From the Angle of Seventeen

by Eden Phillpotts

Every eye was fixed upon the scratch man as, with a magnificent and raking action, he set out on his gigantic task. Though not very tall, he had a remarkable stride, and his legs, which were slightly hairy and magnificently shaped, were remarkable, owing to a muscle that had developed on the front of the shin bones. This is the walking muscle, and only great walkers and racers have it developed in this extraordinary manner. Travers had a very long stride and a graceful motion. You didn’t realise that he was going so fearfully fast till you saw that, from the first, he began to gain upon the rest. Some of the others—all, of course, men of great distinction—appeared to be walking quite as fast as Dicky; but they were not. Umpires ran along on the grass inside the track to see the walking was fair; and the men who performed this onerous task had all been famous also in their day.

At last they exercised their umpiring powers and stopped one of the competitors. He had a most curious action, certainly, and several experts near me prophesied from the first that he would be pulled out. He didn’t seem to be actually running and he didn’t seem to be actually walking. It was a kind of shuffle of a very swift and speedy character; but whatever it exactly was, the umpires didn’t like it and told him that he was disqualified. He was a very tall man in a red costume, and he didn’t seem in the least surprised when they stopped him. In fact he was rather glad, I believe. A spectator next to me, smoking a cigar and talking very loud, said that the man had been really making the pace for another man.

Now the race had covered a mile and Travers was walking in the most magnificent manner it is possible to describe. An expression of great fierceness was in his eye and he was foaming slightly at the mouth, like a spirited steed. He and the man who had received ten seconds from him were too good for the rest of the field, and when they had covered a mile and a half, they passed the leader up to that distance and simply left him standing still. It was now clear there was going to be a historic race for the victory between Forrester and Travers, and the supporters of each great athlete shouted encouragement and yelled and left no stone unturned to excite their man to make a supreme effort and win. Travers and Forrester were walking one behind the other and it was, of course, a classical exhibition of fair “heel-and-toe” work, such as is probably never seen outside the famous precincts of the L.A.C. I shrieked for Travers and the man next me, with the cigar, howled for Forrester. Such was his excitement that the man with the cigar seized his hat and waved it to Forrester as he passed; and seeing him do this, I seized my hat, too, and waved it to Dicky.

Of course Travers, with the enormous cunning of the old stager, had kept just behind Forrester all the way—to let him set the pace; but now he knew that Forrester was slacking off a little—to save himself for a great finish—and so Travers felt that the time had come to make his bid for victory. It was just passing me that he did so, and I saw the flash of genius in his eye as he gathered himself for the supreme effort that was to dash the hopes of Forrester. Only one more round of the cinder track had to be made, so Dicky instantly got to Forrester’s shoulder and, after a few terrific moments, during which I and the man with the cigar and many others practically ceased to breathe, Travers wrested the lead from Forrester. It was a gigantic achievement and a cool and knowing sportsman near me with a stop watch in his hand declared that if Dicky wasn’t pulled up he would do fourteen and a quarter. “He’s getting among it,” said the cool hand, which was his way of meaning that Travers was promised to achieve a notable performance.

But Forrester was not yet done with. This magnificent walker, in no way discouraged by his doughty foeman, stuck gamely to his colossal task and Travers, try as he would, could not shake him off.

“He’s lifting! He’s lifting!” screamed the man with the cigar. “Pull him out—stop him!”

“He’s not—you’re a liar!” I shouted back, in a fever of rage, because the friend of Forrester, of course, meant that Travers was lifting. And if you “lift” in a walking race, you are running and not walking and all is over.

They had only two hundred yards to go and Travers was still in front, when an umpire, to my horror, approached Dicky. He had been watching Dicky’s legs with a microscopic scrutiny for some time and now he stopped the leader and told him that he was disqualified.

I shouted “Shame! Shame!” with all my might, and so did several other men; but the man with the cigar, who evidently understood only too well the subtleties of lifting among sprint walkers, screamed shrilly with exaggerated joy and behaved like a silly fool in every possible way.

Forrester, relieved of his formidable rival, took jolly good care not to lift himself. And as the next man in the race was nearly a hundred yards behind, he, of course, won comfortably.