War Horse

by

Michael Morpurgo

Albert Character Analysis

Albert is the son of the farmer and the mother. A kind, gentle, loving boy who respects animals and treats them as his equals, he quickly befriends Joey and earns the horse’s undying love and loyalty. Just 13 when Joey comes to the farm, Albert teaches the colt to heed human commands, accept a harness and saddle, take a rider, and pull a plow. When the farmer sells Joey to Captain Nicholls, Albert demonstrates his own devotion with his desperate effort to volunteer for the cavalry unit even though he is only 15. As soon as he’s old enough to go to war, he joins the British Army’s veterinary corps and travels to France in the undying hope that he will be reunited with his friend. There, he serves under Major Martin and Sergeant Thunder with a dozen other orderlies, including his dear friend David. Albert demonstrates loyalty and affection for not just Joey but all the other horses that come through the animal hospital and for human friends like David. At the conclusion of the war, he takes Joey back to the farm, marries his sweetheart, Maisie Brown, and lives out the rest of his days in peace and prosperity.

Albert Quotes in War Horse

The War Horse quotes below are all either spoken by Albert or refer to Albert . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Dignity and Humanity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

He brought in some sweet hay and a deep bucket of cool water. I do not believe he stopped talking the whole time. As he turned to go out of the stable, I called out to him to thank him and he seemed to understand for he smiled broadly and stroked my nose. “We’ll get along, you and I,” he said kindly.

“You should never talk to horses, Albert,” said his mother from outside. “They don’t understand you. They’re stupid creatures. Obstinate and stupid, that’s what your father says, and he’s known horses all his life.”

“Father just doesn’t understand them,” said Albert. “I think he’s frightened of them.”

I went over to the door and watched Albert and his mother walking away into the darkness. I knew then that I had found a friend for life, that there was an instinctive and immediate bond of trust and affection between us.

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert (speaker), Mother (speaker), Farmer
Page Number: 6-7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

“Father,” said Albert with resolution in his voice, “I’ll train Joey—I’ll train him to plow all right—but you must promise never to raise a whip to him again. He can’t be handled that way. I know him, Father, I know him as if he were my own brother.”

“You train him, Albert, you handle him. Don’t care how you do it. I don’t want to know,” said his father dismissively. “I’ll never go near the brute again. I’d shoot him first.”

But when Albert came into the stable, it was not to soothe me as he usually did nor to talk to me gently. Instead he walked up to me and looked me hard in the eye. “That was plain stupid,” he said sternly. “If you want to survive, Joey, you’ll have to learn.”

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert (speaker), Farmer (speaker), Farmer Easton
Page Number: 12-13
Explanation and Analysis:

“Mother says there’s likely to be a war,” he said sadly. “I don’t know what it’s about—something about some old duke that’s been shot at somewhere. Can’t think why that should matter to anyone, but she says we’ll be in it all the same. But it won’t affect us, not down here. We’ll go on just the same [...]. But I tell you, Joey, if there is a war, I’d want to go. I think I’d make a good soldier, don’t you? Look fine in a uniform, wouldn’t I? And I’ve always wanted to march to the beat of a band. Can you imagine that, Joey? If it comes to that, you’d make a good war horse yourself, wouldn’t you, if you ride as well as you pull, and I know you will. We’d make quite a pair. God help the Germans if they ever have to fight the two of us.”

Related Characters: Albert (speaker), Joey, Mother
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3  Quotes

“You don’t drink, Mother,” Albert replied vehemently. “And you’ve got worries just like he has and, anyway, if you did drink, you wouldn’t yell at me like he does. I do all the work I can, and more, and still he never stops complaining that this isn’t done and that isn’t done. He complains every time I take Joey out in the evening. He doesn’t even want me to go off bell-ringing once a week. It’s not reasonable, Mother.”

“I know that, Albert,” his mother said more gently now, taking both his hands in hers. “But you must try to see the good in him. He’s a good man—he really is. You remember him that way, too, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mother. I remember him like that,” Albert acknowledged, “but […] Joey works for his living now and he has to have time off to enjoy himself, just like I do.”

