Summary
Chapter 5 begins with a description of Joey's early, uneasy adaptation to cavalry training. The new routines that Joey must fall into are physically demanding, and are made all the harsher by the temperament of Joey's rider, Colonel Samuel Perkins. Though neither violent nor short-tempered, Perkins is determined and demanding. Fortunately, Joey finds solace in the visits of Captain Nicholls, who talks to Joey in a soothing manner and relates his thoughts about the war. The officer also draws Joey's portrait in the course of these sessions.
One day, Captain Nicholls is in Joey's quarters, talking to the horse about the impending battles: while many of the soldiers are convinced that the war will be quick and that the British will prevail, Captain Nicholls and another officer, Captain Jamie Stewart, fear that the war will be drawn-out and deadly. Colonel Samuel Perkins appears, and Captain Nicholls urges him to treat Joey in a more pleasant and considerate manner. Now receiving much kindlier treatment from the Colonel, Joey settles into the final few stages of training, which culminate in maneuvers on Salisbury Plain. When the regiment breaks into a final charge, Joey races alongside Captain Stewart's own horse, an imposing black stallion named Topthorn. Neither horse proves decisively faster than the other; these two exceptional animals are stabled together before the troops set out for France.
As Chapter 6 opens, Joey recalls the stormy crossing into France over the English Channel. During this voyage, Topthorn provides Joey with a source of comfort and reassurance. The British troops encounter another troubling spectacle, wounded soldiers, soon after their arrival on French soil. Fortunately, the regiment's spirits improve once the men and horses reach the open countryside. The hostile German forces, however, prove difficult to locate.
Eventually, the regiment is alerted to the presence of a German infantry battalion, and the officers decide to engage the enemy. Joey is spurred on by Captain Nichols. The horse rushes forward and senses that the weight of Captain Nichols is no longer on his back. While this skirmish ends in a quick victory for the British, it comes at the cost of the lives of both men and horses—including the life of Captain Nichols. Captain Stewart, who is convinced that Captain Nichols would be proud of Joey, briefly takes charge of Joey as well.
In the opening pages of Chapter 7, Joey explains that he was put under the charge of Trooper Warren, a lower-ranking soldier in Captain Stewart's regiment. This young man is not a skilled horseman and was not eager to enlist, but he treats Joey with kindness and consideration that, along with Topthorn's friendship, rank among Joey's greatest comforts. He also talks about his difficult father and his intended wife back in England. Soon, the regiment reaches the front and passes through the British trenches. Another attack is imminent.
Chapter 8 depicts the regiment's charge into the war zone between the British and German trenches. To his horror, Trooper Warren sees that the horses may find themselves running up against barbed wire as they move forward. The only option is to jump over this obstacle. Both Joey and Topthorn, who is carrying Captain Stewart, achieve this feat. However, the two horses and their riders soon find that they have all been cut off from the regiment, and are surrounded by Germans.
Trooper Warren and Captain Stewart both surrender; for his part, Captain Stewart surveys what remains of his regiment, and sees wounded, riderless horses caught in the barbed wire. Yet Captain Stewart is convinced that the Germans will take good care of Joey and Topthorn, now that they have changed hands. The two soldiers are led away, and Joey observes Captain Stewart putting his arm over Trooper Warren's shoulder before the two men disappear from view.
Analysis
Joey's new life in the regiment raises a number of suspenseful questions: when he will see combat, will he survive if he does so, and how long will the war last? However, the more immediate question that attends Joey's new lifestyle is how Joey will adapt to life without Albert. Life in the regiment presents Joey with sources of pleasure and aversion. In this way, the new scenario is not too different, since it faces Joey with both an unappealing handler in Colonel Samuel Perkins (a possible parallel to Albert's father) and a firm friend in Captain Nicholls (a possible parallel to Albert). Joey must nonetheless prove himself at a very different kind of work than he was accustomed to as a farm horse, and he must do so in the company of men who are entirely new to him.
Morpurgo's continued use of Joey's perspective limits the amount of information about the war that readers receive, though Captain Nicholls does explain what awaits the soldiers in his conversations with Joey. The officer reflects on young men such as Albert, expressing pessimistic sentiments: "I hope this war will be over before he's old enough to join us because—you mark my words—it's going to be nasty, very nasty indeed" (33). This prediction turns out to be entirely valid, as do the remarks about the destructive power of new war technologies that Captain Nicholls shares with the horse. With hindsight, readers understand the dangers that face Joey, even though Joey himself cannot analyze the sweep of history.
Yet War Horse also plunges its readers into the suddenness and peril of battle itself. When Captain Nicholls is killed during a cavalry charge, Joey experiences the officer's death as a strange sensation: "quite suddenly I found that I had no rider, that I had no weight on my back anymore, and that I was alone out in front of the squadron" (46). Here, Captain Nicholls is not even named. Only after the battle does his fate fully sink in for Joey and the regiment, even though the reader has already discerned and perhaps analyzed the significance of the Captain's death. He predicted a brutal war, became one of its casualties, and did not live to see its brutal end.
The episodes that follow this first significant character death present Joey with new trials and only underscore the cavalry regiment's uncertain odds of survival. Already faced with a style of warfare that uses even low-tech options such as barbed wire to counter cavalry assaults, the troops and horses must endeavor to maintain their morale. Fortunately, Joey finds a new, unusual source of solace in Trooper Warren: so far, Joey has been reassured by prescient officers (Captain Nicholls) and powerful fellow horses (Topthorn). Trooper Warren is not a figure of prowess, but his positive influence on Joey shows that one does not need to be greatly accomplished to be a good friend. Kindness and attentiveness, for Joey, are the true sustenance of friendship.
Still, this stability and solace do not last. When the Germans overcome the cavalry regiment, Joey's fate is once again uncertain. The same can be said of the fates of the human characters. After they are captured in the final, failed cavalry charge, Captain Stewart and Trooper Warren disappear from the narrative entirely: "There was no time for long farewells--just a brief last stroke of the muzzle for each of us and they were gone" (88). Whether they manage to return home or perish as prisoners of war remains unknown. Perhaps the only certainty that this scene of parting holds is that the Germans are well-inclined towards Joey and Topthorn—though there is no guarantee that life assisting the Germans in their war effort will be any safer than life assisting the English.
