The fouling Manchester forward immediately resumed possession of the
ball. Experience could not teach him. He parted with the ball and got it
again, twice. The devil was in him and in the ball. The devil was
driving him towards Myatt. They met. And then came a sound quite new: a
cracking sound, somewhat like the snapping of a bough, but sharper, more
decisive.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Stirling. "That's his bone!"
And instantly he was off down the staircase and I after him. But he was
not the first doctor on the field. Nothing had been unforeseen in the
wonderful organization of this enterprise. A pigeon sped away and an
official doctor and an official stretcher appeared, miraculously,
simultaneously. It was tremendous. It inspired awe in me.
"He asked for it!" I heard a man say as I hesitated on the shore of the
ocean of mud.
Then I knew that it was Manchester and not Knype that had suffered. The
confusion and hubbub were in a high degree disturbing and puzzling. But
one emotion emerged clear: pleasure. I felt it myself. I was aware of
joy in that the two sides were now levelled to ten men apiece. I was
mystically identified with the Five Towns, absorbed into their life.
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