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CHAPTER XV - THE ROUT AT RIPTON
On the Saturday following this episode, the first fifteen travelled to
Ripton to play the return match with that school on its own ground. Of
the two Ripton matches, the one played at Wrykyn was always the big
event of the football year; but the other came next in importance, and
the telegram which was despatched to the school shop at the close of
the game was always awaited with anxiety. This year Wrykyn looked
forward to the return match with a certain amount of apathy, due partly
to the fact that the school was in a slack, unpatriotic state, and
partly to the hammering the team had received in the previous term,
when the Ripton centre three-quarters had run through and scored with
monotonous regularity. "We're bound to get sat on," was the general
verdict of the school.
Allardyce, while thoroughly agreeing with this opinion, did his best to
conceal the fact from the rest of the team. He had certainly done his
duty by them. Every day for the past fortnight the forwards and
outsides had turned out to run and pass, and on the Saturdays there had
been matches with Corpus, Oxford, and the Cambridge Old Wrykinians. In
both games the school had been beaten. In fact, it seemed as if they
could only perform really well when they had no opponents. To see the
three-quarters racing down the field (at practice) and scoring
innumerable (imaginary) tries, one was apt to be misled into
considering them a fine quartette. But when there was a match, all the
beautiful dash and precision of the passing faded away, and the last
thing they did was to run straight. Barry was the only one of the four
who played the game properly.
But, as regarded condition, there was nothing wrong with the team. Even
Trevor could not have made them train harder; and Allardyce in his more
sanguine moments had a shadowy hope that the Ripton score might, with
care, be kept in the teens.
Barry had bought a _Sportsman_ at the station, and he unfolded it
as the train began to move. Searching the left-hand column of the middle
page, as we all do when we buy the _Sportsman_ on Saturday--to
see how our names look in print, and what sort of a team the enemy has
got--he made a remarkable discovery. At the same moment Drummond, on
the other side of the carriage, did the same.
"I say," he said, "they must have had a big clear-out at Ripton. Have
you seen the team they've got out today?"
"I was just looking at it," said Barry.
"What's up with it?" inquired Allardyce. "Let's have a look."
"They've only got about half their proper team. They've got a different
back--Grey isn't playing."
"Both their centres are, though," said Drummond.
"More fun for us, Drum., old chap," said Attell. "I'm going home again.
Stop the train."
Drummond said nothing. He hated Attell most when he tried to be
facetious.
"Dunn isn't playing, nor is Waite," said Barry, "so they haven't got
either of their proper halves. I say, we might have a chance of doing
something today."
"Of course we shall," said Allardyce. "You've only got to buck up and
we've got them on toast."
The atmosphere in the carriage became charged with optimism. It seemed
a simple thing to defeat a side which was practically a Ripton "A"
team. The centre three-quarters were there still, it was true, but
Allardyce and Drummond ought to be able to prevent the halves ever
getting the ball out to them. The team looked on those two unknown
halves as timid novices, who would lose their heads at the kick-off. As
a matter of fact, the system of football teaching at Ripton was so
perfect, and the keenness so great, that the second fifteen was nearly
as good as the first every year. But the Wrykyn team did not know this,
with the exception of Allardyce, who kept his knowledge to himself; and
they arrived at Ripton jaunty and confident.
Keith, the Ripton captain, who was one of the centre three-quarters who
had made so many holes in the Wrykyn defence in the previous term, met
the team at the station, and walked up to the school with them,
carrying Allardyce's bag.
"You seem to have lost a good many men at Christmas," said Allardyce.
"We were reading the _Sportsman_ in the train. Apparently, you've
only got ten of your last term's lot. Have they all left?"
The Ripton captain grinned ruefully.
"Not much," he replied. "They're all here. All except Dunn. You
remember Dunn? Little thick-set chap who played half. He always had his
hair quite tidy and parted exactly in the middle all through the game."
"Oh, yes, I remember Dunn. What's he doing now?"
"Gone to Coopers Hill. Rot, his not going to the Varsity. He'd have
walked into his blue."
Allardyce agreed. He had marked Dunn in the match of the previous term,
and that immaculate sportsman had made things not a little warm for
him.
"Where are all the others, then?" he asked. "Where's that other half of
yours? And the rest of the forwards?"
"Mumps," said Keith.
"What!"
"It's a fact. Rot, isn't it? We've had a regular bout of it. Twenty
fellows got it altogether. Naturally, four of those were in the team.
That's the way things happen. I only wonder the whole scrum didn't have
it."
"What beastly luck," said Allardyce. "We had measles like that a couple
of years ago in the summer term, and had to play the Incogs and Zingari
with a sort of second eleven. We got mopped."
"That's what we shall get this afternoon, I'm afraid," said Keith.
"Oh, no," said Allardyce. "Of course you won't."
And, as events turned out, that was one of the truest remarks he had
ever made in his life.
* * * * *
One of the drawbacks to playing Ripton on its own ground was the crowd.
Another was the fact that one generally got beaten. But your sportsman
can put up with defeat. What he does not like is a crowd that regards
him as a subtle blend of incompetent idiot and malicious scoundrel, and
says so very loud and clear. It was not, of course, the school that did
this. They spent their time blushing for the shouters. It was the
patriotic inhabitants of Ripton town who made the school wish that they
could be saved from their friends. The football ground at Ripton was at
the edge of the school fields, separated from the road by narrow iron
railings; and along these railings the choicest spirits of the town
would line up, and smoke and yell, and spit and yell again. As
Wordsworth wrote, "There are two voices". They were on something like
the following lines.
