The four met the next morning, planning to teach the Americans some rudimentary skills before the hottest part of the day was upon them. Troy sent them off with another laugh; he had some reports to catch up on, but figured the picture of Hitch enthusiastically leading his somewhat reluctant teammates out to the field would keep him amused for the rest of the morning, at least.
They found an area behind the motor pool where they hoped not to attract onlookers, and started out just trying to move the ball from one end of the field to the other without losing control of it – a process Spencer called "dribbling". This proved to be more difficult than it looked – Hitch kept kicking the ball too hard, requiring him to retrieve it from under a parked truck several times, and Tully tripped over it twice, landing on his face in the dust.
"That's all right," Spencer encouraged, as he helped the Kentuckian up the second time. Moffitt stood off to the side shaking his head, one hand over his eyes.
"How do guys do this from one end of the field all the way to the other?" Tully asked in dismay, wiping sand off his face.
"Experience," Moffitt supplied. "And the field at this camp is much smaller than regulation, I believe."
Tully looked at Spencer, who nodded confirmation. "We just used the room we had available here. We rarely have enough lads for a full team, anyway."
"Guess we should be glad we don't have to cover a whole field with just the four of us," Hitch observed as he returned from running down the ball that attacked Tully.
"We've covered way more than that with only four guys," Tully retorted with a grin; it was clear he wasn't talking about a game.
"Actually, it's just three of us," Moffitt sighed. He was starting to become alarmed at how little the Americans knew of the game. When they looked at him in surprise, he explained, "Someone has to mind the goal."
"We'll get to that later," Spencer put in. "Let's get the dribbling down first."
Before too long, they had acquired some fairly respectable dribbling skills, in the sense that the ball went where they wanted it more than half the time, and no one got hurt. After a break for rest and water in the shade of a nearby truck, they decided to have a brief go at passing, before it got too hot. Spencer and Moffitt demonstrated the process first, Spencer dribbling for a short distance as Moffitt jogged alongside, then kicking the ball over to the sergeant with the inside of his foot.
When they had finished, they looked over to find their students staring at them, Hitch looking resigned to the amount of work he had ahead of him, and Tully shaking his head in dismay.
"I'm gonna end up on my face again; I can see it coming," the Kentuckian muttered, shooting Hitch an accusing look.
As it turned out, it wasn't tripping over the ball that was the problem now – it was altogether missing the intended receiver. After a half-hour of chasing runaway passes, they were interrupted by the sound of applause from nearby. Looking up, they found Troy approaching from the direction of the motor pool, laughing at them from under his bush hat.
"Well, you've made a little progress, I guess," he observed as the others gathered to meet him.
"Actually, we've made a great deal of progress," Moffitt corrected.
"Yeah, you don't know what we looked like when we started," Hitch added. "Hey, when are we going to learn to bounce it back and forth on our knees, Spence?"
"Ah, first let's learn feet, then knees," the medic said dryly.
"Tell me we got a mission, Sarge, please," Tully begged.
"Nope, no mission, Tully," Troy replied, grinning. "I just thought you'd be ready for lunch by now."
"Lunch'll do." Tully, who had been holding the ball, tossed it to an unprepared Hitch, who fumbled with it a moment before dropping it.
"See," Spencer observed over his shoulder, as he retrieved the ball and headed toward the mess tent with the others, "feet first, the rest later."
"So, how's it going?" Troy asked Moffitt, as they moved ahead of the three privates.
"Not too badly, considering they've never done this before. At least the army has us all in excellent shape. I can't imagine what possessed Hitch to agree to this. I can't imagine what possessed me to agree to this!"
"Well, he was ticked off about having to stay in camp – pretty much guaranteed he'd find a way to get into trouble."
Moffitt nodded. After three weeks in the field, only coming in for an hour or two to re-supply before going back out, he had been ready to escape from the army for a while himself. But Intelligence seemed to think the Germans were getting ready for some kind of major offensive, and so Command wanted everyone where they could be reached quickly. Personally, Moffitt had just revised his plans to reading, writing letters, and enjoying the proximity of showers, hot meals and cots – only to have Hitch talk him into further revisions.
"At least he managed not to take a swing at that artillery fellow," Moffitt allowed after a moment. "Although I suspect Tully had a bit to do with that."
"Kinda out of character for him, too, when you think about it," Troy mused, glancing over his shoulder to be sure the others were bringing up the rear, but far enough back to not overhear the sergeants' conversation. "Guess we were all pretty worn out when we came in yesterday."
XXXX
Moffitt and Spencer gave a brief lesson on the rules and regulations of the game after lunch, and then they separated to find their own ways to pass the afternoon, catching up on their mail and lost sleep while it was too hot to play. They reconvened that evening for more passing drills, and then the English sergeant added another twist.
