14
Across the Rockies

The Trans-Americans had been the first men to cross Colorado by foot since the Mormons had travelled West, towards Utah, sixty years before, although they were passing through three times faster than ever the Mormons, with their creaking pushcarts, had done. They were pioneers, too, not in the geographical sense, but in a different way, moving daily into uncharted territories of their own bodies and spirits.

Many of the press began to realize this, sensing the difference between the Trans-Americans and the marathon-dancers, pole-squatters and tree-sitters who daily competed for headlines alongside Flanagan’s men. Every state in the Union had individuals or teams in the race, and daily the results made the front pages of local papers, or, where none existed, in the windows of Western Union offices.

The nation’s political leaders had not been slow to take advantage of the Trans-America. The national mine workers’ leader, John C. Lewis, proclaimed that Flanagan’s Bunioneers proved beyond doubt that if all Americans were given a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage they could bring the nation’s economy back to life. Vallone of the Federal Inter-State Truckers was even more blunt. “Has anyone ever thought of the energy, the sheer horsepower, these men are putting into the roads of the United States?” he asked at a Union meeting. “And we’re supposed to be in a world-wide Depression. If we could put a tenth of that energy into something worthwhile we could cure this whole sick world.” In New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, now deeply involved in the investigation of the administration of Flanagan-supporter Mayor Jimmy Walker, observed that, whilst applauding the achievements of the Trans-Americans, he would review Mayor Walker’s pledges to Mr Flanagan within the week. Avery Brundage, then making his dogmatic way through the American Olympic Committee, was still more outspoken. “The Trans-America foot-race,” he said, “represents the apotheosis of professional sport, the crass exploitation of athletes by unscrupulous promotion.”

The public reaction to Brundage’s statement was swift, comprehensive and in some cases unprintable. Letters supporting Flanagan and his Trans-Americans poured into newspapers and radio stations throughout the land. There was no doubt where the nation’s sympathies lay.

The race had also come to the notice of the country’s religious leaders, and the evangelist, Alice Craig McAllister, had composed a stirring radio sermon on the “Athletes of the Bible”. Samson, not surprisingly, was “the world’s strongest man”, while Jacob had become “the greatest wrestler” and Enoch “the long-distance runner”. Miss McAllister then moved on to baseball to describe David as “the pinch hitter”, and Saul, more critically, as “the man who fumbled the ball”. At the top of Miss McAllister’s list came Jesus as “the World Champion”, no event specified.

In Europe, every nation with runners in the race now followed the Trans-America avidly. Even the London Times covered the race, although its society columns made occasional slighting reference to Lord Peter Thurleigh’s athletic aberrations on the American continent. In Scotland, Hugh had become a national hero, just as had little Juan Martinez in Mexico, and Hugh’s friend Stevie McFarlane was belatedly despatched to cover the race for the Glasgow Citizen. In Germany, Dr Goebbels, though now under indictment for both libel and slander against the government, made certain that the daily victories of Muller and Stock were well publicized in the party paper Der Angriff, while regular bribes to sports correspondents ensured that the rest of the national press covered the victories of Hitler’s youth squad in full. After Las Vegas, Goebbels also featured a cartoon of Flanagan as “a Communist lackey”, grovelling to a heavily moustached Joseph Stalin.

Yet if Flanagan, Willard and the Trans-America Bank had good reason to be pleased with the gentlemen of the world’s press, elsewhere things were not going nearly as well.

In New York the investigations into Mayor Jimmy Walker’s conduct in office had lifted a few stones, and some exotic insects had been uncovered. Rollin C. Battrass, chief inspector of the Manhattan Building Bureau, had been arrested and taken to the Tombs Prison on a charge of accepting bribes, and everywhere Walker’s men were running for shelter. Similarly, in Chicago, Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson, Flanagan’s one-time friend, had just been ejected from office by a massive 191,916 majority and was now on holiday somewhere on the Mississippi; so no longer of use to Flanagan. Now in mid-April Chicago and New York were still three weeks or more away; Flanagan had more immediate problems. De Luxe Catering, the company he had employed to deal with his feeding arrangements, were asking for more money in advance, and had told him curtly that if he could not come up with fifty thousand dollars by Denver the Trans-America would simply stop short in its tracks.

Whatever way Flanagan looked at it, with close on a thousand miles gone things were beginning to look pretty dark. Nevertheless, as usual Will Rogers, America’s favourite comedian, had some words of hope; “The great thing C. C. Flanagan’s runners demonstrate is that a fellow can still get on to the front page without murdering anyone.”

 

Charles Finley read in a firm clear voice, sitting stiffly and uncomfortably in a high, leather-backed chair in front of the vast, neat desk in the director’s office.

“‘10 April 1931. Initial Report by agent Ernest Bullard.’ ” He cleared his throat.

