Flanagan's Run

by Tom McNab

  There was uproar and McPhee bellowed for silence.

  “The competition will take place in half an hour, directly outside the refreshment tent. I would ask that all car-owners willing to use their headlights to provide light for the competition report to me immediately. Let me repeat, the competition will commence in half an hour.” The tent emptied, and within a matter of minutes at least twenty had made a book on the competition. But Flanagan was surprised at the odds.

  “Five to one against my boys,” he gasped. “Against broads?”

  “You haven’t seen these broads, boss,” said Willard. “They really are broad.” Willard was right. He had seen the ladies of Powder Valley demolish every male team previously that morning. The “ladies” were strapping frontiers-women of whom Flanagan had had no experience. Indeed, their anchor, Martha, was not so much a person as a place. Martha soon assembled her Amazons in a corner of the tent to prepare for battle.

  Flanagan’s head began to clear. He had been taken, no doubt of it. “Get me Doc and Morgan,” he croaked to Willard. “We’ve got to work something out.”

  Willard duly made his way through the seething crowds and returned with the two men.

  Doc was not optimistic. “You’ve been had this time, Flanagan,” he said. “Those broads must average over a hundred and sixty pounds. We’ll do well to get within ten pounds of that.” He shook his head, looking over at the Powder Valley team. “First women I’ve ever seen who make me feel effeminate.”

  “But there must be some way,” said Flanagan desperately.

  Doc stroked his chin. “There’s always a way,” he said. “But let’s first see what we’ve got. Morgan at anchor, McPhail, Bouin, Thurleigh, Eskola, Casey. These look to be the strongest, heaviest boys around. It’s a nothing team, but sometimes nothing’s the best you’ve got.”

  Flanagan nodded to Willard, who went off to tell the Trans-Americans concerned. “I sure hope that our boys haven’t mopped up as much booze as you have, Flanagan,” said Doc. “Or we’re done for.”

  “Let’s hope those broads have,” said Morgan, scowling.

  The Trans-America team was soon gathered round Doc and Flanagan. They crowded in a tight circle, crouching.

  “Two hundred bucks a man if we win,” hissed Flanagan.

  “I didn’t hear you clear,” said Doc.

  “Three hundred,” said Flanagan.

  “Still not hearing you too clear,” said Doc, putting his right hand to his ear.

  “I’m a fool to myself,” said Flanagan. “Make it five hundred.”

  Doc looked around the circle at his men. There was no dissent.

  “You’ve got a deal,” he said. “So let’s get ourselves a game plan.”

  Doc talked to the team for five minutes in a low whisper. Then they stood up and Doc turned to Flanagan.

  “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be,” he said.

  “So what’s your plan?” said Flanagan, his hand on Doc’s left shoulder.

  “All we got going for us is endurance and competitiveness,” said Doc. “So we dig in and lay right back on the rope on the first pull and let those ladies pull their hearts out. We stretch it out as long as possible, so even if they win the first pull they’ll be pooped. Then we give ’em no rest between trials and go eyeballs out in the second pull. If we win that we’re still in business.”

  “And after that?” said Flanagan.

  “Let’s get to that third pull, then I can put on the miracle hat,” said Doc. “And don’t touch another drop of that hooch, Flanagan. You’ll need a clear head in the next half hour.”

  He turned to Willard.

  “Get us some running spikes,” he said. “That could make all the difference.”

  Twenty minutes later all was ready. Fifty cars spread a bright pool in the inky darkness outside the tent. Behind the cars stood a thousand spectators, still betting heavily amongst themselves in the warm, buzzing Utah night. McPhee and Flanagan had agreed that the elder McPhee would act as chief judge, with Liebnitz and Bullard as jury of appeal.

  “Are you ready, ladies and gentlemen?” asked old McPhee, tying a knot of red ribbon in the centre of the competition rope and laying the thick hemp carefully on the ground.

  “Then pick up the rope!”

  Both teams picked up the hemp and dug in, the chunky Powder Valley team in incongruous blouses, tights and black thick-heeled leather boots and the Trans-Americans in vests, shorts and running spikes. Martha and her adversary, Mike Morgan, tied the rope round their waists in the anchor positions and Morgan nodded to Doc. They were ready.

