‘Let us make this an object of our day – to find a suitable name for your new-cleek.’ Saint-Denis took it to hand and gave it a half-swing. ‘For long grass?’
‘No –’
‘Mud holes?’
‘By no means. It is for driving one’s ball out of the sheep dung while preserving one’s apparel. You will see, there is hardly any splatter at all.’
‘Mr Smosh?’ Saint-Denis called, making a slow circle.
The Reverend Mr Smosh was at that moment standing among a gathering of sailors and tipping the contents of a near-empty wine bottle down his throat.
‘Do you see? Dr Worthing has another career as an inventor of cleeks.’
‘Indeed, I have been most attentive,’ Smosh replied, running some vowels into consonants just perceptibly. ‘I have no doubt the modgeglub will prove its uses before the day is out. When do we begin?’
‘Let us not waste this perfect day,’ Saint-Denis said. ‘Dr Worthing… I believe you should have the honour of first ball.’
Wooden tees and ‘featheries’ were produced from a canvas sack and distributed to the sportsmen. Wickham turned his feathery over in his hand, squeezing it then tossing it up a few times as though gauging its weight or ability to fly through the air.
‘I am surprised to find Worthing could afford those,’ Hawthorne whispered.
‘Are they dear?’ Hayden asked.
‘Quite. And one needs several for every match.’
‘What kind of wood are they?’
‘Not wood at all. Leather stuffed hard with soaked goose down that expands as it dries. Quite hard, and then painted to preserve the leather.’
The course, five holes, had been set up by Wickham and Saint-Denis the previous day, playing back and forth the length of the vaguely ‘L’-shaped pasture and once, narrowly, across it. The pasture was more flat than not, surrounded by a stone wall, overgrown in various places. A few shade trees dotted the field proper and half a dozen more grew just beyond the wall, their canopies spreading over the grassland.
Worthing selected a levellish area, free of cow dung, and pressed his tee down into the cropped grass. Taking a broad stance, his manner almost solemn, he made a stiff practice swing, whipping a play club around his body and thudding it into the ground, tearing up a chunk of turf that went tumbling along the green.
‘Damn!’ he muttered and tried the same again, this time to his satisfaction. Stepping up to his ball he addressed it in his splayed stance, club waggling behind the sacrificially mounted feathery. After a moment of indecision, he drew back his club and as he leaned left, about to begin his swing, the ball tottered off the tee, made a small bounce and rolled half a foot.
‘Damn this ball to hell!’ the reverend doctor spat out.
Bending awkwardly in his tight coat, Worthing snatched up the ball and set it delicately back upon its tiny perch.
He went through the same motions, waggling his club, his belly thrust forward, shoulders pulled back. The club began its circuit about his frame, hovered thoughtfully a moment, then lashed forward, striking a glancing blow upon the unsuspecting feathery. The little sphere went spinning off, not ten feet above the trampled turf, drawing a low arc towards the stone wall. It struck the ground obliquely, bounced once altering its path even more to starboard, found the ground again and fetched up almost immediately against the wall where all progress stopped with a dull, vowelless ‘thnmp’.
Worthing dashed the head of his play club against the turf, and cursed like a sailor. He thrust the grip at Wickham, who was next to stand up, and stomped off to the side. While laying out the course the previous day Wickham had received instruction from Saint-Denis and had the opportunity to strike a few featheries so he was not completely unprepared for what was to follow. Pushing a tee into the ground and mounting his ball upon it, Wickham took his stance as previously instructed. He waggled the club-head behind the feathery, threateningly, drew the club back, his face set all the while in perfect, childlike concentration. His stroke was not nearly so fast as the doctor’s, but it was apparently more true, for the ball shot off the tee cleaving the air low over the pasture, landed at such an angle that it did not bounce but only rolled for forty yards, spinning to stop in what appeared to be a clump of thistle.
