Beneath sunny Bermuda skies, the ornate coach and two trundled out on the field while the six competing teams stood in Olympiad fashion along the edge of the playing surface. The coach door opened and his Honor the Acting Governor William Addis struggled out and mounted the stands to his official box. The crowd was hushed as the Governor spoke. "I now open Rugby Week," he said. The crowd thought briefly of the half crown admission price and then cheered good naturedly. Two teams surged onto the turf. Rugby Week in Bermuda had indeed begun, and for pomp and parties, there is nothing quite like it.

But rugby week has its drawbacks. For one thing the teams must interrupt their revelries to compete just often enough to be permanently exhausted. For another, the coral sand on the rugby field is abrasive and causes painfully skinned knees when the players fall forward. They also fall backward.

Easy Living

The team which Harvard sent down to Bermuda last week was quartered at the New Windsor Hotel. The Hotel Bermudiana has the ritzy trade, and the Elbow Beach Surf Club has dozens of vacationing college girls. The New Windsor is centrally located in the heart of downtown Hamilton.

The team compiled a routine one win, three ties, one loss record in athletic competition, but in party attendance, it batted close to a thousand.

It all started the Saturday night the Harvard Rugby Club arrived. Pan-American Airways, the driving host of the tourist trade, was holding a Welcome-Farewell formal ball at the Elbow Beach Surf Club. Some collegians, it seems, were leaving, and some were arriving; PAA were killing two birds with one stone. Refreshments, however, were not on the house.

Wine, Women, Calypsos

Monday afternoon produced a jolly get-together in the British Officers mess, to which Harvard and Princeton were invited. An enlisted men's band provided musical background while the officers bustled about and made themselves friendly. Then there was a small tete-a-tete out at the Breakers Hotel, which featured the Talbot brothers, a pair of Calypso artists. It was supposed to be a swimming party but it was too cold to swim. Five other days swimming was hampered by rain which fell in varying quantities, the main deluge coming on Thursday, the day Harvard played Yale.

Wednesday afternoon, it was the Royal Navy's turn to play the genial host. The navy celebration was held on board, the mighty cruiser H.M.S. Glasgow and featured free refreshments and illustrated tours of the ship. Those members of the team who had enjoyed service in the U.S.N. saw fit to miss this one and made a beeline over to the Elbow Beach Surf Club to make hay while the sun shone. The Elbow Beach Surf Club, it will be remembered, was where the visiting college girls were quartered.

Ballplayers at Ball

Thursday the sun did not shine, and after a muddy day on the playing field against Yale, the team repaired to the Hotel Bermudiana where for $2 a head they attended the annual Rugby Ball. For a time, the Bermudiana toyed with the idea of charging $4 a man, but a short poll of the eligible guests beforehand showed this figure to be prohibitive. Most players were able to tear themselves away from the commitments at the Elbow Beach Surf Club in time to attend this, the keynote ball of Rugby Week.

Pan-American Airways, known to its friends as Pan-Am, figured to liven things up a bit by holding College Day at the Beach, Friday. Led by Pan-Am's professional joy-boy in Bermuda, one Dick Todd, all the college athletes and visiting ladies toddled off to the beach to engaged in the outdoor equivalent of parlor tricks.

Eggs and Oranges

Contests between the ladies and the gentlemen in orange-passing and egg-tossing were featured, and the ebuillent Mr. Todd warbled a selection entitled "Hip Hip Hooray, We're flying on the PAA." He received a broadside of eggs for his trouble and ultimately retired, still smiling grimly.

After a mauling at the hands of the Royal Navy all-stars Saturday afternoon, the team along with Yale and Princeton traveled to a private fete held in the home of one of Bermuda's more prominent local citizens. It was designed as a garden party, but the coming of rain as an unexpected guest drove the party indoors, where in the limited confines of a private home, it rapidly got out of hand and assumed the air of a Y.M.C.A. gym session.

Five-Hour Delay

The Crimson squad was scheduled to take a six p.m. plane back to Boston Sunday afternoon and it was here that the PAA got in its last licks. The plane was held up five hours without apparent reason and arrived on the mainland at 4:30 a.m.

We phoned up the Rugby Club's defensive pillar. Eddie Davis over at the Business School Monday night to see if we could scare up a couple of good flashy quotes. "Oh," moaned Eddie when informed of our purpose, "I'm too tired to think, say anything you want."