A Javelin for Jonah

chapter

2

Long Jump with Casualties

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Two circumstances made life at Joynings, so far as Hamish was concerned, very much simpler and easier than he might have expected. One was the lack of brotherliness among the men students to which Henry had referred. They were prepared to sabotage, more or less effectively, lectures which did not please them, but of physical ganging-up against authority there was little sign. The second circumstance was that the promised set-to with the gloves between Hamish and his hulking challenger had resulted in a spectacular knock-out by Hamish, followed by a cheerful, unembittered relationship with the defeated Richard which Hamish found undeniably helpful.

Richard, he learned later, had been expelled from his school for half-killing an unpopular sadistic prefect. He was now twenty-one years of age and had been at Joynings for four years, during which time his size, weight and strength had brought him to a position of leadership to which his other attributes scarcely entitled him. Hamish, bit by bit, learned the case-histories of a good many of the men-students. By no means all of them were discreditable, he thought.

Miss Yale, the senior woman lecturer—the battle-axe to whom Hamish had referred in his letter home—was more reticent about the women students, but these, with no encouragement from him, told Hamish more about themselves than he ever learned from headquarters. They also made overtures to him which so young a man might have found embarrassing but for the fact that Hamish had a fund of common sense and a robust sense of humour inherited from his mother, a useful streak of Puritanism which came to him from his father, a trick of summing-up people and situations which Dame Beatrice, his mother’s employer had taught him, and (possibly the product of all these) a superb self-confidence which was all his own and which, by the unreflecting, was often mistaken for arrogance.

With all his colleagues he got on reasonably well, although his preferences were for Henry and the redoubtable Miss Yale. That formidable middle-aged Amazon could beat him at golf (there was a links twenty miles from the College) and was, he discovered, an ex-county champion at throwing the javelin and, but for unfortunate family affairs which had prevented her from appearing at final trials, a near-certainty for an international vest in those Dark Ages before Hamish had been born.

The match with the talented Squadron Club was lost by Joynings, a circumstance moodily and unfairly related by the losers to the non-appearance of their first string in the shot— the youth put out of action by Jones. To those who expressed their views to him, Hamish pointed out, logically enough, that even if Derry, the athlete injured by Jones, had taken part and had won his event, the result of the match would have been unaltered. The College still could not have won a match which was decided on an aggregate of points.

He himself was mostly engaged in coaching swimming, but he soon found that, except for Jones, who seemed to be odd man out in most of the College activities, there was a cheerful spirit of give and take among the members of the senior common room and that he could always call upon somebody to act as starter or hold a stop-watch or even watch over a nervous learner while he himself was engaged with the more talented and further advanced of his flock.

Henry he had liked from their first meeting, but naturally, at his age, he had more in common with the younger men. There was an ex-Cambridge Blue named Martin, who was second coach under Henry for the javelin, hammer, discus and shot, and a slightly older man, whose age was still well under thirty, who was the coach for the jumps; he was called Barry, for, by Gascoigne Medlar’s ruling, nobody was known by anything other than his first name. There was also a member of a provincial but famous athletics club who coached all the running—not a favourite series of events at Joynings, as it happened, so he was only a part-timer at the College. He retained his amateur status by acting nominally as a lecturer in science. He talked with a Midlands accent and was named Jerry.

Except for Medlar himself, the only other man on the staff was Jones. The men’s gymnasium was his province, but he had a rooted dislike of hard work and had formed a habit of leaving his charges to amuse themselves while he himself came out on to the field or the running track and watched other people’s efforts, particularly where the women students were at practice. These loathed him; the men students, on the whole, despised him.

There were only eighteen women students while Hamish was at the College and their guardian was the redoubtable Miss Yale. She also helped with athletics coaching, and in addition to her there was a full-time instructor for dancing and gymnastics (an extremely beautiful young woman named Lesley), and a part-time coach for diving. This was a bouncing, enthusiastic girl named Celia, who spent three days a week at Joynings and the rest of her time as a swimming-instructor at the public baths in the nearest town.

After his first full house, Hamish began to find his lectures less and less well-attended until, by the third week, his regular audience was reduced to four. It consisted of the burly Richard and three girls. Richard remained faithful, not because he wished or intended to receive instruction in the tongue of Racine, but in the interests, as he saw them, of propriety.

Asked one day by Hamish, towards whom, since their scrap in the gymnasium, he had assumed the attitude of a protective father-figure, why he bothered himself to attend classes in which, it was clear, he took no interest whatsoever, the hulking youth replied, “You’re not safe with those types who sit in at your lectures, Jimmy-boy. Straight off the streets, those beazels.”

“Only two of them,” Hamish said gravely. “The other one wants to learn French.”

