Mike at Wrykyn (12 page)

Morris
pushed the first ball away to leg. Mike would have liked to have run two, but
short leg had retrieved the ball as he reached the crease.

The
moment had come, the moment which he had experienced only in dreams. And in
the dreams he was always full of confidence, and invariably hit a boundary. Sometimes
a drive, sometimes a cut, but always a boundary.

“To
leg, sir,” said the umpire.

“Don’t
be in a funk,” said a voice. “Play straight, and you can’t get out.”

It was
Joe, who had taken the gloves when the wicket-keeper went on to bowl.

Mike
grinned, wryly but gratefully.

Saunders
was beginning his run. It was all so home-like that for a moment Mike felt
himself again. How often he had seen those two little skips and the jump. It
was like being in the paddock again, with Marjory and the dogs waiting by the
railings to fetch the ball if he made a drive.

Saunders
ran to the crease, and bowled.

Now,
Saunders was a conscientious man, and, doubtless, bowled the very best ball
that he possibly could. On the other hand, it was Mike’s first appearance for
the school, and Saunders, besides being conscientious, was undoubtedly
kind-hearted. It is useless to speculate as to whether he was trying to bowl
his best that ball. If so, he failed signally. It was a half-volley, just the
right distance away from the off-stump; the sort of ball Mike was wont to send
nearly through the met at home….

The
next moment the dreams had come true. The umpire was signalling to the
scoring-box, the school was shouting, extra-cover was trotting to the boundary
to fetch the ball, and Mike was blushing and wondering whether it was bad form
to grin.

From
that ball onwards all was for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
Saunders bowled no more half-volleys; but Mike played everything that he did
bowl. He met the lobs with a bat like a barn-door. Even the departure of
Morris, caught in the slips off Saunders’s next over for a chanceless hundred
and five, did not disturb him. All nervousness had left him. He felt equal to
the situation. Burgess came in, and began to hit out as if he meant to knock
off the runs. The bowling became a shade loose. Twice he was given full tosses
to leg, which he hit to the terrace bank. Half-past six chimed, and two hundred
and fifty went up on the telegraph board. Burgess continued to hit. Mike’s
whole soul was concentrated on keeping up his wicket. There was only Reeves to
follow him, and Reeves was a victim to the first straight ball. Burgess had to
hit because it was the only game he knew; but he himself must simply stay in.

The
hands of the clock seemed to have stopped. Then suddenly he heard the umpire
say “Last over,” and he settled down to keep those six balls out of his wicket.

The
lob-bowler had taken himself off, and the Oxford Authentic had gone on, fast
left-hand.

The
first ball was short and wide of the off-stump. Mike let it alone. Number two:
yorker. Got him! Three: straight half-volley. Mike played it back to the
bowler. Four: beat him, and missed the wicket by an inch. Five: another yorker.
Down on it again in the old familiar way.

All was
well. The match was a draw now whatever happened to him. He hit out, almost at
a venture, at the last ball, and mid-off, jumping, just failed to reach it. It hummed
over his head, and ran like a streak along the turf and up the bank, and a
great howl of delight went up from the school as the umpire took off the bails.

Mike
walked away from the wicket with Joe and the wicket-keeper.

“I’m
sorry about your nose, Joe,” said the wicket-keeper in tones of grave
solicitude.

“What’s
wrong with it?”

“At
present,” said the wicket-keeper, “nothing. But in a few years I’m afraid it’s
going to be put badly out of joint.”

CHAPTER
XIV

A SLIGHT IMBROGLIO

MIKE got his third eleven
colours after the M.C.C.  match. As he had made twenty-three not out in a
crisis in a first-eleven match, this may not seem an excessive reward. But it
was all that he expected. One had to take the rungs of the ladder singly at
Wrykyn. First one was given one’s third-eleven cap. That meant, “You are a
promising man, and we have our eye on you.” Then came the second colours. They
might mean anything from “Well, here you are. You won’t get any higher, so you
may as well have the thing mow,” to “This is just to show that we still have
our eye on you.”

Mike
was a certainty now for the second. But it needed more than one performance to
secure the first cap.

“I told
you so,” said Wyatt, naturally, to Burgess after the match.

“He’s
not bad,” said Burgess. “I’ll give him another shot.”

But
Burgess, as has been pointed out, was not a person who ever became gushing with
enthusiasm.

So Wilkins, of the School
House, who had played twice for the first eleven, dropped down into the second,
as many a good man had done before him, and Mike got his place in the next
match, against the Gentlemen of the County. Unfortunately for him, the visiting
team, however gentlemanly, were not brilliant cricketers, at any rate as far
as bowling was concerned. The school won the toss, went in first, and made
three hundred and sixteen for five wickets, Morris making another placid
century. The innings was declared closed before Mike had a chance of
distinguishing himself. In an innings which hasted for one over he made two
runs, not out; and had to console himself for the cutting short of his
performance by the fact that his average for the school was still infinity.
Bob, who was one of those lucky enough to have an unabridged innings, did
better in this match, making twenty-five. But with Morris making a hundred and
seventeen, and Berridge, Ellerby, and Marsh all passing the half-century, this
score did not show up excessively.

We now
come to what was practically a turning-point in Mike’s career at Wrykyn. There
is no doubt that his meteor-like flights at cricket had an unsettling effect on
him. He was enjoying life amazingly, and, as is not uncommon with the
prosperous, he waxed fat and kicked. Fortunately for him—though he did not look
upon it in that light at the time—he kicked the one person it was most
imprudent to kick. The person he selected was Firby-Smith. With anybody else
the thing might have blown over, to the detriment of Mike’s character; but
Firby-Smith, having the most tender affection for his dignity, made a fuss.