Saint-Denis offered his student congratulations, and a few small corrections to his technique, and then insisted Mr Smosh be next to the tee. Smosh handed his bottle to a ship’s boy, unbuttoned his jacket, rotated bent arms at the shoulders to loosen his muscles, stepped forward and planted his tee. He stood upright, short legs straight, lower lip thrust out, face almost aglow from drink. Apparently he felt no need of a practice swing, but went straight to business. He lined his club up behind the feathery, measuring its precise position with one eye closed, as though he aimed a fowling piece. A moment he stood thus, arranging his club in exactly the right attitude, then yanked the club back and high up into the air. With a strange motion, somewhere between splitting wood and scything hay, he drove the ball up into the sky. Off it went, hissing through the warm Mediterranean air, a small white dot against the perfect blue. For an impossible time it seemed to stay aloft, as though it had sprouted wings and hovered like a shrike. And then down, down it tumbled, gathering speed until it struck the ground no little distance off, bounced froglike, and settled out of sight.
‘You have a… unique swing,’ Saint-Denis observed, clearly not approving, perhaps even a little amused.
Smosh made a small bow, proffered the club to Saint-Denis, and, to a round of spontaneous applause and some cat-calls, retrieved his bottle and resumed his place, indifferent, apparently, to the fate of a little leather sphere stuffed with goose down.
Saint-Denis then took the stage. His usual vanity and bravado had been much eroded by recent illness, but he still clearly took pride in his golf prowess – had bragged about it at table – and now was forced to perform before a gathering, not all of whom called him friend. His stance was not unlike Dr Worthing’s, but his limbs, frail from influenza, seemed as thin as the shaft of the club he held. His stroke, though well-schooled, lacked potency, and the ball set off but slowly, lofting low over the ground and was soon rolling to a stop not much beyond that of Dr Worthing, though in open ground.
The party set off, the gallery chattering and laughing in their wake. As Dr Worthing’s ball was ‘away’ he was first to play, and found his feathery in a clump of weed not a yard from the stone wall. After a moment’s deliberation of the ball’s situation, and a thoughtful assessment of the distance to the hole, Worthing selected a spoon. He took careful measure of his back-swing to be certain of clearing the wall – there would be no cleek-maker in Gibraltar to mend a broken club – and took his odd stance upon uneven ground. A moment he concentrated his mind, then drew the spoon back and thrashed the air, sending the ball sputtering along the ground where it fetched up fifty feet distant. This time there were no oaths, but he lifted the head of the club and inspected it with much disapproval.
‘Bloody cleek-maker,’ he muttered, then tossed the offending stick to Dismal Johnny.
Saint-Denis, much to his wounded pride, was next away. Having learned from the doctor’s example, he chose a different club, flexed and hefted it, then stepped up to his ball. He drew the club back once, succumbed to indecision and returned it to hovering aft of the ball, drew it back again, and made an awkward slicing motion. To his obvious surprise, this sent the ball rocketing towards the hole, so that it fetched up not forty yards distant from the vertical staff that marked the cup.
‘You see, Wickham,’ he said, ‘it comes back to me, though I have not played in some time.’
‘It seemed a perfect stroke,’ the midshipman observed.
‘By no means perfect,’ the lieutenant answered, ‘but very near.’
Poor Wickham was forced to make his shot out of a stand of vicious thistle, which would have been difficult enough, but Saint-Denis, encouraged by his recent success, insisted on giving much instru
ction, correcting Wickham’s stance and grip and adding abundant criticism of his swing.
With all of this tutelage, much of it contradictory, Hayden thought it a wonder that Wickham could swing the club at all. But swing he did, and even managed to make a decent shot of it, flaying thistle flesh and scattering prickly leaves all about. The ball did not fly far but it soared true, rolling to stop in open ground.
‘Well done, Wickham,’ Saint-Denis pronounced. ‘Mr Smosh… Mr Smosh?’
The chaplain’s name was repeated by various members of the crowd, and a moment latter Smosh staggered out of the party, his neckcloth half undone, face crimson, eyes nearly shut. He took a club, seemingly at random, from the servant, and stepped up to his feathery. Again he took his strange, high swing, struck the ball a resounding ‘smack’ and lofted it high into the air. It shrank smaller and smaller until it was petite, then minute, minuscule… it began to fall, gathering speed, gathering size, until it thumped dully down onto the ground and bounce-rolled up to within a few yards of the thin spar marking the first hole.
The crowd reacted with great acclaim and many a thump on the sportsman’s back. Smosh was absorbed into this cheering mass which supported him, embraced him, and encouraged him to drink to his success.
