1999 - Ladysmith (22 page)

The Major was talking through his sealion moustache, but he was right all the same. The match started at twelve and, with old Sol sending down—through a cloudless, noonday sky more devilish than heavenly—the kind of rays that would penetrate even Lieutenant Norris’s cap, the few remaining stalks of grass on the crease were soon shrivelling. There were actually not many proper cricket caps to be seen; indeed, all manner of uniform was on display—one full set only of virginal white flannel, plus large displays of khaki fatigues (on the one side) and of shirtsleeves and braces (the other). Mr Star was wearing a straw boater but pride of place went to Mr Grimble, who—being a man of some vanity—had arrayed himself in tails, top hat and stiff collar,
a la
Alfred Mynn, the famous cricketer.

He must be boiling up, Bella thought. She took a handkerchief out of her sleeve and wiped her forehead. Round about her and her sister was gathered a fair proportion of Ladysmith’s population, including Mrs Frinton—who was presiding over a vat of home-made lemonade in the shade of the tent—and a noisy Bobby Greenacre. The latter was another enthusiastic young aspirant to cricket honours who had not been permitted to play.

On the other side of the pitch, Major Mott was busy explaining to the drummer boy of Hussars that cricket was significant because it was a metaphor for life, its regular rhythms and sudden, surprising changes imitating the very phases of existence. This, he said, was why it was most important to watch the match closely.

On the near side, Bella and Jane were not looking at the match, but through it—beyond the scattered figures, beyond Major Mott and the little drummer boy—to a patch of grass where two Mother Country batsmen, Barnes and Foster, awaited their chance of glory. The two men were practising their catching, throwing the ball in high looping curves against the sunlight.

“I do hope they come in soon,” said Jane. “Goodness, they’re throwing it up a long way. They must have strong wrists.”

Then she laughed.

“Janey,” said Bella reprovingly, then laughed herself.

A couple of Imperial Light Horse were keeping score on roughly chalked blackboards, while Henry Nevinson, the journalist, was acting as chief umpire. This was assented to by the opposing teams mainly because of his supposedly neutral status, but also on the strength of his knowing W. G. Grace, who had sometimes signed his names to the charity-seeking letters sent out from Toynbee Hall when Nevinson worked there. What a fine specimen of man he was, the Champion. The journalist remembered writing in his diary of the great cricketing doctor, “and all his powers spent on knocking balls about! What might he not have done a thousand years ago!”

Initial progress at Ladysmith seemed (as Nevinson further observed) a thousandfold slower than if W. G. had been on the pitch. Messrs Greenacre and Grimble opened the Colonial Born bowling. At first both bowled too short and were ruthlessly cut and pulled. Once they steadied down, they took a wicket apiece, and thereafter Mother Country wickets began to fall. Mr Star, the baker, surprised everyone with a great catch, picking a skimming ball out of the air as if he had known, a few seconds before, where it was going to be. At fifty-six for four, Tom Barnes came in and, easy and alert at the wicket, began to forge a useful partnership with Herbert Foster. The latter was frail and sensitive, a little awkward in his movements, but he gave the Colonials beans: his highlight was a six into the blue-gums, off a ball by Mr Kiernan. The same bowler, however, finally caused his downfall, with a smart caught and bowled. Barnes went out through a copybook l.b.w. and the tail was then mopped up, leaving a final target of one hundred and fifty-three runs.

“I told you I was feeling lucky,” said Foster during the break.

The drummer boy of Hussars had been sent over to collect trays of food and drink from Mrs Frinton, and now the two men were lying on the grass, a little away from the rest of the team. Tom finished his mouthful of fish-paste sandwich.

“It’s not luck,” he said. “It’s all worked out, up there.”

He lay back on the grass and looked up into the sky: the hard, hot blue of the first innings had softened, and now a few large white galleons were beginning to sail over from the crest of the Drakensberg.

“You reckon?” queried Foster, as if it were a matter of little import.

“All shall be revealed before stumps are pulled,” said Tom, with mock solemnity. He turned his head to where Jane and Bella were sitting, on the opposite side of the pitch. He thought he could hear them laughing, or maybe it was just in his head, this engaging giggle of young girls. “Not fair, this no-association rule, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Considering that even the pluckiest fellow needs the comfort of womankind. We’re under fire, after all.”

