‘You promised you’d wear your red suit,’ hissed Bart.

‘I tried it on,’ said Chessie lightly, ‘but the skirt was last year’s length.’

Bart was a powerful and consistent player, but Chessie’s feverish sexual demands last night and again this morning had sapped him and, with all the Krauts and his own board to entertain at lunch, he didn’t have a chance to distance himself. He’d also mislaid his lucky belt and had turned the house and the barn upside down looking for it. Grace would have found it, he thought darkly, and hosted this lunch and made every Kraut and his wife feel special. Why was he blowing his entire livelihood on this exquisite, irresponsible malicious child?

Perdita watched Chessie, who’d now topped the whole outfit with a black sombrero, saunter up the gangway of the stands, swinging her hips like Gary Cooper in High Noon. God, I hate her, she thought. Three players, Bart, Red and Ricky, are all obsessed with her, Angel wouldn’t say no, and the twins have probably had her in duplicate, which only leaves me and Dancer immune. No wonder she’s looking so chipper.

Huddled under their coloured umbrellas, the crowd chattered in an incredible number of languages. Sharon Kaputnik who’d been lunching in the Davidoff tent, it was noticed by the press, was sharing her rose-lined parasol with David Waterlane because Sir Victor, having been knocked out by Apocalypse, refused to come to the match.

‘So unsportin’,’ said Sharon rolling her blue eyes. ‘Ay wouldn’t refuse to come because I’d been beaten.’

‘I’ll bet you wouldn’t,’ murmured Chessie, who, seeing the front rows occupied by Helmut and Gisela Wallstein and the rest of the EuroElectronics Board, deliberately sat down between Rupert and Sukey Benedict in the row behind.

‘Davidoff Waterlane is obviously about to havidoff with Lady Shar,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘I do hope Dancer’s wearing waterproof mascara in this rain. Oh, stop looking so boot-faced, Rupert. Haven’t you forgiven me yet?’

But Rupert had turned his back and was gazing moodily at the huge green field with its egg-yolk goal posts and flags and its panorama of rolling green-and-gold cornfields beneath glowing black-and-grey clouds. The grooves made in the cornfields by the drillers were not much deeper than the lines on either side of Ricky’s mouth as he gave last-minute instructions to his team. ‘Don’t go into a daze, Dancer. For Christ’s sake concentrate, and if you’re going to change ponies, Dommie, ask first. Last time it cost us a goal.’

‘I thought it was a penalty, so I buzzed off,’ said Dommie, mounting his pony. ‘Christ, my reins are starting to slip already.’

‘We’re the better side, so we attack,’ Bart ordered the Flyers as they rode grimly on to the pitch.

‘Solis de Gonzales and Red Alderton have dominated every headline this summer,’ said William Loyd of the Telegraph, frantically trying to make his biro work on a wet page. ‘Nice to get France-Lynch into a headline.’

‘France-Lynched is the only headline you’re likely to get,’ said JNP Watson of The Times. ‘Case of too many late nights, I’m afraid. Seb, Dommie and Dancer were evidently playing poker till three in the morning last night.’

‘Better than boozing,’ said William Loyd giving up and resorting to pencil. ‘Is Bart going to keep his best pony for the last chukka?’ he asked Chessie.

‘All my husband’s ponies are best,’ said Chessie tonelessly.

It was raining even harder now, but nothing doused the loathing between the two teams, which seemed to singe the clouds above and set the drenched cornfields on fire. Drew was waiting to throw-in as they lined up.

‘I don’t want any aggro,’ he said crisply. ‘Anyone who swears or argues with the umpire will be sent off, except any Argentines,’ he added with a glint, ‘who will be shot.’

Only Bart grabbing Angel’s shirt stopped him flying through the air and landing on Drew.

‘Pack it in. I’m paying you to bury the opposition not the umpire.’

In the first chukka Angel and Red tried to play at their usual breakneck speed, but it was as if someone had spilt turkey fat all over the kitchen floor, and after both had overturned their ponies and Angel had nearly been trampled to death by a furiously galloping Seb, they slowed down. The Flyers were infinitely superior in pony power, but for once they couldn’t take advantage of their fleet, light, thoroughbred horses. The much slower ground played havoc with their timing and the rain not only aquapunctured their faces, drastically reducing visibility, but made reins, gloves and sticks incredibly slippery and almost impossible to hold. Accustomed to such conditions and on much heavier ponies, Apocalypse started winning the ride-offs and, having endlessly practised lofting the ball over a sea of mud, were therefore unfazed when the whole field became black with skidmarks and divots.

Apocalypse had also learnt one vital lesson from Luke. They had practised, played, almost slept together all summer and knew each others’ ponies backwards. They wanted not individual glory, but for the team to win. The twins, normally attacking players, were marking the hell out of Angel and Red, driving them crackers.

