Part 17

"So I was informed in the Servants' Hall, sir."

"Oh? And what's the general feeling there about it?"

"The impression I gathered, sir, was that the Servants' Hall considers Mr. Glossop ill advised."

"Why's that?"

"I am informed by Mr. Mulready, Sir Reginald's butler, sir, that this contest differs in some respects from the ordinary football game. Owing to the fact that there has existed for many years considerable animus between the two villages, the struggle is conducted, it appears, on somewhat looser and more primitive lines than is usually the case when two teams meet in friendly rivalry. The primary object of the players, I am given to understand, is not so much to score points as to inflict violence."

"Good Lord, Jeeves!"

"Such appears to be the case, sir. The game is one that would have a great interest for the antiquarian. It was played first in the reign of King Henry the Eighth, when it lasted from noon till sundown over an area covering several square miles. Seven deaths resulted on that occasion."

"Seven!"

"Not inclusive of two of the spectators, sir. In recent years, however, the casualties appear to have been confined to broken limbs and other minor injuries. The opinion of the Servants' Hall is that it would be more judicious on Mr. Glossop's part were he to refrain from mixing himself up in the affair."

I was more or less aghast. I mean to say, while I had made it my mission in life to get back at young Tuppy for that business at the Drones', there still remained certain faint vestiges, if "vestiges" is the word I want, of the old friendship and esteem.

Besides, there are limits to one's thirst for vengeance. Deep as my resentment was for the ghastly outrage he had perpetrated on me, I had no wish to see him toddle unsuspiciously into the arena and get all chewed up by wild villagers.

A Tuppy scared stiff by a Luminous Rabbit--yes. Excellent business. The happy ending, in fact. But a Tuppy carried off on a stretcher in half a dozen pieces--no. Quite a different matter. All wrong. Not to be considered for a moment.

Obviously, then, a kindly word of warning while there was yet time was indicated. I buzzed off to his room forthwith, and found him toying dreamily with the football boots.

I put him in possession of the facts.

"What you had better do--and the Servants' Hall thinks the same," I said--"is fake a sprained ankle on the eve of the match."

He looked at me in an odd sort of way.

"You suggest that, when Miss Dalgleish is trusting me, relying on me, looking forward with eager, girlish enthusiasm to seeing me help her village on to victory, I should let her down with a thud?"

I was pleased with his ready intelligence.

"That's the idea," I said.

"Faugh!" said Tuppy--the only time I've ever heard the word.

"How do you mean, 'Faugh'?" I asked.

"Bertie," said Tuppy, "what you tell me merely makes me all the keener for the fray. A warm game is what I want. I welcome this sporting spirit on the part of the opposition. I shall enjoy a spot of roughness. It will enable me to give of my best.

"Do you realize," said young Tuppy, vermilion to the gills, "that she will be looking on? And do you know how that will make me feel? It will make me feel like some knight of old jousting under the eyes of his lady. Do you suppose that Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad, when there was a tourney scheduled for the following Thursday, went and pretended they had sprained their ankles just because the thing was likely to be a bit rough?"

"Don't forget that in the reign of King Henry the Eighth----"

"Never mind about the reign of King Henry the Eighth. All I care about is that it's Upper Bleaching's turn this year to play in colours, so I shall be able to wear my old Austinian shirt. Light blue, Bertie, with broad orange stripes. I shall look like something, I tell you."

"But what?"

"Bertie," said Tuppy, now becoming purely gaga, "I may as well tell you that I'm in love at last. This is the real thing. I have found my mate. All my life I have dreamed of meeting some sweet open-air girl with all the glory of the English countryside in her eyes, and I have found her.

"How different she is, Bertie, from these hothouse, artificial London girls! Would they stand in the mud on a winter afternoon watching a football match? Would they know what to give an Alsatian for fits? Would they tramp ten miles a day across the fields and come back as fresh as paint? No!"

"Well, why should they?"

