Read Online The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson - Free Book Online Page B

round it. But our frail human forwards are too light for those great Martian thugs. We can’t possibly hold them. Our only hope is to heel out quickly before they can crush us against the sides of the crater. It doesn’t take Charlie Marx, our scrum-half, long to twig this, and as we peer down over the lip we can hear his harsh bark of “Heel! You teufels! Heel in the name of History!” And heel they do, but only just in time. As Charlie Marx gathers the ovoid from Bismarck’s boot, our front line breaks and the Martian phalanx comes crashing through. Marx slings it back to Fred Engels, his fly-half. Then he’s down in a sea of boots and backsides. “You’ve got to hand it to old Charlie,” says Tommy Prenderghast, “he may he nasty tempered but he’s the nippiest scrum-half in this world or the next. Well, we’d better be heading for Goal. Can I give you chums a lift?”
    But Fred Engels has seen it coming and had time to get his life-line organized. He passes it up to Gladstone who makes a present of it to Blondin. And before you can say “I told you so”, Blondin’s away out on his tight-rope with the Giant Ball at his feet. It’s a great moment, one of the greatest in the history of the game. The field is in a frenzy and the Band can think of no more fitting token than to strike up the Second Movement of the Supersonic Symphony, which brings down the other half of the stand.
    We’re out of the crater but still on the defensive. Unfortunately, it’s not been possible to fix Blondin’s tight-rope to a strategic point, and he has to find touch. Still, we recover a good bit of ground, and it’s a lovely run of Blondin’s, especially when you remember that for the last five miles he’s being worried by a pack of pterodactyls loosed from a string-bag by a Martian bobby-soxer.
    At the line-out it’s our ball, but it falls into bad hands. Stavisky catches it and passes it to Bottomley, Bottomley to Jabez Balfour, Jabez Balfour to Charlie Peace, and Charlie Peace to Jonathan Wild, losing ground all the way. Jonathan Wild slings a long one to Judas Iscariot, who sells the pass to the Martian Threequarter line, and they get into their stride. For a surrealist football-fan, no doubt it’s a lovely sight to see this far-flung line of giants racing across the jet-black surface of the Moon with the Ball flashing from one wing to the other and back again. For us, who’re supposed to stop them, it’s slightly different. I’m too busy taking notes of shirkers’ names myself; but Engelbrecht insists on showing what he’s made of. With a grunt of defiance he hurls himself through the air and catches hold of a Martian Three Q’s bootlace. He hangs on like grim death, taking fearful punishment as he’s dragged over the lava.
    There’s nothing to stop them now except Salvador Dali, our Full Back. Some of us doubt the wisdom of our skipper’s choice of such an avant-garde type for such a die-hard position. But we’ve got to hand it to old Salvador. He tries Everything. As a last attempt to stop them he even camouflages the Goal Posts as a Giant Gallows with some very tasty objects from his studio strung up from the cross-bar. Neither—though some of his less charitable team-mates say this is because he’s got stuck in the chest of drawers with which he’s been protecting his person— does he flinch from the ultimate sacrifice of a flying tackle. Useless, of course. A brief splintering crash. Then the Martian Three Q touches down between the goal posts.
    As we all crowd together in the Goal Mouth there’s a multitude of doleful faces such as never was seen since the Last Trump. I’ve just handed in my list when Charlie Wapentake jogs my arm and points to the Id and Chippy de Zoete chatting to Pierpoint, the Public Executioner. We know what that means. Somebody’s going to swing for it.
    The Martians convert and we migrate back to midfield. Soon after the kick-off Vivekananda finds touch. But our luck’s