But as the little mare floundered to stay upright, she slipped and came down with Perdita beneath her. The crowd gave a gasp of horror and agreed it was not a girl’s game. Tero rolled off in a trice. Seeing Perdita was moving, Red belted off to change ponies. When he returned, Perdita was screaming at Bart: ‘I can’t go on. I’ve got to change my breeches.’

Glancing down, Red saw blood mingling with the mud. All the trauma over Chessie had made the curse so late Perdita’d forgotten all about it.

‘There’s only ninety seconds to go,’ shouted Bart.

‘Everyone’ll notice.’

‘If you play in a man’s game, you play by men’s rules,’ howled Red. ‘Get back on that pony. Pull your shirt outside.’

Angel put an arm round Perdita’s shoulder, feeling her shaking with sobs. ‘No one can see zee blood for zee mud,’ he said comfortingly.

‘Your daughter seems to be getting rather a lot of earache from my husband,’ said Chessie slyly to Rupert as the clock started again.

Rupert gazed stonily ahead, holding Taggie’s hand so tightly that she winced.

‘Mr Alderton is a very forceful captain,’ said Gisela Wallstein, who was bitterly cold and couldn’t understand what was going on at all.

‘Oh, Bart always shouts when he’s near the stands,’ said Chessie lightly. ‘The team don’t take any notice, but the crowd think what a big macho guy.’

Helmut Wallstein looked round at Chessie speculatively. ‘I have not often seen such beautiful horses.’

‘Subsidized by Alderton Airlines,’ said Chessie with a shrug.

Sukey paused in the menus she was writing out for two dinner parties next week. If Drew were just umpiring, she felt it was all right only to keep half an eye on the game.

‘How can you be so unsupportive, Chessie?’ she murmured.

‘Vot is the name of that bay mare he’s riding now?’ asked Helmut.

‘I haven’t a clue.’

‘You should be able to recognize Bart’s ponies,’ reproved Sukey. ‘That’s Marina, a Criolla pony from Argentina,’ she told Helmut.

Chessie turned smiling to Sukey. ‘Do remind me to take your husband to bed when I get a moment.’

Sukey went magenta, but her reply was drowned by Terry Hanlon telling them that the head had broken off Ricky’s stick in the desperate mêlée in the Apocalypse goal mouth.

‘And Ricky France-Lynch is managing to do an amazing amount of damage with his stick alone, but it’s looking very dangerous for Apocalypse. Is it going to be 6-2? No, Seb Carlisle’s taken the ball upfield.’

Swinging round, Ricky thundered towards the boards where his sticks were leaning against the fence, their handles fretting in the wind.

‘Fifty-one,’ he bellowed to Louisa. But for once Chessie was too quick. Bounding down the gangway, she snatched the right stick and handed it to Ricky. For a second their eyes met.

‘Good luck darling, you’re doing brilliantly,’ she called out quite audibly.

‘And Mrs Alderton is giving her ex-husband stick,’ announced Terry Hanlon drily. ‘Ex-wives generally do, I expect she was asking for more dosh.’ The crowd, despite being drenched, giggled.

Mr and Mrs Wallstein exchanged surprised glances. ‘Is it customary in England you support the other side?’

‘Only if your name’s Oswald Mosley,’ snapped Rupert.

Conditions were worsening, the rain coming down in a steady torrent, the wind growing more vicious. Ricky had found Kinta’s strength in the third chukka a two-edged sword. She was powerful enough to play two, even three chukkas, but in these conditions she was a liability because she wouldn’t stop.

Ricky couldn’t afford any more penalties if Kinta cannoned into other ponies or barged across their right of way. As he rode back to the pony lines at the end of the fourth chukka, he shouted to Louisa to tack up Wayne for the last chukka. This was the kind of weather when you needed old friends.

‘Oh my God,’ muttered Louisa as she handed his new, dark brown pony, Corporal, over to Dommie. ‘Wayne’s sunk a bucket of water, had half a ton of barley sugar and I’ve just retrieved him from the Flyer’s pony lines with chocolate cake all over his whiskers trying to mount Spotty. Should I tell Ricky?’

‘Leave it,’ said Dommie. ‘If he gives Ricky confidence, that’s what matters.’ He looked down at Louisa’s plump, freckled, mud-spattered face. Her hair clung to her head like a mermaid.

‘Will you sleep with me if we win?’

Louisa’s smile suddenly lit up the Cowdray gloom. ‘I thought you’d never ask. Yes, please.’

‘And if we lose, so I don’t shoot myself?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Louisa.

The mud in fact had been too thick for any of the crowd to notice the blood, but, still numb with embarrassment and misery and shaken by the fall, Perdita felt even more conspicuous riding back on to the field in snow-white breeches.

