Bert Wilson, Marathon Winner

by J. W. Duffield

There was certainly motion enough to satisfy the most ardent advocate of the “strenuous life.” The deck was humming with life at its fullest. Two hundred young athletes in their picturesque costumes were working away as though their lives depended on it. Here a swimmer splashed in the tank and ran the gamut of all the strokes—the “side,” the “sneak,” the “crawl,” the “trudgeon.” From the fencers’ quarters came the clash of steel on steel, as they thrust and parried, now retreating, now advancing, seeking to touch with the buttoned point the spot that marked their opponent’s heart. The bark of the revolver and the more pronounced crack of the rifle bespoke the effort of the marksmen to round into form. Drake at the stern was striving to outdo his rivals in casting the discus far behind the ship. On the cork track the hundred-yard men were flashing like meteors from end to end, while the milers and long-distance men circled the ship at ten laps to the mile. The trainers snapped the watches on the trial heats and strove to correct defects of form or pace. Everywhere was speed and energy and abounding life. It was a fine example of the spirit that has made America great—the careful preparation, the unwearied application, the deadly determination that simply refuses to lose when it has once entered upon a struggle. And Bert’s heart bounded as he realized that he was one of this splendid band chosen to uphold the honor of the flag. The thought added wings to his feet as he flew again and again around the track, and he might have prolonged the trial far beyond the point of prudence had it not been for the restraining hand of Reddy. That foxy individual never let his sporting blood—and he had aplenty—run away with his common sense. He knew when to apply the brake as well as the spur, and on this first day under the novel conditions the brake was the more important. So, long before Bert would have stopped of his own accord and while he was reeling off the miles with no sense of exhaustion, Reddy called a halt.

“Enough is plenty,” said he, in answer to Bert’s protestations that he had just begun to run. “Even if the ship is steady, we’ve got to take account of the motion. You can’t do on sea what you can on land. Ye’ll get leg-sore if ye keep it up too long.” So Bert, although full of running, took his shower and called it a morning’s work.

A shorter run in the afternoon rounded out his first day’s practice, and after supper the boys sat around on deck, enjoying the cooling breeze. Professor Davis of their own college, who was one of the members of the Olympic Committee, had lighted his cigar and joined the group of Blues. Although a scholar of world-wide reputation, he was by no means of the “dry-as-dust” type. Alive to his finger tips, he was as much a boy as any of them. All ceremony had been put off with his scholastic cap and gown, and now, as he sat with them in easy good fellowship, he was for the moment not their teacher but their comrade.

“Yes,” said the Professor, as he looked musingly over the rail, while the Northland steadily ploughed her way through the waves; “what Waterloo was to modern Europe, what Gettysburg is to the United States, Marathon was to Greece. Perhaps a more important battle was never fought in the history of the world.”

A chance remark about the Marathon race had set the Professor going, and the boys eagerly drew their chairs nearer. They were always keenly interested in anything that savored of a fight, and the “Prof.” had a striking way of telling a story. He had the gift of making his hearers see the thing that he described. As Tom put it, “he didn’t give lectures, he drew pictures.” It was a picture that he drew now, and, as they listened, they were no longer young Americans of the twentieth century, but Greek youth of twenty-five hundred years earlier. They might have been shepherds or goatherds, tending their flocks on the mountain slopes above the Bay of Marathon, looking open-eyed at the great Persian fleet of six hundred ships, as it slowly sailed into the bay and prepared to disembark the troops.

The immediate object of the expedition was the capture and destruction of Athens, which had defied Darius, King of Persia, and added insult to injury by invading his territory and burning the city of Sardis.

To have his beard plucked in this insolent fashion was something new to the haughty king. He was the autocrat of all Asia. Courtiers fawned upon him; nations cringed before him. He styled himself “King of Kings and Lord of Lords,” and no one had the hardihood to dispute the title. He was the Cæsar of the Asiatic world, and Persia occupied the same position as that afterward held by Rome in Europe. It was not to be borne that this little state of Athens should dare to flout his authority. When he heard of the burning of Sardis, his rage was frightful. He shot an arrow into the air as a symbol of the war he prepared to wage. He commanded that every day a slave waiting at table should remind him: “Sire, remember the Athenians.” He sent heralds to all the Greek cities with terrible threats of reprisals, but they were sent back with mockery and ridicule. A mighty armament that he had marshaled was wrecked, but, nothing daunted, he organized another. And it was this vast army that now threatened sack and destruction to the cities of Greece.

It had already captured Eretria, and its surviving citizens were now held in chains, waiting for the Athenians to be joined with them and brought into the presence of King Darius, who was already taxing his ingenuity to devise unheard of tortures for them. And now the galleys had been beached on the shelving shores of the Bay of Marathon, on the edge of which the village stood in a plain that widened in the center, but drew together at the ends like the horns of a crescent. Here they leisurely came on shore, elated at their first victory on Grecian soil and looking confidently for a second.

Upon the outcome of that day hung the future of the world. If Persia won, the last barrier would have been demolished that shut out Asia from Europe, and there would have been no serious check to prevent the barbarian hordes from swarming over the entire continent. Greek art and culture and civilization would have been blotted out and the entire course of history would have been changed.

It seemed the fight of a pigmy against a giant. The odds in favor of the Persians were tremendous. Hundreds of galleys had been required to carry their forces to the Grecian coast. One hundred thousand men, trained and veteran warriors, accustomed to victory, were drawn up in battle array. Against this mighty host the Greeks had about ten thousand men. They had sent for help to Sparta, but, under the influence of a superstitious custom, the Spartans had refused to march until the moon was at the full. Only a thousand men from Plataea came to the assistance of the outnumbered Athenians.