For Kicks

by Dick Francis

  The next morning Jerry’s horse Mickey disappeared from the yard while we were out at second exercise, but Cass told him Jud had run him down to a friend of Humber’s on the coast, for Mickey to paddle in the sea water to strengthen his legs, and that he would be back that evening. But the evening came, and Mickey did not.

  On Wednesday Humber ran another horse, and I missed my lunch to have a look inside his house while he was away. Entry was easy through an open ventilator, but I could find nothing whatever to give me any clue as to how the doping was carried out.

  All day Thursday I fretted about Mickey being still away at the coast. It sounded perfectly reasonable. It was what a trainer about twelve miles from the sea could be expected to arrange. Sea water was good for horses’ legs. But something happened to horses sometimes at Humber’s which made it possible for them to be doped later, and I had a deeply disturbing suspicion that whatever it was was happening to Mickey at this moment, and that I was missing my only chance of finding it out.

  According to the accounts books Adams owned four of the racehorses in the yard, in addition to his two hunters. None of his racehorses was known in the yard by its real name: therefore Mickey could be any one of the four. He could in fact be Kandersteg or Starlamp. It was an even chance that he was one or the other, and was due to follow in Superman’s footsteps. So I fretted.

  On Friday morning a hired box took the stable runner to Haydock races, and Jud and Humber’s own box remained in the yard until lunch time. This was a definite departure from normal; and I took the opportunity of noting the mileage on the speedometer.

  Jud drove the box out of the yard while we were still eating the midday sludge, and we didn’t see him come back as we were all out on the gallop furthest away from the stables sticking back into place the divots kicked out of the soft earth that week by the various training activities; but when we returned for evening stables at four, Mickey was back in his own quarters.

  I climbed up into the cab of the horse box and looked at the mileage indicator. Jud had driven exactly sixteen and a half miles. He had not, in fact, been as far as the coast. I thought some very bitter thoughts.

  When I had finished doing my two racehorses I carried the brushes and pitch forks along to see to Adams’ black hunter, and found Jerry leaning against the wall outside Mickey’s next door box with tears running down his cheeks.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, putting down my stuff.

  ‘Mickey… bit me,’ he said. He was shaking with pain and fright.

  ‘Let’s see.’

  I helped him slide his left arm out of his jersey, and took a look at the damage. There was a fierce red and purple circular weal on the fleshy part of his upper arm near the shoulder. It had been a hard, savage bite.

  Cass came over.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  But he saw Jerry’s arm, and didn’t need to be told. He looked over the bottom half of the door into Mickey’s box, then turned to Jerry and said, ‘His legs were too far gone for the sea water to cure them. The vet said he would have to put on a blister, and he did it this afternoon when Mickey got back. That’s what’s the matter with him. Feels a bit off colour, he does, and so would you if someone slapped a flaming plaster on your legs. Now you just stop this stupid blubbing and get right back in there and see to him. And you, Dan, get on with that hunter and mind your own bloody business.’ He went off along the row.

  ‘I can’t,’ whispered Jerry, more to himself than to me.

  ‘You’ll manage it,’ I said cheerfully.

  He turned to me a stricken face. ‘He’ll bite me again.’

  ‘I’m sure he won’t.’

  ‘He tried lots of times. And he’s kicking out something terrible. I daren’t go into his box…’ He stood stiffly, shivering with fright, and I realized that it really was beyond him to go back.

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll do Mickey and you do my hunter. Only do him well, Jerry, very well. Mr Adams is coming to ride him again tomorrow and I don’t want to spend another Saturday on my knees.’

  He looked dazed. ‘Ain’t no one done nothing like that for me before.’

  ‘It’s a swop,’ I said brusquely. ‘You mess up my hunter and I’ll bite you worse than Mickey did.’

  He stopped shivering and began to grin, which I had intended, and slipping his arm painfully back inside his jersey he picked up my brushes and opened the hunter’s door.

  ‘You won’t tell Cass?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘No,’ I reassured him; and unbolted Mickey’s box door.

