by John Moore
“D’you want a leg up?” she said doubtfully. “It’s rather a tall animal.”
“I guess I can manage.” And Polly put one hand on the mare’s withers and another on the saddle and vaulted up as if the great beast had been a child’s rocking-horse. Faith said:
“You’ll want to tighten the girths before you start. They blow out their tummies, you know.”
“Sure, they blow out their tummies.” Faith looked up at him and saw him laughing at her. He was lengthening his stirrup-leathers, and Faith watched with astonishment as he put the buckle in the lowest hole of all, so that he was sitting straight-legged as an old-fashioned dragoon.
“Guess you British have all gotten very small bottoms,” observed Polly to the world at large. “This little saddle feels about the size of a postage stamp.”
At that moment Sir Almeric went by on his grey, with his knees tucked up under him as if he were going to ride a race.
“What d’you want?” he drawled, “an armchair?” And as he led his Yorkist knights out through the paddock gate, on his way to take up his position at the farther entrance, he caught sight of Mr. Oxford, who had just come out of the arena, and called:
“Bet you a level quid that dago falls off.”
Polly made no comment, and Faith hoped he hadn’t heard; but when she glanced up at him she saw a slow grin spreading slowly across his face. Somehow that grin disquieted her.
From his little box at the top of the grandstand Stephen watched the border of flowers come suddenly to life again as the floods lit up the Yorkist array, herald, page, trumpeter, pursuivant, making a moving frieze of scarlet and blue and gold, the pennons of the knights fluttering like moon-daisies in a meadow. He watched the floods fade out, leaving a blacker darkness than there had been before, while the pale green spotlight like a finger of doom sought out the bosky corner where the ambush lurked and revealed spectral knights, faintly luminescent, like horsemen of the apocalypse. Faith crept into the box, breathless from running up the steps, and stood beside him. Darkness again, and the torment of the trumpet crying in the void; and then the cold white lights shining upon Polly and his Lancastrians, freezing them like a lightning flash, more and more floods throwing down their brightness upon the field until even the green grass seemed silvery-white.
Stock-still for a moment the cohorts stood, frozen in the ice-cold light; and then as the pinks and ambers came up there was a sudden warmth generated and the whole scene glowed like a summer garden bathed in noonday sun. Like an anthill stirred with a stick the whole mass was set in turbulent motion. Rose-red pennons of Lancaster and white ones of York fluttered in a mazy dance. Fiery particles broke off here and there and shot away in different directions. A great shout went up from Lancaster, and as York bayed back in defiance all the lances dropped as if before a wind, and the thudding of the horse-hoofs became menacing and loud.
This was the moment, the split second before the ambush, when Stephen always experienced an almost unbearable tension. From the dark patch of bushes came neither sign nor sound as the Yorkist knights cantered past it; and Stephen wanted to cry out loud: “Fall on them now, fall on them now!” He heard Faith catch her breath, and he was suddenly aware of the pressure of her body against his and in the darkness of the box he sought for her hand. Then, like the explosion of a many-coloured firework, the ambush burst out. Stephen heard himself shouting “Hurray!” Sparking fragments of red, yellow and white whirled about each other, coalesced and broke apart. For a minute the whole arena was in turmoil; but gradually a new pattern emerged, and the middle of the field was left clear as the wheeling groups of knights and soldiers spun away as if impelled by centrifugal force towards the edges. Nobody had eyes for them any more; so the floods faded, and the scrimmaging knots and clusters melted into the darkness while a grey horse and a chestnut galloped hell-for-leather towards each other, and in a small and lonely pool of light at the field’s centre Sir Almeric and Polly met face-to-face and lance-to-lance, and began to do battle.
“He’s managing beautifully,” said Stephen. “I knew it would be all right. As the spotlight moves across the field, he moves with it.” Faith had particularly impressed upon Polly that he must keep within the pool of light and retire gradually before Sir Almeric’s fury; thus he would be forced back into the ranks of his own Lancastrians, whom he would then rally in a last hopeless stand before they were driven in headlong rout from the battlefield. Polly was obeying these instructions perfectly, and allowing Sir Almeric to chivvy him yard by yard towards the exit.
“I knew it would be all right,” said Stephen again.
“I wonder! He’s got a daemon.”
“Now the floods come on again. Look!” The lights revealed the broken ranks of Lancaster still raggedly fighting in Polly’s rear. Two score of casualties lay where they had fallen and three riderless horses gave an extra touch of verisimilitude to the stricken field as they galloped about the arena. Already the Yorkist knights were re-forming for their final charge; in a moment Lancaster would be swept away. But for a little longer the scene was one of wild and splendid turbulence, and Stephen wished it would never come to an end.
As he fell back before Sir Almeric’s onslaught, Polly became aware for the first time that his foe was actually trying to unseat him. Three times he had charged straight at him, and once Polly had had to lie flat on his horse’s neck to avoid the padded lance. Sir Almeric accompanied these charges with bloodthirsty shouts of “Yoicks! ” and “Tally-ho!”
