After we had finally arranged the cricket match--Convalescents
_versus_ the Village--for the benefit of the Serbian Relief Fund, we
remembered that early in the year the cricket-field had been selected
for the site of the village potato-patch, and my favourite end of the
pitch--the one without the cross-furrow--was now in full blossom.
As the cricket-field is the only level piece of ground in the
district, the cricket committee began to lose its grip upon the
situation, and were only saved from ignominious failure by the
enterprise of the British Army, in this case represented by
Sergeant-Major Kippy, D.C.M., who was recovering in the best of
spirits from his third blighty one.
"'Ow about the Colonel's back gardin?" he suggested. "There's a lovely
bit o' turf there."
We remembered the perfect and spacious lawn, scarcely less level than
a billiard-table, and, even with the Colonel busy on the East Coast,
the committee were unanimously adverse to the suggestion. But Kippy,
born within hail of a Kentish cricket-field, was not to be denied,
and, after all, one cannot haggle about a mere garden with someone who
was with the first battalions over the Messines Ridge.
Thus the affair was taken out of our hands, and when the day arrived
we pitched the stumps where Kippy, giving due consideration to the
Colonel's foliage, thought the light was most advantageous.
The Village won the toss, and old Tom Pratt took guard and proceeded
to dig himself in by making what he termed his "block-hole." I
visualised the choleric blue eye of the Colonel and shuddered.
For a time matters proceeded uneventfully. Then, at the fall of the
fourth wicket, the game suddenly developed, Jim Butcher, batting at
the pergola end, giving us an exhibition of his famous scoop shot,
which landed full pitch through the drawing-room window. It was a
catastrophe of such dimensions that even the boldest spirit quailed
before it, and the Colonel's butler, batting at the other end,
immediately dissociated himself from the proceedings and bolted from
the field.
Kippy, as befitted a warrior of parts, was the first to recover.
"'Ere," he exclaimed, "we carn't 'ave this; wot do you think the
Colonel will say?"