The course was nine holes only, ranging over a series of bright green hummocks that were dotted with little copses, and funny looking conical shelters, which might have been viewing posts, for these green hummocks marked the very edges of the Darjeeling uplands. Beyond was the great gorge in which lay a jumble of smaller hills that began to climb again at a distance of a hundred miles or so, and there the ascent culminated in the Himalayan range, but that white barrier in the distance was currently patrolled by greyish clouds.
On the teeing ground, it was obvious that I was the worst-equipped player, but I had expected that, and the discrepancy was not as great as I had feared. I had made my knickerbockers by tucking my twill trousers into my thick green stockings, but the R.K. and Fisher both sported the genuine plus-fours. My golf bag was, like Fisher’s, made of ordinary brown webbing, whereas the R.K.’s appeared to be made of white calfskin. But he, like Fisher and I, carried only half a dozen clubs, and none of us wore the speciality hob-nailed golf shoes. I was hatless. Fisher and the R.K. wore those wide, round jobs that I always thought resembled dustbin lids, and that I associated with newspaper pictures of sporting Americans. The R.K. must have been somewhat Americanised because he announced that the first hole was a ‘par-four’, whereas the English term – or at any rate the term always used at Hob Moor Railway course at York – was ‘bogey four’. On the teeing ground, Fisher was making ferocious practice swipes with his driver. ‘Let’s get off while we have the place to ourselves,’ he said.
It was the kind of remark that made me glad of having brought the Webley. This course was in a lonely spot, and I was sure there would be many precipitous places in which an inconvenient Englishman might be done away with. Also, it appeared we were not to have our bags carried by caddies, which the R.K. apparently called ‘cadets’.
‘They are available by prior booking, Captain Stringer,’ he explained, while unwrapping a ball, ‘but they are generally off-duty Gurkha soldiers, and they tend to glare rather horribly when one addresses the ball. The consequence is that one usually misses entirely.’
So it appeared that this member of Indian royalty would be carrying his own bag.
‘Will you have the honour, Captain Stringer?’ he said.
I nodded in thanks, and stepped up. ‘Stroke play or match play?’ I asked, and nobody seemed to know, or care.
‘Just get on with it, will you?’ said Fisher.
‘We’ll play just for fun,’ said the R.K. ‘And do take your time,’ he added, with a glance of reproach at Fisher.
The green was four hundred yards off, at the end of a fairway pinched in at the middle by two copses. As I made my own address, Fisher was still making his practice swipes.
‘Major Fisher will now stand still,’ said the R.K., and this he did.
I took my usual three-quarter swing, the theory being that this was a quarter less likely to go wrong than a full swing. The ball made a hundred and fifty yards, approximately straight.
‘Trouble free,’ the R.K. said, pleasantly. He invited Fisher to play next, and he sent the ball fifty yards further. He was a decent hand at the game. Then the R.K. drove with a quick, short swipe of the ball . . . directly into the trees on the right.
‘Sliced it,’ he said, simply. ‘Why do I play this game?’
As we walked at a lick towards our three balls, Fisher said to the R.K., ‘Your stance is too open, isn’t it? Remember the invisible line that runs—’
‘Stop!’ commanded the R.K. ‘Or I shall be blinded by science.’
Fisher and I made our second shots, while the R.K. looked for his ball in the trees. He found it on the margin of the trees, made his address, and committed the same fault as before. ‘More of the same,’ he said, as he watched the ball land in a bunker to the right of the green. ‘It’s that world-famous Chinese torture, Captain Stringer,’ he said, as we marched on. ‘Death by a thousand slices!’
I looked back and saw two men – both Europeans – on the teeing ground behind us. Against all expectations, we had company on the course. Fisher had seen them. The R.K. enquired, ‘What is your home course, Captain Stringer?’
‘Oh, just the Hob Moor course in York, Yorkshire,’ I said, and he was nodding as though he knew it of old.
‘It’s the railway course,’ I said. ‘It’s on Corporation land, so it’s open to the general public. In practice that means people walking aggressive dogs . . . or small boys. The boys cricket on the greens when golf isn’t being played – and when it is.’