  “Take the strain!” shouted McPhee, and waited till the red ribbon was directly above the centre-line. There was silence, with only the whirr of insects to be heard.

  “Pull!”

  The sturdy ladies of Powder Valley pulled indeed and in seconds the Trans-Americans had given away six inches. But they held and lay back on the rope, setting their heels in firmly. Then, aided by the grip of their spikes, they too pulled and regained the grooves they had first created as a platform for themselves. Again stable, they lay back almost horizontally as the Powder Valley team set and re-set their feet in an attempt to unbalance them. But the Trans-Americans held and used body weight rather than muscle to retain their position. The pull lasted five minutes and the sweat streamed as the gasping ladies gradually pulled the Trans-Americans towards them. Then it was over – the pull had gone to the girls of Powder Valley, who collapsed like stranded whales on the rough scrub-grass.

  Doc was quick to seize the advantage. “Pick up that rope,” he hissed. “They’ve had it.”

  The rope was soon re-set and this time Flanagan’s Trans-Americans pulled viciously from the first moment. Their gasping opponents, never allowed to regain their balance, slithered and slid on the thin dry grass as Doc screamed his men onwards.

  “Pull, goddamit, pull!” he raved. Suddenly it was over. The red ribbon was in Trans-America territory, and the second pull was theirs. It was now even at one-all, and everything rested on the final pull.

  McPhee was not slow to realize what had happened, and saw his twenty thousand dollars slipping through his fingers. He took from his sporran a large pocket-watch.

  “I call ten minutes’ rest before the final pull,” he shouted above the din. “Only fair,” he said to Flanagan. “After all, they’re only gurlls.”

  Flanagan, now almost sober, shook his head. The old mayor had got the better of him. He walked over to the girls’ team and a few moments later he was seen in smiling conversation with the massive Martha. Flanagan nodded to her, returned to the Trans-Americans and stood hands on hips in front of Doc.

  “Well,” he said. “What’s the master plan this time?”

  “Master plan?” said Doc. “Goddamit, Flanagan, have a look at our boys.” He pointed to the Trans-Americans lying face down on the grass parallel to the rope. “A little prayer might help.” He smiled. “Only one plan now. No more tricks. Just pull on that rope until we drop.”

  The rope was set for the final pull and again a hush descended on the crowd. The Powder Valley team had by now recovered completely, and their plump, round faces were set in a look of grim determination.

  “Pull!” screamed McPhee.

  The pull was by far the longest of the three, and lasted almost ten minutes. It was a pull that ebbed and flowed to the roar of the crowd, with Mayor McPhee now losing all pretense of impartiality, dancing up and down beside the Powder Valley team like a demented leprechaun. But after nine minutes the Trans-Americans were drained. Hugh McPhail could feel the strength ebbing from him and Morgan’s upper body had gone into spasm. Peter Thurleigh’s eyes were glazed and he felt his grip weakening as Bouin, Casey and Eskola started to slide in front of him. Ever so slowly, the pull was slipping from them and every Trans-American knew it. Doc stopped shouting and turned away, not daring to look.

  Then there was a thud as Martha, the Powder Valley anchor, slipped to the ground with a dull thump
and in an instant her team had lost balance and had started to slide.

  The crowd gasped with surprise.

  Doc heard the gasps and turned. “Pull!” he bellowed. “Pull, you weaklings!” Dixie and Kate rushed from the crowd and joined him at his side screaming, tears streaming down their faces.

  The Trans-Americans, feeling the resistance against them slacken, dug deep and found from somewhere fresh reserves of strength. Bathed in an ocean of roaring sound, their bodies awash with muscular waste, they pulled like men possessed. Nothing or no one could stop them now, as they found new rhythm, new fire, and in less than a minute they had pulled their broken opponents over. They had won!

  Trans-Americans poured from behind the parked cars, through the roar of the crowd, to engulf their team, who knelt on bent knees, sobbing with fatigue. Doc looked round at Flanagan and shook his head.

