Mike

Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in itself was a calamity.  A school eleven are always at their worst and nerviest before lunch.  Even on their own ground they find the surroundings lonely and unfamiliar.  The subtlety of the bowlers becomes magnified.  Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapse almost invariably ensues.

To-day the start had been gruesome beyond words.  Mike, the bulwark of the side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom, whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty was expected—­Mike, going in first with Barnes and taking first over, had played inside one from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had been caught at short slip off his second ball.

That put the finishing-touch on the panic.  Stone, Robinson, and the others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed them to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out at anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to half-volleys.  Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not equal to his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four.  Seven wickets were down for thirty when Psmith went in.

Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he was undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this.  He had an enormous reach, and he used it.  Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into full-tosses and swept to the leg-boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total to seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five.  Ten minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for seventy-nine.

Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and thirty-one.

This was better than Sedleigh had expected.  At least eight of the team had looked forward dismally to an afternoon’s leather-hunting.  But Adair and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with the tail.

It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the game out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate, having another knock.  As is usual at this stage of a match, their nervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in the first innings.

It was on Mike’s suggestion that Psmith and himself went in first.  Mike knew the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score sufficient to give them the game, always provided that Wrykyn collapsed in the second innings.  And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so bad then that they easily might.

So he and Psmith had gone in at four o’clock to hit.  And they had hit.  The deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was bowled, and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein.  He treated all the bowlers alike.  And when Stone came in, restored to his proper frame of mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and the rest, it looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again.  The score was a hundred and twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied one to Strachan at cover.  The time was twenty-five past five.

As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.

Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine to make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes during which to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy and go for a win on the first innings.

At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachan forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith’s, and which he hit into the pavilion.  But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him.  And when, two runs later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his over with a c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough.  Seventeen for three, with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting too dangerous.  So Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play with caution, and the collapse ceased.

This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapter opened.  Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and the hands of the clock stood at ten minutes past six.  Changes of bowling had been tried, but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen’s defence.  They were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit at the bad.

A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion which altered the game completely.

“Why don’t you have a shot this end?” he said to Adair, as they were crossing over.  “There’s a spot on the off which might help you a lot.  You can break like blazes if only you land on it.  It doesn’t help my leg-breaks a bit, because they won’t hit at them.”