The White Feather

by P. G. Wodehouse

  "It must be rather a rag," said Sheen.

  The car drew up at the door of the "Blue Boar". Sheen got out and ran upstairs to the gymnasium. Joe Bevan was sparring a round with Francis. He watched them while he changed, but without the enthusiasm of which he had been conscious on previous occasions. The solid cleverness of Joe Bevan, and the quickness and cunning of the bantam-weight, were as much in evidence as before, but somehow the glamour and romance which had surrounded them were gone. He no longer watched eagerly to pick up the slightest hint from these experts. He felt no more interest than he would have felt in watching a game of lawn tennis. He had been keen. Since his disappointment with regard to the House Boxing he had become indifferent.

  Joe Bevan noticed this before he had been boxing with him a minute.

  "Hullo, sir," he said, "what's this? Tired today? Not feeling well? You aren't boxing like yourself, not at all you aren't. There's no weight behind 'em. You're tapping. What's the matter with your feet, too? You aren't getting about as quickly as I should like to see. What have you been doing to yourself?"

  "Nothing that I know of," said Sheen. "I'm sorry I'm so rotten. Let's have another try."

  The second try proved as unsatisfactory as the first. He was listless, and his leads and counters lacked conviction.

  Joe Bevan, who identified himself with his pupils with that thoroughness which is the hall-mark of the first-class boxing instructor, looked so pained at his sudden loss of form, that Sheen could not resist the temptation to confide in him. After all, he must tell him some time.

  "The fact is," he said, as they sat on the balcony overlooking the river, waiting for Jack Bruce to return with his car, "I've had a bit of a sickener."

  "I thought you'd got sick of it," said Mr Bevan. "Well, have a bit of a rest."

  "I don't mean that I'm tired of boxing," Sheen hastened to explain. "After all the trouble you've taken with me, it would be a bit thick if I chucked it just as I was beginning to get on. It isn't that. But you know how keen I was on boxing for the house?"

  Joe Bevan nodded.

  "Did you get beat?"

  "They wouldn't let me go in," said Sheen.

  "But, bless me! you'd have made babies of them. What was the instructor doing? Couldn't he see that you were good?"

  "I didn't get a chance of showing what I could do." He explained the difficulties of the situation.

  Mr Bevan nodded his head thoughtfully.

  "So naturally," concluded Sheen, "the thing has put me out a bit. It's beastly having nothing to work for. I'm at a loose end. Up till now, I've always had the thought of the House Competition to keep me going. But now—well, you see how it is. It's like running to catch a train, and then finding suddenly that you've got plenty of time. There doesn't seem any point in going on running."

  "Why not Aldershot, sir? said Mr Bevan.

  "What!" cried Sheen.

  The absolute novelty of the idea, and the gorgeous possibilities of it, made him tingle from head to foot. Aldershot! Why hadn't he thought of it before! The House Competition suddenly lost its importance in his eyes. It was a trivial affair, after all, compared with Aldershot, that Mecca of the public-school boxer.

  Then the glow began to fade. Doubts crept in. He might have learned a good deal from Joe Bevan, but had he learned enough to be able to hold his own with the best boxers of all the public schools in the country? And if he had the skill to win, had he the heart? Joe Bevan had said that he would not disgrace himself again, and he felt that the chances were against his doing so, but there was the terrible possibility. He had stood up to Francis and the others, and he had taken their blows without flinching; but in these encounters there was always at the back of his mind the comforting feeling that there was a limit to the amount of punishment he would receive. If Francis happened to drive him into a corner where he could neither attack, nor defend himself against attack, he did not use his advantage to the full. He indicated rather than used it. A couple of blows, and he moved out into the open again. But in the Public Schools Competition at Aldershot there would be no quarter. There would be nothing but deadly earnest. If he allowed himself to be manœuvred into an awkward position, only his own skill, or the call of time, could extricate him from it.

  In a word, at the "Blue Boar" he sparred. At Aldershot he would have to fight. Was he capable of fighting?

