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
