The Cripple and the Storyteller - a short story

Since his right leg had been blown away at Waterloo a year and half earlier, Bill Hayward moved about on crutches. He hobbled down the muddy Berkshire track that led to Curridge. His wooden leg was hurting him; the surgeon that amputated the shattered bone beneath his knee and the carpenter that fitted him up with a peg leg had got the angles wrong; every time he put his weight down on it, wood twisted against bone. The pain, which earlier that winter's day had been just a dull ache, was getting sharper with each halting step he took. Many a mile he had already covered, and yet he had to press on. It was a cold, damp evening and getting colder; not a time to sit down and rest.

He had but three farthings in his pocket; he shivered in his dirty and torn red uniform jacket, wishing he had a topcoat. Large, wet, flakes of snow were beginning to fall, though not settle. Bill hobbled onward grimacing, through a dense forest beyond which he should find himself overlooking his destination – the small village, and in it the Hand in Glove public house; and the prospect of warmth, food and drink, and shelter for the night.

At Waterloo, Bill's regiment held firm but a cannon ball from the French had smashed his shin. He sailed home to England delirious with fever; as the ship was tossed by Channel storms he underwent his rum-soaked amputation. Bill survived and recovered, and eventually returned home to Oxfordshire on a wooden leg. His welcome was not kind; his sweetheart did not want to wed a cripple; his landlord evicted him as he could not work the fields; he had no job and no prospects; no family. He had nothing else to do but to beg for alms in the tatters of his army uniform, like so many other crippled former soldiers of the King. And so, he would hobble painfully from village to village, in search of a crust of bread, a tankard of ale and the chance of some companionship. But Bill was not one to lose hope; he was a strong man despite his small stature. He had taught himself not to think beyond the day, lest despair set in.

The snow was beginning to settle as the sun set; the night was cold; as he came out of the forest and stood overlooking a shallow valley in which nestled a small village, its lights beckoning him on. Excruciating pain accompanied every step was the wood ground the bone, but he knew he was near his mark; he could finally rest, buy some ale and bread, warm himself by the fire, maybe someone would buy him a rum; he could rest his leg, ease his pain, forget about tomorrow.

It was a Saturday evening, and as he pushed the pub door open with his shoulder, the familiar smells and sounds of the revelry instantly lifted his spirits. He found a corner table. Before he could go up to the bar, a big man in knee-breeches and a woollen grey jacket joined him; a sergeant back from France. “Sir! Did you fight alongside me at Waterloo?” “Yes Sir! with the 1st Battalion 52nd Oxfordshire Foot, Sir!” “So did I! Did you lose your leg there?” “Yes Sir – the cannonade. I didn't get to advance on the Frogs, but I held firm against their cavalry earlier in the day.” “Let me buy you an ale, soldier!” And so the two men raised their tankards.

As the ale brought back some cheer to him, Bill told his tale, of how he returned home a cripple and had lost everything, unable to make a living following the plough, no longer a man who could be viable as a provider to a wife. He spoke in a matter-of-fact way, as though these things were meant to be. The sergeant soon lost his bluster. His chin sunk into his chest as he recounted how he too had returned from France an embittered man, unable to find gainful employ outside of the army, and now it no longer needed his services, on a small army pension, he'd spend his nights drinking away his sorrows.

The sergeant talked too much, thought Bill. He despised people who felt sorry for themselves, especially when they were not missing limbs. The sergeant spoke of a wife and a son, although the more he talked and raged and sobbed, the more Bill wondered whether the man was of sound mind. Still, the sergeant was buying him another ale, so Bill continued to listen.

Part II of the Cripple and the Storyteller here.