“‘My surveillance of the Trans-America race has lasted two weeks, during which time the runners have travelled from Las Vegas, Utah to Grand Junction, Colorado. The Las Vegas stage resulted in an affray at the finish, involving the three race leaders, Cole (USA), Michael Morgan (USA), and Hugh McPhail (Great Britain), and striking IWW workers from the Boulder Dam project. On the discovery that the leaders were wearing IWW vests the affray was brought to a summary halt by IWW leader Eamon Flaherty.’”

“A known Communist,” interjected Edgar Hoover in a low flat voice.

“Indeed, sir,” said Finley. He went on. “‘There were no further untoward incidents. Rather, the remainder of the race was cheered loudly by both IWW workers and public alike. I noted that, despite clear evidence of assault, no arrests were made, though there were Las Vegas police close at hand.’”

“That figures,” said Hoover, doodling on a pad on his desk.

“‘After the race I made myself known to Charles C. Flanagan, the race organizer. I asked him why he had provided his leading runners with IWW vests. He replied that he had received wind of trouble ahead in Las Vegas and took out insurance (as he called it) by having his runners wear the vests. It is my belief that Flanagan, rather than trying to identify himself politically with striking IWW workers, was trying to avoid trouble. Later, however, at a party at IWW headquarters at Camp Stand, several of the athletes made what can only be called radical or left-wing statements.’”

“Any details?” asked Hoover.

Finley scanned Bullard’s report.

“No, sir,” he said.

Hoover grunted and beckoned Finley to continue.

“‘Since then, under the guise of a newspaper reporter, I have moved freely amongst the competitors. These men have come from thirty-one different nations, and many are ex-Olympic athletes. Most are unemployed or have come from low-paid jobs in depressed areas. The Trans-America represents for them an opportunity to achieve a new life – if they can win one of the major prizes. As yet I can find no evidence of organized left-wing political groups amongst the competitors.’”

Finley laid down the first sheet. “Sir, this is the end of the first section relating to political factors. The second part concerns agent Bullard’s mission on the Clairville killing.”

“Stow it,” said Hoover. “That’s not why Bullard’s out there.” He stood up, and turned to look at a massive oilcloth map of the United States hanging on the wall behind his desk.

“Where are they now, Finley?” he said, scanning the map.

Finley joined him behind the desk. “About here – around Gypsum, in the Rockies,” he said. “They get out of the Rockies next week, so they’ll soon be on the edge of the Great Plains.”

“Tough country. But it’s a long way to go yet,” said Hoover. “It’s early days for Bullard, too. Remember, Finley, this information about radicals came straight from the Oval office itself.”

“Yes, sir,” said Finley, dutifully. “Right from the top.”

“Bullard,” Hoover mused. “What manner of man is he?”

“One of our best agents, Director. You know he worked with the New York Prohibition Squad from 1920 to 1924 under Captain Dan Chapin.”

“That goddam Dan Chapin,” chuckled Hoover. “What a ramrod! You know, one day he got all his agents in his office. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘all hands on the table. Now every one of you sonafabitches with diamond rings is fired.’ That day he canned half his staff.”

Finley permitted himself a thin smile. “Captain Chapin gave Bullard an excellent reference, Director.”

“No diamond rings, eh?” growled Hoover. “Is Bullard a family man?”

Finley did not look at his files.

“Two children, aged eight and ten, sir.”

“No horsing around?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir.”

“Politics?”

“Republican.”

“Church?”

“A Presbyterian, sir. Regular churchgoer, when bureau duties permit. What the Presbyterians call an elder of the church.”

“Height and weight?”

“Five foot ten, one hundred and sixty-eight pounds,” said Finley. “Used to play quarterback for UCLA, ran first in the NCAAA half-mile in 1914. Bullard still keeps himself in pretty good shape.”

“Good,” said Hoover. “I like a man to keep himself in good physical condition. One final point . . .”

“Yes?” Finley looked up.

“You checked on Bullard’s shaving?”

Finley covered his confusion well, then regained his composure.

“Of course, sir . . .” he said.

“I mean twice a day, eight and five? Open razor?”

“I’ll check on it again, sir, to make completely certain.”

“Do that,” said Hoover. “Bullard sounds a good man, but details like that tell me more than you might imagine. That’s been my experience, anyway.”

Hoover returned to his chair and bit on his pencil. “This fellow Flanagan,” he said. “Do we have anything on him?”

Finley picked up a thin file and opened it. “Charles C. Flanagan, born New York 22 April 1884. Left school in fourth grade. 1901-08, working part-time in Mott Street YMCA with track and field and basketball teams. 1908 – 12 sold insurance. 1914-19, journalist with Chicago Tribune, 1919-21, manager of women’s basketball team.”

“You said women’s basketball?” said Hoover, stroking his chin.

“Yes, sir,” said Finley. He looked up again before continuing: “1923, made abortive attempt to introduce indoor horse-racing to New York. 1924, attempted to organize major indoor international track and field meets at Madison Square Garden. Vetoed by AAU. 1925 -28, managed international tennis player Suzanne Lamarr.”

“Nothing much there,” said Hoover.

“Except perhaps the women’s basketball team,” said Finley.