Apart from a growing and satisfying friendship with Martin, Hamish followed popular custom at the College and fell in love with Lesley. His liking for Henry, whose singleness of purpose he admired, increased as the days and then the weeks went by, but his curiosity was aroused and maintained in respect of Miss Yale. A woman of, undoubtedly, strong personality, she seemed to be the only member of the senior common room, so far as Hamish could discover, who maintained discipline as of right, instead of depending, as the others did, solely upon the goodwill of the students. Unlike everybody else, first names being the rule of the College, she always insisted upon being called Miss Yale (at least to her face) and even the men students seemed to be in awe of her. The girls were openly afraid of her and betrayed it by the unwilling respect they shewed when they had to face her and by their glares of black hatred and their muttered threats behind her square-shouldered, uncompromising back when they left her presence.

“Why do you stay here?” Hamish asked her, when their acquaintanceship was almost a month old. “You’re not solely an athlete, unless the College prospectus lies. Haven’t you got a pretty respectable degree? Couldn’t you be bossing some vast comprehensive school, or a college of education, or be a top brass in the Civil Service or something?”

“I like it here,” Miss Yale replied. “I get a kick out of making these little dopers and thieves and street-walkers toe the line.”

“It doesn’t seem much of a life for a woman of parts, if I may say so.”

“Suits me, that’s all. By the way, Barry goes on furlough next week.”

“Yes, it’s on the notice board.”

“Has he asked you to take over the jumps while he’s away?”

“No. Is he likely to?”

“Heard him mention it to Henry.”

“I’ve a fair amount to do in the pool, you know. We’ve that triangular swim against Swordfish and Triton the week after next, and their sprint times are pretty ominous compared with anything we can clock up at present, although our longer-distance men are doing well.”

Barry approached Hamish after tea that afternoon.

“Jimmy lad,” he said, “I know you’re pretty full up, but could you give an occasional eye to the long-jump fellows while I’m away? The triple jump doesn’t matter. We haven’t a bird who can beat forty feet, and our high-jump performers are nothing special, either. Jerry and Lesley will take a look at them occasionally, and that will do. As soon as we can get the proper landing-area—I want a Nissen ‘poly-pit’ if Gassie will run to it—there’s that young chap Kenneth who’s going to try the Fosbury Flop, but we daren’t risk him breaking his neck on our present equipment, so he’ll have to stick to the straddle for the time being. No, it’s the inter-college long-jump record I’m after. Colin can manage twenty-three feet and over when he meets the board right, and I believe he’s got the potential for twenty-four feet if he sticks to it. He wants more flight, that’s all. His take-off is too low. If only he can get height and perhaps use the mid-air kick instead of the hang, I believe we’ve got a real prospect in our stable.”

“I’ll do what I can,” promised Hamish, “but, as you know, I spend most of my time at the pool. I’ve got a prospect there, too. It’s Paul-Pierre, that misfit from Nantes who was chucked out of Rendlesbury for knifing the science master. He’s clocking just under eighteen minutes for the fifteen hundred metres free-style. He could get into the next Olympics if he sweats at it.”

“Yes, for France, though, not for us.”

“Come, come!” said Hamish. “Think European! What about the Common Market? Besides, I believe I’ve got a second string who is coming along very nicely, or will be, once I can get through to him. Patriotism, although still, in some of its aspects, a dirty word, retains a certain amount of influence on my mind, same as on yours, and this young fellow is a Scot. It took me some little time to spot him. He’s a dour, black-browed character with a chip on his shoulder because he thinks he was unfairly expelled from school. He trains without help and spends most of his time churning out length after length with no regard for speed, style or fatigue, but I believe he’s got what it takes.”

The youth’s name was Neil. He had no intimates, let alone friends, and, when spoken to, would reply either in the briefest possible manner or not at all.

“A difficult bloke,” continued Hamish, “but—and this is where patriotism rears its bloody but still unbowed although diminished head—he is a fellow Scot, as I say. Wonder what his surname is?”

This turned out, upon friendly enquiry, to be Menzies.

“My mother’s maiden name,” said Hamish, delighted by this coincidence.

“Aye,” said the scowling youth. “I’ll tell ye this, mon,” he continued, “I could beat yon Froggie over the fifteen hundred.”

“Paul-Pierre?”

“Aye.”

“Well, let’s ask him whether he’d like to try you out. He’ll be Olympic class if he keeps up his training, though, and you’ve never actually timed yourself over the distance, have you?”

“I can swim his bluidy head off.”

The match was arranged and Paul-Pierre won it, but so narrowly that Henry, who was watching, was astounded. Paul-Pierre swaggered.

“I was not really trying, me,” he said. Neil turned and clouted him.

