WHEN the horse-box entered the yard in the first deepening gold of the summer evening Ginny saw a strange green van parked at the top of the drive, and the first thing she saw as Tamara lowered the ramp was Vic Tyler standing in the tack-room doorway with his hands in the pockets of his shabby, stained grey flannel trousers, and his black hair cut unusually short above his long, sallow face. From the warm anticipation of telling Andras about Flash's success she went suddenly cold. This was the moment that she had dreaded ever since she came to Hampton over five months ago. Supposing something went wrong. Vic might refuse to sell, or demand more than Andras and she could afford between them. Tamara could not be expected to help now. She walked miserably up the yard to meet him, seeing Andras watching her anxiously from Ambassador's box, and Bates's sympathetic face by the feed barn.
“Ginny,” came Tamara's cold voice from behind her, “unload your horse, please. You can talk to your friend when he's out of my way.”
Ginny turned mechanically back to obey her, and Vic came up beside her, walking with his usual slouch, his long black eyes sneering in his yellow face.
“Got yourself a real nice boss, haven't you?” he asked. “Bit of cheek, you taking the old horse off with you, you know. Not that I hold it against you: couldn't expect you to stay on and keep the place going while I was in trouble, I suppose. ’Specially with a classy job like this offered you.”
“I'm sorry, Vic. But I couldn't have gone on with no money,” Ginny told him.
“It's O.K.,” Vic assured her again. “I'm getting going again now, anyway. Got myself a real nice place—not like the old dump. Got a nice girl to run it too. Met her Dad while I was on my holiday. We shared a room, ’s matter of fact. You must meet her, Ginny. Not your type, p’raps, but you’ll like to know who’ll have charge of the old horse. Brenda!” he shouted.
Ginny jumped. So he had brought her successor with him. He seemed to be taking it for granted that Flash was going back. The girl was getting out of the van, and Ginny stared at her anxiously. She was short and stockily built, with broad, hard shoulders and a round, bullet head covered with close-cropped, very curly light brown hair. Her eyes were pale blue in a round, small-featured face, and her mouth was small and thick-lipped. Ginny wondered what her father had been in prison for. If he was like his daughter to look at, she could believe him capable of anything.
“Brenda, this ’s Ginny Harris,” Vic told her. “Ginny, meet Brenda Hogg.”
“Vic’s told me a lot about you,” Brenda said unpleasantly. “You’ve got a cheek, going off with his horse like this.”
There was a thudding on the box-ramp and a sudden disturbance in the yard as Tamara, despairing of Ginny’s help, unloaded Flash, and Vic and Brenda turned to look at him. For a moment Vic’s face remained blank, and he obviously did not recognize his horse. Then he gasped, and his black eyes suddenly gleamed.
“That’s never the old horse,” he exclaimed.
“It is,” admitted Ginny miserably, wishing that she dared deny it.
“He’s sure changed a bit.”
Vic took the rope from Tamara, who hesitated for a moment as though about to say something, and then changed her mind abruptly, and returned to fetch Icicle. Ginny stood unhappily watching as Vic and Brenda examined the horse, Brenda’s small, pale eyes suddenly alight, and Vic grinning slightly. At last he straightened up and turned to look at Ginny.
“Would never have recognized him, ’cept for his head,” he told her. “Can’t alter the shape of his skeleton, whatever you do with the rest. Like him, Brenda?”
“Smashing,” agreed Brenda. “How’s he to ride?”
“Dunno,” Vic grinned. “Better try him. No knowing what tricks they’ll have taught him. Sling a saddle on him, Ginny.”
“But he’s just back from a show,” objected Ginny. “It isn’t fair on him.”
“Don’t talk daft,” snapped Vic. “Get that saddle on, ’fore I do it myself. Whose horse is he, anyhow?”
Unhappily, Ginny did as she was told. Tamara had put Icicle into his box, and Bates had unloaded Cloudburst. While she saddled the surprised bay, Vic asked, “Win anything?”
“We were third,” replied Ginny unwillingly.
“What in? Jumping? Always thought the old horse’d jump,” said Vic.
“It was a dressage meeting,” Ginny told him. “We got third in the Novice test. It’s his first attempt.”