It
happened in this way. The immediate cause of the disturbance was a remark of
Mike’s, but the indirect cause was the unbearably patronizing manner which the
head of Wain’s chose to adopt towards him. The fact that he was playing for the
school seemed to make no difference at all. Firby-Smith continued to address
Mike merely as the small boy.

The
following,
verbatim,
was the tactful speech which he addressed to him on
the evening of the M.C.C. match, having summoned him to his study for the
purpose.

“Well,”
he said, “you played a very decent innings this afternoon, and I suppose you’re
frightfully pleased with yourself, eh? Well, mind you don’t go getting swelled
head. See? That’s all. Run along.”

Mike
departed, bursting with fury.

The
next link in the chain was forged a week after the Gentlemen of the County
match. House matches had begun, and Wain’s were playing Appleby’s. Appleby’s
made a hundred and fifty-odd, shaping badly for the most part against Wyatt’s
slows. Then Wain’s opened their innings. The Gazeka, as head of the house, was
captain of the side, and he and Wyatt went in first. Wyatt made a few mighty
hits, and was then caught at cover. Mike went in first wicket.

For
some ten minutes all was peace. Firby-Smith scratched away at his end, getting
here and there a single and now and then a two, and Mike settled down at once
to play what he felt was going to be the innings of a lifetime. Appleby’s
bowling was on the feeble side, with Raikes, of the third eleven, as the star,
supported by some small change. Mike pounded it vigorously. To one who had been
brought up on Saunders, Raikes possessed few subtleties. He had made seventeen,
and was thoroughly set, when the Gazeka, who had the bowling, hit one in the
direction of cover-point. With a certain type of batsman a single is a thing to
take big risks for. And the Gazeka badly wanted that single.

“Come
on,” he shouted, prancing down the pitch.

Mike,
who had remained in his crease with the idea that nobody even moderately sane
would attempt a run for a hit like that, moved forward in a startled and irresolute
manner. Firby-Smith arrived, shouting “Run!” and, cover having thrown the ball
in, the wicket-keeper removed the bails.

These
are solemn moments.

The
only possibly way of smoothing over an episode of this kind is for the guilty
man to grovel.

Firby-Smith
did not grovel.

“Easy
run there, you know,” he said reprovingly.

The
world swam before Mike’s eyes. Through the red mist he could see Firby-Smith’s
face. The sun glinted on his rather prominent teeth. To Mike’s distorted vision
it seemed that the criminal was amused.

“Don’t
laugh,
you grinning ape!” he cried. “It isn’t funny.”

He then
made for the trees where the rest of the team were sitting.

Now
Firby-Smith not only possessed rather prominent teeth; he was also sensitive on
the subject. Mike’s shaft sank in deeply. The fact that emotion caused him to
swipe at a straight half-volley, miss it, and be bowled next ball made the
wound rankle.

He
avoided Mike on his return to the trees. And Mike, feeling now a little
apprehensive, avoided him.

The
Gazeka brooded apart for the rest of the afternoon, chewing the insult. At
close of play he sought Burgess.

Burgess,
besides being captain of the eleven was also head of the school. He was the man
who arranged prefects’ meetings. And only a prefects’ meeting, thought Firby-Smith,
could adequately avenge his lacerated dignity.

“I want
to speak to you, Burgess,” he said.

“What’s
up?” said Burgess.

“You
know young Jackson in our house.”

“What
about him?”

“He’s
been frightfully insolent.”

“Cheeked
you?” said Burgess, a man of simple speech. “I want you to call a prefects’
meeting, and lick him.” Burgess looked incredulous.

“Rather
a large order, a prefects’ meeting,” he said. “It has to be a pretty serious
sort of thing for that.”

“Frightful
cheek to a school prefect
is
a serious thing,” said Firby-Smith, with
the air of one uttering an epigram.

“Well,
I suppose— What did he say to you?”

Firby-Smith
related the painful details.

Burgess
started to laugh, but turned the laugh into a cough.

“Yes,”
he said meditatively. “Rather thick. Still, I mean— A prefects’ meeting. Rather
like crushing a thingummy with a what-d’you-call-it. Besides, he’s a decent
kid.”

“He’s
frightfully conceited.”

“Oh,
well— Well, anyhow, look here, I’ll think it over, and let you know tomorrow.
It’s not the sort of thing to rush through without thinking about it.”

And the
matter was left temporarily at that.

CHAPTER
XV

MIKE CREATES A VACANCY

BURGESS walked off the
ground feeling that fate was not using him well.

Here
was he, a well-meaning youth who wanted to be on good terms with all the world,
being jockeyed into slaughtering a kid whose batting he admired and whom
personally he liked. And the worst of it was that he sympathized with Mike. He
knew what it felt like to be run out just when one had got set, and he knew
exactly how maddening the Gazeka’s manner would be on such an occasion. On the
other hand, officially he was bound to support the head of Wain’s. Prefects
must stand together or chaos will come.

He
thought he would talk it over with somebody. Bob occurred to him. It was only
fair that Bob should be told, as the nearest of kin.

And
here was another grievance against fate. Bob was a person he did not
particularly wish to see just then. For that morning he had posted up the list
of the team to play for the school against Geddington, one of the four schools
which Wrykyn met at cricket; and Bob’s name did not appear on that list.
Several things had contributed to that melancholy omission. In the first place,
Geddington, to judge from the weekly reports in the
Sportsman
and
Field,
were strong this year at batting. In the second place, the results of the
last few matches, and particularly the M.C.C. match, had given Burgess the idea
that Wrykyn was weak at bowling. It became necessary, therefore, to drop a
batsman out of the team in favour of a bowler. And either Mike or Bob must be
the man.