Thackeray nodded, hoping that he had.
‘When shall I report, Sarge?’
‘Time you’ve done that lot, better be tomorrow. I’m stay-ing on here an hour and that’s enough. Need to know who backs these wobblers. Interrogation, Thackeray. Patient questioning. After that I’ll be ready for a sleep. Never felt so tired.’
‘In here tomorrow?’ asked Thackeray.
‘This very spot, and early. Have to tackle the trainer again. Shake his story a bit if we can. You get off now, and look him up. Last I heard he was in the bar.’
Thackeray headed at a conscientious rate in that direc-tion, while Cribb ambled to the enclosure where the book-makers had their stands, among sellers of oranges, pies and humbugs. The afternoon was a slack period. Some bookies had reserved their spaces, and would return in the evening. Several though stood idly in small groups facing the crowd, who waited, like them, for the evening.
Cribb approached a pair who looked the senior represen-tatives present. He had recognised the shorter man, a stout, rubicund character, with a fine growth of whiskers about the mouth and chin.
‘The Major, ain’t it?’ Cribb exclaimed. ‘Never thought to see you off the turf. What’s up-gees not paying these days?’ For a second there was hesitation. Then the bookie raised a finger in salute.
‘Of course! Wally Cribb! Sharpest crusher in London! What’s your fancy then, Sergeant? What say one of these prime beasts to beat Chadwick?’ He jerked his head in the direction of O’Flaherty and Chalk, then indulging in a whimsical jog for a few laps. ‘Give you good odds against the Irishman.’
Cribb was shaking his head.
‘You know me better than that, Major. If they paid me enough I might find the stake for a likely nag at Epsom or Newmarket. Not for a bunion Derby, though. No, I’m here on business. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be in Islington, I prom-ise you.’
‘Checking licences, are you?’ inquired the second bookie, warily.
‘That’s not a sergeant’s job,’ his friend enlightened him. ‘No. Cribby’ll be checking on the party that died. And don’t ask him about it. He won’t talk. What can we do for you, Sergeant?’
‘Charles Darrell,’ announced Cribb, with such emphasis that he could have been a court usher. ‘The pedestrian. Backed himself, had he?’
‘Don’t they all? He got in early at a good price. Stood to net five hundred if he won. Confident, he must have been, or soft-headed. A man who stakes a hundred usually hedges some of it.’
‘So he really thought he’d win,’ mused Cribb. ‘What hap-pened to the odds when you knew he was dead?’
‘Made a bloody mockery of ’em, Sergeant, if you’ll excuse the term. What odds can we offer on Chadwick now? He was favourite to start with. Now it’s a fiver to a gooseberry. You won’t get any odds at all on him from these lads-not unless he breaks down or takes a fit. Man’s got ten miles in hand. Look at him.’
Chadwick passed near to them, certainly making sound progress, and walking more stylishly than any of his rivals.
‘Is he well-backed?’ asked Cribb.
‘Oh yes. There’s plenty who stand to scoop a tidy sum when the soldier wins, himself included. There were some pretty bets made on Monday, when Darrell got ahead, I can tell you. Willy here took seventy to forty from Chadwick’s trainer, didn’t you, mate?’
Willy nodded glumly.
‘Darrell looked good, you see,’ the ‘Major’ continued. ‘And the touts had watched his breathings at the Wick. Chadwick had to be favourite on his known form, but Darrell looked a clinker at four to one. Then off goes Darrell on Sunday night like a dog after aniseed, and Chadwick’s odds began to lengthen. That’s when the fast boys like Harvey got their stake on.’
‘And Chadwick himself? Does he stand to win anything?’ ‘Runs into three figures, I’ve heard. Not that I took any-thing from him, thank the Lord. Yes, come Saturday night, Captain Chadwick will stand on velvet. Now how about Mostyn-whatsit at five hundred to one? Can I tempt you with that?’
‘You can’t,’ smiled Cribb. ‘I wonder why you stay here. There’s not much left in this affair for you lads. Unless one of the second-raters steps out sharpish, that is. What sort of business can you do?’
The ‘Major’ smiled.
‘Side-bets, Sergeant, side-bets. Hazard a guess now. Who covered most miles in the first twelve hours today?’
