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Rowing in the University Boat Race is not a thing to be undertaken
lightly. To begin with, it involves great muscular exertion; but this is
not unpleasant, and, as I shall presently show, is not dangerous.
Further, it ties the aspirant to his oar for at least ten weeks, which
is perhaps its greatest disadvantage; and it involves intense
application and a pretty good temper under remarks from the "coach" that
are sometimes almost more than caustic. But against these drawbacks are
to be set the pleasure of gratified ambition, the healthy life, and,
best of all, the sensation of the flight of the boat driven by eight
men, of whom none are really bad oarsmen, and some are uncommonly good.
Putting these side by side, no one need wonder that an old Blue should
look on the time he spent at Putney as one of the best in his life.
I will pass over the preliminary work at the University, for it contains
nothing novel or interesting, and is mainly consumed in settling the
crew who are finally to row, and in getting the men "hard" by long,
steady work, to get rid of fat and replace it by muscle. The real
interest begins when the crew has been settled, and the men have had
their colours given them, and are looking forward shortly to leaving the
home waters. By this time they are fairly "fit," and, as they have in
all cases of doubt had the very best medical opinions, they are not very
likely to go wrong. There is a good deal of nonsense talked about the
dangers of this race to health. No man who is not absolutely sound in
wind and limb is allowed to begin training at all, for the obvious
reason that the captain does not want one of his men to fail him at the
last moment. It is about as probable that a man should go tiger shooting
without looking to see if his rifle is loaded, as that the President of
a University Boat Club should select an oarsman who is likely to "crock
up."
It is when the crew leave the home waters that the really enjoyable part
of the training begins. The Cambridge crew generally, and the Oxford men
not infrequently, go straight to Putney, but a far more pleasant plan is
to spend a week or so on the up-river waters before going to the
Metropolitan course. Everyone knows Cookham in its summer dress, with a
plentiful crowd of holiday-makers on the water; but in the very early
spring, before the foliage has begun to appear, and when the
light-hearted champagne bottle still nestles in its straw, it has also a
very great charm of its own. The fresh air, and the change to new
scenes, together with the strong stream caused by winter rains, make the
men feel like young bullocks, and the boat moves with twice the spring
it had before. The jolly lounging life in between whiles, diversified
with songs, saloon-pistols, and the like, the pleasant walk over the
hills on Sunday, and the total freedom from all thoughts and cares,
beyond the beating of a record over the course next day, all go to make
up an Elysian life.
Every now and then the amusement is varied by the rather boisterous
humour of the elements. Some five years ago the state of the tide at
Putney rendered it necessary to do most of the work early in the
morning. It was freezing hard, with occasional showers of snow, and the
coxswain absolutely was able to stand his coat up when he took it off.
It had got drenched, and was frozen stiff! I have several times been in
a boat when we had to land and empty out the water, that had broken over
the bow oars in such quantities as almost to sink us. Occasionally,
boats have quite sunk from the same cause, while the men stuck to their
thwarts, presenting a comic appearance as they rowed away, seated, as it
seemed, in the water.
[Illustration: "A WORK OF GENIUS."]
A great consideration in estimating the happiness of such a time as this
is the question, "What did you have to eat?" But the answer to this has
been given so many times that it would be merely wearisome now to detail
the various dishes that are or are not "good for training." Enough to
say that, as everybody knows, the old rigorous system of raw beef and
beer is a thing of the past--except the beer. Nowadays, it is considered
sufficient to banish all very unwholesome things from the table, while
keeping as nearly as possible to each man's ordinary diet. In point of
quantity there are practically no restrictions, unless the Captain
considers that any man does not know when he has had enough (which,
alas! may occur); in which case he may remonstrate with him gently, but
firmly. I have seen a man eat for breakfast a sole and a half, three
chops, a poached egg, and some watercress; but I confess that this was
regarded as a work of genius. The ordinary man in training eats only
about twice as much as any sane person, or perhaps a little more; and
as, of course, the system needs recuperating under the great strains
that are put upon it, this trifling excess has its justification.
However, the result of this wear and tear and repair of the muscular
tissue is that the activity of the mind decreases in inverse proportion
to that of the body; and during a hard course of training the rowing man
is generally rather sleepy and unintellectual. This matters all the less
that studies are forbidden--not a very difficult rule to enforce--during
the latter part of the time. But training once over, the strength and
health accumulated can certainly do no harm either physical or mental,
and a healthy body is the best guarantee for an active mind (see Latin
authors and copybooks _passim_).
