For Kicks

CHAPTER THREE

I edged gently into the life of the yard like a heretic into heaven, trying not to be discovered and flung out before I became part of the scenery. On my first evening I spoke almost entirely in monosyllables, because I didn't trust my new accent, but I slowly found out that the lads talked with such a variety of regional accents themselves that my cockney-Australian passed without comment.

Wally, the head lad, a wiry short man with ill-fitting dentures, said I was to sleep in the cottage where about a dozen unmarried lads lived, beside the gate into the yard. I was shown into a small crowded upstairs room containing six beds, a wardrobe, two chests of drawers, and four bedside chairs; which left roughly two square yards of clear space in the centre. Thin flowered curtains hung at the window, and there was polished linoleum on the floor.

My bed proved to have developed a deep sag in the centre over the years, but it was comfortable enough, and was made up freshly with white sheets and grey blankets. Mrs. AUnut, who took me in without a second glance, was a round, cheerful little person with hair fastened in a twist on top of her head. She kept the cottage spotless and stood over the lads to make sure they washed. She cooked well, and the food was plain but plentiful. All in all, it was a good billet.

I walked a bit warily to start with, but it was easier to be accepted and to fade into the background than I had imagined.

Once or twice during the first few days I stopped myself just in time from absent-mindedly telling another lad what to do; nine years' habit died hard. And I was surprised, and a bit dismayed, by the subservient attitude everyone had to Inskip, at least to his face: my own men treated me at home with far more familiarity. The fact that I paid and they earned gave me no rights over them as men, and this we all clearly understood. But at Inskip's, and throughout all England, I gradually realized, there was far less of the almost aggressive egalitarianism of Australia. The lads, on the whole, seemed to accept that in the eyes of the world they were of secondary importance as human beings to Inskip and October. I thought this extraordinary, undignified, and shameful. And I kept my thoughts to myself.

Wally, scandalized by the casual way I had spoken on my arrival, told me to call Inskip "Sir' and October " My lord' and said that if I was a ruddy Communist I

could clear off at once: so I quickly exhibited what he called a proper respect for my betters.

On the other hand it was precisely because the relationship between me and my own men was so free and easy that I found no difficulty in becoming a lad among lads. I felt no constraint on their part and, once the matter of accents had been settled, no self-consciousness on mine. But I did come to realize that what October had implied was undoubtedly true: had I stayed in England and gone to Eton (instead of its equivalent, Geelong) I could not have fitted so readily into his stable.

Inskip allotted me to three newly arrived horses, which was not very good from my point of view as it meant that I could not expect to be sent to a race meeting with them. They were neither fit nor entered for races, and it would be weeks before they were ready to run, even if they proved to be good enough. I pondered the problem while I carried their hay and water and cleaned their boxes and rode them out at morning exercise with the string.

On my second evening October came round at six with a party of house guests. Inskip, knowing in advance, had had everyone running to be finished in good time and walked round himself first, to make sure that all was in order.

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 bent down, gave the dog an affectionate slap, and picked up the gun. I picked up the game bag and swung it over my shoulder.

We shook hands, and October said, smiling, "You may like to know that Inskip thinks you ride extraordinarily well for a stable lad. His exact words were that he didn't really trust men with your sort of looks, but that you'd the hands of an angel. You'd better watch that."

"Hell," I said, "I hadn't given it a thought."

He grinned and went off up the hill, and I turned downwards along the stream, gradually becoming ruefully aware that however much of a lark I might find it to put on wolf's clothing, it was going to hurt my pride if I had to hash up my riding as well.

The pub in Slaw was crowded that evening and the wage packets took a hiding. About half the strength from October's stable was there one of them had given me a lift down in his car and also a group of Granger's lads, including three lasses, who took a good deal of double-meaning teasing and thoroughly enjoyed it. Most of the talk was friendly bragging that each lad's horses were better than those of anyone else.

"My bugger'U beat yours with his eyes shut on Wednesday."

