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A Miracle, A Miracle!

The lion eyed Bertie for a few moments. The yowling stopped, and he began to grunt and groan with pleasure as Bertie smoothed his mane and scratched him between the eyes. “Remember me?” he said to the lion. “Remember Africa?”

“You are the one? I am not dreaming this?” said Monsieur Merlot. “You are the boy in Africa, the one who tried to set him free?”

“I’ve grown a bit,” said Bertie, “but it’s me.” Bertie and Monsieur Merlot shook hands warmly, while the lion turned his attention on me, licking my hand with his rough warm tongue. I just gritted my teeth and hoped he wouldn’t eat it.

“I did all I could,” Monsieur Merlot said, shaking his head. “But look at him now. Just skins and bones like me. All my animals they are gone, except Le Prince Blanc. He is all I have left. I had to shoot my elephants, you know that? I had to. What else could I do? There was no food to feed them. I could not let them starve, could I?”

Bertie sat down on the bed, put his arms around the lion’s neck and buried his head in his mane. The lion rubbed up against him, but he kept looking at me. I kept my distance, I can tell you. I just could not get it out of my head that lions do eat people, particularly if they are hungry lions. And this lion was very hungry indeed. You could see his ribs, and his hip bones too.

“Don’t worry, monsieur’ said Bertie. “I will find you food. I will find food enough for both of you. I promise.”

The driver of the ambulance I waved down thought at first that he was just giving a nurse a lift back to the village. He was, as you can imagine, a little more reluctant when he saw the old man, and then Bertie, and still more when he saw a huge white lion.

The driver swallowed a lot, said nothing all the way, and just nodded when Bertie asked him to let us out in the village square. And so there we were half an hour or so later, the four of us sitting outside the cafe in the sun, the lion at our feet gnawing a huge bone the butcher was only too pleased to sell us. Monsieur Merlot ate a plate of fried potatoes in complete silence and washed it down with a bottle of red wine. Around us gathered an astonished crowd of villagers, of French soldiers, of British soldiers – at a safe distance. All the while Bertie scratched the lion’s head right between his eyes.

“He always liked a good scratch just there,” Bertie said, smiling at me. “I told you I would find him, didn’t I?” he went on. “I was never sure you really believed me.”

“Well, I did,” I replied, and then I added: “After a while, anyway.” It was the truth. I suppose that may explain why I took all that happened that morning so much in my stride. It was amazing, surreal almost, but it was no surprise. A prophecy come true, like a wish come true – and this was both – can never be entirely surprising.

As we sat there outside the cafe sipping our wine, the three of us decided what should be done about The White Prince. Monsieur Merlot kept crying and saying it was all “un miracle, un miracle”; and then he would wipe the tears from his eyes again, and drink down another glass of wine. He liked his wine.

The whole plan was entirely Bertie’s idea. To be honest, I didn’t see how it could possibly be done. I should have known better. I should have known that once Bertie had set his heart on something, he would see it through.

As we walked the lion down the village street, Bertie leaning on the lion, me pushing Monsieur Merlot in the wheelchair, the crowd parted in front of us and backed away. Then they began to follow us, at a discreet distance, of course, up the road towards Bertie’s hospital. Someone must have gone on ahead to warn them, because we could now see a huddle of doctors and nurses gathered on the front steps, and there were people peering out of every window. As we came up to the hospital, an officer stepped forward, a colonel it was.

Bertie saluted. “Sir,” he began, “Monsieur Merlot here is a very old friend of mine. He will need a bed in the hospital. He’s in need of rest, sir, and a lot of good food. The same goes for the lion. So I wondered, sir, if you’d mind if we used the walled garden behind the hospital. There’s a shed in there where the lion could sleep. He’d be quite safe, and so would we. I know him. He doesn’t eat people. Monsieur Merlot here has said that if I can feed the lion and take care of him, then I can take him back to England with me.”

“The brass cheek of it!” the colonel spluttered as he came down the steps. “Who the devil do you think you are anyway?” he said. And that was when he recognised Bertie. “You’re the fellow that won the VC, aren’t you?” he said, suddenly a lot more polite. “Andrews, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, and I want to take the lion back to England when I go. We’ve got somewhere in mind for him to live,” and he turned to me. “Haven’t we?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

It wasn’t at all easy persuading the colonel to agree. He began to soften only when we told him that if we didn’t look after the white lion, no one else would, and then he would have to be taken away and shot. A lion, the symbol of Britain, shot! Not at all good for morale, Bertie argued. And the colonel listened.

It wasn’t any easier persuading the powers that be in England to allow the lion to come back home when the war was over, but somehow Bertie managed it. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer. Bertie always said afterwards that it was the medal that did it, that without the prestige of the Victoria Cross behind him he’d never have got away with it, and The White Prince would never have come home.

When we docked at Dover, the band was playing and the bunting was out, and there were photographers and newspaper reporters everywhere. The White Prince walked off the ship at Bertie’s side to a hero’s welcome. “The British Lion Comes Home” roared the newspapers the next day.

So we came back here to Strawbridge, Bertie, The White Prince and me. I married Bertie in the village church. I remember, Bertie had a bit of a disagreement with the vicar because he wouldn’t allow the lion inside the church for the wedding. I was very glad he didn’t – but I never told Bertie that. Nanny Mason adored both Bertie and The White Prince, but she insisted on washing him often, because he smelt – the lion, not Bertie. Nanny Mason stayed on with the three of us – “her three children”, she called us – until she retired to the seaside in Devon.