Mike at Wrykyn (4 page)

As the
ball left Burgess’s hand he began instinctively to shape for a forward stroke.
Then suddenly he realized that the thing was going to be a yorker, and banged his
bat down in the block just as the ball arrived. An unpleasant sensation as of
having been struck by a thunderbolt was succeeded by a feeling of relief that
he had kept the ball out of his wicket. There are easier things in the world
than stopping a fast yorker.

“Well
played,” said Burgess.

Mike
felt like a successful general receiving the thanks of the nation.

The
fact that Burgess’s next ball knocked middle and off stumps out of the ground
saddened him somewhat; but this was the last tragedy that occurred. He could
not do much with the bowling beyond stopping it and feeling repetitions of the
thunderbolt experience, but he kept up his end; and a short conversation which
he had with Burgess at the end of his innings was full of encouragement to one
skilled in reading between the lines.

“Thanks
awfully,” said Mike, referring to the decent manner in which the captain had
behaved in letting him bat.

“What
school were you at before you came here?” asked Burgess.

“A prep.
school in Hampshire,” said Mike. “King-Hall’s. At a place called Emsworth.”

“Get
much cricket there?”

“Yes, a
good lot. One of the masters, a chap called Westbrook, was an awfully good slow
bowler.”

Burgess
nodded.

“You
don’t run away, which is something,” he said.

Mike
turned purple with pleasure at this stately compliment. Then, having waited
for further remarks, but gathering from the captain’s silence that the audience
was at an end, he proceeded to unbuckle his pads. Wyatt overtook him on his way
to the house.

“Well
played,” he said. “I’d no idea you were such hot stuff. You’re a regular pro.”

“I
say,” said Mike gratefully, “it was most awfully decent of you getting Burgess
to let me go in.”

“Oh,
that’s all right. If you don’t get pushed a bit here you stay for ages in the
hundredth game with the cripples and the kids. Now you’ve shown them what you
can do you ought to get into the Under Sixteen team straight away. Probably
into the third, too.”

“By
Jove, that would be all right.”

“I
asked Burgess afterwards what he thought of your batting, and he said, ‘Not
bad.’ But he says that about everything. It’s his highest form of praise. He
says it when he wants to let himself go and simply butter up a thing. If you
took him to see Trueman bowl, he’d say he wasn’t bad. What he meant was that he
was jolly struck with your batting, and is going to play you for the Under
Sixteen.”

“I hope
so,” said Mike.

The
prophecy was fulfilled. On the following Wednesday there was a match between
the Under Sixteen and a scratch side. Mike’s name was among the Under Sixteen.
And on the Saturday he was playing for the third eleven in a trial game.

“This
place is ripping,” he said to himself, as he saw his name on the list. “Thought
I should like it.”

And
that night he wrote a letter to his father, notifying him of the fact.

CHAPTER
V

REVELRY BY NIGHT

A SUCCESSION of events
combined to upset Mike during his first fortnight at school. He was far more
successful than he had any right to be at his age. There is nothing more heady
than success, and if it comes before we are prepared for it, it is apt to throw
us off our balance. As a rule, at school, years of wholesome obscurity make us
ready for any small triumphs we may achieve at the end of our time there. Mike
had skipped these years. He was older than the average new boy, and his batting
was undeniable. He knew quite well that he was regarded as a find by the
cricket authorities; and the knowledge was not particularly good for him. It
did not make him conceited, for his was not a nature at all addicted to conceit.
The effect it had on him was to make him excessively pleased with life. And
when Mike was pleased with life he always found a difficulty in obeying
Authority and its rules. His state of mind was not improved by an interview
with Bob.

Some
evil genius put it into Bob’s mind that it was his duty to be, if only for one
performance, the Heavy Elder Brother to Mike; to give him good advice. It is
never the smallest use for an elder brother to attempt to do anything for the
good of a younger brother at school, for the latter rebels automatically
against such interference in his concerns; but Bob did not know this. He only
knew that he had received a letter from home, in which his mother had assumed
without evidence that he was leading Mike by the hand round the pitfalls of
life at Wrykyn; and his conscience smote him. Beyond asking him occasionally,
when they met, how he was getting on (a question to which Mike invariably
replied, “Oh, all right”), he was not aware of having done anything brotherly
towards the youngster. So he asked Mike to tea in his study one afternoon
before going to the nets.

Mike
arrived, sidling into the study in the half-sheepish, half-defiant manner
peculiar to small brothers in the presence of their elders, and stared in
silence at the photographs on the walls. Bob was changing into his cricket
things. The atmosphere was one of constraint and awkwardness.

The
arrival of tea was the cue for conversation. “Well, how are you getting on?”
asked Bob. “Oh, all right,” said Mike.

Silence.

“Sugar?”
asked Bob. “Thanks,” said Mike. “How many lumps?”

“Two,
please.”

“Cake?”

“Thanks.”

Silence.

Bob pulled
himself together.

“Like
Wain’s?”

“Ripping.”

“I
asked Firby-Smith to keep an eye on you,” said Bob.

“What!”
said Mike.

The
mere idea of a worm like the Gazeka being told to keep an eye on
him
was
degrading.

“He
said he’d look after you,” added Bob, making things worse.

Look
after him! Him! M. Jackson, of the third eleven! !!

Mike
helped himself to another chunk of cake, and spoke crushingly.

“He
needn’t trouble,” he said. “I can look after myself all right, thanks.”

Bob saw
an opening for the entry of the Heavy Elder Brother.

“Look
here, Mike,” he said, “I’m only saying it for your good—”

I
should like to state here that it was not Bob’s habit to go about the world
telling people things solely for their good. He was only doing it now to ease
his conscience.

