battle against appalling Middle Eastern cruelty and insensitivity towards animals.
Miss Blenkinsop was a gaunt, sinewy woman in her late fifties, totally without sentimentality, and with the brusque, rather de-sexed manner of someone who has always cared for animals more than people.
She gave Jake a list of sixty-odd addresses where he might find the horse.
“Hope your nerves are strong. You’ll see some harrowing sights. Arabs think it’s unlucky to put down a horse, so they work them till they drop dead, and they don’t believe in feeding and watering them much either. Horse has probably been sold upcountry. You’ve as much chance of finding him as a needle in a haystack, but here are all the riding schools and the quarries, the most likely spots within five miles of the city. I’ll lend you one of my boys as interpreter. He’s a shifty little beast, but he speaks good English, and you can borrow my car, if you like.”
For Jake it was utter crucifixion. He was in a bad way emotionally anyway, and he had never seen such cruelty. Like some hideous travesty of Brook Farm Riding School, he watched skeletons, lame, often blind, frantic with thirst, shuffling around riding school rings, or tugging impossibly heavy loads in the street or in the quarries, being beaten until they collapsed, and then being beaten until they got up again.
For five days he went to every address Miss Blenkinsop had given him, bribing, wheedling, cajoling for information about a huge black horse with a white face, and one long white sock. No one had seen him. Sickened and shattered, he returned every night to his cheap hotel where there was no air-conditioning, the floors crawled with cockroaches, and drink was totally prohibited. As the coup-de-grace, on the fifth night, he couldn’t resist watching the Olympic individual competition on the useless black and white hotel television. As Billy rode in, the picture went around and around, but sadistically, it held still for Rupert and Revenge, who produced two heroic rounds to win the Bronze. Ludwig got the gold on his great Hanoverian mare, Clara; Carol Kennedy, the American number one male rider, got the silver.
Black with despair and hatred, Jake went up to his cauldron of a room and lay on his bed smoking until dawn. He had nearly run out of money and addresses. Today he must go home empty-handed. Around seven, he must have dozed off. He was woken by the telephone.
It was Miss Blenkinsop. “Don’t get too excited, but I may have found your horse. He’s been causing a lot of trouble down at the stone quarries.” She gave him the address.
“If it is him, don’t bid for him yourself. They’ll guess something’s up and whack up the price. Give me a ring and I’ll come and do the haggling.”
At first Jake wasn’t sure. The big muzzled gelding was so pitifully thin and so covered in a thick layer of white dust as he staggered one step forward, one step back, trying to shift a massive cartload of stone, that it was impossible to distinguish his white face or his one white sock. Then the Arab brought his whip down five times on the sunken quarters, five black stripes appeared and with a squeal of rage, Macaulay turned and lunged at the driver, showing the white eye on the other side.
That’s my boy, thought Jake with a surge of excitement. They’ll break his back before they break his spirit.
Miss Blenkinsop had a hard time making the Arab owner of the quarry part with Macaulay. Although vicious, he was the strongest horse they’d ever had and probably still had six months’ hard labor in him, but the price the hideously ugly Englishwoman was offering was too much for him to refuse. He could buy a dozen broken-down wrecks for that.
When Jake took Miss Blenkinsop’s trailer to collect him, Macaulay was too tall to fit in. So Jake led him very slowly back through the rush-hour traffic.
Macaulay twice clattered to the ground with exhaustion, and several times they narrowly missed death as the oil-rich Arabs hurtled by in their huge limousines. But Macaulay displayed no fear, he was beyond that now, and most touchingly, he seemed to remember Jake from the time he’d treated his lacerations after Rupert’s beating-up in Madrid. When Jake came to fetch him, his lackluster eyes brightened for a second and he gave a half-whicker of welcome.
That night, after he had made the horse as comfortable as possible, Jake had supper with Miss Blenkinsop. She drew the curtains and produced an ancient bottle of Madeira. After two glasses, Jake realized he was absolutely plastered. After Arab food, the macaroni cheese she gave him seemed the best thing he had ever eaten.
Jake always found it difficult to express gratitude, in case it was construed as weakness.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” he finally mumbled.
“Don’t bother,” said Miss Blenkinsop. “Do something about it. Spread the word when you get back to England. We need cash, not sympathy, and a law banning the exporting of all horses to the Middle East.”
“If I can get Macaulay back on the circuit,” said Jake, “the publicity for you will be so fantastic, the money’ll start flooding in.”
“He’s in a very bad way. Think you’ll be able to do it?”
Jake shrugged. “He’s young. My grandmother cured a mare with a broken leg once, bound it in comfrey and she went on to win four races. I’m going to have a bloody good try.”
For a second he stared at his glass, miles away, then he said, “I had a horse called Sailor once. He was near death when he arrived, but he did pretty well in the end.”
Even when Jake and Macaulay got back to England, the news that Great Britain had won the team silver medal, Billy clinching it with a brilliant clear, didn’t upset him very much.
24
Kings, they came home. After a grueling thirty-hour journey from Colombia to Stansted Airport, The Bull and Revenge, accompanied by Tracey and Podge, had a good night’s sleep at Colonel Roxborough’s yard. Next day they drove the horses in the lorry to Heathrow to meet Rupert and Billy. They had quite a wait, because of scenes of hysterical excitement at the airport. Press and television cameras were everywhere; police had to keep back the huge crowd. Britain hadn’t notched up that many medals at Colombia not to be very proud of her show-jumping bronze and silver.
At last, they all set off for Penscombe, at around four o’clock in the afternoon, in tearing spirits, sharing several bottles of champagne on the way. Tracey was soon laughing like a hyena. Only Podge was sad. In a couple of hours she would have to give most of Rupert back to Helen, but there’d be other shows, she tried to tell herself. Outside Cirencester, Rupert was stopped by a policeman for speeding, who solemnly got out his notebook, then asked for their autographs. Every time people saw their lorry with the lettering “Rupert Campbell-Black and Billy Lloyd-Foxe, Great Britain” they started cheering. Even Rupert was thrown by the welcome as they neared home. As they entered Chalford there were crowds all along the route, cheering, waving British flags, and holding up placards saying “Well done, Billy and Rupert.” “Three cheers for The Bull and Revenge.”
Rupert looked at Billy. “Shall we ride home?”
Billy nodded, too moved to speak.
The horses were still tired, but delighted to be out of the lorry and in familiar territory. The Bull proceeded to stall and stall in the middle of Chalford High Street to the delighted screams of the crowd and the photographers.
And they were cheered all the three miles home, Rupert and Billy riding in front, followed by Tracey and Podge in the lorry, hooting victory salutes on the horn. Two miles out, Henrietta, one of the junior grooms, arrived with an ecstatic Badger and Mavis, red, white, and blue bows attached to their collars. Billy scooped up Mavis onto the saddle in front of him, where she ecstatically licked his salty face. After that, The Bull had to guide himself home because Billy needed one hand to clutch Mavis and the other to wipe his eyes. The Bull didn’t care. With garlands of flowers round his massive neck, he must have put on a stone between Chalford and Penscombe with all the sweets, carrots, and sugar that were fed him along the route.
To Rupert, Penscombe had never looked so lovely as on that golden September afternoon, with the valley softened and blurred by a slight blue mist, and great pale cream swathes of traveler’s joy. There was the weather cock glinting on Penscombe church. And suddenly towards them came the village band, sweating in their red tunics,
