The Chessmen

until they rounded the bend. Strings appeared first, crouched low over his handlebars, totally focused on the road ahead of him. Roddy was just a few feet behind, swerving to avoid the dust and stones being kicked up by Strings’ rear wheel.

They passed me and Whistler and picked up speed on the straight stretch, engines screaming as they flew past Rambo. Then they vanished from sight. When they reappeared, on the return, it was Roddy who was marginally ahead, tyres skidding and spinning as they both changed gear on the bend. We retrieved our own bikes from the bracken and set off after them, Skins and Rambo not far behind us. Even before we got back to the bridge we could hear a loud cheer going up. Mairead had got back ahead of us, and everyone was gathered around the blue and yellow bikes, voices raised in excitement.

‘What happened?’ Whistler said as we drew up beside them.

‘Dead heat,’ someone shouted.

And one of the other kids said, ‘They were neck and neck when they hit the bridge. No way to separate them.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Honour satisfied. Now why don’t we toss a coin?’

Strings wiped the sweat from a dust-stained face as he swung his leg over the saddle and tipped his bike on to its stand. ‘I suppose we might as well.’

‘No!’ Roddy was adamant, and still sitting astride his Vespa. The voices around him fell away to a hush. ‘There’s another way to settle this. We do it again. Only this time we time it. One after the other. It’s the only way to separate us.’

A girl called Dolina went delving into a pink knitted bag slung over her shoulder. ‘I’ve got a stopwatch. We use it for sprint training at the athletics club.’

‘We’re on, then.’ Roddy grinned his satisfaction, and looked to Strings for agreement.

Strings shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘We’ll toss for who goes first, then.’ Roddy dug out a tenpence piece and spun it into the air. ‘Heads,’ he shouted, and everyone gathered around to see how it landed when it came down. Heads it was. Roddy grinned. ‘Me first.’

Rambo set off on his bike to the turning point to scrape a line in the track that each bike must cross, and to make sure that it did. Dolina stood with her stopwatch at the end of the parapet, and Roddy manoeuvred his front wheel on to the line that marked the end of the bridge and the beginning of the road. We waited to give Rambo sufficient time to get to the blasted rock, and then there was a countdown from three that everyone joined in. Roddy revved and was off as Dolina pressed the start button.

You could see from the way he held his body, how tense and determined he was, back wheel skidding from side to side as he accelerated to the maximum, up the slope towards the first bend. And then he vanished, and the sound of his motor faded into the distance, masked by the rise of the hill.

Strings sat on the parapet, hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer, and never said a word. The rest of us milled about, speculating about the outcome of the race in hushed tones, almost as if we were afraid of breaking Strings’ concentration. I glanced at him and saw how some powerful inner tension was writing itself all over his face. For some reason this meant much more to him than it should. After all, what the hell was in a name? And, in the end, what did it really matter?

We heard Roddy’s bike before we saw it. He was back very quickly. I glanced at my watch. Just over three and a half minutes. And then he appeared, leaning over at a dangerous angle as he came careening around the bend. It took him fewer than thirty seconds to reach the bridge. We all dived to either side as he accelerated hard over the finish line, then jammed on his brakes and pulled the front wheel around to skid to a stop by the far end.

His face was flushed, eyes shining. He knew he’d made a good time. ‘Well?’

‘Three minutes, fifty-seven,’ Dolina called out, and Roddy cast triumphant eyes towards Strings.

But if Strings harboured any self-doubt he wasn’t showing it. He stood up, cool as you like, and threw a leg over his bike to kick away its stand and start the motor. Everyone clamoured around the start line, and I stood up on the parapet to get a better view.

The countdown began.

Strings revved and released his clutch, back wheel spinning, screaming like a distressed gannet, until it gripped, and he was off in a spray of chippings. I watched Roddy watching him, and saw how doubt crept slowly but surely into his mind. And then Strings disappeared as he rounded the bend. Several of us checked our watches as the sound of his engine faded into the afternoon. Tension moved among us like a ghost.

Three and a half minutes passed and still there was no reprise of that shrieking 125cc motor. No yellow blur on the bend. Four minutes, and still nothing.

‘Something’s wrong,’ I said, and for the first time that ghost among us morphed from tension, to apprehension, to fear.

‘Ach, he’s just fallen off,’ Roddy said. ‘Trying to go too bloody fast.’

But I wasn’t waiting to find out. I jumped on my moped and accelerated over the stony Road to Nowhere, bumping away up the track towards the bend. I heard another bike on my shoulder and flicked a backward glance to see Whistler there. And beyond him, others setting off in pursuit.

There was no sign of Strings, and it wasn’t until I passed the second bend that I saw a distressed Rambo at the side of the road above the geodha. Strings’ yellow bike lay twisted in the grass, its front wheel upturned and still spinning, a large swathe of peat churned up where the bike had slewed off-track. Three sheep were scampering away up the road beyond it. Whistler and I reached Rambo before the others. He was in a panic, eyes wide.

‘I was getting my bike when I heard the crash. Must have been those bloody sheep running on to the road. Looks like he went straight over.’

‘Fuck.’ The word escaped my mouth in a breath.

Whistler was already clambering down the slope on the south side. Recklessly. Arms windmilling, before he jumped down on to the lowest of the rock ledges visible from above, and steadied himself. I went chasing after him. When I reached the ledge I spotted the detritus we had seen that morning, trapped by the rocks halfway down the drop. The bottom wasn’t visible from here, and there was no sign of Strings.

I glanced back up the hill and saw everyone crowded along the roadside. Roddy came running pell-mell down the slope towards us. He reached us gasping, eyes wide and filled with fear. ‘Where is he?’

‘No sign of him,’ Whistler said.

‘Oh, Jesus.’ Roddy immediately began lowering himself over the drop.

Whistler tried to grab him but couldn’t hold on. ‘For Christ’s sake, man, don’t be a fool. There’s no way down there. And if there is, there’s no way back up.’

But nothing was going to stop Roddy. I saw his desperation as he climbed down, face towards the cliff, arms and legs stretching to either side, searching for hand and footholds. He had made it as far as the limit of our ability to see into the geodha when his face turned up towards us. ‘I can’t see him!’ His voice echoed around the cliffs. And then he fell from sight with barely time for a muffled cry.

‘Shit!’ Whistler immediately started to go down after him, but I grabbed his arm.

‘We should get help.’ I glanced hopelessly up the slope to where the others were gathered along the track, and to my amazement saw a dishevelled Strings push through them to the edge of the geodha. He was covered in peat-black mud, and there was blood trickling from his forehead. I have never seen a face so bleached of colour. The others parted to make way for him, staring at him in silent astonishment. He glanced towards Whistler, then back at me.

‘Where the hell did you come from?’ I shouted.

He shook his head and his confusion was clear. ‘Dunno what happened. Damn sheep came running on to the road. Next thing, I’m coming to in the ditch on the far side, and you lot are all gathered around the geodha.’

‘We thought you went over!’ I called back.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘Did no one think to look in the bloody ditch!’ He lifted his arms then dropped them to his side again. ‘Where’s Roddy?’

‘Fell in going after you!’ Whistler bellowed. It was obvious that he had little sympathy for Strings. He turned to me. ‘See if anyone up there’s got a rope in their saddlebag.’ And he swung himself over the edge, searching for