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CHAPTER XXVIII - MIKE WINS HOME
The Ripton last-wicket man was de Freece, the slow bowler. He was
apparently a young gentleman wholly free from the curse of
nervousness. He wore a cheerful smile as he took guard before
receiving the first ball after lunch, and Wrykyn had plenty of
opportunity of seeing that that was his normal expression when at the
wickets. There is often a certain looseness about the attack after
lunch, and the bowler of googlies took advantage of it now. He seemed
to be a batsman with only one hit; but he had also a very accurate
eye, and his one hit, a semicircular stroke, which suggested the golf
links rather than the cricket field, came off with distressing
frequency. He mowed Burgess's first ball to the square-leg boundary,
missed his second, and snicked the third for three over long-slip's
head. The other batsman played out the over, and de Freece proceeded
to treat Ellerby's bowling with equal familiarity. The scoring-board
showed an increase of twenty as the result of three overs. Every
run was invaluable now, and the Ripton contingent made the pavilion
re-echo as a fluky shot over mid-on's head sent up the hundred and
fifty.
There are few things more exasperating to the fielding side than a
last-wicket stand. It resembles in its effect the dragging-out of a
book or play after the _dénouement_ has been reached. At the fall
of the ninth wicket the fieldsmen nearly always look on their outing
as finished. Just a ball or two to the last man, and it will be their
turn to bat. If the last man insists on keeping them out in the field,
they resent it.
What made it especially irritating now was the knowledge that a
straight yorker would solve the whole thing. But when Burgess bowled a
yorker, it was not straight. And when he bowled a straight ball, it
was not a yorker. A four and a three to de Freece, and a four bye sent
up a hundred and sixty.
It was beginning to look as if this might go on for ever, when
Ellerby, who had been missing the stumps by fractions of an inch,
for the last ten minutes, did what Burgess had failed to do. He
bowled a straight, medium-paced yorker, and de Freece, swiping at it
with a bright smile, found his leg-stump knocked back. He had made
twenty-eight. His record score, he explained to Mike, as they walked
to the pavilion, for this or any ground.
The Ripton total was a hundred and sixty-six.
* * * * *
With the ground in its usual true, hard condition, Wrykyn would have
gone in against a score of a hundred and sixty-six with the cheery
intention of knocking off the runs for the loss of two or three
wickets. It would have been a gentle canter for them.
But ordinary standards would not apply here. On a good wicket Wrykyn
that season were a two hundred and fifty to three hundred side. On a
bad wicket--well, they had met the Incogniti on a bad wicket, and
their total--with Wyatt playing and making top score--had worked out
at a hundred and seven.
A grim determination to do their best, rather than confidence that
their best, when done, would be anything record-breaking, was the
spirit which animated the team when they opened their innings.
And in five minutes this had changed to a dull gloom.
The tragedy started with the very first ball. It hardly seemed that
the innings had begun, when Morris was seen to leave the crease, and
make for the pavilion.
"It's that googly man," said Burgess blankly.
"What's happened?" shouted a voice from the interior of the first
eleven room.
"Morris is out."
"Good gracious! How?" asked Ellerby, emerging from the room with one
pad on his leg and the other in his hand.
"L.-b.-w. First ball."
"My aunt! Who's in next? Not me?"
"No. Berridge. For goodness sake, Berry, stick a bat in the way, and
not your legs. Watch that de Freece man like a hawk. He breaks like
sin all over the shop. Hullo, Morris! Bad luck! Were you out, do you
think?" A batsman who has been given l.-b.-w. is always asked this
question on his return to the pavilion, and he answers it in nine
cases out of ten in the negative. Morris was the tenth case. He
thought it was all right, he said.
"Thought the thing was going to break, but it 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 _débris_ 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 change bowler who had been put on at the other
end for a couple of fluky fours. Then Mike got the bowling for three
consecutive overs, and raised the score to a hundred and twenty-six. A
bye brought Henfrey to the batting end again, and de Freece's pet
googly, which had not been much in evidence hitherto, led to his
snicking an easy catch into short-slip's hands.
A hundred and twenty-seven for seven against a total of a hundred and
sixty-six gives the impression that the batting side has the
advantage. In the present case, however, it was Ripton who were really
in the better position. Apparently, Wrykyn had three more wickets to
fall. Practically they had only one, for neither Ashe, nor Grant, nor
Devenish had any pretensions to be considered batsmen. Ashe was the
school wicket-keeper. Grant and Devenish were bowlers. Between them
the three could not be relied on for a dozen in a decent match.