Related Characters: Albert (speaker), Mother (speaker), Joey, Farmer
Page Number: 19-20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4  Quotes

He must have known that I would follow old Zoey because he roped me up to her saddle and led us both quietly out of the yard down the path and over the bridge. Once in the road, he mounted Zoey swiftly and we trotted up the hill and into the village. He never spoke a word to either of us. I knew the road well enough, of course, for I had been there often enough with Albert, and indeed I loved going there because there were always other horses to meet and people to see. It was in the village only a short time before that I had met my first motorcar outside the post office and had stiffened with fear as it rattled past, but I had stood steadily, and I remember that Albert had made a big fuss over me after that.

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert , Captain Nicholls, Trooper Charlie Warren, Emilie , Friedrich, Farmer, Zoey
Page Number: 23-24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5  Quotes

But it was my rider that I disliked more than anything in my new life. Corporal Samuel Perkins was a hard, gritty little man, an ex-jockey whose only pleasure in life seemed to be the power he could exert over a horse. He was universally feared by all troopers and horses alike. Even the officers, I felt, went in trepidation of him, for it seemed he knew all there was to know about horses and had the experience of a lifetime behind him. And he rode hard and heavy-handedly. With him, the whip and the spurs were not just for show.

He would never beat me or lose his temper with me; indeed, sometimes when he was grooming me I think he quite liked me, and I certainly felt for him a degree of respect, but this was based on fear and not on love.

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert , Captain Nicholls, Farmer, Corporal Samuel Perkins
Page Number: 31-32
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Albert suddenly dropped my tail and moved slowly around me running his hand along my back. Then at last we stood facing each other. There was a rougher hue to his face, I thought; he had more lines around his eyes and was a broader, bigger man in his uniform than I remembered him. But he was my Albert, and there was no doubt about it […].

“Joey?” he said, tentatively, looking into my eyes. “Joey?” I tossed up my head and called out to him in my happiness, so that the sound echoed around the yard […]. Then he turned and walked away to the gateway before facing me, cupping his hands to his lips and whistling. It was his own whistle, the same low, stuttering whistle he had used to call me [before].

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert (speaker), Captain Nicholls, Trooper Charlie Warren, Friedrich, David
Page Number: 129-130
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

Major Martin cleaned my wound and stitched it up, and although at first I could still put little weight on it, I felt in myself stronger with every day that passed. Albert was with me again, and that in itself was medicine enough; but properly fed once more with warm mash each morning and a never-ending supply of sweet-scented hay, my recovery seemed only a matter of time. Albert, like the other veterinary orderlies, had many other horses to care for, but he would spend every spare minute he could find fussing over me in the stable […].

But time passed and I did not get better.

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert , Major Martin, Herr Major
Page Number: 131-132
Explanation and Analysis:

[Major Marin will] look you over and if there’s anything wrong he’ll put you right ‘quick as a wink,’ as my father used to say. Wonder what he would think now if he could see us together? He never believed I’d find you, either—said I was a fool to go. Said it was a fool’s errand and that I’d likely get myself killed in the process. He knew he’d done wrong and that seemed to take all the nastiness out of him. He seemed to live only to make up for what he’d done. He stopped his Tuesday drinking sessions, looked after Mother as he used to do when I was little, and he even began to treat me right—didn’t treat me like a workhorse anymore.

Related Characters: Albert (speaker), Joey, Major Martin, Farmer, Mother
Page Number: 133-134
Explanation and Analysis:

David spoke up now in support. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said. “But I remember you telling us when we first came here that a horse’s life is maybe even more important than a man’s, ’cause a horse hasn’t got no evil in him except any that’s put there by men. I remember you saying that our job in the veterinary corps was to work night and day, twenty-six hours a day if need be to save and help every horse that we could, that every horse was valuable in himself and valuable to the war effort. No horse, no guns. No horse, no ammunition. No horse, no cavalry. No horse, no ambulances. No horse, no water for the troops at the front. Lifeline of the whole army, you said, sir. We must never give up, you said, ’cause where there’s life there’s still hope. That’s what you said, sir, begging your pardon, sir.”

