SIXTEEN In which
THE ADAGE “THE RACE IS NOT TO THE SWIFT” IS PROVEN TRUE
While Morrison went off to his bank to withdraw money for the wager, Johnny took Harry aside. “We will win, won’t we?”
Harry patted his shoulder reassuringly. “We can’t possibly lose, lad.”
They packed the differential with fresh grease and installed a new leather gasket. As they were cleaning up, Charles finally appeared on the scene. “Everything shipshape and Bristol fashion?”
“Yes,” said Harry, “but we won’t be leaving for a while yet. We’re going to race the Flash against an electric car. You’re just in time to place your bet.”
“I am not in the habit of throwing away money on bets.”
“Why am I not surprised?” said Harry. “You might want to reconsider. This is a sure thing.”
“There are no sure things. I suppose you’ve made a wager of some sort.”
Harry nodded. “A thousand dollars.”
“Why am I not surprised?” said Charles. “See here, Fogg, do you really think you can afford to waste time racing other motorcars? You have a more important contest to worry about.”
“I’m not worried. We’ve plenty of time. Besides, I undertook this whole trip in order to show what the Flash can do. This is just another way of demonstrating that.”
Morrison led them to a level, well-maintained stretch of road bordered by hay fields, just west of town. “Would you consider a mile a fair distance?” he asked Harry.
“One mile or a hundred, it makes no difference.”
“You see the barn with the silo? Let’s call the silo our finish line, shall we?”
“I suppose we three should get out,” said Elizabeth. “You’ll want the car as light as possible.”
“There’s no need,” said Harry. “She can easily carry twice your weight.”
Charles started to climb out of the car. “I agree with Elizabeth. The lighter the better.”
“I’m staying,” said Johnny.
Elizabeth, her eyes sparkling with anticipation, tied the string of her hat tightly under her chin. “So am I.”
“Oh. Well, in that case.” Charles took his seat again.
“Can you handle a pistol?” Harry asked.
“Of course. Why?”
“There’s one under the seat. You may be the starter. All right with you, Mr. Morrison?”
“Aye.”
When the road was clear of wagons and carriages, the motorcars lined up side by side. Harry engaged the gears and released the hand brake. “Ready ...” said Charles. “Steady ...” The instant the pistol went off, Harry yanked out the throttle. The Flash leaped forward like a greyhound in pursuit of a rabbit.
“Where’s Morrison?” he demanded, not wanting to take his eyes off the road.
“Almost even with us!” called Elizabeth. “And he’s gaining!”
“I’ll be bound! I never dreamed he’d be that fast!” Harry pulled the throttle out almost to its limit and the Flash surged ahead. “Where is he now?”
“He can’t keep up!” said Elizabeth gleefully, holding on to her hat. “He’s dropping back!”
Harry gave a triumphant laugh. He couldn’t resist glancing over his shoulder at his opponent. Just as he did, Elizabeth gasped and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh!” she cried. “Look out!”
Harry jerked his head around to see two large dogs, one chasing the other, come loping out of the hay field and directly into his path. “Hang it!” He wrenched the wheel to the left. The car bounded into the ditch and out again, nearly flinging its passengers from their seats; it mowed down a sizable swath of hay before Harry managed to stop.
Morrison was so far behind that the dogs presented no danger to him; totally oblivious of the trouble they had caused, they disappeared into the field across the road. As he sped past the sidelined Flash, the Scotsman laid on his electric horn; it gave an irritating, insulting bleat.
“Well,” said Charles. “So much for your sure thing.”
Elizabeth swatted him with her hat. “Oh, do stop gloating. I think it was admirable of you, Harry, to care more about the dogs’ lives than about winning the race.”
“Yes, well, they’re quite valuable dogs,” said Harry.
“Really?” said Charles. “They looked rather like mangy mongrels to me.”
“Perhaps. But each of those mangy mongrels is now worth five hundred dollars.”
When Harry had paid up, his money belt felt alarmingly thin. As they headed west again, he said to Elizabeth, “I suppose you’ll recount all this in your next dispatch.”
“Of course. Why? Are you afraid of looking foolish?”
“Not at all. I just want your readers to know that the Flash would have won, except for the dogs.”
“Apparently the papers here aren’t following our progress,” said Charles. “No one I spoke to had heard anything about us.”
“It’s just as well,” Harry said. “America may have its equivalent of the Luddites. I wouldn’t want to run into them again.”
“Luddites?” said Elizabeth.
Charles nodded grimly. “Didn’t you hear about our narrow escape back in London?” He pointed at the cracked windscreen. “That’s a souvenir of it.”
