CHAPTER ONE: THE FLAG COMPETITION

"SAY what you like," protested Farmer, "it isn't playing the game."

"What isn't?" asked Neave.

"Deliberately missing a foot putt so that your partner has to sink it and you get the next drive. Escott says it's permissible and I say it's jolly near cheating."

"I thought the partners drove at alternate holes," said Bruce.

"Not in a flag competition," explained Farmer. "You carry straight on. So when one holes out the other has the drive. The fellow purposely missed his putt. Owned up to it. The girl sank it and he got the next tee shot. Decent people don't do such things."

"Who did it?" asked someone else.

"Hann. He was partnering Vera King. Not her fault. I was playing with Maureen Hobart and at the fourteenth both balls were a foot from the pin. I holed out, but Hann deliberately missed. Played to the side so that his partner had to play again."

"Cost them a stroke," said Major Escott.

"Yes, but it gave him the drive at 'Hell.' Put it on the green and they got a three."

"What happened to you?" asked Broughley.

"Maureen went into the far bunker--into a heel mark too. Took us three to get out. Down in six. But what happened to us is not the point. I say it was a dirty dodge. It isn't cricket." Henry Farmer undoubtedly felt very much annoyed about it.

"There you are wrong," declared Escott. "Whether it is golf or not, it most certainly is cricket. The better player runs one instead of two at the end of the over to keep the bowling. Do you blame him?"

"Not quite the same," said Dean. "At cricket you are out to make a high score and at golf a low one. If all my centuries at golf had been made at cricket I should be near the top of the averages! I agree with Farmer that to miss a putt purposely is not playing the game."

"But it's the fellow's own loss," remarked Broughley.

"Not when it's done deliberately to get the next drive," said Farmer.

"Have you never played short at a bunker for safety?" demanded Escott. "What's the difference?"

"A great deal. You play short at a bunker to make sure of doing the hole in as few as possible. You hope to save something with the next shot."

"Pretty much what Hann did," remarked Neave.

"To miss deliberately violates the whole principle of a mixed foursome," asserted Farmer.

"You might say it violates the principle of bridge," remarked someone else, "to trump your partner's ace. But it may be a sound thing if you want the lead."

"Bridge is a matter of tricks," retorted Farmer. "Golf should not be."

Others joined in the wrangle and got quite warm about it. The smoking room of the Barrington Golf Club, like many others of its kind, was rather pleased when some novel point arose in connection with the game and could be discussed from all angles. Several of the members agreed with Farmer that his opponent had violated the spirit of the game, while others held with Major Escott that it was a matter of tactics and perfectly permissible.

"What is your opinion, Ross?" asked Broughley at last, turning to the man at his side who had been listening in silence to the argument. "You are a lawyer so you ought to be able to tell us."

"Rather depends which party briefs me," laughed Ross. He was a big fellow, dark, with shrewd, observant eyes and a mouth lined by smiles. But it could be stiff and severe enough on occasion. "I suppose each pair has a handicap and you see who can carry the flag furthest?"

"That's right," said Farmer. "Bogey is seventy-two. My partner and I got eight strokes and had to go as far as possible in eighty. Hann is scratch and his partner sixteen, so they also got eight. We were all playing well and there was nothing between us except at 'Hell.' We picked up the flag at the eighteenth and at the twentieth my partner and I had still one shot to go and they had two. I hit a beauty--two hundred yards. No--it was more than that. Must have been at least--"

"Stop!" said Dean. "That, anyway, breaks the rules of golf."

"What do you mean?"  demanded Farmer.

"The rule distinctly says you must not do anything to improve a lie!"

There was a general laugh and Farmer looked annoyed at the frivolous interruption of his story.

"Anyway," he said testily, "I outdrove Hann, but Vera had the extra shot and put it fifty yards past us. The trick at the fourteenth and our trouble in 'Hell' just made the difference. No one is likely to go further. I don't care a bit about the prize, but for a competition to be won in such a way is not sporting."