Griffiths glanced Hayden’s way, all unsaid. It was a holiday, Hayden thought, and Smosh had no duties aboard ship. Let him indulge himself.
Worthing was next to play, and seemed even more determined to make a good show of it. This determination, however, increased his self-consciousness and banished all ability to focus his mind. Twice he drew his club back and lost confidence returning the club to address. Flushed a little with embarrassment, he resolved to make a stroke, drew the club back, thrashed it through the air and missed the ball completely, though it rolled an inch off the nubbin it perched upon as if avoiding the doctor’s attack.
A string of oaths that would have made Mr Barthe proud followed, causing much surprised laughter among the crew. Again the chaplain addressed the ball, drew his club back with exaggerated care, and flashed it forward. The ball this time had the decency to stay in place and take its proper thrashing. It flew forward, hardly two feet above the grass, and then began a series of long, low bounces, almost loping over the ground, until it rolled to a stop eight yards short of the hole and three dozen feet to the left.
‘Excellent shot, Dr Worthing,’ Saint-Denis offered cheerfully, to a dark stare from the clergyman.
The gathering trudged on, though a good number broke off to seek the shade of a tree that overhung the enclosing wall. The young ladies who had attached themselves to the sailors accompanied this party, the pleasures of golf apparently not the diversion they sought. From the sounds erupting from this group Hayden was sure a certain variety of commerce had been contracted, and not with much privacy, either – something the sailors were well used to. The young lady who had so recently lost her hand could be seen hovering, unhappily, upon the fringe of this gathering. From all sides she was urgently besieged by sailors, and the other women mocked her reluctance.
‘You’re not above it, now, princess,’ one of the whores called out.
The sailors had begun tugging at her arms, and the sleeves of her dress. Without a word, Griffiths broke away from Hayden and Hawthorne, striding stiffly towards the shade tree, swinging his cane, shoulders taut with apparent anger.
Hawthorne glanced at Hayden, a smile quickly giving way to a look of alarm. Hayden took a step to follow the doctor – drunken sailors were capable of much trouble – but Hawthorne held up a hand to restrain him.
‘I think we shall have fewer floggings if the captain remains here,’ he said. ‘If I may…?’
Hayden nodded once, and watched Hawthorne set off in the wake of Griffiths, a few marines taking up positions in his wake. Griffiths reached the girl first, waving his cane at bemused and then, almost immediately, indignant sailors. They squared up to the advancing doctor but then noticed the small party of marines quickly converging. Hawthorne was much admired among the hands but he also had a reputation as a man not to be trifled with. The sailors backed away resentfully, giving up their prize, and Griffiths rather quickly led the young woman away, towards the town.
‘Isn’t it just like a surgeon to take a fancy to a woman with one hand removed,’ Hawthorne said as he rejoined Hayden.
‘All a bit out of character,’ Hayden replied. ‘But then the doctor, I am sure, is much like many another man in this regard.’
‘Indeed,’ Hawthorne agreed. ‘Who is to play?’
‘Wickham.’ And both men made a show of turning their attention back to the golf match.
The midshipman’s ball squatted in the open on a sparse patch of flattened grass and dried mud.
‘A good lie, Wickham,’ Saint-Denis pronounced. ‘Not quite so good as being raised up a little by grass but not so very bad. You will not need a baffing spoon here, or Dr Worthing’s estimable globmudge. A simple spoon will do, eh, Doctor?’
Worthing selected a club from among those on offer and thrust the grip in Wickham’s direction. ‘This will suffice for a player of your experience.’
Saint-Denis did not seem to approve of the selection but apparently felt he could not gainsay the owner of the clubs.
‘A vigorous half-swing, Wickham, no more. Just as I demonstrated yesterday.’
Wickham made a practice swipe at an imaginary feathery.
‘Quite acceptable,’ Saint-Denis said, nodding his head, ‘but keep the club low throughout the back-swing and do not, for love of God, raise your head. All the authorities agree the player who lifts his head shall be damned to golfers’ purgatory for all eternity.’
‘And, pray, what does golfers’ purgatory look like?’ Hawthorne enquired innocently, causing laughter among the thinning audience.