Mike watched Ashe shape with a sinking heart. The wicket-keeper looked
like a man who feels that his hour has come. Mike could see him
licking his lips. There was nervousness written all over him.
He was not kept long in suspense. De Freece's first ball made a
hideous wreck of his wicket.
"Over," said the umpire.
Mike felt that the school's one chance now lay in his keeping the
bowling. But how was he to do this? It suddenly occurred to him that
it was a delicate position that he was in. It was not often that he
was troubled by an inconvenient modesty, but this happened now. Grant
was a fellow he hardly knew, and a school prefect to boot. Could he go
up to him and explain that he, Jackson, did not consider him competent
to bat in this crisis? Would not this get about and be accounted to
him for side? He had made forty, but even so....
Fortunately Grant solved the problem on his own account. He came up to
Mike and spoke with an earnestness born of nerves. "For goodness
sake," he whispered, "collar the bowling all you know, or we're done.
I shall get outed first ball."
"All right," said Mike, and set his teeth. Forty to win! A large
order. But it was going to be done. His whole existence seemed to
concentrate itself on those forty runs.
The fast bowler, who was the last of several changes that had been
tried at the other end, was well-meaning but erratic. The wicket was
almost true again now, and it was possible to take liberties.
Mike took them.
A distant clapping from the pavilion, taken up a moment later all
round the ground, and echoed by the Ripton fieldsmen, announced that
he had reached his fifty.
The last ball of the over he mishit. It rolled in the direction of
third man.
"Come on," shouted Grant.
Mike and the ball arrived at the opposite wicket almost
simultaneously. Another fraction of a second, and he would have been
run out.
[Illustration: MIKE AND THE BALL ARRIVED ALMOST SIMULTANEOUSLY]
The last balls of the next two overs provided repetitions of this
performance. But each time luck was with him, and his bat was across
the crease before the bails were off. The telegraph-board showed a
hundred and fifty.
The next over was doubly sensational. The original medium-paced bowler
had gone on again in place of the fast man, and for the first five
balls he could not find his length. During those five balls Mike
raised the score to a hundred and sixty.
But the sixth was of a different kind. Faster than the rest and of a
perfect length, it all but got through Mike's defence. As it was, he
stopped it. But he did not score. The umpire called "Over!" and there
was Grant at the batting end, with de Freece smiling pleasantly as he
walked back to begin his run with the comfortable reflection that at
last he had got somebody except Mike to bowl at.
That over was an experience Mike never forgot.
Grant pursued the Fabian policy of keeping his bat almost immovable
and trusting to luck. Point and the slips crowded round. Mid-off and
mid-on moved half-way down the pitch. Grant looked embarrassed, but
determined. For four balls he baffled the attack, though once nearly
caught by point a yard from the wicket. The fifth curled round his
bat, and touched the off-stump. A bail fell silently to the ground.
Devenish came in to take the last ball of the over.
It was an awe-inspiring moment. A great stillness was over all the
ground. Mike's knees trembled. Devenish's face was a delicate grey.
The only person unmoved seemed to be de Freece. His smile was even
more amiable than usual as he began his run.
The next moment the crisis was past. The ball hit the very centre of
Devenish's bat, and rolled back down the pitch.
The school broke into one great howl of joy. There were still seven
runs between them and victory, but nobody appeared to recognise this
fact as important. Mike had got the bowling, and the bowling was not
de Freece's.
It seemed almost an anti-climax when a four to leg and two two's
through the slips settled the thing.
* * * * *
Devenish was caught and bowled in de Freece's next over; but the
Wrykyn total was one hundred and seventy-two.
* * * * *
"Good game," said Maclaine, meeting Burgess in the pavilion. "Who was
the man who made all the runs? How many, by the way?"
"Eighty-three. It was young Jackson. Brother of the other one."
"That family! How many more of them are you going to have here?"
"He's the last. I say, rough luck on de Freece. He bowled rippingly."
Politeness to a beaten foe caused Burgess to change his usual "not
bad."
"The funny part of it is," continued he, "that young Jackson was only
playing as a sub."
"You've got a rum idea of what's funny," said Maclaine.
Content of CHAPTER XXVIII - MIKE WINS HOME [P G Wodehouse's novel: Mike]
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