On the Beach (28 page)

On the fifth lap a Lotus overtook Fay Gordon at the end of the finishing straight and spun on the wet road of Lake Bend, thirty yards in front of her. Another Lotus was passing on her right; the only escape for her was to go left. She left the track at ninety-five miles an hour, crossed the short strip of land before the lake in a desperate effort to turn right and so back to the track, broadsided in the scrub, and rolled over into the water. When the great cloud of spray subsided, her M.G. was upside-down ten yards from shore, the bottom of the rear wheels just above the surface. It was half an hour before the wading helpers managed to right the little car and get the body out.

On the thirteenth lap three cars tangled at The Slide and burned. Two of the drivers were only slightly injured and managed to extract the third with both legs broken before the fire took hold. Of nineteen starters, seven finished the race, the first two qualifying to run in the Grand Prix.

As the chequered flag fell for the winner, John Osborne lit a cigarette. “Fun and games,” he said. His race was the last of the day.

Peter said thoughtfully, “They’re certainly racing to win …”

“Well, of course,” said the scientist. “It’s racing as it ought to be. If you buy it, you’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Except to smash up the Ferrari.”

John Osborne nodded. “I’d be very sorry to do that.”

A little rain began to fall on them, wetting the track again. Dwight Towers stood a little way apart with Moira. “Get into the car, honey,” he said. “You’ll get wet.”

She did not move. “They can’t go on in this rain, can they?” she asked. “Not after all these accidents?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’d say they might. After all, it’s the same for everybody. They don’t
have
to go so fast they spin. And if they wait for a dry day this time of year they might wait, well, longer than they’ve got.”

“But it’s awful,” she objected. “Two people killed in the first race and about seven injured. They
can’t
go on. It’s like the Roman gladiators, or something.”

He stood in silence for a moment in the rain. “Not quite like that,” he said at last. “There isn’t any audience. They don’t have to do it.” He looked around. “Apart from the drivers and their crews, I don’t suppose there’s five hundred people here. They haven’t taken any money at a gate. They’re doing it because they like to do it, honey.”

“I don’t believe they do.”

He smiled. “You go up to John Osborne and suggest he scratch his Ferrari and go home.” She was silent. “Come on in the car and I’ll pour you a brandy and soda.”

“A very little one, Dwight,” she said. “If I’m going to watch this, I’ll watch it sober.”

The next two heats produced nine crashes, four ambulance cases, but only one death, the driver of the bottom Austin-Healey in a pile up of four cars at The Safety Pin. The rain had eased to a fine, misty drizzle that did nothing to damp the spirits of the competitors.

John Osborne had left his friends before the last race, and he was now in the paddock sitting in the Ferrari and warming it up, his pit crew around him. Presently he was satisfied and got out of the car, and stood talking and smoking with some of the other drivers. Don Harrison, the driver of a Jaguar, had a glass of whisky in his hand and a couple of bottles with more glasses on an upturned box beside him; he offered John a drink, but he refused it.

“I’ve got nothing to give away on you muggers,” he said, grinning. Although he had what was probably the fastest car on the circuit, he had almost the least experience of any of the drivers. He still raced the Ferrari with the three broad bands of tape across the back that indicated a novice driver; he was still very conscious that he did not know by instinct when he was about to spin. A spin always caught him unawares and came as a surprise. If he had known it, all the drivers were alike on these wet roads; none of them had much experience of driving under such conditions and his consciousness of inexperience was perhaps a better protection than their confidence.

When his crew pushed the Ferrari out on to the grid he found himself placed on the second line, in front of him the Maserati, the two Jaguars, and the Gipsy-Lotus, beside him the Thunderbird. He settled himself into his seat, revving his engines to warm up, fastening his safely belt, making his crash helmet and his goggles comfortable upon his head. In his mind was the thought: ‘This is where I get killed.’ Better than vomiting to death in a sick misery in less than a month’s time. Better to drive like hell and go out doing what he wanted to. The big steering wheel was a delight to handle, the crack of the Ferrari’s exhaust music to his ears. He turned and grinned at his pit crew in unalloyed pleasure, and then fixed his eyes upon the starter.

