The horse involved on this occasion had come from Norway, stayed in England overnight, and was bound for a racing stable in Virginia. The new owner had asked for the Norwegian groom to go all the way, at his expense, so that the horse should have continuous care on the journey. It didnt look worth it, I reflected, looking over at it idly while I checked the horses in the next box.
A weak-necked listless chestnut, it had a straggle of hair round the fetlocks which suggested there had been a cart horse not far enough back in its ancestry[131], and the acute-angled hocks didnt have the best conformation for speed. Norway was hardly famed for the quality of its racing any more, even though it was possibly the Vikings who had invented the whole sport. They placed heaps of valued objects (the prizes) at varying distances from the starting point: then all the competitors lined up, and with wild whoops the race began. The prizes nearest the start were the smallest, the furthest away the richest, so each rider had to decide what suited his mount best, a quick sprint or a shot at stamina[132]. Choosing wrong meant getting no prize at all. Twelve hundred years ago fast sturdy racing horses had been literally worth a fortune in Norway, but the smooth skinned long-legged descendants of those tough shaggy ponies didnt count for much in the modern thoroughbred industry. It was sentiment, I supposed, which caused an American to pay for such an inferior looking animal to travel so far from home.
I asked the middle-aged Norwegian groom if he had everything he wanted, and he said, in halting, heavily accented English, that he was content. I left him sitting on his hay bale staring mindlessly into space, and went on with my rounds. The horses were all travelling quietly, munching peacefully at their haynets, oblivious to rocketing round the world at six hundred miles an hour. There is no sensation of speed if you cant see an environment rushing past.
We arrived without incident at Kennedy airport, where a gum-chewing customs man came on board with three helpers. He spoke slowly, every second word an uh, but he was sharply thorough with the horses. All their papers were in order however, and we began the unloading without more ado[133]. There was the extra job of leading all the horses through a tray of disinfectant before they could set foot on American soil, and while I was seeing to it I heard the customs man asking the Norwegian groom about a work permit, and the halting reply that he was staying for a fortnight only, for a holiday, the kindness of the man who owned the horse.
It was the first time I too had been to the States, and I envied him his fortnight. Owing to the five hours time difference, it was only six in the evening, local time, when we landed at Kennedy, and we were due to leave again at six next morning; which gave me about nine free hours in which to see New York. Although to my body mechanism it was already bedtime, I didnt waste any of them in sleeping.
The only snag to this was having to start another full days work with eyes requiring matchsticks[134]. Billy yawned over making the boxes as much as I did and only the third member of the team, the deaf elderly Alf, had had any rest. Since even if one shouted he could hear very little, the three of us worked in complete silence like robots, isolated in our own thoughts, with gaps as unbridgeable between us as between like poles of magnets. Unlike poles attract, like poles repel. Billy and I were a couple of cold Norths.
There was a full load going back again, as was usual on Yardman trips from one continent to another. He hated wasting space, and was accustomed to telephone around the studs when a long flight was on the books, to find out if they had anything to send or collect. The customers all liked it, for on full long distance loads Yardman made a reduction in the fares[135]. Timmie and Conker had less cheerful views of this practice, and I now saw why. Ones body didnt approve of tricks with the clock. But at the point of no return[136] way out over the Atlantic I shed my drowsiness in one leaping heartbeat, and with horror had my first introduction to a horse going berserk in mid-air.
Old Alf shook my shoulder, and the fright in his face brought me instantly to my feet. I went where he pointed, up towards the nose of the aircraft.
In the second to front box a solidly muscled three-year-old colt had pulled his head collar to pieces and was standing free and untied in the small wooden square. He had his head down, his forelegs straddled, and he was kicking out with his hind feet in a fixed, fearful rhythm. White foamy sweat stood out all over him, and he was squealing. The companion beside him was trying in a terrified way to escape, his eyes rolling and his body pushing hard against the wooden side of the box.
The colts hooves thudded against the back wall of the box like battering rams. The wooden panels shook and rattled and began to splinter. The metal bars banding the sides together strained at the corner lynch pins, and it only needed one to break for the whole thing to start disintegrating.
I found the co-pilot at my elbow, yelling urgently.
Captain says how do you expect him to fly the aircraft with all this thumping going on. He says to keep that horse still, its affecting the balance.
How? I asked.
Thats your affair, he pointed out. And for Gods sake do something about it quickly.
The back wall of the colts box cracked from top to bottom. The pieces were still held in place by the guy chains, but at the present rate they wouldnt hold more than another minute, and then we should have on our minds a maddened animal loose in a pressurised aircraft with certain death to us all if he got a hoof through a window.
Have you got a humane killer[137] on board? I said.
No. This is usually a passenger craft. Why dont you bring your own?
There were no rules to say one had to take a humane killer in animal transport. There should be. But it was too late to regret it.
Weve got drugs in the first-aid kit, the co-pilot suggested.
I shook my head. Theyre unpredictable. Just as likely to make him worse.[138] It might even have been a tranquilliser which started him off, I thought fleetingly. They often backfired with horses.[139] And it would be quite impossible in any case to inject even a safe drug through a fine needle designed for humans into a horse as wild as this.
Get a carving knife or something from the galley, I said. Anything long and sharp. And quick.
He turned away, stumbling in his haste. The colts hind feet smashed one broken half of the back wall clean out. He turned round balefully, thrust his head between the top and centre banding bars, and tried to scramble through. The panic in his eyes was pitiful.
From inside his jerkin Billy calmly produced a large pistol and pointed it towards the colts threshing head.
Dont be a bloody fool, I shouted. Were thirty thousand feet up.
The co-pilot came back with a white handled saw-edged bread knife, saw the gun, and nearly fainted.
D dont, he stuttered. D d dont.
Billys eyes were very wide. He was looking fixedly at the heaving colt and hardly seemed to hear. All his mind seemed to be concentrated on aiming the gun that could kill us all.
The colt smashed the first of the lynch pins and lunged forwards, bursting out of the remains of the box like flood water from a dam. I snatched the knife from the co-pilot and as the horse surged towards me stuck the blade into the only place available, the angle where the head joined the neck.