Flanagan's Run

by Tom McNab

  “Miss McAllister’s a very kindly lady,” said Flanagan.

  “All the Lord’s work,” said Fiske. “All the Lord’s work.”

  “Then praise the Lord,” said Flanagan. “Sure praise the Lord.”

  Alice Craig McAllister had done her work well. And it was as well that 3 May was a rest day, for Wilbur Fiske’s religious convictions had not prevented the provision of copious quantities of bootleg liquor.

  “God,” said Hugh, “I should have stuck with the orange juice.”

  “Don’t expect any sympathy,” Doc laughed. “Be like me,” he said, putting on his boots. “Live clean. Come on, let’s walk some of that moonshine out of your system.”

  They strolled out in the bright morning sunshine on to the dirt-road leading to Lawrence.

  “There won’t be any Huckleberry for the next week or so,” said Doc. “I’m healed up now, but I’m lying about sixtieth on aggregate. Maybe I’m wrong, but I want to pick up an hour or so on Stock in the next four hundred miles. Won’t feel comfortable otherwise. That means that I’m going to have to beat the pants off that splendid young Kraut every day next week.”

  “Isn’t that taking a risk?” said Hugh. “Couldn’t you bust your Achilles again, or simply exhaust yourself catching him up?”

  “That’s a risk I’ve got to take,” replied Doc. “At least the roads up ahead are mainly soft dirt-track, easy on the Achilles. And I’ve been running inside myself till now, apart from the Rockies. No, I’m going to have to show Mr Stock some sweet running, run the legs off him, every stage. I’ve got to get back up in the main pack, and that means gaining a half an hour a day for the next week or so.”

  “Reckon you can catch Stock?” asked Hugh, chewing on a straw.

  For a moment Doc was tempted to tell Hugh of his suspicions of Stock. He had seen other runners on drugs like cocaine and strychnine. Hell, in 1912 a Frenchman had tried arsenic before a marathon in Cairo. It had worked well, helping him to a second place a few minutes ahead of Doc, but most of his prize money had later been absorbed in hospital bills. No, it was best to keep his suspicions about Peter Stock to himself.

  He shook his head.

  “Not if he keeps going the way he’s been doing so far. Eskola, Mullins, Son, Bouin – these guys I can understand, even someone like you, but this boy Stock is running out of his skull. Where does it come from? We’d never heard ‘of him, or his buddy, Muller, before he ended up in a basket in Denver. And what about the rest of those cold, blue-eyed beauties? Jesus, they’re like something from another planet.”

  “And what about this race Flanagan’s fixed us up with once we get to St Louis?” asked Hugh.

  “All part of life’s rich pattern,” said Doc. “If we get the contract right then we just might give this Levy guy a run for his money. If not, then it will be a farce. Sure as hell Thurleigh will run his guts out for us. He’s asked to team up with us, but I haven’t thought it through yet. So I’ll tell him that we’re using it as a trial to see if he can join the group. And you know what Morgan is like.”

  “But a horse – ” Hugh began.

  “A trotting horse, a sprinter,” said Doc. “Pulling a two-hundred-pound bag of lard over cross-country for ten miles. Do you remember how long it took you to condition yourself for distance-running?”

  Hugh nodded.

  “Well, that horse has got just one week,” said Doc. “It couldn’t condition itself for a cold shower in that time.”

  He picked up a stone and threw it along the road.

  “The long road to St Louis,” he said. “Four hundred miles. I’m going to hurt some in the next week. But sure as hell so is Mr Stock. You can count on it.”

  Doc was as good as his word. The pace had dropped to inside six miles an hour across the flat roads of Kansas, but Doc, now running with heel supports in his shoes, lifted it to just over eight-minute-mile pace. Even so, Stock would not give way, and daily the little bald man and the blonde youth ran stride for stride, spinning the rest of the field out behind them. Doc was putting to use thirty years of experience, thirty years of knowing exactly what pace he could sustain over a day’s running. But Stock hung on, silent, impassive, never giving a yard.