Inside the railings: "Sch-oo-oo-oo-oo-l! Buck up Sch-oo-oo-oo-oo-l!!
Get it OUT, Schoo-oo-oo-oo-l!!!"
Outside the railings: "Gow it, Ripton! That's the way, Ripton! Twist
his good-old-English-adjectived neck, Ripton! Sit on his forcibly
described head, Ripton! Gow it, Ripton! Haw, Haw, Haw! They ain't no
use, RIPton! Kick 'im in the eye, RipTON! Haw, Haw, Haw!"
The bursts of merriment signalised the violent downfall of some
dangerous opponent.
The school loathed these humble supporters, and occasionally fastidious
juniors would go the length of throwing chunks of mud at them through
the railings. But nothing discouraged them or abated their fervid
desire to see the school win. Every year they seemed to increase in
zeal, and they were always in great form at the Wrykyn match.
It would be charitable to ascribe to this reason the gruesome
happenings of that afternoon. They needed some explaining away.
* * * * *
Allardyce won the toss, and chose to start downhill, with the wind in
his favour. It is always best to get these advantages at the beginning
of the game. If one starts against the wind, it usually changes ends at
half-time. Amidst a roar from both touch-lines and a volley of howls
from the road, a Ripton forward kicked off. The ball flew in the
direction of Stanning, on the right wing. A storm of laughter arose
from the road as he dropped it. The first scrum was formed on the
Wrykyn twenty-five line.
The Ripton forwards got the ball, and heeled with their usual neatness.
The Ripton half who was taking the scrum gathered it cleanly, and
passed to his colleague. He was a sturdy youth with a dark, rather
forbidding face, in which the acute observer might have read signs of
the savage. He was of the breed which is vaguely described at public
schools as "nigger", a term covering every variety of shade from ebony
to light lemon. As a matter of fact he was a half-caste, sent home to
England to be educated. Drummond recognised him as he dived forward to
tackle him. The last place where they had met had been the roped ring
at Aldershot. It was his opponent in the final of the Feathers.
He reached him as he swerved, and they fell together. The ball bounded
forward.
"Hullo, Peteiro," he said. "Thought you'd left."
The other grinned recognition.
"Hullo, Drummond."
"Going up to Aldershot this year?"
"Yes. Light-Weight."
"So am I."
The scrum had formed by now, and further conversation was impossible.
Drummond looked a little thoughtful as he put the ball in. He had been
told that Peteiro was leaving Ripton at Christmas. It was a nuisance
his being still at school. Drummond was not afraid of him--he would
have fought a champion of the world if the school had expected him
to--but he could not help remembering that it was only by the very
narrowest margin, and after a terrific three rounds, that he had beaten
him in the Feathers the year before. It would be too awful for words if
the decision were to be reversed in the coming competition.
But he was not allowed much leisure for pondering on the future. The
present was too full of incident and excitement. The withdrawal of the
four invalids and the departure of Dunn had not reduced the Ripton team
to that wreck of its former self which the Wrykyn fifteen had looked
for. On the contrary, their play seemed, if anything, a shade better
than it had been in the former match. There was all the old
aggressiveness, and Peteiro and his partner, so far from being timid
novices and losing their heads, eclipsed the exhibition given at Wrykyn
by Waite and Dunn. Play had only been in progress six minutes when
Keith, taking a pass on the twenty-five line, slipped past Attell, ran
round the back, and scored between the posts. Three minutes later the
other Ripton centre scored. At the end of twenty minutes the Wrykyn
line had been crossed five times, and each of the tries had been
converted.
"_Can't_ you fellows get that ball in the scrum?" demanded
Allardyce plaintively, as the team began for the fifth time the old
familiar walk to the half-way line. "Pack tight, and get the first
shove."
The result of this address was to increase the Ripton lead by four
points. In his anxiety to get the ball, one of the Wrykyn forwards
started heeling before it was in, and the referee promptly gave a free
kick to Ripton for "foot up". As this event took place within easy
reach of the Wrykyn goal, and immediately in front of the same, Keith
had no difficulty in bringing off the penalty.
By half-time the crowd in the road, hoarse with laughter, had exhausted
all their adjectives and were repeating themselves. The Ripton score
was six goals, a penalty goal, and two tries to nil, and the Wrykyn
team was a demoralised rabble.
The fact that the rate of scoring slackened somewhat after the interval
may be attributed to the disinclination of the Riptonians to exert
themselves unduly. They ceased playing in the stern and scientific
spirit in which they had started; and, instead of adhering to an
orthodox game, began to enjoy themselves. The forwards no longer heeled
like a machine. They broke through ambitiously, and tried to score on
their own account. When the outsides got as far as the back, they did
not pass. They tried to drop goals. In this way only twenty-two points
were scored after half-time. Allardyce and Drummond battled on nobly,
but with their pack hopelessly outclassed it was impossible for them to
do anything of material use. Barry, on the wing, tackled his man
whenever the latter got the ball, but, as a rule, the centres did not
pass, but attacked by themselves. At last, by way of a fitting
conclusion to the rout, the Ripton back, catching a high punt, ran
instead of kicking, and, to the huge delight of the town contingent,
scored. With this incident the visiting team drained the last dregs of
the bitter cup. Humiliation could go no further. Almost immediately
afterwards the referee blew his whistle for "No side".
"Three cheers for Wrykyn," said Keith.
To the fifteen victims it sounded ironical.
Content of CHAPTER XV - THE ROUT AT RIPTON [P G Wodehouse's novel: White Feather]
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