Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World (42 page)

Then it began to rain, first a slow, intermittent drizzle, then steadier. All the while the seas were turning ever rougher. When Trudy swam alongside the boat the swells lifted her up five and six feet, then dropped her down just as dramatically. It was almost impossible to speak to her from the boat anymore—most communication was taking place on the blackboard. To buoy Trudy's spirits, they passed along wireless messages her mother was sending every hour or so from the Highlands. The whole family was gathered there, and each bulletin reached them within minutes as friends and neighbors raced from the office of the local paper with each new dispatch.

But the bulletins did not tell the whole story and made little mention of the deteriorating weather. It was dangerous, thought Burgess, for Trudy to be in the water in such conditions. But even as Joe Corthes began to express his concern over the weather to Burgess, Henry Ederle remained adamant and ignored each suggestion, each less subtle than the last, that perhaps it was time to give up—Trudy would not stop, did not
want
to stop. Helmi went back in the water and swam to
La Morinie,
asking them to back off—in the increasingly rough conditions, they were afraid the tugs might collide, either with each other, or Trudy. Helmi, who still felt the effect of the sea, also asked Lillian Cannon if she would join Trudy in the water.

Her rival agreed, and a few moments later those aboard the
Alsace
were startled to see Cannon swimming alongside Ederle. But she could not remain there for long. She had a difficult time keeping up with Ederle, and like Helmi, she quickly became ill and left the water for the relative safety of the ship.

Dover, England, Aug 6.—(By the United Press)—
3
:10
P.M.—
Gertrude was six and one half miles off the English coast and going good. Lillian Cannon of Baltimore joined her in the water.

Now Louis Timson entered the water. Not only was he eager to get in the water with Trudy, but he was eager to make amends. When he had first boarded the boat earlier in the day, he had inadvertently sat on a stack of Trudy's records, breaking several of them in half and earning the ire of Meg.

Timson kept his lunch down, but that was about all. He couldn't even keep pace with her and after only a few moments had to leave the water. Then Meg went back in for a time, but she had already swum for an hour and couldn't stay for long. Besides, as she swam alongside Trudy for a few moments, any question she had about her sister's condition was answered.

Trudy was doing fine. Her mouth was a bit sore from the salt water, but otherwise she felt good. Her suit wasn't chafing her and her goggles were working perfectly—not a drop had leaked inside. While the sea looked rough to everyone, Trudy was hardly bothered at all. In fact, the rougher it was, the better she liked it. And besides, it was raining, and even the broken record was a good omen to Trudy.

She's going to make it, thought Meg. She is going to make it.

Dover, England, Aug 6—(By the Associated Press)—4:45
P.M.
—
Gertrude Ederle, plucky American girl swimmer, was about seven miles off this port on her attempt to conquer the English Channel. She was about two miles northwest of the East Goodwin light ship. The wind, which has been kicking up a bad sea here, had moderated slightly but a heavy rain was falling and the condition of the sea was far from favorable.

Burgess and Joe Corthes did not share the Ederles' confidence, confidence that each of them now thought bordered on crazy. By now the sea was so rough that the crowd on the boat deck had given up on the Victrola and was trying to entertain the swimmer by singing out loud—"The Star-Spangled Banner" was one of the few songs that everyone knew well enough to sing, and they did so, over and over. Yet as each swimmer left the water Burgess was more and more convinced that it was time to stop—Helmi, Cannon, and Timson were all accomplished swimmers who had experienced similar conditions before, and none of them had been able to stand it for much more than an hour. How could Trudy possibly finish? It was impossible.

The tide was starting to turn again, even as the wind kept the waves crashing in from the southwest. As it did, the waters of the Channel behaved as those in a bathtub occupied by an angry child slapping his or her hands on the water. They lifted and fell without logic for a time before beginning to turn and run against the wind, raising the waves even higher and making it even less likely that Trudy would reach England's south coast, still several miles off, held at bay by what would soon be a strong crosscurrent running down the coast toward the North Atlantic.

Captain Corthes not only shared that concern, but he was becoming worried about his boat, concerned about their course and their rapid approach to the Goodwin Sands. There was a reason, after all, that not one but two lightships were anchored along its borders, each painted a bright red, one on the southern edge and the other to the east, each sending beacons of light across the waters day and night. There was a reason, after all, they called the sands "the ship swallower," for more than two thousands vessels of all sizes were know to have met their demise there. Corthes did not want the
Alsace,
as the local saying went, to be the next boat "to set up shop on the Sands." Had he been out on his own, he would have returned to port by now. To stay out now, nearly adrift, as he tried to keep pace with Trudy and the current pushed him ever closer to the sands, was more than dangerous.

He had made this journey many times before, accompanied dozens of other swimmers who had tried to make the crossing only to fail, and Corthes, to his credit, had never lost a swimmer. None that had ever been put in his care had drowned. That was his record, his reputation, and he did not want Trudy Ederle, the most famous swimmer of them all, to be the first. Once before, when he accompanied Jeanne Sion, she had become lost in the fog only two miles off Dover's shore. It had taken Corthes an hour to find her, and by then the panicked woman was done, half mad with fear. Corthes wanted Burgess to take the girl from the water and steam back to Boulogne.

Burgess agreed, but he was doubly disappointed—the weather was not only dangerous, but it had pushed Trudy and the
Alsace
off his preferred course. According to his plan, Trudy should not have neared the end of the middle leg of the Z quite so quickly—the plan had been to catch the tide running back to make the final jog of the Z and land somewhere near Dover. And even then she should have been at the southern edge of the dangerous shoals, which were several miles wide and more than ten miles in length, roughly paralleling the coast.