  The horse was tied up safely enough, and wore on his neck a long wooden barred collar called a cradle which prevented his bending his head down to bite the bandages off his fore legs. Under the bandages, according to Cass, Mickey’s legs were plastered with ‘blister’, a sort of caustic paste used to contract and strengthen the tendons. Blistering was a normal treatment for dicky tendons. The only trouble was that Mickey’s legs had not needed treatment. They had been, to my eyes, as sound as rocks. But now, however, they were definitely paining him; at least as much as with a blister, and possibly more.

  As Jerry had indicated, Mickey was distinctly upset. He could not be soothed by hand or voice, but lashed forwards with his hind feet whenever he thought I was in range, and made equal use of his teeth. I was careful not to walk behind him, though he did his best to turn his quarters in my direction while I was banking up his straw bed round the back of the box. I fetched him hay and water, but he was not interested, and changed his rug, as the one he wore was soaked with sweat and would give him a chill during the night. Changing his rug was a bit of an obstacle race, but by warding off his attacks with the pitchfork I got it done unscathed.

  I took Jerry with me to the feed bins where Cass was doling out the right food for each horse, and when we got back to the boxes we solemnly exchanged bowls. Jerry grinned happily. It was infectious. I grinned back.

  Mickey didn’t want food either, not, that is, except lumps of me. He didn’t get any. I left him tied up for the night and took myself and Jerry’s sack of brushes to safety on the far side of the door. Mickey would, I hoped, have calmed down considerably by the morning.

  Jerry was grooming the black hunter practically hair by hair, humming tonelessly under his breath.

  ‘Are you done?’ I said.

  ‘Is he all right?’ he asked anxiously.

  I went in to have a look.

  ‘Perfect,’ I said truthfully. Jerry was better at strapping a horse than at most things; and the next day, to my considerable relief, Adams passed both hunters without remark and spoke hardly a word to me. He was in a hurry to be off to a distant meet, but all the same it seemed I had succeeded in appearing too spineless to be worth tormenting.

  Mickey was a good deal worse, that morning. When Adams had gone I stood with Jerry looking over the half-door of Mickey’s box. The poor animal had managed to rip one of the bandages off in spite of the cradle, and we could see a big raw area over his tendon.

  Mickey looked round at us with baleful eyes and flat ears, his neck stretched forward aggressively. Muscles quivered violently in his shoulders and hind quarters. I had never seen a horse behave like that except when fighting; and he was, I thought, dangerous.

  ‘He’s off his head,’ whispered Jerry, awestruck.

  ‘Poor thing.’

  ‘You ain’t going in?’ he said. ‘He looks like he’d kill you.’

  ‘Go and get Cass,’ I said. ‘No, I’m not going in, not without Cass knowing how things are, and Humber too. You go and tell Cass that Mickey’s gone mad. That ought to fetch him to have a look.’

  Jerry trotted off and returned with Cass, who seemed to be alternating between anxiety and scorn as he came within earshot. At the sight of Mickey anxiety abruptly took over, and he went to fetch Humber, telling Jerry on no account to open Mickey’s door.

  Humber came unhurriedly across the yard leaning on his stick, with Cass, who was a short man, tr
otting along at his side. Humber looked at Mickey for a good long time. Then he shifted his gaze to Jerry, who was standing there shaking again at the thought of having to deal with a horse in such a state, and then further along to me, where I stood at the door of the next box.

  ‘That’s Mr Adams’ hunter’s box,’ he said to me.

  ‘Yes, sir, he went with Mr Adams just now, sir.’

  He looked me up and down, and then Jerry the same, and finally said to Cass, ‘Roke and Webber had better change horses. I know they haven’t an ounce of guts between them, but Roke is much bigger, stronger and older.’ And also, I thought with a flash of insight, Jerry has a father and mother to make a fuss if he gets hurt, whereas against Roke in the next-of-kin file was the single word ‘none’.

  ‘I’m not going in there alone, sir,’ I said. ‘Cass will have to hold him off with a pitchfork while I muck him out.’ And even then, I thought, we’d both be lucky to get out without being kicked.

