A Battle Won

by Sean Thomas Russell

  Wild applause from the small audience. Smosh turned to them, made an elaborate and solemn bow, pivoted back to his ball, tripped on his own feet and sprawled full length, his putter, thrust out before in an attempt to save himself, made slight contact with the ball and rolled it softly into the cup.

  Overwhelming ‘huzzas’ from the bystanders.

  Smosh was dragged ungently to his feet by the crowd, and almost carried off in their enthusiasm.

  Both Worthing and Saint-Denis were away and as the reverend doctor’s ball must be passed to reach the other, Saint-Denis insisted the clergyman be first. With perhaps forty feet to the cup, Worthing elected to use his approach putter. As making this shot would tie him with Smosh – whom Hayden expected he did not want to lose to under any circumstances – Dr Worthing spent some moments examining the terrain, deciding where best to land his ball and how far it would carry and ‘break’.

  ‘What does he mean, “break”?’ Hayden enquired of Hawthorne.

  ‘The amount it will deviate to either starboard or larboard dependent on the slope of the ground,’ Hawthorne answered.

  ‘Have you played this game before, then, Mr Hawthorne?’

  ‘Only once or twice but I have friends in London who are overly… zealous. I have been subjected to a great deal of their talk.’

  ‘You did not speak up when Wickham was looking for players,’ Hayden noted.

  ‘Between us,’ Hawthorne whispered, ‘I would rather be whipped around the fleet and marched barefoot back to London. Have you never attempted it?’

  Hayden shook his head.

  ‘It is a game perfectly contrived to induce the greatest possible frustration and test one’s mastery of choler to the utmost. I have seen men of the mildest character dash a play-club to splinters on a tree in a passion that would befit an especially violent lunatic. No, never take up this cursed game unless you have the disposition of a saint, the patience of a nun.’

  ‘Or the skill of Mr Smosh,’ Hayden added. ‘Do you believe our reverend guest is so proficient? And he is completely foxed, forced to close one eye lest he see more than one feathery.’

  The marine lieutenant laughed. ‘Yes, which to hit, that is the question.’

  Saint-Denis had come over to discuss with Worthing his situation and use it as an opportunity for instruction with Mr Wickham.

  ‘His lie is perfectly good, though perhaps a little below the level of his feet. Easily accommodated by a bend of the knees. The ground, however, slopes away to the left and the ball will break toward this natural incline. Dr Worthing will play the ball “high” or to the right to allow for this slope. But the principal objective of such a shot is to get the ball into the air somewhat, for rolling over uneven ground the ball may find any little hillock or hollow and deviate off in some unpredicted direction. Are you ready, Doctor?’

  Saint-Denis and his student withdrew, leaving the clergyman to contemplate his shot in solitude. After crouching down to examine the lie of the ground yet one more time, Worthing stood up to his ball, arranged his stance, rocked a little from one foot to the other, eyed the target, and drew back his putter. A slow, pendulum motion and the ball was propelled up, not quite a foot, and sailed unerringly wide of the hole by a mere inch, landed and rolled a dozen feet.

  The clergyman checked his cursing before it began but walked purposefully to his ball, his face a mask of denied fury. He took the putter used for holing out and again examined his lie, plucking a small stone out of the path as he did so. Taking a stance over his ball, both arms and legs rod straight, he pulled his club back and brought it forward again with a slight wobble. Contacting the ball too high it sputtered away, rolled and bounced toward the hole and at the last second curled a little to larboard and lost all way two feet beyond its intended berth.

  A collective ‘Ohhh’ escaped the crowd.

  Worthing marched over to the feathery, bent, and struck it with a ‘pop’. The response of the gallery was quite wild as the ball fell into the hole, but by smiles on faces it was clear that sincerity was lacking.

  ‘Well done, Doctor!’ and ‘Purely struck!’ were heard among the ‘huzzas’.

  The doctor did not even deign to glance towards the audience, but thrust his putter at the servant, and walked a few paces off, fairly twitching from suppressed rage.