  Then there was another difficulty. How was he to get himself appointed as the Wrykyn light-weight representative? Now that Drummond was unable to box, Stanning would go down, as the winner of the School Competition. These things were worked by an automatic process. Sheen felt that he could beat Stanning, but he had no means of publishing this fact to the school. He could not challenge him to a trial of skill. That sort of thing was not done.

  He explained this to Joe Bevan.

  "Well, it's a pity," said Joe regretfully. "It's a pity."

  At this moment Jack Bruce appeared.

  "What's a pity, Joe?" he asked.

  "Joe wants me to go to Aldershot as a light-weight," explained Sheen, "and I was just saying that I couldn't, because of Stanning."

  "What about Stanning?"

  "He won the School Competition, you see, so they're bound to send him down."

  "Half a minute," said Jack Bruce. "I never thought of Aldershot for you before. It's a jolly good idea. I believe you'd have a chance. And it's all right about Stanning. He's not going down. Haven't you heard?"

  "I don't hear anything. Why isn't he going down?"

  "He's knocked up one of his wrists. So he says."

  "How do you mean—so he says?" asked Sheen.

  "I believe he funks it."

  "Why? What makes you think that?"

  "Oh, I don't know. It's only my opinion. Still, it's a little queer. Stanning says he crocked his left wrist in the final of the House Competition."

  "Well, what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't he have done so?"

  Sheen objected strongly to Stanning, but he had the elements of justice in him, and he was not going to condemn him on insufficient evidence, particularly of a crime of which he himself had been guilty.

  "Of course he may have done," said Bruce. "But it's a bit fishy that he should have been playing fives all right two days running just after the competition."

  "He might have crocked himself then."

  "Then why didn't he say so?"

  A question which Sheen found himself unable to answer.

  "Then there's nothing to prevent you fighting, sir," said Joe Bevan, who had been listening attentively to the conversation.

  "Do you really think I've got a chance?"

  "I do, sir."

  "Of course you have," said Jack Bruce. "You're quite as good as Drummond was, last time I saw him box."

  "Then I'll have a shot at it," said Sheen.

  "Good for you, sir," cried Joe Bevan.

  "Though it'll be a bit of a job getting leave," said Sheen. "How would you start about it, Bruce?"

  "You'd better ask Spence. He's the man to go to."

  "That's all right. I'm rather a pal of Spence's."

  "Ask him tonight after prep.," suggested Bruce.

  "And then you can come here regular," said Joe Bevan, "and we'll train you till you're that fit you could eat bricks, and you'll make babies of them up at Aldershot."

  PAVING THE WAY

  Bruce had been perfectly correct in his suspicions. Stanning's wrist was no more sprained than his ankle. The advisability of manufacturing an injury had come home to him very vividly on the Saturday morning following the Ripton match, when he had read the brief report of that painful episode in that week's number of the Field in the school library. In the list of the Ripton team appeared the name R. Peteiro. He had heard a great deal about the dusky Riptonian when Drummond had beaten him in the Feather-Weights the year before. Drummond had returned from Aldershot on that occasion cheerful, but in an extremely battered condition. His appearanc
e as he limped about the field on Sports Day had been heroic, and, in addition, a fine advertisement for the punishing powers of the Ripton champion. It is true that at least one of his injuries had been the work of a Pauline whom he had met in the opening bout; but the great majority were presents from Ripton, and Drummond had described the dusky one, in no uncertain terms, as a holy terror.

  These things had sunk into Stanning's mind. It had been generally understood at Wrykyn that Peteiro had left school at Christmas. When Stanning, through his study of the Field, discovered that the redoubtable boxer had been one of the team against which he had played at Ripton, and realised that, owing to Drummond's illness, it would fall to him, if he won the House Competition, to meet this man of wrath at Aldershot, he resolved on the instant that the most persuasive of wild horses should not draw him to that military centre on the day of the Public Schools Competition. The difficulty was that he particularly wished to win the House Cup. Then it occurred to him that he could combine the two things—win the competition and get injured while doing so.

