THE BOAT RACE
By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P.
ODDLY enough I missed the Dead-Heat in 1877. But, for fifteen seconds, on Saturday, March 26th, 1949, holding to a shrub which jutted from the river wall along Corney Reach, I did see the greatest Boat Race in living memory.
We had walked across Hammersmith Bridge to the Surrey side at a quarter past ten, talking about the meat cut. That had reminded my neighbour of sausages, so he decided to back Cambridge. I back Oxford because I am well educated. At the end of the Bridge we turned right along the towpath, and strolled towards Barnes, strolled, like everyone else, unhurried, bathing our heads in the sun and trailing our feet through the grass. There were men selling programmes, men selling " favours," one man, surprisingly, begging us to " blow our own balloon." But there was no urgency, no tension, no jostling ; only the sun twinkling on the water, trees beginning to bud and all the softness of early summer in the air. Three miles away, at Putney, sixteen young men were enduring the ashen agonies of " the needle " which afflict all boat-race crews when they begin to strip.
We laid our coats along the river wall, hung our feet down the slope and soaked in the day. There was plenty to watch. The slowly rising tide had not yet reached the wall, and small boys clambered down to catch pieces of cork and bits of stick which floated near the edge. Out in the stream the occupants of a motor launch moored their craft and began to drink beer. Two swans moved contemptu- ously towards Barnes.
By now the tide had reached the wall and begun to climb. The bigger river steamers, wallowing under the weight of their passengers, came ploughing by and nearly drowned in their wash the two small boys who still fished for cork from precarious perches on the river- wall side. The steamers backed and filled across the river as they edged a way to their moorings. Smaller boats of all types shuffled closer together to make room, and the two swans rose from the water and skimmed away, indignantly long-necked. The motor boat in front of us began to heave and upset a full glass of beer. The faint note of the wireless was lost in the tooting of steam whistles. Peace had gone.
It returned almost at once ; for a quiet-voiced officer in a launch came by with a paper in his hand and, with a word here, a gesture there, and a firm refusal of a glass of beer, he had soon settled ' Vera ' and ' King Edward ' and ' Sonia ' and ' Minotaur II ' in their right berths. Even the swans began to look less ruffled. But it was not quite the same peace. For the minutes were ticking by to half past eleven, and the sprawling crowd in Duke's Meadows now looked expectant. From the wireless came, not tunes now but the running commentary on the crews as they rowed out to their stake- boat. All around us shirt-sleeved men and hatless women were getting to their feet and craning their necks. Each movement of head or body turned the far bank into a dance of colour as shirt or blouse or scarf or favour caught the sun ; but brighter than the colours, brighter even than the sun, was the expectancy. And suddenly we knew they were off. The next twelve minutes were tantalising. We even craned our necks. The most sensible people were the two small boys, who still determinedly fished for cork while the great crowd of their elders stood prematurely on tiptoe, mistaking the rumble of a train on Barnes Bridge for the incipient roar of the crowd round Hammersmith or groaning that the wash of a last, scurrying police launch would never die down before the crews came round the bend. But soon you really could hear the sound of cheering coming along the river, and the cheering was taken up by the crowds on the far bank, who were better placed for seeing round the bend. That was the most tantalising moment of all. The crowds just opposite us could see ; but'we could not. We could only catch their excitement. And then we, too, could see. " Oxford are way out in front . . . no they're not . . they're neck and neck . . . no, Oxford are about half a length up . . . and on the Middlesex side . . . with the bend in their favour . . . they're bound to win now. . . . Just look at Cambridge. . . . How smooth they are. . . ." The crews were past us and away in less time than it takes to read those jerky sentences above.
Then for perhaps thirty seconds we could see two centipedes coming towards us from Hammersmith. For nearly a minute we could see these centipedes going away from us towards Barnes. But for fifteen seconds we really saw the race. How other eyes would use these fifteen precious second's, I do not know. Mine concen- trated on the bows of either boat as they stabbed and jutted at the water. Who or what were in the boats I did not notice. For all I knew the Oxford stroke might have been an elephant or the Cambridge cox might have been standing on his head. Fifteen seconds of a neck-and-neck race are far too short a time to bother about details. I did get a quick impression of the ease and grace of Cambridge as a whole. For the rest I saw only the bows cutting through the water, bows that shot forward and then seemed to draw back. And suddenly it seemed that the sun had been put out and everything had turned to grey, just as though a film which had begun in glorious Technicolor had switched half-way through to black and white. For immediately behind the racing boats there came a flurry of launches and steamers, large and small, churning the muddy water into great waves which leaped and lashed against the river wall, and pouring out black smoke which swirled into the trees. Then even the launches were gone, summer came through again and the river slipped back into peacefulness.
On our part of the bank the crowd had thinned. Some found themselves drawn irresistibly but hopelessly towards Barnes, as though they might yet see with their own eyes the end of this great race. Others gathered in groups round portable wireless sets to hear the end. " Less than one hundred yards to go . . . Oxford is still leading .. . no, it's Cambridge . . . Cambridge just in front. . . . No, I can't tell . . . either Oxford or Cambridge is just in front . . . I can't tell which . . . It's one or the other." Thus the excited commentary. Nor could commentary on this race be better. Only a few yards to go and all they can say is that one or the other is in front, but they can't say which. We found in the end that it was Cambridge—by about ten feet—in 41,- miles, Cambridge by one second in 18 minutes 57 seconds. None could wish for a better race than that, nor a better finish, except that if it's a choice between one or the other I personally would have chosen the other.
Looking back, I expect that the Oxford President probably wished he had chosen the other, too. He won the toss and was expected to choose the Surrey station, which would have given his crew the advantage of the inside berth on the long middle bends. Instead he chose Middlesex, which would give them a slight advantage at first. But in spite of an exceptionally fast stroke, Oxford could not use this advantage sufficiently to gain more than one and a half lengths, which was not enough to allow them to take Cambridge's water on the inside berth at Hammersmith. Instead they had to row right round that long bend on the outside, and though, at the end, they were still half a length up, they no longer had the strength to take full advantage of the inside berth on the bend at Barnes.
But this is supposition after the event. What is certain is that anyone who lives to be present at another such race as this will be lucky indeed.
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