“We’ll dae it again, when ye are trying,” he said, when the Frenchman scrambled out of the water into which he had been knocked. Paul-Pierre scowled and muttered, and, after that, Hamish arranged so that their training-times did not coincide. Neil, he decided, might be content to say it with fists, but Paul-Pierre’s proved handiness with a knife was not a matter he intended should be displayed in any circumstance over which he himself had control.

A fortnight later Neil approached him.

“Gin I apologized to yon Frog for belting him into the water, think you he’d swim me again?”

“Well, it’s a handsome, manly offer, Neil. I’ll ask him. But it’s to be a proper apology, mind. None of our backhanded Hieland insults.”

For the first time since Hamish had known him, the boy grinned.

“That’s a’ richt,” he agreed. Paul-Pierre accepted the apology superciliously but without giving actual offence, and the match was arranged for the following day. In the morning, at the staff breakfast-table, Miss Yale announced that she was off to London for the day to keep a dental appointment.

“Oh, no, nothing special,” she replied, in response to a kind enquiry from Henry. “Just routine. Don’t suppose he’ll find anything to do. I’ve got teeth like a horse.”

As this was only too true, nobody knew what to say about it, and Henry hastily went on, “I’m off myself this morning, but I’ll be back for lunch. Got to charm Gottswalds into letting us have that landing-area for the high jump sooner than they think they can give it to us. I’d like to surprise Barry with it when he gets back. He’ll be delighted.”

“That takes two of us off the field, then,” said Miss Yale. “Can you lend a hand, James?”

“Only until eleven,” replied Hamish. “I’ve got a timed fifteen hundred metres coming off in the pool, and I must be there, not only stop-watch in hand, but ready to break up the fight which may ensue when the race is over.”

“Oh, it’s another race, is it?” asked Henry, interested, in his dedicated way, in all that went on in the College. “Sorry I can’t manage to stay and watch.”

“Yes. Neil has challenged Paul-Pierre again. As P-P. won last time by less than a yard, I think that, this time, Neil might turn the tables.”

“But if Neil can beat him, he’s an Olympic prospect, isn’t he?” asked the lovely Lesley.

“We shall see.”

With two of the staff absent there were to be no lectures that morning, so Hamish went on to the field immediately breakfast was over and watched the long jump as he had promised. Men and girls trained together where the facilities allowed for this, and there was a mixed bag of long-jumpers, some serious-minded, some frivolous, lined up at the top of the runway.

At the end of the line was Colin, Barry’s prospect for the inter-college record. He was well-built for long-jumping—tall, long-legged, flexible, beautifully muscled and very fast indeed from his starting-mark down to the take-off board. Moreover, he very, very seldom missed the board and, when he did, he was behind it, not over its front edge, and so his jump counted.

Hamish watched in silence for a bit. Then, while the pit was being raked, he walked over to the line of athletes and said, “I’ve got to get back to the pool soon. I wonder if you’d mind if I concentrated on Colin for two or three jumps?” He turned to the lad himself. “You want to get airborne,” he said. “You could easily add a foot and a half to your jump if you’d manage a higher take-off.”

At this, Jones, who had left his gymnasts to amuse themselves as they pleased and who had been watching the jumping, came up, hands in pockets, and said unnecessarily, “You’re not too bad, Colin, but you want to jump higher, man. Higher and wider, as the swimming instructor said to the breast-stroke novice who ought to have been corrected, instead, for using a scissor kick. That’s right, isn’t it, Jimmy? A joke, Colin, boy. Where’s your sense of humour?”

“In abeyance, naturally, while he’s concentrating so hard,” said Hamish. “Get lost, Jonah, old chap. Can’t you see we’re busy? Come on, Colin. One or two more, and then I’ve got to get along to the pool.”

“I wonder whether it’s any good trying the hurdle again?” said the youth. “I couldn’t manage to get over it when I tried it with Barry, but perhaps it would help me now.”

The hurdle to which he referred was nothing more than a light cane placed across the long-jump pit and supported on two short uprights. It was so delicately poised that a touch would bring it down. It proved an obstacle which Colin found no help. If he cleared it, he had lost concentration and took feet off the length of his jump; if he took it with him, he was using his old style, but found that striking the light cane was a hindrance because again his concentration was affected.

“It’s no good, Jimmy,” he said, after his third attempt. “I think I’m better without it.”

“Oh, I’d stick at it for a time or two,” said Hamish. “But please yourself, of course. Perhaps Barry will come back with some new and more helpful ideas. He’s sure to have been trying to work something out for you while he’s on leave.”

Hamish walked over to the outdoor pool, cleared it of swimmers and called up his two competitors. Neil was taciturn, Paul-Pierre ill-tempered. The race was a fiasco. At the halfway stage, when Paul-Pierre was half a yard behind, he swam to the side of the bath.

