The team ‘medic’ Antoinette Loathbery (who was still scratching the occasional itch), came bounding across the field with a bag full of potions and bandages and wailing as she ran. They leaned the Cad backwards then laid him down then held his head back and applied ice packs and clouds of anaesthetic aerosol until he'd sufficiently recovered to hobble back to the crease as the crowd applauded the end to the side-show.
Charlie Spark was grinning from ear to ear and walked over to the hapless Griffey. "I didn’t know you could bowl so well. But just tone it down a bit."
Griffey nodded vacantly and wandered back to commence his run up. After a short while, he turned, took a few paces then made a hop in the air before hurtling down the pitch to bowl a delivery which bounced in exactly the same way as the last one. This time, the ball positively flew with a mind of its own, once again straight at the batsman's schnoz and to the horror of the crowd.
Even if the ball hadn't struck the stumps to get the batsman out, it had the same effect : it was all up with Simon the Cad ; his shirt front looked as if he'd been pelted with tomatoes. His team mates carried him off the field on their shoulders and laid him across two chairs in the ladies lavatory of the Cricketers Arms.
The Londoners then suffered the disgrace of Griffey being sent off by the umpire who hailed from a nearby village. Both teams were reduced to ten men.
In desperation, Sir Harry called a conference in the public bar while the spectators milled about outside, booing and making drunken threats.
"Well, another hideous, flaming disaster, chaps...We've got to regroup and quickly. Where can we get a replacement to make the umpire happy ?" They all looked stunned after standing out in the heat.
"Look ye, for just a wee minute there," said Bob King suddenly as he rushed out of the door. After a short while, he returned and was followed by a podgy-looking schoolboy who was around fourteen years old at most.
"Here's our new recruit. What d'ye reckon ? He's as old as mah eldest. His dad's in the crowd and says he can play."
“Whaat. You're off your head," said Charlie Spark. "You can't let a kid play in this match. He couldn't even hold the bat."
"Yes I can, mate," responded the novice, "'and I bet none o' yers can get me out, neither."
"You wot ?" was all that Spark could say as he scrutinised the chubby four feet six inch truant who looked as though he spent more time at the tuck shop counter than on the playing fields.
Sir Harry remained pensive and stepping to the other side of the bar, called for Charlie and the Glaswegian to join him. He stared at the ground for a few moments without saying anything then raised his head.
"Look chaps....the time for playing silly sods is over – we need a serious contender. This delinquent probably doesn't even know the first thing about the game."
"None of us do," said Spark. "We just get out there and have a hit."
"Yes…perhaps, old boy," conceded Sir Harry while casting a wary glance at the protégée who was slobbering relentlessly on a choc ice and covering half his face with it. "That may be so but we'll be laughed off the field with a youngster sidling up as eleventh man – I mean – they simply won't take us seriously."
"Ah've seen him play a few strookes in the nets afore the game and ah reckon the bruiser's not bad atall," said Bob King. "Do we want to win or no ? I'm nay troobled aboot yon weasels calling me names."
"What choice do we have ?" asked Spark. "There's only Chief Obobo or one of the continentals…"
"The Chief is tiddly and the other two would know as much about cricket as that chair over there."
"Then – its settled," said Bob King striding proudly over to the recruit. "Well, son, you're in."
At the same moment, the hatchet-faced barmaid called time and reminded Sir Harry that children weren’t allowed in the bar and that if the lad wanted a drink, he could only have a pink lemonade out the back.
"Madam, are you quite serious ?" was all that he could say.
The game resumed with the predictable banter from the Cricketers Arms patrons who fell about laughing at the sight of the new number eleven (his name was Tom but everyone in the village knew him by his surname – Gresham) who confidently took up his position as outfielder.
"Dear me, Sir Harry....” said Lord Lothbuy with the hint of a smile. “I trust this isn't some sort of practical joke."
The glare of Wisden’s most illustrious subscriber was fixed on the pitch as he roared with irritation : "Play on...."
Chapter 63
Lord Loathbery Bats
The new over began with Charlie Spark's more concentrated style of bowling which was so contemplative that Piers Loathbery and one of the swells (who replaced Cadwaller and played county cricket) were slashing fours and sixes off every ball. Within the time you could sink a pint on a Friday afternoon in Bow Lane, the Manor House side had notched up twenty seven runs.
