Doctor Who: Black Orchid (3 page)

‘That’s you, old man,’ announced Cranleigh. ‘Good luck!’

‘Thank you,’ murmured the Doctor and began his purposeful march into the arena to do battle. As he passed the outcoming batsman he nodded at the smile of welcome and encouragement. The Doctor looked over his shoulder for a glimpse at the scoreboard. It read, a hundred and thirty-five runs for nine wickets with the man just out on twenty-four.

Tanner had provided the TARDIS trio with deck chairs and a privileged position near the pavilion. Tegan and Nyssa watched the Doctor striding towards the pitch as the distant chapel clock struck two.

‘Why is it called cricket?’ asked Nyssa.

Tegan thought about this. She’d played the game at school and at odd times since without having ever asked that question herself.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.

‘Oh,’ said Nyssa.

Tegan couldn’t help feeling a little foolish. Adric came to her rescue by sitting next to her with a plateful of chicken vol-au-vent.

‘Really!’ exclaimed an outraged Tegan, ‘Where are your manners?’

‘Manners?’ mumbled a masticating Adric. ‘What’s manners got to do with it?’

The Doctor was taking guard. ‘Middle, please,’ he requested. The umpire guided a few small movements from the Doctor before signifying that the Doctor was holding his bat directly in front of his middle stump.

‘That’s middle.’

The Doctor clearly marked the position by scratching a line in the worn turf with his boot and then straightened to look about him, making mental note of the positions of the eleven men in the field.

‘Three balls to come,’ advised the umpire and moved out of the path of the bowler. The Doctor relaxed his body and gave alert concentration to the onslaught of the ball. It came hurtling in on a good line and length and the Doctor met it firmly in the middle of the bat in a classic forward defensive stroke that broke the tension on Cranleigh’s face with a broad smile of approval. He exchanged hopeful glances with the players near him.

‘What’s the object?’ asked Nyssa.

‘What object?’

‘The object of the game?’

‘Oh. The side which gets the most runs wins.’

‘What’s a run?’ mumbled Adric through a mouthful of sticky chicken.

‘When the two players run the length of the pitch.’

There was an expectant silence as the bowler commenced his run up to the wicket. He bowled the ball short outside the off stump and the Doctor cut it past point to the boundary. There was enthusiastic applause as the umpire signalled four runs.

‘Good shot!’ exclaimed Tegan.

‘What are they clapping for?’ mumbled Adric through lips flecked with pastry.

‘Four runs,’ said Tegan.

‘But they didn’t run,’ complained Nyssa.

‘They don’t have to,’ explained Tegan, ‘if the ball reaches the boundary.’

‘What’s the boundary?’

‘Where the people are.’

‘Oh.’

‘If the ball’s hit over the people’s heads that’s six runs,’

went on Tegan.

‘What if it hits the people?’ slobbered Adric.

‘Nothing. And it doesn’t. And do stop scoffing like that!’ she added irritably. ‘You’re making an exhibition of yourself.’

The Doctor glanced the next ball delicately down the leg side and the batsmen crossed for one run.

‘Oh, good!’ enthused Tegan.

‘Good?’ said Nyssa curiously.

‘Great!’ revised Tegan.

‘But they only ran once.’

‘Yes, but the Doctor’s got the bowling.’

‘Got the what?’

‘It was the last ball.’

‘What? Already?’

‘Not of the game; of the over.’

‘What’s an over?’

Tegan’s eyes glazed over. She had suddenly become too interested in the game to try to explain its intricacies to the uninitiated. ‘You watch a bit of it,’ she suggested. ‘You’ll soon pick it up.’

The Doctor, nicely off the mark and with five runs to his credit, took guard against the spin bowler at the other end. The first delivery was pitched well up to the Doctor who went deftly out to meet the ball in a half volley and drove it high over the sight screen to a concerted murmur of delight and enthusiastic applause.

‘There! That’s a six,’ explained Tegan, joyfully putting her hands together. But Nyssa was feeling excluded by this rather silly game and Adric was content to pursue his gastronomic adventures unhindered by the need to acquire knowledge that held no interest for him.

The spin bowler, out of countenance that a tail-end batsman should treat him with such disrespect, decided to tempt the Doctor away from the crease with a short googly.

But the Doctor wasn’t deceived by the cunningly concealed action. He saw how the ball left the bowler’s hand and knew that when it pitched on the wicket it would turn unexpectedly the other way. Again, with impeccable footwork, he moved with the spin and pulled the ball to the mid-wicket boundary. The Doctor had faced five balls from which he’d scored fifteen runs.