  Cass, to my amusement, hurriedly started telling Humber that if I was too scared to do it on my own he would get one of the other lads to help me. Humber however took no notice of either of us, but went back to staring sombrely at Mickey.

  Finally he turned to me and said, ‘Fetch a bucket and come over to the office.’

  ‘An empty bucket, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said impatiently, ‘an empty bucket.’ He turned and gently limped over to the long brick hut. I took the bucket out of the hunter’s box, followed him, and waited by the door.

  He came out with a small labelled glass-stoppered chemist’s jar in one hand and a teaspoon in the other. The jar was three-quarters full of white powder. He gestured to me to hold out the bucket, then he put half a teaspoonful of the powder into it.

  ‘Fill the bucket only a third full of water,’ he said. ‘And put it in Mickey’s manger, so that he can’t kick it over. It will quieten him down, once he drinks it.’

  He took the jar and spoon back inside the office, and I picked a good pinch of the white powder out of the bottom of the bucket and dropped it down inside the list of Humber’s horses in my money belt. I licked my fingers and thumb afterwards; the particles of powder clinging there had a faintly bitter taste. The jar, which I had seen in the cupboard in the washroom, was labelled ‘Soluble phenobarbitone’, and the only surprising factor was the amount of it that Humber kept available.

  I ran water into the bucket, stirred it with my hand and went back to Mickey’s box. Cass had vanished. Jerry was across the yard seeing to his third horse. I looked round for someone to ask for help, but everyone was carefully keeping out of sight. I cursed. I was not going into Mickey alone: it was just plain stupid to try it.

  Humber came back across the yard.

  ‘Get on in,’ he said.

  ‘I’d spill the water dodging him, sir.’

  ‘Huh.’

  Mickey’s hoofs thudded viciously against the wall.

  ‘You mean you haven’t got the guts.’

  ‘You’d need to be a bloody fool to go in there alone, sir,’ I said sullenly.

  He glared at me, but he must have seen it was no use insisting. He suddenly picked up the pitchfork from where it stood against the wall and transferred it to his right hand and the walking stick to his left.

  ‘Get on with it then,’ he said harshly. ‘And don’t waste time.’

  He looked incongruous, brandishing his two unconventional weapons while dressed like an advertisement for Country Life. I hoped he was going to be as resolute as he sounded.

  I unbolted Mickey’s door and we went in. It had been an injustice to think Humber might turn tail and leave me there alone: he behaved as coldly as ever, as if fear were quite beyond his imagination. Efficiently he kept Mickey penned first to one side of the box and then to the other while I mucked out and put down fresh straw, remaining steadfastly at his post while I cleaned the uneaten food out of the manger and wedged the bucket of doped water in place. Mickey didn’t make it easy for him, either. The teeth and hooves were busier and more dangerous than the night before.

  It was especially aggravating in the face of Humber’s coolness to have to remember to behave like a bit of a coward myself, though I minded less than if he had been Adams.

  When I had finished the jobs Humber told me to go out first, and he retreated in good order after me, his well-pressed suit scarcely rumpled from his exertions.

  I shut the door and bolted it, and did my best to look thoroughly frightened. Humber looked me over with disgust.

  ‘Roke,’ he said sarcastically, ‘I hope you will feel capable of dealing with Mickey when he is half asleep with drugs?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ I muttered.

  ‘Then in order not to strain your feeble stock of courage I suggest we keep him drugged for some days. Every time you fetch him a bucket of water you can get Cass or me to put some sedative in it. Understand?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Right.’ He dismissed me with a chop of his hand.

  I carried the sack of dirty straw round to the muck heap, and there took a close look at the bandage which Mickey had dislodged. Blister is a red paste. I had looked in vain for red paste on Mickey’s raw leg; and there was not a smear of it on the bandage. Yet from the size and severity of the wound there should have been half a cupful.

  I took Jerry down to Posset on the motor-cycle again that afternoon and watched him start to browse contentedly in the toy department of the post office.