“I should fix that,” muttered Johnny.
“So,” said Harry. “What did you think of Morrison’s electric vehicle?”
“It’s very clever, I suppose,” put in Elizabeth. “But I don’t think it would make it round the world.”
“It might,” said Johnny, almost to himself. “With some way of charging the batteries.”
Harry laughed. “We’ll work on that when we get home.”
“If you get home,” said Charles. “I’ll be interested to see how you manage to cross the Pacific Ocean, Asia, and Europe with what meager money you have left. I trust you don’t expect any help from me. I’m only an observer, remember.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Harry said calmly. Somehow he could not bring himself to worry about such mundane matters. For now, the car was running well and the path before them was straight and smooth. What more could a person ask?
The road was, in fact, so decent that Charles managed to make a fairly legible entry in his journal.
Saturday, August 22
I wonder if Fogg has any notion how much he sounds like Dickens’s hapless Mr. Micawber: “Something will turn up.” Though I suppose it is in my best interests—or at least my father’s best interests—to see this venture fail, I have no desire to be stranded somewhere in the American wilderness.
We paused in Omaha, the eastern terminus of the Union & Central Pacific Railroad, barely long enough to eat, buy fuel, and take on water from a horse trough. I did manage to secure both a detailed map of the railroad’s route and a train timetable. In the rear of the timetable I discovered an even more useful sort of schedule—one that lists the departure times and destinations for all the major steamship lines that dock in San Francisco.
Fogg has apparently made no arrangments for getting us across the Pacific. He does at least have a destination in mind—Hong Kong—but only because my father suggested it. Consulting the steamship schedule, I see that the next steamer for Hong Kong sails on September 5th at 2 p.m.—a mere fourteen days from now. Thirteen days and twenty hours, to be precise. And San Francisco is still some 2,000 miles away, which means that we must cover roughly 143 miles each day.
Fogg considers that, in his words, “a walk in the park.” Both Shaugnessey and Elizabeth seem to share his unconcern. Why am I the only one aboard with any sense?
We are scarcely an hour out of Omaha, but already there are no houses in sight, nor any trees, only empty prairie. The only sign that anyone has ever passed this way before is the braidlike pattern of interlaced ruts that has been accumulating for half a century, since the first covered wagons crossed the plains to California and Oregon.
The giddy sense of freedom that had come over Harry on their first day in America returned like a gust of wind; the dull ache that had settled in his arms and back from the long hours of driving seemed to melt away. Back in London, he had seen this country in the same way he saw the Atlantic Ocean—as something to be crossed as quickly as possible. Now he found himself almost wishing that he had no deadline hanging over him, that he could simply go on driving across this uncluttered landscape with no concern at all for actually getting anywhere.
It was a feeling that he had experienced before, on the cricket field and rugby pitch. As much as he loved the taste of victory, acheiving it meant an end to the game. There were times when he would have liked to go on playing endlessly, for the sheer enjoyment of it.
By the same token, winning this wager would mean that the journey would end, that he would return to his life in London. It was not a bad life, by any means. But even he, with his talent for living in the moment, knew that the aimless, irresponsible existence he was accustomed to could not go on indefinitely, any more than the seemingly boundless prairie could.
Harry felt his sense of elation fade and the ache in his arms return. He shook the sober thoughts from his head and struck up a determinedly cheery chorus of “There’s a Good Time Coming.”
Near dusk they spied a windmill in the distance, spinning furiously in the rising wind, pumping water for some remote ranch. “There’s what Morrison needs!” said Harry. “He could erect one on the back of his car and run a dynamo with it.”
“He’d generate plenty of power today.” Elizabeth clutched at her hat, which threatened to take flight. “It’s a pity you didn’t equip the Flash with a sail.” She leaned forward so the breeze wouldn’t whip her words away. “Didn’t your father travel in a wind-driven vehicle at some point? Sorry, I forgot. You don’t like talking about his exploits.”
Harry sighed. “It seems there’s no escaping it. As he described the thing, it was a sort of sledge with sails.” He surveyed the boundless expanse of grass, undulating like waves in the wind. “As a matter of fact, it would have been on this very stretch of the prairie.” Harry was silent for a time. Though he seldom gave a thought to the future, he couldn’t help wondering whether his own children—assuming he had any—would be asked continually about the epic journey of the Flash, and whether they would resent it.
“I’m afraid a sail wouldn’t do us much good, in any case,” he said. “The wind’s blowing in the wrong direction.”