“Now let’s have lunch,” shouted June above the stream and Radio One.
We took off the horses’ nosebandless bridles and held them by their head collars, which they were wearing underneath, with the ropes knotted round their necks in true trekking style. Mum had made my lunch – a neat packet of sandwiches and an apple. June was gnawing a chicken leg and eating crisps.
I looked at the moor: green, bluish- green, yellowish-green, greyish-green and bracken-green, it filled our view. On the lower land groups of ponies and cattle grazed industriously. Beyond them, hills rose through heathered heights to cut the skyline with craggy outcrops of rock. I shared my apple with Mercury and then got out the map. Cat’s Tor was there, the third highest tor on the moor, but to reach it was the problem.
“Do turn that radio down and take an interest,” I screamed at June. “It’s not fair to leave everything to me.
“You take it all so seriously,” complained June. “It’s supposed to be fun.”
It took us three hours to reach the tor, and by then the sky was overcast and storm clouds hid the view.
“I wanted to show you where we live, but we can’t even see the sea,” complained June.
We explored the summit, looking for an object to describe in the trek diary.
“A mouldy old heap of stones, not even in the shape of a cat, that’s how I should describe it,” said June.
“Perhaps we’re on the wrong tor,” I wailed as the thought struck me. June would only giggle.
We rode down to the only farm in sight. It stood among tiny fields fenced by banks, small and grey among its matching farm buildings. I hated knocking on doors and talking to strangers. June didn’t seem to mind. She was soon in the kitchen, talking to Mrs Copplestone about the difficulties of running a hotel, while I held the horses on the doorstep. Presently she emerged carrying a huge key and a Cornish pasty.
“It’s up there,” she said, pointing. “There’s a pump for water and if you want a bath you bathe in the stream – ugh!” She shuddered.
Mercury was very pleased to see Shepherd’s Cottage, with its small, stone barn and little paddock. He’d been wondering for some time where his next meal was coming from.
We found the pump and the store of oats and bran and nuts we’d been told would be provided at each stopping-place, and we left the horses tied up in the barn eating their feeds while we went to explore the cottage. It was quite plain: two rooms up and two down, a cupboard with a few cups and plates, a frying-pan, a saucepan and a kettle. The furniture consisted of two camp beds, two canvas chairs and a wooden table.
June was looking for the loo. “There must be one,” she said, “and if I don’t find it soon I’ll burst.”
I decided to light the fire. There was a great pile of logs and sticks in the porch and newspapers in the cupboard. I had a box of matches. It lit all right, but the chimney was damp or something and smoke filled the room, making my eyes smart and water. It was just beginning to settle down when June crashed in, creating a sudden draught which sent smoke everywhere.
“It’s right down the end of the garden!” she shrieked. “Hideous if anyone has to go in the night. The garden’s full of nettles.”
“Shut the door,” I shouted disagreeably.
June shut it and stood looking at me. I didn’t care if I had offended her. I was tired of being the sensible, practical one, of doing everything.
“The horses have both finished,” she said. “Shall I turn Mercury out for you?”
“No, I must come and groom him,” I answered. “He can’t go out with a saddle mark.”
“Why not?” asked June. “He’ll roll.”
“You didn’t read the trek instructions very carefully,” I told her. “Horsemastership counts.”
“Oh, all right, then, but I do wish you didn’t take it all so seriously,” complained June.
Later we ate a very peculiar meal of Cornish pasty, my tinned stew, June’s fish-fingers, baked beans and Crunchie bars and my apple-pie. Afterwards we quarrelled over whether we should clean our tack. June said that no one in their senses would come all this way just to look at our tack, that hers wasn’t dirty – she’d cleaned it the night before – and that, anyway, she hadn’t brought her saddle soap. We quarrelled again over the trek diary. I wanted to write a serious account of our journey. June seemed determined to send the whole thing up. Finally she said, “Okay, you write it, then;’ and, turning up the radio, she removed her eye-shadow and got into bed. We’d brought the beds into the living-room so that we could sleep by the fire.
