Free Coronation by Paul Gallico Page B

of the great percherons and the rumble of the royal coach were no longer to be heard. They had given way to the clippety-clop and a dry rolling of lighter carriages. The wave of cheering in the vicinity had likewise receded; it had raced ahead along the tree-lined avenue of East Carriage Drive and could be heard thundering in the distance.
    Gwendoline turned around and said, ‘I want to get down.’ Hands reached up to help. She slid down the frame of the stranger and that of her father until her feet touched the ground. Then she ran to her mother and threw her arms about her and buried her face in her skirt.
    The man still perched on Clagg’s shoulders didn’t yet himself attempt to descend. Instead he called down to Johnny Clagg, ‘Hoy, young feller, what about a look-see for you?’
    Johnny shook his head and kept his face turned away from them. It was not dignified to go crawling up a stranger to sit on his shoulders. It was all right for Gwenny, who was a little girl, but not for him, and particularly as he was aware of a small lingering residue of his beautiful day-dream, not the thing for Lord Clagg, First Baron Pudney. And besides, it was too late. All the soldiers would have gone by. Johnny, keeping his face averted, shook his head again. The man placed his hands on Will Clagg’s shoulders and leaped lightly to the ground.
    ‘Thanks,’ said Will Clagg and stuck out his hand. His legs were weary to the point of exhaustion from the weight, but he was filled with such a turmoil of emotion and gratitude that he could find no more to say. He was aware of an unthinkable impulse to embrace the nondescript-looking stranger with the pulled down cap and scrubbly moustache and call him brother. Instead he could only repeat, ‘Thanks,’ and then said, ‘If you ever find yourself Little Pudney way, outside Sheffield—’
    ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ the stranger replied. ‘I didn’t want to see you get into trouble. I could tell you were from the North.’ He nodded with his head in the direction of the constable. ‘That clot isn’t a London copper. Glad to oblige.’
    There was an instant’s commotion from inside the barrier, and all those who still remained outside stirred once more as though perhaps there was to be a reprieve in the last moment for them to see at least the tail end of what was going by. From within, a whole section of the barrier gate was swung open, sufficiently to let a horseman through.
    He was the most magnificent, awesome and inspiring figure that Johnny Clagg had ever seen. He was dressed in a navy-blue uniform frogged and piped with black, as were the stripes upon his sleeve. Rows of medals and coloured ribbons gleamed upon his breast and on his shoulders were golden epaulets. His face, stern, rugged, aquiline, reminded Johnny of pictures he had seen of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. His hair was silver grey and on his head was perched a black cocked hat from which tumbled a cascade of gallant white rooster feathers. He was mounted on an exquisite white mare. She had a pink nose and anxious eyes. The dark skirts of the coat of his uniform fell on either side of her flanks. His black boots were gold-spurred.
    Johnny Clagg saw him first as a vision through his tears and then, as he hastily wiped them away, more clearly as a gorgeous apparition in a uniform he didn’t recognise, and he prided himself that he could identify on sight every regiment in the United Kingdom. But he was not a Lancer nor a Hussar, not a Dragoon nor a member of the Household Cavalry. Yet in his person and his bearing he embodied all that Johnny had come to see that day. The uniform which Johnny failed to recognise marked him as an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
    Hardly aware of what he was doing, Will Clagg stepped forward and placed his hand upon the horse’s bridle and heard himself shouting, ‘What’s it to be? Are you letting us in or aren’t you?’ He had been roused beyond