Hitch and Tully were moving the ball down the field, passing it between them, awkwardly but successfully, while Spencer shouted encouragement, when a khaki-clad blur shot between them, intercepting the ball and taking it in the opposite direction. Both Americans shouted in dismay and stopped to turn and see Moffitt dashing away from them. After a moment, they both began chasing him, but he successfully managed to evade them and return to Spencer's side, still in control of the ball.
"And that, gentlemen," the tall Englishman observed breathlessly, "is called 'an interception'."
"No kidding," Tully retorted, stooping to pick up the ball.
"We were just starting to feel good about this, too," Hitch complained – the first negative thing he'd said since he'd accepted the artilleryman's challenge.
"Can't have you getting too sure of yourselves," Moffitt replied with a grin. He was pleased both by the fact that he'd taken both men by surprise, and that he'd remembered enough from his childhood to accomplish the maneuver successfully. "There's still a lot of work to do tomorrow. I think we should stop now, though, and call it a night."
The others agreed, so they set out to collect Troy and seek out the evening's entertainment.
XXXX
The next morning found them back at their secluded practice site, setting up a makeshift goal. Troy, having enjoyed the tales of the previous day's exploits, had tagged along to sit by the parked vehicles and catch up on his letter writing as he watched.
"Don't these things usually have tops on them?" Hitch asked, surveying the two empty oil drums they had dragged over from the motor pool and set up at one end of the field. "How will we know when we've knocked it over the goal?"
"Ah, we don't." At the look he got from the two Americans, Spencer explained. "The top of the goal is about as high as a man can reach flat-footed, more-or-less. Here in camp, we just estimate. If the goalkeeper's feet were still on the ground, and he was pretty much vertical, it was too high. It's a sport, not a science," he added defensively, when neither looked convinced.
It took some persuasive talking, but in a few minutes Spencer was tending goal while Moffitt coached the others at penalty kicks and other approaches to the goal. Both Tully and Hitch tried different angles and approaches, but Spencer easily stopped all attempts, and morale among the Americans was going rapidly downhill. No one noticed Troy wandering over to join them until he spoke.
"Look, it's easy for him to stop a shot when it's just the two of you, going one at a time. He knows where it's coming from. You need to throw him off, distract him, get him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – then you'll get by him." He realized they were all staring at him. "What?"
"Troy, that's just what we need," Moffitt said beside him. "A strategist."
Troy looked blank for a moment before catching on, raising a hand to point a warning finger at the English sergeant. "Oh, no, you don't. I don't know how to play, and you don't want to try and teach me."
"But you do know how to get past enemy defenses and, if you'll pardon the pun, achieve the goal," Moffitt persisted. "Spencer and I can teach them the basics, but you can come up with actual plays."
"Yeah, Sarge," Hitch joined in hopefully, "you plan us out of tight places all the time."
"We could use the help," Tully added.
Troy delayed another moment, debating whether he wanted to get dragged into this circus act, and then nodded. "All right." Waving off the others' thanks and Hitch's enthusiastic grin, he said, "Just keep on with what you were doing and let me watch. We'll see what I come up with by your afternoon session."
XXXX
They spent most of the rest of the morning scrimmaging, Hitch and Spencer teamed against Moffitt and Tully, while Troy looked on. It wasn't the most skillfully-played soccer match in the North African theater, and no one kept score, but there was much shoving, joking and laughing. By the time they broke for lunch, the Americans were feeling more confident about the coming match than they had since accepting the challenge, even if the Englishmen still had their reservations.
When they reconvened on the field late that afternoon, they gathered around Troy to hear his observations.
"Okay, first of all: as I understand it, the only guy in this game who gets to use his hands is the goalkeeper, right?" Spencer and Moffitt both nodded, so he went on, "Tully, every time the ball comes at you higher than waist-level, you catch it."
"I can't help it, Sarge – it's self-defense!"
"Try ducking," Hitch teased, then took his own advice as Tully threw his shirt at him.
"Well," Troy interrupted, "either you learn not to use your hands, or we make you goalkeeper."
"I was thinking of that myself," Moffitt admitted.
Tully looked as though he was trying to decide if he should be insulted.
Spencer added, "You wouldn't have to worry about dribbling and passing."
"Good point," Tully agreed after a moment. "All right, I'll hold the fort."
"Good. The other thing we need to work on is hanging onto the ball while someone's trying to take it from you. There were so many turnovers in that game you played this morning, a guy could get whiplash. Also, it might be a good idea to practice passing the ball off just as you get to the goal. That's how you'll be able to throw off the goalkeeper – he'll be ready for the shot to come from the guy who shows up with the ball, so that should be the last guy to try it. Make sense?"
"Not bad for a fellow who never paid attention to the game before this morning," Moffitt said with a grin.
"Just common sense," Troy said, shrugging off the praise.
"And if I'd had some of that two days ago, we wouldn't be in this mess," Hitch muttered. He didn't want to admit it, but he was growing increasingly anxious as the time appointed for the match approached.
"Hallelujah, the light has dawned!" Tully laughed, clapping Hitch on the shoulder to show he was joking. "All right, let's get to it."