Chapter 3 #2
“Trust a pleb to let the side down,” said DeLancey contemptuously. “I always said it was a mistake picking him to cox. That sort of mushroom not only can’t hold his liquor like a gentleman, he has no sense of loyalty.”
“All right, damn you, all right! I’ll do it. Now just let me get out of here!” His hand to his mouth now, Bott fled.
“Hair of the dog?” Wells suggested.
“Aspirin and dry toast,” Cherry advised.
“We’ll give it a try,” said Rollo grimly, with a black look at DeLancey. “I’d hate to scratch.”
“You come and eat your breakfast,” said Cherry. “Leave him to me.”
Daisy, Tish, and Dottie wanted to see the end of the race, so, with the river to cross and a mile and a half to walk, they departed well before the scheduled starting time.
They left the oarsmen warming up with physical jerks on the lawn, watched by the limp, still-pallid cox, sprawled in a deck-chair on the terrace.
Tish and Dottie rowed Daisy across the sparkling river in one of the skiffs.
Daisy sat in the rear seat, clutching the rudder-lines and doing her best to steer.
Last time she had been on a boat, ages ago, she had steered with a wooden tiller, which meant pushing left to turn right.
The memory of that clung, confusing her, though it was actually quite easy: pull on the right rope to turn right, left rope to turn left.
Fortunately, the other skiffs, dinghies, motor-launches, canoes, and punts on the water, heading upstream towards the race course, were all under better control. They were shouted at, hooted at, and whistled at, but they made their erratic way safely to the Remenham bank.
Red-faced, Tish tied the painter to a post. “We’ll leave the rudder out on the way back,” she said severely, “and steer with the sculls.”
“Please do!” said Daisy, fanning herself with her hat, then, mindful of the fresh crop of freckles, quickly putting it back on. It was new, and for once not from Selfridge’s Bargain Basement.
Her always smart house-mate, Lucy, had found a real treasure, a little milliner in the King’s Road whose prices were low because she was just setting up in business for herself.
The hat was navy straw, cloche-shaped but widening to a shady brim, with a circlet of daisies around the crown to match Daisy’s blue voile frock, which was patterned with daisies.
She was rather pleased with it. She didn’t aspire to compete with the splendid headwear, created for the Royal Ascot meeting a fortnight ago, which ladies of fashion showed off again at Henley.
Besides, Daisy thought, a picture hat would look less than professional. She glanced down at her frock. Ought she to have worn a tailored costume? The day was far too fine!
Her clothes had nothing to do with her credentials, she reassured herself.
Her Press pass from the Regatta office was safe in her handbag with her notebook.
She wondered whether the American magazine’s prestige had obtained it, or the “Honourable” before her name, which often proved useful in gaining access.
They walked along the towpath, past marshy meadows splashed with shiny yellow kingcups. Few people were about as yet.
“There’s the new starting line,” Tish pointed out as they approached the downstream end of Temple Island. “It used to be on the Bucks side.”
Half-way up the island’s length, a small knot of people had gathered on the bank. A stewards’ launch was already there, but neither the Ambrose boat nor their opponent, Marlow Rowing Club, had yet arrived.
As they passed the upstream tip of the island, Daisy
glanced back at the so-called Temple, hidden till then by the trees.
The small building was an enclosed summer-house topped with an open, pillared cupola and fronted by a wide landing-stage, sheltered on the north by a weeping willow—a delightful place for a picnic.
It was private land, of course, belonging, Daisy assumed, to Crowswood Place, where Lord DeLancey was staying, over there on the Buckinghamshire bank.
Or was it Oxfordshire at this point? The Cheringhams’ address was Bucks but Henley-on-Thames was Oxon.
The town was visible now, beyond the Phyllis Court grandstand.
Mellow red brick and brown tile roofs stretched along the river, dominated by the square grey tower of St. Mary’s.
The eighteenth-century bridge was hidden by the bend at Poplar Point.
There, on the Berkshire bank, overlooking the finish line, grandstands and marquees sprang from the water-meadows like monstrous mushrooms.
A good half-mile to go. Daisy consulted her wrist-watch. Still plenty of time to get there before the first heat started.
Past Remenham Club they came to the fairground.
The calliope was silent now, the merry-go-round horses still, the booths shrouded.
Over all loomed the Ferris wheel, a steel spider’s web, the gaudy cars exotic insects trapped in its toils.
A few sleepy-eyed men with cigarettes dangling from their lips lounged about doing odd jobs.
“It looks frightfully tawdry without the crowds, doesn’t it?” said Tish a trifle nervously. “It needs people and chatter and music.”
A cuckoo called from the woods on Remenham Hill. They all laughed.