  “You got to her, didn’t you?” he asked, nodding over to the prostrate, heaving Martha, who lay on the ground, her great bosom heaving.

  “In a manner of speaking,” said Flanagan, adjusting his tie.

  “I know your manner of speaking,” growled Doc, leaning forward with Flanagan to pull Martha to her feet. “Just what did you say to her?”

  “Nothing much,” said Flanagan, turning away from Martha. “I just made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.”

  “Jesus,” said Doc. “What was that?”

  “You,” said Flanagan.

  13

  Moment of Truth

  Two hundred mile beyond McPhee and its Games, the Trans-America had settled back into a daily routine of forty- to fifty-mile stages, usually divided into morning and afternoon sections, as they made their way towards Colorado. Muller and Stock had wiped out the advantage that Doc and his group had established at Las Vegas, and again led the field, if only narrowly. Other runners such as the Williams’ All-Americans’ hope, Capaldi, the Australian, “Digger” Mullins, and the Jap, Son, had begun to feature in the top ten at the end of each stage, and were now in the top twenty on aggregate time.

  The McPhee Highland Games provided a welcome respite for journalists hard-pressed for copy, and pushed the Trans-America into the columns of the weeklies for the first time. But the impact of Carl Liebnitz’s article did not hit the Trans-America until two days after its publication, when it came into the hands of Flanagan’s medical director, Maurice Falconer.

  By this time, the Trans-America lay just short of the Utah-Colorado border, near Green River, having crossed forty miles of steep mountains by Richfield and Salina. The article read:

  “There will be those that will die.” Those were the words of leading physiologist Dr Myron Bernstein, Professor of Physiology at the University of Stanford. Dr Bernstein was commenting on reports of C. C. Flanagan’s Trans-America race, now sweating its way towards the Utah-Colorado border.

  Dr Bernstein’s prediction is based on the massive daily calorific requirements of Flanagan’s Bunion Derby runners. The Stanford physiologist estimates that the running itself consumes about 5,000 calories a day, and added to this is another 1,000-2,000 calories a day for normal basic body functions. Professor Bernstein sees no way in which the runners can consume the necessary 6,000-7,000 calories a day to enable them to avoid cannibalizing their own bodies. “These men,” he said, “are literally eating themselves up. First, they will burn up all available body fat, then they will start to consume muscle. Mr Flanagan’s men are heading in only one direction – into hospital.”

  I put it to Professor Bernstein that the runners might have enough excess fat and muscle to burn up, but the professor was emphatic. “These men are distance runners. Double their height and you have their weight in pounds. They carry only about 5% fat, in comparison with the normal 20% you and I carry around. And remember that these are hard times and many of them may already be inside the 5%, in which case they are undoubtedly on the brink of disaster.”

  When I put this to the race organizer C. C. Flanagan, his response was immediate. “Scientists said the bee couldn’t fly – but it did. They said no man could run a mile in inside 4.10, but it has been done, and mark my words, one day some college boy will put up two fingers to the scientists and run it in four minutes fiat. We’re talking about men, not machines.”

  So we have the classic case of the expert versus the dreamers, our dreamers in this case being the thousand-odd men and one woman plodding East across the desert beyond Las Vegas. As Mr Flanagan says, men are not machines, for there is a ghost in these machines that may make all scientific discussion about calorific input and output not worth the paper either the experts or me (for that matter) write upon.

  It was Dr Maurice Falconer who spoke first, brandishing Liebnitz’s article as he pushed open the Trans-America caravan door.

  “Just what does this mean, Flanagan?” he shouted. “Who the hell runs the medical department here, you or me?”

  Flanagan did not respond, but pulled out the cork on a bottle of whiskey with his teeth and poured out a large glass, pushing it along his desk towards Falconer.

  “Have a snort, Maurice,” he said, and sank on to his rocking-chair.

  Falconer frowned and snatched the glass from the desk and gulped it back. Flanagan poured him another drink, gave himself one, then replaced the cork in the bottle.

  “Now, what’s the big problem, Maurice?”