Related Characters: David (speaker), Joey, Albert , Sergeant Thunder, Major Martin, Herr Major, Rudi
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

That’s what they said it was—one stray shell out of nowhere and he’s gone. I will miss him, Joey. We’ll both miss him, won’t we? […] You know what he was, Joey, before the war? He had a fruit cart in London, outside Covent Garden. Thought the world of you, Joey. Told me often enough. And he looked after me, Joey. Like a brother he was to me. Twenty years old. He had his whole life ahead of him. All wasted now, ’cause of one stray shell. He always told me, Joey. He’d say, ‘At least if I go, there’ll be no one that’ll miss me. Only my cart—and I can’t take that with me, and that’s a pity.’ He was proud of his cart, showed me a photo of himself standing by it.

Related Characters: Albert (speaker), Joey, David
Page Number: 145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Sergeant Thunder carried a small tin box that was being passed around from one to the other and I heard the clink of coins as they were dropped in […]. I could just make out Sergeant Thunder’s low, growling voice. “That’s the best we can do, boys […]. I’m not supposed to tell you this—the major said not to—and make no mistake, I’m not in the habit of disobeying officers’ orders. But we aren’t at war anymore, and anyway, this order was more like advice, so to speak. So I’m telling you this ’cause I wouldn’t like you to think badly of the major. He knows what’s going on right enough. Matter of fact, the whole thing was his own idea […]. What’s more, boys, he’s given us every penny of his pay that he had saved up—every penny. It’s not much, but it’ll help.”

Related Characters: Sergeant Thunder (speaker), Joey, Albert , Major Martin
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

You do not understand at all. I will sell you this horse for one English penny, and for a solemn promise—that you will always love this horse as much as my Emilie did and that you will care for him until the end of his days. And more than this, I want you to tell everyone about my Emilie and about how she looked after your Joey and the big black horse when they came to live with us. You see, my friend, I want my Emilie to live on in people’s hearts. I shall die soon, in a few years, no more, and then no one will remember my Emilie as she was […]. I want you to tell your friends at home about my Emilie […]. That way she will live forever, and that is what I want. Is it a bargain between us?

Related Characters: Grandfather (speaker), Joey, Albert , Topthorn, Emilie , Sergeant Thunder, Major Martin
Page Number: 163
Explanation and Analysis:
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Albert Quotes in War Horse

The War Horse quotes below are all either spoken by Albert or refer to Albert . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Dignity and Humanity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

He brought in some sweet hay and a deep bucket of cool water. I do not believe he stopped talking the whole time. As he turned to go out of the stable, I called out to him to thank him and he seemed to understand for he smiled broadly and stroked my nose. “We’ll get along, you and I,” he said kindly.

“You should never talk to horses, Albert,” said his mother from outside. “They don’t understand you. They’re stupid creatures. Obstinate and stupid, that’s what your father says, and he’s known horses all his life.”

“Father just doesn’t understand them,” said Albert. “I think he’s frightened of them.”

I went over to the door and watched Albert and his mother walking away into the darkness. I knew then that I had found a friend for life, that there was an instinctive and immediate bond of trust and affection between us.

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert (speaker), Mother (speaker), Farmer
Page Number: 6-7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

“Father,” said Albert with resolution in his voice, “I’ll train Joey—I’ll train him to plow all right—but you must promise never to raise a whip to him again. He can’t be handled that way. I know him, Father, I know him as if he were my own brother.”

“You train him, Albert, you handle him. Don’t care how you do it. I don’t want to know,” said his father dismissively. “I’ll never go near the brute again. I’d shoot him first.”

But when Albert came into the stable, it was not to soothe me as he usually did nor to talk to me gently. Instead he walked up to me and looked me hard in the eye. “That was plain stupid,” he said sternly. “If you want to survive, Joey, you’ll have to learn.”