Foster sat up and rubbed his elbow. “Hardly,” he said. “I mean, we’re not now, are we?”

“Looks like we are.” Tom nodded in the direction of Lieutenant Norris, who was irritatedly beckoning them over for a bracing talk.

Once the break was over, the correspondent-umpire took up his position and watched with a cold eye. Mr Grimble opened the account for the Colonial Born, strutting out in his long coat like a peacock. The impression was marred only by his carrying of the bat over his shoulder. Off the very first ball (unidentified bowler) he gave a chance to Major Mott at square leg, but it was not held. The Mother Country supporters groaned with disappointment.

Foster was keeping wicket, cheroot between his lips, and Tom Barnes next to bowl. He proceeded to deliver three overs of hostile inswingers, one delivery cracking Mr Grimble on the ankle.

“That was a bit quick,” said Nevinson to Barnes, censoriously.

“It’s my style.”

Kneeling, his coat-tails spread on the crease like a bridal gown, Mr Grimble inspected his bruised ankle. There was then some talk of a runner being called for, but the farmer decided in the end to persevere, to a chorus of bravos. To give him his due, he proved a stayer, persisting while other Colonial Born batsmen came and went.

Star the baker, walking out, announced: “I mean to lay on the wood.”

He returned without scoring, saying the wicket was untrue.

By the time it was Leo Kiernan’s turn to pad up, the Colonial Born were falling like dead men, six dismissed in the first eight overs.

“I’ll stop this rot,” he said to Bella as he strode out to join Mr Grimble, hefting the bat in his hand. “Good god, this must weigh four pounds. And it looks like the kaffir’s dog has been at it.”

By now, Tom having ceased bowling, Bella was beginning to lose interest. But she supposed she ought to see how Father got on.

“He is taking it all very seriously,” she said to Jane, beside her.

“Of course he is. I hope Herbert doesn’t stump him out, or else he will never like him.”

“He probably won’t ever anyway.”

“He’ll come round—more than he will with Tom anyway, since he was so rude.”

They fell silent, concentrating on the figures as they moved about on the carpet of yellowing veld. Although Father didn’t look like the hero to redeem the score, he acquitted himself well. The first ball came and he blocked it stoutly. Then the second—and then an ostrich, which had been brought into town for meat, ran out over the pitch. Play was suspended for ten minutes or so while they tried to catch it. Everybody rushed about in circles, and Father collided with Mr Grimble, whose top hat fell off.

As she watched the ostrich run about, jerking its neck hither and thither, Bella was reminded of a story she had once heard: how, when hunting the outlandish birds, the Bushmen who lived around here long ago would dress up in feathers and go into the middle of a flock to shoot them with poisoned arrows, maintaining the illusion of being ostriches even as they killed them. Not far outside the town was a Bushman cave with paintings in it that she and Jane had once explored, but the paintings did not show that scene. Perhaps it was just a tall tale.

Finally, play resumed. Bella reached down for the glass next to the deckchair and took a sip of lemonade. The taste reminded her of childhood, stirring faint memories of her mother which, together with the comforting murmur of the game, made her feel dreamy.

She tried to concentrate on the game. It was quite soothing to watch. Most of the time, it seemed to her, people didn’t seem to be doing anything, just loafing about, lost in their own reflections, alone with their thoughts. Some, like Foster, were smoking and some even had their hands in their pockets.

The bowlers changed. Mr Grimble hit the ball in the air past square leg, narrowly missing being caught by Major Mott. The ball rolled under the rope close to her. She wondered whether to get up and throw it in, but then the Major trundled past her, his moustache jiggling up and down. It really was very large, in the handlebar style, and as the Major threw in, Bella wondered whether children liked to ask him if they could pull it, to see if it was real. She could hardly resist the inclination herself.

Moustaches apart, the drowsy sounds of the game were the things most present in Bella’s head—the applause, the clicks and thumps, the shouted appeals, “Well played!” and “Yes! No! Get back!”—which, in their mixed-up totality, made the whole thing all the more soporific. Other sounds too, that weren’t properly part of it, contributed to the somnolent effect: the cooing of collared doves in the blue-gums; the clank of Mrs Frinton’s ladle in the lemonade vat; the snuffling of a cavalryman’s charger that had been tied to a guy-rope of the tent and—these last were not peaceful, that had to be conceded—the croak of a pair of ravens nesting in a nearby outcrop of rock, their intimation of death punctuating an all-too-lively repetitive tapping of ball on bat.