"Over," yelled the umpire and both batsmen changed ends, exchanging a few laughs at the dire situation facing the Londoners.
Things continued from bad to worse. Clifton Earls persuaded Sir Harry that some medium pace bowling was what was needed.
"Man, I was takin’ wickets by the bagload in Boggston with my medium leg spin – none of them could stop it, man."
But stop them they did and send them back they did, right over the pub roof. Before long the score had stretched to forty two for none (or one, depending on your view of things) when Sir Harry decided to bowl.
"This will be a comic turn, I'll wager," said Lord Loathbery to Antoinette.
Sir Harry caught the ball from Charlie Spark and rubbed it on the side of his trousers. Looking ponderously at the batsmen, he marched up to the end wicket, handed the umpire his jumper, looked around for a moment as if sniffing the breeze, picked up some dirt from the pitch, cast it into the air to see which way the wind was blowing, turned about, adjusted his trousers, undid his belt and tightened it around his paunch, looked back into the sky and marked the ball with some spit.
"When you're quite ready, Sir Harry," yelled Piers Loathbery, showing signs of impatience.
The reply was lost to the wind as Sir Harry squinted in the batsman’s direction and smiled menacingly. Despite his massive frame which had been expanded by cordon bleu and battered by whisky, he’d lost none of his talent for short spin bowling. Looking at his short run-up to bowl, Charlie Spark was reminded of a hippo trotting through the mud.
In a matter of moments, Piers Loathbery was leg before wicket (although he argued about it for over five minutes with the umpire) ; soon also, the City swell replacing Cadwaller was run out.
The new batsmen were Lord Loathbery and the theatre producer. Unfortunately for Sir Harry, it was Clifton Earl's turn at bowling and the chance to face his arch-adversary would have to wait. Just then, a distant voice called to him from the outfield : "Hey, mister, can I bowl next ?" Sir Harry waved him away and yelled to him to keep his eyes open for a catch.
After twenty deliveries, some of which flew wide or high or both, the producer hooked a shot to mid field. Everyone's eyes followed it upward as Bob King bounded in the area of its descent and ran straight into Tony Valenti who had been speeding from the opposite direction. As the two of them picked themselves up off the ground, the Manor Housers breathed a sigh of relief and hee-hawed at the collision.
In comparison to the huntmaster, Lord Loathbery kept making defensive blocks with his bat without chancing a shot.
Waiting close to the batsman at slips and desperate for a catch, Spark moaned to himself : "Gawd struth, we'll be here till doomsday at this rate. Why doesn't he give it a good belt ?"
But however long they waited, the peer never took any risky shots and only scored off wides, no balls and singles. All of the spectators began nodding off in boredom or sought refuge in the bar.
Chapter 64
We Fight
Well beyond one o'clock, the game wore on with Lord Loathbery batting – or pretending to bat : most of his tea
m were sacrificial offerings as they were caught out, run out or ordered to make shots which he wouldn't risk making himself.
The first victim was the theatre producer. After a uniquely pathetic off drive, to which Loathbery had yelled : "Run, you fool, run," he was stumped at the wicket by Pat Rourke who threw the ball, by accident in a straight line (usually he threw it wide). Loathbery's lament to his team-mate was, "Oh, you insufferable dimwit." And as the producer dragged himself to the bar, he kicked a clump of turf, imagining it was his host’s rear end.
"Bah Jove, what a pahlahver," said an amused Chief Obobo. "The poor chap was like a leetle lamb to the slaughter...."
Simon Cadwaller tapped the Chief on the shoulder and shook his head from side to side to say he disagreed. By this time, he’d mostly recovered from his ordeal but was unable to speak through a mound of elastoplasts over his beleaguered beak which was now facing west. Heroically, he’d declined medical treatment until after the game had finished and was knocking back doubles before the inevitable swaggering from his father-in-law who would claim to have ‘saved’ the match.