[Illustration: "LAPPED IN PROFOUNDEST SLEEP."]
About three weeks or less before the race a move is made to Putney,
where, as a general rule, very comfortable quarters are provided. The
pleasantest of all that the Oxford crew have had lately has been the
Lyric Club House; but it is not really a good place for the men's
health. Lying, as it does, just down by the river, the air is not half
so bracing as that of the higher ground. Still, it is undoubtedly very
convenient to have a billiard-table or two to while away the men's time
in the evening. Without something of the kind time is apt to hang very
heavily on their hands. Conversation flags, the chairs feel very
comfortable after the day's work, and Morpheus, drowsy god, steals in
unawares. Now, this is not only bad hygienically, but is apt to have
very awkward consequences of a different kind. One man more wakeful than
the rest casts his eye around, seeking for his prey. He spies an
unfortunate lapped in profoundest sleep. His hand steals out and
clutches a book. He hurls it--and in a moment all is confusion. Each
man, starting from his guilty slumbers, springs up to cast the
proverbial stone, and in this case usually a book, at his fellow-sinner,
vowing that he has been watching the nodding of the victim, and only
waiting for the proper moment to visit him with condign punishment. And
so, with protestations, objurgations, and such light and cheerful
pastime, the hours roll away till the happy 10.30 comes, when all
incontinently roll off to bed.
[Illustration: "'TAKE IT OFF.'"]
But if the men go to bed early, they make up for it by rising early too;
and if they are sleepy at night, they feel delightfully fresh in the
morning. A brisk walk over the common sends the human barometer spinning
upwards; they feel ready for any fun that comes in their way. And, alas!
did not this same buoyancy of spirit not many years ago involve certain
respectable oarsmen in a difference with the executive? _Tacenda_,
indeed! Yet if a rabbit springs up out of the gorse, and the dogs are
off in full cry, can nature in such a mood be stubborn?
In between whiles the men are left almost entirely to themselves, and
are free to seek what innocent diversion they please. The choice
certainly is not very varied. Beyond paying a visit to the opposing
crew, chatting with friends who have come to see the practices, or
looking in at the local skittle alley, there is very little to do. But
if they lack diversion themselves, they do not fail to cause great
delight to the juvenile population of Barnes and Putney. It must be
premised, for the benefit of all who are not _habitues_ of Putney, that
the crews always wear during their training the coat and cap of their
University Boat Club, and flannel trousers. There are reasons which
make this a very necessary and laudable practice; but in the juvenile
mind it gives rise to the most uncompromising scorn, which finds various
ways of expressing itself. "Take it off" is one of the most popular of
these, and though it certainly suffers from a lack of originality, it
appears to give great satisfaction. Another, more recondite, but perhaps
ironical, is "Put it on." "Where's yer trousers?" "Go it, white legs!"
"Who's yer hatter?" and many similar cries, all testify to the joyous
humour of the riverside youth.
Hardly less amusing are the comments of the crowd as the men pass
through to their boat-house. "That's Nickalls," explains the
well-informed gentleman as a Cambridge man goes by. Or, as the
lightweight hurries past, "Don't look as if 'e could do it," remarks a
bystander, "looks to want a day out at grass for them calves." Or,
"'Ere, I say, 'e's eat a bit of beef in his day, I know," as the heavy
man comes in sight. It is a good-humoured crowd, and if the strong
tobacco is a bit offensive when one's not allowed to smoke oneself,
things can't be always as we should like them to be.
[Illustration: "'E'S EAT A BIT OF BEEF IN HIS DAY."]
[Illustration: "GETTING RID OF FAT."]
