‘Yes, I do, and I want to see her soon, like this afternoon.’
‘No problem. Just go. She’s still in a side ward because of Paul, but physically she’s healing well. We could move her by Tuesday, I should think.’
‘Good,’ I said.
‘Take care.’
I said wryly, ‘I do.’
In the stable yard the lads were readying for morning exercise, saddling and bridling the horses. As it was Sunday, I told them, we would again have the Heath gallops more or less to ourselves, but we wouldn’t be filming exactly the same scenes as the week before.
‘You were all asked to wear what you did last Sunday,’ I said. ‘Did you all check with our continuity girl if you couldn’t remember?’
I got nods.
‘Fine. Then all of you will canter up the hill and stop where you stopped and circled last week. OK?’
More nods.
‘You remember the rider who came from nowhere and made a slash at Ivan?’
They laughed. They wouldn’t forget it.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘today we don’t have Ivan, but we’re going to stage that attack ourselves, and put it into the film. Today it will be a fictional affair. OK? The knife used will not be a real knife but one that’s been made out of wood by our production department. What I want you to do is exactly the sort of thing you were doing last Sunday – circling, talking, paying not much attention to the stranger. Right?’
They understood without trouble. Our young horsemaster said, ‘Who is going to stand in for Ivan?’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘I’m not as broad-shouldered as him or as Nash, but I’ll be wearing a jacket like the one Nash usually wears as the trainer. I’ll be riding the horse Ivan rode. When we’re ready with the cameras, the man playing the knife-attacker will mount and ride that slow old bay that finished last in our race at Huntingdon. The lad who usually rides him will be standing behind the cameras, out of shot. Any questions?’
One asked, ‘Are you going to chase him down the hill on the camera truck, like last week?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He will gallop off down the hill. The camera will film him.’
I handed over command, so to speak, to the horsemaster, who organised the mounting and departure of the string. Ed and Moncrieff were already on the Heath. I went into the wardrobe section to put on Nash’s jacket and, Ridley being ready, took him with me in my car up the road to the brow of the hill. Ridley and I, out of the car, walked over to the circling horses, stopping by the camera truck.
‘What we need,’ I told Ridley, ‘is for you to ride into the group from somewhere over there…’ I pointed. ‘Trot into the group, draw a make-belief knife from a sheath on your belt, slash at one of the group as if you intended to wound him badly, and then, in the ensuing mêlée, canter off over the brow of the hill and down the wide training ground towards the town. OK?’
Ridley stared, his eyes darkly intense.
‘You will slash at me, OK? I’m standing in for Nash.’
Ridley said nothing.
‘Of course,’ I told him pleasantly, ‘when this scene appears in the finished film it will not look like one smooth sequence. There will be flashes of the knife, of horses rearing, of jumbled movement and confusion. There will be a wound. There will be blood. We will fake those later.’ Ed brought various props across to where I stood with Ridley, and handed them to him one by one.
‘Make-believe knife in sheath on belt,’ Ed said, as if reading from a list. ‘Please put on the belt.’
As if mesmerised, Ridley obeyed.
‘Please practise drawing the knife,’ I said.
Ridley drew the knife and looked at it in horror. The production department had faithfully reproduced the American trench knife from my drawing, and although the object Ridley held was light-weight and of painted wood, from three paces it looked like a heavy knuckleduster with a long blade attached to its index finger side.
‘Fine,’ I said non-committally. ‘Put it back in its sheath.’
Ridley fumbled the knife back into place.
‘Helmet,’ Ed said, holding it out.
Ridley buckled on the helmet.
‘Goggles,’ Ed offered.
Ridley put them on slowly.
‘Gloves.’
Ridley hesitated.
‘Anything the matter?’ I asked.
Ridley said ‘No’ hoarsely, and accepted a leg-up onto our slowest nag.
‘Great,’ I said, ‘off you go, then. When Ed yells ”Action”, just trot straight towards me, draw the knife, take a slash, and canter away fast towards Newmarket. Do you want a