on itself by reason of its very marginality. Its manifest features, streams, copses, isolated and venerable elms, mean nothing any longer, indeed, they are only there at all to provide bearings from which the combatants can get their range. Albert’s long body unwinds and rewinds, and, as he unwinds again, he feels in every fibre the perfection of the stroke — the mashie niblick, he also, both might have been made for this moment alone. Cheer-o, Mayhew mutters — the three of them, the caddies and hangers-on too, are all floating away with the air ball, which mounts and mounts the pneumatic column for a long while, then poises, then drops. All anticipate the hippertihop on the green, the white scut of the invisible coney — yet there is nothing. It appears, Mayhew says as they go on, that you too have come a cropper. Arbuthnot smiles his lipless toady smile — my anger amuses him! And it all unfolds as Albert foresaw: the caddy wading in the mucky mere diverted from the stream, while Mayhew, increasingly intemperate, paces the bank, yelping commands. It isn’t until Arbuthnot places a weighty hand on his shoulder that he settles down, accepts the two penalty strokes and the new ball. While the two of them play up to the green Albert stalks its hinterland, parting quiff after quiff of grass, each time seeing only what he expects: a straggle of old beech mast, a catkin, a strewing of parched sheep shot . .Albert disdains hisown self-doubt, although it remains important that it be one of the others — although not necessarily Mayhew — who, on withdrawing the pin to retrieve his own ball, cries out in astonishment, Oh, I say! before stooping to pluck out the second that lies coddled in the cup and calling to Albert: Does yours have a mark that you recall? Albert calls back hoarsely, Three hearts! He hears not Arbuthnot’s terse congratulation or Mayhew’s feigned one — he ignores the ragged cheers of caddies and hangers-on, he strides on to the next tee, releases the ratchet, swings the bipod forward, tightens the ratchet, settles into his stance, grips the club, flicks his eyes to the horizon, clicks the springloaded wheel to select the range, cranks the handle and lays down covering fire, beneath which he can advance his reputation. Two birdies in succession — an eagle at the 12th. If the first half of the match was distinguished by a terrible stasis as Albert’s imposture held them all in check, now there is a delirious release into mobile warfare, as the trio quarter the remaining area of the course, then quarter it again. Pigeons hang in the hawthorn beside the 17th tee, their bodies quite disgustingly plump writhing amidst the thorns. It is stand to, and to the west the sun seeps through watery cloud, to the east all the Mary Annes and Mays in the villas of Castlebar Hill and Drayton Green poke the banked-down ranges with care: coal must be brought home by pram, a half-hundredweight at a time. Already the flow of commuters back from the station is choked off by death — while smoke rises from chimneypots and streams madder towards the next dawn. A sudden spring shower silvering slates — and on the 18th tee stands Mayhew, pushing away the brolly his cabby has taken from his bag and opened. — No, man, I cannot see from under it. There is the pull and then the pull again of mud on Albert’s boots as they walk towards the clubhouse — clods of ire fall away and he is inclined to leniency. As they wait their turns to use the boot scraper, Mayhew and Arbuthnot pay off their caddies with the florins and half-crowns in their waistcoat pockets before withdrawing wallets from animal-damp tweed. Astonishing, Mayhew says as he hands over the pound note, what was it in the end — six, seven strokes? Albert is succinct: Fourteen. Mayhew flutes ruefully, And all achieved with two clubs — no driver, and no putter either. . Still — he dabs his pantomime moustache — some might argue that only having two makes things easier, choosing the right club being part of the skill. . of. . the game. . He falls silent. Albert accepts Arbuthnot’s pound note and handshakes from both men — he leans on his spoon and mashie niblick the Norwegian at the Pole, while the hip flask is passed amongst them, then he uses the niblick’s head to ease out the muddy slug trapped in the right-angle of heel and sole. I shall take the position at Woolwich, he says, each word lightly slapping Mayhew’s rain-washed cheeks, the shell crisis needs must be addressed. Incarnadined, Mayhew’s face is a wound suffused with indignant hurt: And you. . you’re the man for the task — you believe? Yes, Albert says, that’s precisely what I believe. — He leaves them there, and, grabbing his jacket from the hook in the changing room, strides off to Hanwell Station, the shafts of the clubs grinding in his blistered hand. At Paddington he realises the weather has closed in in earnest, when, making his way along the platform, he has to dodge this way, then that, to avoid the tips of umbrella struts that snipe for his eyes — the enemy of the tall man in this crowded stone trench. Three ladies lurk by the ticket barrier — the youngest steps forward and stares at him boldly from the black-straw grotto of her hat. Albert notes her fashionably short skirt, she has slim ankles — les attaches fines, the French would say — she says, Shirker, which he affects not to hear. Shirker, she says again, struggling to contain herself as she is tossed from the hand of righteousness to that of decorum. . which drops the catch. She drums her gloved hands on his chest. Now, now! Her older companion a chinless drab restrains her by the hips and happily. You’ve only to give it to him, Lucy. The third of their party ashamed, possibly? taps the platform to one side of her boots and then the other with the point of an umbrella Albert recognises as having been manufactured by the company with which his sister holds a position. This sturdy body is hatless — or rather her hair, worn in a Mikado tuck-up, is her hat. What’s this! And this?! his assailant cries, but Albert, while perfectly aware of what is transpiring, remains powerless to intervene: he treads water some way off, looking back at the tall, limber young man, the golf clubs in one of his hands, the skirt of his cricketing pullover visible between the flaps of his jacket, and the muddy spatter on his trews which are still tucked into his stockings. — Do you not see yourself, my fine fellow — d’you not? There are brave men dying at Ypres, while you — you. . Albert considers the third woman’s movements to be mysterious, almost ritualised: the way her divided skirts sway as she taps the platform here, then there. Were this peacetime, someone might intervene, as it is he imagines that the passers-by — who hurry on, faces averted, cold grey gabardine shoulders rain-shot — have delegated this task, for they have more pressing ones: lager beers to be poured away into the gutter of Charlottenstrasse, cuckoo clocks torn from the walls of cafés and unceremoniously unwound, the complicated filigree of a Beethoven sonata somehow picked apart . .Miss. . Albert begins, he can feel the sharp corner of the Minister’s letter in his breast pocket and wonders whether he should withdraw it with a flourish. However, he who is typically so attentive is lost for now in the steam and the smutty smoke that lies in a bank above them, ill omened by the occasional gasolier — up there rainwater cascades over the glass curves of the roof, alongside there is the flesh-eating clank of buffers marrying. Somehow a long white feather has flown into his hand. Propping the clubs against his belly, Albert takes his time examining it, running his fingertips along its