Left Tackle Thayer

CHAPTER XXIV

IN THE EN­EMY'S COUN­TRY

And then, sud­den­ly, it was Sat­ur­day morn­ing!

Clint, rous­ing from dis­turbed, un­easy slum­ber, stared at a patch of sun­light shim­mer­ing on the white ceil­ing and tried for just that mo­ment that lies be­tween sleep and con­scious­ness to ac­count for the flut­ter­ing con­di­tion of his nerves, the sense of im­pend­ing doom that lay like a dark shad­ow at the back of his brain. Then full rec­ol­lec­tion came, his heart turned com­plete­ly over twice, raced like a pro­peller out of wa­ter and sank de­ject­ed­ly to some­where near the pit of his stom­ach. Af­ter that he was very, very wide awake.

He turned and looked en­vi­ous­ly at Amy, who, one bare arm over his tou­selled head, slept on un­trou­bled­ly. A door banged in the cor­ri­dor, the sound of rush­ing wa­ter came from the bath­room at the end, some­one across the way be­gan to sing “Tip­per­ary” joy­ous­ly, and through the open win­dow came the shrill voice of an ear­ly First For­mer:

“Hi, Ter­ry! Ter­ry Brainard! Oh, _Ter_-ry!”

Clint would have liked to have buried his head in the pil­low and gone back to sleep and slept un­til--well, say five o'clock that af­ter­noon. For by five o'clock the Claflin game would be over with. But even a five-​minute cat-​nap was de­nied him by rest­less nerves, and, af­ter a mo­ment or two, he put his legs out and sat up yawn­ing, feel­ing strange­ly tired and list­less. His bath helped some, how­ev­er, and lat­er on he was sur­prised to find that as long as he kept his mind off the game he was able to do full jus­tice to a chop, two soft-​boiled eggs, three slices of toast, a dish of stewed apri­cots, a baked pota­to and three glass­es of milk! Af­ter that he felt bet­ter still!

There was a stud­ied ef­fort on the part of the play­ers to keep away from the sub­ject of foot­ball that morn­ing. Many of the fel­lows looked ner­vous and drawn, and said lit­tle. Oth­ers were, or ap­peared to be, in high spir­its, and laughed a good deal and rather stri­dent­ly, and talked loud­ly of all kinds of things--ex­cept foot­ball. Jack Innes was even more qui­et than usu­al and al­most jumped out of his chair when a boy at the next ta­ble dropped a knife on the floor.

There were no recita­tions af­ter eleven that day. There might just as well have been none be­fore that, for it's quite use­less to ex­pect a boy to put his mind on his stud­ies on­ly a few hours be­fore the Big Game! At eleven the 'var­si­ty play­ers and sub­sti­tutes as­sem­bled at the gym­na­si­um and, es­cort­ed by Mr. De­tweil­er and Mr. Boutelle, took a walk across the fields and hills at an even though mod­er­ate pace. They were back a lit­tle be­fore twelve. Din­ner was at noon, and by a quar­ter to one they were climb­ing in­to coach­es in front of Main Hall and at one-​eight they, to­geth­er with most of the school, were pulling out of the Brim­field sta­tion on their jour­ney to West­plains, twelve miles dis­tant.

Claflin was an old­er school than Brim­field and had a much larg­er en­rol­ment. Un­til last year the Blue had won three foot­ball games from the Ma­roon-​and-​Grey, all, in fact, that the two schools had played to­geth­er. Last year the tide had turned and Brim­field had nosed out her ri­val by one touch­down. This year--well, what was to hap­pen this year was still on the lap of the gods, but Brim­field set out con­fi­dent of vic­to­ry.

Coach­es met the play­ers at the West­plains sta­tion and rolled them away along the tree-​lined, wind­ing road to the school, while the rest of the Brim­field in­vaders fol­lowed on foot or, if their pock­ets af­ford­ed it and they han­kered for lux­ury; in the lit­tle sta­tion-​wag­ons which, pa­tri­ot­ical­ly dec­orat­ed with blue bunting and flags, sought pa­tron­age.

Claflin School was set down in the very mid­dle of the town, a qui­et, ram­bling, over­grown vil­lage too near New York to ev­er be­come more than a res­idence place. The school was spread over many acres and its build­ings, most of which had been there many years, had a look of mel­low an­tiq­ui­ty which the new­er Brim­field halls had not had time to ac­quire. Wide-​spread­ing elms shad­ed the walks in Sum­mer and even to­day their grace­ful branch­es added beau­ty to the cam­pus. Brim­field, near­ly a hun­dred and fifty strong, took pos­ses­sion of the school grounds and went sight-​see­ing be­fore they poured out on the fur­ther side and made their way to the ath­let­ic field.