  Accordingly, two days after the House Boxing he was observed to issue from Appleby's with his left arm slung in a first fifteen scarf. He was too astute to injure his right wrist. What happens to one's left wrist at school is one's own private business. When one injures one's right arm, and so incapacitates oneself for form work, the authorities begin to make awkward investigations.

  Mr Spence, who looked after the school's efforts to win medals at Aldershot, was the most disappointed person in the place. He was an enthusiastic boxer—he had represented Cambridge in the Middle-Weights in his day—and with no small trouble had succeeded in making boxing a going concern at Wrykyn. Years of failure had ended, the Easter before, in a huge triumph, when O'Hara, of Dexter's and Drummond had won silver medals, and Moriarty, of Dexter's, a bronze. If only somebody could win a medal this year, the tradition would be established, and would not soon die out. Unfortunately, there was not a great deal of boxing talent in the school just now. The rule that the winner at his weight in the House Competitions should represent the school at Aldershot only applied if the winner were fairly proficient. Mr Spence exercised his discretion. It was no use sending down novices to be massacred. This year Drummond and Stanning were the only Wrykinians up to Aldershot form. Drummond would have been almost a certainty for a silver medal, and Stanning would probably have been a runner-up. And here they were, both injured; Wrykyn would not have a single representative at the Queen's Avenue Gymnasium. It would be a set-back to the cult of boxing at the school.

  Mr Spence was pondering over this unfortunate state of things when Sheen was shown in.

  "Can I speak to you for a minute, sir?" said Sheen.

  "Certainly, Sheen. Take one of those cig—I mean, sit down. What is it?"

  Sheen had decided how to open the interview before knocking at the door. He came to the point at once.

  "Do you think I could go down to Aldershot, sir?" he asked.

  Mr Spence looked surprised.

  "Go down? You mean—? Do you want to watch the competition? Really, I don't know if the headmaster—"

  "I mean, can I box?"

  Mr Spence's look of surprise became more marked.

  "Box?" he said. "But surely—I didn't know you were a boxer, Sheen."

  "I've only taken it up lately."

  "But you didn't enter for the House Competitions, did you? What weight are you?"

  "Just under ten stone."

  "A light-weight. Why, Linton boxed for your house in the Light-Weights surely?"

  "Yes sir. They wouldn't let me go in."

  "You hurt yourself?"

  "No, sir."

  "Then why wouldn't they let you go in?"

  "Drummond thought Linton was better. He didn't know I boxed."

  "But—this is very curious. I don't understand it at all. You see, if you were not up to House form, you would hardly—At Aldershot, you see, you would meet the best boxers of all the public schools."

  "Yes, sir."

  There was a pause.

  "It was like this, sir," said Sheen nervously. "At the beginning of the term there was a bit of a row down in the town, and I got mixed up in it. And I didn't—I was afraid to join in. I funked it."

  Mr Spence nodded. He was deeply interested now. The office of confessor is always interesting.

  "Go on, Sheen. What happened then?"

  "I was cut by everybody. The fellows thought I had let the house down, and it got about, and the other houses scored off them, so I had rather a rotten time."

  Here it occurred to him that he was telling his story without that attention to polite phraseology which a master expects from a boy, so he amended the last sentence.

  "I didn't have a very pleasant time, sir," was his correction.

  "Well?" said Mr Spence.

  "So I was a bit sick," continued Sheen, relapsing once more into the vernacular, "and I wanted to do something to put things right again, and I met—anyhow, I took up boxing. I wanted to box for the house, if I was good enough. I practised every day, and stuck to it, and after a bit I did become pretty good."

  "Well?"

  "Then Drummond got mumps, and I wrote to him asking if I might represent the house instead of him, and I suppose he didn't believe I was any good. At any rate, he wouldn't let me go in. Then Joe—a man who knows something about boxing—suggested I should go down to Aldershot."

  "Joe?" said Mr Spence inquiringly.

  Sheen had let the name slip out unintentionally, but it was too late now to recall it.

  "Joe Bevan, sir," he said. "He used to be champion of England, light-weight."

