XV
A LUCKY STROKE
"Mr. Munchausen," said Ananias, as he and the famous warrior drove offfrom the first hole at the Missing Links, "you never seem to weary ofthe game of golf. What is its precise charm in your eyes,--thehealth-giving qualities of the game or its capacity for bad lies?"
"I owe my life to it," replied the Baron. "That is to say to myprecision as a player I owe one of the many preservations of myexistence which have passed into history. Furthermore it is evervarying in its interest. Like life itself it is full of hazards and noman knows at the beginning of his stroke what will be the requirementsof the next. I never told you of the bovine lie I got once whileplaying a match with Bonaparte, did I?"
"I do not recall it," said Ananias, foozling his second stroke intothe stone wall.
"I was playing with my friend Bonaparte, for the CosmopolitanChampionship," said Munchausen, "and we were all even at thethirty-sixth hole. Bonaparte had sliced his ball into a stubble fieldfrom the tee, whereat he was inclined to swear, until by an oddmischance I drove mine into the throat of a bull that was pasturing onthe fair green two hundred and ninety-eight yards distant. 'Shall wetake it over?' I asked. 'No,' laughed Bonaparte, thinking he had me.'We must play the game. I shall play my lie. You must play yours.''Very well,' said I. 'So be it. Golf is golf, bull or no bull.' Andoff we went. It took Bonaparte seven strokes to get on the greenagain, which left me a like number to extricate my ball from thethroat of the unwelcome bovine. It was a difficult business, but Imade short work of it. Tying my red silk handkerchief to the end of mybrassey I stepped in front of the great creature and addressing animaginary ball before him made the usual swing back and throughstroke. The bull, angered by the fluttering red handkerchief, rearedup and made a dash at me. I ran in the direction of the hole, the bullin pursuit for two hundred yards. Here I hid behind a tree while Mr.Bull stopped short and snorted again. Still there was no sign of theball, and after my pursuer had quieted a little I emerged from myhiding place and with the same club and in the same manner playedthree. The bull surprised at my temerity threw his head back with anangry toss and tried to bellow forth his wrath, as I had designed heshould, but the obstruction in his throat prevented him. The ball hadstuck in his pharynx. Nothing came of his spasm but a short hackingcough and a wheeze--then silence. 'I'll play four,' I cried toBonaparte, who stood watching me from a place of safety on the otherside of the stone wall. Again I swung my red-flagged brassey in frontof the angry creature's face and what I had hoped for followed. Thesecond attempt at a bellow again resulted in a hacking cough and asneeze, and lo the ball flew out of his throat and landed dead to thehole. The caddies drove the bull away. Bonaparte played eight, misseda putt for a nine, stymied himself in a ten, holed out in twelve and Iwent down in five."
"Jerusalem!" cried Ananias. "What did Bonaparte say?"
"Again I swung my red-flagged brassey in front of the angrycreature's face, and what I had hoped for followed." _Chapter XV._]
"He delivered a short, quick nervous address in Corsican and retiredto the club-house where he spent the afternoon drowning his sorrows inAbsinthe high-balls. 'Great hole that, Bonaparte,' said I when hisgeniality was about to return. 'Yes,' said he. 'A regular lu-lu, eh?'said I. 'More than that, Baron,' said he. 'It was a Waterlooloo.' Itwas the first pun I ever heard the Emperor make."
"We all have our weak moments," said Ananias drily, playing nine frombehind the wall. "I give the hole up," he added angrily.
"Let's play it out anyhow," said Munchausen, playing three to thegreen.
"All right," Ananias agreed, taking a ten and rimming the cup.
Munchausen took three to go down, scoring six in all.
"Two up," said he, as Ananias putted out in eleven.
"How the deuce do you make that out? This is only the first hole,"cried Ananias with some show of heat.
"You gave up a hole, didn't you?" demanded Munchausen.
"Yes."
"And I won a hole, didn't I?"
"You did--but--"
"Well that's two holes. Fore!" cried Munchausen.
The two walked along in silence for a few minutes, and the Baronresumed.
"Yes, golf is a splendid game and I love it, though I don't think I'dever let a good canvasback duck get cold while I was talking about it.When I have a canvasback duck before me I don't think of anything elsewhile it's there. But unquestionably I'm fond of golf, and I have avery good reason to be. It has done a great deal for me, and as I havealready told you, once it really saved my life."
"Saved your life, eh?" said Ananias.
"That's what I said," returned Mr. Munchausen, "and so of course thatis the way it was."
"I should admire to hear the details," said Ananias. "I presume youwere going into a decline and it restored your strength and vitality."
"No," said Mr. Munchausen, "it wasn't that way at all. It saved mylife when I was attacked by a fierce and ravenously hungry lion. If Ihadn't known how to play golf it would have been farewell forever toMr. Munchausen, and Mr. Lion would have had a fine luncheon that day,at which I should have been the turkey and cranberry sauce and mincepie all rolled into one."
Ananias laughed.
"It's easy enough to laugh at my peril now," said Mr. Munchausen, "butif you'd been with me you wouldn't have laughed very much. On thecontrary, Ananias, you'd have ruined what little voice you ever hadscreeching."
"I wasn't laughing at the danger you were in," said Ananias. "I don'tsee anything funny in that. What I was laughing at was the idea of alion turning up on a golf course. They don't have lions on any of thegolf courses that I am familiar with."