I woke full of bitter memories, hating June. She seemed quite cheerful. She showed me the insides of her knees. “Look, rubbed raw,” she said.
“If you'd had the sense to wear jodhpurs it wouldn’t have happened,” I told her.
“Too late now,” she laughed. “I expect they’ll harden off. Anyway, I must just put up with it.”
“Didn’t you bring any plasters?” I asked.
“No, I couldn’t find any at home. Besides, poor old Val was already groaning under the weight of me and my luggage.”
“You are incompetent. I don’t know what you have brought besides make-up,” I said. “Here, I suppose you’d better have some of mine.”
“No, thanks; I’ll be all right,” June answered.
We didn’t talk much after that until we’d fed the horses and had our own breakfasts; then we had to discuss our plans.
“Trewester is quite a big village,” I said, looking at the map. “We can buy tonight’s supper there.” We were only supposed to carry one day’s food with us. “But we ought to collect some of these extra points for enterprise. There are some barrows marked here on the hills above Black Moor Cross, and a hill fort near Three Lanes.”
“Toss up,” suggested June. “Or there’s a place called the Devil’s Kitchen, which might be a bit more interesting.”
“If you turned off that radio,” I said, “I might be able to think.”
We left Shepherd’s Cottage under a dark and lowering sky, returned the key to Mrs Copplestone, who gloomily forecast a downpour but helpfully pointed out the track leading over the shoulder of High Tor, which we must take to Dowberry Pool.
We were on High Tor and had left the track for a sheep path which meandered among rocks and boulders, when the first rain fell. The clouds were gathered now, black and menacing. We stopped and put on our mackintoshes. A few moments later the rain was lashing us, stinging our hands and faces. The horses went crabwise, trying to protect their heads. We were on the exposed side of the Tor and there was no shelter anywhere. As we slipped and slithered, with water oozing down our necks, I comforted myself with a fantasy. June and I – the newcomers – would astonish everyone by our conquest of the wild and inhospitable moor, while our stable management and map-reading would both prove far superior to that of the local members. I was just imagining a little scene, with Mr Cale saying, “Their trek diary really is a model – no, a remarkable document. I must read you all an extract,” when a horrible thought panicked me. I turned in my saddle and fumbled frantically with the sodden strap and buckle of a saddlebag. Washing things, first-aid kit, matches, raisins, knife, socks – no, there was no exercise book! I tried the other saddlebag, though I knew it contained only Mercury’s luggage, dandy-brush, hoof pick, saddle soap and lunchtime feed. I felt my pockets and then gave a sort of moan.
June, who was ahead, turned in her saddle.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“The trek diary,” I answered. “You didn’t pack it, did you?”
“No; I thought you were looking after it.”
I couldn’t blame June. I’d made it clear that I considered myself the keeper of the diary. “We must go back,” I said.
“Oh, no, not in this,” protested June. “We’ve been riding for well over an hour.”
“We must,” I insisted. “They’ll think we’re hopelessly incompetent if we turn up without it. We’ll be the worst pair o
f the lot.
“Who cares what they think?” asked June.
I knew that I did. “You wait here or ride on slowly and I’ll go back. It’s my fault,” I added unwillingly.
June wouldn’t hear of this. She said we’d been told all along that we must stick together and that Chris, who climbed with a youth club, had said that this was absolutely right.
“I don’t mind going down in history as the most hopeless pair on record – really, I don’t,” she assured me.
I did. I could see Mum and Dad’s disappointed faces, hear their faintly reproachful tones.
“We must go back,” I said. “For one thing, I can’t remember tomorrow’s instructions.”
“We could telephone Mrs Cale from Coinworthy and ask her what they were,” suggested June.
“No, we couldn’t,” I answered.
June groaned. “Oh, well, but let’s make sure that you haven’t got it first. What about your sleeping bag? You may have rolled it up in there.”
