“What’s the matter?” he snapped.

“Nothing.” She concentrated on squeezing out a flannel.

“What the hell’s the matter? I can’t help going.” His guilt at leaving her made him speak more harshly than he’d meant to. “It’s not going to be much fun for me; fifteen hundred miles on the train in the blazing heat with two horses.”

It was part of the bargain of their marriage that she never clung to him or betrayed her desperate dependency.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m over the moon that you’re going. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

Her lip trembled. Jake put his arm round her, feeling the solid shape of the baby inside her, pressing against him. For a second she clung to him, lowering her guard.

“It’s just that I’m going to miss you so much.”

“It’ll go very quickly,” he said. “I’ll ring you the moment I get to Madrid.”

Next minute they heard a terrific banging, and Wolf barking. Looking out, they saw Tanya, obviously having to stand on a bucket, peering out of the tiny high tackroom window.

“Will someone come and rescue me? Your wretched son’s just locked me in.”

And yet next morning, getting up at first light, with the rising sun touching the willows and the pale gray fields, the Mill House looked so beautiful that Jake wondered how he could bear to leave it. Tanya had already been up for two hours getting the horses ready. She had even borrowed two milk churns from a nearby dairy to carry water, in case Jake ran out on the train journey.

“I’m sorry you’re not coming,” he said.

“You can take me next time.”

“If there is a next time,” said Jake, lighting a cigarette.

“Nervous?”

Jake nodded.

Africa heard Humpty’s lorry before Jake did. She had changed over the years, growing stronger, more muscular, and filling out behind the saddle. She was more demanding and less sociable, and could be moody and impatient, especially if she was in season. Now, aware that something was up, she darted to her half-door to look out, eyes bold, ears flattened, pawing at her straw, stamping with her forelegs. The other horses put their heads out of the boxes, ready to be jealous because they were not included in the trip. Only Sailor stayed in his box, calmly finishing off his feed. Sailor calmed Africa down. But Jake was her big love.

Both Tory and Tanya felt a stab of relief that Bridie, Humpty’s groom, wasn’t at all pretty. Plump, with mouse brown curls, she had a greasy skin and a large bottom.

Just my luck to be stuck for four days with that, thought Jake.

Inside the lorry they could see Humpty’s three horses, with the resplendent Porky Boy on the outside, coat gleaming like a conker. By comparison, Sailor, shuffling up the ramp, looked as though he was going on his last journey. At least Africa, in her dark beauty, whinnying and prancing up the ramp, slightly redeemed the yard.

“Well, I don’t think you need have any worries about Jake getting off with that,” said Tanya, as the lorry heaved its way over the bridge, rattling against the willow branches.

“The forecast’s awful,” Bridie told Jake cheerfully. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a terrible crossing.”

In fact the entire journey was a nightmare. The horse box moved like a snail. A storm blew up in midchannel and the boat nearly turned back. Jake spent the entire journey trying to calm the horses. The crossing took so long they missed the train at Dunkirk and had to wait twelve hours before they caught another one, which took them to the Spanish border quite smoothly. There they got into trouble with both French and Spanish customs, who took exception to Jake’s emergency passport. Jake, speaking no languages at all, and Bridie, who had only a few words of Spanish, found themselves shunted off to a siding for a day and a half, fast running out of food. Bridie, who was quite used to such delays, whiled the time away reading Mills and Boon novels and being chatted up by handsome customs officials who didn’t seem remotely put off by her size.

Jake nearly went crazy, pacing up and down, smoking packet after packet of cigarettes, trying to telephone England.

“If you’re abroad, there are always holdups,” said Bridie philosophically. “You’ll just have to get used to them.” He’s as uptight as a tick, that one, she thought. Any minute he’ll snap.

At last Jake got on to Tory, who managed to trace Malise in Rome, who pulled more strings and eventually arranged for them to take the next Madrid-bound train. In the ensuing wait, Jake started reading Mills and Boon novels, too, not realizing that only now was the real nightmare about to begin.

Their transport turned out to be cattle trucks, with Humpty’s three horses and Bridie in one, and Jake, Africa, and Sailor in another. There were no windows in the trucks, just air vents and a sliding door. “Porky Boy won’t like this,” said Bridie. “He’s used to a light in his box.”