"That may be, my dear Ananias," said Mr. Munchausen, "but it doesn'tprove anything. What you are familiar with has no especial bearingupon the ordering of the Universe. They had lions by the hundreds onthe particular links I refer to. I laid the links out myself and Ifancy I know what I am talking about. They were in the desert ofSahara. And I tell you what it is," he added, slapping his kneeenthusiastically, "they were the finest links I ever played on. Therewasn't a hole shorter than three miles and a quarter, which gives youplenty of elbow room, and the fair green had all the qualities of afirst class billiard table, so that your ball got a magnificent rollon it."
"What did you do for hazards?" asked Ananias.
"Oh we had 'em by the dozen," replied Mr. Munchausen. "There weren'tany ponds or stone walls, of course, but there were plenty of othersthat were quite as interesting. There was the Sphynx for instance; andfor bunkers the pyramids can't be beaten. Then occasionally right inthe middle of a game a caravan ten or twelve miles long, would beginto drag its interminable length across the middle of the course, andit takes mighty nice work with the lofting iron to lift a ball over acaravan without hitting a camel or killing an Arab, I can tell you.Then finally I'm sure I don't know of any more hazardous hazard for agolf player--or for anybody else for that matter--than a real hungryAfrican lion out in search of breakfast, especially when you meet himon the hole furthest from home and have a stretch of three or fourmiles between him and assistance with no revolver or other weapon athand. That's hazard enough for me and it took the best work I could dowith my brassey to get around it."
"You always were strong at a brassey lie," said Ananias.
"Thank you," said Mr. Munchausen. "There are few lies I can't getaround. But on this morning I was playing for the Mid-AfricanChampionship. I'd been getting along splendidly. My record for fifteenholes was about seven hundred and eighty-three strokes, and I wasflattering myself that I was about to turn in the best card that hadever been seen in a medal play contest in all Africa. My drive fromthe sixteenth tee was a simple beauty. I thought the ball would neverstop, I hit it such a tremendous whack. It had a flight of threehundred and eighty-two yards and a roll of one hundred and twentymore, and when it finally stopped it turned up in a mighty good lie ona natural tee, which the wind had swirled up. Calling to the monkeywho acted as my caddy--we used monkeys for caddies
always in Africa,and they were a great success because they don't talk and they usetheir tails as a sort of extra hand,--I got out my brassey for thesecond stroke, took my stance on the hardened sand, swung my clubback, fixed my eye on the ball and was just about to carry through,when I heard a sound which sent my heart into my boots, my caddygalloping back to the club house, and set my teeth chattering like apair of castanets. It was unmistakable, that sound. When a hungry lionroars you know precisely what it is the moment you hear it, especiallyif you have heard it before. It doesn't sound a bit like the miauingof a cat; nor is it suggestive of the rumble of artillery in anadjacent street. There is no mistaking it for distant thunder, as somewriters would have you believe. It has none of the gently mournfulquality that characterises the soughing of the wind through theleafless branches of the autumnal forest, to which a poet might likenit; it is just a plain lion-roaring and nothing else, and when youhear it you know it. The man who mistakes it for distant thunder mightjust as well be struck by lightning there and then for all the chancehe has to get away from it ultimately. The poet who confounds it withthe gentle soughing breeze never lives to tell about it. He getshimself eaten up for his foolishness. It doesn't require a Daniel cometo judgment to recognise a lion's roar on sight.
"I should have perished myself that morning if I had not known on theinstant just what were the causes of the disturbance. My nerve did notdesert me, however, frightened as I was. I stopped my play and lookedout over the sand in the direction whence the roaring came, and therehe stood a perfect picture of majesty, and a giant among lions, eyeingme critically as much as to say, 'Well this is luck, here's breakfastfit for a king!' but he reckoned without his host. I was in no mood tobe served up to stop his ravening appetite and I made up my mind atonce to stay and fight. I'm a good runner, Ananias, but I cannot beata lion in a three mile sprint on a sandy soil, so fight it was. Thequestion was how. My caddy gone, the only weapons I had with me weremy brassey and that one little gutta percha ball, but thanks to mygolf they were sufficient.
"Carefully calculating the distance at which the huge beast stood, Iaddressed the ball with unusual care, aiming slightly to the left toovercome my tendency to slice, and drove the ball straight through thelion's heart as he poised himself on his hind legs ready to springupon me. It was a superb stroke and not an instant too soon, for justas the ball struck him he sprang forward, and even as it was landedbut two feet away from where I stood, but, I am happy to say, dead.
"It was indeed a narrow escape, and it tried my nerves to the full,but I extracted the ball and resumed my play in a short while, addingthe lucky stroke to my score meanwhile. But I lost the match,--notbecause I lost my nerve, for this I did not do, but because I liftedfrom the lion's heart. The committee disqualified me because I did notplay from my lie and the cup went to my competitor. However, I wassatisfied to have escaped with my life. I'd rather be a live runner-upthan a dead champion any day."
"A wonderful experience," said Ananias. "Perfectly wonderful. I neverheard of a stroke to equal that."
"You are too modest, Ananias," said Mr. Munchausen drily. "Too modestby half. You and Sapphira hold the record for that, you know."
"I have forgotten the episode," said Ananias.
"Didn't you and she make your last hole on a single stroke?" demandedMunchausen with an inward chuckle.
"Oh--yes," said Ananias grimly, as he recalled the incident. "But youknow we didn't win any more than you did."
"Oh, didn't you?" asked Munchausen.
"No," replied Ananias. "You forget that Sapphira and I were two downat the finish."
And Mr. Munchausen played the rest of the game in silence. Ananias hadat last got the best of him.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Spellings were left as found.
Illustrations were moved when they interrupted paragraphs.
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