Free The Dark Horse by Rumer Godden Page B

place for Dark Invader, maybe even the kick.’ Ted unashamedly drew his sleeve across his eyes and, for a moment, could not go on. ‘Mr Michael couldn’t have stopped that and I thought with Mr Leven… ’
    â€˜Leventine.’
    â€˜Yes. You see, sir, two of them travelling lads would have done to bring out all his hosses to In’ja, but for the Invader he brought me out special so I thought with him… ’
    â€˜Dark Invader might have a chance?’
    â€˜Yes sir, but has he? Couldn’t follow all that talk,’ said Ted, ‘but I guess what the Captain meant was, if the Invader was to meet Streaky again, even now, he would remember.’
    â€˜Possibly, but he won’t see Streaky.’
    â€˜Or his like?’
    â€˜Or his like. We’ll see to that.’
    â€˜Then – you think he has a chance in spite of Captain Mack?’
    As always when John Quillan met opposition he was obstinate and, ‘He’s going to have a chance,’ said John.
    â€˜But how, sir?’
    â€˜I don’t know how – yet – but somehow. We must see to it,’ and, ‘I’m glad you came, Ted.’
    â€˜So am I,’ said Ted.
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    After dinner, when the last bandar had hushed, the last baby been fed, when Dahlia had gone to bed and the last round of the stables been done, John liked to light a cigar – he allowed himself one every evening – and then stroll among the tumbledown terraces and fountains of his scented garden to think over his plans and the problems of the day. Tonight it was Dark Invader.
    John could visualise that first race at Lingfield. Dark Invader well away – Michael Traherne had assured him the horse was a willing starter – but when the field caught up with him, forced to quicken his stride by an almighty squeeze in an unexpected place and John saw the typical Bacon finish, the furiously urgent figure, the rhythmically swinging whip, shown but not striking, the horse desperately extended, those legs, thighs and knees gripping vice-like above the flimsy saddle. It must have hurt hideously – ‘a stab from a knife’, Mack had said. Poor old Darkie, thought John. That’s probably what you were trying to tell us stupid old human blockheads. Well, we’re there at last, but what to do about it? What the hell to do about it, I don’t know. With which dispiriting thought he threw away the butt of his cigar, called to Gog and Magog and turned to go to bed.
    On the verandah he paused; certain troubled, puzzled and honest phrases were coming back to him. ‘I never had no trouble with him… ’, ‘Had it when he come over from Ireland… but that was before… ’, ‘I never had no trouble with him,’ and, ‘I wonder,’ said John to Gog and Magog, ‘I wonder.’
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    â€˜Ted,’ said John next morning – Mullins had now permanently become Ted – ‘I have been doing some thinking. I should like you to show me how you ride Dark Invader. Will you?’
    â€˜Will I?’ It was Dark Invader’s fourth day in India and during early work John had had him walked quietly down to the racecourse and on to the exercise track. ‘Will I? Thought I would never be on him again,’ said Ted.
    Like most trainers, John Quillan retained his own jockey, a young quarter English, three quarters Chinese, whose name was Ah Lee, but whom everybody called Ching. Ted had already met him, lithe, slim, eager, his black eyes alert. John had picked him out from a set of young jockeys from Singapore and had slowly trained him. Now, ‘Will Mr Ching mind?’ asked Ted. ‘It’s the Invader’s first ride here.’
    â€˜No. No. I like to see, maybe learn,’ but Ching was obviously puzzled as he stood with John, watching.
    Dark Invader had acknowledged Ted’s arrival in the saddle with a backward slant of an ear. Nothing else. ‘Not