"Bertie, I'm staking everything on this game on Thursday. At the moment, I have an idea that she looks on me as something of a weakling, simply because I got a blister on my foot the other afternoon and had to take the bus back from Hockley. But when she sees me going through the rustic opposition like a devouring flame, will that make her think a bit? Will that open her eyes? What?"

"What?"

"I said 'What?'"

"So did I."

"I meant, Won't it?"

"Oh, rather."

Here the dinner gong sounded, not before I was ready for it.

Judicious inquiries during the next couple of days convinced me that the Servants' Hall at Bleaching Court, in advancing the suggestion that young Tuppy, born and bred in the gentler atmosphere of the metropolis, would do well to keep out of local disputes and avoid the football field on which these were to be settled, had not spoken idly. It had weighed its words and said the sensible thing. Feeling between the two villages undoubtedly ran high, as they say.

You know how it is in these remote rural districts. Life tends at times to get a bit slow. There's nothing much to do in the long winter evenings but listen to the radio and brood on what a tick your neighbour is. You find yourself remembering how Farmer Giles did you down over the sale of your pig, and Farmer Giles finds himself remembering that it was your son, Ernest, who bunged the half brick at his horse on the second Sunday before Septuagesima. And so on and so forth.

How this particular feud had started, I don't know, but the season of peace and good will found it in full blast. The only topic of conversation in Upper Bleaching was Thursday's game, and the citizenry seemed to be looking forward to it in a spirit that can only be described as ghoulish. And it was the same in Hockley-cum-Meston.

I paid a visit to Hockley-cum-Meston on the Wednesday, being rather anxious to take a look at the inhabitants and see how formidable they were. I was shocked to observe that practically every second male might have been the Village Blacksmith's big brother. The muscles on their brawny arms were obviously strong as iron bands, and the way the company at the Green Pig, where I looked in incognito for a spot of beer, talked about the forthcoming sporting contest was enough to chill the blood of anyone who had a pal who proposed to fling himself into the fray. It sounded rather like Attila and a few of his Huns sketching out their next campaign.

I went back to Jeeves with my mind made up.

"Jeeves," I said, "you, who had the job of drying and pressing those dress clothes of mine, are aware that I have suffered much at young Tuppy Glossop's hands. By rights, I suppose, I ought to be welcoming the fact that the Wrath of Heaven is now hovering over him in this fearful manner.

"But the view I take of it is that Heaven looks like overdoing it. Heaven's idea of a fitting retribution is not mine. In my most unrestrained moments I never wanted the poor blighter assassinated. And the idea in Hockley-cum-Meston seems to be that a good opportunity has arisen of making it a bumper Christmas for the local undertaker.

"There was a fellow with red hair at the Green Pig this afternoon who might have been the undertaker's partner, the way he talked. We must act, and speedily, Jeeves. We must put a bit of a jerk in it and save young Tuppy in spite of himself."

"What course would you advocate, sir?"

"I'll tell you. He refuses to do the sensible thing and slide out, because the girl will be watching the game and he imagines, poor lizard, that he is going to shine and impress her. So we must employ guile. You must go up to London to-day, Jeeves, and to-morrow morning you will send a telegram, signed 'Angela,' which will run as follows. Jot it down. Ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"'So sorry----'" I pondered. "What would a girl say, Jeeves, who, having had a row with the bird she was practically engaged to, because he told her she looked like a Pekingese in her new hat, wanted to extend the olive branch?"

"'So sorry I was cross,' sir, would, I fancy, be the expression."

"Strong enough, do you think?"

"Possibly the addition of the word 'darling' would give the necessary verisimilitude, sir."

"Right. Resume the jotting. 'So sorry I was cross, darling.' No; wait, Jeeves. Scratch that out. I see where we have gone off the rails. I see where we are missing a chance to make this the real Tabasco. Sign the telegram not 'Angela' but 'Travers.'"

"Very good, sir."

"Or, rather, 'Dahlia Travers.' And this is the body of the communication. 'Please return at once.'"

"'Immediately' would be more economical, sir. Only one word. And it has a stronger ring."

"True. Jot on, then. 'Please return immediately. Angela in a hell of a state.'"

"I would suggest 'Seriously ill,' sir."

