Free The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson

out. At the line-out Zerubabel tips it back to Origen, but Origen passes to Julian the Apostate, who starts running back. Luther and John Huss trip him up and start a plucky dribble. They’re joined by Calvin who picks up and passes to Wesley. For a glorious moment it looks as if we’re going to get somewhere. Wesley jinks like a rabbit, sells the dummy to three enemy forwards. But he hasn’t got the legs. He passes, and one of the Plymouth Brothers knocks on. This time the enemy forwards get the ball and wheel with it. Charlie Marx empties his pistol again and again into the back row of our scrum in an attempt to stop the rot.
    10-nil, and the game’s only in its first light-year. Some poets start a passing movement. Chatterton passes to Keats, Keats to Shelley, Shelley to Byron, Byron to Wilde, who muffs it. There’s a lot of tittering in the loose. The Martians get it back to their Three Q’s, and there’s no stopping them. They run through us like a dose of salts, cock snooks at the Easter Island statues which Dali has brought up to guard the Goal Mouth, and score again.
    After that it’s a procession and they score as they please. Full backs are tried by the dozen only to have rings made round them.
    At half-time the score is astronomical, and Wing-forwards are being shot in batches in the Changing Room.
    Towards the end of the Interval, Engelbrecht, Lizard Bayliss, his manager, and I, are reclining in our bivouac, toasting our toes at the core of a crater, when Charlie Marx and Fred Engels limp past. “There’s only one way, knabe,” we hear Charlie say. “We must give them the old Trojan horse.” “All very well,” says Fred, “but there’s not much room in there.” “Room for a little ’un,” says Charlie. His eye lights on Engelbrecht. “How about it, junge?” he says, raising an eyebrow and cocking his pistol. “Care to volunteer for an interesting mission in History’s service?” And before we can remonstrate he marches Engelbrecht off to the Changing Room.
    We come out for the second half dizzy and defeatist. But the moment they kick off it’s clear that a change has come over the game. The Ball is taking a hand. It won’t roll right for the Martians nohow. They muff pass after pass and in the scrum our hookers get it every time. It’s as if it’s grown a little pair of legs of its own. Soon comes our first try. Charlie gathers it clean as a whistle and passes to Fred, who punts for the open field. Stenka Razin and his band trap it and take it on with their feet. There’s a fierce loose scrummage in a crater, but Guy Fawkes has got a map of the Underground. The Ball seems to beckon him on. They surface just in front of the Goal, and Jack Cade slips over for a touch-down. Goliath, the new full back, takes the kick. The Ball grazes the cross bar, but instead of bouncing off it seems to hang there in the air. Then it drops over.
    The Score is 5555-5. Things are looking up. The Id commutes the sentences of one in ten of the doomed Wing Forwards to Life in the Scrum. Soon after the kick, Hannibal gets it and blunders right through with his footballing elephants. Goliath converts.
    All that epoch the same tactics are repeated. We’re using our feet like dancing masters. It’s 5555-5550 now. Not long to go. Some unlikely characters have scored, even Heliogabalus, Bishop Berkley, and Aubrey Beardsley.
    De Mille is looking at his travelling clock. He’s lifting the whistle to his lips with both hands. Sorrowfully, Lizard Bayliss folds up the special edition of the Fly Paper with Engelbrecht’s Obituary notice, and wipes away a tear. “If only he could have lived to see this,” he says.
    Charlie Marx is giving the forwards their final pep-talk. “A Spectre is haunting Football!” I hear him bark. “The time has come to convert the Feet of History into the History of Feet! Forwards of the World! Pack Tight! You have nothing to lose but your Shins!”
    The Martians try hard to find touch