“Where do you want to play?” she demanded. “You’d better go and stand about somewhere at the back, hadn’t you? I’m putting all the strength into the attack—it’s the only thing to do with this team. Johnson” (the brawny captain) “loses his head if you keep on nagging at him. Suppose you take the right, and mark that little black-headed curate on their left outer? You’ll be worth your salt if you only keep him occupied. He’s a terror! Cut him over the shins if he won’t behave. There’s plenty of weft in that stick of yours.”
Wiggie twiddled the Bulger discontentedly, showing the “L. Lancaster” cut clearly on the blade. A tinge of colour came into Harriet’s face.
“It’s too heavy!” he murmured mournfully. “You see, when you get going up the field, it’s always just a second behind your wrist——” He tried to execute a double twist that didn’t come off. Harriet looked scornful.
“You don’t need to ‘get going’ when you’re back. All you’ve got to do is to let out, but I suppose you won’t be able to clear far. And if the thing tires you”—she looked down casually at her own lighter, handier weapon—“I don’t mind changing. An ounce or so makes no odds to me!”
“Oh, but I shouldn’t dream—I didn’t mean——!” Wiggie protested, and then stopped. “If you’re sure you don’t mind, I dare say I should get on ever so much better.”
Harriet did not mind. You could see how little she minded, running her firm fingers along the rubber where Lancaster’s hands had so often gripped. Wiggie tried the double twist with ecstatic success.
“This’ll do me all right.” Harriet tucked the stick under her arm with a kind of savage shame. “By the way, of course you know Lanty let me in, too? I’ve the rottenest lot of friends anywhere—barring you, of course! You’ve been a sport. Very well, then, you get along back and do what you can if anything comes your way. Johnson won’t have to worry about you, then. He seems nervous of breaking you. Don’t get crocked up or anything—it wastes time so rottenly; and let Saunders have as much of the game as he wants, otherwise he’ll sulk. For goodness’ sake remember that the goal-posts are none too steady, so don’t get shoving against them. And keep an eye on the curate!”
Wiggie walked sadly to the back. He had never played back, and he had no wish to begin now. How was he to get his glorious five minutes if he stood about and did nothing? He would just dodder and shiver and wither away into thin air, and there was nothing dramatic about that. And the point-twist simply wouldn’t get a show. Delicate art of that kind wasn’t needed at back. You hit out slashingly, and then stood with your feet crossed and bowed to the crowd, until the idiot in front whom you had fed so prettily allowed another idiot to grab the ball and send it back again. He wouldn’t clear far, having parted with Lanty’s sledge. Harriet’s possession was nearly sure to sting if he began putting anything into it, and in any case Saunders was to have the limelight.
Saunders, fair-haired and finely built, greeted him without enthusiasm. He had just been telling the goalkeeper that he would have all the work to do, just as if that wasn’t exactly what he wanted. Five minutes before he had told her that, owing to the rotten scheme of attack, he never hoped to see a ball all afternoon, but he expected her to have forgotten that. The goalkeeper said it was a shame to both remarks, and prayed that, if a ball ever did arrive, he wouldn’t knock her down inside the goal-posts and sit on her, as he had a trick of doing. She was a bright-faced young person in pads, and nodded genially to Wiggie as he came up shyly. She wanted to tell him that she had heard him sing, and though of course she liked this sort of thing much better, she could do with a tune now and then. Wiggie thanked her sweetly for doing with it, and told her how much he admired her in her perilous position. At least Harriet had not put him there, to combine the philosophy of a fisherman with the stoicism of an Aunt Sally.
Saunders suddenly felt rather jealous, and came and joined them. He was pleased to be patronising and instructive, if somewhat contra-law-and-order.