Free Good Enough For Nelson by John Winton

comes in with everybody else. Now they have got the batting side out, the fielding side go in, while the side who were batting, having come in after being all out, go out to field. Once again, two batsmen from the side who are in go out and are in until they are out and come in again. So it goes on, until that side too are all out, and then everybody comes in again, and the match is over. Any questions? No? Well, now you all know the rules, you can all push off and play.’
    The Bodger intercepted Bungey One as he darted by with a piece of paper.
    ‘Congratulations. How did you manage to organise it? Did you split them up into those who had played before and those who hadn’t?’
    ‘Good Lord, no, sir, there wasn’t time for that. I got an alphabetical list of all the Officers Under Training and chopped them off, every eleven names.’ Bungey One looked down at his list. ‘So this game here, sir, nearest you, has Aaron, Abdulabia, Acland, Adrianovitch, Anson, and so on. That far one, right up there, beyond the pavilion, is where Wilson, Yashif, Young and Ziegler are playing, sir.’
    ‘Well done indeed.’
    ‘Yes sir, it’s simpler if you work to a system. The top name on the list of eleven is the captain of the side, and the second one is the wicketkeeper. Numbers three and four are the opening batsmen, numbers ten and eleven on the list are the opening bowlers. Everybody knows what they are supposed to be doing, that way, sir.’
    ‘I see.’
    The Bodger and Jimmy began to walk round the field, their progress marked by every eye. The fielders fielded more assiduously, the bowlers bowled more strenuously, and the batsmen batted more stoutly, wherever they chanced to look. And if a fielder stopped a ball, or a bowler got a wicket, or a batsman chanced to score a run while The Bodger was watching, he was envied by everybody in the game. Even the newest comer to Dartmouth knew that the surest and quickest way to commendation was by some startling feat on the games field.
    They stopped by one game, where the batting side were sitting on the grass slope or on the nearby steps leading up from one main playing field to the other. Looking over the scorer’s shoulder, The Bodger saw that the batting side were Bingley, Bombulada, Brightwell, Broad, Burslem, Callaghan, and so on.
    ‘Ey oop,’ one of the batting side was saying, as he helped another to put on his pads. ‘Ey oop, lad, they’re batting pads not shin pads.’ The lad clearly spoke as an expert on cricket, in a broad Yorkshire accent. With his ruddy face, his prominent cheek-bones and his tufty, straw-coloured hair, he even looked like a Yorkshireman. The Bodger was charmed and refreshed by the thought; so many Yorkshiremen he had met did not play cricket, just as so many Welshmen could not sing or play rugby football.
    ‘What’s your name?’ The Bodger asked.
    ‘Bingley, sir. John Bingley. From Bingley. In Yorkshire, sir.’
    ‘Isn’t that where Len Hutton comes from?’
    ‘Sir Leonard Hootton, sir,’ Bingley said, sharply. ‘No, that’s Poodsey, sir.’
    ‘Ah. And you play a lot of cricket, do you, Bingley?’
    ‘Oh yes. I’ve played it all me life. Love it. My father once had a trial for Yorkshire, sir.’
    ‘Ah,’ said The Bodger, recognising that in Bingley and in Pudsey, that was better than being a Knight of the Garter.
    The scorer was a coal-black Gromboolian.
    ‘What’s your name?’ The Bodger asked him.
    ‘Bombulada, sir.’
    ‘And where are you from?’
    ‘Nigeria, sir.’
    ‘Do you play cricket at home?’
    ‘Oh yes, sir, all the time.’
    ‘All the time? Why do you play it all the time?’
    ‘Well, sir, we dress eleven players in white flannels, sir, and put six wooden stumps in the ground a certain distance apart, and then one of the players picks up a little red ball and then the witch-doctor shouts “play”, sir.’
    Bombulada paused and looked at The Bodger.
    ‘Yes?’ said The Bodger helplessly, though already