There was sunlight on the thick green of the trees, on the flat pale green of the course. Sunlight on the white rails and the white stand. The warm air in the paddock was full of the frou-frou of voices that came and went above the murmur which was all that remained at this distance of the clamour of the ring. Warm air full of pleasant smells: bitter cigarette smoke, the faint fine scents of well-dressed women, the sweet smell of crushed grass, the good clean smell of horses. Now and then a high far voice called the numbers of the runners, a voice that floated out over the crowd as mournful and plaintive as any muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. And within the magic white circle of the parade ring, stepping daintily, fastidiously, tolerant for the most part of the crowd that leaned in critical appreciation along the rails, went the objects of Kif's adoration. Chestnut, bay, and brown, they filed sedately round the tan-bark track, the sunlight shivering along the high-lights on their coats, their tails floating gently behind them, their eyes acquiescent, their ears inquisitive. Here a bay snatched at his bit, pulling, and the lad who was leading him remonstrated mildly with him. Here a filly shied away like a blown feather from a suddenly opened sunshade, stood quivering, gazing, and then, reassured, dropped her head and followed her minute custodian into file again.
Kif leaned against the rail and sucked it all in as a thirsty man takes water. Nothing was strange to him. He had done this in imagination many times. He could tell the eager Travenna everything he wanted to know of the where, the what, and the when, and quite an impressive amount of the why. More than ever he had come home.
Travenna had recognised a spiritual resting-place if not a home in Tattersall's and spent his time in joyful excursions between the paddock and the Ring. In the Ring, tips were confided to him by chance acquaintances or a name was bandied about, and he would reappear at Kif's elbow demanding 'Where is Crimson Baby? I want to see Crimson Baby'. Having seen, he would look interestedly at the medium of his investment and go back to put his money on. Kif refused to have a bet in each race. He was saving up for a gamble, he explained. When he saw something he really fancied he was going to put all he had to spare on it. He stayed habitually in the paddock till the last jockey had been thrown into the saddle and led through the gate. He was back in the paddock to see the winner unsaddled, while Travenna, who was astoundingly lucky, was collecting his due from disgusted bookmakers. And five minutes later he was propped against the parade-ring rails in his old place watching the placid procession, watching the personalities gather in the sacred circle for the next race; first a trainer or two, spare, hard-lipped men, with clear, wrinkled eyes, quiet, indifferent; or a lad doing proxy, neat, stiff-legged, conscious of his hands; then the owners, well fleshed for the most part, genial or haughty as their temperaments were, full of jests or dropping a curt remark. A pause in the influx, and lastly the jockeys, smiling, careless-seeming, more or less self-conscious, crossing the space with their jerky, straight-footed walk as quickly as possible, and spilling as they went a riot of colour that danced and flamed among the drab. Another pause, and mounting time. Kif regretted that one pair of eyes was not adequate to absorb so prodigal an outlay of beauty and incident. Sidling, pirouetting horses, horses standing still and proud, jockeys tossed, a flash of colour, on to shining, uneasy backs, patient lads, anxious, efficient men, the almost imperceptible movement to the gate that merged the dizzy kaleidoscope into a single glowing silken string.
Before the big race of the afternoon Travenna flung himself breathless against the rail by Kif's side with an enthusiasm which shook the stout wood.
'Well, I'll say this is a great game. I've won seven pound ten so far. Found your fancy yet?'
'Yes,' said Kif, 'there he is. Number eleven.' He pointed to a smallish bay, almost a pony, with black points. ' Wilton trains him. Not So Fast, he's called.'
'That's a fool name for a horse.'
'Well, you see, he's by Investigator out of Cautious Dame.'
Travenna regarded his friend's choice a little longer and then remarked:
'You can't be said to have a flashy taste in horseflesh, anyway. Where's this Strathnairn they're all talking about? They won't give more than evens.'
'He hasn't come in yet.'
'What's extra special about him that they're so frightened?'
