12 Mike Read online

The next moment the dreams had come true. The umpire was signalling to the scoring-box, the school was shouting, extra-cover was trotting to the boundary to fetch the ball, and Mike was blushing and wondering whether it was bad form to grin.

  From that ball onwards all was for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Saunders bowled no more half-volleys; but Mike played everything that he did bowl. He met the lobs with a bat like a barn-door. Even the departure of Morris, caught in the slips off Saunders’s next over for a chanceless hundred and five, did not disturb him. All nervousness had left him. He felt equal to the situation. Burgess came in, and began to hit out as if he meant to knock off the runs. The bowling became a shade loose. Twice he was given full tosses to leg, which he hit to the terrace bank. Half-past six chimed, and two hundred and fifty went up on the telegraph board. Burgess continued to hit. Mike’s whole soul was concentrated on keeping up his wicket. There was only Reeves to follow him, and Reeves was a victim to the first straight ball. Burgess had to hit because it was the only game he knew; but he himself must simply stay in.

  The hands of the clock seemed to have stopped. Then suddenly he heard the umpire say “Last over,” and he settled down to keep those six balls out of his wicket.

  The lob bowler had taken himself off, and the Oxford Authentic had gone on, fast left-hand.

  The first ball was short and wide of the off-stump. Mike let it alone. Number two: yorker. Got him! Three: straight half-volley. Mike played it back to the bowler. Four: beat him, and missed the wicket by an inch. Five: another yorker. Down on it again in the old familiar way.

  All was well. The match was a draw now whatever happened to him. He hit out, almost at a venture, at the last ball, and mid-off, jumping, just failed to reach it. It hummed over his head, and ran like a streak along the turf and up the bank, and a great howl of delight went up from the school as the umpire took off the bails.

  Mike walked away from the wickets with Joe and the wicket-keeper.

  “I’m sorry about your nose, Joe,” said the wicket-keeper in tones of grave solicitude.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “At present,” said the wicket-keeper, “nothing. But in a few years I’m afraid it’s going to be put badly out of joint.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  A SLIGHT IMBROGLIO

  Mike got his third eleven colours after the M.C.C. match. As he had made twenty-three not out in a crisis in a first eleven match, this may not seem an excessive reward. But it was all that he expected. One had to take the rungs of the ladder singly at Wrykyn. First one was given one’s third eleven cap. That meant, “You are a promising man, and we have our eye on you.” Then came the second colours. They might mean anything from “Well, here you are. You won’t get any higher, so you may as well have the thing now,” to “This is just to show that we still have our eye on you.”

  Mike was a certainty now for the second. But it needed more than one performance to secure the first cap.

  “I told you so,” said Wyatt, naturally, to Burgess after the match.

  “He’s not bad,” said Burgess. “I’ll give him another shot.”

  But Burgess, as has been pointed out, was not a person who ever became gushing with enthusiasm.

  So Wilkins, of the School House, who had played twice for the first eleven, dropped down into the second, as many a good man had done before him, and Mike got his place in the next match, against the Gentlemen of the County. Unfortunately for him, the visiting team, however gentlemanly, were not brilliant cricketers, at any rate as far as bowling was concerned. The school won the toss, went in first, and made three hundred and sixteen for five wickets, Morris making another placid century. The innings was declared closed before Mike had a chance of distinguishing himself. In an innings which lasted for one over he made two runs, not out; and had to console himself for the cutting short of his performance by the fact that his average for the school was still infinity. Bob, who was one of those lucky enough to have an unabridged innings, did better in this match, making twenty-five. But with Morris making a hundred and seventeen, and Berridge, Ellerby, and Marsh all passing the half-century, this score did not show up excessively.

  We now come to what was practically a turning-point in Mike’s career at Wrykyn. There is no doubt that his meteor-like flights at cricket had an unsettling effect on him. He was enjoying life amazingly, and, as is not uncommon with the prosperous, he waxed fat and kicked. Fortunately for him—though he did not look upon it in that light at the time—he kicked the one person it was most imprudent to kick. The person he selected was Firby-Smith. With anybody else the thing might have blown over, to the detriment of Mike’s character; but Firby-Smith, having the most tender affection for his dignity, made a fuss.