  They reached Lawrence together, he and Stock, half an hour ahead of the field, bringing Doc up to twenty-first position on aggregate. Then on into Kansas City, running together through the scrapwood shanties of the town, the settling point of the “Exodusters”, freed Negroes from the south, into the city, past Wyandot Park, where rested the bones of the chiefs of the Wyandot Indians. Doc burnt off the young German and another lost fifteen minutes were picked up on the stage which finished in the roaring crowds of Kansas City, bringing him up to fourteenth position. It was going well: he was closing in. But he was still a long way from Stock on aggregate time.

  Then another dusty fifty miles to Concordia, Missouri, again locked with Stock all the way. Doc moved up to twelfth position.

  It was on the road between Concordia and Colombia that at last Stock started to wilt. It was almost perceptible. Doc felt the young German suddenly weaken and lose his rhythm, and in a matter of seconds he had dropped back and had eased to a shambling trot.

  Doc pressed home his advantage and ended up twenty minutes ahead of the next finisher “Digger” Mullins. He was now eighth on aggregate, back up among the race-leaders.

  An hour later Doc stood in a field outside Colombia with a hundred others below the primitive showers which Willard Clay had constructed, enjoying the lukewarm water as it dripped unevenly from above and streamed down his body. He rubbed the red carbolic soap which he was holding with both hands and wiped the foam beneath his armpits.

  “All I want is all there is, and then some,” he crooned.

  Dimly, through the steam of the shower and the gathering gloom, he could see Willard Clay hastening towards the washing area. It was the first time he had ever seen Willard run.

  Doc stepped out of his cubicle and was stretching for his towel as Willard finally reached him, blowing heavily. Flanagan’s lieutenant paused for a moment to regain his breath. Then –

  “It’s Peter Stock,” he said. “We think he’s dying.”

  Maurice Falconer was the first to speak. “He’s in the emergency ward of the City Hospital,” he said, pulling his fingers through his grey hair.

  “The doctors are doing all that they can. He collapsed after finishing,” explained Flanagan.

  “What do the medics say?” asked Doc.

  “They’ve never seen anything like it,” rejoined Falconer.

  “His rectal temperature was a hundred and four point seven degrees Fahrenheit, while his heart was going at one hundred and eighty beats for half an hour.”

  “And what do you think?” asked Doc, turning to Falconer.

  “Drugs – just like you thought. Maybe not cocaine, but something like it. See this?” Falconer held up a small unmarked bottle of pills. “I picked it up when I visited the German team quarters. Five will get you ten that it’s some sort of depressant, some dope which dulls the inhibitory centres.”

  “You mean that it blocks the natural feelings of pain that you experience in fatigue?” said Doc.

  “Exactly,” said Falconer. “But it’s probably more complicated than that. God knows what else they’ve been pumping into him – some goddam crazy cocktail of drugs. No one knows what happens to the body when you put it into a stress situation like the Trans-America, but when you start adding some godawful mix of drugs into a man, who knows the end of it?”

  He put his head in his hands. “It’s a mess. One hell of a mess.”

  The telephone rang.

  “It’s the hospital,” said Willard, answering it. “For you.” He handed the telephone to Flanagan.

  Flanagan listened for a moment.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” he said. “We’ll call back in the morning.”

  He dropped the telephone on to its rest, but his hand remained on the receiver. “He’ll m
ake it,” he said. “He’s out of danger.”

  “Thank God,” said Falconer.

  Flanagan stood up.

  “Well, what do we do?”

  “What do you mean?” said Doc.

  “I mean, how do we get the Krauts out of the race?”

  “I see,” said Doc. “Do you have anything in the rules to cover it?”

  “We used the IAAF amateur rules,” said Flanagan.

  “Nothing much there about drugs.”

  “So, technically, they’ve done nothing wrong?” said Falconer.

  “The hell they have!” shouted Flanagan. “Goddam cheats. All you guys running your balls off twice a day while those blue-eyed superior Aryans, or whatever the hell they call themselves, are running up front like something out of Wagner. Goddam – ”

  “Don’t blame Muller or Stock,” said Doc. “Those young guys probably had no idea what was being pumped into them. Probably thought it was some sort of vitamins.”