"You've got a ruddy hope…"

'. Yours couldn't run a snail to a close finish. "

'. The jockey made a right muck of the start and never got in touch. "

'. Fat as a pig and bloody obstinate as well. "

The easy chat ebbed and flowed while the air grew thick with cigarette smoke and the warmth of too many lungs breathing the same box of air. A game of darts between some inaccurate players was in progress in one corner, and the balls of bar billiards clicked in another. I lolled on a hard chair with my arm hooked over the back and watched Paddy and one of Granger's lads engaged in a needle match of dominoes. Horses, cars, football, boxing, films, the last local dance, and back to horses, always back to horses. I listened to it all and learned nothing except that these lads were mostly content with their lives, mostly good natured, mostly observant, and mostly harmless.

"You're new, aren't you?" said a challenging voice in my ear.

I turned my head and looked up at him.

"Yeah," I said languidly.

These were the only eyes I had seen in Yorkshire which held anything of the sort of guile I was looking for. I gave him back his stare until his lips curled in recognition that I was one of his kind.

"What's your name?"

"Clan," I said, 'and yours? "

"Thomas Nathaniel Tarleton." He waited for some reaction, but I didn't know what it ought to be.

"TNT.," said Paddy obligingly, looking up from his dominoes.

"Soupy." His quick gaze flickered over both of us.

"The high explosive kid himself," I murmured.

Soupy Tarleton smiled a small, carefully dangerous smile: to impress me, I gathered. He was about my own age and build, but much fairer, with the reddish skin which I had noticed so many Englishmen had. His light hazel eyes protruded slightly in their sockets, and he had grown a narrow moustache on the upper lip of his full, moist-looking mouth. On the little finger of his right hand he wore a heavy gold ring, and on his left wrist, an expensive wrist watch. His clothes were of good material, though distinctly sharp in cut, and the enviable fleece-lined quilted jacket he carried over his arm would have cost him three weeks' pay.

He showed no signs of wanting to be friendly. After looking me over as thoroughly as I had him, he merely nodded, said "See you', and detached himself to go over and watch the bar billiards.

Grits brought a fresh half pint from the bar and settled himself on the bench next to Paddy.

"You don't want to trust Soupy," he told me confidentially, his raw boned unintelligent face full of kindness.

Paddy put down a double three, and looking round at us gave me a long, unsmiling scrutiny.

"There's no need to worry about Clan, Grits," he said.

"He and Soupy, they're alike. They'd go well in double harness. Birds of a feather, that's what they are."

"But you said I wasn't to trust Soupy," objected Grits, looking from one to the other of us with troubled eyes.

"That's right," said Paddy flatly. He put down a three- four and concentrated on his game.

Grits shifted six inches towards Paddy and gave me one puzzled, embarrassed glance. Then he found the inside of his beer mug suddenly intensely interesting and didn't raise his eyes to mine again.

I think it was at that exact moment that the charade began to lose its lightheartedness I liked Paddy and Grits, and for three days they had accepted me with casual good humour. I was not prepared for Paddy's instant recognition that it was with Soupy that my real interest lay, nor for his immediate rejection of me on that account.

It was a shock which I ought to have foreseen, and hadn't: and it should have warned me what to expect in the future, but it didn't.

Colonel Beckett's staff work continued to be of the highest possible kind. Having committed himself to the offensive, he was prepared to back the attack with massive and immediate reinforcements: which is to say that as soon as he had heard from October that I was immobilized in the stable with three useless horses, he set about liberating me.

On Tuesday afternoon, when I had been with the stable for a week, Wally, the head lad, stopped me as I carried two buckets of water across the yard.

"That horse of yours in number seventeen is going tomorrow," he said.

"You'll have to look sharp in the morning with your work, because you are to be ready to go with it at twelve-thirty. The horse box will take you to another racing stables, down near Nottingham.

You are to leave this horse there and bring a new one back. Right? "

"Right," I said. Wally's manner was cool with me; but over the weekend I had made myself be reconciled to the knowledge that I had to go on inspiring a faint mistrust all round, even if I no longer much liked it when I succeeded.

