The Complete Stories (68 page)

  "Did Mr. Legge say that you could take it?"

  "No, sir. I did not think it necessary to ask him."

  "Then put it back at once and don't touch things in his room whatever the gentleman next door says."

  I had no right to say this to Guy's scout, but I was definitely frightened. A sudden realization had come to me that Guy might have some reason for his fear. That evening I went up to see him and we decided to work in his room. He did not mind if I were with him.

  "But shut the oak, Dick," he said.

  We worked until eleven o'clock and then we both sat up listening; someone was fumbling against the oak; then he knocked quietly.

  Guy had started up white and panting.

  "You see, I haven't been lying. He's coming at me. Keep him off, Dick, for God's sake."

  The knocking was repeated.

  "Guy," I said, "I'm going to open that oak. Brace up, man, we two can look after ourselves against anyone. Don't you see? We've got to open that oak."

  "Dick, for God's sake don't. I can't stand it," but I went towards the door. I opened it and there was only the oak between us and the man beyond. Suddenly Guy's face became twisted with hatred and his voice harsh. "So you're in it, too. You're going to betray me to that fiend. He's bought you as he has bought Ramsey. There's not a man in the College he hasn't bought or bullied into it and I can't fight the lot," his voice suddenly fell to a tone of blind despair and he rushed into his bedroom, slamming the door. I hesitated between the two doors and then, picking up a heavy candlestick, opened the oak.

  On the threshold, blinking in the light, was the strange man.

  "So you're here, too, Barnes," he said slowly; "but that is excellent. What I wish to say is for you as well as Legge. I want to apologize for being so rude that evening when you two came up to see me. I was very nervous. But where is Legge?"

  And from the bedroom came a sound of hysterical sobbing, the wild, hideous sobbing of a mad man.

  UNACADEMIC EXERCISE: A NATURE STORY

  After half an hour I said what I had been pondering ever since we started.

  "Billy, this is a crazy business. I'm willing to call the bet off if you are."

  But he answered gravely.

  "I'm sorry, my friend, but I'm not going to lose the opportunity of making a fiver."

  Then there was silence again until Anderson looked back from the wheel and said:

  "Look here, Billy, let's stop at this pub and then go home. I can lend you a fiver or more if you want it. You needn't pay me until you want to."

  But Billy was resolute:

  "No, Dick, I owe enough already. I should like to earn an honest meal for once."

  So Anderson drove on and soon we came into sight of the grim place which Craine had chosen for our experiment. I saw that Billy was beginning to lose his nerve for he was shivering in his big overcoat and his feet were very still, pressed down with all his might.

  "Billy," I said, "I don't think we need go any further; we should only be wasting time. You've obviously won the bet."

  And I think he would have yielded—for he was rather a child—when Craine's voice answered for him.

  "What damned nonsense. The thing isn't begun yet. Donne's bet that he has the nerve to go through the whole werewolf ceremony. Just getting to the place is nothing. He doesn't yet know what he has to do. I've got as far as this twice before—once in Nigeria with a man of forty, but he hadn't the nerve to go through with it, and once in Wales with the bravest thing in the world, a devoted woman; but she couldn't do it. Donne may, because he's young and hasn't seen enough to make him easily frightened."

  But Billy was frightened, badly, and so were Anderson and I and for this reason we let ourselves be overborne by Craine because he knew that we were; and he smiled triumphant as a stage Satan in the moonlight.

  It was strange being beaten like this by Craine who in College was always regarded as a rather unsavoury joke. But then this whole expedition was strange and Craine was an old man—thirty-three—an age incalculable to the inexperience of twenty-one; and Billy was only just nineteen.

  We had started off merrily enough down St. Aldate's; Billy had said:

  "I wonder what human flesh tastes like; what d'you suppose one should drink with it?" and when I had answered with utter futility, "Spirits, of course," they had all laughed; which shows that we were in high good humour.

  But once in Anderson's car and under that vast moon, a deep unquiet had settled upon us and when Craine said in his sinister way:

  "By the way, Donne, you ought to know in case you lose us; if you want to regain your manhood all you have to do is to draw some of your own blood and take off the girdle."