  “Doc’s right,” said Falconer. “It’s Moltke and his gang of coaches you should tear into. They’re the real culprits.”

  “But how?” said Flanagan. “They haven’t broken any race rules. More to the point, there’s no means of proving they took drugs.”

  Doc stood up.

  “When I’m not running I read newspapers,” he said. “In fact it’s like a drug: I can’t do without them. Now I read in the papers that these National Socialists made it big in the elections last December, but they’ve had a lot of internal splits. And they’re not in power yet – so the last thing they want is bad publicity. It’s not much good saying that the master race have to take drugs to win the Trans-America!”

  Flanagan’s eyes narrowed.

  “So what are you telling me to do?”

  “Get Moltke in here. Tell him that if he doesn’t withdraw his team you’ll make it all known to the press. See what he says then.”

  Flanagan looked at Willard. Willard nodded.

  “Okay,” Flanagan said. “Willard, wheel in the Master Race . . .”

  The Germans withdrew from the Trans-America the next morning. The official announcement was that the team management wished to return Muller and Stock for specialized medical treatment in Germany, and were, therefore, forced to withdraw the remainder of their runners.

  For the first time Hugh McPhail was now in the lead, with a hundred miles to go to St Louis. And his battle with a horse called Silver Star.

  19

  St Louis: Man versus Horse

  Carl Liebnitz sat in the press tent, fingers poised on the typewriter keys. Man versus horses! What next? He smiled, scratched his ear, arranged his notes, then quickly began to type . . .

  AMERICANA DATELINE 9 MAY 1931

  Archaeologists have found evidence of trotting races in the Middle East dating back to as early as 1350 B.C. Modern American trotting dates from 1788 which was when the English trotter, Messenger, was exported to the United States. Messenger was a classic trotter who never infringed the rules, using the high-knee diagonal gait which separates the trotter from the pacer, who uses the legs on one side of its body at the same time.

  Messenger appeared three times in the pedigree of another horse, Hambletonian, the most famous of all stud trotters. Hambletonian, who had never himself run better than a modest 3 minutes 15 seconds for the mile, foaled such champions as Dexter, Robert Fillingham, Shark and Goldsmith Maid. By the time of his death Hambletonian had sired 1300 foals, forty of whom trotted the mile in better than two minutes thirty seconds. By the end of the nineteenth century all but three of the 138 trotters who had run 2 minutes 10 seconds could be traced directly back to Hambletonian, who had richly deserved the $288,000 he had earned at stud for his owner, Rysdyk.

  It was 1806 before the three-minute barrier for the mile was broken – by a horse named Yankee – and almost a hundred years later before Lou Dillon was to break the magic two minutes in running 1 minute 58.5 seconds. The essential difference between Yankee and Lou Dillon’s performance lay not so much in the horses themselves but in the nature of the sulkies they pulled behind them. The sulky was made in two sections: first, two long shafts running along either side of the horse, and attached at its shoulders and withers; then the bridge, joining the shafts behind the horse and on which there was a seat for the driver. In I806 Yankee had pulled a clumsy, ponderous sulky of 125 lb., plus its rider, while in 1903 Lou Dillon was pulling a rider and a light, flexible sulky of only 25 lb. By the turn of the century an arched axle had been invented, to prevent the trotter striking into the axle with its rear leg; earlier, in 1855, a roller-bearing axle had been introduced, while in 1892 the cycle-maker, Elliott, had invented a bicycle wheel which had reduced vibration, checked the tendency of the sulky to slew at bends, and reduced air resistance.

  Thus in Coolidge stadium Flanagan’s runners tomorrow face, in Silver Star, a direct descendant of the great Hambletonian, a standard-bred stallion pulling a flexible, feather-light, 22 lb. sulky. Luckily for them it will also pull, not a 100 lb. professional jockey, but the solid 202 lb. of the undertaker Leonard Levy, and Silver Star, after facing McPhail in the sprint, will then have to haul its Falstaffian master over ten miles of rough country.

