Interference and Other Football Stories Part 22

Employing a crus.h.i.+ng style of attack, directed furiously and unmercifully at the lighter Elliott line--Delmar commenced her first march toward a touchdown. It took just five plays to put the ball across despite the most heroic efforts of Elliott to resist Delmar's steam roller offensive. Delmar added the point after touch down by a kick from placement, giving her an early lead of 7 to 0.

Convinced now that they were in for the witnessing of a ma.s.sacre, the stands sat dejectedly considering how foolish it had been to hope that the late John Brown's eleven could possibly prove a match for Delmar--cream of the country's football teams. There were some who even callously began to remark, as Delmar launched her second ground-gaining onslaught against Elliott, that Providence had been kind to John Brown in calling him home, thus saving the great coach from the ignominy of seeing his last efforts crowned by a crus.h.i.+ng and devastating defeat.

But pa.s.sing such quick judgment upon Elliott was hardly fair in the light of the terrific strain under which the eleven was playing.

Temporarily shot to pieces by the disheartening fumble, it was not until Delmar had swept into Elliott territory again that John Brown's team found itself enough to brace and rock the stadium with the thrill of stopping Delmar's smas.h.i.+ng advance by taking the ball on downs!

Even this sudden flare-up of spirited defense was lightly regarded by the stands who saw in Elliott's improved play but the last spent effort of a dying ember whose light is always brightest before it fades into oblivion. And Tim Mooney's fifty yard punt, putting Elliott out of danger for the time being, was the ember at full glow. Delmar would soon get going once more and Elliott would be beaten back until the team, burning itself out against a mightier foe, became as so many ashes underfoot.

But oh, how that ember clung to the light ... and life! All through the first half it persisted, s.h.i.+ning brightest when fanned most by the tempest, and standing out as a bulwark which Delmar, with all her relentless battering, could not surmount. Time upon time Delmar pounded dangerously near Elliott's goal yet each time the Elliott spark of resistance was somehow equal to the occasion with Tim Mooney's toe doing Herculean work toward driving the invaders well back into their own territory from whence they were forced to begin all over again.

Gradually there stole upon the eighty thousand humans the throbbing realization that they were witnessing a sample of raw-handed courage such as men display only when under some great, compelling influence--an influence inspired by a necessity equalling a Marne or an Argonne to them--an influence which cried out above the bruising tide of battle, "They shall not pa.s.s! They shall not pa.s.s!"

Between halves the stands arose and stood two minutes, with heads uncovered and bowed, as a tribute to Coach John Brown's memory. The tribute was of involuntary nature, started by students in the Elliott section and quickly copied by the crowd.

"You're a great team today, boys," was Red Murdock's greeting as the Elliott warriors lurched drunkenly into the clubhouse for their precious ten minutes of rest. The players eyed him soberly, chests heaving, s.h.i.+rts mud-grimed and torn, bodies sore and weary from blocking the path of the Delmar tornado. And Red Murdock, looking them over, felt how hollow would be the saying of another word. He devoted attention instead to treating their various minor hurts and giving an encouraging slap here and there to the back of a man whose shoulders inclined to droop.

Furious at having been held to one lone and practically fluke touchdown, Delmar opened the second half with a drive of even greater power, calculated to put Elliott speedily to rout. The cream of the country's football teams had hammered steadily enough at Elliot's line to have worn it to shreds by now. No other eleven had stood up so long under Delmar's terrific charging and John Brown's team must crack wide open soon. But all through the third quarter, calling upon an almost uncanny reserve force, Elliott managed to stave the enemy off. True, whenever Elliott came into possession of the ball she found herself unable to launch an offensive of her own. This was due to a Delmar line of equal stone-wall quality--a line which had not permitted a touchdown to be scored against it that season. And Elliott was not going to be the first team to do it either. There was humiliation enough for Delmar in the fact that victory was being won by so small a margin.

Going into the last quarter, the stands could notice a perceptible wilting of the Elliott team. There were no expressions of surprise at the sight, only wonderment that John Brown's eleven had withstood the gruelling attack that long. A wave of sympathetic feeling pa.s.sed over the stadium. The crowd did not care to see the pathetic spectacle of a team which had acquitted itself so n.o.bly in the face of odds, crumbling in the final fifteen minutes of play and falling a helpless, exhausted victim to the ravages of a foe already maddened at having been so bitterly repulsed.

Now, as the vast throng looked through half-closed eyes, it saw the mighty Delmar slowly corning into her own. Taking the ball on her forty-two yard mark, Delmar sent her backfield men galloping through holes which began to yawn open in the Elliott defense. Five, ten, fifteen yards were reeled off on every play. Time was called while the Elliott line was patched up by three subst.i.tutes. But with play resumed, the Delmar steam roller continued unaffected on its way, rumbling and pounding over the ground which separated it from the Elliott goal. Six minutes of play remained as the country's leading football eleven drew up for a first down on their stubborn opponent's ten yard line.

