Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World

by Glenn Stout

  After nearly an hour in the water with her sister, just before 1:00 P.M., Meg climbed back aboard the tug as Trudy stopped to eat again. When Trudy began swimming again, Helmi joined her in the water, but after little more than an hour he began to feel seasick and returned to the tug.

  From the tug, Cape Gris-Nez was fading out of sight even as the dim outline of the cliffs of Dover began to appear on the far horizon. Trudy was halfway across, or nearly so.

  Then it began to rain, first a slow, intermittent drizzle, then steadier. All the while the seas were turning ever rougher. When Trudy swam alongside the boat the swells lifted her up five and six feet, then dropped her down just as dramatically. It was almost impossible to speak to her from the boat anymore—most communication was taking place on the blackboard. To buoy Trudy's spirits, they passed along wireless messages her mother was sending every hour or so from the Highlands. The whole family was gathered there, and each bulletin reached them within minutes as friends and neighbors raced from the office of the local paper with each new dispatch.

  But the bulletins did not tell the whole story and made little mention of the deteriorating weather. It was dangerous, thought Burgess, for Trudy to be in the water in such conditions. But even as Joe Corthes began to express his concern over the weather to Burgess, Henry Ederle remained adamant and ignored each suggestion, each less subtle than the last, that perhaps it was time to give up—Trudy would not stop, did not want to stop. Helmi went back in the water and swam to La Morinie, asking them to back off—in the increasingly rough conditions, they were afraid the tugs might collide, either with each other, or Trudy. Helmi, who still felt the effect of the sea, also asked Lillian Cannon if she would join Trudy in the water.

  Her rival agreed, and a few moments later those aboard the Alsace were startled to see Cannon swimming alongside Ederle. But she could not remain there for long. She had a difficult time keeping up with Ederle, and like Helmi, she quickly became ill and left the water for the relative safety of the ship.

  Dover, England, Aug 6.—(By the United Press)—3:10 P.M.— Gertrude was six and one half miles off the English coast and going good. Lillian Cannon of Baltimore joined her in the water.

  Now Louis Timson entered the water. Not only was he eager to get in the water with Trudy, but he was eager to make amends. When he had first boarded the boat earlier in the day, he had inadvertently sat on a stack of Trudy's records, breaking several of them in half and earning the ire of Meg.

  Timson kept his lunch down, but that was about all. He couldn't even keep pace with her and after only a few moments had to leave the water. Then Meg went back in for a time, but she had already swum for an hour and couldn't stay for long. Besides, as she swam alongside Trudy for a few moments, any question she had about her sister's condition was answered.

  Trudy was doing fine. Her mouth was a bit sore from the salt water, but otherwise she felt good. Her suit wasn't chafing her and her goggles were working perfectly—not a drop had leaked inside. While the sea looked rough to everyone, Trudy was hardly bothered at all. In fact, the rougher it was, the better she liked it. And besides, it was raining, and even the broken record was a good omen to Trudy.

  She's going to make it, thought Meg. She is going to make it.

  Dover, England, Aug 6—(By the Associated Press)—4:45 P.M.— Gertrude Ederle, plucky American girl swimmer, was about seven miles off this port on her attempt to conquer the English Channel. She was about two miles northwest of the East Goodwin light ship. The wind, which has been kicking up a bad sea here, had moderated slightly but a heavy rain was falling and the condition of the sea was far from favorable.

  Burgess and Joe Corthes did not share the Ederles' confidence, confidence that each of them now thought bordered on crazy. By now the sea was so rough that the crowd on the boat deck had given up on the Victrola and was trying to entertain the swimmer by singing out loud—"The Star-Spangled Banner" was one of the few songs that everyone knew well enough to sing, and they did so, over and over. Yet as each swimmer left the water Burgess was more and more convinced that it was time to stop—Helmi, Cannon, and Timson were all accomplished swimmers who had experienced similar conditions before, and none of them had been able to stand it for much more than an hour. How could Trudy possibly finish? It was impossible.