“Yes,” said Hoover, making a triangle with his hands over his lips. “What about the Trans-America athletes?”

“Not much,” said Finley, picking up and opening another slim file. “Some of the American boys are ex-college athletes – no political affiliations. Lots of farmers, again no clear political links. The most likely politicals are the industrial workers – the race has quite a few of them – but it would take us months to check them all out. As for the non-Americans, it’s impossible for us to check back.”

“So we’ve got to wait for some overt political activity?’

“It seems so, sir,” said Finley. “The papers report that, since Las Vegas, every tramp in the areas through which they’ve passed has somehow got to the route to shout them on. They went through the Mojave alone, but they won’t be alone now for a single yard all the way into New York.”

Hoover jerked up his cropped, bullet head.

“So it’s your opinion that they do represent a radical threat?”

“I didn’t say that, sir,” said Finley patiently. “They have – probably unwittingly – become a focal point for people who are out of work, perhaps even for radicals and left-wing elements. There’s no lack of them these days, sir, and the race has become . . . well, a sort of symbol, a rallying-point, for many such malcontents.” ‘

“And what have Reuther and Lewis and those other Union sonafabitches said?”

Finley picked up a wad of newspapers and laid them on Hoover’s desk.

“They’re all solidly behind the runners, sir, but then again so is Carl Liebnitz of the New York Times, so is Alice Craig McAllister, so is Cardinal O’Rourke.”

“Reuther, Lewis, Liebnitz, McAllister, O’Rourke,” rasped Hoover. “What a helluva mixture.”

“And don’t forget Will Rogers, Director,” added Finley. “He has expressed his support on several occasions.”

Hoover permitted a smile to flicker across his featureless face. “Ol’ Will Rogers,” he said. “Well, don’t that just beat the band.”

 

As Doc had predicted, the weather cooled as they moved on to the fringe of the Rockies, though it was to be another hundred and fifty miles beyond St George before Hugh had fully recovered the quality of his earlier running. He and Doc were now a team, and Doc, still up with the Germans since Las Vegas, stayed back in the earlier parts of each stage and talked Hugh through the days succeeding his collapse, before threading through the field to catch up with the leaders. Through Doc, Hugh made his first acquaintance with Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Doc knew most of Twain’s book by heart, and rattled through the “Cole version” on the flatter parts of the route. Thus Hugh entered the world of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, of the negro slave Jim, and the hucksters The Duke and The Prince. He had never taken much interest in reading at school, but through the long miles Doc made the Mississippi world of Twain live for him.

Muller and Stock, after a fruitless appeal by their manager Moltke against Doc’s shortcut into Las Vegas, ruthlessly cut down his lead, and by Grand Junction, Colorado, on the fringe of the Rockies, they were a few minutes ahead.

The daily quality of the young Germans’ running was beyond even Doc’s experience. After every marathon he had always needed time to forget the pain before he could face the next race. Yet these lean Teutonic youths were running two marathons a day, five days a week, at close to nine-minute miles.

Doc knew that worrying about Stock and Muller was going to serve no purpose. If the Germans were running at the winning pace, so be it. But if Doc and Hugh were ever going to catch them then they must run at their own speed, in a cocoon of their own making. This cocoon was not only physical but psychological and so, every morning, Doc would take Hugh out into the Rockies and there they would talk to themselves, reciting the same strange litany: “I am a distance runner. My bones are light, my muscles lean. My heart will pump blood forever, flushing my muscles with oxygen.”

Their voices would echo through the mountains, for Doc insisted that the litany be occasionally shouted, as if it were not merely an affirmation of their nature but a gesture of defiance.

“I am a runner. I live as a runner. I eat as a runner. I see the weather, the road, the world as a runner. I have come to run fifty miles a day, six days a week.”

At first Hugh had felt foolish, and had kept his voice low until they were well out of earshot of the camp. At first, too, the words seemed trite, and he mumbled them without conviction or understanding, just as he had the Lord’s Prayer years before at school. Gradually, however, like the Lord’s Prayer, Doc’s litany began to assume a strength that it had not at first possessed. Hugh was, in truth, becoming a runner. What they were describing was him as he now was – distance runner, part of the seamless live continuum that was snaking its way painfully through and over the Rockies.

“Know what I think?” said Doc one day in Green River. “We can’t lose. ’Cos we came here with nothing, we came here beat. Hugh, what did you have in Glasgow in your Broo Park? Nothing! And Morgan? Martinez? Nothing.

“The way I see it, every single mile we put in, every foot of ground we cover, that’s a victory. Every time we think of stopping and keep going, that’s another victory. Every goddam moment on that road is too. Out here we grow every day. We grow, don’t you see? What’s more, we thumb our noses at the bastards all over the world who forced us out here.”

