Harvard Stories: Sketches of the Undergraduate

by Waldron Kintzing Post

"I don't believe it, Jack. You do him injustice. He has more grit and patience than that, and if he had not, he would not sacrifice the rest of the crew and the Crimson to his own madness. No, I can't make it out, but I don't believe that."

At the three and a quarter mile flag the New Haven men had a fast increasing stretch of clear water behind them and were going easily. How prettily they did row! A winning crew with a safe lead always does.

And now began that most pathetic spectacle, the finish of a beaten eight-oared crew. Yet there was not one of their friends looking on who would not have given anything to have been pulling with them then. Where was that faultless form, that clock-like time, that glorious sweep, that at the start had raised an exultant shout from every breast that bore the Crimson? Much of the mighty strength was still there, but pitifully divided against itself, and therefore fast waning. The new men were, every one of them, "rowing out of the boat," that is to say, swinging in a circular motion around the ends of their oars, in their desperate efforts to pull their hardest. The temptation to do this is generally irresistible to a green man when behind. It seems to him as if he can pull harder in this way, and indeed it looks so to the unknowing observer. Time and form are thrown overboard in the wild struggle to row his heart out. Only the two old veterans at 7 and 8 were still swinging over the keel, not a hair's breadth to starboard or port, coming forward steadily and back with a simultaneous heave; their backs straight, their chins in, two parallel unbroken lines from hip to crown; their oars taking the water cleanly and together, pulled clear through, and flashing back at once with a perfect feather. So evenly and smoothly did they row that, to the untaught eye on the distant train, they might have seemed to be shirking; but to those on the yacht decks along the course, the spread nostrils, clenched jaws, and swollen veins told a very different story. An old Yale stroke, when his hat came down on deck again after the Yale crew had passed, let it lie where it fell as he gazed at the struggling tail-enders, and exclaimed, "Look at those two men in the stern. By gracious, isn't that grand!" And Rivers, the third of the old guard, Rivers, who had been relied upon to brace the waist of the boat, who had before rowed that terrible fourth mile in a losing race and rowed it well; how was he finishing? Not an ounce of strength in his blade. He was still throwing his body to and fro with the others or nearly so, his head falling forward and back as he did so, and his oar moved; but that was all. He was now being carried over the line by the crew he had ruined. He alone was doing nothing; the others, though ragged, were still pulling desperately, using up the very last of their failing strength.

Through the buzzing in their ears they can faintly hear the guns, the whistles, and the roar of the crowd. Not for them, not for them. What difference does that make? They may win, or at any rate they can lose like men. They may win, they may win. "Let her run."

Over the water from all sides come the cheers and shouts of "Yale, Yale, Yale." Leave them, reader, if you so choose, they are beaten men; go and rejoice with the victors who have rowed a splendid race and well deserve your congratulations. I always take a certain morbid interest myself in the nine heartbroken men who are quietly carried away in their launch as soon as possible after a race.

All over and lost in twenty minutes, the work and self-denial of seven months! The big Freshman has dropped his head on his knees and is sobbing like a baby; of course it must be all his fault. Bill Bender is still grimly gripping his oar and looking straight before him; that back is bent now, but the jaw is still set, the eyes flashing, and through his teeth he registers a vow to come back to the Law School and get at 'em again. Varnum, the coxswain, is as pale as the rest; he has rowed every stroke of that race without the savage comfort of the physical torture; he has seen what the others could not—the Blue coxswain going farther and farther ahead, and he powerless to help his straining men. They all hold on to something or clasp their knees tightly—to faint or fall over would be a grand-stand play.

Nevertheless that was what Charles Rivers did. He swayed for a moment, grasped blindly at the side of the shell, and fell back unconscious in the lap of the man behind him. And then, for the first time, No. 3 saw that the bottom of the boat was red with blood. Rivers had broken his sliding-seat before the two mile flag was reached, and had rowed the last half of the race sliding back and forth on the sharp steel tracks that cut into him at every stroke.[2]

Before the observation-train had fairly stopped Holworthy leaped from it and dashed for the river bank followed by Rattleton. As they passed one of the cars they both recognized a girl with a blue flag. Holworthy said something that Jack did not hear; the former did not notice that the girl's face was deadly pale and the blue flag motionless in her hand, but the latter did.

"There is no use in our following them," said Burleigh. "They won't be allowed to talk to the crew even if they get out to the float." Therein he was quite right; before the two could get a boat to go out to the Harvard float at the finish, they saw the men helped out of the shell and onto the University launch. They saw Rivers carried aboard. Then the launch steamed quickly up the river, towing the empty shell.

"Hullo, there is my uncle's boat," exclaimed Rattleton, pointing to a big schooner. "I am going aboard her. You go back to New London and get a trap, and I'll meet you at the ferry."