by Dick Francis
As the full significance of this slowly dawned on him, his jaw dropped, and I saw him waver in some secret inner place as if an axe had hacked into the roots of his colossal self-confidence. He turned on his heel, strode across to where the starter’s assistant held his horse, and swung abruptly into the saddle.
I went to meet Forlorn Hope, thanked the man who had brought him back, and remounted. The starter’s patience had run out.
‘Get into line, please,’ he said, and the circling horses began to straighten out across the course. I came up from behind and took a place alongside Sandy. I had one more question to ask.
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘why on earth did you get Penn to try to bribe Major Davidson? You must have known he wouldn’t have stopped Admiral winning for all the money in the world.’
‘It was the boss’s idea, not mine,’ said Sandy roughly. ‘I warned Fielder to tell him it wouldn’t work, but the boss knew bee-all about horses and was pig-headed besides. Fielder said he wouldn’t listen, because he thought if he fixed a cert it would be worth a fortune. He made a packet out of it, all right. He thought up the wire himself. And I’d be a ruddy sight better off if the wire had killed you too,’ he added, with a sudden spurt of venom.
The starter’s hand swept down on the lever. The tape flew up, and, five minutes late, the horses bounded forward towards the first hurdle.
I don’t know exactly when Sandy decided to put me over the rails. Perhaps the thought of all the money he would not be getting overwhelmed him, and perhaps I had brought it on myself by recalling that he had done it to Joe when Joe, as he saw it, had cheated him.
In any case, as we approached the second hurdle, he swerved his horse towards me. We were both in the group just behind the leaders, and I was on the inside, with the rails on my left.
I glanced at Sandy’s face. His slitted eyes were concentrated on the jump ahead, but with every stride his horse drew nearer to mine. He wasn’t leaving me much room, I thought.
Only just in time did I realise that he intended to leave me no room at all. He was aiming to crowd my horse so closely that I would be thrust into the six foot high wing leading up to the hurdles. A crash through the wings, I had been told, was one of the most dangerous of all falls. The time had clearly come for rapid evasive action if I were not to find this out for myself.
I literally hauled on the reins. Forlorn Hope lost impetus dramatically, and as soon as the quarters of Sandy’s horse were past his shoulder I pulled his head unceremoniously to the right. It was only just in time. The hurdles were beneath his feet before he had time to see them, and he knocked one flat with his forelegs. The horse following us, going faster, bumped hard into the back of him, and the jockey yelled at me to mind what I was doing.
Forlorn Hope was too much of a novice to stand this sort of thing, and I decided that if I were not to ruin his nerve for good, I would have to keep him out of Sandy’s way for the rest of the race.
But Sandy was not content with that. Along the straight in front of the stands he gradually worked himself back to my side. He was a better jockey than I and his horse was more experienced. When I tried to go faster, he kept pace, and when I slowed down, he slowed too. I could not shake him off. In front of the crowds, apart from keeping pace with me, he rode fairly enough; but round the next bend lay the long curved leg out into the comparatively deserted country, and what he might do there I hated to think.
I did consider pulling up and dropping out of the race altogether, but that seemed an even more ignominious defeat than being put over the rails.
As the field swept round the bend in a bunch, Sandy tried again. He closed his horse tight up against mine and very slightly behind. On my left I was jammed against Dane. He glanced across and shouted ‘Get over, Sandy. Give us some room.’
Sandy did not answer. Instead I felt his knee slide along under my thigh until it was pressing fiercely on my hamstrings. Then he gave a sudden violent jerk forwards and upwards with his whole leg.
My foot flew out of the stirrup and I lost my balance completely. I swayed wildly over to the left, my head tipping down beside my horse’s neck, my fingers clutching frantically at his mane. I looked down and saw the blur of hooves pounding tight-packed round the bend, and I struggled to prevent myself slipping off among them. But all my weight was too far forward, and the jolt of the horse’s galloping stride tended to tip me farther forward still. I knew that in a few seconds I would be off.
It was Dane who saved me. He put his hand on my side and literally pushed me back into my saddle.
‘Thanks,’ I gasped, feeling with my right foot for the dangling stirrup.
Not far round the bend lay the next flight of hurdles, and I fought to get myself and the horse properly balanced before we met it. As we came round the bend the sun had shone straight into our faces, but swinging out towards the country it lay on our right. Glancing to see if Sandy was still beside me I caught the sunshine full in the eyes and was for a second dazzled. He was there. He appeared to me as a black silhouette against the sun.
I remembered then that on such bright days on this course the sun shone straight into the eyes of the crowds on the stands also, and that it was difficult for them to distinguish what was happening on the far side of the course. Whatever Sandy did, he could be fairly sure the Stewards would not be able to see.
I gained a yard or two on Sandy and Dane at the next hurdle, but over my shoulder I could hear Sandy clicking with his tongue to hurry his horse, and in a few more strides he was beside me again. His shadow lay across my horse’s withers.
Suddenly he swung his arm; and had I not been so acutely ready he would have had me. He swung his right arm round his body in a chop at my face, slashing with his riding whip. I ducked in a reflex, without actually seeing the whip at all. The heavy blow landed across my helmet just above the peak, and knocked it clean off my head. It bounced away on the turf.
