Jilly Cooper - Polo

The only person, in fact, who was happy when Dommie insisted on playing on was Bart. Slapping a clenched fist into his other palm, he moved round the American team. ‘Now we can zap them. Ride into the little bastard’s knee as often as possible. Force him to retire and we can get the girl in.’

‘Don’t be so fucking unsporting, Dad,’ said Luke in outrage. ‘You could put the guy out of the game for good.’

‘Safe journey, my darling.’ Louisa’s voice broke as Dommie rode back on to the field to deafening applause.

Dommie was as brave as his own bull terrier, but the blow had smashed his left knee and the pain was clearly unhinging him. As Red and Angel unleashed a fusillade of shots, the crowd, who had no idea quite how badly Dommie was hurt, kept up a continuous roar of encouragement. As the score drew level, Dommie, battered by the inevitable rough and tumble, grew greener and greener. Ricky was torn. He ought to protect Dommie but, aware that the Westchester was fast slipping out of his grasp, the only answer was to forget him and plunge into the fray. Thirty seconds later, with a glorious cut shot, he put England ahead. Now it was a question of staying there.

Despite the punishing heat Perdita shivered, encased in an ice-cold sweat. Padded and gloved, with her stick resting against the white fence below the stands, she expected any moment to have to leap on to Dommie’s beautiful, fickle pony, Bardot, who was known to be as tricky as she was fast.

‘I must read the play,’ she kept telling herself grimly.

As poor Dommie came down the field it was like watching a bird trying to fly with two broken wings. But slowly, as she forced herself to concentrate, she became aware that Luke, unlike the rest of the US team, was contradicting Bart’s orders and as the man who should have been marking Dommie, and despite the undeniable advantage it would have given him, was deliberately not riding Dommie off on the side of his damaged knee.

There, Dommie had the ball again and Luke, who could have bumped him into the stands, laboriously rode round to hook him on the other side.

Glancing at Perdita, Taggie noticed that tears were pouring down her face. Gently she put her hand over Perdita’s.

‘Luke’s the one, isn’t he?’

Perdita nodded. ‘I guess he always has been,’ she muttered, ‘but I’ve only just realized it, and now it’s too late.’

As the teams lined up, jostling and shoving, for the throw-in, Dommie’s agony was so blinding he thought he’d faint. Pain was in the mind. He must push himself through the pain barrier and go into mental overdrive.

Bardot, his chestnut mare, fond of batting her long eyelashes and giving a colossal buck when chastised, was for once behaving impeccably and carrying her master as smoothly as a Rolls-Royce. When Mike, menaced by Angel and Red, hit the ball upfield ahead of him, Bardot swung round to follow it. Alas, Red didn’t have any of his brother’s scruples. Seeing Dommie pounding towards goal looking for an offside drive, Red cannoned into his smashed knee with his pony’s right shoulder. Howling with pain, Dommie had to cling on to Bardot’s neck to stay on.

‘You fucker!’ Hysterical with rage, Seb rode straight at Red, slicing the ball away from him towards goal. But Luke was too quick for Seb. Riding him once more off the ball, he turned the play with a staggering sixty-yard backshot.

With ten seconds on the clock, everyone collided in a cloud of dust in front of the British goal, the Americans frantic to whack it home so the game could go to a seventh chukka. Looking for his backhand in a tangle of threshing sticks, Ricky kept his cool. As he cleared for England, saving the game on the bell, everyone crashed over the line, sending a goal post flying in the process and all ending up in a great heap.

‘You OK, Dommie?’ yelled Seb in anguish through the dust.

‘Fine,’ said Dommie, who’d dismounted. ‘I’m just hanging on to my horse.’

‘The only problem,’ said Seb as the dust cleared, ‘is that it’s my horse you’re hanging on to.’

‘Then where’s Corporal?’ said Dommie, looking round puzzled.

‘Corporal was in the last chukka,’ explained Seb, ‘and he played so well, he’s been promoted to Sergeant.’

Dommie giggled, but as he let go of Seb’s pony he collapsed on to the ground like a rag doll. ‘I think I’ve fucked my knee.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Seb shakily. ‘You’ll love hospital. The food’s terrific.’

‘I could murder a T-bone,’ said Dommie and passed out.

With Dommie critically ill in a Palm Springs’ hospital with concussion and a splintered knee, Perdita would have to play in the final match. The BPA were singularly unamused and dispatched Brigadier Hughie prematurely to La Quinta to drum some sense into the wayward English squad. Storming into the Villa Victoria at twilight the following evening, sweating in a creased, wool, pin-striped suit, he found them totally euphoric.

Having learnt that the operation had been successful and Dommie would be playing again in a few months, they now felt able to celebrate yesterday’s victory properly. Hughie’s jaundiced view of Rupert’s playboy attitude and Ricky’s deviant captaincy were further exacerbated when he found everyone plastered on Harvey Wallbangers, singing rugger songs and resting their aching bones in the swirling waters of the jacuzzi.

‘This is worse than an orgy,’ spluttered Hughie over the deafening blast of Dancer’s latest LP, ‘and Sharon Kaputnik ought to put on a bathing dress,’ he added as he took Rupert and Ricky into the house.

‘Do them good to unwind,’ said Rupert. ‘They’ve got four days to sober up.’

‘Not how we’d have done it in Singapore,’ chuntered Hughie, ducking as a pineapple came flying through the french windows. ‘Anyway, it’s time you chaps came to your senses. You had a damn good win yesterday, but don’t push your luck. The Napiers are playing in Argentina and quite prepared to fly up here if we pay their expenses and give them ten grand each; and Drew’d be an even better bet. He’s cooling his heels in Rutshire.’

Ricky, who unlike everyone else, was entirely sober, had had an agonizing twenty-four hours worrying about Dommie. The thought of Drew in Rutshire cooling his heels, and no doubt warming his hands on Daisy’s welcoming body, did nothing to improve his temper. ‘I’m captaining this team, Hughie, so bugger off.’

‘You really prefer a slip of a girl to a fit very experienced nine-goal man?’

‘Yes,’ said Rupert evenly. ‘I’ve always been heterosexual.’

‘What, what! Don’t be flippant,’ exploded Hughie. ‘You can’t put in a girl against those thugs.’

‘Those thugs might back off a little because she is a girl,’ went on Rupert reasonably. ‘Now, really do bugger off, Hughie, and play Scrabble or have a hot tub with Mrs Hughie, I bet they didn’t have those in Singapore.’

Rupert, in fact, was reeling with relief. Assured of a third match, Venturer were likely to make a killing. The British and American sponsors were delighted Perdita was going to play. Such a beautiful, tempestuous, controversial figure would certainly pull in the crowds.

Next day Rupert flew to New York and, after five hours closeted with chief executives and vice presidents, managed to persuade NBS to cancel coverage of an ice hockey match and to transmit the match live instead of recording it for a later date. In England people could watch it if they got up at four o’clock in the morning or see an edited version the following evening. Rupert was considerably aided by the press who pointed out the piquancy of Perdita having to play against her ex-lover and who all showed close-ups of her crying in the stands as she watched the match.