calvary was involved in that they found that both man and horse would not be a good combination. Your great great uncle was in that charge. He died in action and that the same thing every year happened when I asked the government," Judy was an active member of the British Government and her lifestyle was taking care of Terry when she was over and her own ten year old son. Her husband died in a factory spill a few years back, "if, because the members that I knew had a loved one die in the charge and for us to reenact the point of our changes in the British attack."
"Wow, and I thought that Mr. Williams was an exciting teacher. You topped him off for the best teacher ever!"
"I make with what I do. You got to train that mare to learn how to train for the charge, Ters." outside of the pub, Judy began to sing in a drunken voice, "Do you hear the people sing? Singing the sound of angry men? It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again. When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, it is the life about to start when tomorrow comes!"
"Aunt Judy, you're drunk. Come, I'll drive you home." Terry, who at least had a mind and didn't go off singing the rest of the Les Miserables song, got into the driver side and Judy passed out in the passenger seat. Now, Terry thought, how many drinks did Aunt Judy have again?
Oo
Finally, Terry thought as she flopped onto her double size bed and curled up in a ball, time to get some sleep.
After dropping Aunt Judy off, Terry nearly got into an accident with a drunk man who must have forgotten that St. Patrick's Day was over five days ago. Or was football (soccer in America) on and his team just won?
It was ten when she got home, had something to help with her vitamins intake, and went into a shower.
That night she had an earie dream...
The smell of horse and male sweat was strong in her nostrils as she looked around to see hundreds of horses, both saddled and not saddled, lining up. Men in uniform went to them and a few walked right past her. One horse caught her attention as she looked at an almost perfect version of Cloud, just male and he had no white muzzle.
"Hey boy." she said. He looked at her and gave a little nicker, but it wasn't to her.
A man, if she was positive was of a higher rank than her, waked over and said, "Hey there, Joey boy. It's time to practice our charge." then the dream ended.
Terry bolted out of bed and millions of questions popped into her head... What the hell just happened? What time was she in? Who was that man? And why did that horse, Joey, be nearly exactly like Cloud?
"God, I think Aunt Judy just gave me a history nightmare."
She looked at the time and it said three twenty-three in the morning. Great, she thought as she got up and changed into a pair of jeans and a button-up shirt to go and begin to train Cloud in the charge.
"Alright, girl. We have to get this to work out. What we have to do, since I believe it's just like jousting, is to run as fast as we can and have a sword in hand. Just run with all you got, Cloud." she yelled charge and another flashback happened...
The ground underneath the horse's feet were being eaten up, the pants coming from the beasts themselves, the riders asking the tiring beasts forward and the two men, both were in a higher ranking, raced to the object in the middle of the field. The dark bay stallion was shorter and ran as fast as he could, almost making the taller, black stallion be made a fool of.
The man who called the horse Joey got the ring and began heading back to the stables.
"Good ride, good friend," the man said.
"Greatly, Nicholls. It makes us look back in time, right? To the good days?"
"Yes, Stewart. It does bring back memories."
"Do you feel something? It feels like there's a wind even though the trees aren't moving."
Terry held her breath as she came back and was thrown off of Cloud's back.
Terry woke a few moments later as she saw Louise coming from the house, clearly seeing her being thrown. It wasn't Cloud's fault, Terry thought.
"You alright, Terry? I've never seen you ever thrown in my life, and that scared five years of my life out of me." the old woman pestered her and brought Terry into the main house to give her some ice for her quickly-bruising shoulder.
"It felt like I was in the... I'm going to kill Aunt Judy. First the nightmare and now a flashback." Terry distressed over how her aunt was to blame when a man came in, looking exactly like Nicholls when he asked, "I'm sorry to intrude, but I seem to be lost."
Louise helped herself, "Well, you're right near Somerset country, good man. Where are you needed?"
"The Medieval fair."
"Head north from here and follow the signs to Somerset, is it in Somerset?"
"Yes, it is." the man thanked Louise, commented on Cloud on how she reminded him of his horse that passed away a few years ago, and left.
"Do you mind if I take Cloud with me? My next door neighbor has a stall open and I was going to keep Cloud close to where I am."
"Go on ahead. And good luck, Ters!"