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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
the rest of the day wondering gloomily what I ought to have
done – and I am wondering yet.
I have had two unusual experiences upon Lord’s ground.
One was that I got a century in the very fi rst match that
I played there. It was an unimportant game, it is true, but still
the surprising fact remained. It was a heavy day, and my bat,
still encrusted with the classic mud, hangs as a treasured relic
in my hall. The other was less pleasant and even more surprising. I was playing for the Club against Kent, and faced for the
fi rst time Bradley, who was that year one of the fastest bowlers
in England. His fi rst delivery I hardly saw, and it landed with
a terrifi c thud upon my thigh. A little occasional pain is one of
the chances of cricket, and one takes it as cheerfully as one can,
but on this occasion it suddenly became sharp to an unbearable degree. I clapped my hand to the spot, and found to my
amazement that I was on fi re. The ball had landed straight on
a small tin vesta box in my trousers pocket, had splintered the
box, and set the matches ablaze. It did not take me long to turn
out my pocket and scatter the burning vestas over the grass.
I should have thought this incident unique, but Alec Hearne,
to whom I told it, assured me that he had seen more than one
accident of the kind. W. G. was greatly amused. “Couldn’t get
you out – had to set you on fi re!” he cried, in the high voice
which seemed so queer from so big a body.
There are certain matches which stand out in one’s memory for their peculiar surroundings. One was a match played
against Cape de Verde at that island on the way to South Africa.
There is an Atlantic telegraph station there with a large staff,
and they turn out an excellent eleven. I understand that they
361
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
played each transport as it passed, and that they had defeated
all, including the Guards. We made up a very fair team, however, under the captaincy of Lord Henry Scott, and after a hard
fi ght we defeated the islanders. I don’t know how many of our
eleven left their bones in South Africa; three at least – Blasson,
Douglas Forbes (who made our top score), and young Maxwell
Craig never returned. I remember one even more tragic match
in which I played for the IncognitI against Aldershot Division
a few months before the African War. The regiments quartered
there were those which afterwards saw the hardest service. Major Ray, who made the top score, was killed at Magersfontein.
Young Stanley, who went in fi rst with me, met his death in the
Yeomanry. Taking the two teams right through, I am sure that
half the men were killed or wounded within two years. How
little we could have foreseen it that sunny summer day!
It is dangerous when an old cricketer begins to reminisce,
because so much comes back to his mind. He has but to smell
the hot rubber of a bat handle to be fl ooded with memories.
They are not always glorious. I remember three ladies coming
to see me play against one of the Bedford schools. The boys
politely applauded as I approached the wicket. A very small
boy lobbed up the fi rst ball which I played at. It went up into
the air, and was caught at point by the very smallest boy I have
ever seen in decent cricket. It seemed to me about a mile as
I walked back from the wicket to the pavilion. I don’t think
those three ladies ever recovered their confi dence in my cricketing powers.
As a set-off to this confession of failure let me add a small
instance of success, where by “taking thought” I saved a mi-
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
nor international match. It was at the Hague in 1892, and
the game was a wandering British team against Holland. The
Dutch were an excellent sporting lot, and had one remarkable
bowler in Posthuma, a left-hander, who had so huge a break
with his slow ball that it was not uncommon for him to pitch
the ball right outside the matting on which we played and yet
bring it on to the wicket. We won our various local matches
without much diffi culty, but we were aware that we should
have a stiff fi ght with United Holland, the more so as Dutch
hospitality was almost as dangerous to our play as Dutch
cricket.
So it proved, and we were in the position that with four
wickets in hand they had only fi fteen runs to make with two
batsmen well set. I had not bowled during the tour, for as
we were a scratch team, mostly from the schoolmaster class,
we did not know each other’s capacity. Seeing, however, that
things were getting desperate, I went the length of asking our
skipper to give me a chance.
I had observed that the batsmen had been very well taught
by their English professional, and that they all played in most
orthodox fashion with a perfectly straight bat. That was why
I thought I might get them out. I brought every fi elder round
to the off, for I felt that they would not think it correct to pull,
and I tossed up good length balls about a foot on the off side. It
came off exactly as I expected. The pro. had not told them what
to do with that particular sort of tosh, and the four men were
all caught for as many runs by mid-off or cover. The team in
their exultation proceeded to carry me into the pavilion, but
whether it was my sixteen stone or the heat of the weather,
363
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
they tired of the job midway and let me down with a crash
which shook the breath out of me – so Holland was avenged.
I played against them again when they came to England, and
made sixty-seven, but got no wickets, for they had mastered
the off-side theory.
Some of my quaintest cricket reminiscences are in connection with J. M. Barrie’s team – the “Allah-Akbarries,” or “Lord
help us” as we were called. We played in the old style, caring
little about the game and a good deal about a jolly time and
pleasant scenery. Broadway, the country home of Mr. Navarro
and his wife, formerly Mary Anderson, the famous actress, was
one of our favourite haunts, and for several years in succession we played the Artists there. Bernard Partridge, Barrie, A.