  The tide was starting to turn again, even as the wind kept the waves crashing in from the southwest. As it did, the waters of the Channel behaved as those in a bathtub occupied by an angry child slapping his or her hands on the water. They lifted and fell without logic for a time before beginning to turn and run against the wind, raising the waves even higher and making it even less likely that Trudy would reach England's south coast, still several miles off, held at bay by what would soon be a strong crosscurrent running down the coast toward the North Atlantic.

  Captain Corthes not only shared that concern, but he was becoming worried about his boat, concerned about their course and their rapid approach to the Goodwin Sands. There was a reason, after all, that not one but two lightships were anchored along its borders, each painted a bright red, one on the southern edge and the other to the east, each sending beacons of light across the waters day and night. There was a reason, after all, they called the sands "the ship swallower," for more than two thousands vessels of all sizes were know to have met their demise there. Corthes did not want the Alsace, as the local saying went, to be the next boat "to set up shop on the Sands." Had he been out on his own, he would have returned to port by now. To stay out now, nearly adrift, as he tried to keep pace with Trudy and the current pushed him ever closer to the sands, was more than dangerous.

  He had made this journey many times before, accompanied dozens of other swimmers who had tried to make the crossing only to fail, and Corthes, to his credit, had never lost a swimmer. None that had ever been put in his care had drowned. That was his record, his reputation, and he did not want Trudy Ederle, the most famous swimmer of them all, to be the first. Once before, when he accompanied Jeanne Sion, she had become lost in the fog only two miles off Dover's shore. It had taken Corthes an hour to find her, and by then the panicked woman was done, half mad with fear. Corthes wanted Burgess to take the girl from the water and steam back to Boulogne.

  Burgess agreed, but he was doubly disappointed—the weather was not only dangerous, but it had pushed Trudy and the Alsace off his preferred course. According to his plan, Trudy should not have neared the end of the middle leg of the Z quite so quickly—the plan had been to catch the tide running back to make the final jog of the Z and land somewhere near Dover. And even then she should have been at the southern edge of the dangerous shoals, which were several miles wide and more than ten miles in length, roughly paralleling the coast.

  But Trudy and the waters were both too fast—the wind had driven the seas and driven Trudy more quickly than he planned. They were already on the verge of the Goodwin Sands, and the seas were still running strong, sending them into danger. She should not have been this far along.

  Even if the wind suddenly stopped and the sea calmed, there was hardly any way for her to swim to the shore now. She could not swim across the sands—that was suicide, for there was no way for the Alsace to pick its way across the ever-shifting shoals.

  Although Ederle appeared to be swimming strongly, Burgess ignored that. He focused on the weather and the seas, and as much as he admired her determination, he knew that no one can swim in seas running five and six feet high, and in a wind of nearly twenty knots, hard enough to blow the spray from atop the waves.

  There was no choice. He had no choice. She would have to stop.

  Trudy couldn't even understand it, really, but the harder the wind blew and the more it rained, the more she liked it. The rain had always been lucky, and now that it was falling she felt an enormous lift inside, a swelling of confidence. She didn't even feel like she was swimming, but riding waves up then sliding down.

  She sang, silently, to herself, keeping time with her str
okes and with the waves, chorus after chorus of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." When she tired and slowed she simply changed the tune, as easily as lifting the arm of a phonograph and replacing the record. "Yes, We Have No Bananas" increased the pace. "Yes Sir, She's My Baby" slowed it down. She was not simply swimming across the Channel; she was dancing across, the sea her partner.

  She did not realize that Burgess and Corthes had grown more concerned, and that at times Corthes was losing sight of her between the swells. Sometimes now the waves were even crashing across the bow of the boat, drenching onlookers and driving them, dripping with seawater, from the rail to the pilothouse, where they sat with their heads between their knees, shivering. Although the photographers and movie cameramen had been taking pictures all day from both the Alsace and La Morinie, none of them were taking pictures anymore, not in these conditions. It was impossible to hold the cameras steady, and for many of them, it was impossible to lift their head off their lap.

