by Tom McNab
Again the crowd roared, drowning the announcer’s next statement. The cause was Levy, who had just entered sitting on a light sulky behind a superb black stallion. Silver Star’s glossy coat radiated the precise, controlled fitness of a champion trotter. Its movements were light, supple and rhythmic, and Hugh immediately recognized in the horse another sprinter, as he was. Or had been. For two thousand miles of running had taken more out of his legs than Doc’s probing fingers could ever replace. His throat was dry and again he felt the overwhelming desire to yawn. He wished himself ten thousand miles away.
Silver Star pranced fluidly round the 600-yard circuit, dimpling the track with its tiny hooves. The town loved this horse: Silver Star was St Louis, and they showed it in their applause. Hugh strode at half-effort in his spikes up the track, feeling smooth but ponderous. It was just as he had feared: the speed, the snap, the cadence, had vanished. His legs felt hollow. “Think fast” – those had been Stevie’s last words. He attempted a faster stride. It felt better, but worlds away from the real, blazing power which had once been his.
The roar of the crowd swelled as Silver Star slipped into full speed, pulsing down the back straight. Hugh looked left across the track. The animal could certainly shift, and he could see no way in which he could conceivably stay with it – short of holding on to the back of the sulky.
One fifty-eight p.m. Colonel Cranston blew his whistle for the first time. “Please prepare yourselves, gentlemen,” he said. Within seconds the crowd had stilled, the last sounds being the cries of peanut vendors echoing across the arena. Hugh felt his legs tremble as he walked towards the start. He handed his dressing-gown to Doc, then looked up the track at the single roped lane. Focus in. Silver Star trotted in on his left, snorting lightly, its supple shanks quivering.
“Get to your marks!” shouted Cranston.
Hugh’s world had slowed down now, the crowd reduced to a soft blur. He again felt a thin trickle of sweat on his right temple. His breath seemed to come from far off. He blinked. Yards away, down his lane, he could see the sharp white of Dixie’s handkerchief. Suddenly he was back in childhood, at the mine with Stevie, at winter Powderhall in four feet of space. As then, the space around his lane melted, as his lane became sharp and clear. Focus in.
He felt the roughness of the grit of the track on his right knee and through the tips of his fingers. Why in God’s name was the starter so slow?
“Get set . . .”
Hugh came up late, to lessen the pressure on his arms and shoulders. When the gun cracked he drove off with range and power, eating up the track with long surging strides. Levy was slow to react and Hugh was five yards down the track before his opponent had even put the whip to Silver Star and another two yards down before the horse reacted. Somehow, miraculously, Hugh’s body had remembered the thousand sprint drills of the past. He burnt through the space towards the white handkerchief, oblivious to the throbbing hooves behind him.
The trotter rushed up the track, its supple legs flowing underneath it. But the late reaction of its rider, coupled with the problem of moving from rest 200 pounds of rider and sulky, had in all lost Silver Star nearly twelve yards over the first fifty. The horse was closing fast, but not quickly enough. Hugh snapped the tape a good three yards ahead.
At the end of the straight he slowed down to a trot, his gaze fixed on the beaming Dixie, bobbing delightedly beside a radiant Juan Martinez. Above him the Trans-America banners were swirling crazily as the runners danced up and down with delight. Children were restrained from running on to the track to greet McPhail by burly, smiling policemen. For a moment there was chaos, as the announcer repeatedly tried to declare the result. He gave up, as wave upon wave of cheering and applause drowned his attempts. The St Louis crowd roared and kept on roaring. Although most of their money was on Silver Star somehow irrationally and against their own interests they wanted this Scot to win.
Levy glumly drew Silver Star to a halt, shaking his head, but was soon in close discussion with his trainers who had watched the race from the in-field. He listened to them intently, nodded, then started to smile. Hugh walked back through the applause, down the home stretch towards Doc, who put his dressing-gown back round his shoulders. “Great,” he said. “But keep warm, inside and outside. We ain’t home yet, not by a long way.”
A few moments later Hugh lay on his stomach on the massage-table, as Doc lightly stroked his calves. He felt a great stillness, and could hardly believe that only a few minutes before he had exploded down the track before forty thousand spectators. He wiped his forehead with his right hand, put his fingers to his lips and savoured the salt taste of his own sweat.