  Anderson and I shuddered. He said it with a slight sneer on "manhood" and we resented it that he should speak to Billy in this way, but more than this we were shocked at the way in which the joke was suddenly plunged into reality. This was the first time that evening on which I had felt fear and all through the drive it had grown more and more insistent, until on the heath, bleak and brilliantly moonlit, I was sickeningly afraid and said:

  "Billy, for God's sake let's get back."

  But Craine said quietly:

  "Are you ready, Donne? The first thing you have to do is to take off your clothes; yes, all of them."

  And Billy without looking at us, began with slightly trembling hands to undress. When he stood, white beside his heap of clothes under the moon, he shivered and said: "I hope I get a wolf skin soon; it's damned cold." But the pathetic little joke faltered and failed and left us all shivering; all except Craine who was pouring something out into the cup of his flask.

  "You have to drink this—all right it isn't poisonous. I brewed it myself out of roots and things."

  So the rites began. Billy was told to draw a circle about himself in the ground and he obeyed silently. Another potion was given to him.

  "Put this on your hands, eyelids, navel and feet. Just a drop or two. That's right."

  I was trembling unrestrainedly and I dared not look at Anderson because I knew that he was too. Craine went on evenly:

  "And now comes a less pleasant part. I am afraid that you have to taste human blood," and then to us, like a conjuror borrowing a watch, "will either of you two volunteer to lend some?"

  Anderson and I started, thoroughly alarmed.

  "Look here, Craine, this is beastly."

  "You can't go on, Craine."

  But Craine said:

  "Well, Donne, what are we going to do?" and Billy answered evenly, "Go on with it, Craine."

  It was the first time he had spoken since he drew the circle and he stood now quite calm and looking incredibly defenceless.

  "Well, if neither of you two friends of his are willing, I suppose I must offer my blood."

  But by a sudden intuition, we both of us knew that this thing must be averted at all costs; I was conscious of the most immediate and overpowering danger and dreamlike stood unmoving; Anderson had started forward.

  "If Billy wants to go on with this, he had better have mine."

  And Craine answered easily:

  "As you like, my friend. Do not step inside the circle and cut deeply because he will need a good deal. That is all I ask you," but he and Anderson and I knew that he had been in some strange way checked.

  So Anderson rolled up his sleeve and cut his arm and Billy without hesitation put his lips to the wound. After a few moments, Craine said, "That should be enough"; so Anderson bound up his arm roughly with a handkerchief and Billy straightened himself; there was a small trickle of blood running down his chin. He was made to repeat some jumbled sentences in a foreign tongue and then Craine produced a strip of fur.

  "The girdle," he said, "put it on Donne."

  "And now you have to kneel down and say a paternoster backwards. You had better repeat it after me."

  And then there occurred something of which, I think, I shall never lose the memory. Billy did not kneel down; he crouched back on his haunches like an animal and threw his head right back; his fair hair stirred in the moonlight, but on his face there came a look of awakening and of savagery, his lips drawn back and showing his teeth. I stood there in wild horror and saw this happen.

  "Amen, Saeculorum Saecula in gloria."

  And the Thing in the circle drew in its breath. I dare not now think what that sound might have been. I refuse resolutely to let myself consider the possibility that it might not have been Billy's voice; that the Thing in the circle was not Billy, his face contorted by some trick of the moonlight. Even then, in that moment of terror, I would not let myself consider this but I knew by an animal apprehension of the Unknown that that sound must be stopped if we were to keep our sanity; that from the moment we heard it our lives must be wholly altered. Anderson knew this, too; and, always quicker to act than I, he was in the circle while I stood numb with horror. He was a strong man and he flung Billy across the scratched circumference, tearing the girdle from him; he fell in a heap and his elbow struck on a stone; a drop of blood oozed through the earth. Then he raised himself, and, holding his elbow said, "Dick, are you mad? Why on earth did you do that? You've hurt me damnably." And then suddenly turning on to his face he burst into a fit of hysterical crying and lay there shaking from head to foot and we three watching him. Craine, of course, spoke first.

  The rest omitted owing to blind stupidity of editor and printer.

