Some Do Not …, Ford Madox Ford [free e novels .txt] 📗

both were desultory and Sandbach very lame, they lost sight of the others behind some coastguard cottages and dunes before they had left the third tee. Because of his game leg Sandbach sliced a good deal. On this occasion he sliced right into the gardens of the cottages and went with his boy to look for his ball among potato-haulms, beyond a low wall. Tietjens patted his own ball lazily up the fairway and, dragging his bag behind him by the strap, he sauntered on.

Although Tietjens hated golf as he hated any occupation that was of a competitive nature he could engross himself in the mathematics of trajectories when he accompanied Macmaster in one of his expeditions for practice. He accompanied Macmaster because he liked there to be one pursuit at which his friend indisputably excelled himself, for it was a bore always browbeating the fellow. But he stipulated that they should visit three different and, if possible, unknown courses every weekend when they golfed. He interested himself then in the way the courses were laid out, acquiring thus an extraordinary connoisseurship in golf architecture, and he made abstruse calculations as to the flight of balls off sloped club-faces, as to the foot-poundals of energy exercised by one muscle or the other, and as to theories of spin. As often as not he palmed Macmaster off as a fair, average player on some other unfortunate fair, average stranger. Then he passed the afternoon in the clubhouse studying the pedigrees and forms of racehorses, for every clubhouse contained a copy of Ruff’s guide. In the spring he would hunt for and examine the nests of soft-billed birds, for he was interested in the domestic affairs of the cuckoo, though he hated natural history and field botany.

On this occasion he had just examined some notes of other mashie shots, had put the notebook back in his pocket, and had addressed his ball with a niblick that had an unusually roughened face and a head like a hatchet. Meticulously, when he had taken his grip he removed his little and third fingers from the leather of the shaft. He was thanking heaven that Sandbach seemed to be accounted for for ten minutes at least, for Sandbach was miserly over lost balls and, very slowly, he was raising his mashie to half cock for a sighting shot.

He was aware that someone, breathing a little heavily from small lungs, was standing close to him and watching him: he could indeed, beneath his cap-rim, perceive the tips of a pair of boy’s white sand-shoes. It in no way perturbed him to be watched since he was avid of no personal glory when making his shots. A voice said:

“I say⁠ ⁠…” He continued to look at his ball.

“Sorry to spoil your shot,” the voice said. “But⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens dropped his club altogether and straightened his back. A fair young woman with a fixed scowl was looking at him intently. She had a short skirt and was panting a little.

“I say,” she said, “go and see they don’t hurt Gertie. I’ve lost her⁠ ⁠…” She pointed back to the sandhills. “There looked to be some beasts among them.”

She seemed a perfectly negligible girl except for the frown: her eyes blue, her hair no doubt fair under a white canvas hat. She had a striped cotton blouse, but her fawn tweed skirt was well hung.

Tietjens said:

“You’ve been demonstrating.”

She said:

“Of course we have, and of course you object on principle. But you won’t let a girl be manhandled. Don’t wait to tell me I know it⁠ ⁠…”

Noises existed. Sandbach, from beyond the low garden wall fifty yards away, was yelping, just like a dog: “Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” and gesticulating. His little caddy, entangled in his golf-bag, was trying to scramble over the wall. On top of a high sandhill stood the policeman: he waved his arms like a windmill and shouted. Beside him and behind, slowly rising, were the heads of the General, Macmaster and their two boys. Further along, in completion were appearing the figures of Mr. Waterhouse, his two companions and their three boys. The Minister was waving his driver and shouting. They all shouted.

“A regular rat-hunt,” the girl said; she was counting. “Eleven and two more caddies!” She exhibited satisfaction. “I headed them all off except two beasts. They couldn’t run. But neither can Gertie⁠ ⁠…”

She said urgently:

“Come along! You aren’t going to leave Gertie to those beasts! They’re drunk⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“Cut away then. I’ll look after Gertie.” He picked up his bag.

“No, I’ll come with you,” the girl said.

Tietjens answered: “Oh, you don’t want to go to gaol. Clear out!”

She said:

“Nonsense. I’ve put up with worse than that. Nine months as a slavey.⁠ ⁠… Come along!”

Tietjens started to run⁠—rather like a rhinoceros seeing purple. He had been violently spurred, for he had been pierced by a shrill, faint scream. The girl ran beside him.

“… can⁠ ⁠… run!” she panted, “put on a spurt.”

Screams protesting against physical violence were at that date rare things in England. Tietjens had never heard the like. It upset him frightfully, though he was aware only of an expanse of open country. The policeman, whose buttons made him noteworthy, was descending his conical sandhill, diagonally, with caution. There is something grotesque about a town policeman, silvered helmet and all, in the open country. It was so clear and still in the air; Tietjens felt as if he were in a light museum looking at specimens.⁠ ⁠…

A little young woman, engrossed, like a hunted rat, came round the corner of a green mound. “This is an assaulted female!” the mind of Tietjens said to him. She had a black skirt covered with sand, for she had just rolled down the sandhill; she had a striped grey and black silk blouse, one shoulder torn completely off, so that a white camisole showed. Over the shoulder of the sandhill came the two city men, flushed with triumph and panting; their red knitted waistcoats moved like bellows. The black-haired one, his eyes lurid and obscene, brandished aloft