Kif enumerated as well as he could remember the achievements of Strathnairn. 'He was fourth in the Derby last year,' he finished, and even as he spoke there was a sudden crescendo of the crowd's murmuring followed by a hush. Strathnairn had come into the ring.
Quiet lay like a spell on the four-deep sophisticated crowd as he made his slow way round the track. Black except for a white diamond, sixteen hands, magnificently muscled, almost impossible to fault, he moved proudly, a king enjoying the homage of his subjects. Hardened race-goers gaped in silence, or uttered a monosyllabic and blasphemous appreciation. Kif, attune to wonders, had not anticipated anything like this. Travenna, after having watched him round the ring in silence, said:
'I didn't know they made them like that. And you said he can do things as well as looking like that?' He looked a little longer. 'Well,' he said, heaving himself off the rails and rubbing his ribs tenderly, 'I expect you've changed your mind about what-d'you-call-it—Not So Fast?'
'No, I haven't.'
'What! Are you going to back him to beat that?'
'That is going to carry nine stone and mine has only seven stone two. And—Oh well, I said I'd wait till I found one I liked, and I've found him, that's all.'
He took out his wallet and gave Travenna two notes. 'Put that on for me and take up two men's room in the stand till I come.'
Kif was back in the stand in time to see the parade. Strathnairn, as befitted the top-weight, led the glittering line that trailed its slow length down the middle of the course, Flannigan, the leading jockey of the day, sitting upright and pleased on the superb back.
'You're a fool, Kif,' said Travenna amiably as the cherry and gold jacket was borne past them. 'I don't know the first thing about horses, and you probably know quite a little, but you don't need to know anything to see that that thing's the icing on the cake.'
Kif did not answer. His eye was searching down the lovely line for the green jacket and orange cap. There they were, Not So Fast demure but alert; neat, beautifully turned, well-proportioned—but a mere pony. His jockey, an about-to-be fashionable apprentice, made in his unexpected beauty a fitting pilot for so gracious a thing. His small face under the orange cap was carved like a cameo, delicate, aquiline, pale like ivory. He went past easy and grave, his small bright eyes on his mount's dark poll.
Kif drew a long breath. Something was hurting in his chest. 'If that kid'—the kid was four years his senior—'only did the little horse justice he would show that sultan up at the top a thing or two.'
They were cantering now, the colours fading rapidly into mere specks far down the course.
'I got a hundred to seven for you,' said Travenna. 'Strathnairn is odds on. They offered me evens and I went to scout for a better price, and when I came back he said it was eleven to eight on. He'd give a 'Frisco dealer points and a beating.'
He unslung the glasses with which Mrs Clamp had furnished them, and which the vicissitudes of many Derby days had wrought to the battered polish considered de rigueur in racing.
'A man gave me a tip for Firth. Do you know what that was like?'
'Yes, he was that queer whitey-grey, fourth in the parade.'
'They're frightened of him too. Two to one was all they'd give, so I left it. Change your mind and have something hopeful before it's too late?'
Kif grinned and shook his head. He watched the heated jostling throng in front of him, and was blissfully sorry for them scrambling to and fro there for a point above the odds, and caring not at all, so that their money was well placed, what carried it. They had no little bay with black points. Calculation was in their eye, and Racing-up-to-Date bulged from their pockets. He was about to tell Travenna how superior to him an
d to everyone else there he was feeling when the roar of 'They're off!' swamped every other consideration. In the ensuing quiet, late bettors fled from the ring to what vantage point they might find in the packed stand. Travenna, whose turn it was, had focussed the glasses on the far bend when he turned suddenly and shoved them at Kif. 'Here you are, kid,' he said. And Kif took them. This was his hour.
Far down there at the bend the course lay sunny and tranquil, quite deserted. While he could have counted six he watched the distant trees and listened to his heart thudding. A blur of swiftly moving colour swam into the green and fled along the back stretch to the bend.
'Badly off,' the murmur went round, 'something badly off.'
