A Quiver Full of Arrows (14 page)

The son had been made Secretary of cricket
in the closed season as it was universally acknowledged that only bad luck and
the boat crew had stopped him from reaping his just reward as a freshman. Once
again, he played in every fixture before the needle match, but in the last four
games against county teams he failed to score more than a dozen runs and did
not take a single wicket, while his immediate rivals excelled themselves. He
was going through a lean patch, and was the first to agree with his captain
that with so much talent around that year he should not be risked against
Cambridge. Once again he watched Oxford lose the Blues match and his opposite
number the Cambridge Secretary, Robin Oakley, score a faultless century. A man
well into his sixties sporting an MCC tie came up to the young Indian during
the game, patted him on the shoulder, and remarked that he would never forget the
day his father had scored a hundred against Cambridge: it didn’t help.

When the cricketer returned for his final
year, he was surprised and delighted to be selected by his fellow teammates to
be captain, an honour never previously afforded to a man who had not been
awarded the coveted Blue.

His peers recognised his outstanding work as
Secretary and knew if he could reproduce the form of his freshman year he would
undoubtedly not only win a Blue but go on to represent his country.

The tradition at Oxford is that in a man’s
final year he does not play cricket until he has sat Schools, which leaves him
enough time to play in the last three county matches before the Varsity match.
But as the new captain had no interest in graduating, he by-passed tradition
and played cricket from the opening day of the summer season. His touch never
failed him for he batted magnificently and on those rare occasions when he did
have an off-day with the bat, he bowled superbly. During the term he led Oxford
to victory over three county sides, and his team looked well set for their
revenge in the Varsity match.

As the day of the match drew nearer, the
cricket correspondent of The Times wrote that anyone who had seen him bat this
season felt sure that the young Indian would-follow his father into the record
books by scoring a century against Cambridge: but the correspondent did add
that he might be vulnerable against the early attack of Bill Potter, the
Cambridge fast bowler.

Everyone wanted the Oxford captain to
succeed, for he was one of those rare and gifted men whose charm creates no
enemies.

When he announced his Blues team to the
press, he did not send a telegram to his father for fear that the news might
bring bad luck, and for good measure he did not speak to any member of the boat
crew for the entire week leading up to the match. The night before the final
encounter he retired to bed at seven although he did not sleep.

On the first morning of the three-day match,
the sun shone brightly in an almost cloudless sky and by eleven o’clock a fair
sized crowd were already in their seats. The two captains in open necked white
shirts, spotless white pressed trousers and freshly creamed white boots came
out to study the pitch before they tossed.. Robin Oakley of Cambridge won and
elected to bat.

By lunch on the first day Cambridge had
scored seventynine for three and in the early afternoon, when his fast bowlers
were tired from their second spell and had not managed an early breakthrough,
the captain put himselfon. When he was straight, the ball didn’t reach a full
length, and when he bowled a full length, he was never straight; he quickly
took himself off. His less established bowlers managed the necessary
breakthrough and Cambridge were all out an hour after tea for 208.

The Oxford openers took the crease at ten to
six; forty minutes to see through before close of play on the first day.

The captain sat padded up on the pavilion
balcony, waiting to be called upon only if a wicket fell. His instructions had
been clear: no heroics, bat out the forty minutes so that Oxford could start
afresh the next morning with all ten wickets intact.

With only one over left before the close of
play, the young freshman opener had his middle stump removed by Bill Potter,
the Cambridge fast bowler.

Oxford were eleven for one. The captain came
to the crease with only four balls left to face before the clock would show
six-thirty. He took his usual guard, middle and leg, and prepared himself to
face the fastest man in the Cambridge side. Potter’s first delivery came
rocketing down and was j ust short of a length, moving away outside the
offstump. The ball nicked the corner of the bat – or was it pad? – and carried
to first slip, who dived to his right and took the catch low down. Eleven Cambridge
men screamed “Howzat”. Was the captain going to be out – for a duck? Without
waiting for the umpire’s decision he turned and walked back to the pavilion,
allowing no expression to appear on his face though he continually hit the side
of his pad with his bat. As he climbed the steps he saw his father, sitting on
his own in the members’ enclosure. He walked on through the Long Room, to cries
of “Bad luck, old fellow” from men holding slopping pints of beer, and “Better
luck in the second innings” from large-bellied old Blues.

The next day, Oxford kept their heads down
and put togetLer a total of 181 runs, leaving themselves only a twenty-seven
run deficit. When Cambridge batted for a second time they pressed home their
slight advantage and the captain’s bowling figures ended up as eleven avers, no
maidens, no wickets, forty-two runs. He took his team off the field at the end
of play on the second day with Cambridge standing at 167 for seven, Robin
Oakley the Cambridge captain having notched up a respectable sixty-three not
out, and he looked well set for a century.

On the morning of the third day, the Oxford
quickies removed the last three Cambridge wickets for nineteen runs in forty
minutes and Robin Oakley ran out of partners, and left the field with
eighty-nine not out. The Oxford captain was the first to commiserate with him.
“At least you notched a hundred last year,” he added.

“True,” replied Oakley, “so perhaps it’s
your turn this year. But not if I’ve got anything to do with it!”

The Oxford captain smiled at the thought of
scoring a century when his team only needed 214 runs at a little under a run a
minute to win the match.

The two Oxford opening batsmen began their
innings just before midday and remained together until the last over before
lunch when the freshman was once again clean bowled by Cambridge’s ace fast
bowler, Bill Potter. The captain sat on the balcony nervously, padded up and
ready. He looked down on the bald head of his father, who was chatting to a
former captain of England. Both men had scored centuries in the Varsity match.
The captain pulled on his gloves and walked slowly down the pavilion steps,
trying to look casual; he had never felt more nervous in his life. As he passed
his father, the older man turned his sun-burned Ace towards his only child and
smiled. The crowd warmly applauded the captain all the way to the crease. He
took guard, middle and leg again, and prepared to face the attack. The eager
Potter who had despatched the captain so brusquely in the first innings came
thundering down towards him hoping to be the cause of a pair. He delivered a
magnificent first ball that swung in from his legs and beat the captain all
ends up, hitting him with a thud on the front pad.