Such was Lord Cranleigh’s delight at the prowess of the latecomer he promptly forgot all about his other guests. He moved, in a near trance, to a beautiful woman seated in front of the pavilion whose fine-boned face, shielded by a wide confection of a hat, belied her fifty-five years. The dowager Marchioness of Cranleigh smiled at her son.

‘Your substitute is shaping very well, Charles.’

‘Isn’t he, by Jove!’

The Marquess crouched on his haunches by his mother’s deck chair, his eyes alight with admiration. ‘If only he could have got here earlier.’

The Doctor watched the bowler direct a fielder to come in closer to the bat, to the silly mid-on position, and smiled. He played the next ball with circumspection; bat together with the pad, and acutely angled to smother the spin and keep the ball well out of the prehensile grasp of the man in the silly position. The fourth ball was a quicker one and short on the leg stump. The Doctor hooked it for six to prolonged applause. The bowler grimaced in self condemnation and sent in another tempter pitched well up on the off stump only to see it cracked through cover to the boundary.

‘If only Courtney can keep them out at his end,’

muttered Cranleigh, his eyes on the Doctor’s partner as the bowler paced in for the last ball of the over. The Doctor punched the ball past the man fielding close in and called

‘Come one!’ The two batsmen crossed over without attempting another run.

The overjoyed Marquess shot up to his full height like a jack-in-a-box. ‘He’s going to farm the bowling,’ he chortled.

‘He’s farming the bowling!’ squeaked Tegan.

‘He’s what?’ asked Nyssa.

‘Farming the bowling.’

‘Farming it?’ Could this be it, thought Nyssa. The ducks? A duck farm?

‘Yes. It means he’s going to try to keep the other man...

the one at the other end... from having to face the ball. The Doctor’s the better man but he’s the last man in. When either of them is out the innings is over.’

‘What do you mean, out?’ asked a perplexed Nyssa.

‘If the ball hits the wicket... that’s the three sticks... or if it’s caught before it hits the ground, or they could be stumped or run out or leg before wicket.’

‘Please!’ said Nyssa, shutting her eyes and clenching her fists. ‘Please, don’t go on!’ But Tegan was far too excited to take any notice of the baffled Nyssa.

With total concentration, a fine wit and consummate technical skill the Doctor continued to farm the bowling with a cunning single or an aggressive three runs at the end of every over. The home team’s score began to climb spectacularly and the excitement of the spectators mounted with it. Onlookers from all parts of the grounds crowded the ropes and the pavilion and the marquee emptied, something not unnoticed by Adric who took the opportunity further to fortify the inner man.

The Doctor had taken the score from a hundred and thirty-five to an auspicious two hundred and twenty-five when the distant chapel clock clanged the half hour. As the last note sighed into the silence of the still trees surrounding the cricket field, a distinguished-looking man broke from a group of more than usually excited spectators and moved quickly towards the captain of the home team, his piercing eyes ablaze and his hawk-like nose flared; a hunter accepting a challenge.

‘Charles!’

‘Robert,’ responded Cranleigh.

‘This man of yours...!’

‘Magnificent, isn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Sir Robert Muir, ‘but d’you know how long he’s been out there?’

‘About half an hour I should think.’

‘Exactly half an hour. He went in at two o’clock.’

‘Is something wrong, Robert?’ enquired Lady Cranleigh gently.

‘Wrong?’ echoed Sir Robert.

‘You look so upset.’

‘Upset,’ repeated Sir Robert. ‘He’s on ninety. Your man’s on ninety.’

‘Yes, dear,’ said Lady Cranleigh. ‘We know. Isn’t it splendid?’

Sir Robert looked sightlessly at the dowager Marchioness for a moment and then turned again to her son. ‘He’s five minutes off the record.’

‘Record?’

‘Percy Fender’s.’

‘Percy Fender?’ questioned Lady Cranleigh.

Sir Robert looked with desolation first at mother then at son, refusing to believe their lack of comprehension.

‘P.G.H. Fender,’ he explained, ‘Captain of Surrey... made a century in thirty-five minutes. Five years ago. It’s the record. A hundred runs in thirty-five minutes. And your man’s got five minutes to...’

He was interrupted by an enthusiastic round of applause as the Doctor stroked a single past cover point and the batsmen exchanged ends at the conclusion of yet another over. Sir Robert took a watch from his waistcoat pocket. ‘Is the chapel clock right?’ he asked.

