Wobble to Death sc-1 Read online

  ‘Is it fair, Mr Herriott, to have two tracks in this way? Surely the men on the inside have less distance to cover.’

  There was contempt in the smile this time.

  ‘I am sorry that you have not studied the official condi-tions. The inner track is shorter, but Chadwick and Darrell are required to complete eight circuits in each mile; the rest have seven to run.’

  ‘Why is it necessary to use two paths?’

  ‘Why do we have different classes of railway travel? Why are our public houses divided into different rooms? Why are some of my tickets a guinea and the rest a shilling? You know the answer, gentlemen. The first class is reserved for the best. Captain Chadwick is unbeaten in long-distance walking, and Darrell is the only man fit to appear on a track with him. If any of the other entrants prove their powers this week they may appear on the inner track in my next promotion. I have no prejudices.’

  The Bell’s Life man persisted.

  ‘It appears to me, Mr Herriott, that the gentlemen on the inner path are favoured. Even if the distances are accurately computed the presence of so many competitors must mean that they are frequently forced to take the outside in passing each other. Nor is the sleeping accommodation comparable.’

  Eyes turned towards the hovels from which the second-class entrants had earlier emerged, in a discreetly dark cor-ner of the Hall, fifty yards away from the tracks. Herriott walked instead a few paces to Darrell’s princely tent and pulled open the flap.

  ‘What you see in here, gentlemen, bedstead, gas jet, food cupboard and toilet necessaries, are provided in the other tent and in each of the huts. If some of the other competi-tors have to share accommodation, it is a sacrifice that they are pleased to make in order to take part in my promotion. I am not an hotelier, but nor are these pedestrians the class of men who are accustomed to delicate living. Some of them, indeed, may find it a pleasurable experience to have any sort of roof above them.’

  Outside the tent another misgiving was voiced.

  ‘Isn’t it possible that some of these men may injure them-selves permanently, or even die on the track, after such exer-tions? You could be accused of manslaughter in such a case.’ Herriott had prepared for this question.

  ‘Sir, I will bet you fifty that you die from want of exercise before any one of these fellows dies from taking too much.’

  His guffaw at his own wit echoed through the Hall as he flashed his small eyes from man to man.

  After three hours of competition the pace of the leaders had slowed markedly, and the board at the trackside showed the leader’s distance as 23 miles and 6 laps. He was Billy Reid, and his twin brother urged him on noisily as each time he padded past the place where he sat by the track. The pair were becoming well known in suburban pedestrian circles, but Billy had yet to run more than fifty miles competitively, and the bookmakers still offered generous odds against him in spite of his position.

  ‘He won’t stay, Jack. You’ll need to rest him soon.’

  Sam Monk, Darrell’s trainer, approached Billy’s brother.

  ‘He’s overweight, boy. You can’t carry extra pounds in this caper.’

  ‘Bill won’t falter,’ Reid replied. ‘He’s staked too much on this. I’m starving him, any rate, and he’ll sweat out some pounds as he goes. Eel-broth and ale. That’s all he’s getting today.’

  ‘Bloody murderer!’

  Monk was grinning.

  ‘Me, I’m known as a cruel man, but I wouldn’t kill my own flesh and blood. Eel-broth and ale and fifty yards to the hut for a leak. He’ll never make it, boy.’

  ‘He might not nail your man in the end, but he’s five miles up on Chadwick already. That bastard won’t get into his fancy tent tonight if he wants to catch Billy.’

  Probably turning over the same thought, with greater delicacy, Chadwick marched past them, upright, superbly controlled, the only hint of exertion two beads of sweat at either extremity of his moustache. He was walking well. He could manage five hundred at this pace, but the form of Darrell was worrying. Already he had passed him more than a dozen times.