We unpacked everything. Fortunately, the rain had slackened to a drizzle; but we found no diary.
We turned back. June gave me half a Crunchie – she seemed to have an inexhaustible supply – and switched on the radio. Mercury had sensed my incompetence; he no longer went with pricked ears, but became irritable and stumbled at intervals.
We had ridden for about twenty minutes when, having looked in vain for landmarks, I voiced my growing fears. “June, this isn’t the path we came up, is it? We ought to be able to see the farm by now.”
“I was just thinking that too,” agreed June.
I tried to get out the map, but Mercury wouldn’t stand still, so I had to dismount. The map would blow about and I couldn’t make out where north was any more; I’d lost my sense of direction. I became more and more flustered and shouted at the fidgeting Mercury as I searched feverishly for my compass.
June took the map from me. “Look,” she said, “we must have gone too far round to the left. If we go on down and then keep on going round to the right we shall find the farm again.”
“But if there’s no track in the right direction we may get into a bog,” I pointed out.
“Well, we’ve got eyes and I’d rather risk a bog than make poor old Val carry me up that hill again,” answered June.
I felt hopeless and I knew that I had no sensible suggestion to offer, so we rode on down the narrow path between the scattered boulders which looked like the debris left by a giants’ battle. Below us the grey waste of the moor stretched roadless and houseless for as far as we could see. It began to rain hard again; squalls lashed at us from every direction. My hands turned blue and would hardly hold the wet, slippery reins. I felt deeply dispirited, downcast by my inefficiency, I who had complained of June. And the fact that she hadn’t reproached me filled me with a strange mixture of relief and shame.
Suddenly Mercury swung round, cannoning into Valentine. “Sorry,” I said as my knee cracked against June’s and we shot past her up the path.
When I had Mercury under control again I turned back. June had dismounted. “There’s a pony lying here and there’s something wrong with it,” she called.
I hurried the snorting Mercury back. A small bay mare lay flat on her side, just off the path. Her nostrils were wide and her breathing laboured; her eyes were filmed and all around her was a trodden muddy patch as though she’d been pawing in pain or struggling to get up for a very long time.
June had let go of Val and was feeling the pony’s legs. “They don’t seem broken,” she said, “but she’s sweating; it’s not just rain,” she added as she felt the dark, wet coat.
“We must keep her warm,” I said, “and if it’s colic she ought to be walked about. Do you think we could get her up?”
June tried to raise the pony’s head and neck, but she was too sick to care who pulled her about; she just flopped back again without any expression in her dull, filmed eyes.
“We’ll have to fetch help,” June said.
We unzipped our sleeping bags and laid them over the pony and then, with a quick look round to memorise the spot, we hurried down the path. June jumped off several times and made lipstick crosses on convenient rocks. “I can just see a hideous situation with us unable to find her,” she said breathlessly as she climbed back on Val for the fourth time.
The path brought us at last to a grassy cart track. It looked recently used and purposefully straight.
“Which way?” asked June.
“Downhill, I should think,” I answered.
I was looking back at the path. Landmarkless, it was already fading into the moor; I ripped off my Pony Club tie and fastened it to a stout thistle; then I pursued June down the track. It was wonderful to be able to express feelings of urgency, to be able to gallop flat out. Signs of civilisation, banks, stone walls, gates, materialised beside us. Ahead, concealed in this little hollow, was a small grey farmhouse – not the Copplestones’, but another very like it. We came to a gate and clattered through into a farmyard. I looked in the farm buildings while June hammered on the farmhouse door.
“There’s a pony very ill up on the hillside,” I heard her say.
“Oh dear, and I’ve got the baby poorly and my husband’s had to go into town…”
I joined June. “It’s a small bay mare with two white socks and a star,” I said.
The farmer’s wife looked at us helplessly.
“Couldn’t you telephone for a vet?” suggested June. “We don’t have no telephone here. Nearest one’s about two miles away, up on the moor road.”