“Pretty good, eh?” Vic grinned. “Here, Brenda, get up and take him into the field. Let’s see what he’ll do.”
Flash’s ears went back at the feel of Brenda’s rough hands and her solid weight, and her legs closed against his flanks like a vice. Vic opened the gate and the horse went through, jogging a little, with his head too high and his eyes worried. Vic leaned on the gate to watch, and Ginny stood unhappily beside him. Andras came quietly to join them, and Brenda kicked Flash roughly into a fast, unbalanced trot, her hands jerking at his schooled, sensitive mouth. Ginny felt sick, and Andras’s hand closed comfortingly on her arm. Vic grinned.
“Goes a treat,” he told them. “Brenda’s a bit rough-and-ready, o’ course—never had no teaching to speak of: like Ginny here was when I knew her. But she can stick there. Needs to, on some of the horses we’re getting.”
“Are you running a school or do you deal?” inquired Andras politely.
“Oh, dealing. I’m not much of a teacher,” Vic told them. “That horse’ll be a good advert for me. Take him round a few shows, plait him up a bit, and put him in the hack class. Or maybe the hunter. Soon get people interested in what I’ve got to sell.”
Ginny felt worse. There suddenly seemed little hope of saving Flash. Brenda was cantering him now, sitting down hard in the saddle, with her legs clamped against his sides and her hands hard on his mouth. They galloped down the far side of the field, then the girl swung Flash round hard on his hocks and drove him fast at one of the recently rebuilt brush fences. Flash flew over it with his heels trailing and his head in the air, and they raced on over a set of rails and a brush and ditch before Brenda wrenched him to a sudden halt on his hocks and rode him back to the gate. She was smiling broadly, her face flushed, and her fingers closed tightly on the reins as she jerked the horse to a stop in front of them. Flash’s mouth was open, white foam flecked his chest and forelegs, his ears were back, his eyes wild, and his back stiff and hollowed. He looked like somebody’s good, but unschooled hunter.
“Good ride?” asked Vic.
“Something like a horse,” agreed Brenda. “I’ll have some fun on him back home.”
“Right. Bring him in now,” ordered Vic. “We’ve got to get back to London tonight,” he explained to Ginny and Andras. “On home tomorrow. Can’t spare more time than that. We’re pretty busy back at the stables.”
“I’ll put him away for you,” said Bates quietly, behind Ginny, and she thanked him with a quick smile, her mind on persuading Vic to sell.
“Vic, will you let me buy him?” she asked. “You’ll sell him soon anyway, won’t you?”
Vic grinned at her. “Sell him to you?” he asked. “Now why should I want to do that, eh?”
“Please, Vic,” begged Ginny. “I’ll give you a good price.”
Vic looked at Brenda, who was leaning on the wall with her hands in her jodhpur pockets and grinning.
“What do you say, Brenda?” he asked.
“I say ‘no’,” replied Brenda immediately. “He’ll be a smashing advert. for us. We won’t be selling him very fast.”
“You see?” Vic appealed to Ginny. “I can’t sell. Sorry. He’s too useful to me, good bit of blood like him; fit and handy, too. Now, you put him on a train soon’s you can get it fixed and send him to me at Branton. Think yourself lucky I don’t want paying for the hire of him and my petrol down here. I’ll let you off that as your arrangements for the ponies helped me get a decent price for them.”
“It is you who should pay Ginny,” said Andras angrily. “For all her work and the food your horse has had. He would have died if she had not brought him here.”
“Not him,” replied Vic. “Tough, that one. Just that Ginny here’s gone soft over him: thinks he can’t live without her. You remember what I said, Ginny. Send him to me pretty quick, or I’ll be down with a copper to get him, see?”
“I should not think that the police would be very interested in your troubles,” Andras told him.
“No need to get personal,” snapped Vic. “Right lot Ginny’s got herself in with here. How’d you get into the country? In someone’s trunk?”
Andras went white.
“I will not expect you to apologize for that,” he said quietly. “I do not expect you would know how to do so.”
Vic laughed, and turned his back on them.
“Come on, Brenda,” he said. “Let’s get out of this refuge for stowaways.”
They went off down the yard to the van, laughing, and Andras said, “I am sorry, Ginny. I could think of nothing to save him.”