“Cramp,” he said, in response to Hamish’s enquiry. Neil swam doggedly on, but, without the incentive of competition, failed to make as good a time as on the previous occasion.

Hamish expected an enquiry from the others as to the result of the race, but found that any interest which might have been shown in it was utterly and entirely eclipsed at lunch-time by news of a serious accident to the long-jumper, Colin.

Henry had returned and was addressing the staff table as Hamish took his seat. Jones’s place was empty and the atmosphere in the students’ part of the dining-hall was gloomy and menacing.

“I can’t think what Barry will do when he hears about it,” Henry was saying. “I have his holiday address, so I shall write to him. I am glad I do not have to give him the news by word of mouth.”

“Barry will murder Jones,” said Jerry, “and quite right, too. What’s Gassie got to say about it?”

“He doesn’t know yet,” replied Henry. “We’re waiting for a report from the casualty department at the hospital. I’m to ring them up at two. I’ve had to let Colin’s parents know, of course, because he’s been taken to hospital, but I want to hear something quite definite before I worry Gassie.”

“I do think,” said Lesley, “that you ought to speak to him at once, Henry, just as a precaution in case the news is bad. Pity you couldn’t have been here when it happened. Then you could have heard Jonah’s story at first hand and have something with which to compare Colin’s version.”

“Where is Jonah now?” asked Celia, who was in College for the afternoon.

“Down in the village, drowning his sorrows as usual, I expect,” said Martin. “He went belting off in his car half an hour ago. Only hope he’s too scared ever to come back.”

“What happened exactly?” asked Hamish. “I was out at the pit myself for a bit while Colin was practising. Everything seemed all right then. Jones was advising him to get a bit more flight, but everybody tells him that.”

“You may well ask what happened,” said Jerry. “That lunatic Jones took it upon himself to coach Colin as soon as you had gone over to the pool. Finding that the cane hurdle didn’t seem to help Colin to get height, what does that gor-blimey fool do but bring over one of those heavy benches which the students sit on when they take off their track-suits or change out of their spikes.”

“You don’t mean he put a teak bench across the long-jump pit?” asked Hamish incredulously. “Why, Colin comes powering down that run-way at the rate of knots and is going like a bullet when he takes off from the board. No wonder he’s knocked himself out. Jones must be mad!”

“We’ll be lucky if it’s only broken shins,” said Celia. “I’ve had a bit of nursing experience, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the boy has internal injuries as well. He might have killed himself. Jones is just that much lucky that he didn’t.”

“But what made Colin fall in with such a crazy idea?” asked Martin. “Did Jonah bully him?”

“No, he egged him on, according to the girl Clarice, and then, when Colin jibbed, he taunted him with being yellow. Naturally the misguided kid couldn’t stand for that,” said Henry. “Apparently Jonah had worked it out that the very fact that Colin would hurt himself if he didn’t clear the bench would make sure that he did manage to jump over it—only, of course, he didn’t. It seems (again according to our eye-witness) that Colin tore down the runway, took off like a tornado, copped the beastly bench ankle-high, and that was that.”

“Honestly, Jonah ought to be certified!” said Martin. “You never know what stupid trick he’ll get up to next. Did you hear what he did to one of Celia’s divers?”

“He shouldn’t be allowed at large,” said Lesley.

“He ought to be poisoned,” said Jerry.

“Well, don’t let the students hear you say so. There is more than one who might take the hint,” said Henry. “We’ve got quite a few nut cases here, you know.”

“I wish one of our psychopaths would lay him out,” said Lesley. “He came into my gym the other day and that silly little Carol took her eye off what she was doing and pulled a muscle because she didn’t make a proper landing. That’s the second one of my special squad he’s managed to lay out. He told Margot to rake the long-jump pit the other day, and she’s slipped a disc. This was before he managed to put Colin out of action. I was absolutely livid about it. ‘There goes the Chronos Vase, and it’s all your fault, you incompetent, poke-nosed, drunken idiot!’ I said to him. ‘Why on earth, if you had to interfere with the long-jump, couldn’t you get one of the men to rake the pit?’

“ ‘Oh, an osteopath will soon put the wench right,’ says Jonah, ‘or I’ll do a spot of manipulation on her myself, if you like.’ I was so furious with him that I picked up a jumping-rope and swung the leather-covered, sandbagged end of it at his head. He was actually grinning, you know, as though he’d said something clever. ‘I’d like to kill you!’ I said. ‘And I would kill you if I ever found you putting your filthy hands on one of the girls.’ What do you say?” she concluded, turning to Henry.

“Do your gym squad stand any chance of lifting the Chronos Vase?” asked Henry.

“Not now we’ve had these accidents.”

“Then I think,” said Henry, getting up from table, “that, if you do kill him, you are also entitled to dance on the remains.”