The War That Saved My Life

Ada still can’t get Butter to move faster than a walk, so she visits Grimes to ask for advice. Grimes recognizes the issue immediately: Butter’s feet haven’t been trimmed in years. Grimes tends to Butter’s feet, trimming back and grooming his hooves. He understands that Becky was the primary caretaker for the horses and that Susan doesn’t have experience looking after the animals properly. Ada explains that Susan thought the pony “could do just fine eating grass” (148). Grimes points out that animals need more than just enough to eat, though.

Grimes invites Ada to call him by his first name, Fred, and he offers additional advice for taking care of Butter’s riding equipment. Ada in turn offers to help around the stable, an arrangement that gives her a chance to help Grimes while also spending more time around horses. Ada asks about the possibility of Grimes fixing her clubfoot, to which he replies that he can’t help her in that regard, although she’s welcome to come back whenever she likes.

Ada gets lost on the ride back home and finds herself on a hill overlooking the ocean. This is the first time she realizes how close the village is to the water. When she finds her way home, Susan and Jamie are relieved to see her. Dinner is waiting for Ada, and Susan informs her that the water she sees from the hill is the English Channel. Ada struggles with this information, thinking that Susan should have taken them to see the English Channel if they were that close to it, and quietly blaming Susan for neglecting Butter to the point where his feet hurt. Ada’s thoughts build up, but she’s uncertain how to express what’s inside her mind. The family continues general small talk until Susan asks specifically about Butter, at which point Ada explains that Susan’s neglect is what left Butter unable to move faster than a walk. Susan listens and understands, apologizing for her ignorance and the unintentional pain it’s caused Butter. She makes Ada show her the proper ways to care for Butter and asks after his comfort, now understanding Ada’s anger with her.

A German submarine strikes a Royal Navy battleship, and the images of the sinking ship on the newsreel disturb Ada. Jamie still wets the bed every night, and now Ada has nightmares of the ship sinking and the 833 men who die with it. Susan decides that avoiding newsreels with moving pictures is a good idea moving forward.

Jamie’s teacher still thinks he has the devil in him, so Susan makes both Jamie and Ada attend church. She makes them go to church not because she believes they have the devil in them, but to “give the gossips one less thing to talk about” (158). She goes to church with the children for their first time, then sends them on their own the next week, choosing instead to take a walk through the village while Ada and Jamie attend the service. Although Susan’s father is a clergyman, her parents don’t like her because they don’t think she can be redeemed, so she avoids church now, insisting that she and churches don’t agree.

Butter can now get to a gallop, so Ada attempts to jump him over the wall. Butter avoids the jump and throws Ada off, at which point Susan scolds Ada for attempting to make Butter jump in the first place. Butter has never jumped a wall before, let alone a full three-foot wall. This is news to Ada, who assumes that all horses know how to jump over walls. Susan tells Ada to visit Grimes for instruction on how to properly train a horse to jump a wall.

Lady Thorton convinces Susan to join the Women’s Volunteer Service (WVS) to put her sewing skills to use for soldiers. Ada reasons that Susan doesn’t have a proper job, so there’s no reason for her not to join the WVS. This upsets Susan, who begins listing the things she’s done to take good care of Ada and Jamie, despite it not being a formal job. She also insists that she did try to acquire a proper job when she first moved to the village with Becky, but no one would hire her, even with an Oxford degree. She doesn’t fit in with all the proper housewives, she never has, and it was only Becky’s horses that brought Becky into the good social graces of the women in town when she was alive.

Ada accidentally breaks the sewing machine at home while Susan is at the WVS meeting. She hides under a bed upstairs, afraid that Susan will send her away when she discovers the broken sewing machine. Susan assures Ada that the broken needle piece is replaceable and that she has no intention of sending Ada back. She offers to teach Ada how to correctly use the sewing machine, but Ada declines politely. She remains panicked at the thought of going back home.

Jamie brings home a filthy, ugly cat that he names Bovril and insists on keeping. He bathes and feeds the cat and lets it sleep curled in his arms each night. With Bovril, Jamie no longer wets the bed.