“There isn’t anything,” said Ginny wretchedly. “Oh, Andras, he’ll be ruined. And he hated Brenda. Vic’ll work him until he’s back to where he was when I came here, then he’ll sell him to someone who’ll work him to death.”
“Perhaps it will not be that bad for him,” said Andras. “It is no good to worry. There is nothing to be done.”
Ginny, going unhappily to settle Flash, knew that he was right.
Tamara said briskly that she was sorry about it, but there was no sense in getting upset, as there was nothing for it but to do as Vic said and send Flash to him. Ginny wondered if she was glad Flash was going. She had not missed Tamara’s jealousy over Sue’s obvious interest in her and over her success, and also she suspected that Tamara felt losing Flash to be a kind of justice for what she thought that Ginny had tried to do to her. But it seemed so awful that Tamara was not worried about Flash himself, when she had once had so much sympathy for any and every horse, irrespective of who owned them.
Ginny booked the box herself by telephone, arranging to send Flash overnight in two days’ time. The only thing to be thankful for was that it was warm weather, for it would be a long, slow journey, most of it on racketing goods-trains, as it was not possible to attach a horse-box to an express.
The days before Flash’s departure passed all too quickly. Ginny had no heart for anything, and she spent most of her time with Flash. Tamara became impatient and told her sharply to stop slopping over him, but Andras and Bates and those of the customers who heard about it were very sympathetic. Tamara was asked to take White Lion and give a demonstration in the indoor school at Knightsbridge Barracks that Friday, the day after Flash’s departure, and she accepted with delight. Ginny found it impossible to feel any pleasure on her behalf. Tamara was being so heartless about Flash that it did not seem possible that she was the same person who had told Ginny to bring him with her and fatten him up at her expense. Ginny began to wonder seriously about finding herself a new job, in spite of the many things that she would hate leaving, for she thought that she would never again be able to like Tamara Blake, or feel any sympathy or admiration for her.
Thursday was hot and sultry, and as she saddled Flash sadly for what was to be the last time, Ginny hoped that there would not be a storm. Flash hated storms, and a leaky horse-box would be thoroughly uncomfortable.
“Would you like me to come with you?” Andras asked her, as she led Flash out of his box.
Tamara had dumped a hay-net at the station on a trip into town that morning.
“No, thanks; I’ll manage,” Ginny assured him, and he guessed rightly that she would prefer to say goodbye to her horse alone.
Tamara watched her mount from inside Gambler’s box, fighting down a sudden rush of sympathy for the red-headed child and her horse. Ginny did not deserve sympathy, she told herself. She knew that she had successfully destroyed Ginny’s affection for her, and she convinced herself that it was what she had wanted to do. But all the same she was glad when Flash had left the yard and his hoof-beats faded away down the drive. Ignoring Andras’s obvious disappointment in her at the way she had ignored their departure, she led Gambler out and mounted him for half an hour’s work in the school. After all, what did Andras’s opinion matter?
The ride along main roads to Hampton station was very hot, and a seemingly endless stream of coast-bound traffic roared past them across the melting tarmac. The sharp clatter of Flash’s hooves was partly deadened by the hot, soft tar, and he was sweating a little, dark patches appearing on his neck and flanks. They were due at the station at four-fifteen, and although it was ten past already, Ginny could not bear to make Flash hurry, and lose him more quickly than she had to. They made their way down the high street of the picturesque village as the clock on the old market hall struck the quarter hour. Thursday was market day, and the streets were crowded. The train did not leave until a quarter to five, but the box had to be shunted on, and the railway officials liked to leave time for possible difficulties. Ginny knew that she was not going to be popular. But what did that matter, when this was the last time she would see Flash?
