You could renounce your title, when you get it, Simon pointed out calmly. He spotted a pin on the bar counter and absent-mindedly tucked it into his lapel. It was such a habit with him that he sported a whole row of them, like a dressmaker.
I could, I said, but I wont. The only good reason for doing that is to stay in the House of Commons, and Ill never be a politician, Im not the type. Renouncing for any other reason would be just a retreat. What I want is for people to acknowledge that an earl is as good as the next man[121], and give him an equal chance.
But if you get on, they say its because of your title, not because you have talent.
You are so right. But theres a prince or two, a few dukes sons, and some others like me, all in the same boat just now, and I reckon that our generation, if we try hard enough, might in the end be treated on our own terms. Have some more beer.
He laughed and agreed.
Ive never heard you say so much, he said smiling.
Its Billys fault. Forget it.
I dont think I will.
You know something odd? Im covered with bruises, and there isnt a single one on my face.
He considered, drinking.
Hed have got into trouble if hed marked you for all to see.
I suppose so.
I gather you havent told Yardman?
No.
Why not?
I shrugged. I think he expected it, or something like it. He was ironic when he gave me the job. He must have known that sooner or later I would come up against Billy. And yesterday, he knew Billy would be after me[122]. He warned me, in his way.
What are you going to do about it?
Nothing.
But what if you find yourself on another trip with Billy? I mean, youre bound to, sometime[123].
Yes, I know. Well, its up to him entirely[124]. I wouldnt start anything. I didnt yesterday. But I did tell him plainly that Id fight back any time. And I am not, repeat not, leaving here because of him.
And you look so quiet and mild. He smiled one-sidedly, looking down into his again empty glass. I think, he said slowly, almost it seemed to me sadly, that one or two people in Yardman Transport have miscalculated about you[125], Henry.
But when I pressed him to explain, he wouldnt.
With no more export trips to be flown until Thursday, I went the next day, Wednesday, to the races. Someone offered me a spare ride in the novice chase and for some reason it fretted me more than ever to have to refuse. I cant, I said, explaining thoroughly so that he wouldnt think I was being rude. Im only allowed to ride in fifty open races a season, and Im already over the forty mark, and Ive got mounts booked for Cheltenham and the Whitbread and so on. And if I ride too much now Ill be out of those, but thank you very much for asking me.
He nodded understandingly and hurried off to find someone else, and in irritation two hours later I watched his horse canter home to a ten lengths win[126]. It was some consolation, however, when immediately afterwards I was buttonholed by a large shrewd-faced man I knew very slightly, the father of another well-occupied amateur jockey. Between them, father and son owned and trained half a dozen good hunter chasers which they ran only in amateur events with notoriously satisfactory results. But on this particular afternoon Mr Thackery, a large-scale farmer from Shropshire, showed signs both of worry and indecision.
Look, he said, Ill not beat about the bush, Im a blunt man, so Im told. Now, what do you say to riding all my horses until the end of the season?
I was astonished. But surely Julian I mean, he hasnt had a bad fall or anything, has he?
He shook his head. The worry stayed in place. Not a fall. Hes got jaundice. Got it pretty badly, poor chap. He wont be fit again for weeks. But weve a grand lot of horses this year and he wont hear of them not running just because he cant ride them. He told me to ask you, its his idea.
Its very good of him, I said sincerely. And thank you, Id like to ride for you very much, whenever I can.
Good, then. He hesitated, and added, Er Julian told me to tell you, to ask you, if ten per cent of the prize money would be in order?
Thank you, I said. That will be fine.
He smiled suddenly, his heavy face lightening into wrinkles which made him look ten years younger. I wasnt sure about asking you, Ill tell you that, only Julian insisted on it. Theres no nonsense about Henry, he said, and I can see hes right. He said Henry dont drink much, dont talk much, gets on with the job and expects to be paid for it. A pro at heart[127], he says you are. Do you want expenses?
I shook my head. Ten per cent for winning. Nothing else.
Fair enough. He thrust out his hand and I shook it.
Im sorry about Julians jaundice, I said.
Mr Thackerys lips twitched. He said if you said that, that he hoped for the sake of our horses you were being hypocritical.