“Howzat?” screamed Potter and the entire
Cambridge side as they leaped in the air.

The captain looked up apprehensively at the
umpire who took his hands out of his pockets and moved a pebble from one palm
to the other to remind him that another ball had been bowled. But he affected
no interest in the appeal. A sigh of relief went up from the members in the
pavilion. The captain managed to see through the rest of the over and returned
to lunch nought not out, with his side twenty-four for one.

After lunch Potter returned to the attack.
He rubbed the leather ball on his red-stained flannels and hurled himself
forward, looking even fiercer than he had at start of play. He released his
missile with every ounce of venom he possessed, but in so doing he tried a
little too hard and the delivery was badly short. The captain leaned back and
hooked the ball to the Tavern boundary for four, and from that moment he never
looked as if anyone would prise him from the crease. He reached his fifty in
seventy-one minutes, and at ten past four the Oxford team came into tea with
the score at for five and the skipper on eighty-two not out. The young man did
not look at his father as he climbed the steps of the pavilion. He needed
another eighteen runs before he could do that and by then his team would be
safe. He ate and drank nothing at tea, and spoke to no one.

After twenty minutes a bell rang and the
eleven Cambridge men returned to the field. A minute later, the captain and his
partner walked back out to the crease, their open white shirts flapping in the
breeze. Two hours left for the century and victory. The captain’s partner only
lasted another five balls and the captain himself seemed to have lost that
natural flow he had possessed before tea, struggling into the nineties with
ones and twos. The light was getting bad and it took him a full thirty minutes
to reach ninety-nine, by which time he had lost another partner: 194 for seven.
He remained on ninety-nine for twelve minutes, when Robin Oakley the Cambridge
captain took the new ball and brought his ace speed man back into the attack.

Then there occurred one of the most amazing
incidents I have ever witnessed in a cricket match. Robin Oakley set an
attacking field for the new ball - three slips, a gully, cover point, mid-off, mid-on,
mid-wicket and a short square leg, a truly vicious circle. He then tossed the
ball to Potter who knew this would be his last chance to capture the Oxford
captain’s wicket and save the match; once he had scored he would surely knock
off the rest of the runs in a matter of minutes. The sky was becoming bleak as
a bank of dark clouds passed over the ground, but this was no time to leave the
field for bad light. Potter shone the new ball once more on his white trousers
and thundered up to hurl a delivery that the captain jabbed at and missed. One
or two fielders raised their hands without appealing. Potter returned to his
mark, shining the ball with even more relish and left a red blood-like stain
down the side of his thigh. The second ball, a yorker, beat the captain
completely and must have missed the off stump by about an inch; there was a
general sigh around the ground. The third ball hit the captain on the middle of
the pad and the eleven Cambridge men threw their arms in the air and screamed
for leg before wicket but the umpire was not moved. The captain jabbed at the
fourth ball and it carried tentatively to mid-on, where Robin Oakley had placed
himself a mere twenty yards in front of the bat, watching his adversary in
disbelief as he set offfor a run he could never hope to complete. His batting
partner remained firmly in his crease, incredulous: one didn’t run when the
ball was hit to mid-on unless it was the last delivery of the match’

The captain of Oxford, now stranded fifteen
yards from safety, turned and looked at the captain of Cambridge, who held the
ball in his hand. Robin Oakley was about to toss the ball to the wicket-keeper
who in turn was waiting to remove the bails and send the Oxford captain back to
the pavilion, run out for ninety-nine, but Oakley hesitated and, for several
seconds the two gladiators stared at each other and then the Cambridge captain
placed the ball in his pocket. The Oxford captain walked slowly back to his
crease while the crowd remained silent in disbelief.

Robin Oakley tossed the ball to Potter who
thundered down to deliver the fifth ball, which was short, and the Oxford
captain effortlessly placed it through the covers for four runs. The crowd rose
as one and old friends in the pavilion thumped the father’s back.

He smiled for a second time.

Potter was now advancing with his final
effort and, exhausted, he delivered another short ball which should have been
despatched to the boundary with ease but the Oxford captain took one pace
backwards and hit his own stumps. He was out, hit wicket, bowled Potter for
103. The crowd rose for a second time as he walked back to the pavilion and
grown men who had been decorated in two wars had tears in their eyes. Seven
minutes later, everyone left the field, drenched by a thunderstorm.

The match ended in a draw.

S
eptimus Horatio Cornwallis did not live up
to his name. With such a name he should have been a cabinet minister, an
admiral, or at least a rural dean. In fact, Septimus Horatio Cornwallis was a
claims adjuster at the head office of the Prudential Assurance Company Limited,
172 Holborn Bars, London LCI.

Septimus’s names could be blamed on his
Other, who had a small knowledge of Nelson, on his mother who was
superstitious, and on his great-great-great-grandfather who was alleged to have
been a second cousin of the illustrious Governor-General of India. On leaving
school Septimus, a thin, anaemic young man prematurely balding, joined the
Prudential Assurance Company; his careers master having told him that it was an
ideal opening for a young man with his qualifications. Some time later, when
Septimus reflected on the advice, it worried him, because even he realised that
he had no qualifications. Despite this set-back, Septimus rose slowly over the
years from office boy to claims adjuster (not so much climbing the ladder as
resting upon each rung for some considerable time), which afforded him the
grandiose title of assistant deputy manager (claims department)