"All right. 'Seriously ill.' 'Angela seriously ill. Keeps calling for you and says you were quite right about hat.'"

"If I might suggest, sir----?"

"Well, go ahead."

"I fancy the following would meet the case. 'Please return immediately. Angela seriously ill. High fever and delirium. Keeps calling your name piteously and saying something about a hat and that you were quite right. Please catch earliest possible train. Dahlia Travers.'"

"That sounds all right."

"Yes, sir."

"You like that 'piteously'? You don't think 'incessantly'?"

"No, sir. 'Piteously' is the _mot juste_."

"All right. You know. Well, send it off in time to get here at two-thirty."

"Yes, sir."

"Two-thirty, Jeeves; you see the devilish cunning?"

"No, sir."

"I will tell you. If the telegram arrived earlier he would get it before the game. By two-thirty, however, he will have started for the grounds. I shall hand it to him the moment there is a lull in the battle. By that time he will have begun to get some idea of what a football match between Upper Bleaching and Hockley-cum-Meston is like, and the thing ought to work like magic. I can't imagine anyone who has been sporting awhile with those thugs I saw yesterday not welcoming any excuse to call it a day. You follow me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good, Jeeves."

"Very good, sir."

* * * * *

You can always rely on Jeeves. Two-thirty, I had said, and two-thirty it was. The telegram arrived almost on the minute. I was going to my room to change into something warmer at the moment, and I took it up with me. Then into the heavy tweeds and off in the car to the field of play. I got there just as the two teams were lining up, and half a minute later the whistle blew and the war was on.

What with one thing and another--having been at a school where they didn't play it and so forth--Rugby football is a game I can't claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course.

I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end, and that, in order to squelch this programme, each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in fourteen days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench. But there I stop. What you might call the "science" of the thing is to Bertram Wooster a sealed book. However, I am informed by experts that on this occasion there was not enough science for anybody to notice.

There had been a good deal of rain in the last few days, and the going appeared to be a bit sticky. In fact, I have seen swamps that were drier than this particular bit of ground. The red-haired bloke whom I had encountered in the pub paddled up and kicked off amidst cheers from the populace, and the ball went straight to where Tuppy was standing, a pretty colour scheme in light blue and orange. Tuppy caught it neatly and hoofed it back, and it was at this point that I understood that an Upper Bleaching _versus_ Hockley-cum-Meston game had certain features not usually seen on the football field.

For Tuppy, having done his bit, was just standing there looking modest, when there was a thunder of large feet and the red-haired bird, galloping up, seized him by the neck, hurled him to earth, and fell on him. I had a glimpse of Tuppy's face, as it registered horror, dismay, and a general suggestion of stunned dissatisfaction with the scheme of things, and then he disappeared.

By the time he had come to the surface a sort of mob warfare was going on at the other side of the field. Two assortments of sons-of-the-soil had got their heads down and were shoving earnestly against each other, with the ball somewhere in the middle.

Tuppy wiped a fair portion of Hampshire out of his eye, peered round him in a dazed kind of way, saw the mass meeting, and ran toward it, arriving just in time for a couple of heavyweights to gather him in and give him the mud treatment again. This placed him in an admirable position for a third heavyweight to kick him in the ribs with a boot like a violin case. The red-haired man then fell on him. It was all good, brisk play, and looked fine from my side of the ropes.

I saw now where Tuppy had made his mistake. He was too dressy. On occasions such as this it is safest not to be conspicuous, and that blue-and-orange shirt rather caught the eye. A sober beige, blending with the colour of the ground, was what his best friends would have recommended.

And in addition to the fact that his costume attracted attention, I rather think that the men of Hockley-cum-Meston resented his being on the field at all. They felt that, as a non-local, he had butted in on a private fight and had no business there.

At any rate, it certainly appeared to me that they were giving him preferential treatment. After each of those shoving bees to which I have alluded, when the edifice caved in and tons of humanity wallowed in a tangled mass in the juice, the last soul to be excavated always seemed to be Tuppy. And on the rare occasions when he actually managed to stand upright for the moment, somebody--generally the red-haired man--invariably sprang to the congenial task of spilling him again.