Oh, subtle stuff[128]. I pondered. Tell him to get up too soon and have a relapse.
The next afternoon I went on a flight to New York.
With Billy.
The ice between us was as cold as the rarefied air outside the pressurized stratocruiser which took us. Yardman, I reflected, wasnt showing much sense in pushing us off together so soon, and on a two-day journey at that[129].
The wide cold stare was somewhat marred by the blackish streaks and yellow smudges left by my fist, and Billy was distinctly warier than he had been on the French journeys. There were no elementary taunts this time; but at the end of everything he said to me he tacked on the words Lord Grey, and made them sound like an insult.
He tried nothing so crude as punching to make my trip memorable; instead he smashed down one of the metal bars as I was fixing a guy chain during the loading. I looked up angrily, squeezing four squashed right fingers in my left hand, and met his watchful waiting eyes. He was looking down at me with interest, with faintly sneering calculation, to see what I would do.
If anyone else had dropped the bar, I would have known it was accidental. With Billy, apart from the force with which it had landed, I knew it wasnt. But the day had barely begun, and the cargo was much too valuable to jeopardise for personal reasons[130], which I dare say he was counting on. When he saw that I was not going to retaliate, or at least not instantly, he nodded in satisfaction, picked up the bar with a small cold private smile, and calmly began putting it into place.
The loading was finished and the plane took off. There were thick dark red marks across my fingers an inch below the nails, and they throbbed all the way to America.
With us on that trip, looking after a full load of twelve horses, we took two other grooms, an elderly deaf one supplied by Yardman, and another man travelling privately with one particular horse. Owners occasionally sent their own grooms instead of entrusting their valued or difficult animals entirely to Yardmans, and far from resenting it I had learned from Timmie and Conker to be glad of the extra help.
The horse involved on this occasion had come from Norway, stayed in England overnight, and was bound for a racing stable in Virginia. The new owner had asked for the Norwegian groom to go all the way, at his expense, so that the horse should have continuous care on the journey. It didnt look worth it, I reflected, looking over at it idly while I checked the horses in the next box.
The horse involved on this occasion had come from Norway, stayed in England overnight, and was bound for a racing stable in Virginia. The new owner had asked for the Norwegian groom to go all the way, at his expense, so that the horse should have continuous care on the journey. It didnt look worth it, I reflected, looking over at it idly while I checked the horses in the next box.
A weak-necked listless chestnut, it had a straggle of hair round the fetlocks which suggested there had been a cart horse not far enough back in its ancestry[131], and the acute-angled hocks didnt have the best conformation for speed. Norway was hardly famed for the quality of its racing any more, even though it was possibly the Vikings who had invented the whole sport. They placed heaps of valued objects (the prizes) at varying distances from the starting point: then all the competitors lined up, and with wild whoops the race began. The prizes nearest the start were the smallest, the furthest away the richest, so each rider had to decide what suited his mount best, a quick sprint or a shot at stamina[132]. Choosing wrong meant getting no prize at all. Twelve hundred years ago fast sturdy racing horses had been literally worth a fortune in Norway, but the smooth skinned long-legged descendants of those tough shaggy ponies didnt count for much in the modern thoroughbred industry. It was sentiment, I supposed, which caused an American to pay for such an inferior looking animal to travel so far from home.
I asked the middle-aged Norwegian groom if he had everything he wanted, and he said, in halting, heavily accented English, that he was content. I left him sitting on his hay bale staring mindlessly into space, and went on with my rounds. The horses were all travelling quietly, munching peacefully at their haynets, oblivious to rocketing round the world at six hundred miles an hour. There is no sensation of speed if you cant see an environment rushing past.
We arrived without incident at Kennedy airport, where a gum-chewing customs man came on board with three helpers. He spoke slowly, every second word an uh, but he was sharply thorough with the horses. All their papers were in order however, and we began the unloading without more ado[133]. There was the extra job of leading all the horses through a tray of disinfectant before they could set foot on American soil, and while I was seeing to it I heard the customs man asking the Norwegian groom about a work permit, and the halting reply that he was staying for a fortnight only, for a holiday, the kindness of the man who owned the horse.