  Saint-Denis was sizing up the situation of his feathery and did not appear to be in any hurry to draw a conclusion. After a minute examination of the ground near the hole, and some consideration to most of the terrain in between, he selected a spoon. The eyes of the masses upon him, Saint-Denis was suddenly all manufactured authority, standing up to the ball with great resolve. Every movement was made with deliberation, apparent concentration. He waggled the club strongly, set it behind the little feathery upon the cattle-cropped grass, drew it back with utter focus, and flashed it forward in a low, sweeping stroke. The ball went winging off the toe of the club, avid in its desire to avoid the hole. It did not, however, struck so obliquely, travel far so the distance to the hole remained much the same though the direction had changed utterly.

  Saint-Denis muttered an oath under his breath, shook his head, and stomped off towards the offending ball, which had so brazenly defied his authority. Again the ground was examined foot by foot, the lie evaluated; he even threw a pinch of dried grass into the air to assess the direction and strength of the wind – which seemed like an overabundance of caution given that a dead calm prevailed.

  Another stroke and the ball this time relented and went where it was told, rolling up within six feet of the cup.

  Wickham, then, two-putted from ten feet and Saint-Denis holed out in one. The first hole went to Mr Smosh, who was nowhere to be found but was finally carried forth, his frock-coat gone, his neckcloth missing and his collar open. A hint of powder lay upon his cheek – a chalk-like dusting – and a trace of rouge smeared around his mouth. Thus made up, the clergyman took up a play club, addressed the feathery teed up by the servant, and with astonishing precision, given that he swayed while he stood, sent the ball sailing off towards the next hole.

  And so the match went, Worthing and Saint-Denis becoming more and more determined not to be outplayed, which undermined their ability to focus the mind. Wickham’s natural athleticism combined with his low expectations allowed him to relax and actually enjoy the match. Smosh, drunker at every hole, continued to hit the ball with perfect balance and grace, sending the feathery wherever he liked, though seeing the hole became more and more difficult.

  ‘Mr Smosh… You are aiming the wrong way. No, traverse more to larboard… More yet. Just so. Flail away.’

  By the seventh hole Smosh had opened up an impossible lead on the other players. But on the eighth he stood up to his ball, bent over and vomited horribly upon his feathery. He then stood, drew back his club, and sent the befouled ball off in a splatter of half-digested breakfast.

  Inevitably, featheries fluttered down into pancakes of soggy cow dung; Dr Worthing’s ball was the first to find such a nest. He strode up to the ball, confronted it with hands on hips, lips pressed thin, and then called for the new-cleek, which caused a rise in excited chatter.

  ‘He’s going to hit out of the shit with the niblick!’ voices were saying. An expectant hush settled over the pasture.

  Grasping the club, Worthing took his stance, waving the niblick in the direction of the ball, which lay in the centre of the flattened mush like the yolk in the middle of an egg. Thrice he drew the niblick back two slow feet, then brought it forward with equal speed, careful not to sully the club in the manure. Then, to everyone’s horrified fascination, he drew it fully back, whipped it forward, and in a storm of green-grey shit, sent the ball skittering along the ground, spinning off the foul material as it rolled. The niblick was not quite as effective at preserving the player’s boots and breeches as the designer had boasted but it did propel the ball along proficiently.

  Each player took his turn at extracting a ball – or two – fro
m the manure piles, though depending upon how long the dung had aged it could be more or less messy. Wickham faired best in this, though Smosh, at one point, lost his balance and sat down in dung without being even the least aware of it.

  By the tenth hole the gallery of spectators had retired to the shade and were almost all passed out on the grass, a few famous snorers serenading the cattle. Only the officers remained interested in the match, the smart money backing either Smosh or Wickham depending upon the gambler’s faith that Smosh could actually finish the round. Despite being clearly befuddled and hardly aware that he played golf at all, Smosh continued to amaze with his unerring ability to strike the ball cleanly and get it down in the fewest strokes.