In evading them, Polly had lost more ground than he had meant to, and now he found himself unexpectedly in the middle of a fight between some of his own foot-soldiers and those of the enemy. Into this mêlée galloped Sir Almeric, regardless of whether he knocked anybody down, waving his lance wildly and shouting, most ridiculously it seemed to Polly, his strange hunting-cries:
“Whoy, rip ’im and tear ’im! Worry, worry, worry !”
Naturally enough the foot-soldiers scattered before him, and the carefully planned movement which Stephen had intended to represent a rout became a rout indeed, with a score of bowmen fleeing from Sir Almeric’s charge towards a narrow exit which was already blocked by the milling knights of Lancaster who were trying to guide their horses through it. Polly heard at his back a murmur of genuine anger as one of the foot-soldiers tripped and fell, and Sir Almeric continued his mad career with yells of “Worry worry, worry! ”
Perhaps it was this murmur of indignation from his own side which inspired Polly to do what he did. Perhaps it was the recollection that he had been described as a dago. Or perhaps—who knows?—ancestral memories stirred him, stemming from Spartan forebears who held against the host of Xerxes the pass between Mount Oeta and the sea. Not Leonidas himself, surely, rallied his immortal three hundred with such a great cry as Polly uttered when he turned in sudden fury upon the foe; nor did the weary defenders of Thermopylae respond to it more gallantly. For as Polly turned his horse and charged full pelt at Sir Almeric the Lancastrian knights, either in anger or bewilderment, with one accord galloped away from the exit and joined the battle again. The foot-soldiers, whom Sir Almeric had chased like rabbits, took heart once more and began to revenge themselves most unjustly upon their opposite numbers of York, whom they belaboured unmercifully with their wooden battleaxes. Meanwhile the knights, whose horses were frightened by the cries of the wretched Yorkists and the enthusiastic shouts of the suddenly awakened crowd, were carried by the impetus of their charge into the flank of the opposing horsemen, whose formation they sliced in two as a knife cuts butter. Taken off their guard, and utterly dumbfounded by an emergency for which the rehearsals had not prepared them, the Yorkist knights lost their heads altogether and scattered all over the arena. The Lancastrians, whose terrified horses were now in complete charge, continued to sweep all before them.
Polly, galloping as if he meant to head off the cattle-rustlers in Dead Man’s Gulch, met Sir Almeric head-on in what might have been a fatal collision had not S
ir Almeric’s steeplechaser, which was unaccustomed to meeting horses going in the opposite direction, reared sideways out of the way. This manoeuvre nearly unseated Sir Almeric, who lost his stirrups and clung on only by his horse’s mane. His horse whipped round and galloped towards the only exit it knew, and Sir Almeric, with his arms round its neck, was powerless to stop it. Polly, whose blood was up, thundered at its heels, turning the tables on his foe with shouts of “Yoicks!” and “Worry!”
Elsewhere on the field strange things began to happen. As if at the cry “Debout les morts!” dead men rose up and joined in the fray. A whole company of fallen bowmen seized their bows again, discovered some unused arrows in their quivers, and shot them at the backs of the routed Yorkists, adding to the confusion. The knights who had taken part in the ambush, and were supposed to have been slain, remounted their tethered horses and swelled the victorious ranks of Lancaster. Even the lighting-man seemed to have thrown in his lot with the victors; for a single spot, deftly manipulated, illuminated the inglorious exit of Sir Almeric, hanging upside down upon his horse’s neck and clinging on, as Mr. Oxford put it, “by his eyebrows.” Then the partisan spotlight swept into the middle of the field to discover Polly in triumph with his knights and foot-soldiers gathered about him. There was hardly a Yorkist in sight; Lancaster possessed the field, and shamelessly cheered its victory.
And there might have been seen, against the rails, a small angular figure in a dirty mackintosh at whose feet a trampled banner lay: WE DON’T WANT FEST— But it was impossible to read the remainder, because Miss Foulkes had inadvertently been jumping up and down on it. Like a football fan on the touchline, Miss Foulkes rooted for Lancaster; and as the knights acclaimed their triumph she added her little cheer to theirs.
VII
Dionysus Is a choosy god, and fickle in his favours. The most expensive and elaborate show we can devise in his honour, with ten thousand pounds’ worth of dresses, a revolving stage, a cyclorama, and a chorus of sixty ravishing blondes, may yet fail to delight him; and should he withhold from it his blessing, that show will be no more than an empty charade, a vain wailing in the wilderness, a pointless stamping upon the stage. Yet some poor wandering players performing Maria Marten in a windy barn on a platform lit by naphtha-flares may tickle his fancy with their devotion or their innocence, and lo! his unmistakable glory shines about their heads. He may glance aside with a yawn of boredom from the smooth competent West-End actors in a drawing-room comedy to bestow his immortal laughter upon a clumsy schoolboy wearing the ass’s head of Bottom at a speech-day entertainment. There is no saying where the benison of Dionysus may fall nor whom his magic may inspire; but we must suppose that only those who are truly dedicated to his service may receive it.
