Dick Francis - Silks

‘Good luck, Geoffrey,’ called a voice to my left.

I looked down from my vantage point atop a seventeen-hand horse and there was Eleanor, waving madly. She had made it after all. How wonderful.

‘Thanks,’ I shouted at her inadequately above the bustle of the crowd.

I turned to take one last look at her before Sandeman and I went out onto the course. She was smiling broadly, still waving, but something else caught my eye. Standing just behind her and a little to her right was someone else I recognized.

It was Julian Trent, and he was smiling at me too.

Oh shit. I tried to stop and turn round, to go back and warn her, but the stable lad just thought that Sandeman was playing up a little so he took a tighter hold of the reins and pulled us forward.

I turned right round in the saddle and tried to shout to Eleanor but she didn’t hear me. What should I do? I wanted to jump off, to run back, to protect her. But Sandeman and I were now out of the horse walk and on the course, walking up in front of the expectant crowd. Surely, I told myself, Eleanor would be safe amongst all those people. Perhaps Trent had not seen the exchange between us and he would think of her as just another eager spectator.

The horses were to be led up in front of the grandstand and then we would turn and canter back past the horse walk and on to the start of the race at the far end of the finishing straight.

So distracted was I that I almost fell off when the stable lad turned Sandeman and let him go with a reminding slap on his rump. Instinct made me gather the reins tight in my hands and set off in a gentle canter to the start while I searched the thousands of faces in the crowd, desperate for a glimpse of Eleanor, or of Trent, but unable to spot either.

I felt sick.

All my pre-race planning of where I wanted to be at the start went out the window as my mind was elsewhere. When the tapes flew up Sandeman was caught flat-footed owing to my negligence and I instantly gave the rest of the field ten lengths’ start. I could imagine Paul swearing on the trainers’ stand and wishing that he had convinced me to let last year’s jockey ride again. And he wouldn’t be the only one, I thought. This was a televised race and I had been napping at the start. In any other circumstances it would have been unforgivable, but somehow I didn’t care. I was more concerned about Eleanor’s safety.

Sandeman set off in pursuit of the others and made a magnificent leap at the first with me hardly participating at all. Come on, I said to myself, Eleanor will be fine, concentrate on the matter in hand.

I eased Sandeman back from his headlong gallop to a steadier pace. There was plenty of time to get back to the pack. This was a three-and-a-quarter-mile chase with twenty-two jumps, twice round the Cheltenham course. I settled him down and we steadily closed the gap until, although still last, there was no air between us and the rest. Fortunately the first circuit was not being run too fast as everyone realized there was a long way to go in fairly heavy ground.

At the top of the hill for the first time, I pulled Sandeman slightly wider and we overtook eight other horses easily in the run down to the point where we had started. As we began the second circuit we were in the middle of the pack, lying about tenth, but with those ahead tightly bunched.

By the time we reached the water jump half-way down the back straight the race was really on in earnest. Sandeman flattened his back and sailed over the water like a hurdler. We passed three horses in mid-air and landed running fast. But two other horses had got away at the front of the pack and a three-length gap had opened up behind them.

I kicked Sandeman hard in the ribs.

‘Come on boy,’ I shouted in his ear. ‘Now is the time.’

It was as if he changed gear. We were eating up the ground and two great leaps at the open ditches found us lying third, turning sharp left and starting down the hill for the last time.

I was exhilarated. I wasn’t tired and Sandeman didn’t feel a bit tired beneath me. I looked ahead. The two horses in front seemed also to be going well and they were about four lengths away, running side by side.

I gave Sandeman a little bit of a breather for a few paces, sitting easily on his back rather than pushing hard at his neck. There were two fences down the hill and I took a measured look at the first one. I adjusted Sandeman’s stride and asked him for a big leap. He responded immediately and flew through the top of the fence, gaining half the distance on his rivals ahead. So full of energy had he been that for the first time I thought I might win.

I now kicked him and asked for his final effort. Sandeman had always been a horse with great stamina but without an amazing sprint finish. We needed to be ahead at the last with the momentum to carry us up the hill to the finish in front.

‘Come on boy,’ I shouted again in his ear. ‘Now, now, now.’

Both the horses in front wavered slightly as they approached the fence and I knew, Isuddenly knew, thatwe were going to win.

I gave a slight pull on the reins, setting Sandeman right for another great leap. I was watching the ground, looking at our take-off point, and only peripherally did I see one of the horses ahead hit the top of the fence hard. I pulled Sandeman slightly wider, but it was the wrong way. The horse in front overbalanced badly on landing, rolled sharply to its right and onto the ground, straight into our path. Sandeman and I were in mid-air before I realized that we had nowhere to land. My horse did his best to avoid the carnage but without any real hope of success.

Sandeman tripped over the bulk of prostrate horseflesh in front of him and somersaulted through the air. My last memory of the day was of the green grass rushing up to meet me, just before the blackness came.

I sat at my desk in chambers reading through the paperwork for an upcoming disciplinary hearing at which I would be representing one of a group of senior doctors who had been accused of professional misconduct over the untimely death of a patient in their hospital.

The phone on my desk rang. It was Arthur.

‘Mr Mason,’ he said ‘There’s someone here to see you. He’s in the clerks’ room.’

‘Who is it?’ I asked.

‘He won’t say,’ said Arthur, clearly disapproving. ‘He just insists on talking to you, and only you.’

How odd, I thought.

‘Shall I bring him along?’ Arthur asked.

‘Yes please,’ I said. ‘But will you stay here until I ask you to leave?’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘But why?’

‘Just in case I need a witness,’ I said. But I hoped I wouldn’t. Surely Julian Trent wouldn’t show up and demand to see me in my room.

I put the phone down. It was a general rule hereabouts that members of chambers met with clients and visitors only in one of the conference rooms on the lower ground floor but, since I had returned to work after Cheltenham, Arthur had been kind enough to grant me special dispensation to meet people in my room. Climbing up and down even just a few stairs on crutches wasn’t easy, particularly as the stairs in question were narrow and turning.

There was a brief knock on the door and Arthur entered, followed by a nervous looking man with white hair wearing the same light coloured tweed jacket and blue and white striped shirt that I had seen before in court number 3 at the Old Bailey. However, his shirt had then been open at the collar whereas now a neat red and gold tie completed his ensemble. It was the schoolmasterly foreman of the jury whom I had last glimpsed when I’d had my foot in his front door in Hendon.

‘Hello, Mr Barnett,’ I said to him. ‘Come on in. Thank you, Arthur, that will be all.’