  On the fourteenth hole he was beginning to falter, standing for an impossible length of time over his ball, as though unsure where he was or what he was to do. Just as Saint-Denis stepped forward to prompt him, Smosh drew back his club, struck the ball with customary authority, performed a complete pirouette, and toppled, face first, to the ground where he lay still as a corpse.

  Mr Ariss was wakened, and he pronounced Smosh alive, though no effort to bring him back to consciousness produced any effect. Finally, the clergyman was taken up and propped against a tree, watched over by his servant lest he choke on his own gorge. The match was abandoned after eighteen holes, the players too fatigued or disheartened to continue. Worthing gathered up his clubs and strode off towards the town, clearly offended by all that had occurred. Saint-Denis told one and all that he would certainly have played much better had he not been so weakened from his recent illness, but congratulated Wickham on learning the game so quickly, pointing out that solid instruction was the key to golf.

  ‘And what thought you of the match?’ Hayden asked Hawthorne as they walked back to the boats.

  ‘Not so interesting as a hanging, but more diverting than old women at cards.’ Hawthorne was pensive a moment, then smiled. ‘Let me pass along a bit of drollery from my golfing friends. It is a rusty old saw, but perhaps you have not heard it. Two gentlemen went out upon the links one fair morning to indulge in a match. At the third hole, one of the gentlemen, by the name of Herald, sustained an attack upon his chest and fell down instantly dead. Upon returning home that evening the other man, when asked by his wife how went his play…’

  Griffiths returned to the ship at an uncharacteristically late hour. Upon boarding he visited the sick-berth, briefly consulted with Mr Ariss on several cases of near-fatal poisoning caused by excesses of cheap wine and then presented himself to the marine sentry at the captain’s door. Immediately, he was admitted, and found the captain and Mr Hawthorne seated within.

  ‘I do apologize, Captain, for my tardiness,’ he said formally.

  ‘Not at all, Dr Griffiths. I trust you have left Mr Ariss with all necessary instructions. Your hour of return is your business.’ Hayden trusted his officers, even his warrant officers, to police themselves, and given that they were, to a man, responsible and dutiful, this system worked perfectly well. ‘Mr Hawthorne and I are about to indulge in coffee, Dr Griffiths. Would you care to join us?’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The three men took chairs at Hayden’s table, an unusual and awkward silence settling among them. Hayden thought that Griffiths was about to break this silence when a knock on the door announced their coffee.

  The steaming liquid was poured, the perfume of it filling the cabin.

  ‘Did you enjoy the golf match, Doctor?’ Hawthorne enquired.

  ‘The little I saw. Who was the victor, pray?’

  ‘Wickham,’ Hayden answered, ‘but only because Smosh became insensible from drink. Saint-Denis was too weakened by his recent illness and should have retired, I think, and the reverend doctor too prideful and was punished for it.’

  ‘Even clergymen are subject to divine censure,’ the doctor declared. ‘Vanity is often our undoing.’ He seemed to grow even more solemn. He was a man whose mind was clearly on another matter – a matter of some gravity. He took a long breath, hesitated, and then plunged. ‘No doubt you saw me effect the rescue of the young lady this day?’

  ‘I did, and thought it most noble of you,’ Hayden said, and Hawthorne nodded his agreement.

  Griffiths shrugged. ‘She did not seem to me… one of the common port Sallys and you noted yourself that she had lost a hand…’

  Hayden remembered that he had.