At the bend the blur resolved itself into its elements and the smooth effortless of its progress gave place to the visible striving of horse and man. Out from the ruck came a grey horse riderless. Kif remembered that Firth's jockey wore colours of French grey and his heart resumed its place.
Second by second the distance between the word and the grey horse widened. Firth…the word was bandied about…Firth.
'What's that fool doing?' said an irate voice behind. 'Does he think he can keep up that pace with eight stone three?'
'He's crazy, or else the colt's bolted.'
But still the grey came on and there was a distinct green hiatus between him and the rest. Then two horses came out in pursuit, a red jacket and a magpie one, and presently a third. They had come to the grey's quarters without making any impression or causing a falter in the machine-like stride of the leader when a black whirlwind broke from the shifting mass and swept irresistible up the course. A roar from the stands. Flannigan and the favourite! They passed the third of the challengers as though he had been standing still. The jockey in the scarlet lifted his whip twice and faded out.
'Flannigan's bringing him early.'
'Afraid of Firth, I expect.'
Now the grey, the bay carrying the magpie jacket, and Strathnairn were racing side by side. The bay's jockey was sitting down to it and the bay was struggling gamely. But it was a struggle. With still more than a furlong to go he dropped back beaten. Strathnairn and Firth were left to fight it out. It was incredible that the grey could keep in front much longer. The pace had been a good one. But still his rider had not moved. And then without apparent cause he brought out his whip and the crowd read the signal and roared again. Strathnairn!
But Kif's heart was heavy. He turned the glasses again on the ruck, despairingly, and saw what none of the absorbed crowd looked for. On the outside, coming up from what seemed an immense distance in the rear was the green jacket and orange cap—flying! Kif had not realised that anything on four legs could cover the ground like that. The excited murmur of the crowd wavered, broke. They had seen. In a heavy-breathing silence they watched the new-comer while the sound of the hoofs grew in the silence. Would he do it? Firth was still holding Strathnairn, but they knew that Flannigan had his measure. He could beat Firth, but what about this with the green and yellow?'
'What's that thing?'
'It's that Investigator colt of Rayner's.'
Kif's heart was suffocating him. The apprentice was sitting motionless on Not So Fast, crouched down with his face alongside the flying dark mane. Someone called an offer in Tattersall's. It fell unheeded into the silence. Speech struck from their lips, they watched him come. He was only four lengths from the leaders now, and Flannigan woke to the danger. He urged Strathnairn. There was no response. Thrice his whip fell and Strathnairn leaped forward. But Not So Fast was level with him. In front of him. Half a length. A length. Half a length.
The post flashed by.
Kif's knees were trembling. Travenna looked at him delightedly.
'Well, I'm damned, but he deserved it, and so do you for backing him,' he said. But Kif was already shoving through the dazed crowd to the exit where the policemen had but newly drawn aside the barrier. He tore along the path to the paddock. There would be a crowd from the Club side, and he must see the little horse once more.
Pressed against the rail of the unsaddling enclosure he saw Not So Fast come back, still demure, still alert, sweating but not distressed. The apprentice, his ivory beauty flushed and a little tight smile playing round his mouth, patted the wet neck lovingly before he carried his saddle into the weighing-room. The trainer was trying to look as if he had not cared much one way or the other. The owner had given up any attempt to hide his feelings and was beaming on all and sundry. Round about, the varied crowd talked in Kif's ear.
'Deserves it. Left lengths, he was.'
'Good advertisement for Investigator.'
'…someday for that boy if he keeps steady.'
'Bred him himself.'
'What was the price?'
'Weighed in!' shouted a voice, and the little bay was led out of Kif's sight. He went slowly back to Travenna, who presented him with a wad of notes.
'Here you are, Rockefeller. You'll be able to take a tram now when your feet ache.'
Kif, bewildered by the sight of his wealth, handled the wad doubtfully.
'Count it if you want to, I don't mind,' laughed Travenna.
'I was just thinking that I'll have to bet on the other races after all to get rid of some of this.'
