Herman Wouk - The Winds of War

“Can a riderless horse win?” Jastrow shouted at Byron.

A man in the row below him turned up a fat warty red face with pointed moustaches and popping yellow eyes. “ Si, si . Riderless is scosso , meestair, scosso . Viva Bruco! Scosso !”

When the pack came past the judges’ box a second time, the riderless horse was clearly in the lead, and Byron could see its Caterpillar colors and emblems.

“ Scosso !” the warty red face turned and bellowed happily at Dr. Jastrow, exhaling heavy odors of garlic and wine, and two fists waved at him. “See, Meestair? Whoo! Bruco ! Cater-peel-air, meestair!”

“Yes, indeed, just so,” said Jastrow, shrinking a bit against Byron.

The noise in the piazza swelled to a general mad scream as the horses went round for the third and last time, with the surviving jockeys frantically beating their nags to make them overtake the riderless Bruco horse. They came past the finish in a shower of dirt, a maze of bobbing straining heads and flailing jockeys’ arms. The riderless horse, its eyes rolling redly, was still barely in front.

“ Bruco !” screamed the warty man, leaping a couple of feet in the air. “ Scosso ! Scosso ! Ha ha!” He turned to Jastrow with a maniacal laugh, and vividly gestured that the horse was drugged by pumping a huge imaginary hypodermic needle into his arm. “ Bravissimo ! WHOO!” He clattered down the narrow aisle to the track, ran on to the dirt, and vanished in the swarm boiling out of the seats and over the barriers. The track was full on the instant with people milling, yelling, waving arms, jumping and beating their breasts. Here and there in the mob were the bobbing plumed heads of the horses. On the track before the judges’ stand, a dozen white-shirted young men were beating an unhelmeted jockey, on his knees in the dirt, holding up both arms in a plea for mercy. They jockey’s face was welling bright blood.

“My Lord, what’s going on there?” Jastrow quavered.

“Somebody failed to doublecross,” Byron said, “or else he triplecrossed.”

“I suppose” — Jastrow put a trembling hand to his beard — “this is the part the archbishop warned us about. “Perhaps we had better leave, and—”

Byron slammed an arm across his chest. “ Not now . Sit right where you are, sir, and don’t move. You too, Natalie.”

A squad of young men, with yellow-and-green Caterpillar scarves around their necks, came driving through the mob straight for the judges’ stand. They trampled up the benches past Jastrow, led by a pallid youngster streaming blood from his forehead. Byron held two protecting arms in front of the girl and Jastrow as the bloody-faced one seized the pole. The whole squad roared, cheered, and came thundering back down the benches with the banner.

“Now!” Byron took the hands of the other two. “Come.”

The excited Sienese, as well as the tourists, were prudently making way for the triumphant Caterpillars. Moving right behind them, with one arm around the girl and another around Jastrow, Byron got through the archway into the main lower street of the town. But here the mob eddied in behind the Palio and its triumphant escort and engulfed them, crushing uphill toward the cathedral.

“Oh, Lord,” Natalie said. “We’re in for it now. Hang on to Aaron.”

“Dear me. I’m afraid I didn’t bargain for this,” gasped Jastrow, fumbling at his hat and his glasses with one free hand. The other was pinned in Byron’s grip. “My feet are scarcely touching the ground, Byron.”

“That’s okay. Don’t fight them, sir, just go along. At the first side street this jam will ease up. Take it easy -”

A convulsive, panicky surge of the crowd at this moment tore the professor out of Byron’s grasp. Behind them sounded the clatter of hoofs on stone, wild neighs and whinnies, and shouts of alarm. The crowd melted around Byron and Natalie, fleeing from a plunging horse. It was the winner, the Caterpillar animal. A brawny young man in green and yellow, his wig awry and sliding, was desperately trying to control the animal, but as it reared again, a flailing front hoof caught him full in the face. He fell bloodied to the ground, and the horse was free. It danced, reared, and screamed, plunging forward, and the crowd shrank away. As Byron pulled Natalie into a doorway out of the retreating mob, Aaron Jastrow emerged in the clear street without his glasses, stumbled, and fell in the horse’s path.

Without a word to Natalie, Byron ran out into the street and snatched Jastrow’s big yellow hat off his head. He waved the hat in the horse’s face, crouching, watching the hoofs. The creature neighed wildly, shied against a palazzo wall, stumbled and lost its footing, then recovered and reared, flailing its forelegs at Byron, who waved the hat again, staying watchfully just out of range. The horse pranced about on two legs, rolling bloodshot mad eyes, foaming at the mouth. Half a dozen men in Caterpillar costumes now came running up the street, and four of them seized the reins, dragged the horse down, and began to quiet him. The others picked up their injured comrade. People from the crowd darted out and helped Jastrow get up. Natalie ran to his side. Men surrounded Byron, slapping his shoulder and shouting in Italian as he made his way to Jastrow. “Here’s your hat, sir.”

“Oh, thank you, Byron. My glasses, you haven’t seen them, have you? I suppose they’re shattered. Well, I have another pair at the villa.” The professor was blinking blindly, but he acted rather excited and cheerful. “Goodness, what a commotion. What happened? I was pushed down, I guess. I heard a horse clattering about, but I couldn’t see a thing.”

“He’s all right,” Natalie said to Byron, with a look straight into his eyes such as she had never before given him. “Thanks.”

“Dr. Jastrow, if you’re not too shaken up,” Byron said, taking his arm again, “we should go to the Caterpillar church for the thanksgiving service.”

“Oh, not at all,” Jastrow laughed. The moment of action seemed to have cleared his nerves. “In for a penny, in for a pound. I find all this rather exhilarating. On we go. Just hang on to me a little better, Byron. You were a bit derelict there for a minute.”

A week or so later, Natalie and Byron were at work in the library, with a summer thunderstorm beating outside at the darkened windows. Byron, happening to look up from a map when lightning flashed, saw Natalie staring at him, her face sombre in the lamplight.

“Byron, have you ever been to Warsaw?”

“No. Why?”

“Would you like to come there with me?”

With great willpower, choking back his joy, Byron summoned up the opaque dull look with which he had resisted twenty years of his father’s probing: “What would be the point?”

“Well, it’s probably worth seeing, don’t you think? Slote even says it’s rather old-world and gay. The thing is, Aaron’s getting difficult about my trip. You know that. I could just tell him to go to hell, but I’d rather not.”

Byron had heard the discussions. In the aftermath of the Palio, on learning how close he had come to getting injured or killed, Jastrow was having a spell of nerves. The American consul in Florence had come up after the Palio for a visit; following that, Jastrow’s glum mood had worsened. He kept insisting that the Foreign Service was getting worried over the Polish situation, and that Natalie’s proposed trip was now too risky.

Byron said, “Would my going make a difference?”

“Yes. You know what Aaron calls you behind your back now? That golden lad . He can’t get over what you did at the Palio.”