  As dawn approached a few spectators began to appear in the shilling enclosure. Experience had shown that public interest in these contests grew towards the end of the week, when the efforts were telling on the participants. Sir John Astley’s first ‘Go As You Please’ at Islington in March 1878 raised nearly a thousand pounds on the final night and fin-ished in uproar, with every seat filled, and the winner fin-ishing, in the words of Bell’s Life, ‘as stilty as a cock sparrow suffering from sciatica’. Herriott had studied this promotion minutely, and learned from Astley’s errors. He insisted that his race should progress in one direction, anticlockwise. In the Astley ‘mix’ competitors were allowed to turn and go in an opposite direction at the completion of any mile, by giv-ing one lap’s notice to the scorers. The result was confusion in the scoring, and the spectacle of exhausted men meeting face to face and sometimes colliding. There were criticisms of the event in the medical Press. Herriott had engaged two doctors to examine each competitor beforehand and daily during his race. In spite of the confidence that he professed to the reporters he was taking no chance on a fatal collapse.

  During the morning Darrell gained perceptibly on young Reid, who struggled gamely in response to his brother’s shouts. At seven, after six hours, his score was chalked on the board as 38 miles 4 laps, Darrell’s 37 miles 6 laps, and O’Flaherty, Williams and Chalk were together on 34 miles. A mile behind followed Chadwick, apparently unperturbed. ‘Pencillers’ moved among the crowd accepting bets, and already Chadwick’s position as favourite was threatened in the odds offered on Darrell. Mostyn-Smith had recorded 24 miles and retired to the huts. There the Press cornered him, eager for quotable comments on the agony of the race, but he confounded them by announcing,

  ‘I have enjoyed the first phase of my campaign, gentle-men. I did not expect to be among the leaders so early in the race, so I am not in the least disappointed. I shall now take my herbal restorative and sleep for a half-hour. You may, if you wish, interrogate me again at one-thirty p.m., when I shall have completed phase two.’

  With a gracious smile he then walked to the door and opened it for them.

  Outside, the Press talked confusedly. Nothing, they were trained to believe, was altogether new, but none of them could recall having met this species of pedestrian. How a mild-mannered man could appear in such company mysti-fied them. Erskine Chadwick was a gentleman-ped it was true, and had taken on the roughnecks for years, but he was a good enough athlete to compete on his own terms. He made a small fortune from walking, anyway. There was not room in the sport for more than one Chadwick. Mostyn-Smith’s showing so far did not suggest that he possessed untapped potential as an athlete. Why, then, should this apparently intelligent man deign to appear in a ‘Cruelty Show’?

  ‘Likely as not the poor cove leads a sheltered existence,’ ventured one of them. ‘I think he fancies this is an amateur contest, arranged by the London Athletic Club.’

  ‘Whatever he fancies he should be disillusioned tonight. He’s sharing with Feargus O’Flaherty!’

  They were still joking and speculating about Francis Mostyn-Smith thirty minutes later when he appeared at the hut door.

  ‘If you please, gentlemen?’

  They formed a passage for him and watched in silence as he strutted away towards the track.

  When Billy Reid was overtaken by Darrell the fact was lost on the majority of spectators because of the disparity in the tracks. But Sam Monk made it his business to seek out Jack Reid, who now sat silent and alone in the stand, hoarse from shouting at his brother.

  ‘There it is, Jack. My man’s got his nose in front. Forty-eight miles that time and Billy a furlong down. You pushed him too hard, lad. Had your breakfast-or are you on eel-broth too?’

  ‘Can’t leave him on his own,’ whispered Reid. ‘Might walk off. There ain’t no rest scheduled before noon.’

  Monk was firm.

 
; ‘I’ll speak to him, tell him to give you an hour off. Tiring work, shouting tactics. It’s all right for the glory-boys out there. All they’ve got to do is keep moving. Us poor buggers have all the head-work to do. Wait here, mate.’

  Without waiting for agreement he marched over to the strawberry-faced Billy, issued instructions, and rejoined Jack. ‘Got to be firm from the start, you know. Mind over mind. They need to know you’ve got the reins, you under-stand. Look at Charlie now, plugging away on his own. I don’t even need to tell him I’m off for a break. Come on now, lad. There’s a place in Liverpool Road that does the tastiest kidney breakfast you ever got your teeth into.’