After lots of shunting and banging back and forth, until every bone in Jake’s body was jarred, they were then hitched to a Spanish passenger express. Once the train started there was no communication with the outside world. No one to talk to, just total blackness and occasional flashes as stations flew past. The whiplash effect was appalling. Jake knew exactly what it was like to be a dry martini shuddering in a cocktail shaker.

As they slowed down outside a big station, Jake heard crashing and banging from Bridie’s truck next door.

“Porky Boy’s gone off his head,” she yelled. “I can’t hold him still enough to dope him.”

Risking his life and eternal abandonment in the middle of Spain, Jake leapt out of his truck and ran along to Bridie’s, only making it just in time, and narrowly avoiding being crushed to death by a maddened Porky Boy. Somehow, with the flashlight between his teeth, he managed to fill the syringe, jab it into the terrified plunging animal, and cling on, soothing and talking to him, until he calmed down.

Bridie was tearful in her gratitude. Frantic about Africa and Sailor, Jake then had to wait until the milky white light of morning revealed rolling hills, dotted with olive trees, flattening out to the dusty, leathery plains around Madrid, before the train slowed down enough for him to get back to them. He was so proud. Africa had a cut knee where she had fallen down, and both were obviously saddened by his absence, but delighted to welcome him back. They swayed from side to side keeping their footing. If they could, he thought, they would have got out and pulled the cattle trucks themselves.

When they finally reached Madrid, the trucks were pulled into the passenger station. Jake and Bridie found the platform packed with chic Spanish commuters, soberly dressed for the office, and looking with astonishment on two such travel-worn wrecks and their shabby horses.


16


After such a hellish journey, Jake was prepared for hen coops in which to stable the horses. But the Madrid showground turned out to be the last word in luxury, with a sumptuous clubhouse, swimming pools and squash courts, and a huge jumping arena next to an even bigger practice ring containing more than fifty different jumps.

“Humpty says it’s worth coming to Madrid just to practice over these fences,” said Bridie as she unloaded a stiff, weary, chastened Porky Boy.

Even better, each foreign team had been given its own private yard with splendid loose boxes. Next door, the victorious German team had just arrived from Rome and were unloading their huge horses and making a lot of noise. Jake recognized Ludwig von Schellenberg and Hans Schmidt, two riders he’d worshiped for years. Tomorrow, he thought with a thud of fear, he’d be competing against them.

He was distracted from his fears by another crisis. The loose boxes were all bedded with thick straw, which was no good for greedy Sailor, who always guzzled straw and blew himself out. Jake had run out of wood shavings on the journey down. How could he possibly explain to these charming, smiling, but uncomprehending Spaniards what he wanted? Bridie’s dictionary had “wood” but not “shavings.” He felt a great weariness.

“Can I help?” said a voice.

It was Malise Gordon, who had just flown in from Rome, his high complexion tanned by the Italian sun, wearing a lightweight suit and looking handsome and authoritative. Jake was never so pleased to see anyone.

Immediately Malise broke into fluent Spanish and sorted everything out.

“You look absolutely shattered,” he said to Jake. “Sorry it was a bloody journey, but I warned you. Still, it was as well you were there to look after Porky Boy last night. Are your horses okay?”

While the Spanish grooms put down the wood shavings for Sailor, Jake showed Malise Africa’s knee, which mercifully hadn’t swollen up.

“Where’s your other horse?”

“Here. They’ve got his box ready.”

Sailor, a messy eater, had tipped all his feed into the wood shavings and was busily picking it out. He gave Malise a baleful look out of his walleye. After the four-day journey he looked perfectly dreadful.

Christ, thought Malise, we’ll be a laughingstock entering something like that. But, he supposed, in the remote chance of Jake having to compete in the Nations’ Cup, he could always ride Africa. Anyway, the boy looked all in. No point in saying anything now.

“I’ll take you back to the hotel. You’d better get some sleep.” Malise looked at his watch. “It’s only ten o’clock now. The rest of the team won’t arrive till this afternoon. I suggest we meet in the bar around nine P.M. Then we can have dinner together and you can meet them all.”