In fact, it was beginning to look as though that telegram would come too late to save a human life, when an interruption occurred. Play had worked round close to where I was standing, and there had been the customary collapse of all concerned, with Tuppy at the bottom of the basket, as usual. But this time, when they got up and started to count the survivors, a sizable cove in what had once been a white shirt remained on the ground. And a hearty cheer went up from a hundred patriotic throats as the news spread that Upper Bleaching had drawn first blood.

The victim was carried off by a couple of his old chums, and the rest of the players sat down and pulled their stockings up and thought of Life for a bit. The moment had come, it seemed to me, to remove Tuppy from the abattoir, and I hopped over the ropes and toddled to where he sat scraping mud from his wishbone.

His air was that of a man who has been passed through a wringer, and his eyes, what you could see of them, had a strange, smouldering gleam. He was so crusted with alluvial deposits that one realized how little a mere bath would ever be able to effect. To fit him to take his place once more in polite society, he would certainly have to be sent to the cleaner's. Indeed, it was a moot point whether it wouldn't be simpler just to throw him away.

"Tuppy, old man," I said.

"Eh?" said Tuppy.

"A telegram for you."

"Eh?"

"I've got a wire here that came after you left the house."

"Eh?" said Tuppy.

I stirred him up a trifle with the ferrule of my stick, and he seemed to come to life.

"Be careful what you're doing, you silly ass," he said, in part. "I'm one solid bruise. What are you gibbering about?"

"A telegram has come for you. I think it may be important."

He snorted in a bitter sort of way. "Do you suppose I've time to read telegrams now?"

"But this one may be frightfully urgent," I said. "Here it is."

But, if you understand me, it wasn't. How I had happened to do it, I don't know, but apparently, in changing the upholstery, I had left it in my other coat.

"Oh, my gosh," I said. "I've left it behind."

"It doesn't matter."

"But it does. It's probably something you ought to read at once. Immediately, if you know what I mean. If I were you, I'd just say a few words of farewell to the murder squad and come back to the house right away."

He raised his eyebrows. At least, I think he must have done so, because the mud on his forehead stirred a little, as if something was going on underneath it.

"Do you imagine," he said, "that I would slink away under her very eyes? Good Lord! Besides," he went on, in a quiet, meditative voice, "there is no power on earth that could get me off this field until I've thoroughly disemboweled that red-haired bounder. Have you noticed how he keeps tackling me when I haven't got the ball?"

"Isn't that right?"

"Of course it's not right. Never mind. A bitter retribution awaits that bird. I've had enough of it. From now on I assert my personality."

"I'm a bit foggy as to the rules of this pastime," I said. "Are you allowed to bite him?"

"I'll try and see what happens," said Tuppy, struck with the idea and brightening a little.

At this point the pallbearers returned, and fighting became general again all along the Front.

* * * * *

There's nothing like a spot of rest and what you might call "folding of the hands" for freshening up the shop-soiled athlete. The dirty work, resumed after this brief breather, started off with an added vim which it did one good to see. And the life and soul of the party was young Tuppy.

You know, only meeting a fellow at luncheon or at the races or loafing round country houses and so forth, you don't get on to his hidden depths, if you know what I mean. Until this moment, if asked, I would have said that Tuppy Glossop was, on the whole, essentially a pacific sort of bloke, with little or nothing of the tiger of the jungle in him. Yet here he was, running to and fro with fire streaming from his nostrils, a positive danger to traffic.

Yes, absolutely. Encouraged by the fact that the referee was either filled with the spirit of Live and Let Live or else had got his whistle choked up with mud, the result being that he appeared to regard the game with a sort of calm detachment, Tuppy was putting in some very impressive work. Even to me, knowing nothing of the finesse of the thing, it was plain that if Hockley-cum-Meston wanted the happy ending they must eliminate young Tuppy at the earliest possible moment.