He heard a click as the dressing-room door opened behind him. It was Flanagan. Doc shook his head and put a finger to his lips. Flanagan nodded and closed the door gently, leaving Doc and Hugh alone together. Doc tapped Hugh on the back of his neck and the sprinter turned to sit, supported on the heels of both hands. Doc then gently drew a white hand-towel across Hugh’s forehead, as if he were drying a baby.
“You did good out there,” he said, then looked at his watch, which showed two-twenty. “Ten minutes to go. Plenty of time. Just do the same again and our money’s in the bank.”
Ten minutes later, at exactly 2.30 p.m. the crowd was again hushed. The second race was about to begin. Now only the cries of children and wheeling birds broke the silence. Colonel Cranston loaded his Winchester with two blanks. Hugh could hear the greased cartridges click into the gun’s barrels.
“Please prepare yourselves, gentlemen.”
Silver Star was already at its mark by the time Hugh reached the starting-line. This time there was no need for Hugh to focus in, for his lane was etched sharp and clear. He was ready. But now so was Levy, his whip poised only a foot or so from Silver Star’s flickering withers.
“Get set . . .”
The gun cracked and this time Levy smacked Silver Star’s rump at once, bringing the trotter into immediate movement. The horse still had yards to pick up at fifty yards, but it pulled Hugh in as if with a lasso, his prancing legs snapping underneath him like whips. The horse clawed back yard after yard in the last fifty as Hugh drove in desperately on the tape.
Hugh could feel Silver Star at his shoulder at ninety yards, knew instinctively that the horse was surging past him. Still, he did what he had always been trained to do – to drive remorselessly in on that tiny white handkerchief. But even as he dipped for the tape he could see out of the corner of his eyes that he was beaten, that the prancing trotter had taken him by at least a yard.
This time the Trans-America banners in the back straight were limp, but the roars from the crowd were the same, though they were now for Levy. The smartass had come back punching, and the St Louis crowd recognized it in their applause for him. Levy’s trainers rushed to his side and he leaned over grinning, the sweat streaming from his plump face, nodding as they pumped his hands. Hugh dared not look at Dixie, as she stood at the end of the straight, head down, Juan Martinez’ arm around her shoulder. He walked slowly back down the track towards Doc, who stood at the mouth of the tunnel holding Hugh’s dressing-gown in front of him. Doc’s face was grim, but he summoned a smile.
“One to go,” he said. “Still got a chance.” He put his hand round Hugh’s shoulders as the announcer boomed out the result over the babble of the crowd, and they walked together into the gloom of the tunnel.
“Result of second trial. First, Silver Star.” The announcement was drowned in cheers. “Time, ten point five seconds. Second, McPhail, ten point six seconds. The final trial will take place in twenty-five minutes, at three o’clock.”
Back in the darkness of the dressing room Hugh sat upon the massage table, weight on his hands, while Doc lightly rubbed his calves.
“How do you see it?” asked Doc, the anxiety showing in his voice. The Scotsman sat up, resting on his elbows, and shook his head as Flanagan entered the room. “Levy’s got the start taped,” sobbed Hugh. “I can’t
find another yard, Doc. I don’t have an inch left in me. I can’t go any faster.”
“But the bloody horse can get slower,” came another Scots voice – from the door. It was Stevie, coming in behind Flanagan.
“Rules say that you’ve both got to be still on the mark, don’t they?”
Hugh nodded, and Doc stopped his massage.
“So just look at the bloody horse at the start – it’s moving all the time, particularly its head. I’ve been checking on trotters. They move their heads from left to right – that’s their natural action. So we’ve got to protest to Cranston – get Silver Star’s head held at the start, with its head to the right. That means that it will have to move its head left-right before it gets going. That’ll take time – it might even be worth that extra yard to you.”
Flanagan withdrew a pad from his pocket and scribbled down some notes. He looked up.
“I can’t see that Cranston can object to Silver Star being still at the start,” he said. “But a yard only puts us level at best. We need more. Anything else?”
