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Page 70
'It shall be done. Good-bye.'
'Good-bye.'
Mike replaced the receiver, and went up to his balcony again.
As soon as his eye fell on the telegraph-board he saw with a start that
things had been moving rapidly in his brief absence. The numbers of the
batsmen on the board were three and five.
'Great Scott!' he cried. 'Why, I'm in next. What on earth's been
happening?'
He put on his pads hurriedly, expecting every moment that a wicket
would fall and find him unprepared. But the batsmen were still together
when he rose, ready for the fray, and went downstairs to get news.
He found his brother Reggie in the dressing-room.
'What's happened?' he said. 'How were you out?'
'L.b.w.,' said Reggie. 'Goodness knows how it happened. My eyesight
must be going. I mistimed the thing altogether.'
'How was Warrington out?'
'Caught in the slips.'
'By Jove!' said Mike. 'This is pretty rocky. Three for sixty-one. We
shall get mopped.'
'Unless you and Joe do something. There's no earthly need to get out.
The wicket's as good as you want, and the bowling's nothing special.
Well played, Joe!'
A beautiful glide to leg by the greatest of the Jacksons had rolled up
against the pavilion rails. The fieldsmen changed across for the next
over.
'If only Peters stops a bit--' began Mike, and broke off. Peters' off
stump was lying at an angle of forty-five degrees.
'Well, he hasn't,' said Reggie grimly. 'Silly ass, why did he hit at
that one? All he'd got to do was to stay in with Joe. Now it's up to
you. Do try and do something, or we'll be out under the hundred.'
Mike waited till the outcoming batsman had turned in at the
professionals' gate. Then he walked down the steps and out into the
open, feeling more nervous than he had felt since that far-off day when
he had first gone in to bat for Wrykyn against the M.C.C. He found his
thoughts flying back to that occasion. Today, as then, everything
seemed very distant and unreal. The spectators were miles away. He had
often been to Lord's as a spectator, but the place seemed entirely
unfamiliar now. He felt as if he were in a strange land.
He was conscious of Joe leaving the crease to meet him on his way. He
smiled feebly. 'Buck up,' said Joe in that robust way of his which was
so heartening. 'Nothing in the bowling, and the wicket like a shirt-front.
Play just as if you were at the nets. And for goodness' sake don't try to
score all your runs in the first over. Stick in, and we've got them.'
Mike smiled again more feebly than before, and made a weird gurgling
noise in his throat.
It had been the Middlesex fast bowler who had destroyed Peters. Mike
was not sorry. He did not object to fast bowling. He took guard, and
looked round him, taking careful note of the positions of the slips.
As usual, once he was at the wicket the paralysed feeling left him. He
became conscious again of his power. Dash it all, what was there to be
afraid of? He was a jolly good bat, and he would jolly well show them
that he was, too.
The fast bowler, with a preliminary bound, began his run. Mike settled
himself into position, his whole soul concentrated on the ball.
Everything else was wiped from his mind.
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