The rest should be silence, for no one ever knew the number of cars that completed the journey. Some said twenty-two, others thirteen; but it is certain that the conditions were too much for many, and that while some reposed in wayside stables, others, broken down in lonely places, remained on the road all through that awful night. The guests, who in the morning had been unable to find seats on the “horseless carriages,” and so had journeyed by special train or by coach, in the end had much to congratulate themselves upon.
But, after all, looking back upon the hasty enthusiasm that organised so long a journey at such a time of year, at so early a stage in the motor-car era, it seems remarkable, not that so many broke down, but that so large a proportion reached Brighton at all.
The logical outcome of years of experiment and preparation was reached, in the supersession of the horsed London and Brighton Parcel Mail on June 2nd, 1905, by a motor-van, and in the establishment, on August 30th, of the “Vanguard” London and Brighton Motor Omnibus Service, starting in summer at 9.30 a.m., and reaching Brighton at 2 p.m.; returning from Brighton at 4 p.m., and finally arriving at its starting-point, the “Hotel Victoria,” Northumberland Avenue, at 9 p.m. With the beginning of November, 1905, that summer service was replaced by one to run through the winter months, with inside seats only, and at reduced fares.
The first fatality on the Brighton Road in connection with motor-cars occurred in 1901, at Smitham Bottom, when a car just purchased by a retired builder and contractor of Brighton was being driven by him from London. The steering-gear failed, the car turned completely round, ran into an iron fence and pinned the owner’s leg against it and a tree. The leg was broken and had to be amputated, and the unfortunate man died of the shock.
But the motor-omnibus accident of July 12th, 1906, was a really spectacular tragedy. On that day a “Vanguard” omnibus, chartered by a party of thirty-four pleasure seekers at Orpington for a day at Brighton, was proceeding down Hand Cross Hill at twelve miles an hour when some essential part of the gear broke and the heavy vehicle, dashing down-hill at an ever-increasing pace, and swerving from side to side, struck a great oak. The shock flung the passengers off violently. Ten were killed and all the others injured, mostly very seriously.
Meanwhile, amateur coaching had, in most of the years since the professional coaches had been driven off the road, flourished in the summer season. The last notable amateur was the American millionaire, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, who for several seasons personally drove his own “Venture” coach between London and Brighton; at first on the main “classic” road, and afterwards on the Dorking and Horsham route. He met his death on board the Lusitania, when it was sunk by the Germans, May 7th. 1915.
VIII
THE ROAD OF RECORDS
Robinson Crusoe, weary of his island solitude, sighed, so the poet tells us, for “the midst of alarms.” He should have chosen the Brighton Road; for ever since it has been a road at all it has fully realised the Shakespearian stage-direction of “alarums and excursions.” Particularly the “excursions,” for it is the chosen track for most record-breaking exploits; and thus it comes to pass that residents fortunate or unfortunate enough to dwell upon the Brighton Road have the whole panorama of sport unfolded before their eyes, whether they will or no, throughout the whirling year, and see strange sights, hear odd noises, and (since the coming of the motor-car) smell weird smells.