Amy and Bob Chase, paus­ing to trans­late a Latin in­scrip­tion over the en­trance to one of the build­ings, be­came de­tached from the oth­ers and were dis­cov­ered by Mr. De­tweil­er, who, hav­ing made an un­suc­cess­ful at­tempt to find a col­lege friend who was in­struct­ing at Claflin, was on his way to the gym­na­si­um. He lis­tened, un­seen, for a mo­ment to Amy's ex­treme­ly lit­er­al and pic­turesque trans­la­tion, and then a laugh re­vealed his pres­ence and Amy looked around a bit sheep­ish­ly.

“That's fine, Byrd,” said Mr. De­tweil­er. “You cer­tain­ly re­flect cred­it on 'Un­cle Sim'!”

“I guess,” ob­served Bob Chase, “'Un­cle Sim' would have had a fit if he'd heard that!”

They strolled on to­geth­er, speak­ing of the build­ings they passed, un­til, op­po­site the gym­na­si­um, Mr. De­tweil­er start­ed to leave them, thought bet­ter of it and said: “By the way, Byrd, I won­der if I was pledged to se­cre­cy the oth­er day.”

“The oth­er day?” re­peat­ed Amy ques­tion­ing­ly.

“The day I met you and Thay­er and--” He looked doubt­ful­ly at Chase.

“Bob's all right,” Amy re­as­sured him. “I know when you mean, sir. But I don't un­der­stand about be­ing pledged--”

“I'll tell you.” Mr. De­tweil­er looked hur­ried­ly at his watch. “I hap­pened to hear from Mr. Da­ley yes­ter­day that your friend Durkin had got in trou­ble. You knew that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, it seemed that Mr. Fer­nald thought Durkin had ei­ther picked the quar­rel or--well, we'll say wel­comed it. Da­ley told me Durkin was on pro­ba­tion and stood a pret­ty fair chance of los­ing a schol­ar­ship he was af­ter. So, as I hadn't been, as I thought, pledged to se­cre­cy, I told Da­ley what I knew of the start of the trou­ble. That seemed to put a dif­fer­ent com­plex­ion on the mat­ter and Da­ley went to Mr. Fer­nald and told him about it. Since then I've won­dered whether I ought to have kept my mouth closed. Do you mind?”

“Not a bit,” de­clared Amy hearti­ly. “I'm mighty glad you did tell. I want­ed to, but Pen­ny wouldn't hear of it. He said it would be sneaky, or some­thing like that. What--what did Mr. Fer­nald say, sir?”

“I haven't heard. I hope, though, he will see that your friend Durkin couldn't very well avoid that row on Sun­day. It seemed to me rather too bad that he should lose his chance at the schol­ar­ship. That is why I 'but­ted in,' Byrd.”

“I'm very glad you did, Mr. De­tweil­er. I'll find Pen­ny and see if he's heard any­thing.”

Pen­ny, how­ev­er, was very elu­sive, and it was not un­til a few min­utes be­fore the game start­ed that Amy fi­nal­ly lo­cat­ed him in the top row of the tem­po­rary grand-​stand. Even then Amy could on­ly get with­in shout­ing dis­tance, but shout­ing dis­tance suf­ficed.

“Pen­ny!” called Amy. “Hi, Pen­ny!”

Pen­ny smiled and waved.

“Had any news?” asked Amy in a con­fi­den­tial shout.

Pen­ny looked blank for an in­stant. Then a slow smile light­ed his face and he nod­ded ve­he­ment­ly.

“Yes,” he called. “This morn­ing, Byrd! It's all right about--you know!”

“Aw­ful­ly glad,” replied Amy. “Mr. De­tweil­er just told me! See you af­ter the game.”

“Sit down, Amy!” said a friend in the stand.

“Yes, clear the aisle, please, Byrd,” called an­oth­er.

Amy smiled and hur­ried back to his seat next to Bob Chase just as the two teams, hav­ing warmed up and ex­per­iment­ed with what lit­tle breeze was cut­ting across the grid­iron, with­drew to their re­spec­tive sides of the field. A fi­nal long-​drawn cheer for Brim­field is­sued from the south stand, was an­swered by a more thun­der­ous one from the op­po­site seats, the teams lined up, the cap­tains waved their hands to the ref­er­ee and Claflin's left guard sent the nice new yel­low ball arch­ing away against the sky.

