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

didn’t.”

 

“Hear that, Berry? He doesn’t always break. You must look out for

that,” said Burgess helpfully. Morris sat down and began to take off

his pads.

 

“That chap’ll have Berry, if he doesn’t look out,” he said.

 

But Berridge survived the ordeal. He turned his first ball to leg for

a single.

 

This brought Marsh to the batting end; and the second tragedy

occurred.

 

It was evident from the way he shaped that Marsh was short of

practice. His visit to the Infirmary had taken the edge off his

batting. He scratched awkwardly at three balls without hitting them.

The last of the over had him in two minds. He started to play forward,

changed his stroke suddenly and tried to step back, and the next

moment the bails had shot up like the d�bris of a small

explosion, and the wicket-keeper was clapping his gloved hands gently

and slowly in the introspective, dreamy way wicket-keepers have on

these occasions.

 

A silence that could be felt brooded over the pavilion.

 

The voice of the scorer, addressing from his little wooden hut the

melancholy youth who was working the telegraph-board, broke it.

 

“One for two. Last man duck.”

 

Ellerby echoed the remark. He got up, and took off his blazer.

 

“This is all right,” he said, “isn’t it! I wonder if the man at the

other end is a sort of young Rhodes too!”

 

Fortunately he was not. The star of the Ripton attack was evidently de

Freece. The bowler at the other end looked fairly plain. He sent them

down medium-pace, and on a good wicket would probably have been

simple. But to-day there was danger in the most guileless-looking

deliveries.

 

Berridge relieved the tension a little by playing safely through the

over, and scoring a couple of twos off it. And when Ellerby not only

survived the destructive de Freece’s second over, but actually lifted

a loose ball on to the roof of the scoring-hut, the cloud began

perceptibly to lift. A no-ball in the same over sent up the first ten.

Ten for two was not good; but it was considerably better than one for

two.

 

With the score at thirty, Ellerby was missed in the slips off de

Freece. He had been playing with slowly increasing confidence till

then, but this seemed to throw him out of his stride. He played inside

the next ball, and was all but bowled: and then, jumping out to drive,

he was smartly stumped. The cloud began to settle again.

 

Bob was the next man in.

 

Ellerby took off his pads, and dropped into the chair next to Mike’s.

Mike was silent and thoughtful. He was in after Bob, and to be on the

eve of batting does not make one conversational.

 

“You in next?” asked Ellerby.

 

Mike nodded.

 

“It’s getting trickier every minute,” said Ellerby. “The only thing

is, if we can only stay in, we might have a chance. The wicket’ll get

better, and I don’t believe they’ve any bowling at all bar de Freece.

By George, Bob’s out!… No, he isn’t.”

 

Bob had jumped out at one of de Freece’s slows, as Ellerby had done,

and had nearly met the same fate. The wicket-keeper, however, had

fumbled the ball.

 

“That’s the way I was had,” said Ellerby. “That man’s keeping such a

jolly good length that you don’t know whether to stay in your ground

or go out at them. If only somebody would knock him off his length, I

believe we might win yet.”

 

The same idea apparently occurred to Burgess. He came to where Mike

was sitting.

 

“I’m going to shove you down one, Jackson,” he said. “I shall go in

next myself and swipe, and try and knock that man de Freece off.”

 

“All right,” said Mike. He was not quite sure whether he was glad or

sorry at the respite.

 

“It’s a pity old Wyatt isn’t here,” said Ellerby. “This is just the

sort of time when he might have come off.”

 

“Bob’s broken his egg,” said Mike.

 

“Good man. Every little helps…. Oh, you silly ass, get back!”

 

Berridge had called Bob for a short run that was obviously no run.

Third man was returning the ball as the batsmen crossed. The next

moment the wicket-keeper had the bails off. Berridge was out by a

yard.

 

“Forty-one for four,” said Ellerby. “Help!”

 

Burgess began his campaign against de Freece by skying his first

ball over cover’s head to the boundary. A howl of delight went up

from the school, which was repeated, fortissimo, when, more

by accident than by accurate timing, the captain put on two more

fours past extra-cover. The bowler’s cheerful smile never varied.

 

Whether Burgess would have knocked de Freece off his length or not was

a question that was destined to remain unsolved, for in the middle of

the other bowler’s over Bob hit a single; the batsmen crossed; and

Burgess had his leg-stump uprooted while trying a gigantic pull-stroke.

 

The melancholy youth put up the figures, 54, 5, 12, on the board.

 

Mike, as he walked out of the pavilion to join Bob, was not conscious

of any particular nervousness. It had been an ordeal having to wait

and look on while wickets fell, but now that the time of inaction was

at an end he felt curiously composed. When he had gone out to bat

against the M.C.C. on the occasion of his first appearance for the

school, he experienced a quaint sensation of unreality. He seemed to

be watching his body walking to the wickets, as if it were some one

else’s. There was no sense of individuality.