  By one o’clock that afternoon several hundred spectators enlivened the scene, and Darrell held a clear lead. Twelve hours now since the start, he had travelled 67 miles. Reid, on 641.2 miles, was about to lose his position to Williams and O’Flaherty, who still ran together. The veteran, Chalk, was resting. He had covered 61 miles. Chadwick still walked resolutely on, but had been forcing his pace to make 60 miles, and the crowd were already barracking him. Never a popular figure, he was ready for this treatment, but could rarely have been so far down in a race, even at this early stage. To more whistles he stepped off the track, and a dress-ing-gown was wrapped around him by Harvey, before he withdrew into his pavilion for luncheon. Other runners, less provided for, lay in the centre of the arena sipping at bot-tles while trainers or friends massaged them devotedly. The majority took no break, except to answer nature’s call. For this they covered a hundred yards which they got no credit for.

  As promised, Mostyn-Smith held his second conference at one-thirty. He addressed the Press in the same school-masterly tones:

  ‘Thank you for your interest, gentlemen. As you will have observed I have completed 336 circuits, making 48 miles. I shall now retire for thirty minutes, after taking my custom-ary refreshment. I intend to continue-’

  Shouting had broken out at the track, and Mostyn-Smith’s statement was never completed. Everyone dashed across the Hall to see what sensation was taking place. A sensation it was, for Erskine Chadwick, champion walker of England, was back on the track and running like a startled stag.

  CHAPTER 3

  There was a pleasant relief that afternoon from the spectacle of exhausted bodies steaming in the chill air. A young woman was escorted through the crowd barrier and across the tracks by Sol Herriott. This was not an easy manoeuvre; her skirt, deep green and velvet with a gathered train, was cut without much emphasis on mobility. In the streets outside, a clinging skirt was not necessarily a handi-cap. Certain cabbies made a point of halting the traffic behind them to allow a pretty woman to cross. But profes-sional runners in competition had no time for courtesies.

  A short wait at the edge of the track, with all eyes turned her way, did not alarm Cora Darrell. She had come, the word circulated, to give support to her husband. She was a black-fringed beauty of delicate features, given to cascades of affected laughter. As Herriott steered her safely to the centre his ponderous small-talk was rewarded out of all pro-portion, until even he began to doubt its wit.

  But an entrance, an impact, was undeniably made. For the next half-hour the straining heroes on the track might have taken a rest for all the attention they received. With confidence born of the knowledge that the stage was hers, Cora moved from timekeepers to lap-scorers, from trainers to backers, knowing most of them already, and ensuring that she was introduced to the rest. Once or twice as her husband shambled past, Cora blew a genteel kiss in his direction. He did not respond, and she returned to her conversation.

  Sam Monk was standing alone outside Darrell’s tent when Cora eventually moved her attention to him.

  ‘Charles is leading, isn’t he, Sam? You’re pleased with him now, I expect. He’s not suffering, I hope?’

  The trainer smirked.

  ‘If he is, then Lord help him by next Saturday, m’lady, for he’s not coming off this track except at my orders. No, Charlie’s in fine trim. No man in this race is better prepared, I promise you.’

  She was smiling.

  ‘That you don’t have to tell me, Sam. Six weeks is a long time for a man to abandon his wife. And when you return him to me I suppose he will want another six weeks to recover.’

  Monk shook his head.

  ‘Don’t be too sure of that, m’lady. If fancyman Chadwick runs himself out, Charlie should have done enough to win by Friday. We panicked Chadwick, you see. Had the blighter up on his toes for the first time in his life when Charlie got five miles clear.’

  Cora paused to watch Chadwick as he cantered past, breathing heavily.

  ‘The man looks strong to me. He is running at a faster rate than Charles now. I can’t be so confident as you are. Such muscles!’

  Monk touched her arm reassuringly.

  ‘Don’t worry. We know what we’re about, I promise you. I’ve laid a pony on him this time, and I ain’t losing it. Here’-and he moved close to her and spoke confiden-tially-‘ I’ll show you our tent, love. Tell your fortune in there too if you’ve a fancy that way.’

  Giggling, she followed Monk to the end of the track where the tents stood, and with a gay wave to her toiling spouse disappeared from view.

  Attention returned resignedly to the race. Chadwick’s gallop had by now become a humbler trot. But in the last hour he had regained two miles and was still travelling faster than Darrell. On the outer track several of the early pace-setters had retired from the race. Billy Reid was struggling manfully to keep pace with Williams and O’Flaherty. It was difficult for spectators to tell the state of the race. Some competitors had taken rests and others, patently, would need to retire before long. Yet there was a prolonged cheer-the loudest so far-when Mostyn-Smith, as steadily paced as a metronome, finally overtook another competitor, an old professional who promptly tottered off the track and away to get drunk.

