‘Thanks. Jeeves, do you want to make a bit of money?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then put a trifle on Upper Bleaching for the annual encounter with Hockley-cum-Meston next Thursday,’ said Tuppy, exiting with swelling bosom.
‘Mr Glossop is going to play on Thursday,’ I explained as the door closed.
‘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 sun-down 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 go all out and 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 ga-ga, ‘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 hot-house, 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 make her 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 enquiries 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 of 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 speed
ily, 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 ground. 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 anyone to notice.
There had been a great 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 towards 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 a 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 sizeable 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 ferule 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, 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 God! 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 disembowelled 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.