They reached the General Enclosure. Dottie and Tish had the Ambrose crew’s guest passes. Daisy presented her Press card and was waved through the gate with them.
“Whew!” she exclaimed in relief. “I’ve never had one of these before. It really works!”
“Open Sesame,” said Tish. “Come on, let’s go up in the stands. Have you got Cherry’s binoculars, Dottie?”
Dottie opened the small satchel she carried over her shoulder, rummaged, and produced the glasses. “Here. Don’t lose the lens caps or he’ll have your blood. Or mine.”
They climbed up into the grandstand.
Only dedicated rowing enthusiasts were present so early in the day, gentlemen from eighteen to eighty, most in caps and blazers.
The vivid—not to say vulgar—salmon-pink of the Leander Club predominated, their premises being just along the bank beyond the Stewards’ Enclosure, by the bridge.
Eavesdropping on a disgruntled conversation, Daisy gathered the Leander eight had been knocked out in the first heat of the Grand.
However, they had good hopes for a pair in the Silver Goblets and a single-sculler in the Diamond.
The starting gun sounded in the distance. Instantly, binoculars sprouted, and a bright-hued flock which had been chatting on the ground hurried up into the stands.
“So Bott came through!” Dottie sighed, releasing unacknowledged tension.
“Damn good view!” commented the Leander man in front of them to his companion. “Wasn’t too sure about this new course, but having the start south of Temple Island is a definite improvement.”
Tish had the glasses trained downstream. “I can’t see
much,” she said. “They’re just dots. You can’t tell who’s ahead.”
“Let me see.” Dottie took her turn. “We are the Berks side, aren’t we? There’s a terrific glare off the water with the sun so bright. Gosh, they hardly seem to be moving at all.”
“They do look slow at this distance,” Tish agreed.
“Here you are, your turn, Daisy.”
Daisy peered, adjusted the focus, and peered again.
There they were, the two boats, crawling up the river.
She swung the glasses to gaze at Phyllis Court, where the grandstand was even less populated, and then to the flotilla of small craft crowding the river.
Racing boats threaded between, heading downstream to the start.
She turned back to the race course. Now she could clearly make out the individual men hauling on their oars. Her angle of vision distorted the view, but she thought Marlow was nosing ahead.
The Ambrose crew visibly speeded their stroke. They crept up on Marlow, inch by torturous inch.
Then, without warning, Bott doubled up over the side and was violently sick.
“Oh gosh!”
“What is it?” Tish demanded. “Look, they’re veering all over the place. What happened?”
“They’ve hit the boom,” said Dottie resignedly, as Daisy passed the binoculars to Tish. “They’ll never make it up now.”
“The cox is sick as a dog,” said one of the Leander men. “Just like the Oriel crew on Wednesday.”
The other nodded. “They’re out of it, dead in the water. Damn shame. What’s the next heat?”
Daisy watched the Marlow boat drawing swiftly away from their floundering opponents.
The Ambrose crew had pulled themselves together enough to make way against the current, but barely.
Soon she could see with the naked eye Bott curled in a miserable ball in the stern.
He must be holding the rudder straight, at least, so that Cherry, in the bow, could give the rowers appropriate orders to keep them more or less on track.
“Let’s go down to the finish line,” Tish proposed, longfaced.
They reached the floating jetties, just beyond the finish, as the Marlow boat crossed the line to a smattering of applause and a tactful lack of cheers. Marlow would advance to the next round, but it was scarcely a victory to be proud of.
Glum Ambrose struggled in. Current and former Ambrose men in maroon blazers crowded around offering commiseration.
Two of the youngest crouched to hold the boat as Rollo led the crew in the disembarking drill.
Disconsolately, the eight oarsmen clambered out.
Cherry and Rollo pulled wry faces at the three girls.
Rollo and numbers three to seven, accompanied by Tish and other well-wishers, set off with the oars to the racks by the tents.
“There’s always next year,” said Meredith philosophically.
“And you’ve got the four s-still to come, Frieth,” Poindexter consoled Rollo.
Ignored, Bott still crouched, head in hands, in the stern. With plenty of willing hands to hold the boat, Cherry went along to him.
“Come along, old fellow. It can’t be helped.” He offered his hand.
Accepting his aid, Bott clambered rockily out. He stood swaying on the jetty, eyes shut, his face drained of colour. “It was the motion,” he mumbled, “and the glare of the sun on the water. I told you I wasn’t fit enough.”
“Not fit!” exploded DeLancey, swinging round from the men he had been talking to. “You’re not fit to associate with gentlemen, you ghastly little oik! Bounders like you shouldn’t be allowed out of your filthy hovels.”
He pushed past Cherry and gave Bott a mighty shove in the chest. The cox toppled backwards into the river.