‘Chadwick, I suppose.’
‘And there you’d lose your stake. O’Flaherty’s the boy.’
‘Really? Shows how cute I am to hold back. Any other heavy bets on Chadwick, besides his own?’
‘Couldn’t say.’
‘How about the management? Mr Herriott stand to recoup anything?’
‘I wouldn’t know, Sergeant. He doesn’t deal with the likes of us, anyway. We’re small men.’
‘Jacobson?’ persisted Cribb.
A smile appeared among the whiskers.
‘Poor old Walter? No one here would touch a bet he made. He’s tried, of course, but we’re not charity, Sergeant. Jacobson’s under the hatches and every bookie knows it.’
‘That so? No credit for him, then. A poor man’s best off like me, you know, watching a race for the joy of pure athletics. Ah well. Must leave you to your work. Good to see you.’
With a wink and a wave he moved away towards an exit, leaving the pure athletics to continue without his support for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
Harvey had brought IN a plateful of roast duck pre-pared at a restaurant near by. With the help of the gas-ring it was still warm when Chadwick came into the tent at seven. As soon as he had loosened the champion’s boot-laces and cleaned off his face with the sponge, Harvey lifted the plate-cover. He watched for the response to this favourite meal. It was quite five seconds before Chadwick reacted at all, and then it was not the duck that he commented on.
‘I am singularly depressed. Open a bottle of wine.’
Harvey lifted a Graves Superieur from the crate behind the clothes-cupboard, drew the cork and poured a small amount into a glass for Chadwick to taste.
‘Fill it up, man! This isn’t the Cafe Royal.’
‘Sir.’
‘And massage my legs, or I’ll never get back on the track.’ Harvey applied himself to the task. He knew Chadwick well enough to keep silent at these times. The dinner, which might have been Billy Reid’s eel-broth for all the recogni-tion it got, was quickly dispatched. Chadwick sat back in his chair, moaning abstractedly. At length he addressed the attendant.
‘My neck is paining me. See if you can loosen it, will you? I really doubt,’ he went on dismally, ‘whether I can endure this torment for another three days. The rewards seem less and less worth pursuing as one goes on. And the effort’-he shuddered-‘the effort, Harvey, is almost impossible to muster. It was better on the inside track. Now I’m involved in a physical battle if I try to go any faster than these-these lumbering apes. My ribs ache from the battering they’ve received. I tell you, this is no race. It’s a battle for survival.’
‘I’ve seen, sir,’ Harvey agreed. ‘They’ll put you out if they can. It frets me. But I’ve listened to their talk. They won’t dare knock you down and cripple you. It’s the sly nudge and the shin-tap that they use. If they can they’ll break your spirit that way. Like,’ and he cast about for a comparison that the Captain would appreciate, ‘like a siege, sir. Slowly starving you out. Mustn’t let morale get low.’
Chadwick reached for an orange.
‘I suppose so,’ he sighed. ‘Tighten my boots, will you? I must get out there again.’
Harvey obeyed, and, as he kneeled pieces of orange-peel fell about him on the floor.
‘You’ve got to keep on, sir,’ he urged. ‘For the Regiment, too.’
There was an intensity about Harvey’s manner that pen-etrated even Chadwick’s weariness. When he had eaten the orange he swallowed a second glass of wine and stumped back to the track.
Despite the bookmakers’ verdict that the
interest had been drawn from the race, the stands filled steadily dur-ing the evening. Perhaps, as Herriott predicted, the prospect of Chadwick struggling to defend his lead on the outer track was the attraction. Possibly it was interest in Darrell’s dramatic death, and the morbid hope of a second collapse. Whatever the reason, the ‘gate’ amounted to over?400 when it was counted at eleven, almost double the tak-ings for each of the first two days. And the influx greatly enriched the atmosphere in the Hall. For the first time spec-tators were in the gallery, as well as the stands and the enclo-sure. The band at its most energetic could not drown the bedlam from around the track, as one favourite or another appeared to gain ground.
