The Fifteenth Man

ÒLook at the evidence,Ó he said, as we sat over our coffee. ÒJimmy couldnÕt come. Got the flu. So far, nothing to grumble about. Anybody might get the flu, even our only decent three-quarter on the eve of our big match. Very well. Then young Thorn goes and falls off a ladder. Sprains his ankle. On top of that, Giles, our best forward, trips over his feet as heÕs going to church and crocks his wrist. And on top of that, Somers, whoÕs pretty nearly as useful in the pack as Giles, gets a spill from his bicycle and has to go to bed for a week. ItÕs spite, thatÕs what it is. Petty spite.Ó

ÒWhat are you going to do about it?Ó I asked.

He took the question literally, and instead of explaining how he was going to get back at Fate, told me how he proposed to reconstruct the team, which I had heard before.

I was staying with Smith on purpose for this match. I was not particularly keen on the match Ñ it seemed to me a very ordinary village game Ñ but he had apparently no other object in life than to steer Bray Lench to victory against the neighbouring village, Chalfont St. PeterÕs. We went for long spins in the daytime, or practiced with the Bray Lench team, who struck me as a distinctly ragged lot, and in the evenings he talked to me about the match till I began to wish that Rugby football had not been included in the curriculum of our mutual school. He even went to the length of suggesting that, as the day of the match was so close at hand, I had better knock off smoking, pastry, and potatoes, and drink only water at dinner. It was at this point that I asked him where he kept his Bradshaw, as I wished to look out a train; and he withdrew the suggestion. But in other respects he remained disgustingly keen. At the end of a couple of days I had the whole inner history of the annual game by heart, and had learned that what embittered Smith particularly was the fact that Chalfont St. PeterÕs were in the habit of enlisting outside talent in their ranks from Ealesbury, the local town. It struck me, though I did not say so, that his own habit of bringing down men from Cambridge to play for Bray Lench was just as bad. Jimmy, for instance, the three-quarter who had been stricken with influenza at the eleventh hour, had taken three tries off his own bat against Oxford at QueenÕs Club earlier in the season. It seemed to me that SmithÕs guilt was far blacker than that of Chalfont St. PeterÕs selection committee. Theirs appeared to me almost lemon-coloured in comparison. But I did not say so. I sat and smoked and reflected that, after all, Nemesis could usually do her own work, and that the series of accidents which had befallen his team were ample retribution.

For there was no doubt that the Bray Lench fifteen was in a bad way. Even with substitutes our numbers only reached fourteen, and it seemed likely that we should have to take the field one short. Possibly even Ñ galling thought Ñ be reduced to applying to Ealesbury for a last man.