Not far away, in an adjacent street overlooking the green, sat Richie Snaggs and his colleagues in a decrepit 1953 Morris Minor. He had only a passing interest in the game but wanted reassurance that Sir Harry and his team were leaving other matters well alone.
Back on the pitch, the Manor Housers were gradually piling on runs in spite of their captain's laggardly batting of which no-one said a word but all of them prayed that he would be bowled or caught out.
The rock musician was resting that day, having ceased behaving like a psychiatric patient released into the community. A decade earlier, he'd been at the same boarding school as Piers Loathbery and had a reputation for jests : an exploding cracker under the headmaster’s chair got him expelled. Today, his only performance was in demonstrating the hook shot, the square cut and the cover drive. His favourite sly shot was to flick the ball behind his right stump and down the gully. This went on for quite a while until a half awake Mick Riley recalled that he was wicket keeping and dived to make a mid-air catch. By that stage, the score was eighty seven for six.
A lone voice called from the deepest edge of the outfield : "Oi, mister, can I have a bowl now ?" Sir Harry gave an agonised glance in the direction of his youngest team member and waved his arm saying : "Yes, yes, a bit later on…"
The next batsman for the Manor House was the theatre director. "Wicket's a bit springy today, ‘ump," he observed, as he prodded the mound with the end of his bat while moving his box due to a maddening itch.
On the new over, it was Sir Harry's turn to bowl again. He scrutinised his victim at the wicket who was covered in gloves, pads, helmet and braces so that he resembled an overfed Michelin Man.
"This will be a delight," thought Sir Harry, "and the easiest one yet."
He pitched a yorker full length and saw it cracked way up into the air so high that it was almost invisible. "Catch him. Catch him. All of you get under it quick...." he yelled to the rest of his team who were peacefully daydreaming into space.
Clifton Earls was in the region of the descent and squinted up into the sky to gauge where the ball would land but stared straight into the sun, blinding him as the ball came plonking down, straight on top of his head. For a second, he stood with open hands in a cupped position, trying to blink away the spots in front of his eyes which had changed into stars – and then fell flat on his face. His team mates carried him off the field and laid him across the public bar in the pub.
"At least he won't suffer the indignity of recuperating in a ladies lavvie," said Sir Harry, mulling over the situation in the recess from play.
"This time we're done for..." moaned Charlie Spark staring at his shoes. "With another man short and their runs rate skyrocketing into oblivion, we're plummeting landwards.. we've had the old heave-ho…we're toes up..."
This brought a renewed bout of whining from Sir Harry.
"I'm ruined – absolutely ruined – again....Yesterday I was rescued from the brink by fortune's turn of the wheel. I was mad enough to think we couldn't lose. But now the wheel’s fallen off and gone rolling down the road. I must have been crackers to stake the same amount of money with Snaggs as I did yesterday – and like a fool I put up two hundred thousand pounds – chaps, it’s desperate all round... And now, he'll kneecap me because I haven't got it..."
And he continued howling in a similar fashion until Bob King said : " We're still not beaten yet. Ah maself, ah ne'er gi' an inch till I'm in solitary or ah'm unconshuss, one or the other. An' ah say, we fight ..."
Chapter 65
Lord Loathbery Upstaged
At the door of the public bar, a lone voice was trying to be heard.
"Listen, you blokes. What sort of a cricket game is this when a bloke can't even have a turn at bowling ? If I don't get to bowl soon, I'm going home for my dinner."
Sir Harry was consumed with the thought of a visit to the local casualty ward and Gresham's whining caused him to say : "What ? Oh yes, well, you go ahead and bowl then and bat for all you're worth, old fellow....You can gladly take my place, I'm heading for the hills any moment now."
"Aw, triffic. An' can I get to wear one o' those special cricket caps, like the Windies wear an' the Sri Lankans ?"
"Yes, yes, whatever you want..."
"But I don't want those baseball caps you have to wear backwards. I don't want one of them. I want a real cricket cap."
"No, er....just don't worry about it."
However the precocious runs scorer could not be easily appeased and declared : "Anyhow, I'm going to bowl. And about time too."