Hugh’s response was less philosophical. “The way you tell it, Doc, we’ve scored one helluva lot of victories this last month. But who knows about them? Who really cares a damn?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Doc. “There’re millions of middle-aged guys out there wondering how ol’ Doc Cole’s getting on, thousands of wetbacks listening to people reading the newspapers aloud to each other so they can hear about Juan Martinez. Back in your Broo Park in bonnie Scotland I bet you’re some kind of god! But most important, do you know who knows? You know. You know what you’ve done out here, day after day, win or lose, sink or swim. Hell, Hugh, it’s part of you and you’ll never forget it.”

Hugh had grudgingly to admit that his running partner was right. Day after day he felt himself grow stronger, more confident. The rotten decay of Broo Park was being burnt out of him by the endless miles, the daily challenges faced and met. Even so, the early days in the Rockies were like those first days in the Highlands, for pain and stiffness never left his legs. The steep climbs and descents brought into play small remote groups of muscle-fibres which were not used on the flat plains or on gentler inclines. Thus every day it took at least half an hour’s walking and trotting with Doc before he became sufficiently loose to face that day’s running.

In the coal mines Hugh knew that men went only one of two ways, to “bull” or to “wire”. Those who went to “bull” developed massive shoulders, arms and thighs, while those who went to “wire” became lean, spare, stringy. The Trans-America caused everyone in it to go to wire. Before the race Hugh had been one hundred and fifty-four pounds of what he had thought was solid bone and muscle. Now he was one hundred and forty-five pounds. The hills made his thighs rock hard, an anatomical chart fit for medical students, the separate heads of the quadriceps showing fine and clear like rivers seen from above, with the diagonal sartorius etching its way across his thighs to the inside of his knees. Behind the thigh, when he stretched his legs, his hamstrings stood out like bowstrings, and on recovery bulged like soft, muscular breasts.

Daily he had chugged up the hills with Doc, the mountains pumping pain into them like a bicycle pump. They ran as if driven by one heart and one will, and occasionally, when their strides matched, like one man.

Though a few runners already wore long-johns and jerseys and gloves – bought during their rest days – they were never really warm as they faced close to zero temperatures, sharpened by cutting winds. Even Muller slowed up, though, with each stage, he continued to add minutes to his narrow lead.

Daily, the mountain’s icy tableaux had been repeated, with Doc, Hugh, Morgan and Martinez hanging on grimly at the Germans’ heels. Behind, Bouin and Capaldi closed in, with Thurleigh also up with the leaders, but behind them new faces began to appear, with the lanky Australian, Mullins, the squat Jap, Tajuma, and the skinny Pole, Komar, now featuring in the top dozen at each stage. The field was telescoping, as the specialist hill runners, men with legs of steel, sucked in the leaders.

It was at Gypsum that they began to run into the really high country, and forty miles later they laboured painfully in dropping temperatures through the Shrine Pass, eleven thousand feet above sea level. They camped just beyond the Pass, on the central spine of the Rockies, some sixty-odd miles short of Denver.

Willard Clay had excelled himself in these testing conditions, and each of the athletes’ tents was, every night, warmed by dozens of paraffin stoves. The atmosphere was muggy and smelly but it was also warm, and Doc and Hugh listened contentedly as the winds swept by outside, screaming through the mountain passes.

“Cross my heart, he used to run backwards,” Doc was saying, as he squatted with Hugh and Morgan on the dirt floor of the tent.

“His name was Edmund Payson Weston,” he went on, “and he walked from New York to Los Angeles about fifty years ago, covering about the same daily mileages we do. He travelled the world in a velvet jacket and pants, walking fifty-five miles in twelve hours round running tracks for big money. For the last mile or so he would play a trumpet or walk backwards. Then afterwards, for good measure, he would talk for an hour on the value of walking and exercise for good health.”

“But what has this to do with hill running?” asked Hugh.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Doc. “We’re coming to some really steep ones now . . .”

“You can say that again!” said Hugh. “They can’t come any tougher than what we’ve been through.”

“Well, Payson Weston had this theory that going down steep hills was best done by running backwards, so that the fronts of the thighs weren’t damaged.”

“Your Weston guy may not have been too far out,” said Morgan. “The long downhill stretches are tough. All that paying out of muscles to keep you from falling forward.”

“Exactly,” said Doc.

“Well, why don’t you follow his theory?” asked Hugh.

“The way I reckon it, if I’m going to run three thousand-odd miles I sure as hell want to see where I’m going,” grinned Doc. “Still, one thing we do need from now on is a few pairs of these.” He turned to his knapsack and drew out a pair of red long-johns.

“The forecast for tomorrow is snow. What with snow and winds, we’re going to be running uphill into sub-zero temperatures for the next few days. Your legs never get warm, no matter how far you run. Tomorrow morning we get you both a pair of long-johns in Leadville. I reckon the stores at Leadville will be sold out of warm clothing soon, so we’d best be up early.”

 

“Wow,” said Willard Clay to Dixie, both hands on the wheel of the Ford pickup. “lt’s colder than Alaska out there.” Willard’s plump face creased into a frown as he tried to focus through the slow snow-clogged windscreen wipers. They drove south towards Leadville, Colorado, their mission – to purchase warm clothing for over eight hundred ill-equipped Trans-Americans, huddled five miles back in tents whipped by wind and snow.