‘At the deepest level, Mr Hawthorne, there is no golf at all, and at the intermediate levels the courses are devised by cruel madmen determined to ruin a sportsman’s every pleasure. Sand there is aplenty, rain daily, holes so far apart that days must be set aside to play but a one.’ He grimaced. ‘It unnerves me even to speak of it.’ He turned to Lord Arthur. ‘Mr Wickham.’
The middy stepped up to the ball and with a deft, shallow swing sent the ball lofting upward and then down near the hole where in three bounces it approached then passed the cup, rolling to a sudden stop three yards beyond.
‘Well struck, Wickham! Well struck!’
Saint-Denis’s ball was quickly found, sitting in a little depression like a solitary egg in a bowl.
The sportsmen, minus Smosh, formed a triumvirate to contemplate this terrible lie, no one offering an opinion for a moment, silenced, perhaps, by the utter horror of it.
‘A spoon will not scoop that meal out,’ Wickham said at last.
‘No,’ Saint-Denis agreed, his brow furrowed in frustration. ‘An iron is called for. A track-iron, I wonder?’
Smosh approached at that moment, a look of cherubic delight upon his chubby face. He tacked back and forth a half a yard as he came, but appeared unaware of it. He fetched up where his fellows stood in conference, looked down at the ball in its nest and pronounced. ‘Nulick.’
‘What are you saying, Smosh?’ Saint-Denis asked, clearly offended by the clergyman’s state.
‘Nigleek,’ Smosh ventured, but then shook his head in frustration. He raised both hands to shoulder height and lowered them in pace with his next, deliberate pronouncement. ‘Nib-lick,’ he enunciated in a vain attempt at precision.
‘Are you saying “new-cleek”?’ Wickham asked.
Smosh nodded vigorously, clearly unwilling to risk more verbalization.
‘Pass me the “niblick” then,’ Saint-Denis said. ‘I shall give it a go.’
The new-cleek was handed forward and Saint-Denis took his stance over the ball, which laid almost entirely below the level of the ground. A quick joggle from one foot to the other and then a violent swipe at the ball sent a small clod of earth and roots in a tu
mble along the ground. The ball, however, had been but jostled by the effort and lay, mockingly, in the same spot.
‘That counts a stroke,’ Worthing announced for all to hear.
Smosh clearly agreed. ‘A stork,’ he echoed.
A second, more violent, attempt produced an explosion of dirt but out of it the ball materialized, plopping down three yards distant, dirt and stones raining all around.
‘You could not have managed that without my new-cleek, I’ll wager,’ Worthing crowed.
‘No,’ Saint-Denis said heatedly, ‘the niblick is a device of utter, bloody genius.’ He turned and stomped off, leaving an offended Worthing in his wake.
Smosh caught the clergyman’s attention and held up the club, which Saint-Denis had all but thrown at him. ‘Niblick,’ he said tentatively.
Worthing drew himself up, a look of unmitigated contempt upon his face. ‘And you call yourself a man of God,’ he said in disgust, and turned away.
His ball still farthest from the hole, Saint-Denis was forced to take another turn. This time he did not tarry over it, but grabbed a club seemingly at random from the servant and took a swipe at his ball, sending it in bouncing, erratic flight over the harsh terrain. A moment of this hare-like behaviour and it hopped past the hole a good thirty yards then spun five more for good measure. It was Saint-Denis’s turn to curse, which he managed as coarsely as any foremast hand. The spectators erupted into applause, whether at this display of golfing prowess or his newly revealed talent for profanity, Hayden could not be sure.
The players and their entourage set off again.
En route to his ball, Smosh actually stumbled and would have fallen but for the intercession of Hawthorne, who managed to catch him by the arm. This caused much laughter among the thinning gallery. Approaching Smosh’s ball, a disgusted Saint-Denis retrieved a club from the caddy and, holding it by the head, tapped the drunken clergyman on the arm with the grip. Smosh took the club without comment or even looking, stepped up to the ball, closed one eye, turned his head to assess the distance to the hole, then pulled the approach putter back, somehow maintaining his balance, and made a clean, even swing. The ball performed a gentle, balletic arc towards the hole, not rising above a foot, landed with nary a bounce, rolled five feet and stopped within inches of the cup.
A Battle Won Page 22