  ‘I had seen another similar circumstance – or so I imagined – when I was undergoing my surgical training. A young woman came to the hospital – a seamstress – and a more captivating creature it would be difficult to conceive of. She had run a needle through the thenar eminence, missing the first metacarpal, here, at the base of her thumb,’ he held up a hand by way of explanation, ‘and it had become infected – very badly so. The corruption had quickly spread. After consulting with another student on the matter it was decided to remove her hand to save the arm, and more than likely her life. This was done successfully, the delicate young woman, not more than two and twenty, suffering the agony of amputation with nary a complaint. I made as neat a job of it as I could, and under my careful eye, for I will admit she seemed very fair to me, a full recovery was made. She was sent home, and not a fortnight later I learned, upon making enquiries, that she had drowned herself. It transpired that, having lost her only means of livelihood and having no family or connexions, she chose death rather than debasement. I cannot recount to you, gentlemen, the nights I laid awake, haunted by what I had done to this poor girl. My teacher in anatomy and surgery assured me that there had been no other possible course and that what I had done had saved her life, but it was little comfort. My feelings of shame over this have hardly lessened over the intervening years. And then, today… I was confronted with another young woman in what I perceived might be similar circumstances. You know what next I did. Some time it took to coax her story forth but believing me, after many assurances on my part, to be a gentleman interested only in her welfare, she did relent and tell me. Her hand had been crushed by a wagon in the street after she had been knocked down by some drunken lout. Unable to save it, the hand was removed – and poorly so – by a local surgeon. Until that unfortunate event, Miss Brentwood, for that is her name, had been employed as a maid of all work by the chief carpenter in the Navy shipyard. This… man had made improper and unwanted advances to her for some time, which she had always rebuffed. Once she had lost her hand, and he knew she could not find work elsewhere, this man informed her that she must accept his attentions or she would be put out in the street. She left his employ that day. But a maid of all work with only one hand has no prospects and her savings were small. Today we saw where it led… She contemplated debasing herself rather than go hungry, but in the end could not. I came along just as she had resolved that starvation would be preferable.’ Griffiths availed himself of his coffee. He looked more than a little mortified by this admission. ‘I think I have found her a position with a family I know through an acquaintance. Certainly, she would be better off in England and if I can manage it I’ll contrive to send her hither.’

  ‘I hope these good deeds do not go unrewarded.’ What Hayden really hoped was that Griffiths had not fallen prey to a woman more cunning than pure.

  Hawthorne said nothing.

  ‘It is, I realize, an unusual thing to do for a stranger but I could not allow the same fate to befall a second young woman were it within my power to intercede. I have lived these many years with my remorse over the previous affair; I could not bear to have it doubled.’

  A knock on the door stopped Hayden from answering. His sentry opened the door at a call from Hayden.

  ‘Beg pardon, Captain. Mr Ariss is urgently seeking Dr Griffiths. One of the men who was ill… seems to have gone a bit mad, sir. Screaming somewhat about spiders, sir.’

  Somewhere below, Hayden thought he could hear shouting.

  Griffiths excused himself and hurried out.

  Hawthorne fixed Hayden with a look
, difficult to read.

  ‘You appear to have some opinion of this matter, Lieutenant?’ Hayden ventured.

  For a moment, Hawthorne contemplated, took a sip of his coffee and then began. ‘I believe, Captain, that there are two romantic… “myths” as I have come to think of them – one rather natural to women and the other to men, though neither exclusively so. The romantic myth common to women is a belief in the transformative power of love. I have, over the years, witnessed women give themselves, body and soul, to men most unlikely to ever bring them happiness either by the nature of their character or owing to impossibly different hopes and desires in life. It was the belief of these women, most often to their everlasting sorrow, that the men would fall so impossibly in love with them that they would transform themselves simply to retain the affection of such a perfect female.’ Hawthorne again had redress to his coffee. ‘I have also been witness to many young women rebuffing men who were in every way deserving and compatible, only to then marry a man who was neither. But a man who would completely transform himself to be worthy of her love – now there was a man worth having – not some poor sod who simply adored her and wanted the same life.’ Hawthorne turned his gaze to the windows a moment. ‘The male romantic myth,’ he continued, ‘is rescuing the maiden in distress and this is equally fraught with danger. Rescuing a young woman from a bad situation or circumstances might seem entirely noble but gratitude, too often, has proved a poor foundation upon which to build a marriage – compatibility of temperament or a large fortune, apparently, are to be preferred. Gratitude, in my experience, flowers briefly and then withers into resentment. Let us hope that our friend does not suffer another disappointment, for his character is such, in these matters, that he will not easily withstand it.’