When the flag dropped he made a good start and got away well, weaving ahead of the Gipsy-Lotus as he changed up into third, and outdistancing the Thunderbird. He went into Lake Bend hard on the heels of the two Jaguars, but driving cautiously on the wet road with seventeen laps to go. Time enough to take chances in the last five laps. He stayed with the Jaguars past Haystack Corner, past The Safety Pin, and cautiously put his foot down on the sinuous back straight. Not hard enough, apparently, for with a roar and a crackle the Gipsy-Lotus passed him on the right, showering him with water, Sam Bailey driving like a madman.

He slowed a little while he wiped his goggles and followed on behind. The Gipsy-Lotus was wandering all over the road, harnessed only by the immensely quick reaction time of its young driver. John Osborne, watching, sensed disaster round it like an aura; better follow on at a safe distance for a while and see what happened. He shot a quick glance at the mirror; the Thunderbird was fifty yards behind, with the Maserati overtaking it. There was time to take it easy down The Slide, but after that he must step on it.

On entering the straight at the end of the first lap he saw that the Gipsy-Lotus had taken one of the Jaguars. He passed the pits at about a hundred and sixty miles an hour, making up upon the second Jaguar; with a car between him and the Gipsy-Lotus he felt safer. A glance in the mirror as he braked before Lake Bend showed that he had drawn well away from the two cars behind; if he could do that he could hold the fourth position for a lap or two and still go carefully upon the corners.

He did so till the sixth lap. By that time the Gipsy-Lotus was in the lead and the first four cars had lapped one of the Bentleys. As he accelerated away from The Slide he
glanced in his mirror and in a momentary glimpse saw what appeared to be a most colossal mix-up at the corner. The Maserati and the Bentley seemed to be tangled broadside-on across the road, and the Thunderbird was flying through the air. He could not look again. Ahead of him, in the lead, the Gipsy-Lotus was trying to lap one of the Bugattis by synchronising its desperate swerves at a hundred and forty miles an hour with the manoeuvre necessary for passing, and failing to do so. The two Jaguars were holding back at a discreet distance.

When he came round again to The Slide he saw that the shambles at the corner had involved two cars only; the Thunderbird lay inverted fifty yards from the track and the Bentley stood with its rear end crushed and a great pool of petrol on the road. The Maserati was apparently still racing. He passed on, and as he entered his eighth lap it began to rain quite heavily. It was time to step on it.

So thought the leaders, for on that lap the Gipsy-Lotus was passed by one of the Jaguars, taking advantage of Sam Bailey’s evident nervousness of his unstable car upon a corner. Both leaders now lapped a Bugatti, and a Bentley immediately after. The second Jaguar went to pass them on Haystack Corner with John Osborne close behind. What happened then was very, very swift. The Bugatti spun upon the corner and was hit by the Bentley, which was deflected into the path of the oncoming Jaguar, which rolled over twice and finished right-side up by the roadside without a driver. John Osborne had no time to stop and little to avoid; the Ferrari hit the Bugatti a glancing blow at about seventy miles an hour and came to a standstill by the roadside with a buckled near-side front wheel.

John Osborne was shaken, but unhurt. Don Harrison, the driver of the Jaguar who had offered him a drink before the race, was dying of multiple injuries in the
scrub; he had been thrown from his car as it rolled and had then been run over by the Bentley. The scientist hesitated for a moment but there were people about; he tried the Ferrari. The engine started and the car moved forward, but the buckled wheel scrooped against the frame. He was out of the race, and out of the Grand Prix, and with a sick heart he waited till the Gipsy-Lotus weaved by and then crossed the track to see if he could help the dying driver.

While he was standing there, helpless, the Gipsy-Lotus passed again.

He stood there in the steady rain for several seconds before it struck him that there had been no other cars between the two transits of the Gipsy-Lotus. When it did so, he made a dash for the Ferrari. If in fact there was only one car left in the race he still had a chance for the Grand Prix; if he could struggle round the track to the pits he might yet change the wheel and get the second place. He toured on slowly, wrestling with the steering, while the rain ran down his neck and the Gipsy-Lotus passed a third time. The tyre burst at The Slide, where about six cars seemed to be tangled in a heap, and he went on on the rim, and reached the pits as the Lotus passed again.

