Fire Must Burn (A Sparks and Bainbridge Mystery #8)

Prologue

Male crews, of course.

As the start time approached, they shed their coats and pounded on their chests and thighs to encourage both circulation and the admiration of the few female students and local girls who came out to cheer them on.

Not a few flasks were passed around, ostensibly to provide warmth, energy and nips of courage.

On both sides of the river, marshals and umpires prowled the banks, glancing at their watches or calling out instructions.

With all of the hubbub by the water, no one paid any attention to a dark green eight-wheeled Leyland Octopus flatbed lorry as it rumbled up to a spot some fifty feet from Baits Bite Lock where the last of the ranked crews, the second boat from Pembroke, were now settling behind their oars, awaiting the boom of the tiny cannon that signalled the countdown to the start.

As the lorry stopped, its engine idling, its cab blocked the view from the riverside of its cargo, another narrow, eight-oared boat that projected precariously beyond the rear of the bed.

A head poked out from behind the cab. A woman’s head, topped with unruly, brunette hair.

She scanned the scene in front of her, then turned to three other women who had been clinging for dear life to the ropes securing the boat to the lorry’s tray.

The brunette’s name was Iris Sparks. She was seventeen years old, and about to cause an uproar.

‘All clear,’ she said, and the four of them scrambled to remove the ropes from the boat.

Several more women separated themselves from the crowd on the towpath and sauntered back towards the Leyland, two of them wheeling bicycles.

The four on the flatbed carefully slid the boat from the tray to the waiting arms of the women below.

They placed it on the ground behind the lorry so it would stay hidden, should anyone bother to look their way.

Then Sparks handed down oars and two long poles before hopping down.

‘What’s the situation, Sauce?’ she asked one of the cyclists.

‘Tildy is at the next launch point,’ reported Sauce, glancing at her watch. ‘The four-minute cannon should be in about—’

A loud boom sounded in the distance up the river.

‘Yes, well, that was it, wasn’t it?’ said Sauce with a laugh. ‘When Pembroke is coming to that point, she’ll wave her handkerchief, and the girls stationed down the path will relay it to you. Best of luck, ladies!’

She and the other cyclist mounted their bikes and pedalled off, turning down the towpath to await the beginning of the race.

Sparks and eight of the women shed their coats and tossed them into the cab of the lorry. The eight women grabbed oars, four with their left hands, four with their right, while two more picked up the poles.

‘I’ll wait for you at Ditton Corner if you make it that far,’ called the driver.

‘We’ll make it,’ said Sparks.

‘Good luck to you,’ he called.

‘Right,’ said Sparks to the others. ‘Positions.’

They stood four to each side of the boat and placed their oars inside. Sparks stood at the cox, while the two women carrying the poles brought up the rear. Jessica, behind her on the bow side, shivered in the cold.

‘I wish we had waited for the May Bumps,’ she said.

‘We wouldn’t have been able to keep it secret until then,’ replied Sparks. ‘Not with this many people involved.’

The cannon boomed again. The one-minute warning.

‘To shoulders, ladies,’ said Sparks. ‘Heave-ho!’

They grabbed the sides of the boat and lifted. Sparks looked out at the Pembroke boat, which was being shoved away from the banks by their polemen, the coxswain holding high the bung at the end of the chain connected to the bank at the launch station. She listened for the countdown.

‘Thirty seconds, ladies,’ she reported. ‘We move at twenty. Five, four, three, two, quick march!’

They started towards the river at a jog.

The starter’s cannon boomed as they were halfway there, and the Pembroke crew pulled their oars, sending their boat upstream, gathering speed with each subsequent stroke.

Their classmates and supporters moved along the towpath in pursuit, clearing a space for the ladies.

They reached the bank and lowered the boat into the water. Sparks grabbed the bung and clambered into the cox seat.

‘Bow side, fix blades,’ she called, and four oars went into the riggers.

‘Bow side holding,’ called Jessica.

‘River side, fix blades. River side in. Bow side in.’

The rest of the eight women got into the boat, bracing their feet and grabbing the oars.

‘Number off from bow!’ called Sparks.

‘Bow!’ ‘Seven!’ ‘Six!’ ‘Five!’ ‘Four!’ ‘Three!’ ‘Two!’ ‘Stroke!’

‘Push off,’ Sparks said, holding the bung over her head, and the two women with the poles placed them against each end of the boat and shoved it away from the bank.

The marshal on the opposite bank, who had been watching the Pembroke crew recede into the distance, finally turned back and saw them.

‘Here, what do you think you’re doing?’ he shouted.

‘Racing the bumps!’ Sparks shouted back, keeping her eyes on the distant banks. ‘Square on the ready!’

Eight oars went up, blades perpendicular to the water.

‘But you’re women!’ shouted the marshal.

‘We know!’ they all shouted.

A handkerchief fluttered in the distance.

‘Row!’ shouted Sparks, dropping the bung.

Eight blades dipped into the water. The women pulled, and they were off, Sparks calling the strokes.

They picked up speed, passing the stragglers on the towpath, many of whom stared in astonishment to see an all-woman crew, which elicited scattered cheers from the women and some shouts of derision from the men.

