Mike

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.