The 250-mile landmark-generally reckoned to be the end of the first half of the journey-was reached by several of the entrants during the evening. Chadwick’s achievement in reaching this mark as early as two in the afternoon was politely clapped by the handful then present. But when Billy Reid and the Scythebearer hobbled through shortly after ten the roar of acclamation and the waving of hats set the flags above flapping, and flickered the gaslight. The most support came for O’Flaherty. His height and red hair made him an easy figure to pick out, and it was believed that he was the only man left capable of offering Chadwick a seri-ous challenge. Waves of chanting and cheering lifted the Irishman to extraordinary efforts. For almost two hours he was ‘mixing’-alternately walking and trotting-making the others’ efforts seem puny. Williams, the Half-breed, who had kept pace with O’Flaherty until noon, was forced by blistering to walk on the sides of his boots, and the odds against him doubled between nine and ten. The curiosity of the event, Mostyn-Smith, betrayed no ill-effects from his lack of any sustained sleep since the start. Those who remembered his unenterprising pace on the first day now declared that he had not slowed in the least since then. The dawdler of Monday was going as well as anyone except O’Flaherty and Chadwick.
Herriott stood with Jacobson, basking in the sweet din of several thousand voices. A uniformed attendant touched his arm.
‘Pardon me, Mr Herriott. Lady at the entrance, asking to speak to you, sir.’
Cora Darrell, now in full mourning, was waiting with her maid-servant. Herriott guided them into an office at the entrance.
‘I need hardly say-’ began Herriott.
She cut him short.
‘Yes. The shock has been very hard to bear. I am afraid I said things yesterday that I now regret. You understand I didn’t know the full circumstances. I was not myself.’
‘Of course,’ he conceded. ‘You were exceedingly dis-tressed. I could see that. The incident is quite forgiven, quite forgotten. And now tell me how I can assist you.’
‘I came to collect Charles’s personal things,’ Cora explained. ‘The detective said that I should come late to avoid the newspaper people. I want to go out to the tent without attracting public attention. Would you escort me, Sol?’
‘I shall be most honoured. Is there much to collect? Could I bring the things here for you?’
‘No. I want to go myself. Taylor shall carry the suitcase for me. I have a cab calling again in an hour to convey us back to the house.’ She paused, hesitating over a question. ‘Is Sam Monk still in the building? I cannot face him.’
He touched her forearm reassuringly.
‘You shall not see the man, Cora. He has not been allowed near the tent since… I saw him early this evening, drinking liquor heavily. He is probably quite inebriated by now. Shall we go at once? This is a time when we will not be noticed.’
They were able to pass easily and discreetly through the crowd, who were moving homewards and unlikely to connect a veiled widow with the mirthful entertainment that they had just left. In one respect, however, Herriott had miscalcu-lated. As they turned into the passageway between two stands, leading to the tracks, Sam Monk faced them. He was reaching for support from the side of the stand, and miscal-culating the distance. His other hand gripped a half-empty bottle and the contents slopped each time he moved. Although he stood across the passage a yard or two from them, his eyes were held fish-like, unable to vary their focus. Cora automatically stopped short, and drew back behind Herriott’s ample form.
Fortunately there was no confrontation. Behind Monk, silhouetted in the square of light at the arena entrance, appeared Walter Jacobson. Finding himself alone in the cen-tre, he was making a strategic move to more obscure regions of the Hall. The snap of Herriott’s fingers halted him.
‘Walter! Good fellow. Get this man into his hut, will you? He has to stay here. Police orders. I gave him the end hut, farthest from the others being used. You can manage? Good.’
Cursing himself for choosing that exit at that moment, Jacobson took a firm grip on Monk’s jacket-collar, and led him, unprotesting, towards the Liverpool Road end. Herriott apologised to Cora, and they moved on, into the arena. Cora’s entrance, shrinking between her maid, Taylor, and Herriott, was so unrelated to her arrival in the stadium two days ago that if the band had broken into a fanfare she could have moved on unrecognised. As it was, the little group stepped across the tracks and up to the constable at the tent. After a word of explanation Cora and Taylor were admitted and the lamp inside was ignited for them. Herriott returned to the lap-takers, to settle the next day’s roster.
