Bonecrack - Страница 33

'I- don't- know/

'You'd better find them.'

They- are- hiding.'

'Go and find them,' I said. 'Go out and find them. It's your only chance. It's Alessandro's only chance. Find him before they shoot him- you stupid murdering sod.'

He stumbled as if blind round the desk and made for the door. Still holding the pistol he bashed into the frame and rocked on his feet. He righted himself, crashed down the short passage and out through the door into the yard, and half ran on unsure legs to his dark red Mercedes. He took three shots at starting the engine before it fired. Then he swept round in a frantic arc, roared away up the drive and turned right on to the Bury Road with a shriek of tyres.

Bloody, murdering sod- I followed him out of the office but turned down the yard.

Couldn't run. The new hammering he'd given my shoulder made even walking a trial. Stupid, mad, murdering bastard- Twenty minutes since Alessandro rode out on Lucky Lindsay- twenty minutes, and the rest. They'd be pretty well along at Waterhall. Circling round at the end of the Line gallop, forming up into groups. Setting off-

Damn it, I thought. Why don't I just go and sit down and wait for whatever happens. If Enso kills his precious son, serve him right.

I went faster down the yard. Through the gates into the bottom bays. Through the far gate. Across the little paddock. Out through the gate to the Heath. Turned left.

Just let him be coming back, I thought. Let him be coming back. Lancat, coming back from his walk, saddled and bridled and ready to go. He was there, coming towards me along the fence, led by one of the least proficient riders, sent back by Etty as he was little use in the gallops.

'Help me take this jersey off,' I said urgently.

He looked surprised, but lads my father had trained never argued. He helped me take off the jersey. He was no Florence Nightingale. I told him to take the sling off as well. No one could ride decently in a sling.

'Now give me a leg up.'

He did that too.

'O. K.' I said. 'Go on in. I'll bring Lancat back later.'

'Yes, sir,' he said. And if I'd told him to stand on his head he would have said yes, sir, just the same.

I turned Lancat back the way he had come. I made him trot along the walking ground. Too slow. Much too slow. Started to canter, breaking the Heath rules. It felt horrible. I twitched him out on to the Bury Hill ground which wasn't supposed to be used for another fortnight and pointed him straight at the Bury Road crossing.

Might as well gallop- I did the first five furlongs on the gallop and the next three along the walking ground without slowing down much, and frightened a couple of early morning motorists as I crossed the main road.

Too many horses on Waterhall. I couldn't from more than half a mile away distinguish the Rowley Lodge string from others. All I could see was that it wasn't yet too late. The morning scene was peaceful and orderly. No appalled groups bending over bleeding bodies.

I kept Lancat going. He'd had a hard race two days earlier and shouldn't have been asked for the effort I was urging him into- he was fast and willing, but I was running him into the ground.

It was technically difficult, riding in clavicle rings, let alone anything else. However, the ground looked very hard and too far down. I stayed in the saddle as the lesser of two considerable evils. I did wish most fervently that I had stayed at home. I knew all about steeplechase jockeys riding races with broken collar-bones. They were crazy. It was for the birds.

I could see Etty. See some of the familiar horses.

I could see Alessandro on Lucky Lindsay.

I was too far away to be heard even if I'd had any breath for shouting, and neither of them looked behind them.

Alessandro kicked Lucky Lindsay into a fast canter and with two other horses accelerated quickly up the Line gallop.

A mile away, up the far end of it, there were trees and scrub, and a small wood.

And Carlo. And Cal.

I had a frightful feeling of inevitable disaster, like trying to run away through treacle in a nightmare. Lancat couldn't possibly catch the fresh Lucky Lindsay up the gallop. Interception was the only possibility, yet I could misjudge it so terribly easily.

I set off straight across Waterhall, galloping across the cantering ground and then charging over the Middle Canter in the opposite direction to the horses working there. Furious yells from all sides didn't deter me. I hoped Lancat had enough sense not to run head on into another horse, but apart from that my only worry, my sole, embracing, consuming worry, was to get to Alessandro before a bullet did.

Endless furlongs over the grass- only a mile, give or take a little- but endless. Lancat was tiring, finding every fresh stride a deeper effort- his fluid rhythm had broken into bumps- he wouldn't be fit again to race for months- I was asking him for the reserves, the furthest stores of power- and he poured them generously out.