When he gives, however, he gives without stint; and without stint his measureless bounty descended like fire from heaven upon Stephen’s little pageant. What matter if Virginia’s new dress was spoiled with bloodstains, and Edna was as pale as a ghost when they paraded across the arena to take their seats at the Mayor’s side? To the crowd they seemed like two young goddesses. What matter if Mr. Oxford and Timms were drunk when they made their entrance, and even drunker, on account of the action of the cool air upon their hot heads, when they walked with cautious deliberation towards the exits? For their drunkenness gave to their gait a strange and unwonted dignity. Like sleep-walkers they perambulated the ground-plan of the church; like zombies stolen from their graves they performed the act of dedication; but so powerful was Dionysus’ magic that the spectators were impressed with their air of reverent humility. What matter if Lance’s folksongs had been made up out of his head? Sung to Bloody Mary in her barge on the opalescent river they had sounded more authentic than any genuine ones. What matter if the disgruntled captain of the Cricket Club had bowled the professional who represented Dr. Grace with his first ball, a vicious yorker, instead of tossing up a half-volley which could be hit for six, as he had been instructed to? What matter if Polly’s big bang, which blew up the bridge behind the retreating cavaliers, blew sky-high also in a thousand shattered fragments the statue of Dame Joanna, to whose waist he had ingeniously affixed a sizeable stick of dynamite? The crowd had yelled their approval of such prodigious fireworks, and the only people who regretted the disintegration of Joanna were those few dwellers by the riverside whose windows were broken and Inspector Heyhoe, who padded about murmuring, “Trouble, more trouble,” and gravely suspected Miss Foulkes of Communist sabotage.
And above all, what matter if the wrong side had won the battle and the whole course of the Wars of the Roses had been altered by Polly’s heroic defiance of Sir Almeric? It had been the best battle, the spectators agreed, that they had ever witnessed in their lives; and they had cheered it wildly for fully five minutes, not caring a fig whether the winter of their discontent was made glorious summer by the sun of Lancaster or York. And at the end of the show they had stood up on their seats and cheered again, yelling themselves hoarse when two aeroplanes swooped out of the dark sky, to the astonishment of everybody except Faith, who had arranged the matter secretly with her Group-Captain, and showered upon the arena and the crowd a miraculous rain of red and white roses.
“I’m afraid,” said the Mayor half-ruefully, as he walked with Stephen and Polly across the hoof-scarred turf, while the crowd with strange reluctance began to make its way towards the exits, “I’m afraid, Mr. Gabrielides, that the ’istory wasn’t quite right.” And Polly, gigantic and glorious in his armour, with his helmet pushed on to the back of his head, smiled down at him, and said gallantly:
“But, Mr. Mayor, you are history.”
As he said this, he made a large and comprehensive gesture which might have included not only the Mayor and his ancient office, but the little town behind him, the Abbey tower looming over it, the struggling balloon factory making duck-billed platypuses to earn dollars; Mr. Handiman gazing proudly at his silver trophy; Mr. Oxford and Timms discussing Tradition; Florrie, like the Wife of Bath come to life again; Mr. Runcorn in his dusty office sitting down to write a leader dyed in imperial purple: “Only the pyrotechnics, perhaps, were a trifle excessive …” and it might have included too, the trampled and broken banner of Miss Foulkes: WE DON’T WANT FEST—
The Mayor pondered Polly’s remark; and Stephen watched the crowd streaming through the turnstiles, and the players in their oddly assorted costumes, roundhead and cavalier, folk-dancer, foot-soldier, knight and nun, Councillor Noakes who despite his beard looked less like Shakespeare than anybody Stephen had ever seen, the Vicar bustling along in his threadbare cassock, Virginia going gravely towards the dressing-tent, and Lance with his arm round Edna’s waist as they scampered away into the shadows. Polly is right, he thought. These are the particles that make us what we are; out of such particles is our history made.
The Mayor gravely and gratefully shook Polly’s hand and went off to disrobe himself. Stephen as he walked with Polly in the direction of the men’s dressing-tent caught sight of Faith coming down off the grandstand and for a moment hesitated. Polly gave him a push. “Go on,” he said, with a great grin. “Go on. You’re in love with her, Steve !”
So Stephen ran to the bottom of the grandstand steps and met Faith there; and somehow it seemed quite natural now to take her by the hand, and quite natural too that their steps should lead them, not back towards the town, but away from it into the misty darkness. As they passed out of range of the last dimmed floodlight a small scurrying figure rather like a brown moth passed through its beam. The shabby old mackintosh was unmistakable; and so Stephen was not unduly surprised when a few moments later there came from out of the shadows behind the dressing-tent, shattering the night’s sweet stillness, the sound of a minor explosion: a gigantic, a gargantuan, a superhuman sneeze.
Kemerton, July, 1950
Author’s Note
The order “Hands to dance and skylark” was used in the Royal Navy during long voyages in sail when the Captain thought his ship’s com
pany needed some fun and games to liven them up.
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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