  It happened in this way. The immediate cause of the disturbance was a remark of Mike’s, but the indirect cause was the unbearably patronising manner which the head of Wain’s chose to adopt towards him. The fact that he was playing for the school seemed to make no difference at all. Firby-Smith continued to address Mike merely as the small boy.

  The following, verbatim, was the tactful speech which he addressed to him on the evening of the M.C.C. match, having summoned him to his study for the purpose.

  “Well,” he said, “you played a very decent innings this afternoon, and I suppose you’re frightfully pleased with yourself, eh? Well, mind you don’t go getting swelled head. See? That’s all. Run along.”

  Mike departed, bursting with fury.

  The next link in the chain was forged a week after the Gentlemen of the County match. House matches had begun, and Wain’s were playing Appleby’s. Appleby’s made a hundred and fifty odd, shaping badly for the most part against Wyatt’s slows. Then Wain’s opened their innings. The Gazeka, as head of the house, was captain of the side, and he and Wyatt went in first. Wyatt made a few mighty hits, and was then caught at cover. Mike went in first wicket.

  For some ten minutes all was peace. Firby-Smith scratched away at his end, getting here and there a single and now and then a two, and Mike settled down at once to play what he felt was going to be the innings of a lifetime. Appleby’s bowling was on the feeble side, with Raikes, of the third eleven, as the star, supported by some small change. Mike pounded it vigorously. To one who had been brought up on Saunders, Raikes possessed few subtleties. He had made seventeen, and was thoroughly set, when the Gazeka, who had the bowling, hit one in the direction of cover-point. With a certain type of batsman a single is a thing to take big risks for. And the Gazeka badly wanted that single.

  “Come on,” he shouted, prancing down the pitch.

  Mike, who had remained in his crease with the idea that nobody even moderately sane would attempt a run for a hit like that, moved forward in a startled and irresolute manner. Firby-Smith arrived, shouting “Run!” and, cover having thrown the ball in, the wicket-keeper removed the bails.

  These are solemn moments.

  The only possible way of smoothing over an episode of this kind is for the guilty man to grovel.

  Firby-Smith did not grovel.

  “Easy run there, you know,” he said reprovingly.

  The world swam before Mike’s eyes. Through the red mist he could see Firby-Smith’s face. The sun glinted on his rather prominent teeth. To Mike’s distorted vision it seemed that the criminal was amused.

  “Don’t laugh, you grinning ape!” he cried. “It isn’t funny.”

  [Illustration: “DON’T LAUGH, YOU GRINNING APE”]

  He then made for the trees where the rest of the team were sitting.

  Now Firby-Smith not only possessed rather prominent teeth; he was also sensitive on the subject. Mike’s shaft sank in deeply. The fact that emotion caused him to swipe at a straight half-volley, miss it, and be bowled next ball made the wound rankle.

  He avoided Mike on his return to the trees. And Mike, feeling now a little apprehensive, avoided him.

  The Gazeka brooded apart for the rest of the afternoon, chewing the
insult. At close of play he sought Burgess.

  Burgess, besides being captain of the eleven, was also head of the school. He was the man who arranged prefects’ meetings. And only a prefects’ meeting, thought Firby-Smith, could adequately avenge his lacerated dignity.

  “I want to speak to you, Burgess,” he said.

  “What’s up?” said Burgess.

  “You know young Jackson in our house.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s been frightfully insolent.”

  “Cheeked you?” said Burgess, a man of simple speech.

  “I want you to call a prefects’ meeting, and lick him.”

  Burgess looked incredulous.

  “Rather a large order, a prefects’ meeting,” he said. “It has to be a pretty serious sort of thing for that.”

  “Frightful cheek to a school prefect is a serious thing,” said Firby-Smith, with the air of one uttering an epigram.

  “Well, I suppose—What did he say to you?”

  Firby-Smith related the painful details.