There were plenty of spats. Angel, thundering down the boards, was being threatened by Ricky.

‘Get out of my way, you fucker,’ he howled. ‘Puniatero, forro, Eenglish preek!’ Then, seeing Drew out of the corner of his eye, added with excessive politeness, ‘Excuse me, Meester France-Lynch, my line I theenk,’ and clouted the ball straight between Kinta’s legs.

Up went Ricky’s stick. ‘Foul!’ he yelled at Drew. ‘Dangerous stick work.’

‘He crossed me,’ protested Angel.

‘He pulled up on the ball,’ shouted Ricky. ‘If Kinta’s got any legs left, it’s no thanks to him.’

Drew, reluctant to be accused of bias, turned to Shark Nelligan, the other umpire.

‘Apocalypse foul,’ said Shark.

‘Thank you, Mr Nelligan,’ said Angel making a V-sign on his mud-spattered thigh, but only lifting it an inch in Ricky’s direction. He found the flags without difficulty.

‘High time the Argies came back,’ said David Waterlane, returning the pressure of Sharon’s leg.

In the third chukka the score stuck at 3-2 to the Flyers, as ponies and players, all plastered with mud, groped desperately for a foothold, trying to gain the ascendancy as the usual thunderous dry rattle of hooves was replaced by the dull relentless thud of a murderer’s cudgel.

Then by some miracle Dancer, who’d been marked by Bart, got the ball.

‘And here comes Dancer,’ said Terry Hanlon, the Cowdray commentator, ‘heading for goal; riding, riding, riding, famine, justice, pestilence, and whoops, oh dear, he didn’t connect with that offside forehand and the ball went wide. Got the mud to hide your blushes. Stick to singing in future, Dancer.’

The stands giggled. As Dancer hung his head, Bart picked up the ball and backed it to Red, who missed it completely, then, spinning round, picked it up and came triumphantly down the field, dummying past Seb, then Ricky, then Dommie, whipping and whipping Glitz into a breakneck gallop until the crowd started grumbling with disapproval.

‘And here comes Red Alderton,’ said Terry Hanlon, dropping his voice an octave, ‘who’s lived more nights than days. Look at him opening up his shoulders for the big one. And it’s a goal, ladies and gentlemen and seahorses, 4-2 to the Flyers.’

Back in the pony lines, grooms had the thankless task of getting the mud off and drying utterly exhausted ponies in torrential rain. The Apocalypse grooms, in their black bomber jackets, had experienced such conditions and were far more cheerful than the Flyers’ Argentines who hated rain as much as Angel. Wayne, utterly unplacated by four ounces of barley sugar and a bucket of water, still sulking with his head down, suddenly heard his old friend and last year’s team-mate, Spotty, yelling out for Tero, who was still on the field, and started calling back like a lunatic. Ducking out of his headcollar, whickering with delight, he bustled off to join Spotty across a sea of mud and started kissing and nuzzling him all over.

‘Get that fucking dog off the pitch,’ roared Bart, as his weary pony nearly tripped over Little Chef racing out to welcome Ricky as the players came off at half-time.

Apocalypse had contained the Flyers very well, and Bart, not best pleased, went off to shout at his team. ‘We should be at least five goals up by now.’

‘Well done,’ said Ricky quietly to Dancer and the twins. ‘We’ve rattled them. Now we’ve got to get some goals.’

Hearing ‘Tea for Two’ over the tannoy, Wayne bustled off towards the tea tent. Drew, tweed cap resting on his eyelashes, riding round on his drenched pony as the crowd swarmed back to the stands after treading in, thought how amazing it was that the field, which, five minutes ago, had been a black sea of holes and divots, was now a smooth sweep of emerald green again. Like my marriage, he thought wryly, and for a second scoured the stands for Daisy, hoping she might have turned up. He’d promised to ring her during the week, but he’d been too busy to get over to Eldercombe and he hated hearing the disappointment in her voice. He’d try and get her this evening, although he could hardly cheer her up with the news that Perdita was playing well.

Perdita was equally conscious she wasn’t pulling her weight. Bart had yelled at her so continually she hardly heard him. Then, in the fourth chukka, Angel gave her a pass, and there was only forty yards between her and goal. Perdita was so surprised she hesitated, but Tero, putting on an amazing turn of speed, took her upfield, placing her beside the ball, so she was able to judge the first shot beautifully. Now the ball was waiting for her, ten feet in front of the goal. Oh, please God. God blocked his ears, and she hit a divot instead of the ball. Frantically she tugged at the sodden reins and, willing Tero, turned on her hocks at full gallop. That’s a good pony, thought Red.