It was after twenty past when she reached the turning into the station approach, and Flash’s ears went sharply forward at the sight of the strange street. The horse-box was in the loading bay, beside the cattle-pens, its ramp down on to the cobbled platform. Ginny saw the dusty red paint on the outside, and the scarred, yellow-painted interior with the sun slanting in across the heavy metal manger, and suddenly she knew that she could not do it. She just could not lead her beloved horse into the hot, dark box, and see the ramp raised and the box shunted away, taking him out of her life for ever. She brought Flash to a sudden halt in the middle of the deserted station road. Down here it was very quiet. The roar and bustle of the high street was hidden by the walls of the old houses, the rush of cattle from the market had ended, and the next train due was the one that the horse-box would go on. A thick, thundery haze was spreading across the hot sky, veiling the sun, and making the Downs look distant and misty. Ginny knew that she was not being reasonable. If she did not load Flash now, and if she let the train go without him she would only have to go through the same thing in a few days’ time. For Flash was not hers, and unless Vic would agree to sell him, which he would not, there was no way that she could keep him. But reasonable or not, she could not bear to load him at that moment. Almost without thinking of what she was doing, she swung him round and rode at a fast trot back up the station approach into Market Street, and turned Flash’s head away from home, towards the open country and the hazy rise and fall of the South Downs against the darkening sky.
She hardly noticed where she was going, but rode on and on, sometimes at a walk, sometimes trotting or cantering, leaving the main roads for quiet, leafy lanes, where the hazy sunlight fell in dappled shapes across the white, dusty gravel, and Flash’s hooves sounded sharp and clear in the heavy stillness. They reached the foot of the Downs as the haze, now thickened to cloud, hid the sun and turned the slopes of the bare hills to lurid, electric green, and Ginny turned Flash into a rough chalk track which led upwards through a straggling wood towards the bare, thyme-scented heights above them. The bay was sweating hard by now, lather creaming white under the girth and the straps of the bridle and the head-collar he wore beneath it, and running in dark streaks down his hind legs, but his ears still pricked forward with eager interest in these new surroundings, and Ginny let him walk now on a loose rein, stretching his neck, while she began to realize what she had done and wondered why. There was nowhere she could take him to hide him; if there was Vic could accuse her of stealing his horse, and it would in any case only delay the inevitable. She was tired and hot, her hair stuck to her damp forehead and the back of her neck, and her bare arms were hot and pink from the long ride in the burning, thundery sunlight. Flash climbed on and on, digging his toes into the slippery chalk, and using his hocks in a way that would have delighted Ginny a few weeks ago. Now, however, she did not even notice. The wood dropped away behind them, and they were out on the open downland. Below, Sussex lay in a blue, hazy patchwork that faded into Surrey, and still farther the lower, wooded slopes of the North Downs hid the straggling suburbs of London.
A hot gust of wind met them as they reached the first crest, lifting Flash’s black mane into a ridge along his neck, and ruffling Ginny’s damp hair. Out over the sea the sky was black and lurid, with wisps of black cloud racing below the heavy mass of white-edged thunder-heads. Ginny rode on, blind to the weather and her direction, wrestling miserably with her problem, torn agonizingly between love of Flash and the thought of what his life would be like in Vic Tyler’s hands, and the knowledge that she had no right to keep him and that what she was doing was utterly useless and very silly.
They were right on top of the Downs, with the great open sweep of the hills all around them, the short brown turf, scented with thyme and shaded by drifts of nodding harebells, gashed here and there by white outcroppings of chalk, when the first streak of blue lightning shone suddenly against the black sky out to sea, and the thunder burst in a long roll across the coast. Flash started, lifting his head and pricking his ears, his back suddenly tense beneath the saddle, and Ginny remembered belatedly that he had always hated storms, and she realized that this was far from being the best of places to be caught in one.
There was a close thicket of hawthorn in a deep gulley about half a mile away, and Ginny sent Flash into a fast canter towards it. The rain swept over them before they had covered half the distance, coming like a solid curtain, sharp with wind-driven spears of water, blinding Ginny, and making her gasp, and forcing Flash to duck his head between his knees. And the thunder came with it, in a tearing roar that seemed to split the sky, and sent Flash bounding forward in terror, his shoes skidding on the newly wet turf and the dry chalk beneath, as they started down the steep slope into the gulley. The hawthorns stood solid and twisted under the violence of the storm, and Flash made for them like a hunted animal, seeming to recognize the shelter that they offered, as the lightning sliced in many-tongued streaks across the sky, and the shapes of the Downs vanished completely behind the sheeting rain.