‘You’ve got two chukkas left to redeem yourself,’ said Bart bullyingly. ‘You don’t want to be the reason we lost the cup.’

The Flyers had a good fifth chukka, dominating the play and pushing the score up to 6-2, then Apocalypse caught fire, and Seb and Ricky both scored in the closing minutes and the stands went wild.

As the players rode out for the last chukka, it was noticed that Red had taken off the white sweater he wore under his blue polo shirt for the first time this season.

‘That’s ominous,’ said Ricky. ‘Get your fingers out, Apocalypse.’

After two minutes of frantic barging and bumps-a-daisy, Red took matters into his own hands. Giving Dommie and Seb the slip and Glitz his head, he raced off upfield.

That’s it, thought Ricky dully. That’ll be 7-4; there’s only Dancer anywhere near him.

God had let Dancer down last time, so this time he concentrated on Red, who was messing around in front of goal, insolently positioning himself so he could score the clinching goal. But as he lifted his stick, he found himself nearly pulled off his horse. Dancer had hooked him.

‘With pressure it is better,’ said Helmut Wallstein. ‘He had all zee time in the world, and he relaxed.’

‘Well hooked, Dancer. You read the play,’ hollered Dommie, grinning out of his round ruffian blackamore face, as he raced Corporal down to bring the ball back to Ricky. Perdita, who was out of position and should have been marking Dancer, raced back towards the Apocalypse goal. But as all the players converged on Ricky trying to help or hinder him, a pony kicked a divot up in Perdita’s eyes, totally blinding her, so she crashed across Ricky’s right of way. Up went every Apocalypse stick.

‘Foul,’ screamed the twins.

Ricky on Wayne took the penalty.

‘Pale rider, pale horse,’ said William Loyd.

‘And his name was death to the Flyers’ hopes,’ murmured Chessie.

The wind, which had been Ricky’s enemy all day, had moved slightly to the south. Slowly he cantered a circle that would have won a dressage prize. The picture of control, his gait as smooth as his yellow face was ugly, Wayne floated proudly towards the ball. There was a ripple of muscle, the piston arm hurtled down again, Ricky aimed deliberately to the left and nudged back by the wind, the ball sailed high above the leaping Flyers’ sticks, slap between the posts. The crowd, who could hardly see through the rain, waited on tenterhooks, then, seeing the waving yellow flag, bellowed their delight.

‘The penalty is mightier than the sword,’ cried Chessie, clapping ecstatically.

There were two and a half minutes to go, the score was 6-5 and Dommie, mis-hitting, clouted the ball towards the Flyers’ goal-mouth, but to no-one in particular. Ahead of everyone, Red scorched after it, flogging Glitz like a jockey at Tattenham Corner. Glitz, however, was fed up with the weather and too many hidings. He was used to cheering crowds under a Palm Beach sun as he shook off the opposition like a dog a towel. Out of the corner of his beautiful eye, he saw Wayne hurtling down to ride him off. Wayne was very ugly and his pale face was fearsome. Red turned his heel into Glitz’s sodden right flank to turn him left. He had heard that Wayne was spooked about bumping and anticipated no contest. The next minute Glitz had ducked out and Ricky had taken the line.

‘You fucking son of a bitch,’ screamed Red to Glitz, but it was too late.

‘I misjudged you, you old bugger, I’m sorry,’ said Ricky in amazement, as Wayne pulled away from the tiring Glitz.

The buttercup-yellow posts rose out of the gloom to his left. Master of the cut shot, Ricky sliced the ball, but, scuppered by nerves, he misjudged and hit the post.

‘Oh,’ groaned the crowd.

Bart hit in. A minute and a half to go. Seb blocked the shot and passed to Dommie, who tapped it in, screaming with frustration as again it hit the post.

‘The afternoon of the woodwork,’ said Terry Hanlon sympathetically.

But an instant later Ricky had thundered in and slapped in a tennis shot in the air. Chessie’s scream of joy was not the only one. Six all, a minute to go.

Suddenly the rain stopped, every tree and flat cap dripped, water cascaded down spectators’ necks as other spectators lowered their umbrellas. The Gold Cup on its green baize table was carried out and glittered like the Holy Grail in a lone shaft of sunlight. As the ball flashed frantically from goal-mouth to goal-mouth and Bart crashed round like a maddened Rottweiler, bumping into everyone, the crowd were on their feet yelling their heads off. Now they were down the Flyers’ end and Seb, Dommie, Ricky and Dancer were all taking desperate swipes at the ball until it was buried, trodden deep into the ground, with everyone frantically looking for it until the whistle went.