“Will Mr Flanagan cancel tomorrow’s stage, do you think?” asked Dixie, face close to the misty windscreen.

“Impossible,” said Willard, moving down a gear to negotiate a steep incline.

“Mr Flanagan and me, we got a tight schedule to keep. Sure, we’ve got a little slack, but come hell or high water, tomorrow we got to run.”

Dixie peered out into the thick, fluffy snow at the towering white mountains through which the Trans-Americans would tomorrow have to pass. Up till now, the weather in the Rockies had been unusually mild, and the runners’ main problem had been running up the steep, uneven roads in the oxygen-starved atmosphere. Now they were to face snow and sub-zero temperatures.

Dixie looked to her left at Willard. She had now been with Clay for almost two months, yet she knew virtually nothing about him. But in the first days of the Trans-America, when she had faced the problem of logging the positions of two thousand finishers in the heat of the Mojave, it had been little Willard who had found the time to stand for a moment by her side and point out more effective ways of completing the task. Willard was everywhere, yet it was difficult to imagine him as a person with a life independent of the Trans-America and its needs.

Certainly he was no ladies’ man, and generally presented a complete contrast to his employer. It was the first time that they had been alone together, and Dixie decided to seize the initiative, in the only way she knew how, by asking questions.

“How did you first come to meet Mr Flanagan?” she asked.

Willard’s eyes remained fixed on the road ahead.

“Back in New York, in 1923. Me, I was a smart nobody selling bootleg in Hell’s Kitchen. Mr Flanagan, well, I had known him from way back in his old YMCA days. But he sure had to do some sweet talking to drag me away from my bootleg business!”

“Were you making a lot of money?”

“I’ll say,” smiled Willard, sweat beginning to roll down his bulbous neck. “Three hundred bucks a week. Then Mr Flanagan comes to me with this crazy idea for indoor horse-racing. The scheme was to bring in horses and cowboys from out West and race them round a dirt track in armories in New York and New Jersey.”

“And did it all work out?”

Willard grinned and shook his head.

“I went in with Mr Flanagan, and gave up my bootlegging. Don’t ask me why – I even had to grubstake him five hundred bucks just to get him started. A week later the cops busted my old bootleg operation and my buddies all spent two years in the pen.”

“And the horse-racing?”

“Mr Flanagan paid out a couple of thousand bucks to some operator out West for a herd of wild horses. We waited for two months for those horses. That was the last Flanagan ever saw of his two grand – so our horse-racing business never ever got to first base.”

“So what did you do then?”

“Me and Mr Flanagan picked up some loose change scouting for the Brooklyn Dodgers, out in the bush leagues. In between we set up poker games for guys looking for some action. Then, in 1925, Mr Flanagan started to manage a pro tennis player, a French girl name of Suzanne Lamarr. I worked as her road manager. Mr Flanagan and Miss Lamarr spent most of their time fogging up windscreens from the inside. Then she beat it to Brazil with an Italian waiter in 1928 and in 1929 Mr Flanagan got the idea for the Trans-America.”

Dixie fumbled in her handbag for her cosmetic bag.

“And what did you think of the idea?”

“At first, not much. Then I thought to myself – when is a little guy like me ever going to get the chance to get two thousand guys across America? It was the chance of a lifetime. Heck, I’d spent most of my life grafting in toytown – here I could do something real big, something nobody had ever done.”

“And can you and Mr Flanagan do it?”

Willard’s smile faded.

“Ma’am, we’ve got to do it. I came from nowhere – no family, no education, half way to the pen – when Mr Flanagan picked me up. Now I’m fixing the greatest foot-race in the world.”

Dixie withdrew a lipstick from her bag, looked into her compact mirror and carefully etched her lips.

“But what about all the towns that won’t pay, or are pulling out?”

Willard reached for a pack of cigarettes and flipped one of them into his mouth.

“I leave all that to Mr Flanagan,” he said, flicking his lighter into life. “He fixes that part of the operation. I just get us from one place to the next.” He lit his cigarette. “Mr Flanagan’s half Houdini, half Holy Ghost. With that kind of combination we could get these guys to the moon.”

Dixie was silent. They were approaching the outskirts of Leadville. Together, Flanagan and this plump, rumpled little man were dragging a thousand runners, a circus, a press corps and a hundred-odd staff across the winding roads of America, through every possible adversity. And somehow she was involved, and daily grew more involved, as she came to understand and become directly involved in the logistics which were a matter of instinct to Willard Clay. From being a passive spectator, a decoration, she was becoming a part of the Trans-America, part not only of its administrative machinery, but also of its heart and will.

Willard drew the pickup into the brown slush of the sidewalk, alongside the general store.

“Leadville, Colorado,” he said, pulling on the handbrake. “And by the way, Miss Williams, Mr Flanagan says to tell you you’re doing a good job. Thought you’d like to know.”