  Corthes reached a decision—he knew his boat and knew these waters and he was not going to risk his vessel in the sands. He called Burgess and Henry Ederle to the steering house and told them he was having a difficult time keeping up with the swimmer and steering his boat in her wake. The current was too strong, the wind too stiff, the waves too tall, and the light beginning to fail.

  He showed them his charts, using his finger to indicate their course. They could not continue into the sands, he explained, and if Trudy tried to cut across the sands, toward shore, he could not follow her. They must either stop and return to Boulogne or make a slow steep turn, steering back around the southern edge of the sands. But if they chose that course, Trudy must swim at crosscurrent for a time, making an already difficult task virtually impossible. It would be better, explained Corthes, with Burgess nodding in agreement, to turn back now. That would be the safe, sensible thing to do. It was a pity, but the girl should stop.

  Henry Ederle agreed—not to return to Boulogne, but to take on the impossible, to make the turn and send Trudy across the current.

  When he returned to the rail, they lowered the chalkboard over the side to tell Trudy they were turning. She hardly noticed.

  No more worrying.

  Deal, England. Aug 6.—(By the United Press)—5:39 P.M.—Gertrude was tiring and the tide was sweeping her down the coast. She ate sugar to add to her strength in an effort to stick it out until flood tide, expected at 9:00 P.M.

  Incredibly, given the conditions, she was making headway, swimming across the current in the heavy seas as Corthes skirted the southern edge of the sands. They passed by the lightship anchored along its southern edge, its signature double white light and siren casting over the seas, and the waters were fierce. Later, the Meteorological Office would estimate that wind along the south coast of England that day was, according to the Beaufort scale, which measures wind speed based on sea observation, at force four. While rough, force four conditions, consisting of winds approaching twenty miles per hour and waves only three feet in height, are not particularly dangerous.

  In the Channel, however, conditions were a great deal worse. Film footage taken from La Morinie well before the worst of the weather shows waves approaching six feet, indicating at least Beaufort force five, meaning winds of nearly twenty-five miles per hour. That was dangerous. Yet somehow Trudy was swimming in this, and somehow, with her American crawl, she was actually moving closer to England.

  Burgess couldn't believe it. He refused to believe it. He had never seen such swimming before. She had been in the water more than eleven hours, nearly half a day, and although the English coast was only five or six miles distant, in these conditions he thought it might be five or six hours more before she could even think of making land. She would not make it—of that he was certain. It was impossible.

  Burgess went to Henry Ederle, who was still gripping the rail, watching over his daughter, a posture he had held for nearly the entire journey. This time Burgess did not ask. Burgess knew what it was like to cross the Channel, and, more important, he knew what it was like to fail, for he tried and failed so many times himself. He knew that it did not matter how many times one failed as long as one finally reached success—there could always be another time. Half frantic, he told Henry Ederle that his daughter must be taken from the water.

  But Henry Ederle still had not forgotten his promise, or his promise of the red roadster or his wager of twenty-five thousand dollars. He remembered what Trudy told him about what happened the previous year—she was swimming and she had been touched, taken out of the water against her will, even poisoned—and she did not want that to happen again.

  Ederle told Burgess no. He was not taking his daughter out of the water; no one was taking his daughter out of the water, unless she asked. Burgess insisted again, and again Ederle refused. They argued for a moment while everyone on deck watched, then the trainer stormed off, sliding across the heaving deck, into the pilothouse and then back again a moment later, waving a packet in his hands.

  It was the release. He had seen what had happened to Wolffe the year before, how his reputation had been ruined after Trudy had been touched and taken from her water. Burgess would not, could not risk that.

  He thrust the paper toward Henry Ederle, explained what it was, and asked him to read it and then sign.

  Ederle read the paper, snorted, and then scratched his name along the bottom, the ink already beginning to smear in the rain. Burgess took the paper away.