  The two races take us right back to the roots of American sport, when men wagered on the jumping powers of a frog, when John L. Sullivan battled against a French foot-boxing champion, or when little “Sure Shot” Annie Oakley took on the world with a rifle. Thus for a few moments the world of the stop-watch, the world of certainty will be suspended, as Flanagan’s men pit themselves against one of the world’s fastest trotters. A distinguished colleague of mine, H. L. Mencken, once said that all life is six to four against. The odds against Flanagan’s runners are pitched a little higher, but I reckon that there will be more than a few long-shot bets on Messrs McPhail, Morgan and Thurleigh when they toe the line at Coolidge stadium tomorrow.

  CARL C. LIEBNITZ

  The heart of the city of St Louis, Olive Street Canyon, bristled with bookies from throughout the Union. At first came the men who normally made books on fighters, horses and greyhounds, but soon they were joined by ordinary God-fearing citizens, men who had never in their lives bet on anything more than horse-races like the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness. Even barber-shop bookies were offering ten to one against Flanagan’s runners in each of the races, a hundred to one against Flanagan’s men making the “double”. At first, no one knew who Flanagan’s runners were to be, but what did it matter? Goddamit, runners could no more beat horses than horses could outrun cars, or cars whip planes. Might as well say that Babe Ruth could chin Jack Dempsey. Still, at a hundred to one they were tempting odds, a good blind-shot bet . . . By the time – 8 May – that Flanagan’s runners reached Denville, about forty miles short of St Louis, St Louis seethed with excitement and anticipation.

  Since Topeka Leonard H. Levy had not been idle. He had hired Coolidge stadium, a trotting park just outside the city, holding forty thousand spectators, for a mere five thousand dollars, and was charging spectators three dollars each for admission. Since most of the race was over country he had also rented a hilly area fringing on the stadium and planned to charge spectators two dollars a man for the privilege of watching the cross-country section. Popcorn, hamburger and drinks concessions had pulled in a further five thousand dollars, and he had hired General Fosdike’s Wild West Show to support Flanagan’s tatterdemalion circus. Financially, Leonard H. Levy could not lose; but his obsession still lay with his beloved trotter, Silver Star.

  Men who themselves lack physical ability are prone to project their hopes and desires upon those who have that quality, be they animals or men. Thus they buy themselves a fighter, a baseball team, a horse, and live their fantasies through the successes of their purchases. Thus it was with the plump, balding Leonard Levy, a man who had, all his life, made up for his lack of physical prowess by the use of his wits. Levy would bargain for anything, from a Buick to a bag of popcorn, getting his kicks not from
saving a few dollars or cents from the purchase, but simply from the pleasure of the hassle. So no smart-Aleck Flanagan from New York was going to make him look a jackass. Anyhow, it was nothing to do with money – Levy had plenty of that. No, out there at the Coolidge stadium Leonard H. Levy was going to show them all that he was an athlete.

  “Charles H. Lindbergh,” exclaimed Flanagan. He, together with Doc, Willard and Kate, were standing with the runners in Coolidge stadium, in the cathedral-like silence of an empty arena, the evening before the competition. Levy had indeed done them proud. The 600-yard trotting track had been sifted, brushed and rolled to perfection, and the assorted flags of the nations of the world, which had lain unused in St Louis since the Olympics, fluttered around the stadium. Silver Star’s races against Flanagan’s men might well have originated in a Topeka speakeasy, but come 10 May all of St Louis, and spectators from nearly every state in the Union, would flood the Coolidge stadium.

  “This track doesn’t interest me,” said Doc, as he was joined there by Morgan, Thurleigh and McPhail. “We lose time in here. It’s the country stretch I want to see.”

  “Spoken like a true distance-man,” said Hugh, bending down to pick up a handful of the dirt-track. “Me, I’m interested in this.”

  He rubbed the gritty brown dirt, then let it pass through his fingers and looked at Flanagan. “Soft for sprinting,” he said. “I’ll have to use my long spikes, the ones I used back at McPhee in the Highland Games.”

  “Don’t talk to me about McPhee,” said Flanagan, kneeling to touch the surface of the track. “Those Scotch half-and-half pints of yours nearly did for me back there. But remember, Levy got me to agree to a three-race sprint series to give the crowd more for their money. You’ll have to be in top shape.”