E. W. Mason, Abbey the Academician, Blomfi eld the architect,
Marriott Watson, Charles Whibley, and others of note took
part, and there were many whimsical happenings, which were
good fun if they were not good cricket. I thought all record of
our games had faded from human ken, but lately a controversy
was raised over Mr. Armstrong, the Australian captain, bowling the same man from opposite ends on consecutive overs.
This led to the following paragraph in a Birmingham paper,
which, I may say, entirely exaggerates my powers but is otherwise correct.
“BARRIE AND ARMSTRONG.
“I am not surprised that in the matter of Mr. Armstrong’s
conduct in bowling two consecutive overs from different
ends, no reference has been made to the important precedent
which on a similar occasion Sir James Barrie failed to establish (writes a correspondent of the ‘Nation’). The occasion was
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
his captaincy (at Broadway, in Worcestershire) of an eleven
of writers against a strong team of alleged artists. The circumstances were these. One side had compiled seventy-two runs,
chiefl y, if not wholly, contributed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
“The sun-worshippers had thereupon responded with an
equal number of runs for the loss of all but their last wicket.
The ninth wicket had fallen to the last ball of Sir Arthur’s over,
the other eight having succumbed to the same performer, then
in his prime. Actuated, apparently, by the belief that Sir Arthur was the only bowler of his side capable of taking or reaching a wicket, even in Worcestershire, Sir James thereupon put
him on at the opposite end.
“Before, however, he could take a practice ball, a shout was
heard from the artists’ pavilion, and the nine unengaged players were seen issuing from it to contest our captain’s decision.
After an exciting contest, it was ultimately given in their favour, with the result that the fi rst ball of the new bowler was
hit for two, assisted by overthrows, and the innings and match
were won by the artists.”
Of Barrie’s team I remember that it was printed at the bottom of our cards that the practice ground was in the “National
Observer” Offi ce. Mr. Abbey, the famous artist, usually captained against Barrie, and it was part of the agreement that
each should have a full pitch to leg just to start his score. I remember my horror when by mistake I bowled a straight fi rst
ball to Abbey, and so broke the unwritten law as well as the
wicket. Abbey knew nothing of the game, but Barrie was no
novice. He bowled an insidious left-hand good length ball
coming from leg which was always likely to get a wicket.
365
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Talking of bowling, I have twice performed the rare feat
of getting all ten wickets. Once it was against a London Club,
and once I ran through the side of a Dragoon Regiment at
Norwich. My best performance at Lords was seven wickets for
fi fty-one against Cambridgeshire in 1904.
Of fencing my experience has been limited, and yet I have
seen enough to realize what a splendid toughening exercise
it is. I nearly had an ugly mishap when practising it. I had visited a medical man in Southsea who was an expert with the
foils, and at his invitation had a bout with him. I had put on
the mask and glove, but was loath to have the trouble of fastening on the heavy chest plastron. He insisted, however, and
his insistence saved me from an awkward wound, for, coming
in heavily upon a thrust, his foil broke a few inches from the
end, and the sharp point thus created went deeply into the pad
which covered me. I learned a lesson that day.
On the whole, considering the amount of varied sport
which I have done, I have come off very well as regards bodily
injury. One fi nger broken at football, two at cricket (one after
the other in the same season), the disablement of my knee –
that almost exhausts it. Though a heavy man and quite an indifferent rider, I have never hurt myself in a fair selection of
falls in the hunting fi eld and elsewhere. Once, as I have narrated, when I was down, the horse kicked me over the eye with
his forefoot, but I got off with a rather ragged wound, though
it might have been very much more serious.
Indeed, when it comes to escapes, I have had more than my
share of luck. One of the worst was in a motor accident, when
the machine, which weighed over a ton, ran up a high bank,
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
threw me out on a gravel drive below, and then, turning over,
fell upon the top of me. The steering wheel projected slightly from the rest, and thus broke the impact and undoubtedly
saved my life, but it gave way under the strain, and the weight
of the car settled across my spine just below the neck, pinning
my face down on the gravel, and pressing with such terrifi c
force as to make it impossible to utter a sound. I felt the weight
getting heavier moment by moment, and wondered how long
my vertebrae could stand it. However, they did so long enough
to enable a crowd to collect and the car to be levered off me.
I should think there are few who can say that they have held
up a ton weight across their spine and lived unparalyzed to talk
about it. It is an acrobatic feat which I have no desire to repeat.