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert (speaker), Farmer (speaker), Farmer Easton
Page Number: 12-13
Explanation and Analysis:

“Mother says there’s likely to be a war,” he said sadly. “I don’t know what it’s about—something about some old duke that’s been shot at somewhere. Can’t think why that should matter to anyone, but she says we’ll be in it all the same. But it won’t affect us, not down here. We’ll go on just the same [...]. But I tell you, Joey, if there is a war, I’d want to go. I think I’d make a good soldier, don’t you? Look fine in a uniform, wouldn’t I? And I’ve always wanted to march to the beat of a band. Can you imagine that, Joey? If it comes to that, you’d make a good war horse yourself, wouldn’t you, if you ride as well as you pull, and I know you will. We’d make quite a pair. God help the Germans if they ever have to fight the two of us.”

Related Characters: Albert (speaker), Joey, Mother
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3  Quotes

“You don’t drink, Mother,” Albert replied vehemently. “And you’ve got worries just like he has and, anyway, if you did drink, you wouldn’t yell at me like he does. I do all the work I can, and more, and still he never stops complaining that this isn’t done and that isn’t done. He complains every time I take Joey out in the evening. He doesn’t even want me to go off bell-ringing once a week. It’s not reasonable, Mother.”

“I know that, Albert,” his mother said more gently now, taking both his hands in hers. “But you must try to see the good in him. He’s a good man—he really is. You remember him that way, too, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mother. I remember him like that,” Albert acknowledged, “but […] Joey works for his living now and he has to have time off to enjoy himself, just like I do.”

Related Characters: Albert (speaker), Mother (speaker), Joey, Farmer
Page Number: 19-20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4  Quotes

He must have known that I would follow old Zoey because he roped me up to her saddle and led us both quietly out of the yard down the path and over the bridge. Once in the road, he mounted Zoey swiftly and we trotted up the hill and into the village. He never spoke a word to either of us. I knew the road well enough, of course, for I had been there often enough with Albert, and indeed I loved going there because there were always other horses to meet and people to see. It was in the village only a short time before that I had met my first motorcar outside the post office and had stiffened with fear as it rattled past, but I had stood steadily, and I remember that Albert had made a big fuss over me after that.

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert , Captain Nicholls, Trooper Charlie Warren, Emilie , Friedrich, Farmer, Zoey
Page Number: 23-24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5  Quotes

But it was my rider that I disliked more than anything in my new life. Corporal Samuel Perkins was a hard, gritty little man, an ex-jockey whose only pleasure in life seemed to be the power he could exert over a horse. He was universally feared by all troopers and horses alike. Even the officers, I felt, went in trepidation of him, for it seemed he knew all there was to know about horses and had the experience of a lifetime behind him. And he rode hard and heavy-handedly. With him, the whip and the spurs were not just for show.

He would never beat me or lose his temper with me; indeed, sometimes when he was grooming me I think he quite liked me, and I certainly felt for him a degree of respect, but this was based on fear and not on love.

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert , Captain Nicholls, Farmer, Corporal Samuel Perkins
Page Number: 31-32
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Albert suddenly dropped my tail and moved slowly around me running his hand along my back. Then at last we stood facing each other. There was a rougher hue to his face, I thought; he had more lines around his eyes and was a broader, bigger man in his uniform than I remembered him. But he was my Albert, and there was no doubt about it […].

“Joey?” he said, tentatively, looking into my eyes. “Joey?” I tossed up my head and called out to him in my happiness, so that the sound echoed around the yard […]. Then he turned and walked away to the gateway before facing me, cupping his hands to his lips and whistling. It was his own whistle, the same low, stuttering whistle he had used to call me [before].

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert (speaker), Captain Nicholls, Trooper Charlie Warren, Friedrich, David
Page Number: 129-130
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

Major Martin cleaned my wound and stitched it up, and although at first I could still put little weight on it, I felt in myself stronger with every day that passed. Albert was with me again, and that in itself was medicine enough; but properly fed once more with warm mash each morning and a never-ending supply of sweet-scented hay, my recovery seemed only a matter of time. Albert, like the other veterinary orderlies, had many other horses to care for, but he would spend every spare minute he could find fussing over me in the stable […].

