Each lad stood with whichever of his horses was nearest the end from which the inspection was started. October and his friends, accompanied by Inskip and
Wally, moved along from box to box, chatting, laughing, discussing each horse as they went.
When they came to me October flicked me a glance, and said, 'You're new, aren't you?'
'Yes, my lord.'
He took no further notice of me then, but when I had bolted the first horse in for the night and waited farther down the yard with the second one, he came over to pat my charge and feel his legs; and as he straightened up he gave me a mischievous wink. With difficulty, since I was facing the other men, I kept a dead-pan face. He blew his nose to stop himself laughing. We were neither of us very professional at this cloak and dagger stuff.
When they had gone, and after I had eaten the evening meal with the other lads, I walked down to the Slaw pub with two of them. Halfway through the first drinks I left them and went and telephoned October.
'Who is speaking?' a man's voice inquired. I was stumped for a second:
then I said 'Perlooma', knowing that that would fetch him.
He came on the line.
'Anything wrong?'
'No,' I said.
'Does anyone at the local exchange listen to your calls?'
'I wouldn't bet on it.' He hesitated.
'Where are you?'
'Slaw, in the phone box at your end of the village.'
'I have guests for dinner; will tomorrow do?'
'Yes.'
He paused for thought.
'Can you tell me what you want?'
'Yes,' I said.
'The form books for the last seven or eight seasons, and every scrap of information you can possibly dig up about the eleven… subjects.'
'What are you looking for?'
'I don't know yet,' I said.
'Do you want anything else?'
'Yes, but it needs discussion.'
He thought.
'Behind the stable yard there is a stream which comes down from the moors. Walk up beside it tomorrow, after lunch.'
'Right.'
I hung up, and went back to my interrupted drink in the pub.
'You've been a long time,' said Paddy, one of the lads I had come with.
'We're one ahead of you. What have you been doing reading the walls in the Gents?'
'There's some remarks on them walls,' mused the other lad, a gawky boy of eighteen, 'that I haven't fathomed yet. '
'Nor you don't want to,' said Paddy approvingly. At forty he acted as unofficial father to many of the younger lads.
They slept one each side of me. Paddy and Grits, in the little dormitory. Paddy, as sharp as Grits was slow, was a tough little Irishman with eyes that never missed a trick. From the first minute I hoisted my suitcase on to the bed and unpacked my night things under his inquisitive gaze I had been glad that October had been so insistent about a complete change of clothes.
'How about another drink?'
'One more, then,' assented Paddy.
'I can just about run to it, I reckon.'
I took the glasses to the bar and bought refills: there was a pause while Paddy and Grits dug into their pockets and repaid me eleven pence each. The beer' which to me tasted strong and bitter, was not, I thought, worth four miles' walk, but many of the lads, it appeared, had bicycles or rickety cars and made the trek on several evenings a week.
'Nothing much doing, tonight,' observed Grits gloomily. He brightened.
'Pay day tomorrow.'
'It'll be full here tomorrow, and that's a fact,' agreed Paddy.
'With Soupy and that lot from Granger's and all.'
'Granger's?' I asked.
'Sure, don't you know nothing?' said Grits with mild contempt.
'Granger's stable, over tother side of the hill.'
'Where have you been all your life?' said Paddy.
'He's new to racing, mind you,' said Grits, being fair.
'Yes, but all the same!' Paddy drank past the halfway mark, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
Grits finished his beer and sighed.
'That's it, then. Better be getting back, I suppose.'
We walked back to the stables, talking as always about horses.
The following afternoon I wandered casually out of the stables and started up the stream, picking up stones as I went and throwing them in, as if to enjoy the splash. Some of the lads' were punting a football about in the paddock behind the yard, but none of them paid any attention to me. A good long way up the hill, where the stream ran through a steep, grass-sided gully, I came across October sitting on a boulder smoking a cigarette. He was accompanied by a black retriever, and a gun and a full game bag lay on the ground beside him.
'Dr. Livingstone, I presume,' he said, smiling.
'Quite right, Mr. Stanley. How did you guess?' I perched on a boulder near to him.
He kicked the game bag.
'The form books are in here, and a notebook with all that Beckett and I could rake up at such short notice about those eleven horses. But surely the reports in the files you read would be of more use than the odd snippets we can supply?'
'Anything may be useful… you never know. There was one clipping in that packet of Stapleton's which was interesting. It was about historic dope cases. It said that certain horses apparently turned harmless food into something that showed a positive dope reaction, just through chemical changes in their body. I suppose it isn't possible that the reverse could occur? I mean, could some horses break down any sort of dope into harmless substances, so that no positive reaction showed in the test?'
Til find out. '
'There's only one other thing,' I said.
'I have been assigned to three of those useless brutes you filled the yard up with, and that means no trips to racecourses. I was wondering if perhaps you could sell one of them again, and then I'd have a chance of mixing with lads from several stables at the sales. Three other men are doing three horses each here, so I shouldn't find myself redundant, and I might well be given a race able horse to look after.'
'I will sell one,' he said, 'but if it goes for auction it will take time. The application forms have to go to the auctioneer nearly a month before the sale date. '
I nodded.
'It's utterly frustrating. I wish I could think of a way of getting myself transferred to a horse which is due to race shortly.
Preferably one going to a far distant course, because an overnight stop would be ideal. '
'Lads don't change their horses in mid-stream,' he said rubbing his chin.
'So I've been told. It's the luck of the draw. You get them when they come and you're stuck with them until they leave. If they turn out useless, it's just too bad.'
We stood up. The retriever, who had lain quiet all this time with his muzzle resting on his paws, got to his feet also and stretched himself, and wagging his tail slowly from side to side looked up trustingly at his master. October
