‘We are going to be keeled,’ said Angel through clattering teeth, ‘and Bibi ’aven’t even come and say goodbye to me.’

‘Oh, God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts;

Possess them not with fear,’ muttered Luke to himself, but out loud, with a confidence he didn’t feel, he said, ‘Bullshit, we’ll bury them.’

‘Now he play bettair,’ said Patricio, nudging Lorenzo and looking upwards. Following his gaze, Angel was stunned to see a little plane chugging across the sky trailing a message: ‘Good luck, Angel, I love you, Bibi.’

The crowd burst into a collective roar of laughter. Angel went crimson but he was grinning like a pools winner. Now he would play like a king. He could hardly wait for the long-thighed umpire in his bright-blue shirt to chuck the ball in.

Luke found the Palermo Open quite different to any other tournament, not only because eight chukkas were played instead of the usual six, but also because the pace was twice as fast, the bumps three times as violent and the ponies four times as superior. There was no razzmatazz, no cheer leaders, no balloons, no commentary, because everyone in the madly excited crowd knew what was going on and made whistling sounds every time a foul occurred, often anticipating the umpire. All you could hear between the great roars of encouragement and the din of trumpet and drum was the clatter of incessantly galloping hooves, the snorting of the ponies, the desperate shouts of the players and the blind-man’s tap, tap, tap of their sticks.

By any standard the first chukka was played on fast forward. To boost morale and rattle the O’Briens Alejandro had mounted his sons and Angel on his best ponies. Exploding on to the field shiny as conkers shot from their husks, they outraced the O’Brien ponies with ease. By the bell the Mendozas were ahead by a staggering 5-1, three of the goals scored by Angel.

The O’Briens’ game-plan emerged as they settled down in the second chukka. Seamus O’Brien spent his time either sneakily inserting himself between Luke and the Mendozas’ posts or luring Luke away from the goal-mouth so that Miguel and Juan could unleash their thunderbolts from the mid-field which would find the flags immediately or be tipped through by a returning Seamus. Playing with pulverizing attack, changing direction all the time, by the end of the third chukka the O’Briens were leading 10-5 and had plunged the volatile Mendozas into despair.

‘Keep your shirts on, guys, you’re doing great,’ Luke reassured them as he mounted Fantasma, the only grey in the match, for the fourth chukka. As usual her beauty brought gasps of delight from the crowd and once again Luke felt humbled by the combination of courage, competitiveness, steel, intelligence and boundless energy. She always inspired him. Somehow he must try and settle his own side. But almost certainly it was going to be 11-5 as Juan hurtled towards goal on his fastest mare, the legendary Gatto, and like a matador, revelled in plunging another pic into the desperately injured Mendoza bull.

‘We’ll show them,’ muttered Luke, and next moment Fantasma had streaked like a shooting star after Juan. Coming in from the right, Luke waited until her grey shoulder was level with Gatto’s gleaming, dark brown quarters. He could also feel Miguel behind him breathing down his neck like a hair-dryer on high. Coolly he leant forward, hooked Juan’s stick out of the way and then, with a lightning flick, backed the ball. Instantly Fantasma swivelled round, so, bypassing an astounded Miguel, Luke was able to hit the forehand straight to Angel who was waiting on the boards. Gathering up the ball like a lost lover, Angel dribbled it round, tossed and hit it in the air twice in a contemptuous piece of clowning, then took it upfield, passing to Lorenzo who galloped off and scored. The crowd erupted in delight at such dazzling play. Overjoyed, Bibi hugged Bart. Even Angel’s rampart of relations were looking less supercilious.

A lone trumpeter up in the gods struck up the Stars and Stripes; Luke grinned and waved his stick. Two beautiful Argentine girls behind Bibi consulted their programmes and agreed the blond Americano was muy atractivo.

‘My brother,’ Bibi told them proudly.

In the fifth chukka the Mendozas rode their fast ponies again and closed the score to 8-10, but not for nothing did the blood of Irish kings run through the veins of the O’Briens. Refusing to be rattled, they fought back, furiously stampeding the score to 12-8. Having played their trump card to so little effect, the Mendozas started to panic. Even worse, a second later Miguel pulled up dead on the line bringing down Luke on the beautiful liver-chestnut just behind him. Luke, winded, staggered to his feet. The chestnut stayed put and had to be shot. Channelling his fury into a superhuman effort against the opposition, Luke hit the ensuing penalty through the posts and into the road and a lorry full of soldiers, who, thinking it was part of the coup, reached for their guns.

