A Girl called Admiral Fairweather

by Mark Douglas Stafford

CHAPTER 11

  JUST A FARM HORSE

  When Stanley Horse was a foal his father had taken him and two of his sisters to see the place where Razor Reef dissected Upper Thompsons Creek. The water boiled instantly upon contact with the Heat Tree reef and exploded into clouds of super-heated steam, which tumbled into the air. It was a popular tourist attraction. He had been fascinated, his sisters bored. They had wandered off talking about their boyfriends.

  ‘Is this what… w-w-what causes all the fog in the town?’ Stanley asked his father.

  ‘Slow down when you speak, Stanley. You’re stammering again. You don’t want to sound like an idiot, do you? You don’t want to embarrass me and your family, do you?’

  ‘N-N-No… No, sir. I...’ One of Stanley’s eyes twitched so much it distorted his face.

  The older horse shook his head disappointedly and sighed. ‘I don’t know what causes all the fog, Stanley. It’s not my place to know. And it’s certainly not yours.’

  ‘I think it does,’ said Stanley, nodding brightly.

  ‘Well, you think too much. Farm horses aren’t thinkers, we’re doers. It’s us that makes the town to run. That’s our place on the good, green earth so you best get used to it. The owl’s thought too much and look what happened to them.’

  ‘But what, what happened to..?’

  ‘Enough now, son.’ His father turned away and searched. ‘Now, where are your ratbag sisters?’ When he found them he yelled: ‘Hey, you two! Come back here or you’ll get burned!’

  Stanley’s sisters glanced back and then continued on, as if they hadn’t heard. Stanley knew they would be giggling.

  ‘And don’t ever be dumb enough to try to go through. No animal that tries ever comes out the other side,’ said the older horse.

  ‘What… w-w-what happened to them?’ Stanley asked, his eyes round like oatmeal cakes.

  ‘You ask too many questions. Remember, we’re just farm horses.’

  When he was older, Stanley heard tell of ghost stories in which the charred and smoking corpses of animals who had tried, and failed, to pass through Razor Reef plagued lonely farmsteads on moonless nights. The corpses were supposed to be afraid of water and lost all their power when wet. Despite knowing they were only stories he had found it hard to fall asleep when there was no moon, especially when his mother had forgotten to fill his water pail.

  At school, Stanley struggled with every subject except sports education. In this, he excelled and was even considered gifted. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to avoid being the rump of jokes when the end-of-year results were published on the school noticeboard. His persistent academic underperformance was legend amongst his peers; indeed, he had no equal in this. His nickname was Stanley D, as D was the best grade he ever seemed to achieve. It also didn’t help that he stammered, was usually flecked with mud from farm work and always had a tangled mane. When the taunting got too much he would gallop around the school oval, which was something he could do very well indeed. He was, in fact, the school’s most decorated champion, ever. No single athlete had ever won as many races as Stanley, no athlete in the school’s one hundred and fifty year history.

  It was at one of these races, a difficult and gruelling steeplechase, that Stanley first met Elizabeth Horse.

  ‘Are you, are you alright?’ asked Stanley breathlessly. The fallen horse didn’t answer. He just lay on his side looking dazed amongst rocks beside the racetrack as it passed through a narrow and winding canyon with severe and towering walls of rock that cast deep shadows. His school’s red and gold standard had come loose and lay nearby in a crumpled heap.

  Stanley looked up and watched three horses from the fallen horse’s own school thunder by. The leader was rusty-brown with white stocking feet. They glanced at Stanley but didn’t slow or stop to offer help to their fallen team mate.

  ‘Do, do you want me. D-D-Do you...’ He took a steadying breath and tried again, more slowly this time. ‘Shall I get help from one of the race officials?’

  A young stallion emerged from a hidden gap in the canyon wall and approached. He looked for all-the-world like the horse lying at Stanley’s feet.

  ‘Up you get, bro,’ said the stallion to his twin as he picked up the red and gold standard and put it over his head. Without glancing at Stanley he turned, trotted up to the track and galloped after his team mates.

  ‘Sorry, Farm Horse. Or should I call you Stanley D-D-D?’ said the fallen horse, grinning smugly. He rolled onto his knees, stood and shook himself free of dust. ‘We knew we didn’t stand a chance and we have school-honour to think of. We can’t have someone from your kind of school beating someone from ours, it wouldn’t be right.’ Without waiting for a reply he slipped into the gap his brother had used and vanished from sight.

  Stanley always ran to win, no matter how minor the race, so in some ways this race was just as important as any other. But the fact he had been tricked into stopping to help a competitor who wasn’t even injured made him absolutely determined.

  Gritting his teeth, Stanley leapt back onto the track and launched after the four horses. He had lost precious minutes at a crucial stage of the race and if he was to recover the lost time he would have to break all his previous records. He focussed on the feeling of winning and imagined wearing the winner’s wreath. He pictured the twin stallions standing awestruck as he mounted the winner’s podium and his father saying, ‘Well done, Stanley.’

  He quickly left the canyon behind and stretched out on a grassy straight, flying past the stallion twin in a heartbeat. The horse was so surprised he stumbled and fell back.

  The three lead horses were nowhere in sight as he past the two-miles-remaining marker. He rounded a stand of poplars without missing a step and hurtled under a bridge. The few spectators standing on the bridge cheered him on.