Ginny clung desperately to the mane, her knees digging into the flaps of her saddle, as Flash crashed his way down the slope, sitting on his tail with his hind legs beneath him and his forelegs braced out in front. She could not see; her hair was plastered to her head, and her breath snatched away by the fury of the elements. There was some kind of path leading into the heart of the bushes, and they made for it frantically. Ginny never saw the two strands of barbed wire stretched from tree to tree around the edge, or the weathered notice-board warning people of the hidden quarry which was the reason for it being fenced off. The first she knew of it was when Flash, having regained his footing a little, tried to bound into the cover, seeing no more of the wire than she did. His head vanished, and she felt him turning over with her, realizing dimly at the same moment that he was caught in something, then she was flying through the air, something struck her head with tremendous force, and everything went black.
When Ginny opened her eyes again it was quite dark, and for some minutes she had no idea where she was. She was very cold and soaking wet, and there was a heavy, pounding, throbbing pain in her head. Water seemed to be pouring over and around her, water and small stones, though it did not seem to be raining. Then she heard the sound of heavy breathing close to her, and a sudden clatter and scramble which subsided into the breathing once more. Turning her head she saw, against the lesser darkness of the sky at the top of the black slope, the big, ungainly bulk of an animal, lying on its side, and suddenly she knew where she was, and sat up. The world seemed to spin wildly around her, and pain burst through her head, making her feel sick. Gradually, as the earth steadied and her eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness, she realized that Flash was still entangled in whatever had brought him down, and she felt for his head, seeing the gleam of light in his eyes, and feeling his breath warm on her hand. He was still very much alive, and as she touched him he tried once more to get up, but without success. His front legs, she discovered with more feeling, seemed to be fastened together with the wire, and he was cast against the slope, his feet higher than his head, making it almost impossible for him to rise even if he was free.
Water was still pouring down the slope into the gulley, and they seemed to be in the main stream of it. Ginny wondered vaguely how long they had been lying there, and how on earth she was going to get Flash out. Tamara will be furious, she thought hazily, trying to untangle the wire, and catching her fingers on the barbs. She received a sharp blow in the arm from one of Flash’s hooves as he again tried to rise, and, unable to see what she was doing, she was afraid of making things worse. Bending down made her head throb so badly that she could not think, and she had to turn away to be sick. Afterwards she felt a little better, but horribly weak, and she was shivering violently in her sodden clothes. She hated leaving Flash, but she knew that she would have to find help. Stumbling past his helpless body, she started laboriously up the steep, slippery slope. She had to stop several times to rest, overwhelmed by weakness and nausea, but at last she gained the top, and stopped to look round. The sky was clearing, the cloud moving away to reveal stretches of star-spangled sky, and the cool breeze seemed to blow right through her. The edge of the Downs hid the lights of the coastal towns, and in the other direction the lights of Sussex were also hidden, but, turning to look along the Downs, she saw two flickering lights apparently in the middle of nowhere. With a last helpless glance down into the darkness where Flash lay she started towards them.
It seemed a very long walk. The lights never seemed to get any closer, and, unable to see where she was putting her feet, Ginny blundered into wire fences and fell into hollows, stumbled over tussocks, and slipped on almost sheer slopes. Her legs shook beneath her, the weaker leg starting to ache until it turned her left side to a cold mass of pain, while the throbbing in her head increased until she closed her eyes and stumbled on blindly, only peering now and then to make sure that the lights were still there. Nothing but the memory of Flash helpless and bleeding in the gulley gave her the undreamed-of will-power to keep on walking, until suddenly the lights were no longer miles away, but only a few yards, and she cut her hands on the rough stones of the farm wall. Feeling her way along it, she came to a gate, and pushed her way in. Very far away, it seemed, a dog was barking, and there was a sudden fluttering and squawking of disturbed fowls as she blundered against the door of a barn. Then she was on the doorstep, finding a bell, and pressing, hearing its far-off ring, and slumping against the wall until the door suddenly opened to emit a blinding glow of light.
“What …?” exclaimed a man’s voice, and someone took her arm and pulled her into the hall. “Audrey,” he shouted. “Come here. What happened, Miss? Car crash?”
“I was riding,” Ginny heard herself say. “Got caught in the storm. Flash, my horse, got caught in some wire in a gulley. Please get him out. He’ll die.”
“Fred,” exclaimed a woman’s voice. “What’s happened? Oh, you poor child! Take her upstairs, Fred. Put her on Mary’s bed.”