I felt, rather than saw, Sandy draw back his arm for another try. I slipped my own whip and the reins into my left hand, and when he struck, threw up my right. More by luck than design my fingers fastened on the stick and I gripped and twisted and pulled with the strength of desperation.
I had him half out of his saddle and I almost exulted; but at the vital moment he let go of his stick and regained his balance. Rebounding, his horse swerved away from me, leaving a gap, and I looked hopefully over my shoulder for one of the other runners to come up between us. But most of them had gone on in front, and there was no one close. I threw Sandy’s stick away.
The next hurdle lay ahead. I kept well away from the rails and tried to steady Forlorn Hope so that he should have a fair chance at it, but I was all too aware that Sandy was beginning to close on me again with a burst of extra speed.
My horse jumped the hurdle in reasonable style. Sandy kicked his horse into a tremendous leap, and as he landed he pulled straight across in front of me.
Forlorn Hope crashed into the rails.
By some miracle he did not fall. He bounced off, staggered, faltered, and galloped on. My leg, which had been crushed just below the knee between his body and the rails, was completely numb. I looked down at it: it appeared to be doing its job all right, even though I no longer seemed to be connected to it. My silk breeches were ripped open across the knee, and in my new extremely expensive made-to-measure racing boots flapped a large triangular tear.
Illogically, this made me very angry.
Sandy was some lengths ahead and had not so far managed to pull back again. Dane came up on my right, and I was glad to see him there.
He yelled, ‘What the hell’s going on? What the blazes does Sandy think he’s playing at?’
‘He’s not playing,’ I shouted. ‘He wants to get me off.’
‘Why?’ yelled Dane.
‘He was working for George Perm. He was making a lot of money. Now he isn’t. He blames me,’ I shouted in snatches, the wind picking the words out of my mouth and blowing them back over my shoul
der.
‘With reason,’ shouted Dane.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. I glanced at him, but now it was he who was outlined against the sun, and I could not see his expression clearly. If he felt badly enough about Kate to carry on where Sandy had for the moment left off, I should have no chance at all. He could ride rings round me, and Sandy, too.
We raced in silence towards the next hurdle, the last on the far side. Sandy was gradually slowing to wait for me.
Then Dane said, ‘Alan?’
‘Yes?’ I shouted back.
‘Do you want to give Sandy some of his own medicine?’
‘Yes.’ I suddenly had no reservations. It was a terrible thing to do, and if the Stewards saw me I’d lose my permit; but I had taken just about enough from Uncle George’s assorted strong-arm boys.
Dane shouted, ‘I’ll go up on his outside. You come outside me. Then I’ll get away and leave him between you and the rails. O.K.?’
I nodded. I tried to foresee the future. If I unseated Sandy he would not dare to complain to the Stewards; and I, as he said, could give no tangible evidence against him to the police. There could be an uneasy truce between us. And fall for fall, the score would be equal.
‘Come on, then,’ Dane shouted.
He kicked his horse and began to take his place on Sandy’s right. I pulled away from the rails and urged Forlorn Hope to the outside. There was nearly a mile to go to the finish, and as no one had yet begun to put on the pressure the field was still fairly closely bunched just ahead of us. There was no one behind. After the hurdle lay the long oval bend leading round into the straight. If either Sandy or I were to get the other off, it would have to be done on the bend; once we were round into the straight the Stewards would have too clear a view of our behaviour.
Dane jumped the hurdle alongside Sandy with me not far behind. As soon as I was level with them both, Dane shook up his horse and sped clear away from us, leaving me, as he had promised, with Sandy between me and the rails.
I swung Forlorn Hope over roughly on to Sandy’s horse, bumping him against the rails. Sandy yelled and lashed out with his fist. I hit his arm sharply with my stick.
I had got to unseat him without hurting his horse. I was being unfair enough already to the owner in trying to lose him the race by dislodging his jockey: if I could not do it without damaging the horse, I must not do it at all.
Shifting the reins into my right hand, I planted my left abruptly on Sandy’s body just behind his armpit, and shoved. But I was too far away to get enough force behind it. He swayed in his saddle, but kept his balance. He began to swear at me.
We were on the crown of the bend. It had to be now or never. I pushed Sandy’s horse harder against the rails. He yelled again. His leg, I knew, must be being crushed, pounded, even torn by the white-painted wood. With my own leg numb from the same treatment, I had no sympathy for him. Then his foot crashed into one of the uprights with an audible snap.
He screamed.
I gritted my teeth, shot out my arm, and pushed him with all my might. I knew if he had not gone then I would not have had the resolution to try again. But he began to topple, slowly, it seemed, at first, and then with an accelerating rush, as if he had been sucked away by a slipstream.
I caught a final glimpse of his face, eyes staring widely, mouth twisted with agony, as he fell into the long grass on the other side of the rails. Then I was round the bend into the straight, bruised, breathless, tattered and helmetless, but still on board.
Sandy’s loose horse, relieved of his weight, spurted forward through the other runners.
Dane saw him, and turned round in his saddle and grinned at me, and jerked up his thumb.
