A Javelin for Jonah

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