“But Flash,” insisted Ginny. “Please do something.” Her head cleared a little, and she saw that the man was short and stocky, with a cheerful, ruddy face, while his wife was slight and fair. “He’s in a gulley with some hawthorns in it, and some kind of wire fence round the edge. You must hurry.”
“I know the place,” Fred assured her, “We’ll just get you upstairs, then Art and me’ll be off to get him. Don’t you worry now.”
He picked her up, and Ginny had a vague impression of being taken upstairs and laid down on a bed, and of Audrey shouting something about telephoning the doctor after him as he went out.
“Not until he’s got Flash,” begged Ginny.
“He’ll get your horse, don’t worry,” soothed the woman.
She began to undress Ginny, and another, older woman came in with towels and blankets, and switched on a fire. Ginny, realizing that there was nothing more she could do, relaxed, and the room and the two women drifted away from her as she sank down and down into soft darkness.
When Ginny did not return on the next bus, as expected, Tamara and Andras merely supposed that she had waited to see the train leave and probably gone to have a quiet cry somewhere afterwards. But when time went on and there was still no sign of her, Tamara had the first twinge of doubt. Surely Ginny could not have done anything silly, such as returning to Branton with the horse? At six o’clock the station telephoned and told Tamara indignantly that though they realized something might have prevented the horse from being loaded at the last minute, they did think she might have informed them by now, so that the box could either be shunted into sidings or left ready to go on the next possible train.
“But the horse left here on time,” said Tamara, astonished.
“It didn’t reach us,” replied the man.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what can have happened,” Tamara told him. “I’ll look into it.”
She rang off and turned an annoyed face to Andras and Bates, who had been listening.
“It looks as though dear little Ginny has run away, taking that horse with her,” she told them.
“What shall we do?” asked Andras.
Tamara shrugged. “Wait,” she replied. “She may come back. If not, she won’t come to any harm. It’s a warm evening.”
“It is a stormy one,” amended Andras, glancing out of the tack-room door at the thickening haze.
“That’s her lookout,” said Tamara shortly. “I’m not going to trail round the country begging her to come back. She’ll turn up when she’s hungry.”
“You are a very hard woman sometimes,” Andras told her quietly. “It is a great shame, for I think really you do not feel as little as you would have us think.”
Tamara glared at him. “Thank you for the analysis,” she retorted, and stalked out into the yard.
Andras sighed, and Bates said, “You’re right, you know. She’s worried sick about the kid, really. Never known her take such a liking to anyone as she did to young Ginny.”
“She has a strange way of showing it,” said Andras.
“She’s scared to show it, that’s all,” replied Bates calmly. “She’ll be off to look for Ginny soon, you’ll see.”
He was right. By seven it was obvious that they were in for a good storm, and Tamara informed them abruptly that she was going to find Ginny and drag her home. She backed the old car out of the barn and drove away down the drive trailing clouds of blue exhaust smoke. But though she did not return until the storm was dying away towards London in a sulky muttering of thunder, leaving behind it a clearing sky and a fresh twilight, she had failed to trace Ginny farther than a farm about four miles beyond Hampton, on a lane in a maze of others which could have taken her almost anywhere. She no longer tried to hide her anxiety. Two hours of driving alone round the storm-soaked lanes had altered that.
“I’ll have to phone the police,” she told them. “She could have been hurt in that storm. Flash is always a fool in thunder. And if she got as far as the Downs she could have been struck. Why did I let her go to the station alone?”
“She would not have company, I offered mine,” Andras told her. “It is not your fault.”
“I didn’t even offer,” Tamara told him.
The police had no news, but they promised to put out a general call. Tamara could not sit still, she paced about the tack-room, absent-mindedly feeling bits of tack and straightening perfectly straight bridles, going out into the yard to listen, and walking to the top of the drive and back. Andras sat on a chair facing the door, watching her, and Bates seized the opportunity to oil some seldom-used tack. At last Tamara came back into the light from the tack-room and stood looking at them. Her face was white and set, her strange eyes desperate. The scars stood out vividly on her face, and they could both feel the tension in her.
“Can’t we do anything?” she demanded. “I can’t stand this much longer.”