 

It had been Hugh’s idea that they take a trip to the movies, and he who had prompted Doc to put it to the rest of the group, in the hope that Dixie could be persuaded to join them. To his relief she had accepted, and he had sat uneasily beside her on the rough floor of the truck, their bodies occasionally touching as the vehicle made its bumpy way into town.

That night they crowded into the Electric Picture Palace, Main Street, Leadville. The cinema was undoubtedly electric, but with its patched screen and dingy mock-velvet seats it was equally no palace: hard to believe that the Douglas Fairbanks that they were watching leap across the screen as Sinbad the Sailor was the same stocky little man who had sent them on their way from Los Angeles only six weeks before.

Kate and Morgan, Hugh and Dixie, Doc and Martinez blinked and looked around them as the lights came on for the interval. The cinema was crammed with Trans-Americans, munching popcorn and gulping down root beer, their sun-blackened faces setting them apart from the rest of the audience.

Soon the lights dimmed again, and the trailers for the next week’s show filled the screen. It was The Public Enemy, starring James Cagney and Jean Harlow. For a few moments the cinema resounded with the blarney of the trailer – “her kiss was as deadly as his gun” – before it was replaced by a Laurel and Hardy one-reeler.

Despite the roars of laughter around him, Hugh was aware only of Dixie’s presence just a few inches away, of her brown arms against her light cotton dress. He imagined her smooth brown body glowing beneath the coolness of the dress, and wondered if she was even remotely aware of him and of his longing. Slowly he placed his left arm on the arm-rest closest to her. To his right Morgan and Kate sat, fingers entwined, their eyes streaming with laughter. On his left Dixie seemed similarly caught up in the picture, as on the screen Stan Laurel settled down in bed for the night with a gorilla. Hugh felt totally alone, burning helplessly in a sea of laughter. He could feel himself trembling, just as he had years before when he had raced against Lord Featherstone. Then he had prepared for months for the race. Now there was no knowing. In a second, total failure, complete rejection and the longing of two months and countless dreams would count for nothing. Why should she have anything to do with him, a nobody from the black bowels of Glasgow? The distance between the left arm-rest and Dixie’s slim right hand could not have been more than eight inches. It might have been the Grand Canyon. In Hugh’s imagination he saw himself not merely touching her but grasping her hand in his, and of her firm and passionate response. He ached to bridge those few dark inches, but felt paralyzed. In only a few minutes the lights would return and the moment would be lost for ever.

He moved his arm a few inches. It felt as if he had stretched it several feet, but there was still no contact. Hugh’s whole body was wet with sweat. He moved his left hand further. Still no contact. Perhaps Dixie was aware of his movement. Perhaps she was even moving away from him. He dared not look to find out.

He stretched the little finger of his left hand. Still no contact. Further. Suddenly, it touched hers. For a moment he froze as he felt the warm, moist flesh of Dixie’s little finger. Then slowly, but with purpose, it overlapped his.

Hugh prayed that the darkness would never end. When the lights finally came on they stood up, looked at each other and smiled.

 

At I0 a.m. next morning, 15 April 1931, one thousand one hundred and eleven runners jogged in place in the biting wind in front of the Trans-America caravan, the snow matting and freezing in their hair and eyebrows. The athletes were dwarfed by the sharp, snow-topped mountains that surrounded them, etched against the cold blue sky. The wind shrieked across the flat, icebound field to which their tented camp had clung precariously throughout the night. Behind them, Flanagan’s tent crew struggled with numb fingers against stiff icebound canvas and frozen tent pegs, as the camp was again dismantled.

“Today’s stage . . . forty-two miles to Silver Plume.” Flanagan’s words were lost in the screaming wind. He repeated his announcement, to no greater effect. “Food stop at twenty miles for two hours,” he continued, bellowing into the microphone. He felt ice form in his nostrils as he sniffed in the sharp mountain air. He raised aloft his pearl-handled six gun and the report of the gun sent the Trans-Americans trundling slowly through the snow towards Silver Plume.

Doc, Hugh McPhail and Morgan all wore gloves, balaclavas and red long-johns, and Morgan noted that Kate now wore black dancing tights. Of the others, only the Finns, the Germans, the All-Americans and perhaps six hundred others wore any leg-covering. Many of the runners had no covering at all, and their brown legs were goose-pimpled by the sub-zero temperature.

Luckily the first sixteen miles were relatively flat, and Doc and Hugh settled into a steady six-miles-an-hour trot, in twentieth position, with Muller and Stock leading a pack of a dozen others about half a mile ahead. It provided Hugh with time to look round.

What he saw was a land of granite cliffs dropping thousands of feet into blue water lakes, of snow peaks and clinging glaciers. As they began to climb he spied below, through the light snow, lakes of green water with tiny icebergs bobbing on their surface. Above and ahead lay dense pine forest and high flower meadows.

“Mother of Mercy,” said Doc, pointing ahead. About half a mile in front the road rose steeply, winding round the mountains like a ribbon. It was Caribou Pass, elevation 11,050 feet.