It was the first time I too had been to the States, and I envied him his fortnight. Owing to the five hours time difference, it was only six in the evening, local time, when we landed at Kennedy, and we were due to leave again at six next morning; which gave me about nine free hours in which to see New York. Although to my body mechanism it was already bedtime, I didnt waste any of them in sleeping.
The only snag to this was having to start another full days work with eyes requiring matchsticks[134]. Billy yawned over making the boxes as much as I did and only the third member of the team, the deaf elderly Alf, had had any rest. Since even if one shouted he could hear very little, the three of us worked in complete silence like robots, isolated in our own thoughts, with gaps as unbridgeable between us as between like poles of magnets. Unlike poles attract, like poles repel. Billy and I were a couple of cold Norths.
There was a full load going back again, as was usual on Yardman trips from one continent to another. He hated wasting space, and was accustomed to telephone around the studs when a long flight was on the books, to find out if they had anything to send or collect. The customers all liked it, for on full long distance loads Yardman made a reduction in the fares[135]. Timmie and Conker had less cheerful views of this practice, and I now saw why. Ones body didnt approve of tricks with the clock. But at the point of no return[136] way out over the Atlantic I shed my drowsiness in one leaping heartbeat, and with horror had my first introduction to a horse going berserk in mid-air.
Old Alf shook my shoulder, and the fright in his face brought me instantly to my feet. I went where he pointed, up towards the nose of the aircraft.
In the second to front box a solidly muscled three-year-old colt had pulled his head collar to pieces and was standing free and untied in the small wooden square. He had his head down, his forelegs straddled, and he was kicking out with his hind feet in a fixed, fearful rhythm. White foamy sweat stood out all over him, and he was squealing. The companion beside him was trying in a terrified way to escape, his eyes rolling and his body pushing hard against the wooden side of the box.
The colts hooves thudded against the back wall of the box like battering rams. The wooden panels shook and rattled and began to splinter. The metal bars banding the sides together strained at the corner lynch pins, and it only needed one to break for the whole thing to start disintegrating.
I found the co-pilot at my elbow, yelling urgently.
Captain says how do you expect him to fly the aircraft with all this thumping going on. He says to keep that horse still, its affecting the balance.
How? I asked.
Thats your affair, he pointed out. And for Gods sake do something about it quickly.
The back wall of the colts box cracked from top to bottom. The pieces were still held in place by the guy chains, but at the present rate they wouldnt hold more than another minute, and then we should have on our minds a maddened animal loose in a pressurised aircraft with certain death to us all if he got a hoof through a window.
Have you got a humane killer[137] on board? I said.
No. This is usually a passenger craft. Why dont you bring your own?
There were no rules to say one had to take a humane killer in animal transport. There should be. But it was too late to regret it.
Weve got drugs in the first-aid kit, the co-pilot suggested.
I shook my head. Theyre unpredictable. Just as likely to make him worse.[138] It might even have been a tranquilliser which started him off, I thought fleetingly. They often backfired with horses.[139] And it would be quite impossible in any case to inject even a safe drug through a fine needle designed for humans into a horse as wild as this.
Get a carving knife or something from the galley, I said. Anything long and sharp. And quick.
He turned away, stumbling in his haste. The colts hind feet smashed one broken half of the back wall clean out. He turned round balefully, thrust his head between the top and centre banding bars, and tried to scramble through. The panic in his eyes was pitiful.
From inside his jerkin Billy calmly produced a large pistol and pointed it towards the colts threshing head.
Dont be a bloody fool, I shouted. Were thirty thousand feet up.
The co-pilot came back with a white handled saw-edged bread knife, saw the gun, and nearly fainted.
D dont, he stuttered. D d dont.
Billys eyes were very wide. He was looking fixedly at the heaving colt and hardly seemed to hear. All his mind seemed to be concentrated on aiming the gun that could kill us all.
The colt smashed the first of the lynch pins and lunged forwards, bursting out of the remains of the box like flood water from a dam. I snatched the knife from the co-pilot and as the horse surged towards me stuck the blade into the only place available, the angle where the head joined the neck.