ROWING - THE RACE.
" I shall say, Are you ready?' once ; if I receive no answer, I shall say, Go ! ' " It is the voice of the umpire addressing us from the steam launch in which he will follow the race. He must be a man dead to all feeling, incapable of sympathy, for he actually turns to one of his fellow-passengers and makes a jesting remark, while our hearts are palpitating and our minds are strung up to face the stern actualities of the race. The other crew look very big and strong, and fit and determined. We shall have to row our hardest, and we all know it. "Get the top of your shorts properly tucked in," says our captain, " so as not to catch your thumbs ; and mind, all of you, eyes in the boat, and when cox shouts for ten strokes let her have it. Come forward all." "Touch her gently, bow" (it is the cox who speaks, and his voice sounds thin and far away and dream-like). " One more. That'll do. Easy, bow. Now we're straight." " Are you ready ? " from the umpire. Great heaven ! will he never say— " Go !" he shouts. There is a swish, a leap, a strain, a rattle of oars, a sense of something moving very swiftly along side, a turmoil of water, a confused roar from the bank : we are off! We started splendidly. For half a minute I am a mere machine ; thoughts, feelings, energies— all are concentrated into one desire to work my hardest and to keep in time. Then my mind clears, and I become conscious once more of myself and my surroundings. Have we gained ? I must steal a look. By Jupiter, they're leaving us ! " Eyes in the boat, four," screams the cox ; " you're late !" Be hanged to cox ! he's got eyes like a lynx. Yes ; there's no doubt of it—I can see, without looking out of the boat, out of the corner of my eye. They're gaining still. Now their stroke is level with me ; now he has dis appeared, and for a few strokes I am conscious of a little demon cox bobbing and screeching alongside of me. Then he, too, draws away, and their rudder is all I can see. At last that also vanishes, and a sense of desolation descends on us. Nearly two minutes must have gone ; I know that by the landmarks we have passed. Surely we ought to spurt. What can stroke be up to ? Is he going to let us be beaten without an effort. Ugh ! what a shower-bath that was. It's six splashing, as usual. Well, if we're beaten, we must just grin and bear it. We shall have to congratulate the other ruffians. Hateful ! Somebody must get beaten. But we're not beaten yet, hang it all ! Three minutes. What's this ? Cox is shouting. " Now, ten hard strokes together ; swing out, and use your legs !" He counts them out for us at the top of his voice.
Grand! We're simply flying. That's something like it. And I'm not a bit done yet. We're none of us done. The boat's going like smoke. "Nine!" yells the cox. "Ten ! Now, don't slack off; but keep her going. You're gaining, you're gaining ! On to it, all of you." He is purple in the face, and foaming at the mouth. Glorious ! Their rudder comes back to me ; I see their cox. We are catching them. Now for it ! A few strokes more and the boats are running dead level, and so they continue for half a minute. Stroke has now, however, taken the measure of his foes. We are steadying down and swinging longer, and I am conscious that the other crew are rowing a faster stroke. It is now our turn to leave them. Foot by foot we creep past them ; their bows come level with me, and then slowly recede. I can see the back of their bowman. His zephyr has come out from his shorts ; the back of his neck is very pale. There can't be
more than two minutes left now, and I'm still fit, and my wind is all right. We are winning ; I'm sure of it. No ; they're spurting again, and, by Jove! they're gaining ! Spurt, stroke, spurt ! We mustn't get beaten on the post. But stroke, that wary old warrior, knows what he is about. Un mistakable signs prove to him that this effort is the last desperate rally of his enemies. He sees their boat lurch ; their time is becoming erratic ; two of them are rolling about in evident distress. His own crew he has well in hand ; we are rowing as one man, and he feels that he has only to give a sign, and our restrained eagerness will blaze forth and carry us gloriously past the post. Let us wait, he seems to say, a very few seconds more, until the opposing spurt fades out to its inevitable end; so he rows on imperturbably. But isn't he running it too fine ? Not he. He gives a quick word to cox, rattles his hands away, and swings as if he meant to strike his face against the kelson of the boat. " Pick her up all screams the cox. "Now then !" comes in a muffled gasp from the captain. We feel that our moment has come, and, with a unanimous impulse, we take up the spurt and spin the ship along. In a flash we leap ahead ; we leave the other crew as if it was stand ing still. We are a length ahead ; now we are clear ; half a length of open water divides us from them. To all intents and purposes the race is over. The crowd grows thicker ; the shouts from the bank become a deafening din. Enthu siasts scream futile encouragements to pursuer and pursued, and in another moment the flag is down, the cox cries, " Easy all and with triumph in our hearts we realize that we have won. The captain turns round to us—he is row ing No. 7—his face glowing with pleasure. "Well rowed indeed, you men !" he pants. " You all did thundering well ! And as for you, stroke—" but words fail him, and all he can do is to clap his delighted stroke on the back. Then, having duly exchanged the customary "Well rowed !" and its accompanying rattle of oars in rowlocks with our gallant enemy, we paddle home to the raft, where our exultant coach and our perspiring partisans receive us with hand - shakings and embraces and fervently epitomized stories of the struggle. "I knew you had got 'em all the way!" says the coach. " Did you hear me shout when you got to the half-way point ? " "Hear you shout ?" we reply in a chorus of joyful " assent. " Of course we did. That's why we spurted." Of course, we had heard nothing ; but at this moment we almost think we did hear him plainly, and in any case we are not going to be so churlish as to detract from anybody's joy over our victory.
And so the struggle is ended, and we have won. Pleasant though it is to know that training is over, there is not one of us who does not feel a sense of sorrow as he realizes that these days of toil and hardship and self-restraint, of glorious health and vigorous effort are past. All the little worries under which we chafed, the discipline that at times was irksome, the thirst, the fatigue, the exhaustion, the recurrent disappointments — all these become part of a delightful memory. Never again, it may be, shall these eight men strike the sounding furrows together. The victory that has crowned us with honour has at the same time broken up our companionship of labour and endurance ; but its splendid memory, and the friendships it knit together—these remain with us, and are a part of our lives henceforth wherever we may be.