In the sixth chukka the O’Briens were awarded a penalty four which Luke knocked out of the air to Angel who again took it upfield with three almost languorously contemptuous offside forehands and then scored with an exquisite nearside cut shot. The crowd boiled over; 10-12 and Angel’s relations were all shaking Bart and Bibi by the hand. Angel’s bay mare had a lot to do with that goal, thought Luke darkly, but no-one told her so. In fact none of those gallant ponies had been patted once in the whole match except by him.

The heat was awful and even the umpires’ ponies were white with sweat. He must concentrate. He was exhausted after a long flight, unused to playing eight chukkas, unacclimatized to such punishing heat and the hand smashed earlier in the year was giving him hell. Suddenly the cliffs of yelling faces on either side seemed to be closing in on him and for a terrifying moment he thought he was going to black out.

Respite came horribly. One of Miguel’s ponies, racing Angel’s to the boards, tripped and, overturning, broke her back. With a delay of ten minutes before her body was taken away, Luke managed to recover in the shade. Then in the next chukka one of Alejandro’s most gallant mares broke a leg doing a lightning turn and also had to be shot. Patricio, who had made the mare himself, was in floods of tears. The crowd moaned in sympathy. Again, rage at such senseless waste fuelled Luke’s blast-furnace. As Miguel hurtled towards him, blotting out the sun, bringing the ball down for a certain goal, Luke coolly charged him, buffalo for buffalo, and passing him legitimately on the offside, whisked the ball to Angel who passed just in time to Patricio who scored. Twelve all, proclaimed the sea-green scoreboard in vast, white letters. The crowd had nearly yelled themselves hoarse and resorted more and more to their instruments. Two rival supporters, overcome by emotion, started a punch-up. Primrose-yellow flags and banners, emerald-green parasols swooned in the heat.

It was the last chukka. The O’Briens’ legendary temper was roused. It was time for Goliath to despatch David. But, by sheer persistence, the Mendozas, each clamped on his opposing player like Jack Russells, managed to keep the score level until, in the last ten seconds, Seamus crossed Luke. Up went the Mendozas’ sticks, twirling in triumph and there was a sharp exchange between the O’Briens and one of the long-thighed umpires who’d been looking at his watch at the time, until the third man came out of the bar and confirmed it was a foul.

Grimly the O’Briens lined up behind their goal. The Mendoza supporters (now most of the crowd) bellowed without ceasing and, in the bars below the great stadium, started opening bottles of champagne. Lorenzo, Patricio and Angel exchanged surreptitious but delighted grins. The grooms of the Mendozas rubbed their calloused hands in glee. Señor Gracias never missed a penalty. The Open was going to change hands at last.

The stadium went quiet as slowly Luke circled, a lone figure on an incandescently white horse under the burning sun. Turning Fantasma towards goal, he suddenly panicked. His hand might not hold up and he should have given the penalty to Angel. For a second his concentration flickered. To a man the Mendoza supporters groaned as Luke mis-hit and the ball went wide as the last bell went.

Overwhelmed by shame, Luke slumped in the saddle, resting his tired head on Fantasma’s bristling grey neck. He ought to fall on his polo mallet. Then, realizing the match wasn’t over, with titanic effort he pulled himself together and cantered back to the pony lines.

‘Sorry, you guys,’ he called to the rest of the team who were on the verge of tears.

‘Sorry,’ he shouted to the dead-pan masks of the grooms.

‘I thought you never miss a penalty,’ snarled a furious Alejandro. ‘Why are you bloody well smiling?’

‘To stop myself crying,’ said Luke.

Only Fantasma seemed to be on his side now. Flattening her ears and striking out at Alejandro, she nudged Luke sympathetically in the ribs as he dismounted, then tried to make him laugh by knocking his hat off.

Waiting to go into a ninth chukka, Luke took a swig of Seven-Up and soaked an entire towel wiping off the sweat. Alejandro wanted him to ride another flashy, beautiful chestnut called Zou Zou who’d been rested for three chukkas. But knowing Fantasma best, Luke opted to ride her a third time, which is allowed in Argentina. Briefly he put his arms round her neck echoing Sir Jacob Astley’s prayer at the Battle of Edgehill.

‘Oh Fantasma, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget thee, do not thou forget me.’

Fantasma, who was dying to get back into the action, nipped Luke’s polo shirt in acquiescence. Three hundred chukkas with him were better than one with Alejandro.