Stevie reached into his pocket, drew out two pieces of cotton wool, and gave them to Hugh.
“We always used to talk about running in silence, in four feet of space, didn’t we?”
Hugh nodded.
“Well, one thing you don’t want to hear is that bloody horse thudding up behind you,” he said. “You’ve got to make this last run a pure run, with nothing distracting you. So stuff these in your ears and you can run in a world of your own. You’ll hear the start, ’cause Cranston’s right next to you with his ruddy Winchester. After that it’s just you and a hundred yards to be gobbled up.”
Doc looked at Flanagan, who nodded, then gulped, feeling tears come to his eyes. He lightly knuckled Hugh on the left shoulder.
“Do what you do best,” he said gruffly, pulling Stevie with him towards the dressing-room door.
“Finished,” said Doc a moment later, and tapped Hugh on the thigh.
Hugh stood up and together the two men walked through into the tunnel. At the mouth of the tunnel leading out to the track stood Thurleigh and Morgan. Neither spoke, but both put a hand on Hugh’s shoulder as if trying to transfer some of their own strength and energy to him. Hugh barely acknowledged them as he walked past out into the sharp sunlight of the arena.
This time the crowd was immediately silent when they glimpsed Hugh’s lean, slight figure at the entrance to the stadium. Even when Levy and Silver Star reappeared there was no applause – simply silence. Only the sharp flapping of the flags around the stadium could be heard as Colonel Alan Cranston summoned the contestants to their marks for the last time.
“Gentlemen, prepare yourselves.” Cranston’s voice broke slightly on the final word, his feelings reflected in the vast, still crowd that now hung on his next words of command. Hugh stuffed Stevie’s plugs of cotton wool into his ears and trotted to the start, followed by Levy and Silver Star.
Cranston had readily agreed to Silver Star’s bridle being held, and Levy, certain of victory, had made no attempt to protest.
Forty thousand people focused hearts and minds on the hundred yards through which Hugh and Silver Star would travel. Flanagan hardly dared look, and in the crowd Martinez and Dixie covered their eyes.
“On your marks . . .”
Hugh could hear Cranston’s command clearly, and knew that the thunder of Cranston’s Winchester would set him off, even if muffled by the ear-plugs. He settled himself in as Silver Star’s handler gripped the trotter’s bridle, holding the horse’s head to the right.
“Get set . . .”
Then it all happened with a rush. The gun released Hugh from his prison and he drove up the soft dirt-track like a man possessed. Behind him Silver Star jerked his head to release himself from the pressure on its mouth, swept it to the right and moved late to Levy’s sharp and urgent whip.
Hugh, in an eight-yard lead by forty yards, was solidly in the present, yet in the past, back in a perfect muscular memory of even-time sprinting. He rippled – flowed – legs sweeping under him in a blur. He could hear nothing, see nothing, but the white reality of the handkerchief out ahead of him. He was again a machine, a sprint-machine. Though he automatically threw his chest in on the tape as he had been taught he knew that he had won.
He pulled the cotton wool from his ears. But the roar of the crowd almost deafened him and, smiling, he put his hands to the sides of his head. Then children in the crowd broke the barrier created by the police and engulfed him, thrusting programmes and grubby scraps of paper up to him. He bent down to them, grinning, and had completed a dozen autographs by the time the St Louis police had regained control. He looked into the crowd for Dixie, who was weeping unashamedly on Juan Martinez’ shoulder. The Mexican raised his eyebrows and shrugged as
Hugh caught his eye.
Above the din the Trans-Americans in the crowd took up the chant “McPhail, McPhail”, soon picked up by their colleagues dancing excitedly on the cross-country course above the stadium. The commentator attempted to announce the result, but again it was impossible, for the crowd would not permit him. A man had outrun a horse, and they knew that the three ten-second snatches of conflict they had seen would remain with them for the rest of their lives. So the St Louis crowd cheered until they were hoarse and when they were too hoarse to cheer they started to applaud. Then, at the end of the finishing straight, a piper appeared, dressed in immaculate Black Watch tartan, and with Hugh jogging beside him they performed a lap of honour to the applause of the crowd.