‘Two minutes slow,’ said Lady Cranleigh.

Sir Robert made a mental calculation. ‘If he can make nine runs in three and a half minutes he’ll have the record.’

He watched the players repositioning for the next over keeping the open watch in his hand. And then he saw something that made him speak his anguished thoughts aloud. ‘No, no, man! Not now, not now!’ The visitors’

captain had decided on a change of bowler and he and the new man were in earnest consultation about the placing of the field. As the discussion become protracted Sir Robert’s excitement took on frenetic proportions. ‘Come on, come on! Get on with it!’ he said loudly enough to turn a number of heads. He looked at his watch again and muttered angrily, ‘Two and a half minutes. He can’t do it!’

The new bowler was of medium pace with a short run up. His first ball was straight and on a good length. The Doctor played it defensively back down the wicket. The bowler fielded the ball and made his way leisurely to his mark. Cranleigh crossed two fingers and Sir Robert began very slightly to twitch. Lady Cranleigh looked at him with raised eyebrows.

‘Robert,’ she said sweetly, ‘if you don’t calm down you’ll do yourself an injury.’

Sir Robert licked dry lips but didn’t take his eyes from the play. The next ball was short outside the off stump and the Doctor drove it through cover for four. He was on ninety-five. The ball had come to the boundary close enough to Sir Robert for him to be tempted to take quick charge of it and throw it in himself. His fever had infected Cranleigh who began himself to vocalise his thoughts.

‘Come on, man! A six!’

Lady Cranleigh smiled secretly. What boys they were!

The next ball was again on a length and Cranleigh’s prayer was not answered. The Doctor played it coolly with a forward prod. The bowler, conscious that his opponent was within a few runs of his century, was giving nothing away and the next ball was again on a good line and length.

The Doctor got forward to the pitch of it and pushed it firmly back to the bowler. Cranleigh looked quickly at Sir Robert who only sensed the move since his eyes were firmly on the field. He flicked a look at his watch and said,

‘Less than two minutes.’

‘A six, a six,’ breathed Cranleigh.

The fifth ball kept dangerously low and turned spitefully rapping the Doctor on the pad. There was a loud appeal, more optimistic than informed, and the umpire was unmoved.

‘A minute,’ muttered Sir Robert. The bowler started his short run up to deliver the last ball of the over fully intending to frustrate the Doctor’s bid for a single run to allow him to change ends. The delivery was straight and on a length but the Doctor leaned back to give himself room and, with a stroke not in the text books, clipped the ball hard past the mid-on fieldsman and began to run. The Doctor’s intention was to run three and the batsmen crossed and recrossed. Sir Robert exchanged a look with Cranleigh and put his watch away glumly. ‘That’s that then,’ he said.

The Doctor completed his second run and called again to his partner as the fieldsman got his hand to the ball and turned to throw in. The Doctor had two thirds of the pitch to run and the fieldsman threw hard at the stumps at the bowler’s end. The ball sped past the stumps and the Doctor was home. But there was no back up to the throw in and the ball went on through to the boundary.

‘Four runs!’ gasped Cranleigh incredulously..

‘Seven with the overthrow,’ almost shouted Sir Robert snatching out his watch. ‘He’s done it! He must have done it! Yes, he’s done it!’ He performed a little jig.

‘If you start dancing now, Robert,’ said Lady Cranleigh smoothly, ‘you’ll have no energy left for this evening.’

The two men beamed upon her with delight and joined in the prolonged applause that greeted the Doctor’s century. ‘Will it count, d’you think?’ asked Cranleigh.

‘What?’

‘The record? It’s not a first class game.’

‘Not a first class game!’ expostulated Sir Robert. ‘You’re playing a minor county side, aren’t you? Of course it’s a first class game, and of course it counts! I shall report to the MCC immediately.’

‘Well,’ said Lady Cranleigh rising from her chair, ‘I’d better see how things are getting on at the Hall. Pity Ann didn’t feel up to coming. It would have done her the world of good.’

‘Ann not well?’ asked Sir Robert.

‘A headache,’ replied Lady Cranleigh. ‘She slept badly.’

Cranleigh remembered his guests with a pang of guilt and looked hurriedly about him. ‘She works too hard,’ went on Lady Cranleigh. She’s overtired. She’ll have to give up all this charity nonsense when you’re married, Charles.’