‘This is Matt,’ he said to Father, introducing the figure behind him, a stocky young man with dull blue eyes and the harsh red skin of a sailor.
Father nodded, not paying too much attention.
‘He wants to try swimming the English Channel,’ said Robert Winkle, shaking out his umbrella.
‘The Channel?’ Father smiled incredulously. ‘He has it in mind to swim from England to France? Is he as mad as Johnson? How long did he last, an hour?’
‘One hour three minutes,’ said Robert Winkle, who always had the correct figures to hand.
Father touched his head to indicate he thought his friend was insane as well, but I was intrigued. ‘Can I swim the Channel?’ I asked.
Father laughed. ‘No one has ever swum the Channel.’
‘That is why Matt will be the first,’ said Robert Winkle. ‘He has a medal for bravery, you’ve probably heard. And he recently out-swam a Newfoundland dog —’
‘Did he really?’ Father looked at the young man with some interest. ‘And where was that?’
‘The sea. But it was too choppy for a dog’s style of swimming and the poor brute nearly drowned.’
But still Father wasn’t convinced.
‘Look,’ said Robert Winkle, ‘he actually started bothering me about this last year; he came to my offices saying he wanted to try the longest swim ever. I told him it was of little use either to him or to me, but here he is, back again. Last month he managed thirteen miles off Folkestone. So Jeff my man, I thought you were the right person to meet. If he can conquer the Channel then what a man he will be! Never been done before, and who will have trained him? Why, it will have been you.’
‘Hmm,’ said Father, stroking his chin.
‘Give him a trial and see how far he can swim.’
‘Where?’
‘Where do you think? If he’s going to swim some twenty miles across the Channel then there’s only one place, and that’s the River Thames.’
‘The Thames?’ I whispered, but the men ignored me.
‘When?’ asked Father.
‘Now. Take him at his word and without any preparation.’
‘All right,’ said Father, ‘right here and right now.’
Matt gave him a fine salute and it was agreed that the very next day they would hire a boatman and take the sailor out onto the Thames.
*
The following evening Father called for me just before six o’clock; I had successfully pestered him to take me along and he had agreed so long as I didn’t tell my mother. She was expecting a baby now; her stomach was big and her legs were swollen and she spent her time indoors on doctor’s orders. Father wanted Billy to come too, he thought he would be inspired by the adventure, but at the appointed hour, as I stood waiting outside the Crown and Cushion, my brother was nowhere to be seen.
We hurried down to Westminster Bridge, Father and Robert Winkle leading the way, Matt and I following behind. The sailor didn’t have much to say for himself; Father had told me that he’d travelled all over the world but in answer to my questions he would only give a shrug. He didn’t seem particularly excited about what he was about to do either, and there was a toughness about him that suggested he didn’t give a damn.
We reached the foreshore and walked along the river’s edge. It was the end of a long, warm day. The water was still and the only sounds were the distant cough-cough of a boat’s engine and the muffled cry of an engine-boy. Eventually we stopped on a small shingle strip of beach; a boatman was waiting and we clambered into his rowing boat. I was to sit in the bow and not move around or say anything to distract Matt from his job, and I had to fight to keep myself still, for at last I was going to see someone swim this great river and to travel on it myself. Father settled down behind me, while Robert Winkle sat very upright with his stopwatch, notebook and pencil ready in his hands. I held my breath as the boatman pulled off, the boat swaying a little with our weight, and he rowed upstream between a set of barges and came to a stop. Matt stood up on the stern of the boat just under the arch of the bridge and without further ado he took off his coat. He had a muscular body with fine broad shoulders, and on one arm he had a small blue anchor tattoo. It was a clear evening, there was no sign of fog and very little traffic; conditions were perfect.
‘Off you go then,’ said Father and Matt dived in. His entry to the water was smooth; a man sitting on a nearby barge, a pipe in his mouth, looked up in surprise, another on a paddle steamer gave a wave, but no one on the bridge had noticed a thing. I crouched up on my knees to watch as Matt cut a neat course between two sailing barges.
