‘So you nudged him out of it.’
‘Not deliberately.’
I didn’t want one of those Hamlet pauses developing, so I ploughed on. ‘You seem friskier today.’
‘Yes, I am. I don’t know what came over me yesterday. I wanted to apologise. I hope I didn’t embarrass you. Please forgive me.’
‘Think nothing of it. I’m sorry I was no help. I didn’t want to get under your feet.’
‘Absolutely. Now who’s this fellow in the hideous hat?’
‘Esmond Haddock’ I replied. ‘Huntsman, sonneteer and all-round good egg.’
The next half-hour went by in a sort of dream as we chatted pauselessly to the background noise of Stinker and Esmond bashing the ball about. It wasn’t until Woody had his turn that I saw what we’d been missing. The only way I can describe it is to say that it was like hearing a string quartet after an oompah band. Where the other chaps had humped and heaved, Woody eased the little red ball across the grass with a flick or a caress. Once he just seemed to lean over and whisper in its ear, yet when it rattled into the fence in front of the pavilion it snapped one of the pickets.
He was joined by Harold Niblett, who applied the long handle, as I believe the expression is, coming down the prepared surface to dispatch the Gents’ slow bowler over the top of a particularly tall cedar tree and into the lane. Great was the excitement among the half-dozen small boys who ran off to find it. While Niblett took the high road, Woody stuck with the low, continuing to bisect the sweating Dorset Gents, wherever their captain placed them; you almost expected to see scorch marks through the green.
‘I hope Amelia’s enjoying this,’ I said.
‘I think she is,’ said Georgiana. ‘Look, she’s stopped buttering the bread.’
I thought of pointing out that Amelia’s open mouth was a trap for passing insect life, but chivalry prevailed.
‘I’d better go and give her a hand and see how the urn’s coming on,’ said Georgiana.
‘Must you go?’
‘Yes, I must.’
The fun eventually came to an end when a steepler from Niblett was caught on the boundary and there arose the awful prospect that I might soon have to don the pads and gloves myself. The next man in was Hoad and I was relieved to see that he had based his attitude on that of Stonewall Jackson. It didn’t matter what they chucked at him; he met it with the same hunched prod, while the ball dropped on roughly the same spot near his feet.
If Hoad could best be described as inert, Beeching, P. was about as ert as they come, waltzing down the wicket to send the ball humming to all points of the compass. An excited murmur had started among the small boys and had now reached the pavilion – viz., that Woody was nearing his century. The entire ground seemed rapt; even Dame Judith Puxley for a moment set aside her Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi and raised her lorgnette.
To signify Beeching’s score, a boy propped a nine and a five on the grass against the scoreboard, where the total stood at 186. Woody glanced in the direction of the board, stepped down the wicket and, for the first time, lifted the ball from the turf, up into the air, and into the hands of an astonished fielder.
There was disappointed applause as Woody returned to the pavilion – unruffled, it seemed, and undampened by so much as a bead of p. The next man in was Sir Henry Hackwood, who set about the opposition with a relish I wouldn’t have thought the old boy to have had in him. He loudly instructed Hoad not to run, as he would be dealing in boundaries only.
Perhaps it was the honour of batting with his employer or perhaps the prospect of finally registering a run after twenty minutes at the crease; in any event, Hoad suddenly hit the ball and bolted like a jackrabbit from his home ground with a screech of ‘Come one, Sir Henry!’ He arrived at the other end to find the baronet unmoved. The ball made its way back to the wicket-keeper, followed by a few choice comments.
Hoad’s return to the hutch meant that there was no longer any means of postponing the entry of Wooster, B. It’s a funny thing about cricket, but what from the sidelines looks like a gentle pantomime, white figures flitting to and fro, is quite different when you arrive in the middle. It’s hostile. The ground is hard and dusty; it bears the spike marks of battle. There may be a few ‘Good afternoon’s, but there are also some less cheery words. As the bowler starts his run-up, a silence descends on the fielders; the new batsman’s mouth is dry and his tongue flicks out in vain; the silence seems to close about his head. You see the straining, angry face of the fellow about to bung it down at you as hard as he can; the instant before the first glimpse of red is about as lonely as a chap can feel …