“Third and final trial,” said the announcer, at last audible above the rantings of the crowd. “First, Hugh McPhail, ten point five seconds.”
Hugh finally reached the entrance of the tunnel where Doc, Dixie, Stevie and Flanagan awaited him.
“Give us a kiss,” said Doc, hugging him.
“Nae fear,” said Hugh, grinning. “Not until you’ve shaved, anyway.”
He looked at Dixie, standing in front of him, still weeping.
“Woman,” said Hugh, “I’m glad I won. God knows what you would ha’ done if I’d lost.”
Dixie smiled through her tears.
“And Stevie?”
“Yes?” responded the little Scot.
“Remember you told me before the race about Wallace of Perth running against a horse all those years back. Did he win?”
“Of course not,” said Stevie, unbowed.
Half an hour later the Coolidge stadium was again hushed in expectation. Out in the country another forty thousand spectators had gathered, pressing in on the pegged, bumpy, roped track which marked the circuit, which, added to the four-forty-yard track, made up the course to one mile, to be covered ten times.
Down in the dressing room beneath the single light bulb the Trans-Americans had regained their composure.
“Remember,” said Doc, flicking Thurleigh’s thighs from side to side with practised hands, “don’t get panicked when the horse picks up an early lead. It’s bound to happen. Think of Nurmi. Keep to your pace.”
A hundred yards away, in a dressing room at the opposite end of the stadium, Leonard Levy still smarted from his defeat in the sprint. He lay on his stomach as his masseur desperately tried to make contact with muscle under the layers of fat which covered the flabby back.
“Sulky checked?” he said, looking up at his trainer, Rafferty, standing above him.
“Yes, Mr Levy,” replied Rafferty obediently. “In perfect condition. Ready to start anytime you say.”
“And Silver Star?”
“No problems, sir. That sprint has warmed him up nicely for the big race.”
“The big race,” repeated Levy. “Yes, I reckon this is the big one. That sprint – no real test of a trotter.”
“Just so, sir,” replied Rafferty obediently. “In a sprint you blink an eyelid and it’s all over. No, Mr Levy, this is the real race. We’ll get our money back on this one. You can bank on it, sir.”
The masseur tapped Levy
on the back and Levy turned round and lay, head cupped in hands, then checked his wrist-watch. Fifteen minutes to go.
At 3.30 p.m. the contenders had assembled at the start. On the infield stood Doc, Flanagan, Willard, Dr Falconer, Kate and the two runners, Thurleigh and Morgan. On the track Levy sat on Silver Star, adjusting the reins as his trainers and grooms put the finishing touches to the stallion and its sulky. Levy looked across at Flanagan. “The best of luck to you, Mr Flanagan,” he said, smiling.
“Yes,” replied Flanagan. “May the best man win.”
The smile left Levy’s face. He would put so much space between Flanagan’s men and himself in the first few miles that they would simply concede defeat.
“Prepare yourselves, gentlemen.” Cranston was quietly pleased at the way things had gone. He had come out well so far and he was going to see that the cross-country race was conducted in a similar sporting fashion. A fair field and no favour.
Peter Thurleigh took off his dressing-gown to reveal his now-familiar, if faded, Oxford silk vest and shorts. He had never run before in a continuous relay of this type and had no idea how his body would respond to five separate miles over country, each broken by a five-minute rest. He was, however, a horseman, and could see little likelihood of himself and Morgan dealing with a stallion of Silver Star’s calibre. He glanced to his left at Silver Star and Levy, poised, whip in hand.
“Get set . . .”
The gun cracked and Silver Star snapped off round the track, prancing with neat powerful action and leaving Thurleigh plodding behind. The crowd roared: this is what they had come to see. By the time Silver Star had passed the stadium exit at the beginning of the back stretch Levy was already over a furlong in the lead.
But the cross-country course was bumpy and uneven and Silver Star slowed as even the supple sulky creaked and slewed on the rugged ground. By contrast Thurleigh moved smoothly and easily over the course, passing the three-quarter-mile mark in three minutes forty seconds. Even so, Silver Star re-entered the stadium almost a quarter of a mile in front. Thurleigh had covered the first mile in four minutes fifty seconds; Silver Star in four minutes ten seconds.