There is plenty of sport in driving one’s own motor and
meeting the hundred and one unexpected roadside adventures and diffi culties which are continually arising. These were
greater a few years ago, when motors were themselves less solidly and accurately constructed, drivers were less skilled, and
frightened horses were more in evidence. No invention of
modern civilization has done so much for developing a man’s
power of resource and judgment as the motor. To meet and
overcome a sudden emergency is the best of human training,
and if a man is his own driver and mechanician on a fairly
long journey he can hardly fail to have some experience of it.
I well remember in the early days of motoring going up to
Birmingham to take delivery of my new 12 horse-power Wolseley. I had invested in the sort of peaked yachting cap which
was considered the correct badge of the motorist in those days,
but as I paced the plat-form of New Street Station a woman
367
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
removed any conceit I might have over my headgear, by asking
me peremptorily how the trains ran to Walsall. She took me
for one of the offi cials. I got the car safely home, and no doubt
it was a good car as things went at that time, but the secret of
safe brakes had not yet been discovered, and my pair used to
break as if they were glass. More than once I have known what
it is to steer a car when it is fl ying backwards under no control down a winding hill. Looking back at those days it seems
to me that I was under the car nearly as much as on the top
of it, for every repair had to be done from below. There were
few accidents from smashing my differential, seizing my engines, and stripping my gears, which I have not endured. It was
a chain-driven machine, and I can well remember one absurd
incident when the chain jumped the cogs and fell off. We were
on a long slope of 3 miles and ran on with the engine turned
off quite unconscious of what had occurred. When we reached
level ground the car naturally stopped, and we got out, opened
the bonnet, tested the electricity, and were utterly puzzled as
to what was amiss, when a yokel in a cart arrived waving our
motive power over his head. He had picked it up on the road.
Our descendants will never realize the terror of the horses
at this innovation, nor the absurd scenes which it caused. On
one occasion I was motoring down a narrow lane in Norfolk,
with my mother in the open tonneau. Coming round a curve
we came upon two carts, one behind the other. The leading horse, which had apparently never seen a motor before,
propped his forelegs out, his ears shot forward, his eyes stared
rigidly and then in a moment he whirled round, ran up the
bank, and tried to escape behind his comrade. This he could
368
MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
have done but for the cart, which he also dragged up the bank.
Horse and cart fell sideways on the other horse and cart, and
there was such a mixture that you could not disentangle it.
The carts were full of turnips and these formed a top dressing
over the interlaced shafts and the struggling horses. I sprang
out and was trying to help the enraged farmer to get something right end up, when I glanced at my own car which was
almost involved in the pile. There was my dear old mother sitting calmly knitting in the midst of all the chaos. It was really
like something in a dream.
My most remarkable motor car experience was when
I drove my own 16 horse-power Dietrich-Lorraine in the International Road Competition organized by Prince Henry of
Prussia in 1911. This affair is discussed later, when I come to
the preludes of war. I came away from it with sinister forebodings. The impression left on my mind by the whole incident is
shown by the fact that one of the fi rst things I did when I got to
London was to recommend a fi rm of which I am director to remove a large sum which it had lying in Berlin. I have no doubt
that it would have continued to lie there and that we might
have lost it. As to the contest itself it ended in a British victory, which was owing to the staunch way in which we helped
each other when in diffi culties, while the Germans were more
a crowd of individuals than a team. Their cars were excellent
and so was their driving. My own little car did very well and
only dropped marks at Sutton Bank in Yorkshire, that terrible
hill, one in three at one point, with a hair-pin bend. When we
fi nally panted out our strength I put my light-weight chauffeur to the wheel, ran round, and fairly boosted her up from
369
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
behind, but we were fi ned so many marks for my leaving the
driving wheel. Not to get up would have meant three times the
forfeit, so my tactics were well justifi ed.
No doubt the coming science of aviation will develop the
same qualities as motor driving to an even higher degree. It Is
a form of sport in which I have only aspirations and little experience. I had one balloon ascent in which we covered some
25 miles and ascended 6,000 feet, which was so delightful
an expedition that I have always been eager for another and
a longer one. A man has a natural trepidation the fi rst time
he leaves the ground, but I remember that, as I stood by the
basket with the gas-bag swinging about above me and the assistants clinging to the ropes, some one pointed out an elderly
gentleman and said: “That is the famous Mr. So-and-So, the
aeronaut.” I saw a venerable person and I asked how many ascents he had made.
“About a thousand,” was the answer. No eloquence or reasoning could have convinced me so completely that I might
get into the basket with a cheerful mind, though I will admit that for the fi rst minute or so one feels very strange, and
keeps an uncommonly tight grip of the side-ropes. This soon
passes, however, and one is lost in the wonder of the prospect
and the glorious feeling of freedom and detachment. As in
a ship, it is the moment of nearing land once more which is
the moment of danger – or, at least, of discomfort; but beyond
a bump or two, we came to rest very quietly in the heart of
a Kentish hop-fi eld.
I had one aeroplane excursion in rather early days, but the
experience was not entirely a pleasant one. Machines were un-
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