“We can go. We’ll phone him,” June and I both offered at once. “Just tell us how to get there,” I added.
The farmer’s wife was not to be hurried. “It’ll be one of our ponies, I expect,” she said. “A little bay? That’ll be the new Welsh one; she had colic a week or two ago. Just a minute now while I call Johnnie.”
We waited. I was expecting Johnnie to be a strong young man, a typical farmer’s son, who’d take charge. When he came he looked about eight. His mother told him what had happened.
“I’ll gallop to the phone on Taffy,” he lisped rather than spoke, for both his front teeth were missing. “What’s Mr Hobbes’s number, Mum?” He ran to a sheep-pen, plonked a felt pad and a nosebandless bridle on a tiny brown pony, scrambled up, and then, with his elbows and gumbooted legs waving, was off, galloping up the track.
“If you think it’s colic, do you have a drench?” I asked the farmer’s wife. “I know how to give one.”
That was a long, long afternoon. June and I rode back up the hillside and drenched the pony. We spilled a lot. It was awkward getting the pony’s head high enough, especially as I had to keep Mercury’s reins looped round my arm, but we comforted ourselves with the fact that she was a very small pony and couldn’t possibly need a whole bottle. We wrapped her up in the sleeping bags again, gave our horses their lunch-time feeds and settled down to wait in the rain.
Johnnie visited us at intervals, first to tell us that the vet was out on a farm somewhere but would be sent as soon as he could be found, and then with a flask of tea. Val and Mercury became increasingly restless and the radio batteries gave out and the rain turned to sleet. But we were cheered because the pony seemed a little better; she raised her head to look at our horses and when she lay back again her eyes seemed brighter, less filmed. June felt under the sleeping bags and announced that she was warm and quite reasonably dry.
Then Johnnie reappeared to say that the vet had left his Land Rover on the track and was walking up.
Mr Hobbes was a small, quiet man. He examined the pony and said that it was definitely colic and that he would give her a shot of morphine to deaden the pain and then it might be possible to walk her down to the farm.
“Lucky you found her,” he told us as he filled his hypodermic syringe. “She’d have been dead by morning.”
Then, as we waited for the injection to work, Johnnie reappeared on a now rather weary-looking Taffy to annou
nce that his father was just coming and bringing a halter and rug.
June and I decided that it was time to be on our way and we asked for the quickest route to the Hendersons’ at Coinworthy; all the places of interest had had it as far as we were concerned, but it seemed that there was no shorter way. We rolled up our sodden sleeping bags and set out across the grey, rain-soaked moor as the men heaved the little pony to her feet and started on their long, slow journey down to the farm.
We saw a watery sunset over Dowberry Pool, we clattered past Black Moor Cross without stopping to read the legend of its Celtic saint; Trewester’s grocer had long since closed, and the church spire was dark and sharp against the twilight sky. I began to wonder what sort of reception we would get from the Hendersons, arriving hours late without food or trek diary, pictures of bedraggled incompetence.
“They’ve probably been searching the moor for us for hours; they’re probably furious. We ought to have telephoned,” I fussed.
June giggled. “Some hope,” she said, “seeing that these are the first houses we’ve seen for hours.”
“My parents practically have nervous breakdowns if I’m half an hour late,” I said gloomily. “I hope they haven’t been told we’re missing.”
“Ours never know where we are,” said June. “They’re far too busy with the hotel. They just about count heads at bedtime.”
Our clopping hoofs sounded very loud in the dusk-shrouded street of Coinworthy and then at last we came to the Hendersons’ white gates. Mercury and Val were delighted to turn in and to see the stables and hear their tentative whinnies answered by a loud chorus of neighs. June and I dismounted stiffly and began to apologise to the dark figures which gathered round us.
“We know, we know,” said the Hendersons. “Jack Hobbes telephoned us as soon as he was off the moor. He said two of our girls would be a bit late clocking in, but that you’d been doing a grand job.”
The Pullein-Thompson Treasury of Horse and Pony Stories Page 33