  Burgess started to laugh, but turned the laugh into a cough.

  “Yes,” he said meditatively. “Rather thick. Still, I mean—A prefects’ meeting. Rather like crushing a thingummy with a what-d’you-call-it. Besides, he’s a decent kid.”

  “He’s frightfully conceited.”

  “Oh, well—Well, anyhow, look here, I’ll think it over, and let you know to-morrow. It’s not the sort of thing to rush through without thinking about it.”

  And the matter was left temporarily at that.

  CHAPTER XV

  MIKE CREATES A VACANCY

  Burgess walked off the ground feeling that fate was not using him well.

  Here was he, a well-meaning youth who wanted to be on good terms with all the world, being jockeyed into slaughtering a kid whose batting he admired and whom personally he liked. And the worst of it was that he sympathised with Mike. He knew what it felt like to be run out just when one had got set, and he knew exactly how maddening the Gazeka’s manner would be on such an occasion. On the other hand, officially he was bound to support the head of Wain’s. Prefects must stand together or chaos will come.

  He thought he would talk it over with somebody. Bob occurred to him. It was only fair that Bob should be told, as the nearest of kin.

  And here was another grievance against fate. Bob was a person he did not particularly wish to see just then. For that morning he had posted up the list of the team to play for the school against Geddington, one of the four schools which Wrykyn met at cricket; and Bob’s name did not appear on that list. Several things had contributed to that melancholy omission. In the first place, Geddington, to judge from the weekly reports in the Sportsman and Field, were strong this year at batting. In the second place, the results of the last few matches, and particularly the M.C.C. match, had given Burgess the idea that Wrykyn was weak at bowling. It became necessary, therefore, to drop a batsman out of the team in favour of a bowler. And either Mike or Bob must be the man.

  Burgess was as rigidly conscientious as the captain of a school eleven should be. Bob was one of his best friends, and he would have given much to be able to put him in the team; but he thought the thing over, and put the temptation sturdily behind him. At batting there was not much to choose between the two, but in fielding there was a great deal. Mike was good. Bob was bad. So out Bob had gone, and Neville-Smith, a fair fast bowler at all times and on his day dangerous, took his place.

  These clashings of public duty with private inclination are the drawbacks to the despotic position of captain of cricket at a public school. It is awkward having to meet your best friend after you have dropped him from the team, and it is difficult to talk to him as if nothing had happened.

  Burgess felt very self-conscious as he entered Bob’s study, and was rather glad that he had a topic of conversation ready to hand.

  “Busy, Bob?” he asked.

  “Hullo,” said Bob, with a cheerfulness rather over-done in his anxiety to show Burgess, the man, that he did not hold him responsible in any way for the distressing acts of Burgess, the captain. “Take a pew. Don’t these studies get beastly hot this weather. There’s some ginger-beer in the cupboard. Have some?”

  “No, thanks. I say, Bob, look here, I want to see you.”

  “Well, you can, can’t you? This is me, sitting over here. The tall, dark, handsome chap.”

  “It’s awfully awkward, you know,” continued Burgess gloomily; “that ass of a young brother of yours—Sorry, but he is an ass, though he’s your brother–-“

  “Thanks for the ‘though,’ Billy. You know how to put a thing nicely. What’s Mike been up to?”

  “It’s that old fool the Gazeka. He came to me frothing with rage, and wanted me to call a prefects’ meeting and touch young Mike up.”

  Bob displayed interest and excitement for the first time.

  “Prefects’ meeting! What the dickens is up? What’s he been doing? Smith must be drunk. What’s all the row about?”

  Burgess repeated the main facts of the case as he had them from Firby-Smith.

  “Personally, I sympathise with the kid,” he added, “Still, the Gazeka is a prefect–-“

  Bob gnawed a pen-holder morosely.

  “Silly young idiot,” he said.

  “Sickening thing being run out,” suggested Burgess.