It is to be pre­sumed that more than one heart un­der a can­vas jack­et was thump­ing loud­ly at that mo­ment, but I doubt if any was try­ing hard­er to turn som­er­saults than Clint Thay­er's as he hus­tled across to where Kendall was gath­er­ing the pigskin in his arms. But in the next mo­ment Clint for­got all about his heart, for­got he even had one, for Kendall was plung­ing for­ward through the fast-​gath­er­ing Claflin war­riors and his work was cut out for him. Back to the fif­teen-​yard line went the pigskin be­fore the ref­er­ee called it down, and Brim­field's sup­port­ers cheered.

It is al­ways some­thing of a shock to re­alise that an event which has been dread­ed for days has at last ar­rived. Dur­ing that tense mo­ment where­in the blue-​stockinged Brig­gs had cud­dled the ball in­to po­si­tion on the tee Clint had ex­pe­ri­enced just such a shock. On­ly yes­ter­day the Claflin game had been of the fu­ture, on­ly this morn­ing he had still viewed it un­easi­ly as a thing im­pend­ing, and now--presto!--it was here. He en­dured for a long minute more kinds of stage-​fright than he had ev­er dreamed of! But ac­tion was a panacea for his mal­ady, and the in­stant he thrust him­self in the path of a plung­ing Claflin man, felt the im­pact of the hard-​mus­cled body against him, re­cov­ered and fell in­to his place in the quick­ly-​formed wedge of in­ter­fer­ence, the thrill of bat­tle drove out fear.

Now Mar­vin was call­ing his sig­nals, the Brim­field for­wards were pois­ing them­selves for the as­sault, and Clint, hands on the ground, feet apart, head up, was watch­ing ev­ery move­ment of his op­po­nent. And, si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly with the snap­ping of the ball, he was lung­ing up­ward and for­ward with both hands, all the mus­cles of his tense body be­hind that quick thrust, and the Claflin op­po­nent, caught un­awares, spun side­ways and crashed in­to his guard, while Har­ris, the ball clutched to his stom­ach, smashed through and past and, stum­bling, twist­ing, pant­ing, pushed three yards of turf be­hind him be­fore the Claflin backs pulled him down.

And so it went un­til Brim­field, tak­ing the en­emy by sur­prise, had won her way to the thir­ty-​sev­en yards. There some­one mis­took the sig­nals, three yards were lost on sec­ond down, and, with sev­en to go, Har­ris punt­ed high and far. Clint found his op­po­nents too much for him that time and was hurled aside. Claflin caught on her thir­ty-​three and ran back six.

Then Clint had a chance to prove him­self on the de­fence, and prove him­self he did on the sec­ond play. The renowned Ter­rill, striv­ing to draw Clint out from his guard, sud­den­ly found him­self nice­ly fooled, and Clint, swing­ing through in­side, smeared the play well be­hind the Claflin line. There was a vast feel­ing of sat­is­fac­tion when his arms wrapped them­selves around the legs of that blue-​stockinged left half and held like a vise. The fact that a venge­ful Claflin for­ward dropped his hun­dred-​and-​sev­en­ty pounds on Clint's neck didn't mat­ter a mite!

It was nip and tuck for the rest of that first pe­ri­od. Claflin reg­ular­ly made from four to eight yards on three plays and then punt­ed. Brim­field made sim­ilar gains and punt­ed. Kendall missed a catch and re­cov­ered the ball for a ten-​yard loss. To equalise things, Ain­smith of Claflin fum­bled for al­most as much. The quar­ter end­ed with the ball in Brim­field's pos­ses­sion in the mid­dle of the field.

In the sec­ond pe­ri­od Mar­vin be­gan to work the ends, send­ing St. Clair and Kendall around the wings for short gains. Once, when Kendall, al­most stopped, wrig­gled him­self free and dashed on along the side line, the Brim­field sup­port­ers leaped to their feet in the stand with ec­stat­ic vi­sions of a touch­down danc­ing be­fore their eyes. But Kendall was forced out on Claflin's thir­ty-​five yards and the yells of tri­umph sub­sid­ed. From there Har­ris made it first down through a hole as wide as a door in the cen­tre of the Claflin line, reel­ing off twelve yards be­fore he was up­set. The Blue's cen­tre-​rush was hurt in that en­counter and a sub­sti­tute took his place. Mar­vin test­ed the new man on the next play, but Kendall was stopped. A sec­ond at­tempt, with Har­ris plung­ing straight ahead from kick­ing po­si­tion, pro­duced three yards. St. Clair slid off left tack­le for two more and Har­ris punt­ed to the Blue's twelve yards. A penal­ty for off-​side brought the ball back to the sev­en­teen. Claflin round­ed Ed­wards for six yards, pound­ed Clint for two more, was held on the next down and punt­ed to the Ma­roon-​and-​Grey's forty-​sev­en. There Mar­vin caught and was top­pled in his tracks. Roberts was hurt in a missed tack­le and Coach Robey sent Holt in.