And I will say for them that they did their best, the red-haired man being particularly assiduous. But Tuppy was made of durable material. Every time the opposition talent ground him into the mire and sat on his head he rose on stepping stones of his dead self, if you follow me, to higher things. And in the end it was the red-haired bloke who did the dust biting.

I couldn't tell you exactly how it happened, for by this time the shades of night were drawing in a bit and there was a dollop of mist rising, but one moment the fellow was hare-ing along, apparently without a care in the world, and then suddenly Tuppy had appeared from nowhere and was sailing through the air at his neck. They connected with a crash and a slither, and a little later the red-haired bird was hopping off, supported by a brace of friends, something having gone wrong with his left ankle.

After that, there was nothing to it. Upper Bleaching, thoroughly bucked, became busier than ever. There was a lot of earnest work in a sort of inland sea down at the Hockley end of the field, and then a kind of tidal wave poured over the line, and when the bodies had been removed and the tumult and the shouting had died, there was young Tuppy lying on the ball.

And that, with the exception of a few spots of mayhem in the last five minutes, concluded the proceedings.

* * * * *

I drove back to the court in rather what you might term a pensive frame of mind. Things having happened as they had happened, there seemed to me a goodish bit of hard thinking to be done.

There was a servitor of sorts in the hall when I arrived, and I asked him to send up a whisky-and-soda, strongish, to my room. The old brain, I felt, needed stimulating. And about ten minutes later there was a knock at the door, and in came Jeeves, bearing tray and materials.

"Hullo, Jeeves," I said, surprised. "Are you back?"

"Yes, sir."

"When did you get here?"

"Some little while ago, sir. Was it an enjoyable game, sir?"

"In a sense, Jeeves," I said, "yes. Replete with interest and all that, if you know what I mean. But I fear that, owing to a touch of carelessness on my part, the worst has happened. I left the telegram in my other coat, so young Tuppy remained in action throughout."

"Was he injured, sir?"

"Worse than that, Jeeves. He was the star of the game. Toasts, I should imagine, are now being drunk to him at every pub in the village. So spectacularly did he play--in fact, so heartily did he joust--that I can't see the girl not being all over him. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the moment they meet she will exclaim, 'My hero!' and fall into his bally arms."

"Indeed, sir?"

I didn't like the man's manner. Too calm. Unimpressed. A little leaping about with fallen jaw was what I had expected my words to produce, and I was on the point of saying as much when the door opened again and Tuppy limped in.

He was wearing an ulster over his football things, and I wondered why he had come to pay a social call on me instead of proceeding straight to the bathroom. He eyed my glass in a wolfish sort of way.

"Whisky?" he said, in a hushed voice.

"And soda."

"Bring me one, Jeeves," said young Tuppy. "A large one."

"Very good, sir."

Tuppy wandered to the window and looked out into the gathering darkness, and for the first time I perceived that he had a grouch of some description. You can generally tell by a fellow's back. Humped. Bent. Bowed down with weight of woe, if you follow me.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

Tuppy emitted a mirthless.

"Oh, nothing much," he said. "My faith in woman is dead, that's all."

"It is?"

"You jolly well bet it is. Women are a washout. I see no future for the sex, Bertie. Blisters, all of them."

"Er--even the Dogsbody girl?"

"Her name," said Tuppy, a little stiffly, "is Dalgleish, if it happens to interest you. And if you want to know something else, she's the worst of the lot."

"My dear chap!"

Tuppy turned. Beneath the mud, I could see that his face was drawn and, to put it in a nutshell, wan.

"Do you know what happened, Bertie?"

"What?"

"She wasn't there."

"Where?"

"At the match, you silly ass."

"Not at the match?"

"No."

"You mean, not among the throng of eager spectators?"

"Of course I mean not among the spectators. Did you think I expected her to be playing?"

"But I thought the whole scheme of the thing----"

"So did I. My gosh!" said Tuppy, laughing another of those hollow ones. "I worked myself to the bone for her sake. I allow a mob of homicidal maniacs to kick me in the ribs and stroll about on my face. And then when I have braved a fate worse than death, so to speak, all to please her, I find that she didn't bother to come and watch the game.