The Gold Bat

by P. G. Wodehouse

  XVI

  THE RIPTON MATCH

  It was a curious thing in connection with the matches between Riptonand Wrykyn, that Ripton always seemed to be the bigger team. Theyalways had a gigantic pack of forwards, who looked capable of shoving ahole through one of the pyramids. Possibly they looked bigger to theWrykinians than they really were. Strangers always look big on thefootball field. When you have grown accustomed to a person'sappearance, he does not look nearly so large. Milton, for instance,never struck anybody at Wrykyn as being particularly big for a schoolforward, and yet today he was the heaviest man on the field by aquarter of a stone. But, taken in the mass, the Ripton pack were farheavier than their rivals. There was a legend current among the lowerforms at Wrykyn that fellows were allowed to stop on at Ripton tillthey were twenty-five, simply to play football. This is scarcely likelyto have been based on fact. Few lower form legends are.

  Jevons, the Ripton captain, through having played opposite Trevor forthree seasons--he was the Ripton left centre-three-quarter--had come tobe quite an intimate of his. Trevor had gone down with Milton andAllardyce to meet the team at the station, and conduct them up to theschool.

  "How have you been getting on since Christmas?" asked Jevons.

  "Pretty well. We've lost Paget, I suppose you know?"

  "That was the fast man on the wing, wasn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, we've lost a man, too."

  "Oh, yes, that red-haired forward. I remember him."

  "It ought to make us pretty even. What's the ground like?"

  "Bit greasy, I should think. We had some rain late last night."

  The ground _was_ a bit greasy. So was the ball. When Milton kickedoff up the hill with what wind there was in his favour, the outsides ofboth teams found it difficult to hold the ball. Jevons caught it on histwenty-five line, and promptly handed it forward. The first scrum wasformed in the heart of the enemy's country.

  A deep, swelling roar from either touch-line greeted the school'sadvantage. A feature of a big match was always the shouting. It rarelyceased throughout the whole course of the game, the monotonous butimpressive sound of five hundred voices all shouting the same word. Itwas worth hearing. Sometimes the evenness of the noise would change toan excited _crescendo_ as a school three-quarter got off, or theschool back pulled up the attack with a fine piece of defence.Sometimes the shouting would give place to clapping when the school wasbeing pressed and somebody had found touch with a long kick. But mostlythe man on the ropes roared steadily and without cessation, and withthe full force of his lungs, the word "_Wrykyn!_"

  The scrum was a long one. For two minutes the forwards heaved andstrained, now one side, now the other, gaining a few inches. The Wrykynpack were doing all they knew to heel, but their opponents' superiorweight was telling. Ripton had got the ball, and were keeping it. Theirgame was to break through with it and rush. Then suddenly one of theirforwards kicked it on, and just at that moment the opposition of theWrykyn pack gave way, and the scrum broke up. The ball came out on theWrykyn side, and Allardyce whipped it out to Deacon, who was playinghalf with him.

  "Ball's out," cried the Ripton half who was taking the scrum. "Breakup. It's out."

  And his colleague on the left darted across to stop Trevor, who hadtaken Deacon's pass, and was running through on the right.

  Trevor ran splendidly. He was a three-quarter who took a lot ofstopping when he once got away. Jevons and the Ripton half met himalmost simultaneously, and each slackened his pace for the fraction ofa second, to allow the other to tackle. As they hesitated, Trevorpassed them. He had long ago learned that to go hard when you have oncestarted is the thing that pays.

  He could see that Rand-Brown was racing up for the pass, and, as hereached the back, he sent the ball to him, waist-high. Then the backgot to him, and he came down with a thud, with a vision, seen from thecorner of his eye, of the ball bounding forward out of the wingthree-quarter's hands into touch. Rand-Brown had bungled the passin the old familiar way, and lost a certain try.

  The touch-judge ran up with his flag waving in the air, but the refereehad other views.

  "Knocked on inside," he said; "scrum here."

  "Here" was, Trevor saw with unspeakable disgust, some three yards fromthe goal-line. Rand-Brown had only had to take the pass, and he musthave scored.

  The Ripton forwards were beginning to find their feet better now, andthey carried the scrum. A truculent-looking warrior in one of thoseear-guards which are tied on by strings underneath the chin, and whichadd fifty per cent to the ferocity of a forward's appearance, brokeaway with the ball at his feet, and swept down the field with the restof the pack at his heels. Trevor arrived too late to pull up the rush,which had gone straight down the right touch-line, and it was not tillStrachan fell on the ball on the Wrykyn twenty-five line that thedanger ceased to threaten.