Both teams had slowed up in their play­ing now, for the pace had been un­usu­al­ly fast. Claflin was caught hold­ing and the ball went once more in­to her own ter­ri­to­ry. Har­ris and Kendall ham­mered the tack­les for a first down and St. Clair got off around the right end for sev­en yards more. Mar­vin fum­bled and Har­ris fell on the ball. Har­ris punt­ed to a cor­ner of the field and the ball rolled out at the fif­teen yards. Claflin braced then and pushed through for a first down, fol­low­ing it with a long for­ward-​pass that took the pigskin to her forty-​three yards. A fake-​kick failed to gain and her full-​back was brought up stand­ing when he tried Jack Innes's po­si­tion. A punt was caught by Kendall on his twen­ty-​five-​yard line and, be­hind good in­ter­fer­ence, he dashed back near­ly ten be­fore he was nailed. St. Clair made three off the Blue's right tack­le and Mar­vin kicked from po­si­tion, the ball rolling past the Claflin quar­ter to his thir­ty-​yard line, where he man­aged to se­cure it just an in­stant be­fore Steve Ed­wards reached him. Two tries net­ted but four yards and a punt fol­lowed. Mar­vin caught near mid­field and the half end­ed.

The teams had shown them­selves to be very even­ly matched in all de­part­ments of the game. On of­fence Brim­field had done a tri­fle bet­ter, if we ex­cept the for­ward-​pass made by her ad­ver­sary, the on­ly one so far at­tempt­ed by ei­ther side. On de­fence Claflin had proved no stronger than the Ma­roon-​and-​Grey. In punt­ing, Har­ris, for Brim­field, and Went­worth, for Claflin, had shown about the same abil­ity, what ad­van­tage there might be be­ing in favour of Har­ris, whose punts had been a lit­tle bet­ter placed. So far it was any­body's game, and the ri­val schools, dur­ing the in­ter­mis­sion, sang and cheered loud­ly and con­fi­dent­ly.

In the lock­er-​room at the gym­na­si­um Mr. Robey and the as­sis­tant coach­es dealt praise and cen­sure and in­struc­tion. Sev­er­al of the fel­lows had been pret­ty well played out at the end of the half. Claflin had paid a good deal of at­ten­tion to the cen­tre of Brim­field's line--lat­er it tran­spired that ru­mours had reached West­plains to the ef­fect that Brim­field's cen­tre trio were weak on de­fence--and both Cap­tain Innes and Hall were rather bat­tered up. Blais­dell had come out of it with less pun­ish­ment. There were no in­juries of mo­ment, how­ev­er, even Roberts, whose shoul­der had been bruised, be­ing ready to go back. As the time to re­turn to the field ap­proached Mr. Robey called for at­ten­tion.

“I want to tell you fel­lows,” he said qui­et­ly, “that you've played well. You've done as much as I'd hoped you'd do. You've held Claflin away from your goal, and in do­ing that you've done a good deal, for you've been up against as fine a Blue team as they've ev­er got to­geth­er. But from now on you've got to have punch, fel­lows. You've got to play faster and hard­er. Claflin will try ev­ery­thing she knows. She isn't beat­en, not by a whole lot, and she's go­ing to come back hard. I want to see im­prove­ment in the back­field in this half. You backs haven't helped the for­wards as you've been taught to do and as you can do. You've let the run­ner have an ex­tra yard or two yards time and again. Go in hard and stop the man be­fore he gets clear. You've been wait­ing for him to come to you. Don't do that. Go in and meet him. Ev­ery inch counts. Now, then, let's see what you can do for Brim­field this time. Play hard. When you tack­le, stop your man. When you block, block hard and long. Put ev­ery ounce of strength in­to the game from now on and I'll promise you that you'll take that foot­ball back to Brim­field with you!”

Claflin had made four changes in her line-​up when the teams faced each oth­er again, and Brim­field two. On the lat­ter team Carmine was at quar­ter and Gaffer­ty had tak­en Tom Hall's place at right guard. Roberts was back in his po­si­tion at the right end of the line. Jack Innes set­tled the ball on the mound of earth, glanced over his team, cried “Ready, sir!” stepped for­ward and punt­ed oblique­ly across the field to­ward the Claflin stand. The sec­ond half was on and the lau­rel of vic­to­ry was still to be won.