  But he did not stay away for long. A year before, despite everything, he had agreed with Wolffe and thought Trudy was done, and he thought so again, right now. And even though he had the piece of paper, he still did not want to lose the swimmer. He and Henry Ederle continued to argue, and as they did the argument grew louder, with those on the deck and elsewhere on the boat weighing in and choosing sides. Burgess tried pleading with Meg and with Julia, but Meg sided with her father and Julia was just a reporter, neutral, but rooting for her story. Almost everyone else, though, already wet and sick and cold and tired, thought Trudy was done and finished and that someone should touch her and pull her from the water.

  Then someone broke away, someone ran over to the rail. Someone—no one ever said precisely who, perhaps Corthes or a member of his crew, worried about saving the boat—someone had enough. In the confusion one voice broke away and spoke out above all others, one voice from someone leaning over the rail, one voice that yelled out, over the sound of the wind and the rain and the engines and the argument, as Julia Harpman wrote later that day, "Someone, losing his head, shouted from the Alsace."

  Come on out, girl! Come on out!

  She was fine. She was swimming, singing, and dancing. Fine and happy. Fine.

  Despite the wind and the rain, she was in that place, not thinking, swimming but not trying to swim, everything in rhythm. Please, God, help me. Let me call ... you sweetheart ... Yes, we have no... bananas.

  There were bubbles before her face. All this time and her goggles had not leaked, not a drop, and the amber glass had turned the world gold. Sometimes as she swam she was lost in it, a world and sea and sky of amber and gold. She was numb, but not cold. She was fine.

  She turned to breathe, and as her ear left the water she heard muffled new words from afar. The music in her mind faded.

  "Come out, girl, come out of the water!"

  She was back in an instant, rushing into her body, scratching the record off, adrenalin surging through her limbs. What!? Come out? Of what? She remembers. Oh yes, she remembers. She is in the water, swimming. In the English Channel. Swimming for her roadster, swimming for Mum, for Meg, and for Pop. She is fine, she tells herself, checking each part, arms and legs and lungs. She is fine, she is fine.

  She turned on her back, to look at the boat and saw all the commotion on the deck—bodies scrambling over one another, pulling at one another, everyone leaning over the rail, and she heard the loud voices of the arguments and the anger and she saw hands reach out for her and beckon her and
plead with her to leave the sea.

  Then she rolled over, looked across over the golden sea and fixed her gaze through her goggles. She laughed to herself and floated for a moment, turning her head to look back at the boat.

  Then Trudy smiled. It is too funny, really, all that commotion. Come out? Now, when she is having so much fun and is so happy? Come out? She said the first thing that popped into her head.

  "What for?" she called out, her voice clear and strong and pure, a bell cutting through fog. "What for?"

  Everyone stopped. They saw her smile and heard her voice and no one had an answer to her question. In the midst of such confusion, Trudy was all calm. The figures on the deck looked at one another. Pop and Meg smiled. Burgess looked incredulous, his face flushed. The boat lifted and fell. The girl in the water was in better condition than anyone on the boat.

  Trudy Ederle turned back on her belly, raised an arm, and reached out. She laughed, took a deep breath, and looked ahead toward England.

  She put her face back in the water, lifted an arm, kicked, and drew away. "What for?" she asked of the ocean. "What for?"

  Soon, she was singing to herself again.

  "Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today."

  Even in the dim light, through the mist and waves, she could see the far shore.

  23. Kingsdown

  THAT WAS HER STORY, Julia Harpman knew it. Trudy's wind-driven words hung in the air, two words no other reporter had heard, two words that said everything that needed to be said about Trudy, about this swim, and about whether women should compete in athletics.

  "What for?" She wrote the words down in her notebook.

  Why stop? What for? No one was going to tell Trudy to stop swimming—no one was going to tell any woman to stop swimming anymore. This time, Trudy was no puppet controlled by Jabez Wolffe or anyone else, not even her father. It was her decision, and her vote—earned by days and months and years in the water—and now, for maybe the first time ever, her vote was the only one that counted.