For a brief time, the Londoners mulled things over and in the end, decided to resume play without their captain, at least for the present. To avoid losing now seemed impossible for them and they had to give Sir Harry a head start to get away. It didn't matter how the game was played from that point onwards, with two men short after Earls had recovered.
After returning to the field, a new ball was thrown to Gresham who made ready to bowl to Lord Loathbery. At that point, the peer held up his hand and shouted : "Wait," and then marched determinedly across the field to Charlie Spark.
"Mr Spark," (with much anxiety and a sigh.) "What is going on exactly ? Where is Sir Harry ? Precisely who is that (indicating Gresham) ? This is a serious contest – we are not here to be ridiculed, Mr Spark. Kindly remove the child and replace him with a proper player...."
"Sorry your Lordship – I can't do that. You see, young Gresham is a serious player in this game – and anyhow, there isn't anyone to replace him."
"Alright...alright....have it your own way but if the game becomes a complete shambles, he will have to go."
From beneath the shaded awning of the Cricketers Arms, Chief Obobo summed up the attitude of the spectators : "Indeed, the noble game of cricket nevah ceases to amaze me and you know, suh," he said to one of the toffs : "I am one of its most fervent supporters. If only there were cricket teams in every country, there would be less wars. It’s true. Imagine it – American and Soviet cricket teams. Everyone would fall asleep instead of fighting – ha ha ha."
Elsewhere in the Loathbery camp, they were already scenting victory as Antoinette observed to some of the locals.
"I say," she sniggered, "Who on earth is that pudgy brat, out there on the field bowling to Papa ? I think it's hilarious, don't you ?" and as she laughed, she scratched several itches.
The publican of the Golden Pot shook with laughter. "You couldn't be more right, miss. They say Sir Harry's already given up in despair. Someone saw him sneakin’ out the back entrance of the public bar like the time old Ted was trying to dodge the coppers. Caught up with him down the next pub, didn't they ?"
No one could answer that question in its short form as all eyes were riveted on the wicket where Gresham had stopped to face the batsman before taking a run to bowl. For a fourteen year old, he was squarely filled out and some would have said he was
fat. But his bowling was governed by his unwieldy weight and he ran like a wobbling jelly. A few horse-laughs could be heard from the locals with Spark even raising a smile. Yet the first ball of the over was bowled straight and true and cunningly placed, low to mid-wicket, so low on the ground as to duck in between Lord Loathbery's pads and bandy legs, colliding with his middle stump and knocking it flat.
Like the brightest rocket on bonfire night, the London side exploded with : "''Owizzee ?" and grabbed their humble bowler and patted him on the back several times, causing him to fall over, as they violently shook him by the hand.
In the midst of the celebrations, Lord Loathbery stood dumbfounded. For some moments, he stared at the dead middle stump, in disbelief with his mouth wide open but then instantly recovered.
"Mr Spark," he roared. "A word – if you please – right now..."
Charlie Spark wandered across with the broadest of grins and eyebrows raised.
"It is not a custom of mine to wrangle over these matters – I am a sportsman. I am not a ruffian. But there is some considerable doubt whether the ball was bowled or thrown, that it was taken before I was ready and that it was excessively wide."
"Wide ? Well, we better consult the umpire. I'm certain he’ll disagree with you, your Lordship."
Already Lord Loathbery's replacement was half way across the field, pulling on his gloves and fiddling with his accoutrements.
"Yes…well....there's no need to cause a scene," said the peer, seeing he was outbid on all sides. "A gentleman does not squabble on the pitch even if he happens to be wrongly dismissed."
"Very honourable, your Lordship," said Spark while of the same view as King Edward the First that when you get rid of your opponent, you do a good job of it.
"I got you alright – it's a fair cop, mate," came the verdict from the bowler who had overheard everything and wasn't to be short changed. Lord Loathbery said nothing but his face turned from pale white to pink.
"The score is eight for one hundred and seven. We shall declare now and leave you plenty of time to catch us up after luncheon. Thank you very much..." And like a squadron of buzzards having gorged themselves full, the Loathbery and Golden Pot players, trudged off to the saloon bar and the pub car park to feast on their champagne and chicken hampers or their stale ploughman's lunch.
Charlie Spark - Villain Extraordinaire Page 25