  He leapt a wall without touching—indeed, he cleared it by a country mile—and swerved round the first of the lead horses to enter third place. The horse was still galloping but only just; it was easy to see he was nearly spent. He looked shocked as Stanley flew past like an arrow, and soon stumbled to a half-hearted trot.

  Stanley slid down the embankment of the water hazard in front of a mini-avalanche of mud and rock. At the bottom, instead of swimming to the other side, he planted his hind legs deeply and sprang clean over. The spectators watching over the hazard gasped in surprise to see him soar through the air without wetting his hooves. He hurtled up the opposite bank without slipping and, passing the one-mile-remaining marker, galloped flat out after the two lead horses.

  As he entered the final straight leading up to the finishing line, Stanley lengthened his stride and threw everything he had into closing the gap. Some of the younger horses from his school yelled ‘Go Stanley’ and ‘You can catch them’ as they galloped beside the track trying to keep up. But Stanley didn’t acknowledge them, neither did he really see them. All he could see was the next moment, all he could feel was the thrill of certain victory. Every muscle hurled him forward in a perfectly timed synchronicity of motion. It seemed that he was apart from himself somehow, watching himself from the cheering grandstands that lay only a short distance ahead.

  He entered second place at the first of the hurdles. The horse he passed made the mistake of turning to watch Stanley hurtling towards him, mistimed the jump and fell heavily in a jumble of legs and timber planks. Stanley was travelling so fast that he soared over two hurdles with each bound. He did this ten times in a row without clipping a single board. His hooves pounded the ground in between each jump with the precision of a Machine Age clock and the power of pole driver. Grass divots spiralled into the air behind him like exploding cannonballs.

  He was still in second place as he passed the colourful marquees brimming with cheering spectators but was rapidly gaining on the lead horse.

  In the final hundred yards Stanley let loose energies he didn’t even know he possessed. The grandstands were a blur of colour and he was so lost in the moment he couldn’t even hea
r the screaming crowd. He caught up with the lead horse as they crossed the finishing line. They broke the ribbon together.

  Never before in the history of the interschool steeplechase had the race officials taken so long to determine a winner. In the end the decision had fallen against Stanley, three votes to two. He was awarded second place and congratulated on delivering up a splendid recovery, and of doing his school proud.

  The medals were awarded to the victors by a white filly named Elizabeth. She was immaculately groomed, her mane braided with crystal beads, her tail plaited with three sky blue ribbons tied neatly into bows. Her school had taken first and third place in the steeplechase but she spent more time fussing over Stanley, black eyelashes flashing, than over either of her fellow schoolmates.

  Stanley’s father arrived at the racecourse after the medals were awarded and the spectators were dispersing. Stanley hadn’t told anyone about the trick that had been played on him by the winning school. Instead he graciously accepted congratulations for second place and even gave out a few autographs.

  ‘Now, don’t get too uppity about all the famousness,’ his father admonished on the way home. ‘Remember your place. We’re not like them that was in the red and gold team.’

  ‘Cheats you mean,’ Stanley said under his breath.

  ‘No, they’re our betters, Stanley, and don’t forget. We’ll always be farm horses that make the world to work. Without us, people won’t eat. Which reminds me: we’ll drop in on Farmer Weasel on our way home. I’m reckoning he’ll need your labours come planting and you’ll learn more of the family trade. Can’t have you chasing after rainbows or thinking above your station, now can we? All this racing can go to your head then where’d we be.’

  The white filly named Elizabeth galloped up and cantered to a halt behind them. She wore the red and gold colours of her school as a bandana tied neatly around her long, elegant neck. ‘I just heard about what happened,’ she said breathlessly to Stanley. ‘And I’m really, really sorry. It was cheating and I’m going to tell the officials.’

  ‘No, please don’t,’ said Stanley, turning to face her. ‘There’s, there’s no need. I don’t want… to cause any trouble.’

  ‘But it’s not fair. You should have won.’

  ‘But I didn’t win,’ said Stanley, looking up. ‘I came second.’ He turned away and caught up with his father who had continued on. Elizabeth dropped back, watching.

  The winner of the steeplechase trotted up behind Elizabeth. He was a young rusty-brown stallion wearing red and gold, the colours of his school. He had white stocking legs and a perfect white blaze running from above his eyes to the tip of his nose. Around his neck was the winner’s medallion, the same as Stanley’s but gold rather than silver. Stanley heard him say:

  ‘What are you doing, talking to him, sweet pea? Your dad said to come back. There are speeches.’

  ‘I’m not your sweet pea!’ She pushed past him roughly and headed back.

  ‘Aw, come on Lizzy. You know you’re sweet on me. Don’t deny it,’ he said, following.

  Stanley and his father rounded the low hill standing behind the racecourse pavilion and passed under the skeletal branches of a dead tree. The wide path ahead was level and covered with fallen autumn leaves like a red carpet. The sky above was pale blue like Elizabeth’s ribbons.

  ‘And don’t get any fancy ideas about her, neither,’ said the older horse to Stanley when they were well out of earshot. ‘She’s a far superior breed to us farm horses. You need someone with strong legs that knows how to pull a plough.’