But time passed and I did not get better.

Related Characters: Joey (speaker), Albert , Major Martin, Herr Major
Page Number: 131-132
Explanation and Analysis:

[Major Marin will] look you over and if there’s anything wrong he’ll put you right ‘quick as a wink,’ as my father used to say. Wonder what he would think now if he could see us together? He never believed I’d find you, either—said I was a fool to go. Said it was a fool’s errand and that I’d likely get myself killed in the process. He knew he’d done wrong and that seemed to take all the nastiness out of him. He seemed to live only to make up for what he’d done. He stopped his Tuesday drinking sessions, looked after Mother as he used to do when I was little, and he even began to treat me right—didn’t treat me like a workhorse anymore.

Related Characters: Albert (speaker), Joey, Major Martin, Farmer, Mother
Page Number: 133-134
Explanation and Analysis:

David spoke up now in support. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said. “But I remember you telling us when we first came here that a horse’s life is maybe even more important than a man’s, ’cause a horse hasn’t got no evil in him except any that’s put there by men. I remember you saying that our job in the veterinary corps was to work night and day, twenty-six hours a day if need be to save and help every horse that we could, that every horse was valuable in himself and valuable to the war effort. No horse, no guns. No horse, no ammunition. No horse, no cavalry. No horse, no ambulances. No horse, no water for the troops at the front. Lifeline of the whole army, you said, sir. We must never give up, you said, ’cause where there’s life there’s still hope. That’s what you said, sir, begging your pardon, sir.”

Related Characters: David (speaker), Joey, Albert , Sergeant Thunder, Major Martin, Herr Major, Rudi
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

That’s what they said it was—one stray shell out of nowhere and he’s gone. I will miss him, Joey. We’ll both miss him, won’t we? […] You know what he was, Joey, before the war? He had a fruit cart in London, outside Covent Garden. Thought the world of you, Joey. Told me often enough. And he looked after me, Joey. Like a brother he was to me. Twenty years old. He had his whole life ahead of him. All wasted now, ’cause of one stray shell. He always told me, Joey. He’d say, ‘At least if I go, there’ll be no one that’ll miss me. Only my cart—and I can’t take that with me, and that’s a pity.’ He was proud of his cart, showed me a photo of himself standing by it.

Related Characters: Albert (speaker), Joey, David
Page Number: 145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Sergeant Thunder carried a small tin box that was being passed around from one to the other and I heard the clink of coins as they were dropped in […]. I could just make out Sergeant Thunder’s low, growling voice. “That’s the best we can do, boys […]. I’m not supposed to tell you this—the major said not to—and make no mistake, I’m not in the habit of disobeying officers’ orders. But we aren’t at war anymore, and anyway, this order was more like advice, so to speak. So I’m telling you this ’cause I wouldn’t like you to think badly of the major. He knows what’s going on right enough. Matter of fact, the whole thing was his own idea […]. What’s more, boys, he’s given us every penny of his pay that he had saved up—every penny. It’s not much, but it’ll help.”

Related Characters: Sergeant Thunder (speaker), Joey, Albert , Major Martin
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

You do not understand at all. I will sell you this horse for one English penny, and for a solemn promise—that you will always love this horse as much as my Emilie did and that you will care for him until the end of his days. And more than this, I want you to tell everyone about my Emilie and about how she looked after your Joey and the big black horse when they came to live with us. You see, my friend, I want my Emilie to live on in people’s hearts. I shall die soon, in a few years, no more, and then no one will remember my Emilie as she was […]. I want you to tell your friends at home about my Emilie […]. That way she will live forever, and that is what I want. Is it a bargain between us?

Related Characters: Grandfather (speaker), Joey, Albert , Topthorn, Emilie , Sergeant Thunder, Major Martin
Page Number: 163
Explanation and Analysis: