Beach, with four-inch weals from Red’s whip dividing the sweat on her nearside flanks and quarters.
‘Oh, my poor baby,’ moaned Perdita. ‘What has that bastard done to you? And you played so brilliantly, I’ll murder him when I catch him.’
But although apparently sound, the little mare seemed utterly shellshocked, not even responding to her mistress when she covered her with kisses. Perhaps it was total exhaustion. Perdita helped dry her off.
‘Give her a polish and put on a couple of rugs. She might win Best Playing Pony,’ she told Bart’s groom, Manuel, before going back to the stands for the last chukka, where America, still leading 12-4, were beginning to get complacent. Red, trying to block another shot, leapt out before Ricky had hit the penalty and a free goal was awarded to England. Ricky then scored two goals and Angel missed an easy one. Furious with himself, he swung his pony’s head round inadvertently straight into Drew’s face.
Drew, who was far more jet lagged than he had realized, conscious of playing like a geriatric and fed up with Angel histrionically twirling his stick above his head at every real, contrived or imagined foul, lost his temper.
‘You fucking grease-ball,’ he howled.
‘It was a meestake,’ howled back Angel, the gold St Christopher glittering in the damp bronze curls on his chest. ‘I teach you to race after my wife,’ he hissed, lifting his stick.
‘Bad luck for her getting tied up with a gigolo,’ snapped Drew, also raising his stick.
‘Pack it in,’ said David Waterlane, riding between them, ‘or I’ll send you both off.’
‘Tempers getting up on the field,’ explained Terry Hanlon. ‘Polo’s been called a game for gangsters played by gentlemen, or a game for gentlemen played by gangsters. They say you need a cool head and hot blood to play it, and David Waterlane’s made the decision. Penalty to England.’
While Ricky converted the penalty Red belted off to change ponies. Looking eastwards Perdita noticed that the frantic activity in the pony lines had subsided and most of the grooms were lined up behind the scoreboard, holding spare ponies and cheering on their respective sides. Then she stiffened. It couldn’t be! Snatching Brigadier Hughie’s binoculars and nearly strangling him, she saw that Red was actually galloping back on Tero, riding her for the third time which was against the rules. Crashing along the row of protesting spectators, she tore down the steps, sending a returning B. A. Robertson flying.
‘Red, you can’t! Please not,’ she screamed from the second step. ‘She’s exhausted. You’ll kill her.’
But once again, as Red thundered past, her protests were drowned by the ecstatic screams from the crowd.
12-8 to the Americans with four minutes to go. At last England were in with a faint chance. The crowd, catching fire, began to roar. Frantic with worry, Perdita watched only Red. Tero was so game and willing, she’d give him her last ounce. Red picked up his whip. Suddenly the field seemed to stretch from one end of the world to the other as he galloped up and down hooking and fencing with his stick, frantic to gain position. Two minutes to go. Taking advantage of a loose ball, Ricky scored again.
‘Come on, England!’ shouted Rupert in exultation. ‘You can do it.’
At the throw-in, Drew got it out and passed it to Ricky who took off on Kinta towards the posts. Whipped by Red, somehow Tero caught up with them and grimly Red closed in to ride Ricky off. Tero, like the good pony she was, dropped her shoulder and shoved, but Kinta was almost twice the size and strength of her and she took the weight of the bump, flying through the air and nearly going down on her fore-end. As Brigadier Hughie’s binoculars shook in Perdita’s frantically trembling hands, Tero’s head seemed to be all white with lather. Her huge panic- stricken eyes rolled as Red yanked her round with all his strength to pick up the ball which Bart had backed upfield.
‘Bastard, stop him,’ screamed Perdita from the steps, but her cries were taken by the wind.
‘Sit down,’ yelled the crowd.
Oblivious, hands to her face, she watched, demented, as Red whipped Tero almost the length of the field, his spurs glinting in the sunshine as they stabbed at the little mare’s sides like the needle of a sewing machine. At the last moment he passed to Angel.
Angel, in turn, waited until Drew was almost on him before flicking the ball back to Red who, as Tero strained herself for a final, gallant effort, leaned right out of the saddle, stroking the ball between the posts, almost as an afterthought. 13-9 on the bell.
The cheers ringing out politely for an American victory turned to cries of horror as, like some ghastly
‘Christ, she’s broken something,’ said Dommie in horror.
‘Heart attack,’ snapped Rupert.
In an instant, Ricky and Drew had thrown their horses’ reins to the Napiers and were running towards her, followed by David Waterlane, Jesus, the other umpire, and Angel. Reaching her first, Ricky gently pushed Tero to the ground where she quivered convulsively and went still.
Frozen with horror, Perdita at last found her feet and ran down the steps, jumping over the white fence, dropping Brigadier Hughie’s binoculars, Angel’s sombrero and her bag out of which spilled her passport, diary and all her make-up. With the wind in her screaming mouth, hair ribbing her blanched face, she raced down the pitch, past the stands, past horrified faces in the Royal Box, hurtling towards the little group, outstripping the vet’s van bringing the screens, pummelling Ricky and Drew out of the way. ‘Lemme get at her.’
Falling to her knees and gathering up the pony’s head, which suddenly seemed as heavy as lead, she cradled it in her lap.
‘Tero darling, for Christ’s sake, you’re going to be OK. You’re just winded,’ she sobbed.
But Tero’s once-loving eyes were staring and glassy. ‘Tero, Tero, please, please.’ Tears ripping her apart, Perdita dropped her head down on the pony’s, ‘You’ve got to be all right. You’re all I’ve got. I love you.’
‘I’m afraid she’s had it.’ Desperately trying to keep his voice steady, Ricky put a hand on Perdita’s head. She had loved Tero as he had loved Mattie.
Hovering in the background, holding the others’ ponies, Bobby Ferraro and Shark instinctively removed their helmets in respect and sympathy. Red seemed quite unmoved, but Angel was less reticent. As the crowd, stunned and silent, watched the screens going round, he crouched down beside Perdita. Taking her in his arms, pulling her head on to his shoulder, crying himself, he gabbled half in Spanish.
‘She die playing best game of ’er life. People will always remember her.’
‘She can’t be dead,’ Perdita pleaded with the vet. ‘Make her better.’
The vet shook his head. ‘Can’t, I’m afraid. Absolutely tragic, wonderful pony.’
Perdita went absolutely still. For a second she watched the blood from Red’s spurs seeping down Tero’s damp, speckled flank, staining the emerald grass.
‘C’mon, Perdita,’ said Red in a shaken voice, holding out his hand. ‘It’s only a pony. Could have happened at any time,’ he added defensively.
Angel had to hold on to Perdita to stop her clawing Red’s face.
‘Murderer,’ she hissed through white lips. ‘You made me let you ride her. You flogged her to death.’
‘Oh, pack it in, baby,’ said Red, not unkindly.
‘It’s
She had become so thin the huge sapphire slid off her finger easily. Flying through the air, the departing bluebird of her happiness, it crashed into Red’s chest.
‘Let her go. She’s outlived her usefulness,’ growled Bart, as, leaping to her feet, Perdita fled past the battlements of shocked faces, many of them in tears. Desperately looking for a way out, she paused in front of the Royal Box.
‘He killed her,’ she screamed. ‘Did you see Red kill her?’
Security guards and officials moved forward solicitously, but Taggie Campbell-Black was too quick for them. Stepping over the little white fence, she ran forward, tugging off her crimson shawl, wrapping it round Perdita. ‘I’m so sorry. She was such a sweet pony. You poor darling, please don’t cry. You’re coming home with us.’
‘Who? What?’ Perdita gazed at Taggie not registering.
‘Rupert and I are taking you home,’ explained Taggie, putting her arms round Perdita’s shoulder.
But the next minute Rupert had joined them. Rage that England had blown the match and Venturer possibly
