Pelham Wodehouse: Between The Innings

It seemed to be the general opinion that the country wanted rain. Meaning by the country the half-dozen of us who were gathered together in the billiard-room at Heath Hall smoking, playing pool, and talking cricket 'shop', with particular reference to the match which would come to an end on the following day.

It was, indeed, a most solemn and important occasion. This was the last night but one of the Hall cricket-week, and, so far, success had crowned the efforts of the Hall team as never before.

The Zingari had come and gone, routed - a five-wickets affair. The Band of Brothers had headed us on the first innings, but failed in the next, and we had come through for the second time with half our wickets in hand. We were now in the middle of the Incogniti match, and our one aim in life was to win this and set up a Hall week record. Never before had the Hall been able to score more than a couple of victories in the three matches.

The best week up to the present had occurred six years before, when Ronald Heath was captain of the Oxford team, and Jack Heath half-way up the list of the same. Then we had won two and drawn the third favourably.

What made this season's week such a triumph was the fact that, on paper, we were not so strong as usual. Jack was in India playing polo instead of cricket, and Ronald was obliged to confine his efforts to umpiring, having strained a muscle in a county match of the previous week. We should have missed them more had it not been for the unusually fine form in which young Tommy Heath, the third of the brothers, happened to find himself at this crisis.

Tommy had captained Winchester that season and scored a century against Eton; but even that had not prepared us for his feats during this week. He had followed up two brilliant innings in the earlier games with a masterly eighty-four in the match now in progress, which match was now in such a position that it might be said to be anybody's game. We had batted first. Wicket hard and true.

The Hall ground is small, and scoring is generally fast there. Starting at a quarter to eleven, we had made two hundred and ten by lunch-time for six wickets. By three o'clock we were all out for two hundred and fifty.

It was not a large score for the ground. Having lived all my life at my father's rectory across the Park, I could remember many Hall weeks including at least three when the side that had won the toss had nearly succeeded in putting four hundred on the board before going the way of all batting sides. But two hundred and fifty proved good enough in the present case. The Incogs had replied with two hundred and twenty-three. In an hour and a half of the second innings we had put up a hundred and thirty for seven wickets by the time stumps were drawn for the day.

Wherefore we prayed for rain. A steady downpour in the night, and the wicket would play easy for the first hour on the morrow, during which period our last three men might be expected to put on at least another fifty. Which, if the sun came out, as it probably would, ought to be enough, we thought, to give us a winning lead.

Dalgliesh flung up the window and peered earnestly out into the night.

'It looks like rain,' he said. 'There's thunder hanging about somewhere.'

'Yellow to play,' said Felstone, moving round the table after chalking his cue - 'dot vos me. No good. I don't think pool's my forte . Hullo! Lightning.'

He joined Dalgliesh at the window. Summer lightning flickered across the dark opening. It was oppressively hot. Too hot to last. The rain was bound to come soon. But it might delay its advent for another twenty-four hours, by which time, like most late-comers in this world, it would find its services not required and even unpopular.

'Give us three hours' good, steady, soaking downpour,' said Dalgliesh meditatively, 'and we shall have those Incogs by the short hairs. We shall then call upon our Mr Peter Baynes to give his celebrated imitation of Braund.'

'On a nice, sticky pitch,' I replied, being the Peter Baynes alluded to and the slow bowler of the Hall team, 'with a hot sun drying it up while you look at it, I'll see what I can do for you. But if the wicket's going to be the mixture of concrete and granite it was this afternoon, gallery performances are off and I shall take to golf.'

For the Hall ground on a day such as we had just had was enough to break the heart of any slow bowler, who likes assistance from the pitch when he embarks upon his duties. The combination of good wicket and short boundaries had done neither myself nor my analysis any good that afternoon.

'Did your father read the prayer for rain last Sunday?' asked Melhuish in his solemn way.

'Yes,' I said, 'he did.'

'Good!' said Melhuish. 'We shall need it.'

The door opened as he spoke, and Wentworth Flood came in. Flood was a man I cordially disliked, and I have reason to believe that my feelings were shared by at least a good working majority of those present. How he came to be tame cat in a house the very atmosphere of which breathed sport, I had never been able to understand. I take it, however, that women, however many sons they may have playing in first-class cricket, and however interested they may be in the game, cherish a secret liking for a man who can always be relied on to make himself useful in the drawing-room instead of seeking his pleasure out-of-doors.

Wentworth Flood dressed well, looked neat, never broke things, handled tea-cups admirably, played a number of card-games with more than average skill, acted if there were theatricals, and was always ready to play an accompaniment on the mandolin; so, I suppose, Lady Heath saw reasons for having him about the house which we did not.

He was a small man, with an almost irritating lack of anything wrong in his personal appearance. His hair was parted exactly in the middle. His tie was tied with a nicety which almost suggested the made-up article. His voice was 'ever soft, gentle, and low,' which, though it may be an 'excellent thing in a woman,' is not such an endearing quality in man.

'Been playing bridge, Flood?' asked Dalgliesh, breaking one of those awkward pauses which occur when the uncongenial spirit breaks in upon the social gathering.

'No,' said Flood precisely. 'I have not been playing bridge. I have been playing the mandolin.'

There did not seem much that could be said by way of comment on this. Somehow the mention of mandolins in the middle of the profound and serious discussion of a cricket match struck us as almost blasphemous. Dalgliesh snorted, and Manners, whose turn it was to play, nearly cut the cloth. Otherwise there was no attempt at criticism.

'Tommy Heath tells me we shall win the cricket match tomorrow,' said Flood, after a silence lasting for the space of two strokes of the cue.

'So we shall,' said Dalgliesh, 'if it rains.'

'But I thought you could not play cricket in the rain?'

'No, but rain occasionally stops, and then the wicket gets soft,' said Manners.

'And then Baynes leaves off those half-volleys which worry Sir John's nesting pheasants,' said Dalgliesh, 'and gets some work on the ball.'

'But why should it matter if the ground is soft?' inquired Flood.

'Because,' I said, 'a merciful Providence, watching over slow bowlers, has ordained that batsmen make fewer runs on a soft pitch, and get out quicker. That's why.'

Flood looked thoughtful, and I noticed that he went to the window, and stood for some time gazing at the sky. At the moment I wondered why, and what possible interest he could take in the weather. A drawing-room is just as pleasant on a wet as on a dry day.

It was at eleven o'clock, when I left the billiard-room to begin my homeward journey, that I found out his reason. In the hall I met Tommy Heath. He looked worried and rather pale.