‘That’s the slowest breaststroke I’ve ever seen,’ said Father as we passed under Waterloo Bridge where the slosh of the oars echoed eerily beneath the granite pillars. I watched as still Matt plodded on, mesmerised by the wonderful sweep of his legs. The riverside wharves began to darken and lights appeared on the bridge ahead. A dog barked from somewhere on shore, I heard a ship letting down its anchor, but other than that, the river was quiet.
‘Twenty-two strokes to the minute,’ said Robert Winkle, scribbling with the stump of his pencil and complaining that his notebook was getting damp.
Still we rowed beside Matt, but he neither looked at nor spoke to us; his broad shoulders just kept pushing through the water. How I wished Billy was with me to see this – and how I longed to join the swim. Father must have sensed this for several times he laid his hand on mine as if to prevent me. Just before London Bridge, Matt began to speed up and the boatman rowed a little faster.
‘Twenty-five strokes a minute,’ said Robert Winkle.
But Father was growing restless. ‘Get him out,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen enough, he’ll keep us here all night.’
So Robert Winkle signalled to Matt in the water.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, his head bobbing up.
‘We’re satisfied! You can come out.’
‘I’m just getting into the thick of it,’ said Matt. ‘When the tide turns we’ll turn with it and swim back.’
Father laughed. ‘Then you’ll have to turn with it by yourself, we’re going home.’
It took quite a while to persuade Matt to stop, and then to hoist him into the boat, for he was a heavy man. But there was no sign that the swim had tired him. Robert Winkle confirmed that his pulse was normal, his body was warm to the touch and his speech was as clear as when he’d begun. Father rubbed Matt down with a rug, covered him up with blankets and offered a glass of port wine, which the sailor drank in one gulp.
‘How long?’ asked Father.
‘One hour, twenty minutes,’ said Robert Winkle. ‘And a little under six miles.’
‘Look at him,’ murmured Father, ‘he’s as fresh as when he started.’
What surprised him, I think, was not so much the distance Captain Webb had swum, for that in itself wasn’t too far, but the easy way he had made it. ‘He could do three times the distance by the looks of things,’ said Father. ‘I believe he could be the first man to swim the Channel.’ And his face lit up with the realisation that he might well have discovered a financial treasure.
From then on the three men were inseparable, spending every evening together plotting the Channel swim. Matt became a permanent fixture at the Lambeth Baths, arriving early in the morning and spending the entire day swimming up and down in his slow methodical way. Every now and again he would sit on the springboard for a rest, but he didn’t seem to need sleep like other people. At the end of the day, when the gas was lit, he drank a glass of ale and then at last he was gone. Mr Peach was quite concerned at first; just what was the man up to? But Father assured him all was as it should be. ‘That’s Captain Webb, remember his name because you’re going to be hearing a lot about him.’
Some six months later Father made the announcement at the Crown and Cushion, offering twenty to one that a gentleman amateur could swim from England to France. Who that gentleman was, he was not yet prepared to say. But everyone knew about Captain
Boyton, the American who had just declared he would cross the Channel in his specially made lifesaving suit. Time was of the essence; the money was raised to hire a boat, pay a pilot, buy provisions and rent lodgings at Dover, and Father, Robert Winkle and Matt set off for the coast.
I was not allowed to come along; I had a baby sister to help look after now and I was needed at home. She was a tiny baby and Mother was still very weak but Father was delighted. ‘See how she kicks her legs!’ he said as he leaned over the crib.
‘No!’ Mother cried. ‘There are enough swimmers already in this family. This daughter I’m keeping with me.’
I was glad to have a sister and she was such a pretty baby. I had no jealousy of her, not at first. When she was handed to me I thought I would drop her, she was so delicate, but Mother said, ‘You should get used to caring for a baby.’ They named her Minnie, and Mother was kinder to me now. She didn’t care if I spent my time at the baths or what I wore for the shows or even if the men whistled. I no longer interested her; I’d been replaced by another girl.