But Trudy and the waters were both too fast—the wind had driven the seas and driven Trudy more quickly than he planned. They were already on the verge of the Goodwin Sands, and the seas were still running strong, sending them into danger. She should not have been this far along.

Even if the wind suddenly stopped and the sea calmed, there was hardly any way for her to swim to the shore now. She could not swim across the sands—that was suicide, for there was no way for the
Alsace
to pick its way across the ever-shifting shoals.

Although Ederle appeared to be swimming strongly, Burgess ignored that. He focused on the weather and the seas, and as much as he admired her determination, he knew that no one can swim in seas running five and six feet high, and in a wind of nearly twenty knots, hard enough to blow the spray from atop the waves.

There was no choice. He had no choice. She would have to stop.

Trudy couldn't even understand it, really, but the harder the wind blew and the more it rained, the more she liked it. The rain had always been lucky, and now that it was falling she felt an enormous lift inside, a swelling of confidence. She didn't even feel like she was swimming, but riding waves up then sliding down.

She sang, silently, to herself, keeping time with her strokes and with the waves, chorus after chorus of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." When she tired and slowed she simply changed the tune, as easily as lifting the arm of a phonograph and replacing the record. "Yes, We Have No Bananas" increased the pace. "Yes Sir, She's My Baby" slowed it down. She was not simply swimming across the Channel; she was dancing across, the sea her partner.

She did not realize that Burgess and Corthes had grown more concerned, and that at times Corthes was losing sight of her between the swells. Sometimes now the waves were even crashing across the bow of the boat, drenching onlookers and driving them, dripping with seawater, from the rail to the pilothouse, where they sat with their heads between their knees, shivering. Although the photographers and movie cameramen had been taking pictures all day from both the
Alsace
and
La Morinie,
none of them were taking pictures anymore, not in these conditions. It was impossible to hold the cameras steady, and for many of them, it was impossible to lift their head off their lap.

Corthes reached a decision—he knew his boat and knew these waters and he was not going to risk his vessel in the sands. He called Burgess and Henry Ederle to the steering house and told them he was having a difficult time keeping up with the swimmer and steering his boat in her wake. The current was too strong, the wind too stiff, the waves too tall, and the light beginning to fail.

He showed them his charts, using his finger to indicate their course. They could not continue into the sands, he explained, and if Trudy tried to cut across the sands, toward shore, he could not follow her. They must either stop and return to Boulogne or make a slow steep turn, steering back around the southern edge of the sands. But if they chose that course, Trudy must swim at crosscurrent for a time, making an already difficult task virtually impossible. It would be better, explained Corthes, with Burgess nodding in agreement, to turn back now. That would be the safe, sensible thing to do. It was a pity, but the girl should stop.

Henry Ederle agreed—not to return to Boulogne, but to take on the impossible, to make the turn and send Trudy across the current.

When he returned to the rail, they lowered the chalkboard over the side to tell Trudy they were turning. She hardly noticed.

No more worrying.

Deal, England. Aug 6.—(By the United Press)—5:39
P.M.—
Gertrude was tiring and the tide was sweeping her down the coast. She ate sugar to add to her strength in an effort to stick it out until flood tide, expected at 9:00
P.M.

Incredibly, given the conditions, she was making headway, swimming across the current in the heavy seas as Corthes skirted the southern edge of the sands. They passed by the lightship anchored along its southern edge, its signature double white light and siren casting over the seas, and the waters were fierce. Later, the Meteorological Office would estimate that wind along the south coast of England that day was, according to the Beaufort scale, which measures wind speed based on sea observation, at force four. While rough, force four conditions, consisting of winds approaching twenty miles per hour and waves only three feet in height, are not particularly dangerous.

In the Channel, however, conditions were a great deal worse. Film footage taken from
La Morinie
well before the worst of the weather shows waves approaching six feet, indicating at least Beaufort force five, meaning winds of nearly twenty-five miles per hour. That was dangerous. Yet somehow Trudy was swimming in this, and somehow, with her American crawl, she was actually moving closer to England.

Burgess couldn't believe it. He refused to believe it. He had never seen such swimming before. She had been in the water more than eleven hours, nearly half a day, and although the English coast was only five or six miles distant, in these conditions he thought it might be five or six hours more before she could even think of making land. She would not make it—of that he was certain. It was impossible.

Burgess went to Henry Ederle, who was still gripping the rail, watching over his daughter, a posture he had held for nearly the entire journey. This time Burgess did not ask. Burgess knew what it was like to cross the Channel, and, more important, he knew what it was like to fail, for he tried and failed so many times himself. He knew that it did not matter how many times one failed as long as one finally reached success—there could always be another time. Half frantic, he told Henry Ederle that his daughter must be taken from the water.

But Henry Ederle still had not forgotten his promise, or his promise of the red roadster or his wager of twenty-five thousand dollars. He remembered what Trudy told him about what happened the previous year—she was swimming and she had been touched, taken out of the water against her will, even poisoned—and she did not want that to happen again.

Ederle told Burgess no. He was not taking his daughter out of the water; no one was taking his daughter out of the water, unless she asked. Burgess insisted again, and again Ederle refused. They argued for a moment while everyone on deck watched, then the trainer stormed off, sliding across the heaving deck, into the pilothouse and then back again a moment later, waving a packet in his hands.

It was the release. He had seen what had happened to Wolffe the year before, how his reputation had been ruined after Trudy had been touched and taken from her water. Burgess would not, could not risk that.

He thrust the paper toward Henry Ederle, explained what it was, and asked him to read it and then sign.