Jilly Cooper - Polo

Oblivious of all this, Angel sat on an upturned bucket with his head in his hands, not bothering to check his horses or even warm up.

‘She’ll show up,’ said Luke, resisting the temptation to shake Angel. ‘Don’t be so goddam histrionic.’

Ten minutes before the parade both captains were giving last minute pep-talks. The Mendozas had speed and the courage of lions, but the O’Briens were technically superior and hit the ball harder and more accurately.

‘The only way to beat them,’ urged Luke as he pulled on his lucky gloves which were mostly hole now, ‘is to stop them opening up and press them all over the field, which means sticking like leeches.’

The O’Briens, who, like Perdita, had been watching videos of the Westchester, realized they must obstruct Luke as much as possible and divert his fusillade of deadly passes away from his young team.

‘Don’t hang on to the ball,’ ordered Miguel, swinging his mallet round and round to loosen up his massive shoulders, ‘and don’t let the Mendozas see what you’re doing.’

Despite being surrounded by the skyscrapers of Buenos Aires, few grounds are more beautiful or dramatic than the Number One field at Palermo with its forest of white flagpoles, lush tropical trees, green hedges lined with pink roses and huge stands rising like cliff faces to a white-hot sky on either side of a sage-green ground.

Two minutes before the parade Bibi crept into her seat beside Bart. She was almost deafened by the O’Brien supporters with their emerald-green parasols and the Mendoza fans with their primrose-yellow flags and banners, encouraging their teams on with a cacophony of trumpet and drum. Bart, who’d bought a new panama for the occasion, was outraged because he was too far from Luke to bombard him with last-minute instructions. All around him were beautiful, laughing girls unfazed by the heatwave, their shining hair cascading on to slim walnut-brown shoulders. Perhaps there was life after Chessie after all. Bibi was more aware, to the right, of a rampart of Angel’s relations, who clearly recognized but studiously ignored her. Only marginally more hostile was Mrs Juan, Sitting Bully in person, whose huge bulk occupied three chairs instead of one.

‘Here they come,’ said Bibi in a choked voice. ‘Oh, come on, Angel! Come on, Luke! Come on, the Mendozas!’

The heat, which had been stifling as the vast crowd began to file through the turnstiles, was now like a cauldron of boiling oil. With people all fanning themselves with programmes, the two stands were like vast swarms of white butterflies. Despite his air of smiling imperturbability, Luke’s primrose shirt was drenched with sweat and his hands were propped on his saddle to conceal their trembling as he rode quietly out on Alejandro’s most beautiful liver-chestnut mare. Beside him rode Lorenzo, Patricio and Angel, curls flowing out underneath their helmets, long limbs supple as liquorice sticks, faces white as flagposts. At mid-field waited the O’Briens, four, immensely strong, proud men in the prime of life, hell bent on a sixth victory, who would take no prisoners. Everyone had been looking forward to the band who had guarded the President for nearly 200 years, but they had been banned from the ground because of the coup, so a lone trumpeter played the Argentine National Anthem instead. The tantivy of horn and trumpet and the tumbril-beat of drums intensified.

‘We are going to be keeled,’ said Angel through clattering teeth, ‘and Bibi ’aven’t even come and say goodbye to me.’

‘ Oh, God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts;

Possess them not with fear ,’ muttered Luke to himself, but out loud, with a confidence he didn’t feel, he said, ‘Bullshit, we’ll bury them.’

‘Now he play bettair,’ said Patricio, nudging Lorenzo and looking upwards. Following his gaze, Angel was stunned to see a little plane chugging across the sky trailing a message: ‘Good luck, Angel, I love you, Bibi.’

The crowd burst into a collective roar of laughter. Angel went crimson but he was grinning like a pools winner. Now he would play like a king. He could hardly wait for the long-thighed umpire in his bright-blue shirt to chuck the ball in.

Luke found the Palermo Open quite different to any other tournament, not only because eight chukkas were played instead of the usual six, but also because the pace was twice as fast, the bumps three times as violent and the ponies four times as superior. There was no razzmatazz, no cheer leaders, no balloons, no commentary, because everyone in the madly excited crowd knew what was going on and made whistling sounds every time a foul occurred, often anticipating the umpire. All you could hear between the great roars of encouragement and the din of trumpet and drum was the clatter of incessantly galloping hooves, the snorting of the ponies, the desperate shouts of the players and the blind-man’s tap, tap, tap of their sticks.

By any standard the first chukka was played on fast forward. To boost morale and rattle the O’Briens Alejandro had mounted his sons and Angel on his best ponies. Exploding on to the field shiny as conkers shot from their husks, they outraced the O’Brien ponies with ease. By the bell the Mendozas were ahead by a staggering 5-1, three of the goals scored by Angel.

The O’Briens’ game-plan emerged as they settled down in the second chukka. Seamus O’Brien spent his time either sneakily inserting himself between Luke and the Mendozas’ posts or luring Luke away from the goal-mouth so that Miguel and Juan could unleash their thunderbolts from the mid-field which would find the flags immediately or be tipped through by a returning Seamus. Playing with pulverizing attack, changing direction all the time, by the end of the third chukka the O’Briens were leading 10-5 and had plunged the volatile Mendozas into despair.

‘Keep your shirts on, guys, you’re doing great,’ Luke reassured them as he mounted Fantasma, the only grey in the match, for the fourth chukka. As usual her beauty brought gasps of delight from the crowd and once again Luke felt humbled by the combination of courage, competitiveness, steel, intelligence and boundless energy. She always inspired him. Somehow he must try and settle his own side. But almost certainly it was going to be 11-5 as Juan hurtled towards goal on his fastest mare, the legendary Gatto, and like a matador, revelled in plunging another pic into the desperately injured Mendoza bull.

‘We’ll show them,’ muttered Luke, and next moment Fantasma had streaked like a shooting star after Juan. Coming in from the right, Luke waited until her grey shoulder was level with Gatto’s gleaming, dark brown quarters. He could also feel Miguel behind him breathing down his neck like a hair-dryer on high. Coolly he leant forward, hooked Juan’s stick out of the way and then, with a lightning flick, backed the ball. Instantly Fantasma swivelled round, so, bypassing an astounded Miguel, Luke was able to hit the forehand straight to Angel who was waiting on the boards. Gathering up the ball like a lost lover, Angel dribbled it round, tossed and hit it in the air twice in a contemptuous piece of clowning, then took it upfield, passing to Lorenzo who galloped off and scored. The crowd erupted in delight at such dazzling play. Overjoyed, Bibi hugged Bart. Even Angel’s rampart of relations were looking less supercilious.

A lone trumpeter up in the gods struck up the Stars and Stripes; Luke grinned and waved his stick. Two beautiful Argentine girls behind Bibi consulted their programmes and agreed the blond Americano was muy atractivo .

‘My brother,’ Bibi told them proudly.

In the fifth chukka the Mendozas rode their fast ponies again and closed the score to 8-10, but not for nothing did the blood of Irish kings run through the veins of the O’Briens. Refusing to be rattled, they fought back, furiously stampeding the score to 12-8. Having played their trump card to so little effect, the Mendozas started to panic. Even worse, a second later Miguel pulled up dead on the line bringing down Luke on the beautiful liver-chestnut just behind him. Luke, winded, staggered to his feet. The chestnut stayed put and had to be shot. Channelling his fury into a superhuman effort against the opposition, Luke hit the ensuing penalty through the posts and into the road and a lorry full of soldiers, who, thinking it was part of the coup, reached for their guns.