  Solomon Herriott slumped into a seat in the judges’ stand and produced a flask of brandy from his jacket. This was the first rest he had allowed his feet since before midnight. They could not have ached more if he had been lapping the track himself. But there was encouragement in the day’s events. These marathon contests were traditionally slow to attract interest from Press and public, yet the duel between Darrell and Chadwick was already drawing spectators, and the news of Chadwick’s dramatic rejection of heel-and-toe would make sensational reading in the sporting Press. He lit a cigar and dreamily followed the movement of the runners- if they could be so described-distorted by the smoke. In a few minutes he replaced the flask in an inner pocket, raised him-self, and strolled over to his manager, Jacobson.

  ‘I’m leaving now, Walter. I shall rest at the club for an hour and tonight I’m dining at the London Sporting. Don’t send for me unless the building catches fire. If it does, take your time about raising the alarm because we’re magnifi-cently insured.’

  Quivering with laughter and enjoying Jacobson’s resent-ment, he sauntered towards the exit.

  On the outer track the trio known as the Scythebearer, the Half-breed and the Dublin Stag were lapping together, shuffling gently through the dust lying on the hard-packed surface. They wore silk running costumes of the professional type, zephyrs in brilliant colours, drawers and white tights. Williams had a cap pulled over his forehead as an eye-shade. A firm believer in maintaining the body’s liquid content, he had brought his training to a triumphant peak in the White Hart at Pentonville the evening before, and he was now weathering a hangover.

  ‘You start by feeling your worst,’ he was telling the oth-ers, ‘and you can only feel better as time goes on. Tomorrow I’ll be in prime shape. You poor coves ’ll be starting to feel your blisters then. ’Ow are your feet, Feargus?’

  ‘A little warm,’ admitted O’Flaherty, ‘but I’ll have no trouble this time, I promise you. My little room-mate can give me a pick-a-back for a mile or two.’

  They were overtaking Mostyn-Smith several times each hour. His presence in the race encouraged th
em immensely. He was fifty yards ahead of them now, a slight, but upright figure entirely in black, save a flash of white calves where shorts failed to cover sock-tops. His action was an eccentric, loose-limbed performance. The knees were permanently bent and the lower legs enjoyed a mobility of their own, independent of the thighs, the style of an expert in egg-and-spoon racing. As the others overtook him, O’Flaherty slapped his shoulders heartily.

  ‘Keep going, mate. Only five bloody days and a bit.’

  Mostyn-Smith raised a hand in salute, but they were past before he could respond.

  ‘Give Double-Barrel ’is due,’ Chalk observed. ‘ ’E’s out-lasted some sharp men already. I think ’e might stick it till tomorrow.’

  Williams was laughing.

  ‘Not after a night in O’Flaherty’s ’ut! I wouldn’t even wish that on bloody Chadwick. ’Ow do you sleep now, Feargus? Is there still the trouble with the banshees? Johnny Marsh, the old ’Ackney Clipper, shared a tent with Feargus during Astley’s Wobble last March, ain’t that true, Irish? When Feargus ’ere saw the banshees ’e jumped up, ’it the canvas and brought the bloody lot down! Johnny Marsh wakes up, sees Feargus there, bolt-eyed and naked as a baby, shoutin’ for ’is Maker, and thinks it’s Judgement Day. ’Is ’air went white in an hour, and ’e’s been seeing doctors ever since. Ain’t that so, mate?’

  O’Flaherty’s answer was to spit liberally on the track and blaspheme.

  Even Williams recognised that the Stag would not be baited any more, and he changed the topic.

  ‘What happened to Cora Darrell, then? I never saw ’er leave.’

  Chalk nodded his head in the direction of Darrell’s tent. ‘Went in there with Monk ten minutes back, like she was doing an inspection.’

  ‘Inspection! Inspection of what?’ The Half-breed punc-tuated his wit with a belly-laugh that pained his sore head.

  ‘Cora ain’t the girl to stand by a bed with a bloke and talk about training, now is she?’