The Benedictine crew got under way very unostentatiously. Their coach was actually rowing in the All Saints boat,—and it would be difficult to select a more glowing testimonial to the sterling sportsmanship of English rowing,—so the starting operations were wisely left to the College boatman, who had performed the office for something like half a century. The flight of time was recorded by Hughie himself, from the watch which hung on his stretcher beside his right foot. The experienced Mr. Dishart-Watson kept those too-often fatally intimate acquaintances, the rudder-lines and starting-chain, tactfully apart, and the St. Benedict's boat got off the mark with a start that brought her within a length of All Saints during the first half-minute.
After that their opponents drew away. As D'Arcy had said, they were a seasoned crew, and nothing short of sheer superiority would wear them down. The two boats swung round Grassy Corner and entered the Plough Reach about their distance apart. All Saints were rowing the faster stroke.
Hughie, who was keeping to a steady thirty-two, felt with satisfaction that the men behind him were well together. Number Seven, small but plucky, was setting bow-side a beautiful example in steady swing and smart finish. Six—Mr. Puffin—was rowing a great blade. To look at him now, you would ask why he had not been included in the University Crew. If you saw him trying to row forty to the minute, you would marvel that he should be included in any crew at all.
Five was not looking happy. He was lying back too far and tugging at the finish. To him the boat seemed heavier than usual, for he was just beginning to realise the difference between seconding the efforts of Hughie Marrable and those of Mr. Duncombe. Still, he was plugging gamely. Four, a painstaking person, was encouraging himself in a fashion entirely his own. After every stroke, as he sat up and swung forward, he gasped out some little sotto voce remark to himself, such as, "Oh, well rowed, Four!—Stick to it, Four!—Use your legs, old man!—That's better!—That's a beauty!—Oh, well rowed, Four!" And so on. Where he got the necessary breath for these exercises nobody knew; but some folk possess these little peculiarities, and row none the worse for them. Bow was another instance. He was a chirpy but eccentric individual, and used to sing to himself some little ditty of the moment—or possibly a hymn—all through a race, beginning with the first stroke and ending exactly, if possible, with the last. He had been known, when stroking a boat, to quicken up to a perfectly incredible rate simply because he feared that the song would end before he completed the course, a contingency which he regarded as unlucky in the extreme. On the other hand, he would become quite depressed if he had to stop in the middle of a verse, and he was quite capable of rowing rallentando if he desired to synchronise his two conclusions.
But few people have the time or inclination for these diversions while oscillating upon a sixteen-inch slide, and the rest of the crew were swinging at and plugging in grim silence.
The two boats swept into the roaring medley of Ditton Corner. They flashed past the row of piles and tethered punts amid a hurricane of shouts and waving handkerchiefs. Hughie, wrongfully exercising his privilege as Stroke, allowed his eyes to slide to the right for a moment. He had a fleeting glimpse of the crimson and excited countenance of Miss Gaymer, as some man held her aloft in the crowd. Then the boat gave a slight lurch, and Joey was swallowed up again. Hughie felt guiltily responsible for the lurch, and recalling his gaze into the proper channel—straight over the coxswain's right shoulder—swung out again long and steadily.
"Are we straight yet?" he gasped to Dishy.
"Yes—just."
"Tell 'em to reach out a bit."
Mr. Watson complied, in tones that rose high above the tumult on the bank and penetrated even into the harmonious soul of Bow, who was grappling with a difficult cadenza at the moment.