  "Joe Bevan!" cried Mr Spence. "Really? Why, he trained me when I boxed for Cambridge. He's one of the best of fellows. I've never seen any one who took such trouble with his man. I wish we could get him here. So it was Joe who suggested that you should go down to Aldershot? Well, he ought to know. Did he say you would have a good chance?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "My position is this, you see, Sheen. There is nothing I should like more than to see the school represented at Aldershot. But I cannot let anyone go down, irrespective of his abilities. Aldershot is not child's play. And in the Light-Weights you get the hardest fighting of all. It wouldn't do for me to let you go down if you are not up to the proper form. You would be half killed."

  "I should like to have a shot, sir," said Sheen.

  "Then this year, as you probably know, Ripton are sending down Peteiro for the Light-Weights. He was the fellow whom Drummond only just beat last year. And you saw the state in which Drummond came back. If Drummond could hardly hold him, what would you do?"

  "I believe I could beat Drummond, sir," said Sheen.

  Mr Spence's eyes opened wider. Here were brave words. This youth evidently meant business. The thing puzzled him. On the one hand, Sheen had been cut by his house for cowardice. On the other, Joe Bevan, who of all men was best able to judge, had told him that he was good enough to box at Aldershot.

  "Let me think it over, Sheen," he said. "This is a matter which I cannot decide in a moment. I will tell you tomorrow what I think about it."

  "I hope you will let me go down, sir," said Sheen. "It's my one chance."

  "Yes, yes, I see that, I see that," said Mr Spence, "but all the same—well, I will think it over."

  All the rest of that evening he pondered over the matter, deeply perplexed. It would be nothing less than cruel to let Sheen enter the ring at Aldershot if he were incompetent. Boxing in the Public Schools Boxing Competition is not a pastime for the incompetent. But he wished very much that Wrykyn should be represented, and also he sympathised with Sheen's eagerness to wipe out the stain on his honour, and the honour of the house. But, like Drummond, he could not help harbouring a suspicion that this was a pose. He felt that Sheen was intoxicated by his imagination. Every one likes to picture himself doing dashing things in the limelight, with an appreciative multi
tude to applaud. Would this mood stand the test of action?

  Against this there was the evidence of Joe Bevan. Joe had said that Sheen was worthy to fight for his school, and Joe knew.

  Mr Spence went to bed still in a state of doubt.

  Next morning he hit upon a solution of the difficulty. Wandering in the grounds before school, he came upon O'Hara, who, as has been stated before, had won the Light-Weights at Aldershot in the previous year. He had come to Wrykyn for the Sports. Here was the man to help him. O'Hara should put on the gloves with Sheen and report.

  "I'm in rather a difficulty, O'Hara," he said, "and you can help me."

  "What's that?" inquired O'Hara.

  "You know both our light-weights are on the sick list? I had just resigned myself to going down to Aldershot without any one to box, when a boy in Seymour's volunteered for the vacant place. I don't know if you knew him at school? Sheen. Do you remember him?"

  "Sheen?" cried O'Hara in amazement. "Not Sheen!"...

  His recollections of Sheen were not conducive to a picture of him as a public-school boxer.

  "Yes. I had never heard of him as a boxer. Still, he seems very anxious to go down, and he certainly has one remarkable testimonial, and as there's no one else—"

  "And what shall I do?" asked O'Hara.

  "I want you, if you will, to give him a trial in the dinner-hour. Just see if he's any good at all. If he isn't, of course, don't hit him about a great deal. But if he shows signs of being a useful man, extend him. See what he can do."

  "Very well, sir," said O'Hara.

  "And you might look in at my house at tea-time, if you have nothing better to do, and tell me what you think of him."

  At five o'clock, when he entered Mr Spence's study, O'Hara's face wore the awe-struck look of one who had seen visions.

  "Well?" said Mr Spence. "Did you find him any good?"

  "Good?" said O'Hara. "He'll beat them all. He's a champion. There's no stopping him."

  "What an extraordinary thing!" said Mr Spence.