  Falconer gulped the first half of the fresh glass and sat back, visibly more controlled.

  “You’ve seen this article?” he said, putting it down on the desk on his left.

  “Naturally.”

  “Then why didn’t you refer Liebnitz to me?” said Falconer.

  Flanagan glanced across the caravan at Willard Clay.

  “Willard, when did Carl Liebnitz come to me with Bernstein’s statement?”

  “First day, at Flanaganville, at the end of the first stage,” replied Willard.

  “And where was Dr Falconer at the time?”

  “Up to his neck in cripples back in the medical tent.”

  “So what was I to do?” said Flanagan, raising his arms.

  “There was no way I could interrupt you, was there?”

  “No,” admitted Falconer grudgingly.

  “More to the point,” said Flanagan. “Is this guy Bernstein right?”

  Falconer took another pull at his drink. “In strict theory, yes,” he said. “These runners should be burning up about seven thousand calories a day. So they need that number of calories simply to maintain their body weight.”

  “But in practice?” pursued Flanagan.

  “In practice, who the hell knows?” growled Falconer, drawing a damp white handkerchief across his brow and pushing back a mane of white hair. “Payson Weston walked across the USA about fifty years ago and he was only a little runt. Okay, so he lost some weight, but it didn’t kill him. He sure didn’t vanish into thin air in the middle of the Rockies.”

  “So what’s your opinion of the physical condition of our men?” asked Flanagan.

  Falconer shrugged. “About a quarter of them should never have been within a thousand miles of this race,” he replied. “Even at their fittest they could never have made it, and after two years on the breadline . . . well, most of that bunch are out of the race anyway. Another quarter are fit men, not athletes perhaps, and in better times they might have made it, but only a handful should even get as far as Nebraska. The third quarter are low-calibre athletes in the conventional long distances, or men from other sports who have licked themselves in shape especially for the Trans-America. Some of them will make it.”

  Falconer closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “The final twenty-five per cent, men like Cole and Eskola, are fine long-distance athletes, but even for them the Trans-America is a gamble: no one since Weston has ever covered such distances daily and even then it wasn’t in a race.”

  “So how many do you reckon will make it to New York, Maurice?” Flanagan went on.

  Dr Falconer wrinkled his nose
.

  “My guess is between four and five hundred,” he said. “But remember, we’re dealing with human beings, and there’s three hundred and sixty thousand dollars at stake. For many of these men that’s the difference between life and death, so there’s no real way of knowing how many will finish.”

  “So, this smart-ass Bernstein is just pissing in the wind?” said Flanagan.

  “Perhaps; but we’ve still got to keep up the calories. Myself, I think that milk may be the answer to the problem. It’s virtually a complete food and very high in calories. So we’ll have to get iced milk in daily.”

  Flanagan looked at Willard, who nodded.

  Falconer loosened his collar and sighed. “Bernstein’s a nutritional specialist and he’s looking in a narrow mirror. The real problems for these men lie in three places. The first is in the ability of their muscles and tendons to take the daily pounding. So the answer to this race may lie in a few millimetres of Achilles tendon rather than in calorific intake.”

  The medic picked up his glass. “Got any ice?” he said before continuing. Willard placed two cubes in his glass. “The second is in the various body systems. By this I mean general health, things like stomach aches, throat infections, the normal run-of-the-mill ailments that most men work through every day without giving them much thought.”

  Flanagan nodded.

  “The problem is that the athlete is a living contradiction, for he’s both tough and delicate. Sure, he can take hours of pain and discomfort that the ordinary man couldn’t handle for five minutes. But the other side of the coin is that trivial complaints that Mr Joe Average would shrug off and ignore are disasters to a highly-tuned athlete. What’s a molehill to the average guy is a mountain to him. So it’s essential that the general health of the runner is good.”

  “And the third?” asked Flanagan.

  “The third place is in the mind.” Falconer tapped his forehead. “This is where the daily battles will be lost and won. The Chinese have a saying, ‘A tiger’s picture is outside, a man’s picture is inside.’ The Trans-American’s picture is inside, and that’s a picture we haven’t seen completely yet.”