It is the custom for the Oxford crew to use the London Rowing Club
boat-house, while the Cambridge men are accommodated at the Leander Club
next door, and there is accordingly a good crowd in front of each at
practice times, eager to see the men on whose prowess their own modest
half-crowns are staked. Unfortunately, as some of my readers may have
experienced, it is not always easy to find out the exact time when the
crews are going out. In fact, the Captain is an autocrat on these
occasions, who rules alike over crew, critics, and the general public
without distinction of persons, and who shows a splendid indifference
for the latter's convenience. He launches the boat at all kinds of
wondrous times, not shrinking from starting half-an-hour or more before
the time he has arranged, and thus disappointing a number of would-be
spectators. It is even said that he often chooses parts of the river for
doing the hard work where there are no well-known landmarks, so that no
clear "line" can be given to the outside public. This may be so. The
workings of the Presidential mind are dark and mysterious. But I doubt
if the convenience of the public has sufficient weight with him either
one way or the other to influence his plans in that manner. And though
perhaps this indifference may be carried too far, yet the idea which
underlies it is a perfectly just one. The University Boat Race began as
a private match, of a more or less impromptu character (those were the
days when they rowed from Westminster to Putney in a huge Noah's Ark of
a boat, and stopped for beer and biscuits on the way down, and when, it
is said, the Speaker of the House of Commons used to leave the chair to
let the M.P.'s run out and see the start--but we digress). Then, by
degrees, it attained to its present position of a great festive
gathering of the many-headed, where only about one in every ten cares to
glance at the race as it goes by. But, above all things, the race is,
and has been, a purely sporting event. The British lion may put on his
holiday suit and gamble to his heart's content on the bank, but the sole
concern of the Captain of either crew is to bring his men well up to the
scratch, and have a thoroughly good, honest race. He has nothing to do
with letting the spectators know the real state of the odds, or helping
them to win their money.
It must be confessed that, in spite of the many pleasures indicated as
belonging to this training, one gets very tired of it, just as one might
tire of living in Arcadia, if, as is probable, there were no Club or
Italian Opera there. It is with considerable joy, therefore, that one
hails the approach of the race when it is still a week off; but this
feeling is apt to be modified as the days draw on after that. "Funk," of
course, attacks everybody more or less; but its violence differs very
widely in different men. Many of the most unlikely people are most
liable to it; and it would probably astonish a good many people were I
to say who is the "funkiest" oarsman before a race that I know. I mean
by "funk," not the under-estimating of one's chances--for some of the
most nervous men have a very shrewd idea of them--but the irrational
excitement which keeps the brain constantly thinking of the impending
race, and prevents the sufferer from sitting still or having any
comfort, or, in the most serious cases, any sleep, for two or three days
before it. It is a real malady, which is most distressing to those who
are subject to it, but which, luckily, does not do any harm when once
the race is begun.
Of the race itself there is very little to say, except one thing, that
could not be said equally well of a hard game of football or a foot race
across country. The exertion is, no doubt, considerably greater than is
involved in either of these, but the physical sensations are very much
the same, and anyone who has entered for any race at all knows the sort
of feeling of desperate resolve which is the pleasure that racing gives.
Except one thing, I said, and it is that thing which puts boat racing,
in many people's minds, far above any other form of sport. It is this,
that while in a foot race a man can leave off as soon as he finds the
exertion more than the prize is worth, and while in football a man may
recover his breath in the scrimmage or justifiably leave the work for a
moment to the others, in rowing every man knows that, by a single
careless stroke, he may throw the whole boat into a confusion from which
they often cannot recover for many hundred yards. Everyone is expected
in a boat race, and in a University race as much as anywhere, to row his
best and hardest every stroke he takes, and never to slack off at all.
If it is considered desirable to save up for a spurt at the finish, the
"stroke" will do that by putting in a few less strokes to the minute
till the time comes. Every man behind him is bound in honesty to the
rest to shove every stroke through "as if there were no hereafter"; and
when the "hereafter" comes, as it does about Chiswick Eyot, he will
have to rely on the thorough condition he is in to pull him through. It
follows that the whole secret of a good crew is that each man rows hard
because it would not be fair to his neighbours in the boat if he rowed
lightly, not entirely because he wants to win the race. I do not want to
disparage other sports in the least degree; pluck enters into them fully
as much as into rowing. The difference lies in the incentive.
Boat races, of course, vary very much in the amount of excitement they
afford; not differing in this from any other sort of contest. Of the
last five races, that of '91 was the most keenly contested, though the
'90 race runs it very close. Both of them were ding-dong struggles all
the way, now one boat and then the other taking the lead, and neither of
them were really won till the post was passed. Closer finishes have been
known, though hardly beating these in point of excitement during the
race itself. The well-known dead heat of '77 is an instance; on which
occasion legend hath it that the ancient umpire had been regaling
himself hard by, and arrived on the scene as the boats shot by the post,
too flustered to take any very accurate observations. However, as both
crews were pretty confident that they had won, his decision displayed no
small share of that low cunning that used to make a successful umpire.
But all things have an end. The long training is passed, and you are
seated in the boat. The race gets finished, one way or the other, and
you are seated at the festive board. The dinner vanishes from the table,
and you wake up next morning feeling very glad when you remember you can
stop an hour longer in bed. And the vision of an editor is at hand to
hint that these reminiscences must not prove an exception to the general
rule, but must also come to a conclusion.
[Illustration]