School Stories - P. G. Wodehouse (best e book reader TXT) 📗

Mansfield considered the question thoughtfully. “They all play, I suppose,” he said slowly, “if you can call it playing. What I mean to say is, cricket’s compulsory here, so I suppose they’ve all had an innings or two at one time or another in the eightieth game or so. But if you want record-breakers, I shouldn’t trust to Shields’ too much.”

“Not a bit. So long as we put a full team into the field, that’s all I care about. I’ve often wondered what it’s like to go in first and bowl unchanged the whole time.”

“You’ll do that all right,” said Mansfield. “I should think Shields’ bowling ran to slow grubs, to judge from the look of ’em. You’d better go and see Wilkins about raising the team. As head of the house, he probably considers himself captain of cricket.”

Wilkins, however, took a far more modest view of his position. The notion of leading a happy band of cricketers from Shields’ into the field had, it seemed, small attractions for him. But he went so far as to get a house list, and help choose a really representative team. And as details about historic teams are always welcome, we may say that the averages ranged from 3.005 to 8.14. This last was Wilkins’ own and was, as he would have been the first to admit, substantially helped by a contribution of nineteen in a single innings in the fifth game.

So the team was selected, and Clephane turned out after school next day to give them a little fielding-practice. To his surprise the fielding was not so outrageous as might have been expected. All the simpler catches were held, and one or two of the harder as well. Given this form on the day of their appearance in public, and Henfrey might be disappointed when he came to watch and smile sarcastically. A batting fiasco is not one half so ridiculous as maniac fielding.

In the meantime the first round of the house matches had been played off, and it would be as well to describe at this point the positions of the rival houses and their prospects. In the first place, there were only four teams really in the running for the cup, Day’s (headed by the redoubtable Henfrey), Spence’s, who had Jackson, that season a head and shoulders above the other batsmen in the first eleven⁠—he had just wound up the school season with an average of 51.3, Donaldson’s, and Dexter’s. All the other house teams were mainly tail.

Now, in the first round the powerful quartette had been diminished by the fact that Donaldson’s had drawn Dexter’s, and had lost to them by a couple of wickets.

For the second round Shields’ drew Appleby’s, a poor team. Space on the Wrykyn field being a consideration, with three house matches to be played off at the same time, Clephane’s men fought their first battle on rugged ground in an obscure corner. As the captain of cricket ordered these matters, Henfrey had naturally selected the best bit of turf for Day’s v. Dexter’s. That section of the ground which was sacred to the school second-eleven matches was allotted to Spence’s v. the School House. The idle public divided its attention between the two big games, and paid no attention to the death struggle in progress at the far end of the field. Whereby it missed a deal of quiet fun.

I say death struggle advisedly. Clephane had won his second-eleven cap as a fast bowler. He had failed to get into the first eleven because he was considered too erratic. Put these two facts together, and you will suspect that dark deeds were wrought on the men of Appleby in that lonely corner of the Wrykyn meadow.

The pitch was not a good one. As a sample of the groundman’s art it was sketchy and amateurish; it lacked finish. Clephane won the toss, took a hasty glance at the corrugated turf, and decided to bat first. The wicket was hardly likely to improve with use.

He and Mansfield opened the batting. He stood three feet out of his ground, and smote. The first four balls he took full pitch. The last two, owing to a passion for variety on the part of the bowler, were long hops. At the end of the over Shields’ score was twenty-four. Mansfield pursued the same tactics. When the first wicket fell, seventy was on the board. A spirit of martial enthusiasm pervaded the ranks of the house team. Mild youths with spectacles leaped out of their ground like tigers, and snicked fours through the slips. When the innings concluded, blood had been spilt⁠—from an injured finger⁠—but the total was a hundred and two.

Then Clephane walked across to the School shop for a vanilla ice. He said he could get more devil, as it were, into his bowling after a vanilla ice. He had a couple.

When he bowled his first ball it was easy to see that there was truth in the report of the causes of his inclusion in the second eleven and exclusion from the first. The batsman observed somewhat weakly, “Here, I say!” and backed towards square leg. The ball soared over the wicket-keep’s head and went to the boundary. The bowler grinned pleasantly, and said he was just getting his arm in.

The second ball landed full-pitch on the batsman’s right thigh. The third was another full pitch, this time on the top of the middle stump, which it smashed. With profound satisfaction the batsman hobbled to the trees, and sat down. “Let somebody else have a shot,” he said kindly.

Appleby’s made twenty-eight that innings.

Their defeat by an innings and fifty-three runs they attributed subsequently to the fact that only seven of the team could be induced to go to the wickets in the second venture.

“So you’ve managed to win a match,” grunted Henfrey, “I should like to have been there.”

“You might just as well have been,” said Clephane, “from what they