The runners dropped to a crawl and Hugh again felt the pounding of his heart and the quickening of his breathing which had come on their earlier, more gradual climbs at altitude. Ahead, Stock and Muller had already dropped the leading group of a dozen, now strung out behind them on the white mountain road, and Hugh caught a glimpse of Stock driving steadily on upwards, alone, about a hundred yards ahead of Muller.

The snow became steadily more dense, swirling down in thick, fluffy flakes, landing on their hair and eyebrows and freezing immediately, while, in contrast, the heat of their bodies melted it on contact. For Kate Sheridan, back in four hundred and twentieth position in a pack of eight runners, the race had again become a nightmare as legs, tuned to the sidewalks of New York, met steep, winding gradients at seven thousand feet, often in driving snow. On the toughest hills she was forced to drop to an inside fourteen-minutes-per-mile walk, moving up to over ten-minute miles downhill. At first she had wept at the pain in her thighs, her sobs echoing through the mountains, her tears freezing on her cheeks. But now she no longer cried. Kate had become two persons. In the first person was the meek, weak Kate Sheridan who got tired and breathless, the Kate Sheridan who kept wanting to stop. The other was a tough, vicious Kate Sheridan, constantly driving “Kate the meek” to keep moving, keep running, keep passing broken men, for fifty miles every day. And every hour the two Kates did battle, the fierce keeping the meek at bay.

Up near the leaders, in eighth and ninth places, Doc and Hugh ran as if driven by a common heart, their strides exactly matched, their breathing synchronized – heavy, but controlled. After only two miles up the mountain they had come upon the first broken stragglers of the leading group, walking or plodding desperately through the snow.

Their own stride-length had now dropped, their breathing changed to a metronomic groan. Hugh could feel his thighs become steadily heavier and more painful – first the flickering muscles of the front and side of his thighs, then the hamstrings and groin, finally the whole of his buttocks.

“Lean in,” Doc urged. “Put your hands on your legs, like this.”

He put his hands on the front of his thighs, the way he had seen English fell-runners do. Hugh did as he was bid and soon felt his leg muscles relax. Thankfully they were almost at a crest of the mountain, with half a mile or so of white, flat, winding road ahead of them, giving them a chance to recover.

They grunted and sobbed their way on passing another four runners. A few hundred yards later they picked up Martinez and Morgan running in unison, just before the next climb began, and they ran together. Again it was a steep, winding slope, into the slap of wind-driven snow, hitting their red, sweating faces, sodden jerseys and long-johns.

Caribou Pass had shattered the Trans-America as even the deserts had previously failed to do. The desert had been hot, but there had been no hills, no lack of the oxygen essential to running. The mountains demanded more of the runners, but gave back less.

The mountain road, thick with powdery new snow, had become slippery and soon all four were reduced to a broken, gasping slither up the treacherous slope. For a few hundred yards Doc and Hugh repeated their fell-running technique, but even that was little use. Fluid running was impossible and they were all forced to adopt a walking version of the same technique, pressing on their thighs as they struggled upwards.

Eventually the snow started to thin, and as they reached the brow of the next hill a thin, bleak sun broke through. It revealed a white table land four thousand feet below, and above the sharp snow cap of Mount Teat, set against a turquoise blue sky.

They stopped at the brow of the hill, brows and hair furred with ice and snow.

“Look,” said Doc, pointing ahead. A runner was lying face down in the snowy road, about a hundred yards ahead. When they got closer they saw that it was Muller. The young German lay inert, face down on the road, arms by his side, a thin trickle of blood from his mouth staining the snow.

“Get him up,” said Doc.

Martinez and Doc pulled the German into a sitting position. He was not breathing and his eyes were closed.

Doc put his fingers at the side of Muller’s neck.

“Hell,” he groaned. “No pulse.”

He stood up and peeled off his top jersey.

“Lie him on this,” he said. They laid Muller down on his back on the jersey.

Doc knelt and hit the German hard on the left side of his chest with the side of his fist. There was no response.

“What the hell are you doing, Doc?” asked Morgan, kneeling to join him.

The older man did not reply, but instead hit the German hard again, then put his ear to Muller’s chest.

He cursed. “Still nothing.”

He hit a third time – harder – thumping as if hammering on a table, and again placed his ear to Muller’s chest.

Doc let out a sigh. “It’s beating.” He stood up. “How far ahead is the truck?”

“About a couple of miles at most,” bellowed Morgan, raising his voice against the screaming wind.

“Get ahead – and get Doc Falconer back here pronto.”

“What about you?” asked Hugh.

“I’ll stay till Falconer gets here. I’ll catch you up, never fear.” He bent down again over Muller. Seeing their uncertainty, he added, “Get a move on, you bastards, or this guy’ll die!”

It was enough. The three runners trotted off down the slope, leaving Doc with his ear still to Muller’s chest.

