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

a fragment of black and grey stuff. He shouted hilariously:

“Strip the bitch naked!⁠ ⁠… Ugh⁠ ⁠… Strip the bitch stark naked!” and jumped down the little hill. He cannoned into Tietjens, who roared at the top of his voice:

“You infernal swine. I’ll knock your head off if you move!”

Behind Tietjens’ back the girl said:

“Come along, Gertie.⁠ ⁠… It’s only to there⁠ ⁠…”

A voice panted in answer:

“I⁠ ⁠… can’t.⁠ ⁠… My heart⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens kept his eye upon the city man. His jaw had fallen down, his eyes stared! It was as if the bottom of his assured world, where all men desire in their hearts to bash women, had fallen out. He panted:

“Ergle! Ergle!”

Another scream, a little further than the last voices from behind his back, caused in Tietjens a feeling of intense weariness. What did beastly women want to scream for? He swung round, bag and all. The policeman, his face scarlet like a lobster just boiled, was lumbering unenthusiastically towards the two girls who were trotting towards the dyke. One of his hands, scarlet also, was extended. He was not a yard from Tietjens.

Tietjens was exhausted, beyond thinking or shouting. He slipped his clubs off his shoulder and, as if he were pitching his kit-bag into a luggage van, threw the whole lot between the policeman’s running legs. The man, who had no impetus to speak of, pitched forward on to his hands and knees. His helmet over his eyes, he seemed to reflect for a moment; then he removed his helmet and with great deliberation rolled round and sat on the turf. His face was completely without emotion, long, sandy-moustached and rather shrewd. He mopped his brow with a carmine handkerchief that had white spots.

Tietjens walked up to him.

“Clumsy of me!” he said. “I hope you’re not hurt.” He drew from his breast pocket a curved silver flask. The policeman said nothing. His world, too, contained uncertainties and he was profoundly glad to be able to sit still without discredit. He muttered:

“Shaken. A bit! Anybody would be!”

That let him out and he fell to examining with attention the bayonet catch of the flask top. Tietjens opened it for him. The two girls, advancing at a fatigued trot, were near the dyke side. The fair girl, as they trotted, was trying to adjust her companion’s hat; attached by pins to the back of her hair it flapped on her shoulder.

All the rest of the posse were advancing at a very slow walk, in a converging semicircle. Two little caddies were running, but Tietjens saw them check, hesitate and stop. And there floated to Tietjens’ ears the words:

“Stop, you little devils. She’ll knock your heads off.”

Rt. Hon. Mr. Waterhouse must have found an admirable voice trainer somewhere. The drab girl was balancing tremulously over a plank on the dyke; the other took it at a jump: up in the air⁠—down on her feet; perfectly businesslike. And, as soon as the other girl was off the plank, she was down on her knees before it, pulling it towards her, the other girl trotting away over the vast marsh field.

The girl dropped the plank on the grass. Then she looked up and faced the men and boys who stood in a row on the road. She called in a shrill, high voice, like a young cockerel’s:

“Seventeen to two! The usual male odds! You’ll have to go round by Camber railway bridge, and we’ll be in Folkestone by then. We’ve got bicycles!” She was half going when she checked and, searching out Tietjens to address, exclaimed: “I’m sorry I said that. Because some of you didn’t want to catch us. But some of you did. And you were seventeen to two.” She addressed Mr. Waterhouse:

“Why don’t you give women the vote?” she said. “You’ll find it will interfere a good deal with your indispensable golf if you don’t. Then what becomes of the nation’s health?”

Mr. Waterhouse said:

“If you’ll come and discuss it quietly⁠ ⁠…”

She said:

“Oh, tell that to the marines,” and turned away, the men in a row watching her figure disappear into the distance of the flat land. Not one of them was inclined to risk that jump: there was nine foot of mud in the bottom of the dyke. It was quite true that, the plank being removed, to go after the women they would have had to go several miles round. It had been a well thought out raid. Mr. Waterhouse said that girl was a ripping girl: the others found her just ordinary. Mr. Sandbach, who had only lately ceased to shout: “Hi!” wanted to know what they were going to do about catching the women, but Mr. Waterhouse said: “Oh, chuck it, Sandy,” and went off.

Mr. Sandbach refused to continue his match with Tietjens. He said that Tietjens was the sort of fellow who was the ruin of England. He said he had a good mind to issue a warrant for the arrest of Tietjens⁠—for obstructing the course of justice. Tietjens pointed out that Sandbach wasn’t a borough magistrate and so couldn’t. And Sandbach went off, dot and carry one, and began a furious row with the two city men who had retreated to a distance. He said they were the sort of men who were the ruin of England. They bleated like rams.⁠ ⁠…

Tietjens wandered slowly up the course, found his ball, made his shot with care and found that the ball deviated several feet less to the right of a straight line than he had expected. He tried the shot again, obtained the same result and tabulated his observations in his notebook. He sauntered slowly back towards the clubhouse. He was content.

He felt himself to be content for the first time in four months. His pulse beat calmly; the heat of the sun all over him appeared to be a beneficent flood. On the flanks of the older and larger sandhills he observed the minute herbage, mixed with little purple aromatic plants. To these the constant nibbling of sheep had imparted a protective tininess. He wandered, content, round the sandhills to the small,