“We could search once more,” suggested Andras.
“No. I must wait in case she phones.”
Tamara swung round to look back at the yard, and for a moment the silence in the tack-room was electric with their listening. But it was nothing. Another hour passed; it was almost eleven-thirty. Outside the evening was very quiet, only a slight breeze stirred the trees along the drive, and in the tack-room Tamara had made tea and cut some thick sandwiches which she did not eat, although the two men got through a large proportion of them. Then the sudden shrill ringing of the telephone brought even the unshakable Bates to his feet. Tamara reached it first, and grabbed the receiver.
“Hampton Dressage Centre,” she said tensely.
Watching her face, Andras saw the tension relax a little, and a shadow of relief come into her eyes. Then she said, “Thanks. I’ll get over there as fast as I can.”
“What has happened?” demanded Andras, as she put down the receiver.
“Ginny’s at a farmhouse on the Downs behind Lancing,” Tamara told them. “She may be on her way to hospital by now. They were caught in the storm, she tried to shelter, and Flash fell in some wire. She arrived at the farm in a state of collapse, and sent someone back to get him out. They’ve got him to the farm, but he’s in rather a mess. I’m going to fetch him now in the box.”
“I will come with you,” said Andras immediately.
“All right. Bates, will you put down an extra deep bed in his box and call the vet?” asked Tamara. “And have a mash and some hot water ready.”
Out in the dark yard they climbed into the box and Tamara backed it round to face the drive, the lights slicing a broad white path through the darkness. They talked little on the way to the Downs, and Tamara took the Lancing road from Bramber, driving slowly up the steep, single-track road, looking out for the lights of the farm, which should be the second that they came to. “There,” said Andras suddenly, and Tamara slowed down.
The farm was below the road, and they approached it down a steep, rutted chalk track. There were lights on in the house and barn, and an ambulance stood by the door, its own doors open, and light flooding out on to the muddy paving-stones of the yard. Tamara stopped the box by the barn, switched off the engine, and jumped down, followed by Andras. They reached the house just as the door opened to emit two ambulance men carrying a stretcher, and Tamara saw Ginny’s red hair on the pillow, and the deathly pallor of her face with the eyes closed and lips colourless. A slight, fair-haired woman followed the stretcher, and she saw Tamara and Andras immediately.
“Are you Miss Blake?” she asked. “The police told us they’d contacted you.”
“Yes, they did,” agreed Tamara. “How is she?”
“Poor child! She’s been unconscious since she finished telling us about her horse,” Audrey told her. “The doctor doesn’t think there’s any fracture, though—just concussion and shock. He wants to get an X-ray as soon as possible, just in case.”
“Andras, I’m going with her,” Tamara told him. “You take Flash home.”
“Yes, I will do that,” agreed Andras. “You should certainly go with her.”
“Is the horse very bad?” Tamara asked Audrey.
“His legs are very torn,” the woman told her. “But the worst of it was his being so wet and cold. Fred’s scared he might take a bad chill from it.”
“I will go to him,” said Andras. “Telephone me when you are ready to be fetched from the hospital, Miss Blake.”
Tamara agreed and climbed into the ambulance after Ginny. Andras crossed the yard to the barn.
Flash was tied up in one of the stalls, a couple of sacks thrown over his loins, and a bundle of hay in the manger. The short, stocky farmer was bathing the cuts on his forelegs watched by a tall, thin, gloomy-looking boy of about eighteen. They both looked up in relief as Andras entered.
The cuts, as Audrey had told them, were nasty, but unless anything went wrong they would heal in time, though Flash would probably be blemished. With almost unbelievable luck the tendons were not touched. But he was still very wet, and his ears, in spite of the walk to the farm and Fred’s efforts, were icy, and long shivers were running through him. Andras fetched the rugs from the box and put them over the horse in place of the sacks, and Fred agreed with him that the best thing to do would be get him home as quickly as possible. All the serious bleeding had stopped, and it was not a long drive. Flash was loaded slowly and carefully, and Andras thanked the family for all their help, and offered to pay for the telephone calls they had made and Flash’s food. This was refused very definitely and, before he moved the box back into the steep track and started carefully for home, Andras promised to let the farmer know how both Ginny and Flash fared.