  THE NATIONAL GAME

  My brother said to me at breakfast:

  "When you last played cricket, how many runs did you make?" And I answered him, truthfully, "Fifty."

  I remembered the occasion well for this was what happened. At school, oh! many years ago now, I had had my sixth form privileges taken away for some unpunctuality or other trifling delinquency and the captain of cricket in my house, a youth with whom I had scarcely ever found myself in sympathy, took advantage of my degraduation to put me in charge of a game, called quite appropriately a "Remnants' game." I had resented this distinction grimly, but as a matter of fact the afternoon had been less oppressive than I had expected. Only twenty-one boys arrived so, there being none to oppose me, I elected to play for both while they were batting. I thus ensured my rest and for an hour or so read contentedly having gone in first and failed to survive the first over. When eventually by various means the whole of one side had been dismissed—the umpire was always the next batsman, and, eager for his innings, was usually ready to prove himself sympathetic with the most extravagant appeal—I buckled on the pair of pads which a new boy had brought, although they were hotly claimed by the wicket keeper, and went out to bat. This other side bowled less well and after missing the ball once or twice, I suddenly and to my intense surprise hit it with great force. Delighted by this I did it again and again. The fielding was half-hearted and runs accumulated. I asked the scorer how many I had made and was told: "Thirty-six." Now and then I changed the bowlers, being still captain of the fielding side and denounced those who were ostentatiously slack in the field. Soon I saw a restiveness about both sides and much looking at watches. "This game shall not end," I ordained, "until I have made fifty." Almost immediately the cry came "Fifty" and with much clapping I allowed the stumps to be drawn.

  Such is the history of my only athletic achievement. On hearing of it my brother said, "Well, you'd better play today. Anderson has just fallen through. I'm taking a side down to a village in Hertfordshire—I've forgotten the name."

  And I thought of how much I had heard of the glories of village cricket and of that life into which I had never entered and so most adventurously, I accepted.

  "Our train leaves King's Cross at nine-twenty. The taxi will be here in five minutes. You'd better get your things."

  At quarter past nine we were at the station and some time before eleven the last of our team arrived. We learned that the village we were to play was called Torbridge. At half past twelve, we were assembled with many bags on the Torbridge platform. Outside two Fords were for hire and I and the man who had turned up latest succeeded in discovering the drivers in the "Horse and Cart"; they were very largely sober; it seemed that now everything would be going well. My brother said,

  "Drive us to the cricket ground."

  "There isn't no cricket ground," brutishly, "is there, Bill?"

  "I have heard that they do play cricket on Beesley's paddock."

  "Noa, that's football they plays there."

  "Ah;" very craftily, "but that's in the winter. Mebbe they plays cricket there in the summer."

  "I have heard that he's got that field for hay this year."

  "Why, so 'e 'ave."

  "No, there ain't no cricket ground, mister." And then I noticed a sign post. On one limb was written "Lower Torbridge, Great Torbridge, Torbridge St. Swithin," and on the other "Torbridge Heath, South Torbridge, Torbridge Village," and on the third just "Torbridge Station," this pointing towards me.

  We tossed up and, contrary to the lot, decided to try Torbridge Village. We stopped at the public house and made enquiries. No, he had not heard of no match here. They did say there was some sort of festification at Torbridge St. Swithin, but maybe that was the flower show. We continued the pilgrimage and at each public house we each had half a pint. At last after three-quarters of an hour, we found at the "Pig and Hammer" Torbridge Heath, eleven disconsolate men. They were expecting a team to play them—"the Reverend Mr. Bundles." Would they play against us instead? Another pint all round and the thing was arranged. It was past one; we decided to lunch at once. At quarter to three, very sleepily the opposing side straddled out into the field. At quarter past four, when we paused for tea, the score was thirty-one for seven, of these my brother had made twenty in two overs and had then been caught; I had made one and that ingloriously. I had hit the ball with great force on to my toe from which it had bounced into the middle of the pitch. "Yes, one," cried the tall man at the other end; he wanted the bowling; with great difficulty I limped across; I was glad that the next ball bowled him. One man did all the work for the other side—a short man with very brown forearms and a bristling moustache.