Thomas took a day off last Monday in order to play golf with me. For
that day the Admiralty had to get along without Thomas. I tremble to
think what would have happened if war had broken out on Monday.
Could a Thomasless Admiralty have coped with it? I trow not. Even as
it was, battleships grounded, crews mutinied, and several awkward
questions in the House of Commons had to be postponed till Tuesday.
Something--some premonition of this, no doubt--seemed to be
weighing on him all day.
"Rotten weather," he growled, as he came up the steps of the club.
"I'm very sorry," I said. "I keep on complaining to the secretary
about it. He does his best."
"What's that?"
"He taps the barometer every morning, and says it will clear up in
the afternoon. Shall we go out now, or shall we give it a chance to
stop?"
Thomas looked at the rain and decided to let it stop. I made him as
comfortable as I could. I gave him a drink, a cigarette, and
Mistakes with the Mashie. On the table at his elbow I had in reserve
Faulty Play with the Brassy and a West Middlesex Directory. For
myself I wandered about restlessly, pausing now and again to read
enviously a notice which said that C. D. Topping's handicap was
reduced from 24 to 22. Lucky man!
At about half-past eleven the rain stopped for a moment, and we
hurried out.
"The course is a little wet," I said apologetically, as we stood on
the first tee, "but with your naval experience you won't mind that.
By the way, I ought to warn you that this isn't all casual water.
Some of it is river."
"How do you know which is which?"
"You'll soon find out. The river is much deeper. Go on--your drive."
Thomas won the first hole very easily. We both took four to the
green, Thomas in addition having five splashes of mud on his face
while I only had three. Unfortunately the immediate neighbourhood of
the hole was under water. Thomas, the bounder, had a small heavy
ball, which he managed to sink in nine. My own, being lighter,
refused to go into the tin at all, and floated above the hole in the
most exasperating way.
"I expect there's a rule about it," I said, "if we only knew, which
gives me the match. However, until we find that out, I suppose you
must call yourself one up."
"I shall want some dry socks for lunch," he muttered, as he sploshed
off to the tee.
"Anything you want for lunch you can have, my dear Thomas. I promise
you that you shall not be stinted. The next green is below sea-level
altogether, I'm afraid. The first in the water wins."
Honours, it turned out, were divided. I lost the hole, and Thomas
lost his ball. The third tee having disappeared, we moved on to the
fourth.
"There's rather a nasty place along here," I said.
"The Secretary was sucked in the other day, and only rescued by the
hair."
Thomas drove a good one. I topped mine badly, and it settled down in
the mud fifty yards off. "Excuse me," I shouted as I ran quickly
after it, and I got my niblick on to it just as it was disappearing.
It was a very close thing.
"Well," said Thomas, as he reached his ball, "that's not what I call
a brassy lie."
"It's what we call a corkscrew lie down here," I explained. "If you
haven't got a corkscrew, you'd better dig round it with something,
and then when the position is thoroughly undermined--Oh, good
shot!"
Thomas had got out of the fairway in one, but he still seemed
unhappy.
"My eye," he said, bending down in agony; "I've got about half
Middlesex in it."
He walked round in circles saying strange nautical things, and my
suggestions that he should (1) rub the other eye, and (2) blow his
nose suddenly, were received ungenerously.
"Anything you'd like me to do with my ears?" he asked bitterly. "If
you'd come and take some mud out for me, instead of talking rot--"