Most of Sunday I had spent reading the form books, which the others in the cottage regarded as a perfectly natural activity; and in the evening, when they all went down to the pub, I did some pretty concentrated work with a pencil, making analyses of the eleven horses and their assisted wins. It was true, as I had discovered from the newspaper cuttings in London, that they all had different owners, trainers, and jockeys: but it was not true that they had absolutely nothing in common. By the time I had sealed my notes into an envelope and put it with October's notebook into the game bag under some form books, away from the inquiring gaze of the beer-happy returning lads, I was in possession of four unhelpful points of similarity.

First, the horses had all won selling 'chases races where the winner was subsequently put up for auction. In the auctions three horses had been bought back by their owners, and the rest had been sold for modest sums.

Second, in all their racing lives all the horses had proved themselves to be capable of making a show in a race, but had either no strength or no guts when it came to a finish.

Third, none of them had won any races except the ones for which they were doped, though they had occasionally been placed on other occasions.

Fourth, none of them had won at odds of less than ten to one.

I learned both from October's notes and from the form books that several of the horses had changed trainers more than once, but they were such moderate, unrewarding animals that this was only to be expected. I was also in possession of the useless information that the horses were all by different sires out of different dams, that they varied in age from five to eleven, and that they were not all of the same colour. Neither had they all won on the same course, though in this case they had not all won on different courses either; and geographically I had a vague idea that the courses concerned were all in the northern half of the country Kelso, Haydock, Sedgefield, Stafford, and Ludlow. I decided to check them on a map, to see if this was right, but there wasn't one to be found chez Mrs. Allnut.

I went to bed in the crowded little dormitory with the other lads' beery breaths gradually overwhelming the usual mixed clean smells of boot polish and hair oil, and lost an argument about having the small sash window open more than four inches at the top. The lads all seemed to take their cue from Paddy, who was undoubtedly the most aware of them, and if Paddy declined to treat me as a friend, so would they: I realized that if I had insisted on having the window tight shut they would probably have opened it wide and given me all the air I wanted. Grinning ruefully in the dark I listened to the squeaking bed springs and their sleepy, gossiping giggles as they thumbed over the evening's talk; and as I shifted to find a comfortable spot on the lumpy mattress I began to wonder what life was really like from the inside for the hands who lived in my own bunk-house, back home.

Wednesday morning gave me my first taste of the biting Yorkshire wind, and one of the lads, as we scurried round the yard with shaking hands and running noses, cheerfully assured me that it could blow for six months solid, if it tried. I did my three horses at the double, but by the time the horse box took me and one of them out of the yard at twelve-thirty I had decided that if the gaps in my wardrobe were anything to go by, October's big square house up the drive must have very efficient central heating.

About four miles up the road I pressed the bell which in most horse boxes connects the back compartment to the cab. The driver stopped obediently, and looked inquiringly at me when I walked along and climbed up into the cab beside him.

"The horse is quiet," I said, 'and it's warmer here. "

He grinned and started off again, shouting over the noise of the engine.

"I didn't have you figured for the conscientious type, and I was damn right. That horse is going to be sold and has got to arrive in good condition… the boss would have a fit if he knew you were up in front."

I had a pretty good idea the boss, meaning Inskip, wouldn't be at all surprised; bosses, judging by myself, weren't as naive as all that.

"The boss can stuff himself," I said unpleasantly.

I got a sidelong glance for that, and reflected that it was dead easy to give oneself a bad character if one put one's mind to it. Horse-box drivers went to race meetings in droves, and had no duties when they got there. They had time to gossip in the canteen, time all afternoon to wander about and wag their tongues. There was no telling what ears might hear that there was a possible chink in the honesty of the Inskip lads.

We stopped once on the way to eat in a transport cafe, and again a little farther on for me to buy myself a couple of woollen shirts, a black sweater, some thick socks, woollen gloves, and a knitted yachting cap like those the other lads had worn that bitter morning.

The box driver, coming into the shop with me to buy some socks for himself, eyed my purchases and remarked that I seemed to have plenty of money. I grinned knowingly, and said it was easy to come by if you knew how; and I could see his doubts of me growing.