That came from Bobby Greenacre, showing off how long he could keep the ball bouncing on the bat. He was behind Bella, and every time the ball fell to the ground he exclaimed in disappointment.

“Shouldn’t you be over with the men?” she said, over her shoulder.

“Oh! You’ve ruined my concentration,” he replied, coming round in front of her.

“Sorry, Bobby,” said Bella, wearily.

He retrieved the ball from where it had rolled under a tent flap and began bouncing it on the bat again.

“But I suppose you’re right, Miss Kiernan,” he said at length. With that he set off along the edge of the pitch, still bouncing the ball as he walked, dancing from side to side to keep it going.

“He’s so annoying,” said Jane, getting up to fetch a pear from the table near by.

“Want one?”

“Please.”

Bella watched the Greenacre boy make his way to the military supporters and begin his own private game with the drummer boy, who bowled to him along the perimeter. Jane came back, handed a pear to Bella, and sat down on the chair’s striped canvas.

“He’s just enjoying himself,” Bella said. “It must be strange all this, if you’re a child.”

“Strange for all of us. Look at Herbert in all his kit.”

Bella bit into the pear, looked out at Foster crouched down at the wicket, and then beyond—through the criss-crossed figures in the bright light—at the two young hopefuls. Mostly Bobby seemed to be missing the drummer boy’s hard-flung balls, but he did get a fair knock at one, and out it went into the pitch proper, to hit Major Mott in the ribs.

“You’re right, he is annoying,” said Bella, as Bobby ran out to retrieve the rogue ball.

Out in the slips, Tom Barnes was annoyed too, for three reasons. Firstly because he wasn’t bowling. Secondly because he had just missed an edge from Bella’s father. Too fast, it had caught him on the thumbnail, which was now swelling up. The thumb was the same one which had been blistered by the piece of hot shell he had picked up, and was consequently very painful. The third reason was that he didn’t respect his captain. Tom played a lot of cricket for the village at home. In his view Lieutenant Norris hadn’t disposed his fielders correctly—they were out too deep—and, like all bad captains, was bowling too much himself.

“That’s gone for four at least,” he muttered to no one in particular as a ball was lifted into deep mid-off. “We are too many on the on side.”

“Tell the cap to move someone over,” said Foster, crouched in his wicket-keeper’s position.

“I can’t,” said Tom. “He’s in my unit.”

“Bugger!” cried out Foster. “Bugger!” He straightened and began to jump around. “My smoke’s gone down my pad!”

He continued leaping like a dervish. Tom laughed, until the gunner finally extricated the still-glowing cheroot from between pad and leg. At the other end, Norris was standing hand on hip, waiting for the keeper to sort himself out.

They settled down to concentrate on the next ball. As if he had sensed the mounting unease of the team (they had been positive at first, but now progress was slowing and collective doubts were setting in), Norris had begun to vary his line, this time delivering a ball that sent Grimble’s off-stump sideways.

“How’s that?” went up the chorus, and at the other end the dour figure of Nevinson gave the sign. Norris beamed.

“That was a flyer, I have to admit,” remarked Foster, as he collected up the ball in his keeper’s glove and tossed it back up the pitch.

“Not bad,” said Tom, wishing that it was his turn. He looked into the unkempt outfield, and then round to the tent, with its crowd of women—among them Bella—and then her father, damn him, swept a high, ballooning ball for six, sending it sailing over the blue-gums, just as Foster had in the previous innings. The Ladysmith supporters cheered hysterically, leaping up and down, though Bella, upon whom Tom kept his eye fixed, didn’t stir from her chair. He wondered whether that was slightly unnatural. The triumphant batsman was her father, after all, even if he was a bit of a grouch.

In fact, Bella had been concentrating on something high above her father’s head. She thought she had seen movement around the spinney, high in the hills, where the Boers kept one of their heavy Krupp guns. She mentioned it to Jane, but her sister pooh-poohed her fears.

“Oh, they won’t shell us on the Sabbath. They’re Christians and gentlemen, even if they are Boers. Anyway, they’re probably enjoying the game through their field-glasses.”