The wheel change took his pit crew about thirty seconds, and a quick inspection showed little damage apart from panelling. He was off again several laps behind, and now one of the Bugattis detached itself from the chaos around The Slide and joined in. It was never a threat, however, and John Osborne toured around the course discreetly to win second place in the heat and a start in the Grand Prix. Of the eleven starters in the heat, eight had failed to complete the course and three drivers had been killed.

He swung his Ferrari into the paddock and stopped the engine, while his pit crew and his friends crowded round to
congratulate him. He hardly heard them; his fingers were trembling with shock and the release of strain. He had only one thought in his mind, to get the Ferrari back to Melbourne and take down the front end; all was not well with the steering, though he had managed to complete the course. Something was strained or broken; she had pulled heavily towards the left in the concluding stages of the race.

Between the friends crowding round he saw the upturned box where Don Harrison had parked his Jaguar, the glasses, the two whisky bottles. “God,” he said to no one in particular, “I’ll have that drink with Don now.” He got out of the car and walked unsteadily to the box; one of the bottles was still nearly full. He poured a generous measure with a very little water, and then he saw Sam Bailey standing by the Gipsy-Lotus. He poured another drink and took it over to the winner, pushing through the crowd. “I’m having this on Don,” he said. “You’d better have one, too.”

The young man took it, nodded, and drank. “How did you come off?” he asked. “I saw you’d tangled.”

“Got round for a wheel change,” said the scientist thickly. “She’s steering like a drunken pig. Like a bloody Gipsy-Lotus.”

“My car steers all right,” the other said nonchalantly. “Trouble is, she won’t stay steered. You driving back to town?”

“If she’ll make it.”

“I’d pinch Don’s transporter. He’s not going to need it.”

The scientist stared at him. “That’s an idea …” The dead driver had brought his Jaguar to the race on an old truck to avoid destroying tune by running on the road. The truck was standing not far from them in the paddock, unattended.

“I should nip in quick, before someone else gets it.”

John Osborne downed his whisky, shot back to his car, and galvanised his pit crew of enthusiasts with the new idea. Together they mustered willing hands to help and pushed the Ferrari up the steel ramps on to the tray body, lashing her down with ropes. Then he looked round uncertainly. A marshal passed and he stopped him. “Are there any of Don Harrison’s crew about?”

“I think they’re all over with the crash. I know his wife’s down there.”

He had been minded to drive off in the transporter with the Ferrari because Don would never need it again, nor would his Jaguar. To leave his pit crew and his wife without transport back to town, however, was another thing.

He left the paddock and started to walk down the track towards the Haystack, with Eddie Brooks, one of his pit crew, beside him. He saw a little group standing by the wreckage of the cars in the rain, one of them a woman. He had intended to talk to Don’s pit crew, but when he saw the wife was dry-eyed he changed his mind, and went to speak to her.

“I was the driver of the Ferrari,” he said. “I’m very sorry that this happened, Mrs. Harrison.”

She inclined her head. “You come up and bumped into them right at the end,” she said. “It wasn’t anything to do with you.”

“I know. But I’m very sorry.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry about,” she said heavily. “He got it the way he wanted it to be. None of this being sick and all the rest of it. Maybe if he hadn’t had that whisky … I dunno. He got it the way he wanted it to be. You one of his cobbers?”

“Not really. He offered me a drink before the race,
but I didn’t take it. I’ve just had it now.”

“You have? Well, good on you. That’s the way Don would have wanted it. Is there any left?”

He hesitated. “There was when I left the paddock. Sam Bailey had a go at it, and I did. Maybe the boys have finished up the bottles.”

She looked up at him. “Say, what do you want? His car? They say it isn’t any good.”

He glanced at the wrecked Jaguar. “I shouldn’t think it is. No, what I wanted to do was to put my car on his transporter and get it back to town. The steering’s had it, but I’ll get her right for the Grand Prix.”

“You got a place, didn’t you? Well, it’s Don’s transporter, but he’d rather have it work with cars that go than work with wrecks. All right, chum, you take it.”

He was a little taken aback. “Where shall I return it to?”