‘Settle on three,’ she called. ‘Two, one, settle!’

They fell into their regular stroke now that they were at speed.

The pedestrians won’t be a problem, thought Sparks as she kept calling out strokes, her hand on the tiller keeping the boat the proper distance from the bank as it curved slightly to the left.

They reached the next launch post where Tildy sat on her bike, looking at her watch.

‘Sixty-eight seconds!’ she shouted as they passed her, then she pedalled away, weaving between the clumps of people walking.

The water was smoother here, and Sparks called out a power twenty. The crowd on the towpath was getting thicker as they passed more of the launch points. She spotted Sauce at their next checkpoint, trying to fend off the attentions of a Caius second-year as she watched their boat approach.

‘Fifty-nine!’ she shouted.

‘We’re gaining on them, ladies,’ called Sparks. ‘Keep it up!’

Sauce jumped on her bike and sped by, blowing a kiss back to her aspiring suitor.

Some of the men seemed to be getting the idea that Sparks and her confederates were serious about competing. The shouts from the bank became more and more hostile, and were joined by whistles and gestures from the marshals to stop and pull in to the shore.

Which they ignored, of course.

Some of the Pembroke men began sprinting along the towpath, trying to catch up to their crew, but the boat was much faster. Then she saw one man climb on a bike and pedal off.

‘The cat’s out of the bag, ladies!’ she called. ‘Power twenty in two, one, now! Six, finish timing!’

They pulled harder, the sweat pouring off of them, soaking through their jumpers.

Tildy was at the next checkpoint, waving excitedly.

‘Thirty-five seconds!’ she yelled. ‘They’re slacking off! You can catch them.’

‘Regular stroke in two, one, row!’ cried Sparks, steering them through the corner. ‘Here comes the Gut! And Pembroke’s in sight!’

The Gut was a narrow stretch, and they could feel the current change as they hit it, crossing to the non-towpath side to take the inside corner.

But at the other end was the Pembroke boat, whose oarsmen had apparently given up on catching the next crew in line and were easing up their pace, having no idea they were being targeted.

The crew were more or less blocked by their coxswain from seeing the ladies catching up to them, and the coxswain had his eyes upstream.

Then the Pembroke cyclist finally caught up to them, shouting and waving his arms downstream.

The coxswain turned to look behind him, and even from that distance Sparks could see the disbelief registering on his face.

He turned back to urge his crew back to speed, but one by one each of the oarsmen leaned out to catch a glimpse of the oncoming wraiths, which caused the Pembroke boat to rock slightly and lose more speed.

‘They’ve spotted us, ladies!’ shouted Sparks. ‘Power thirty in two, one, row! Give me everything you’ve got! Newnham! Newnham!’

The chant was picked up by the women along the banks, led by Tildy and Sauce as they pedalled alongside.

The Newnham crew whipped around Grassy Corner, gaining inexorably on the Pembroke crew, who had fallen out of rhythm and were frantically trying to regain it as their coxswain shouted himself hoarse.

He glanced behind him, his eyes meeting Sparks’s, and she grinned as the prow of the Newnham boat closed in.

‘Ramming speed on two!’ she shouted. ‘Two! One! Row! Row! Row!’

They were in the Plough Reach, a short, straight stretch, and just before the river turned to the right at Ditton Corner, the gutta-percha knob on the bow of the Newnham boat bumped the stern of the Pembroke boat.

Both crews kept rowing, the women shouting in triumph.

‘Well?’ called Sparks to the Pembroke coxswain.

‘They’re not even in the race,’ protested the man sitting five in the other boat.

‘Where did you start?’ asked the coxswain.

She finally had a chance to get a good look at him. He was a fair-haired man, not much taller than her, with light blue eyes which at the moment were scrutinising her intently.

‘At Baits Bite,’ said Sparks. ‘After you did.’

‘How did you do the interval?’

‘We stationed a woman at the next starting post. She signalled us when you passed it. If anything, we gave you more of a head start because you were already at speed.’

The coxswain looked at her as the two boats pulled in tandem, then he nodded, satisfied, and raised his hand to acknowledge the bump.

‘Weigh enough, lads,’ he said.

‘Tony, you can’t be serious,’ said the man sitting at the stroke.

‘They raced fair,’ he said. ‘The way I see it is we can be sporting about it or unsporting. Weigh enough, lads.’

‘We already were starting last,’ moaned one of the crew as they lifted their blades. ‘Now we get bumped by girls. We’ll never live this down.’

‘Check it down, ladies,’ called Sparks, and her crew dipped their oars to slow their boat’s momentum.

The Pembroke boat drifted beyond them, then both boats eased towards the bank. As Sparks stepped onto the bank to secure the boat, she looked upriver to see the Pembroke coxswain looking back at her. He smiled and gave her a quick thumbs up.

Now, that is a fine-looking man, she thought.

‘Well done, ladies!’ she called. ‘One foot up and out, then we stow this beauty and it’s on to the Pike and Eel to celebrate!’

And then they were all jumping up and down on the towpath screaming, ‘Newnham! Newnham! Newnham!’ as a collective outrage of marshals and umpires descended upon them.