  Even now the school were in a bad way. The enemy were pressing keenly,and a real piece of combination among their three-quarters would onlytoo probably end in a try. Fortunately for them, Allardyce and Deaconwere a better pair of halves than the couple they were marking. Also,the Ripton forwards heeled slowly, and Allardyce had generally got hisman safely buried in the mud before he could pass.

  He was just getting round for the tenth time to bottle his opponent asbefore, when he slipped. When the ball came out he was on all fours,and the Ripton exponent, finding to his great satisfaction that hehad not been tackled, whipped the ball out on the left, where a wingthree-quarter hovered.

  This was the man Rand-Brown was supposed to be marking, and once againdid Barry's substitute prove of what stuff his tackling powers weremade. After his customary moment of hesitation, he had at theRiptonian's neck. The Riptonian handed him off in a manner thatrecalled the palmy days of the old Prize Ring--handing off was alwaysslightly vigorous in the Ripton _v._ Wrykyn match--and dashed overthe line in the extreme corner.

  There was anguish on the two touch-lines. Trevor looked savage, butmade no comment. The team lined up in silence.

  It takes a very good kick to convert a try from the touch-line. Jevons'kick was a long one, but it fell short. Ripton led by a try to nothing.

  A few more scrums near the halfway line, and a fine attempt at adropped goal by the Ripton back, and it was half-time, with the scoreunaltered.

  During the interval there were lemons. An excellent thing is your lemonat half-time. It cools the mouth, quenches the thirst, stimulates thedesire to be at them again, and improves the play.

  Possibly the Wrykyn team had been happier in their choice of lemons onthis occasion, for no sooner had the game been restarted than Clowesran the whole length of the field, dodged through the three-quarters,punted over the back's head, and scored a really brilliant try, of thesort that Paget had been fond of scoring in the previous term. The manon the touch-line brightened up wonderfully, and began to try andcalculate the probable score by the end of the game, on the assumptionthat, as a try had been scored in the first two minutes, ten would bescored in the first twenty, and so on.

  But the calculations were based on false premises. After Strachan hadfailed to convert, and the game had been resumed with the score at onetry all, play settled down in the centre, and neither side could piercethe other's defence. Once Jevons got off for Ripton, but Trevor broughthim down safely, and once Rand-Brown let his man through, as before,but Strachan was there to meet him, and the effort came to nothing. ForWrykyn, no one did much except tackle. The forwards were beaten by theheavier pack, and seldom let the ball out. Allardyce intercepted a passwhen about ten minutes of play remained, and ran through to the back.But the back, who was a capable man and in his third season in theteam, laid him low scientifically before he could reach the line.

  Altogether it looked as if the match were going to end in a draw. TheWrykyn defence, with the exception of Rand-Brown, was too good to bepenetrated, while the Ripton forwards, by always getting the ball inthe scrums, kept them from attacking. It was about five minutes
fromthe end of the game when the Ripton right centre-three-quarter, intrying to punt across to the wing, miskicked and sent the ball straightinto the hands of Trevor's colleague in the centre. Before his mancould get round to him he had slipped through, with Trevor backing himup. The back, as a good back should, seeing two men coming at him, wentfor the man with the ball. But by the time he had brought him down, theball was no longer where it had originally been. Trevor had got it, andwas running in between the posts.

  This time Strachan put on the extra two points without difficulty.

  Ripton played their hardest for the remaining minutes, but withoutresult. The game ended with Wrykyn a goal ahead--a goal and a try to atry. For the second time in one season the Ripton match had ended in avictory--a thing it was very rarely in the habit of doing.

  * * * * *

  The senior day-room at Seymour's rejoiced considerably that night. Theair was dark with flying cushions, and darker still, occasionally, whenthe usual humorist turned the gas out. Milton was out, for he had goneto the dinner which followed the Ripton match, and the man in commandof the house in his absence was Mill. And the senior day-room had norespect whatever for Mill.

  Barry joined in the revels as well as his ankle would let him, but hewas not feeling happy. The disappointment of being out of the firststill weighed on him.

  At about eight, when things were beginning to grow really lively, andthe noise seemed likely to crack the window at any moment, the door wasflung open and Milton stalked in.

  "What's all this row?" he inquired. "Stop it at once."

  As a matter of fact, the row _had_ stopped--directly he came in.

  "Is Barry here?" he asked.

  "Yes," said that youth.

  "Congratulate you on your first, Barry. We've just had a meeting andgiven you your colours. Trevor told me to tell you."