runs. Now he imagined himself going out to bat on a bright Saturday morning in July, with perhaps a hundred people watching from deckchairs and benches at the side of the ground. There would be picnics on rugs laid out on the grass; boys practising their own games with smaller bats and balls; women in floral cotton print dresses; but above all there would be the concentration of the players in the middle – the intensity of struggle that was never sensed from the boundary.
He liked games with a morning start so he could make his mark at the crease with a stud from his boot in the brightest possible light. He talked to himself all the time he was facing, his lips moving, as he urged himself to watch the ball. That was all his self-instruction: watch it, fasten it to your eye like a fish on a hook. Once, against a slow left-armer, he had gone down the wicket, and as he swung through the ball, dispatching it high over long on for six, he swore he had seen at the moment of impact the slight mark made by the risen seam as its tough stitching met the soft face of the willow.
And to go into lunch undefeated on 48 or 55, to the congratulations of his teammates and the shy smiles of sisters and mothers and girlfriends; to sit at the long trestle and attack his plate of ham and tongue salad, biscuits and cheese, but not eating too much and drinking only a half-pint of beer from the barrel knowing that in the afternoon heat much more endeavour would be required of him because he so passionately wanted his side to win. Outside the pavilion he sucked on a cigarette and gazed up at the sky to re-accustom his eyes to the light as the umpires walked out again to the middle. He would turn to his partner. ‘All right? Shall we?’
After they had been there a week, the Pole who shared their bunk died from typhus, and this gave them more space. They slept head to toe, and Geoffrey began, in a way he found ridiculous , to see the few square inches of space about his head as his own territory, and to resent any intrusion from Trembath’s large feet. Once he concealed a rare piece of sausage that had come with breakfast in a small crack in the wood to give himself something to look forward to when the day was through. All afternoon he thought about it. Saving the ‘unexpired portion’ of the day’s ration was the military term by which he dignified his action; in fact, his hoarding reminded him of his mother’s dachshunds, who would take any prized bit of leftover from the human lunch that had been thrown in their dog bowl and carry it off to their baskets.
Before adopting their sleeping positions, he and Trembath would whisper plans to one another. There were tens of thousands of prisoners and only a few hundred guards. Among the prisoners there were many women, living in separate blocks, who might not contribute to a fight, though some looked desperate enough; many of the men were too enfeebled by sickness and starvation to be of use. However, there were still able-bodied men – many of the Russian prisoners of war, for instance – and there were skilled tradesmen: electricians who could help neutralise the fence, carpenters, blacksmiths and others who might help to arm them. It would be possible to overwhelm their tormentors by weight of numbers. They would at first take casualties from machine-gun and rifle fire, but were easily numerous enough to push on, capture the SS firearms, turn them on their owners, tear down the watchtowers, cut the wire and go free.
Trembath was becoming impatient. ‘Listen, Talbot,’ he said, ‘it’s important that we don’t let ourselves descend to the level of some of these people. They’ve lost their dignity.’
‘They’re refugees,’ said Geoffrey. ‘They’ve lost their family, their homes, their money – their children in some cases, I think. But for us … It was certainly a bit rough in occupied France, but nothing like—’
‘That’s exactly it. They’re civilians. We’re
He liked games with a morning start so he could make his mark at the crease with a stud from his boot in the brightest possible light. He talked to himself all the time he was facing, his lips moving, as he urged himself to watch the ball. That was all his self-instruction: watch it, fasten it to your eye like a fish on a hook. Once, against a slow left-armer, he had gone down the wicket, and as he swung through the ball, dispatching it high over long on for six, he swore he had seen at the moment of impact the slight mark made by the risen seam as its tough stitching met the soft face of the willow.
And to go into lunch undefeated on 48 or 55, to the congratulations of his teammates and the shy smiles of sisters and mothers and girlfriends; to sit at the long trestle and attack his plate of ham and tongue salad, biscuits and cheese, but not eating too much and drinking only a half-pint of beer from the barrel knowing that in the afternoon heat much more endeavour would be required of him because he so passionately wanted his side to win. Outside the pavilion he sucked on a cigarette and gazed up at the sky to re-accustom his eyes to the light as the umpires walked out again to the middle. He would turn to his partner. ‘All right? Shall we?’
After they had been there a week, the Pole who shared their bunk died from typhus, and this gave them more space. They slept head to toe, and Geoffrey began, in a way he found ridiculous , to see the few square inches of space about his head as his own territory, and to resent any intrusion from Trembath’s large feet. Once he concealed a rare piece of sausage that had come with breakfast in a small crack in the wood to give himself something to look forward to when the day was through. All afternoon he thought about it. Saving the ‘unexpired portion’ of the day’s ration was the military term by which he dignified his action; in fact, his hoarding reminded him of his mother’s dachshunds, who would take any prized bit of leftover from the human lunch that had been thrown in their dog bowl and carry it off to their baskets.
Before adopting their sleeping positions, he and Trembath would whisper plans to one another. There were tens of thousands of prisoners and only a few hundred guards. Among the prisoners there were many women, living in separate blocks, who might not contribute to a fight, though some looked desperate enough; many of the men were too enfeebled by sickness and starvation to be of use. However, there were still able-bodied men – many of the Russian prisoners of war, for instance – and there were skilled tradesmen: electricians who could help neutralise the fence, carpenters, blacksmiths and others who might help to arm them. It would be possible to overwhelm their tormentors by weight of numbers. They would at first take casualties from machine-gun and rifle fire, but were easily numerous enough to push on, capture the SS firearms, turn them on their owners, tear down the watchtowers, cut the wire and go free.
Trembath was becoming impatient. ‘Listen, Talbot,’ he said, ‘it’s important that we don’t let ourselves descend to the level of some of these people. They’ve lost their dignity.’
‘They’re refugees,’ said Geoffrey. ‘They’ve lost their family, their homes, their money – their children in some cases, I think. But for us … It was certainly a bit rough in occupied France, but nothing like—’
‘That’s exactly it. They’re civilians. We’re
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