CHAPTER TEN
Captain Webb’s attempt at crossing the Channel was a disaster. Rough sea forced him to give up after less than seven hours and Father returned home in a sombre mood; it seemed the dream was over. But less than two weeks later, while I was keeping him company at the Crown and Cushion, a newspaper boy ran in shouting, ‘An Englishman has crossed the Channel!’
‘What?’ said Father, taking the paper. ‘Who is the Englishman?’
I hardly dared to watch as he cast his eyes over the newspaper and realised it was Captain Matthew Webb. A fortune was now at the feet of the Channel hero, he would be the toast of the nation and Father felt sorely betrayed. Instead of being eyewitness to the triumph, he had to read about it in a newspaper report. Why hadn’t he known about Matt’s second attempt, and who was his trainer and backer now? Why hadn’t he been there in the escort boat when the sailor landed in France? The journalist who had accompanied Matt was nothing but an Iago, said Robert Winkle, seducing the young man away from his true friends, and he cursed the day he’d ever brought Captain Webb to the Lambeth Baths.
Father slapped the paper down on the counter and it lay there in a puddle of spilled beer. He didn’t seem to be listening to Robert Winkle; he was off somewhere else entirely, and that was when I saw my chance.
‘I can do it.’
‘Do what, Daisy?’ he asked as a group of customers came barging into the clubroom singing, ‘An Englishman! An Englishman has swum the Channel!’ and the barman began filling tankards and lining them up on the counter.
‘I could do the Channel.’
‘As if I have the money for that now.’
‘You could have her race Parker’s sister,’ said Robert Winkle.
‘Who?’
‘Professor Parker. His sister is the same age as Daisy and I’ve heard it said she can swim for hours with no sign of tiredness.’
‘Really?’ Father sounded disbelieving.
‘Jeff my man,’ Robert Winkle lowered his voice, ‘there are rumours afoot that he’s going to place a wager on Emily to swim the Thames.’
Could it be true, I thought: was a girl going to swim the Thames?
Father looked equally amazed. He knew of Professor Parker’s son of course, for Harry had been Billy’s closest rival for years, but this was the first time he’d heard of Emily. ‘Professor Parker has a sister? Where did she come from?’
‘He brought her down from Leeds,’ said Robert Winkle. ‘Just think, a race in the Thames, never been done by a girl.’
‘All right,’ said Father, ‘what else have I got to lose?’ For he knew that thanks to Matthew Webb’s crossing of the Channel, swimming would now be the mania of the hour. It was the perfect time for my river debut.
I couldn’t wait to meet Emily Parker. I wanted to see her right there and then. Father had said there was no one I could swim against, but here was a girl the same age as me. What did she look like, and why didn’t I know of her? But it was another two days before Father took me to the Barbican Baths where her brother worked.
It was a glorious afternoon and the streets of the city shimmered in the sunshine as newspaper boys ran past shouting out the latest reports on Captain Webb. He was back in England now and basking in adulation, and Father bit his lip and looked annoyed. We entered the Barbican Baths by a side entrance and it seemed dark and gloomy after the relentless heat outside. We stopped to read a poster on the wall offering free vouchers for those who wanted to learn to swim, and when Father sniffed the air and wondered aloud how often the water was changed I was embarrassed and hoped no one had heard him. He asked a bath attendant the way to the gallery and tipped him sixpence, and up we went, choosing the place where we were least likely to be seen. I looked down on the pool, fascinated by the activity going on along the edge; a teacher with a pole and another with a shepherd’s crook, a row of pupils lying on their stomachs on benches waving their arms and kicking their legs like drowning beetles. Father laughed. ‘They’ll soon lose heart when they fail to learn in one lesson, and that’ll be the last anyone sees of them.’
But most puzzling of all was a wire strung a few feet above the bath, with a pulley and wheel at one end. Attached to the wire was a rope with a belt at the bottom in which a man was suspended, his body half submerged in the water.
‘Absurd!’ cried Father as the man began to travel along the wire and then to flail his arms and shout in alarm as the other swimmers crashed into him. ‘Total bunkum. Why would any sane person fasten himself up in that for a sake of a swim?’
