Pelham Wodehouse - The Gold Bat

When there are five more minutes to play in an important house-match, and one side has scored a goal and the other a try, play is apt to become spirited. Both teams were doing all they knew. The ball came out to Barry on the right. Barry’s abilities as a three-quarter rested chiefly on the fact that he could dodge well. This eel-like attribute compensated for a certain lack of pace. He was past the Donaldson’s three-quarters in an instant, and running for the line, with only the back to pass, and with Clowes in hot pursuit. Another wriggle took him past the back, but it also gave Clowes time to catch him up. Clowes was a far faster runner, and he got to him just as he reached the twenty-five line. They came down together with a crash, Clowes on top, and as they fell the whistle blew.

“No-side,” said Mr. Aldridge, the master who was refereeing.

Clowes got up.

“All over,” he said. “Jolly good game. Hullo, what’s up?”

For Barry seemed to be in trouble.

“You might give us a hand up,” said the latter. “I believe I’ve twisted my beastly ankle or something.”

“I say,” said Clowes, helping him up, “I’m awfully sorry. Did I do it? How did it happen?”

Barry was engaged in making various attempts at standing on the injured leg. The process seemed to be painful.

“Shall I get a stretcher or anything? Can you walk?”

“If you’d help me over to the house, I could manage all right. What a beastly nuisance! It wasn’t your fault a bit. Only you tackled me when I was just trying to swerve, and my ankle was all twisted.”

Drummond came up, carrying Barry’s blazer and sweater.

“Hullo, Barry,” he said, “what’s up? You aren’t crocked?”

“Something gone wrong with my ankle. That my blazer? Thanks. Coming over to the house? Clowes was just going to help me over.”

Clowes asked a Donaldson’s junior, who was lurking near at hand, to fetch his blazer and carry it over to the house, and then made his way with Drummond and the disabled Barry to Seymour’s. Having arrived at the senior day-room, they deposited the injured three-quarter in a chair, and sent M’Todd, who came in at the moment, to fetch the doctor.

Dr Oakes was a big man with a breezy manner, the sort of doctor who hits you with the force of a sledge-hammer in the small ribs, and asks you if you felt anything then . It was on this principle that he acted with regard to Barry’s ankle. He seized it in both hands and gave it a wrench.

“Did that hurt?” he inquired anxiously.

Barry turned white, and replied that it did.

Dr Oakes nodded wisely.

“Ah! H’m! Just so. ’Myes. Ah.”

“Is it bad?” asked Drummond, awed by these mystic utterances.

“My dear boy,” replied the doctor, breezily, “it is always bad when one twists one’s ankle.”

“How long will it do me out of footer?” asked Barry.

“How long? How long? How long? Why, fortnight. Fortnight,” said the doctor.

“Then I shan’t be able to play next Saturday?”

“Next Saturday? Next Saturday? My dear boy, if you can put your foot to the ground by next Saturday, you may take it as evidence that the age of miracles is not past. Next Saturday, indeed! Ha, ha.”

It was not altogether his fault that he treated the matter with such brutal levity. It was a long time since he had been at school, and he could not quite realise what it meant to Barry not to be able to play against Ripton. As for Barry, he felt that he had never loathed and detested any one so thoroughly as he loathed and detested Dr Oakes at that moment.

“I don’t see where the joke comes in,” said Clowes, when he had gone. “I bar that man.”

“He’s a beast,” said Drummond. “I can’t understand why they let a tout like that be the school doctor.”

Barry said nothing. He was too sore for words.

What Dr Oakes said to his wife that evening was: “Over at the school, my dear, this afternoon. This afternoon. Boy with a twisted ankle. Nice young fellow. Very much put out when I told him he could not play football for a fortnight. But I chaffed him, and cheered him up in no time. I cheered him up in no time, my dear.”

“I’m sure you did, dear,” said Mrs Oakes. Which shows how differently the same thing may strike different people. Barry certainly did not look as if he had been cheered up when Clowes left the study and went over to tell Trevor that he would have to find a substitute for his right wing three-quarter against Ripton.

Trevor had left the field without noticing Barry’s accident, and he was tremendously pleased at the result of the game.

“Good man,” he said, when Clowes came in, “you saved the match.”

“And lost the Ripton match probably,” said Clowes, gloomily.

“What do you mean?”

“That last time I brought down Barry I crocked him. He’s in his study now with a sprained ankle. I’ve just come from there. Oakes has seen him, and says he mustn’t play for a fortnight.”

“Great Scott!” said Trevor, blankly. “What on earth shall we do?”

“Why not move Strachan up to the wing, and put somebody else back instead of him? Strachan is a good wing.”

Trevor shook his head.

“No. There’s nobody good enough to play back for the first. We mustn’t risk it.”

“Then I suppose it must be Rand-Brown?”

“I suppose so.”

“He may do better than we think. He played quite a decent game today. That try he got wasn’t half a bad one.”

“He’d be all right if he didn’t funk. But perhaps he wouldn’t funk against Ripton. In a match like that anybody would play up. I’ll ask Milton and Allardyce about it.”

“I shouldn’t go to Milton today,” said Clowes. “I fancy he’ll want a night’s rest before he’s fit to talk to. He must be a bit sick about this match. I know he expected Seymour’s to win.”

He went out, but came back almost immediately.

“I say,” he said, “there’s one thing that’s just occurred to me. This’ll please the League. I mean, this ankle business of Barry’s.”

The same idea had struck Trevor. It was certainly a respite. But he regretted it for all that. What he wanted was to beat Ripton, and Barry’s absence would weaken the team. However, it was good in its way, and cleared the atmosphere for the time. The League would hardly do anything with regard to the carrying out of their threat while Barry was on the sick-list.

Next day, having given him time to get over the bitterness of defeat in accordance with Clowes’ thoughtful suggestion, Trevor called on Milton, and asked him what his opinion was on the subject of the inclusion of Rand-Brown in the first fifteen in place of Barry,

“He’s the next best man,” he added, in defence of the proposal.

“I suppose so,” said Milton. “He’d better play, I suppose. There’s no one else.”

“Clowes thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to shove Strachan on the wing, and put somebody else back.”

“Who is there to put?”

“Jervis?”

“Not good enough. No, it’s better to be weakish on the wing than at back. Besides, Rand-Brown may do all right. He played well against you.”

“Yes,” said Trevor. “Study looks a bit better now,” he added, as he was going, having looked round the room. “Still a bit bare, though.”

Milton sighed. “It will never be what it was.”

“Forty-three theatrical photographs want some replacing, of course,” said Trevor. “But it isn’t bad, considering.”

“How’s yours?”

“Oh, mine’s all right, except for the absence of photographs.”

“I say, Trevor.”