“Yes?”
said Mike coldly.

“It’s
only this. You know, I should keep an eye on myself if I were you. There’s
nothing that gets a chap so barred here as side.”

“What
do you mean?” said Mike, outraged.

“Oh,
I’m not saying anything against you so far,” said Bob. “You’ve been all right
up to now. What I mean to say is, you’ve got on so well at cricket, in the
third and so on, there’s just a chance you might start throwing your weight
around soon, if you don’t watch yourself. I’m not saying a word against you so
far, of course. Only you see what I mean.”

Mike’s
feelings were too deep for words. In sombre silence he reached out for the jam;
while Bob, satisfied that he had delivered his message in a pleasant and
tactful manner, filled his cup, and cast about him for further words of
wisdom.

“Seen
you about with Wyatt a good deal,” he said at length.

“Yes,”
said Mike.

“Like
him?”

“Yes,”
said Mike cautiously.

“You know,”
said Bob, “I shouldn’t—I mean, I should take care what you’re doing with
Wyatt.”

“What
do you mean?”

“Well,
he’s an awfully good chap, of course, but still—“

“Still
what?”

“Well,
I mean, he’s the sort of chap who’ll probably get into some thundering row
before he leaves. He doesn’t care a hang what he does. He’s that sort of chap.
He’s never been dropped on yet, but if you go on breaking rules you’re bound to
be sooner or later. Thing is, it doesn’t matter much for him, because he’s
leaving at the end of the term. But don’t let him drag you into anything. Not
that he would try to. But you might think it was the done thing to imitate him,
and the first thing you knew you’d be dropped on by Wain or somebody. See what
I mean?”

Bob was
well-intentioned, but tact did not enter greatly into his composition.

“What
rot!” said Mike.

“All
right. But don’t you go doing it. I’m going over to the nets. I see Burgess has
shoved you down for them. You’d better be going and changing. Stick on here a
bit, though, if you want any more tea. I’ve got to be off myself.”

Mike
changed for net-practice in a ferment of spiritual injury. It was maddening to
be treated as an infant who had to be looked after. He felt very sore against
Bob.

A good
innings at the third eleven net, followed by some strenuous fielding in the
deep, soothed his ruffled feelings to a large extent; and all might have been
well but for the intervention of Firby-Smith.

That
youth, all spectacles and front teeth, met Mike at the door of Wain’s.

“Ah, I
wanted to see you, young man,” he said. (Mike disliked being called “young
man.”) “Come up to my study.”

Mike
followed him in silence to his study, and preserved his silence till
Firby-Smith, having deposited his cricket-bag in a corner of the room and
examined himself carefully in a looking-glass that hung over the mantelpiece,
spoke again.

“I’ve
been hearing all about you, young man.” Mike shuffled.

“You’re
a frightful character from all accounts.” Mike could not think of anything to
say that was not rude, so said nothing.

“Your
brother has asked me to keep an eye on you.”

Mike’s
soul began to tie itself into knots again. He was just at the age when one is
most sensitive to patronage and most resentful of it.

“I
promised I would,” said the Gazeka, turning round and examining himself in the
mirror again. “You’ll get on all right if you behave yourself. Don’t make a
frightful row in the house. Don’t cheek your elders and betters. Wash. That’s
all. Buzz off.”

Mike
had a vague idea of sacrificing his career to the momentary pleasure of
flinging a chair at the head of the house. Overcoming this feeling, he walked
out of the room, and up to his dormitory to change.

In the dormitory that
night the feeling of revolt, of wanting to do something actively illegal,
increased. Like “Eric,” he burned, not with shame and remorse, but with rage
and all that sort of thing. He dropped off to sleep full of half-formed plans
for asserting himself. He was awakened from a dream in which he was batting
against Firby-Smith’s bowling, and hitting it into space every time, by a
slight sound. He opened his eyes, and saw a dark figure silhouetted against the
light of the window. He sat up in bed.

“Hullo,”
he said. “Is that you, Wyatt?”

“Are
you awake?” said Wyatt. “Sorry if I’ve spoiled your beauty sleep.”

“Are
you going out?”

“I am,”
said Wyatt. “The cats are particularly strong on the wind just now. Mustn’t
miss a chance like this. Specially as there’s a good moon, too. I shall be
deadly.”

“I say,
can’t I come too?”

A
moonlight prowl, with or without an air-pistol, would just have suited Mike’s
mood.

“No,
you can’t,” said Wyatt. “When I’m caught, as I’m morally certain to be some day,
or night rather, they’re bound to ask if you’ve ever been out as well as me.
Then you’ll be able to put your hand on your little heart and do a big George
Washington act. You’ll find that useful when the time comes.”

“Do you
think you will be caught?”

“Shouldn’t
be surprised. Anyhow, you stay where you are. Go to sleep and dream that you’re
playing for the school against Ripton. So long.”

And
Wyatt, laying the bar he had extracted on the window-sill, wriggled out. Mike
saw him disappearing along the wall.

It was all very well for
Wyatt to tell him to go to sleep, but it was not so easy to do it. The room was
almost light; and Mike always found it difficult to sleep unless it was dark.
He turned over on his side and shut his eyes, but he had never felt wider
awake. Twice he heard the quarters chime from the school clock; and the second
time he gave up the struggle. He got out of bed and went to the window. It was
a lovely night, just the sort of night on which, if he had been at home, he
would have been out after moths with a torch.

A sharp
yowl from an unseen cat told of Wyatt’s presence somewhere in the big garden.
He would have given much to be with him, but he realized that he was on parole.
He had promised not to leave the house, and there was an end of it.