 

But now his feelings were different. He was cool. He noticed small

things—mid-off chewing bits of grass, the bowler re-tying the scarf

round his waist, little patches of brown where the turf had been worn

away. He took guard with a clear picture of the positions of the

fieldsmen photographed on his brain.

 

Fitness, which in a batsman exhibits itself mainly in an increased

power of seeing the ball, is one of the most inexplicable things

connected with cricket. It has nothing, or very little, to do with

actual health. A man may come out of a sick-room with just that extra

quickness in sighting the ball that makes all the difference; or he

may be in perfect training and play inside straight half-volleys. Mike

would not have said that he felt more than ordinarily well that day.

Indeed, he was rather painfully conscious of having bolted his food at

lunch. But something seemed to whisper to him, as he settled himself

to face the bowler, that he was at the top of his batting form. A

difficult wicket always brought out his latent powers as a bat. It was

a standing mystery with the sporting Press how Joe Jackson managed to

collect fifties and sixties on wickets that completely upset men who

were, apparently, finer players. On days when the Olympians of the

cricket world were bringing their averages down with ducks and

singles, Joe would be in his element, watching the ball and pushing it

through the slips as if there were no such thing as a tricky wicket.

And Mike took after Joe.

 

A single off the fifth ball of the over opened his score and brought

him to the opposite end. Bob played ball number six back to the

bowler, and Mike took guard preparatory to facing de Freece.

 

The Ripton slow bowler took a long run, considering his pace. In the

early part of an innings he often trapped the batsmen in this way, by

leading them to expect a faster ball than he actually sent down. A

queer little jump in the middle of the run increased the difficulty of

watching him.

 

The smiting he had received from Burgess in the previous over had not

had the effect of knocking de Freece off his length. The ball was too

short to reach with comfort, and not short enough to take liberties

with. It pitched slightly to leg, and whipped in quickly. Mike had

faced half-left, and stepped back. The increased speed of the ball

after it had touched the ground beat him. The ball hit his right pad.

 

“‘S that?” shouted mid-on. Mid-on has a habit of appealing for

l.-b.-w. in school matches.

 

De Freece said nothing. The Ripton bowler was as conscientious in the

matter of appeals as a good bowler should be. He had seen that the

ball had pitched off the leg-stump.

 

The umpire shook his head. Mid-on tried to look as if he had not

spoken.

 

Mike prepared himself for the next ball with a glow of confidence. He

felt that he knew where he was now. Till then he had not thought the

wicket was so fast. The two balls he had played at the other end had

told him nothing. They had been well pitched up, and he had smothered

them. He knew what to do now. He had played on wickets of this pace at

home against Saunders’s bowling, and Saunders had shown him the right

way to cope with them.

 

The next ball was of the same length, but this time off the off-stump.

Mike jumped out, and hit it before it had time to break. It flew along

the ground through the gap between cover and extra-cover, a

comfortable three.

 

Bob played out the over with elaborate care.

 

Off the second ball of the other man’s over Mike scored his first

boundary. It was a long-hop on the off. He banged it behind point to

the terrace-bank. The last ball of the over, a half-volley to leg, he

lifted over the other boundary.

 

“Sixty up,” said Ellerby, in the pavilion, as the umpire signalled

another no-ball. “By George! I believe these chaps are going to knock

off the runs. Young Jackson looks as if he was in for a century.”

 

“You ass,” said Berridge. “Don’t say that, or he’s certain to get

out.”

 

Berridge was one of those who are skilled in cricket superstitions.

 

But Mike did not get out. He took seven off de Freece’s next over by

means of two cuts and a drive. And, with Bob still exhibiting a stolid

and rock-like defence, the score mounted to eighty, thence to ninety,

and so, mainly by singles, to a hundred.

 

At a hundred and four, when the wicket had put on exactly fifty, Bob

fell to a combination of de Freece and extra-cover. He had stuck like

a limpet for an hour and a quarter, and made twenty-one.

 

Mike watched him go with much the same feelings as those of a man who

turns away from the platform after seeing a friend off on a long

railway journey. His departure upset the scheme of things. For himself

he had no fear now. He might possibly get out off his next ball, but

he felt set enough to stay at the wickets till nightfall. He had had

narrow escapes from de Freece, but he was full of that conviction,

which comes to all batsmen on occasion, that this was his day. He had

made twenty-six, and the wicket was getting easier. He could feel the

sting going out of the bowling every over.

 

Henfrey, the next man in, was a promising rather than an effective

bat. He had an excellent style, but he was uncertain. (Two years

later, when he captained the Wrykyn teams, he made a lot of runs.) But

this season his batting had been spasmodic.

 

To-day he never looked like settling down. He survived an over from de

Freece, and hit a fast