I didn’t answer for I fancied having a go myself; I thought it would be fun to speed along the water on a wire.
‘How is that going to give him any confidence?’ asked Father. Then he lowered his voice. ‘See Daisy, there she is.’
I moved closer to the balcony rail and looked down. A girl of my age, though of a much slighter build, had appeared at the deep end and was standing with her feet on the edge of the pool. Her hair was wet and neatly parted, her face long and serious with frowning brows and a little double chin, and she wore a tunic just like mine, only hers was green. Nobody seemed to be paying her much attention, not those splashing in the water in clumsy imitation of Captain Webb, or those on the benches kicking their legs. I saw her ready herself and take a deep breath, and it was almost as if I were watching myself as she dived smartly in, barely making a splash. She set off along the bath using a steady breaststroke, although her legs were a little lower in the water than they should have been, and as I saw her reach the end and turn with a strong confident kick I so wanted to dive down and swim with her.
I had never swum with anyone else before, aside from my brothers and Father’s ladies who were not nearly as accomplished. I wondered if she loved the water as I did, whether her brother was firm in his training and held her head under and had her dive from heights that made her shake. What did her mother think of her swimming, did she shout at her and call her a savage? How was she even allowed in a pool with men like this? Still, I watched the girl in the bath. I knew she was my competitor and I had to beat her, but I wished she could be my companion.
After Emily Parker had swum a quarter mile or so Father said it was time to go, and all the way home he gave advice. Open water was a very different matter from a bath, he warned. I would have to remember to look up to see where I was and keep my course straight. If I did this properly it wouldn’t lessen my speed and would make sure I didn’t collide into either my rival or a boat. But he had his doubts too; tidal water wasn’t a fair test when it came to a swimming race, for if one competitor got the benefit of the current then they would easily win.
This was not a gala; it didn’t matter how much I smiled. I had to improve both my speed and my endurance. I had pluck, but that wasn’t enough, I needed proper training. I was to swim a mile in the bath in less than twenty minutes and be able to switch from breaststroke to sidestroke if needed. I nodded at everything he sa
id, delighted that I would be trained to compete and not just to look pretty. But Father was concerned that I appeared older than Emily, being so much stouter, and that as it was both our sex and our youth that would make the swim remarkable it must be made clear we were both fourteen.
Father busied himself consulting old river men; learning the spots where the water was slack and plotting the speediest route, for a straightforward course was not always the best in the long run. He studied the tides and the moon and currents, made a note of high water times at London Bridge, certain that this was where any race would begin, and poured over the daily weather diagrams. Avidly he read Bell’s Life; for if any announcement were to be made, if someone wished to swim a match, then this was where he would read about it first.
Then finally the day came when Robert Winkle was proved right. Professor Parker had wagered £50 to £30 that his sister Emily could swim five miles in the River Thames from London Bridge. He fixed a date for the swim, the following week on September 3rd, and added that Professor Belle’s daughter could join for any sum my Father cared to wager.
This didn’t go down too well with Professor Belle. ‘Join the swim?’ he asked. ‘Who is he to make a challenge like this? I’m not having you join anyone; we’ll do it on Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday?’ I asked, confused. ‘But the third is Friday, that’s not the date.’
‘It is now,’ chuckled Father. ‘He’s obviously been biding his time. If you do it first and alone then that will take away the novelty of her swim. Let’s see what her brother makes of that. And I’ll more than double the wager.’ I wasn’t sure about this; I wanted to race Emily Parker. But Father had made up his mind; I would do it alone, and the die was cast.
*
From then on, he was busy with the necessary arrangements, hiring a boatman and boat, reserving places on a steamer with a band, making sure that the day before my swim the streets of London were covered in posters and boards. Robert Winkle would accompany us and write about it in the press, and even Billy agreed he would come. The excitement over Captain Webb’s crossing seemed to have given him a new lease of life: the thrill of his triumph was infectious, and Billy was happy to see his little sister swim and support me on the way.
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