In mid-afternoon we rolled in to a racing stable in Leicestershire, and it was here that the scope of Beckett staff work became apparent. The horse I was to take back and subsequently care for was a useful hurdler just about to start his career as a novice 'chaser, and he had been sold to Colonel Beckett complete with all engagements. This meant, I learned from his former lad, who handed him over to me with considerable bitterness, that he could run in all the races for which his ex-owner had already entered him.

"Where is he entered?" I asked.

"Oh, dozens of places, I think Newbury, Cheltenham, Sandown, and so on, and he was going to start next week at Bristol." The lad's face twisted with regret as he passed the halter rope into my hand.

"I can't think what on earth persuaded the Old Man to part with him. He's a real daisy, and if I ever see him at the races not looking as good and well cared for as he does now, I'll find you and beat the living daylights out of you, I will straight. "

I had already discovered how deeply attached racing lads became to the horses they looked after, and I understood that he meant what he said.

"What's his name?" I asked.

"Sparking Plug… God awful name, he's no plug… Hey, Sparks, old boy… hey, boy… hey, old fellow…" He fondled the horse's muzzle affectionately.

We loaded him into the horse box and this time I did stay where I ought to be, in the back, looking after him. If Beckett were prepared to give a fortune for the cause, as I guessed he must have done to get hold of such an ideal horse in so few days, I was going to take good care of it.

Before we started back I took a look at the road map in the cab, and found to my satisfaction that all the race courses in the country had been marked in on it in Indian ink. I borrowed it at once, and spent the journey studying it. The courses where Sparking Plug's lad had said he was entered were nearly all in the south. Overnight stops, as requested. I grinned.

The five racecourses where the eleven horses had won were not, I found, all as far north as I had imagined. Ludlow and Stafford, in fact, could almost be considered southern, especially as I found I instinctively based my view of the whole country from Harro- gate. The five courses seemed to bear no relation to each other on the map: far from presenting a tidy circle from which a centre might be deduced, they were all more or less in a curve from northeast to southwest, and I could find no significance in then- location.

I spent the rest of the journey back as I spent most of my working hrnirs'-le^ting my mind drift over what I knew of the el^yn horses, waiting for an idea to swim to the surfScs^ikeSa fish in a pool, waiting for the disconnectefi. ^^^tosort themselves into a pattern.

But I didn't really expect this to happen yet, as I knew I had barely started, and even electronic computers won't produce answers if they are not fed enough information.

On Friday night I went down to the pub in Slaw and beat Soupy at darts. He grunted, gestured to the bar billiards, and took an easy revenge. We then drank a half pint together, eyeing each other.

Conversation between us was almost non-existent, nor was it necessary:

and shortly I wandered back to watch the darts players. They were no better than the week before.

"You beat Soupy, didn't you Clan?" one of them said.

I nodded, and immediately found a bunch of darts thrust into my hand.

"If you can beat Soupy you must be in the team."

"What team?" I asked.

"The stable darts team. We play other stables, and have a sort of Yorkshire League. Sometimes we go to Middleham or Wetherby or Richmond or sometimes they come here. Soupy's the best player in Granger's team. Could you beat him again, do you think, or was it a fluke?"

I threw three darts at the board. They all landed in the twenty. For some unknown reason I had always been able to throw straight.

"Cor," said the lads.

"Go on."

I threw three more: the twenty section got rather crowded.

"You're in the team, mate, and no nonsense," they said.

"When's the next match?" I asked.

"We had one here a fortnight ago. Next one's next

Sunday at Bumdale, after the football. You can't play football as well as darts, I suppose? " I shook my head.

"Only darts." I looked at the one dart still left in my hand. I could hit a scuttling rat with a stone; I had done it often when the men had found one round the corn bins and chased it out. I saw no reason why I couldn't hit a galloping horse with a dart: it was a much bigger target.

"Put that one in the bull," urged the lad beside me. I put it in the bull. The lads yelled with glee.

"We'll win the league this season," they grinned. Grits grinned too. But Paddy didn't.