Mike, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse [e books for reading txt] 📗

lunch, if the sun comes out. A

regular Rhodes wicket it’s going to be.”

 

“I wish we had Rhodes,” said Burgess. “Or even Wyatt. It would

just suit him, this.”

 

Mr. Spence, as a member of the staff, was not going to be drawn into

discussing Wyatt and his premature departure, so he diverted the

conversation on to the subject of the general aspect of the school’s

attack.

 

“Who will go on first with you, Burgess?”

 

“Who do you think, sir? Ellerby? It might be his wicket.”

 

Ellerby bowled medium inclining to slow. On a pitch that suited him he

was apt to turn from leg and get people out caught at the wicket or

short slip.

 

“Certainly, Ellerby. This end, I think. The other’s yours, though I’m

afraid you’ll have a poor time bowling fast to-day. Even with plenty

of sawdust I doubt if it will be possible to get a decent foothold

till after lunch.”

 

“I must win the toss,” said Burgess. “It’s a nuisance too, about our

batting. Marsh will probably be dead out of form after being in the

Infirmary so long. If he’d had a chance of getting a bit of practice

yesterday, it might have been all right.”

 

“That rain will have a lot to answer for if we lose. On a dry, hard

wicket I’m certain we should beat them four times out of six. I was

talking to a man who played against them for the Nomads. He said that

on a true wicket there was not a great deal of sting in their bowling,

but that they’ve got a slow leg-break man who might be dangerous on a

day like this. A boy called de Freece. I don’t know of him. He wasn’t

in the team last year.”

 

“I know the chap. He played wing three for them at footer against us

this year on their ground. He was crocked when they came here. He’s a

pretty useful chap all round, I believe. Plays racquets for them too.”

 

“Well, my friend said he had one very dangerous ball, of the Bosanquet

type. Looks as if it were going away, and comes in instead.”

 

“I don’t think a lot of that,” said Burgess ruefully. “One consolation

is, though, that that sort of ball is easier to watch on a slow

wicket. I must tell the fellows to look out for it.”

 

“I should. And, above all, win the toss.”

 

*

 

Burgess and Maclaine, the Ripton captain, were old acquaintances. They

had been at the same private school, and they had played against one

another at football and cricket for two years now.

 

“We’ll go in first, Mac,” said Burgess, as they met on the pavilion

steps after they had changed.

 

“It’s awfully good of you to suggest it,” said Maclaine. “but I think

we’ll toss. It’s a hobby of mine. You call.”

 

“Heads.”

 

“Tails it is. I ought to have warned you that you hadn’t a chance.

I’ve lost the toss five times running, so I was bound to win to-day.”

 

“You’ll put us in, I suppose?”

 

“Yes—after us.”

 

“Oh, well, we sha’n’t have long to wait for our knock, that’s a

comfort. Buck up and send some one in, and let’s get at you.”

 

And Burgess went off to tell the ground-man to have plenty of sawdust

ready, as he would want the field paved with it.

 

*

 

The policy of the Ripton team was obvious from the first over. They

meant to force the game. Already the sun was beginning to peep through

the haze. For about an hour run-getting ought to be a tolerably simple

process; but after that hour singles would be as valuable as threes

and boundaries an almost unheard-of luxury.

 

So Ripton went in to hit.

 

The policy proved successful for a time, as it generally does.

Burgess, who relied on a run that was a series of tiger-like leaps

culminating in a spring that suggested that he meant to lower the long

jump record, found himself badly handicapped by the state of the

ground. In spite of frequent libations of sawdust, he was compelled to

tread cautiously, and this robbed his bowling of much of its pace. The

score mounted rapidly. Twenty came in ten minutes. At thirty-five the

first wicket fell, run out.

 

At sixty Ellerby, who had found the pitch too soft for him and had

been expensive, gave place to Grant. Grant bowled what were supposed

to be slow leg-breaks, but which did not always break. The change

worked.

 

Maclaine, after hitting the first two balls to the boundary, skied the

third to Bob Jackson in the deep, and Bob, for whom constant practice

had robbed this sort of catch of its terrors, held it.

 

A yorker from Burgess disposed of the next man before he could settle

down; but the score, seventy-four for three wickets, was large enough

in view of the fact that the pitch was already becoming more

difficult, and was certain to get worse, to make Ripton feel that the

advantage was with them. Another hour of play remained before lunch.

The deterioration of the wicket would be slow during that period. The

sun, which was now shining brightly, would put in its deadliest work

from two o’clock onwards. Maclaine’s instructions to his men were to

go on hitting.

 

A too liberal interpretation of the meaning of the verb “to hit” led

to the departure of two more Riptonians in the course of the next two

overs. There is a certain type of school batsman who considers that to

force the game means to swipe blindly at every ball on the chance of

taking it half-volley. This policy sometimes leads to a boundary or

two, as it did on this occasion, but it means that wickets will fall,

as also happened now. Seventy-four for three became eighty-six for

five. Burgess began to look happier.

 

His contentment increased when he got the next man leg-before-wicket

with the total unaltered. At this rate Ripton would be out before

lunch for under a hundred.

 

But the rot stopped with the fall of that wicket. Dashing tactics were

laid aside. The pitch had begun to play tricks, and the pair now in

settled down to watch the ball. They plodded on, scoring slowly and

jerkily till the hands of the clock stood at half-past one. Then

Ellerby, who had gone on again instead of Grant, beat the less steady

of the pair with a ball that pitched on the middle stump and shot into

the base of the off. A hundred and twenty had gone up on the board at

the beginning of the over.

 

That period which is always so dangerous, when the wicket is bad, the

ten minutes before lunch, proved fatal to two more of the enemy. The

last man had just gone to the wickets, with the score at a hundred and

thirty-one, when a quarter to two arrived, and with it the luncheon

interval.

 

So far it was anybody’s game.