The old runner watched them go. He looked down the mountain at the six-mile-long stream of runners labouring through the thinning snow towards him and felt his own spirits sink. Doc sniffed and brushed the crusty snow from his eyebrows. He had no idea what he would do if Muller’s heart stopped again. He put his arms under Muller’s shoulders and dragged the German across the road into a recess in the vertical rock face and propped him up against the side of the rock. Then he sat beside Muller, pulled the limp young German over and hugged him close to his steamy, sweating little body. He pulled the runner’s cheek to his. “Live, you bastard,” he whispered into the young German’s ear.

He sat watching other competitors pass and make their way down the mountain as the snow thinned, sat and felt his body lose heat as he pressed it closer still to Muller’s. He could see Hugh, Morgan and Martinez close in on the finish, with the Trans-America truck standing beside the road, see the quickening of activity as Dr Falconer hastily assembled his equipment and set off by ambulance towards him up the mountain.

In a matter of minutes Maurice Falconer was with Doc and Muller and had his stethoscope pinned to the German’s chest.

“You’re sure his heart had stopped beating?” he said.

“Certain,” said Doc.

“Well, it’s going at a hundred and forty beats to the minute now, so what the hell did you do?” Falconer took his stethoscope from his ears.

Doc removed his jersey from around Muller and pulled it back over his head.

“I just gave it a little encouragement,” he said, and began to trot down the snowy road towards the finish. Doc ended up in ninety-fifth position, twelve minutes later.

 

Six hours later, as the weary Trans-Americans ate dinner or rested in their tents at the end of the day’s second stage, Flanagan, Willard and Dr Falconer sat drinking hot coffee in the Trans-America caravan at Silver Plume.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” shouted Flanagan, lighting a cigar for Falconer, who sat at his side, scanning a result-sheet.

It was Doc Cole, now dressed in his day clothes and jacket, his face still red from the day’s exertions.

“Thanks for coming, Doc. Sit down,” said Flanagan. He drew from a cabinet a brown stone jug and pulled out the cork.

“Brandy?”

Doc shook his head. “No thanks. I leave that to the St Bernards. An orange juice will suit me just fine.”

Flanagan beckoned to Willard, who located a carton of juice in the icebox and poured Doc out a tall glass.

“A tough day,” said Flanagan, nodding over his shoulder at the window as the mountain winds whistled outside, the snow again matted on the windowpane of the caravan.

“About the toughest yet,” said Doc, sipping his drink. “Be glad to get to Denver.”

“The press boys have been badgering me for an interview with you,” said Flanagan. “Any objections?”

“Nope,” said Doc. “No objections. I’m rested up now.”

“Before you talk to them there’s one thing I’d like to ask you. Why did you stay back for Muller? That young pup’s been showing you his rear end for the last nine hundred-odd miles.”

“It was the only thing to do,” said Doc. “Up there on the mountain Muller wasn’t a competitor any more, just a sick young guy in one hell of a lot of trouble. I think anyone would have done the same.”

“Some wouldn’t. Not back where I come from,” said Willard.

Doc continued to sip his juice. “One thing you’ll learn, Willard, as this race goes on, is that though athletes are the most selfish guys on earth, there’s no way they’d let a guy like Muller die if they could help it.”

“But I hear he was dead anyway,” said Flanagan. “His heart had stopped beating.”

“That’s not always the same thing,” said Doc.

“No,” agreed Falconer, tapping his cigar on the ash-tray. “Doc’s right. It isn’t always the same thing. But how in God’s name did you get his heart started again?”

Doc handed his empty glass back to Willard.

“Back in the Mexico City marathon in 1912 a guy’s heart stopped beating after the race. We had an Indian there, Tom Longboat. I’ll never forget what he did as long as I live. He thumped that guy half a dozen times on the chest until his heart started beating again. Longboat said it was an old Injun treatment. So that’s what I did with young Muller.”

Falconer shook his head, smiling.

“Folk medicine,” he said.

Doc spread his hands. “But it worked. That’s all that matters. So what else did you want to see me about, Flanagan?”

Flanagan lifted a list of race results. “How far down do you reckon you finished on Morgan, McPhail and Martinez on that first stage?”

“I reckon maybe about fifteen minutes,” said Doc.

“We put it closer to eighteen,” said Flanagan, looking at Willard, who nodded. “Willard and I have talked it over with all the leading runners, including the Germans. We’ve decided to take eighteen minutes off your time today. Are you happy with that?”

Doc’s lined face creased into a smile. He stood up. “Delighted. As far as I know that’s never happened in any race before.”

“But then,” said Flanagan, “we don’t see many competitions with runners stopping to bring other guys back from the dead.”

“I suppose not,” said Doc. “Look, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, Flanagan, but could I see those press boys right now? I’m beginning to feel bushed.” He reached the door, then turned.

“One point, Dr Falconer. Next time you see him, have a look at Muller’s eyes.”

“How do you mean?” asked Falconer, drawing on his cigar.

“Last time I saw eyes like that was in New York.”

“What caused it?”

“Cocaine,” said Doc, and closed the door quietly behind him.