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and that was that. I said it was an excellent sign and in future he should take more advantage of such opportunities.
    Leeping meanwhile had a second meeting with Doig while we were away in Oxford (he says Mrs Catesby is really quite charming) that did not go so smoothly: he says he thinks Doig is becoming suspicious of him already. ‘Why on earth?’ I said. ‘He couldn’t wait to convert you.’ ‘I think the problem is because I have no doubts,’ Ben said. So I told him all he had to do was develop some doubts and Bob’s your uncle. But he couldn’t think of any convincing doubts, he said; he had no idea what a potential convert to Roman Catholicism would be doubtful about and so has asked me to suggest some. I think Transubstantiation is too obvious, safer to go with Purgatory and Hell, perhaps. Hell is always a bit of a poser. I’ll come up with something, something doctrinally meaty to soothe Doig, keep him happy.
    My own progress continues with some genuine triumph. This afternoon’s house league match between Soutar’s and O’Connor’s was watched by both Younger and Brodrick (who’s also in the First XV). Towards the middle of the second half of an unexceptional game (we were leading 11-3) in which I’d done nothing of any real note, I was suddenly passed the ball and as I received it was upended in a tackle and dumped on my head. I must have been knocked out briefly because everything went black and, when I came to, play had moved on to the other end of the field on the O’Connor line.
    I rose to my feet feeling suddenly nauseous and groggy, and, just as I did so, there was a break-out counter-attack from the O’Connor line in the shape of a fly-hack ahead. A whole group of forwards came pounding towards me, booting and dribbling the ball onwards as they went. Our full-back (a weedy fellow called Gilbert) tried to pounce on the ball and, naturally, missed, leaving me as the last line of defence.
    I think I must have still been slightly stunned because, to my perception, everything appeared to be happening with precise and logical slowness. I could see the mass of O’Connor forwards thundering on and was aware of our team scampering back trying to make up lost ground. There was a big black-haired brute of a man leading the O’Connor charge who kicked the ball too eagerly in front of him and I saw, with absolute clarity, what I had to do. Somehow I urged my legs into action, ran forward and, just as he was about to kick the ball again, fell upon it and gathered it into my arms.
    I heard the crack but felt no pain. I hugged the ball to my chest as bodies thudded heavily on top of me. The whistle blew. The big O’Connor forward (Hopkins? Pugh? Lewkovitch? — I can’t remember his name) was sobbing and moaning — he had broken his leg, badly: the normally straight line of his right shin below his sock now had a distorted kink in it. And blood, I quickly realized, was also streaming down my face. I managed to clamber to my feet and the referee tried to staunch the flow with his handkerchief as urgent calls were made for a stretcher to carry the injured man off. The game was abandoned.
    At dinner this evening an ironic cheer went up from the house when I came in, my head bandaged (four stitches). It was not my own injury that drew the admiration of my fellows so much as the damage I had inadvertently done to my opponent. ‘He broke the other man’s leg, clean through’ was the real symbol of my temporary renown rather than ‘He received a nasty gash above the eye’. Once again there was much gleeful banter about my alleged insanity, my death wish, my suicidal desire to die on the rugby field.
    After dinner, Younger approached: I am to turn up for Second XV training as soon as the wound is healed. I can hardly believe that two matches were all it took to advance this far up the rugby ladder, but there you are — perhaps the school team needs an insane hooker. However, a vague worry has started up