'Come on!' said his friend. 'I've just discovered that the man who trains that,' he pointed with his stubby forefinger to a name on the card for the next race, 'is an Australian, and I'm going to put my shirt on it.'
If the rest of the afternoon was rather an anti-climax Kif was not aware of it. He was wrapped in a happy dream.
In bed that night he decided that some day he would own a thoroughbred, bay with black points, and he would call it—what would he call it?
He was asleep before he had chosen a name.
* * *
The 6.10 at Waterloo, a wet evening, and the end of his leave. Travenna, who had been ordered to Chelsea barracks for a course of instruction, was on the platform to see him go.
For the first time Kif had a real pang at parting from a fellow-being.
'Good-bye,' said Travenna, giving him his hand, but not looking at him. 'Good luck!'
'So long,' said Kif.
They never met again.
Kif was halfway back to his battalion when he remembered that he had meant to send Mary a picture postcard from London.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kif left England in June on a grey still evening when the sea was a level floor of lavender and Folkestone lay dreaming and lightless, a mere gathering of the greyness where the white cliffs still glimmered. The subdued bustle of readjustment which was the backwash of embarkment faded into a little silence as the dim coast vanished, broke out again, and eventually settled into the low hum of conversation which was one with the faint thud and wash of the Arundel nosing her way indifferently towards France. Kif leaned against the rail and thought of nothing in particular. The calm of the night was in him and some of its dreaminess and unreality. On one side of him Fatty Roberts, the company buffoon, was calling heaven to witness that if he died it would be from tobacco starvation and not from bullets. On the other was Barclay, very quiet and whistling snatches of something under his breath. Further away was the voice of Lance-corporal Struthers insisting—Kif could almost see the gesticulation—that it was 'the principle of the thing, sergeant'.
Jimmy had put up his first stripe shortly before he went on leave. The promotion elated him not at all. It was in his estimation the natural order of events and he treated it as such. He had spent his leave lording it over his admiring women-folk—five sisters, a mother, and a grandmother—and showing off blatantly before his elder brother, who had not yet torn himself from his browsing life among the sheep. 'One of these days he'll take root, mark me,' he had said. He had come back to the battalion with three recruits in his train whom he had proceeded to adopt, bully and mother, very much as he had Kif. There was no limit to Jimmy's fostering propensities. He was the complete company-sergeant-major in embryo. He had
not wet his promotion beyond a mild exchange of drinks, but on the night that the battalion heard definitely that they were 'for off' had come back to camp so riotously drunk that Barclay and Kif had hard work to save the infant stripe. At the cost of twenty minutes' hard work, some desperate expedients and some shin bruises, they did it, however. Jimmy had asked next morning, 'Who put me to bed last night?' but had offered not a word of spoken thanks. He had made a little eloquent gesture with his head, and left the matter there. In the months that followed he paid his debt in divers ways and many times.
Barclay had refused in spite of urgings from home, cogent arguments from his superiors, and the oratory of Jimmy Struthers, to consider taking a commission.
'It isn't my job,' he would say. 'I'll form fours and march, and with luck register an outer, but I'm not going to mug up drills.'
What he really hated, though he would never say so, was the thought of responsibility. It was a thing his mind shied away from. If he took a commission he would be saddled with it night and day—an old man of the sea on his shoulders, perpetually clutching and weighing him down. It would be disastrous, he felt, to attempt to make himself into something he was not by nature. Disastrous not only to his own peace of mind, but perhaps to those unfortunates whose safety would depend on a man who had no confidence in himself. Therefore he stayed a private. And Kif was wholeheartedly glad, though he said nothing. Kif was popular enough in his platoon not to have necessarily missed Barclay if he had gone, but the fact remains that Kif was happier with Barclay, whom he did not always understand, than with Jimmy, whose language and habit of thought resembled his own. Barclay had twitted him gently about his failure to reach Golder's Green during his visit to London, and Kif had been perfectly frank about his doings with the exception of the visit to the zoo, which he suppressed, partly from an inward conviction that it was a childish proceeding, partly from fear o Barclay's amusement.
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