What’s he doing now? Beginning to suffer, I shouldn’t wonder.’
He seemed complacent. Evidently Darrell deserved to suffer a little, in his trainer’s opinion.
‘Well,’ answered Jacobson, ‘his lapping looks a sight slower than it was. Do you mean that he wasn’t under instructions to warm up the pace?’
‘I never give instructions unless I see a man’s liable to break down. If Charlie ain’t learned by now that you don’t bolt like a goose at Christmas on the second morning of a six-day wobble, then he deserves a few hours’ struggling. I got no sympathy, Mr Jacobson.’
‘You’re not worried about blistering? How are his feet?’
Monk nonchalantly buttered a piece of toast.
‘Seen ’em worse-a lot worse. He won’t give up on that account.’
‘I sincerely hope he won’t give up on any account. There’s a deal of public interest in this duel with Chadwick. It would be disastrous to our promotion if the race didn’t come to a finish.’
‘Then you’d better see Chadwick’s trainer, Mr Jacobson. We ain’t the party that’ll seize up, if any does. Charlie’s record is clean.’
‘Quite so,’ agreed Jacobson, who still held private reser-vations about Darrell’s staying powers. ‘But, like you, I like to see a man run to his best form.’
A voice unexpectedly hailed Monk from the restaurant door.
‘You’re wanted on track, mate. Your feller’s down with cramp!’
‘I bloody knew it,’ the trainer told Jacobson. ‘He was ask-ing for this, running himself into a lather. D’you know how long we spent on his breathings? Six weeks! He was better prepared than any in this race.’
Grumbling profusely, Monk made for the door and marched out past the stands to the competitors’ entrance. At the side of the inner track a cluster of officials and a consta-ble had gathered around Darrell. He lay on his side with knees bent, arms tensed and moaning. His face was ghastly pale. Monk knelt at his side and began manipulating his legs.
‘That’s the second to go inside an hour,’ cheerfully com-mented one of the onlookers. ‘That boy Reid fell like a stone-and his brother couldn’t be found, neither. By the looks of him he won’t see the track for a couple of hours.’
Darrell allowed Monk to work at his aching legs. The pain was easing. Chadwick jogged by, regarding these oper-ations with interest.
Darrell spoke. ‘It was soft to go off like that, I own it. Just get me back on the path.’
‘How are your feet?’ Monk asked.
‘No trouble really. Pins and needles. Part of the cramp, I suppose.’
‘Try to stand up.’
Applause broke out in the enclosure as Darrell was seen to be vertical again. A crowd of several hundred had paid their shillings, many before commencing the day’s work.
‘Now put your weight on the leg. Move around. Are you game to go on? I wouldn’t come off yet, or the cramp might take a hold. I’ll bring a jacket. Must keep your blood warm.’ Darrell freed himself from the hands supporting him, and stepped on to the track. A little unsteadily he forced himself to trot away. There was cheering from the stands.
Monk slipped into the tent and brought out a Norfolk jacket. He caught up with Darrell and wrapped it around him.
‘Just keep on the move, Charlie, and you’ll run yourself back on form.’
The runner worked the jacket on and seemed to quicken his pace as he rounded the bend at the Liverpool Road end. Sol Herriott, who was holding a Press conference at one end of the arena, was visibly affected by Darrell’s break-down.
‘Shall we adjourn for a few moments, gentlemen, to watch this dramatic development?’
They clustered on one of the bends, a wall of dark over-coats turreted with bowler hats, behind which Darrell was lost to view for seconds as he hobbled past. Monk walked anxiously at his side, encouraging him from inside the ropes. Then the reporters rearranged themselves around Herriott. Questions bombarded him.
‘What happens if he throws in his hand?’
‘Where’s your doctors, Mr Herriott?’
‘Will you call the race off if he pulls out?’
‘What’s happened to young Reid?’
The promotor held up a hand and fixed his mouth and eyebrows in the grimace of a long-suffering schoolmaster. The questions subsided. Herriott, with deliberate slowness, lit a cigar, and resumed the conference.
‘Cramp is nothing unusual in a six-day race, gentlemen. Shall we keep our perspective? If there is any question of this man retiring from the race I have no doubt that he’ll try the remedy of a few hours’ sleep before giving up. And I may remind you that Mr Darrell is a professional sportsman of uncommon long experience. There are stratagems in this business of pedestrianism, gentlemen. Need I say more?’
‘You’re telling us Darrell’s a good actor, Mr Herriott?’
‘Merely suggesting a possibility, Mr Martin. You are from the Sporting and Dramatic, aren’t you? Your opinion is doubtless more valuable than mine.’
He simpered at the skill of his repartee.
The questions lasted another five minutes. Herriott’s the-sis (that the promotion was so impeccably staged that it could not fail to produce record performances and a momentous finish) took some knocks, but he defended it stoutly. The pity was that when he was beginning to con-vince some of his listeners a series of screams rang echoing across the Hall and the conference dispersed in seconds.
A woman was in a state of hysteria in the shilling enclosure. Officials sprinted across the tracks, the newsmen converged there and the shrieking creature was subdued. What had escaped most of the Press was the reason for her outburst. On the inner track Darrell had collapsed again. He lay full length on the track, his face contorted with pain, turned towards the section of the crowd where the woman had been watching. The attention switched to him. Monk ran on to the track and began working at the contracted leg-muscles. A blanket was thrown over Darrell’s shoulders. After some seconds of silence the crowd began shouting that he should be taken off, and whistles of approval greeted two stretcher-bearers, who moved the runner, still gasping with pain, to his tent.
A doctor, summoned by Herriott, joined Monk inside the tent, where Darrell lay on the bed, breathing more regularly and with some relaxation.
‘A devil of a cramp,’ the trainer diagnosed as he contin-ued to massage the legs.
‘Keep the man warm, then, and massage upwards, with the course of circulation. We must get those boots off.’
In a matter of minutes Darrell was free of pain, but the experience had left him considerably weaker. His pulse-rate and heart-beat were taken.
‘This man is not to run again today,’ the doctor stated, perhaps without realising its full implications.
Darrell spoke for the first time.
‘You can’t-I must. You can’t stop me.’
His shoulders were pressed back on to the bed.
‘Take a sleep, my man. You are in no state to think of con-tinuing. When you’ve rested you’ll be twice the runner.’
With a nod to Monk, the doctor withdrew to report to Herriott.
‘The man obviously has a saline deficiency, and he is now totally exhausted. There is no question of his running for another twelve hours.’
‘Twelve? You can’t mean this. He’s one of the principals. These men recover quickly-’
‘Twelve hours, sir, or I won’t answer for the man’s health. The pulse is racing dangerously.’
Herriott sought for words to influence the doctor. Twelve hours meant the ruin of his promotion. All the publicity, all the interest, had focused on the Darrell-Chadwick duel.
‘Perhaps… another opinion. Your colleague, when he comes in, may see the possibility of a faster recovery?’
‘That is for him to decide, Mr Herriott. You have my opinion. I am sorry-’
The conversation was severed by a groan of appalling desperation from Darrell’s tent. For a shocked instant,