"Well," smiled Ross, "I have to pretend to know something of the laws of England, but I never pose as an expert on the laws of golf. Yet, honestly, I cannot see where your grouse comes in. You all get strokes and have to use them to the best advantage. If you think it will pay you to throw one away on the chance of making good later--why not? Suppose your opponent, when he got the drive, had put his partner into 'Hell,' you would have laughed at him--gave away a shot and got nothing for it. As it was his policy paid. Nothing unfair in it. He took a chance and it came off."

Farmer still looked dissatisfied and, to end the matter amicably, Ross went on:

"I always remember your 'Hell,' though I have only played here once before. One of your chaps made a very neat remark. It was a four-ball. Broughley was my partner and was the only one of us to stop on the green. Our opponents called it a fluke. 'No,' said Broughley, 'I used my head.' 'Oh,' said one of the others, 'I never take wood at a short hole.'"

Again there was a general laugh; golfers are easily amused; but Farmer was unappeased. "Had it not been for that," he muttered, "we should have led the field."

"That is where you are wrong, old son. The flag is now planted a hundred yards past where you left it."

A newcomer, Philip Chase, made the announcement as he walked towards the seats occupied by Broughley and Ross.

"Who by?" asked several voices.

"Crosbie and Miss Escott. Congratulations, Escott. Your girl played a wonderful game."

"Must have done," said the major. "Never does when she partners me. Crosbie must have been pretty hot too."

"He was, and my partner and I kept them going. But they sunk an approach at the eighteenth and so gained one on us." Then he turned to Broughley and his friend. "Hullo, Ross, you down again? That's good. You must give me another game." He dropped his voice to a whisper and added, "Come over here. I want to tell you about it."

Something in his manner made them think he meant more than the recapitulation of the events of the round, though many men can make a long story of that! They followed him across the room.

"Have a drink," he added.

To this there was even less objection and they took their glasses out to the veranda.

"It was the queerest game ever," he murmured as they sat down in a quiet corner. "Who did you draw for partner, Broughley?"

"Miss Anderson. We ended on the seventeenth green."

"I drew Miss Wilton. A friend of yours, isn't she?

"She is," said Bill.

"Well, Crosbie drew Maidie Escott. He told me before we went out that he didn't know Miss Wilton. So on the first tee I introduced them. They stared at one another as though they had both been stung. Then they said 'How d'ye do,' in the coldest possible manner and, believe me, those were the only words they spoke on the whole round."

"I don't blame anyone," said Broughley, "for not being chatty with Crosbie."

"Maybe not," returned Chase, "but there's more to it than that. At the start it looked as though for some reason they were both going to play atrociously. Crosbie had the first drive and he missed it altogether. Think of that for the fancied man for the captain's prize! I hit a decent one, but Miss Wilton did an air shot for our second. Looked pretty grim. They each did another foozle and then there was a change. Pulled themselves together and played about as perfect golf as I have ever seen. Maidie was jolly good and it was the toughest game I've known for ages. And hardly a word spoken all the way."

"Concentration," said Ross. "You should try it. What happened at 'Hell’?”

"Crosbie had to drive against Miss Wilton. Got a beauty, two yards from the pin. He gave her a devilish look. "Beat that if you can!" He didn't say it aloud, but one felt it. And she did beat it. Hers stopped dead and we both got two's."

"That's a help," said Ross. "Farmer was very sore over his six."

"Didn't you talk at all?" asked Broughley. "Rather unlike you!"

"Somehow one couldn't talk much. I asked my partner if she had met Crosbie before and she said No. But the way she snapped it out seemed to mean a lot. If you put that question to a girl in the ordinary way she says, 'No, where does he come from? What is he? He seems very pleasant.' or something like that. But Miss Wilton said nothing at all. Yet I would swear she knows all she wants to about him."

"And that probably is too much," said Broughley. "What had Crosbie to...