Endless furlongs- and I wasn't getting the angle right- Lancat was slowing and I'd reach the Line gallop after Alessandro had gone past. I swerved more to the right- swayed perilously in the saddle, couldn't even hold the reins in my left hand and I wanted to hold on to the neck-strap with my right, wanted to hold on for dear life, and if I held on, I couldn't steer- It wasn't far, not really. No distance at all on a fresh horse. No distance at all for Lucky Lindsay.

All the trees and bushes up ahead- somewhere in there lay Carlo and Cal- and if Enso didn't know where, he wasn't going to find them. People didn't lie about in full sight, not with a Lee Enfield aimed at a galloping horse; and Cal would have to be lying down. Have to be, to be accurate enough. A Lee Enfield was as precise as any gun ever made, but only if one aimed and fired while lying down. It kicked too much to be reliable if one was standing up.

Enso wouldn't find them. He might find the car. Alessandro's Mercedes. But he wouldn't find Carlo and Cal until the thunderous noise gave away their position- and no one but Enso would find them even then, before they reached the car and drove away. Everyone would be concentrating on Alessandro with a hole torn in his chest, Alessandro in his camel jersey and blue shirt which were just like Tommy Hoylake's.

Carlo and Cal knew Alessandro- they knew him well- but they thought he had obeyed his father and stayed in the hotel- and one jockey looked very like another, from a distance, on a galloping horse-

I couldn't go any faster. Lancat couldn't go any faster. Didn't know about the horse's breath, but mine was coming out in great gulps. Nearer to sobs, I dare say. I really should have stayed at home.

Shifted another notch to the right and kicked Lancat. Feeble kick. Didn't increase the speed.

We were closing. The angle came sharper suddenly as the Line gallop began its sweep round to the right. Lucky Lindsay came round the corner to the most vulnerable stretch- Carlo and Cal would be there- they would be ahead of him, because Cal would be sure of hitting a man coming straight towards him- there weren't the same problems as in trying to hit a crossing target-

They must be able to see me too, I thought. But if Cal was looking down his sights, levelling the blade in the ring over Alessandro's brown sweater and black bent head, he wouldn't notice me- wouldn't anyway see any significance in just another horse galloping across the Heath.

Lancat swerved of his own volition towards Lucky Lindsay and took up the race- a born and bred competitor bent even in exhaustion on getting his head in front.

Ten yards, ten feet- and closing.

Alessandro was several lengths ahead of the two horses he had started out with. Several lengths ahead, all on his own.

Lancat reached Lucky Lindsay at an angle and threw up his head to avoid a collision- and Alessandro turned his face to me in wide astonishment- and although I had meant to tell him to jump off and lie flat on the ground until his father succeeded in finding Carlo and Gal, it didn't happen quite like that.

Lancat half rose up into the air and threw me, twisting, on to Lucky Lindsay, and I put my right arm out round Alessandro and scooped him off, and we fell like that down on to the grass. And Lancat fell too, and lay across our feet, because brave, fast, determined Lancat wasn't going anywhere any more.

Half of Lancat's neck was torn away, and his blood and his life ran out on to the bright green turf.

Alessandro tried to twist out of my grasp and stand up.

'Lie still,' I said fiercely. 'Just do as I say, and lie still.'

I'm hurt,' he said.

'Don't make me laugh.'

'I have hurt my leg,' he protested.

'You'll have a hole in your heart if you stand up.'

'You are mad,' he said.

'Look at Lancat- What do you think is wrong with him? Do you think he is lying there for fun?' I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice, and I didn't try. 'Cal did that. Cal and his big bloody rifle. They came out here to shoot Tommy Hoylake, and you rode Lucky Lindsay instead, and they couldn't tell the difference, which should please you- and if you stand up now they'll have another go.'

He lay still. Speechless. And quite, quite still.

I rolled away from him and stuffed my fist against my teeth, for if the truth were told I was hurting far more than I would have believed possible. Him and his damn bloody father- the free sharp ends of collar-bone were carving new and unplanned routes for themselves through several protesting sets of tissue.

A fair amount of fuss was developing around us. When the ring of shocked spectators had grown solid and thick enough I let him get up, but he only got as far as his knees beside Lancat, and there were smears of the horse's blood on his jodhpurs and jersey.