"Touchdown, Delmar!" called its six thousand rooters, uttering the first real blast of sound which had come from the stands all day.

Up in the Elliott section a white-lipped girl strained forward, silently intreating. Her face was tear-streaked. There was something desperately compelling about her att.i.tude. The spectre of defeat to her was as grim as the spectre of death. Almost unconsciously her lips parted and she started to sing in a low, wavering voice:

"John Brown's body lies a mould'ring in the grave ..."

Spectators on either side of her looked at the girl queerly as if they thought she had suddenly gone out of her head.

"John Brown's body lies a mould'ring in the grave,"

Now some of the people near her became conscious of a strange, tingling sensation that seemed to cut to their very marrow as the voice, gaining in strength so that it carried out over the stand, repeated once more:

"John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave,"

And, in a magnetic sort of way there arose a spontaneous response of voices from all parts of the stand, joining in on the next line:

"His soul goes marching on!"

Down on the gridiron, their bodies weary from battle, crouched the battered Elliott eleven. The players glanced up curiously as the first swells of the song reached them. Then they were seen to stiffen as the chorus, gaining volume, chanted out to them:

"Glory, glory hallelujah!

Glory, glory, glory hallelujah!

Glory, glory hallelujah!

His soul is marching on."

The Delmar line crashed forward and the man with the ball dashed around the end. But he got little more than started when it seemed as though the entire Elliott team had torn through and nabbed him. There was a roar in the stands and the great crowd was on its feet, men with their heads uncovered, while the song leaped to the lips of all and welled into a mighty dirge as the girl--lifted to the shoulders of those nearby--led by a waving of her arms.

"The stars of heaven are looking kindly down, "The stars of heaven are looking kindly down, The stars of heaven are looking kindly down, On the grave of old John Brown."

A great cheer went up as Elliott, suddenly transformed into men of steel, took the ball on downs and snapped into its first play. Another cheer as Tim Mooney tore through the hitherto invincible Delmar line for fourteen yards. On the next play Mooney charged through for five more.

"Glory, glory hallelujah...!"

As though there had come into each Elliott player a superhuman force, the Delmar team was pushed back and back, resisting stubbornly but ineffectively. It was a driving offensive against time. If Elliott could go over for a touchdown in the three minutes left and kick goal, it could at least earn a tie with the mighty Delmar. On its seventeen yard line Delmar braced desperately. Thirty valuable seconds were taken in two setbacks for a four yard loss. Then Mooney broke through for a run that carried the ball over the goal line. Feverishly the teams lined up for the kick after touchdown.

"He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord, He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord, He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord, His soul........"

And Mooney missed the attempt at goal after touchdown! The song broke into a great heart-broken moan. Score--Delmar 7; Elliott 6. The one stupendously inspired chance gone.

The teams lined up again for the kick-off with Mooney sobbing like a baby at his failure. Delmar kicked ... and the ball settled into Mooney's arms. He started down the field with a grimness born of despair. Past chalk mark after chalk mark he ran while the words of the song, now sung in frenzied fas.h.i.+on, roared in his ears:

"Glory, glory hallelujah!'

His soul is marching on ..."

At Delmar's forty yard line Mooney was stopped. He was thrown heavily after having completed the longest run of the game--fifty yards. The time-keepers consulted their watches. Mooney shouted hysterically at the quarterback ... the quarterback barked a signal ... Mooney lunged back and planted his feet in the rough sod, holding out his hands...

"John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back, John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back, John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back, His soul is marching on!"

Standing on Delmar's forty yard line, as charging Delmar linesmen broke through and plunged at him, Mooney's toe swung up and booted the ball.

As the ball took the air there came the shrill shriek of the time-keeper's whistle.

Then the throbbing notes of the song, swelling on in a burst of fervent hope as the ball turned end over end, straight for the goal posts....

"Glory, glory hallelujah!

Glory, glory, glory hallelujah!"

A moment more and the Elliott players fell upon Mooney, hugging and kissing him with mad joy, while the song roared into a mighty harmony of heart-bursting sound:

"GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH!"

And then, as if with a sudden thought of overwhelming reverence, the voices died into a soft refrain:

"His soul is marching on!"

The eighty thousand spectators poured from the stands with a solemnity which bespoke their attendance at a memorial service. They had just looked upon and been party to a miracle. The last second field goal from the forty yard line had given Elliott a 9 to 7 victory over the great Delmar eleven.

At the corner of the field a girl cried happily, her head unashamedly against Mooney's shoulder.

"Whatever made you think of that?" Mooney asked her, tenderly.