  “Still–-“

  “I know. It’s rather hard to see what to do. I suppose if the Gazeka insists, one’s bound to support him.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Awful rot. Prefects’ lickings aren’t meant for that sort of thing. They’re supposed to be for kids who steal buns at the shop or muck about generally. Not for a chap who curses a fellow who runs him out. I tell you what, there’s just a chance Firby-Smith won’t press the thing. He hadn’t had time to get over it when he saw me. By now he’ll have simmered down a bit. Look here, you’re a pal of his, aren’t you? Well, go and ask him to drop the business. Say you’ll curse your brother and make him apologise, and that I’ll kick him out of the team for the Geddington match.”

  It was a difficult moment for Bob. One cannot help one’s thoughts, and for an instant the idea of going to Geddington with the team, as he would certainly do if Mike did not play, made him waver. But he recovered himself.

  “Don’t do that,” he said. “I don’t see there’s a need for anything of that sort. You must play the best side you’ve got. I can easily talk the old Gazeka over. He gets all right in a second if he’s treated the right way. I’ll go and do it now.”

  Burgess looked miserable.

  “I say, Bob,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, nothing—I mean, you’re not a bad sort.” With which glowing eulogy he dashed out of the room, thanking his stars that he had won through a confoundedly awkward business.

  Bob went across to Wain’s to interview and soothe Firby-Smith.

  He found that outraged hero sitting moodily in his study like Achilles in his tent.

  Seeing Bob, he became all animation.

  “Look here,” he said, “I wanted to see you. You know, that frightful young brother of yours–-“

  “I know, I know,” said Bob. “Burgess was telling me. He wants kicking.”

  “He wants a frightful licking from the prefects,” emended the aggrieved party.

  “Well, I don’t know, you know. Not much good lugging the prefects into it, is there? I mean, apart from everything else, not much of a catch for me, would it be, having to sit there and look on. I’m a prefect, too, you know.”

  Firby-Smith looked a little blank at this. He had a great admiration for Bob.

  “I didn’t think of you,” he said.

  “I thought you hadn’t,” said Bob. “You see it now, though, don’t you?”

  Firby-Smith returned to the original grievance.

  “Well, you know, it was frightful cheek.”

  “Of course it was. Still, I think if I saw
him and cursed him, and sent him up to you to apologise—How would that do?”

  “All right. After all, I did run him out.”

  “Yes, there’s that, of course. Mike’s all right, really. It isn’t as if he did that sort of thing as a habit.”

  “No. All right then.”

  “Thanks,” said Bob, and went to find Mike.

  The lecture on deportment which he read that future All-England batsman in a secluded passage near the junior day-room left the latter rather limp and exceedingly meek. For the moment all the jauntiness and exuberance had been drained out of him. He was a punctured balloon. Reflection, and the distinctly discouraging replies of those experts in school law to whom he had put the question, “What d’you think he’ll do?” had induced a very chastened frame of mind.

  He perceived that he had walked very nearly into a hornets’ nest, and the realisation of his escape made him agree readily to all the conditions imposed. The apology to the Gazeka was made without reserve, and the offensively forgiving, say-no-more-about-it-but-take care-in-future air of the head of the house roused no spark of resentment in him, so subdued was his fighting spirit. All he wanted was to get the thing done with. He was not inclined to be critical.

  And, most of all, he felt grateful to Bob. Firby-Smith, in the course of his address, had not omitted to lay stress on the importance of Bob’s intervention. But for Bob, he gave him to understand, he, Mike, would have been prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. Mike came away with a confused picture in his mind of a horde of furious prefects bent on his slaughter, after the manner of a stage “excited crowd,” and Bob waving them back. He realised that Bob had done him a good turn. He wished he could find some way of repaying him.

  Curiously enough, it was an enemy of Bob’s who suggested the way—Burton, of Donaldson’s. Burton was a slippery young gentleman, fourteen years of age, who had frequently come into contact with Bob in the house, and owed him many grudges. With Mike he had always tried to form an alliance, though without success.

  He happened to meet Mike going to school next morning, and unburdened his soul to him. It chanced that Bob and he had had another small encounter immediately after breakfast, and Burton felt revengeful.