  There was a letter for me from October.

  ‘Why did we receive no report from you last week? It is your duty to keep us informed of the position.’

  I tore the page up, my mouth twisting. Duty. That was just about enough to make me lose my temper. It was not from any sense of duty that I stayed at Humber’s to endure a minor version of slavery. It was because I was obstinate, and liked to finish what I started, and although it sounded a bit grandiose, it was because I really wanted, if I could, to remove British steeple chasing from Adams’ clutches. If it had been only a matter of duty I would have repaid October his money and cleared out.

  ‘It is your duty to keep us informed of the position.’

  He was still angry with me about Patty, I thought morosely, and he wrote that sentence only because he knew I wouldn’t like it.

  I composed my report.

  ‘Your humble and obedient servant regrets that he was unable to carry out his duty last week by keeping you informed of the position.

  ‘The position is still far from clear, but a useful fact has been ascertained. None of the original eleven horses will be doped again: but a horse called Six-Ply is lined up to be the next winner. He is now owned by a Mr Henry Waddington, of Lewes, Sussex.

  ‘May I please have the answers to the following questions:

  1. Is the powder in the enclosed twist of paper soluble phenobarbitone?

  2. What are in detail the registered physical characteristics of the racehorses Chin-Chin, Kandersteg and Starlamp?

  3. On what date did Blackburn, playing at home, beat Arsenal?’

  And that, I thought, sticking down the envelope and grinning to myself, that will fix him and his duty.

  Jerry and I gorged ourselves at the café. I had been at Humber’s for five weeks and two days, and my clothes were getting looser.

  When we could eat no more I went back to the post office and bought a large-scale hiker’s map of the surrounding district, and a cheap pair of compasses. Jerry spent fifteen shillings on a toy tank which he had resisted before, and, after checking to see if my goodwill extended so far, a second comic for me to read to him. And we went back to Humber’s.

  Days passed. Mickey’s drugged water acted satisfactorily, and I was able to clean his box and look after him without much trouble. Cass took the second bandage off, revealing an equal absence of red paste. However, the wounds gradually started healing.

  As Mickey could not be ridden and showed great distress if one tried to lead him out along the road, he h
ad to be walked round the yard for an hour each day, which exercised me more than him, but gave me time to think some very fruitful thoughts.

  Humber’s stick landed with a resounding thump across Charlie’s shoulders on Tuesday morning, and for a second it looked as though Charlie would hit him back. But Humber coldly stared him down, and the next morning delivered an even harder blow in the same place. Charlie’s bed was empty that night. He was the fourth lad to leave in the six weeks I had been there (not counting the boy who stayed only three days) and of my original half dozen dormitory companions, only Bert and Jerry remained. The time was getting perceptibly closer when I would find myself at the top of the queue for walking the plank.

  Adams came with Humber when he made his usual rounds on Thursday evening. They stopped outside Mickey’s box but contented themselves with looking over the half-door.

  ‘Don’t go in, Paul,’ said Humber warningly. ‘He’s still very unpredictable, in spite of drugs.’

  Adams looked at me where I stood by Mickey’s head.

  ‘Why is the gipsy doing this horse? I thought it was the moron’s job.’ He sounded angry and alarmed.

  Humber explained that as Mickey had bitten Jerry, he had made me change places with him. Adams still didn’t like it, but looked as if he would save his comments until he wouldn’t be overheard.

  He said, ‘What is the gipsy’s name?’

  ‘Roke,’ said Humber.

  ‘Well, Roke, come here, out of that box.’

  Humber said anxiously, ‘Paul, don’t forget we’re one lad short already.’

  These were not particularly reassuring words to hear. I walked across the box, keeping a wary eye on Mickey, let myself out through the door, and stood beside it, drooping and looking at the ground.

  ‘Roke,’ said Adams in a pleasant sounding voice, what do you spend your wages on?’

  ‘The never-never on my motor-bike, sir.’

  ‘The never-never? Oh, yes. And how many instalments have you still to pay?’

  ‘About – er – fifteen, sir.’