The band were now taking longer rests, wishing away the minutes remaining until midnight, when their stint finished. And in these intervals between light operatic selections and waltzes (marches had been abandoned at the manager’s request when the pace of the baton outstripped the com-petitors) the shouts from the crowd began to echo with increasing resonance. The Hall was emptying steadily. The walkers themselves kept moving, but without the same impetus. Young Reid, who had been much encouraged by reaching the ‘halfway mark’ drew level with Williams, now wincing with each step. His attempt to open a conversation was repudiated with an obscenity, so he stepped out towards Chalk, who was in better shape.
‘Good crowd tonight, wasn’t they?’
Chalk nodded. ‘You’ll find that, young’un. If you can keep on your feet through the first three days, the crowd carries you ’ome.’
‘You think they’ll still come?’
‘Oh yes. Long as we give ’em a show. Always get a lot of ’em at the end of a mix. Like ’errings in a barrel on the last day. You’ll see, if you’ve got any legs left.’
‘There’s a lot dropped out,’ agreed Reid. ‘Felt like it myself till tonight. Half the huts is empty now, you know.’ ‘I’ve seen. It’s time they let us ’ave one to ourselves. I’ve ’ad my fill of sharing. Got one of those bloody tykes with me. Don’t say much, and when ’e do I can’t make out a bloody word. Found him ’aving a nip of my grog last night. I could’ve bloody felled ’im if I’d been feeling right.’
‘You think we might get a chance of a hut each?’ asked Reid, suddenly seeing a prospect of relief from his own room-mate’s cynicism.
‘If they didn’t ’and ’em out to bloody trainers, we might. You see bloody Monk in the end one? Poisons Darrell and they give ’im a hut to ’imself for it. Should be sleeping in the gutter, a bastard like that.’
‘You think he meant to do Darrell in?’
‘Don’t bloody matter. Either way the man’s a bastard. If you can’t trust a bloody trainer to mix a drink he ought to be made to take a powder ’imself. Sam Monk!’ He spat, to punctuate the name. ‘If that bugger ever wants another job ’e’d better go round the stables. No ped in London’s going to ’ire a gimcrack bastard that killed one of the best path-men to put on a shoe.’
After that moving eulogy to their dead colleague both men continued in silence until the lights were lowered and they could return to their shared sleeping-berths.
The Pedestrian Contest at Islington
POSITIONS AT THE END OF THE THIRD DAY
M. Jenkins (200 miles), W. Holland (192 miles) and C.
Jones (188 miles) retired from the race.
THURSDAY
CHAPTER 10
Feargu
s O’Flaherty slept serenely, his russet curls pressed against the sacking which served as a pillow. The hard work that he had put in the evening before had left him exhausted, but exhilarated. Only eight miles separated him from Chadwick. Eight miles that he could cut back slowly, day by day. With the crowd all behind him, lifting him, he would be level with Chadwick by Saturday, and there would be a great struggle for victory, which he would surely win in the last second. And then how life would alter! His days as a support-ing runner, a catchpenny performer included to divert the crowds with his antics, would end. He would be a celebrity, entitled to be matched in duels with the champions. O’Flaherty of Ireland, the Dublin Stag, conqueror of Chadwick in the Six-Day Contest! He would travel to Europe, and America and take on the best of the Indians. And while he was touring abroad, Moira should ride along Regent Street in a phaeton and stop to buy gowns and bonnets wherever she wanted, ready to charm him when he returned…
‘You will pardon me, O’Flaherty?’
The dreamer stirred, disturbed by the voice.
‘I think you should be rousing yourself, my friend. The race, you know. I have just left the track. Chadwick’s light is on…’
O’Flaherty parted his eyelids. Mostyn-Smith was sitting near by, still in his black outfit, eating a breakfast prepared from some herbal recipe. Harshly this unromantic scene displaced the one in O’Flaherty’s mind. He stretched, tugged the blankets away and rose, yawning.
‘I don’t know how you stay on your feet on half an hour’s rest,’ he said to Mostyn-Smith, half in admiration, half resentment.
‘If you think it out mathematically,’ came the answer, between spoonfuls, ‘you will realise that my half-hour is in fact only one hour less than your three. I rest, you see, for four half-hours in twenty-four, whereas you take a single rest-period of three hours, except when your natural func-tions otherwise compel you to stop.’
The logic of this was too sophisticated for the Irishman in his present state. He moved to the door, dimly recalling that the washing facilities were behind the huts. Mostyn-Smith raised a restraining hand.
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