by Geoff Boxell
Chapter 3: Where Eagles Dare
The four riders came up to the starting tapes at Eastbourne’s Arlington Speedway. The riders then commenced “gardening”, packing loose surface into the deep ruts that had been cut into the track from previous starts, with one rider actually getting off his bike to do so, leaning the bike over onto its right-hand footrest so that the back wheel was clear of the track, the rider continually blipping his motorcycle’s engine as he did so. The Starting Marshal indicated that they should stop “gardening” and come to the tapes. One of the riders, with a red helmet-cover and wearing the Eastbourne Eagles livery, pulled his bike back from the tapes and started a return ride down the loose-surfaced track, adjusting his goggles as he went in order to get air into them to clear away the condensation that had built up on the inside.
‘He is playing mind games,’ Mr White informed his son. ‘He wants the Rye House riders to get unsettled.’
Jamie just nodded his agreement, as he had been a speedway fan since he was a young child and knew about the tactics riders used both on and off the track.
The rider in red came back to the tapes, but now the Eastbourne rider with a blue helmet cover pulled out of his starting grid and rode down the track, clearing his googles, before quickly returning to the tapes and leaning over the handlebars of his bike, a machine that did not look unlike a low-slung mountain pushbike except that it had a laid-down 500cc ethanol-burning engine hanging from its frame.
All four riders hunched over the bars of their bikes and increased the blipping of their throttles. The Starting Marshal, happy that they were all ready and not moving, held his arms out at 90 degrees along the line of riders to indicate to the Referee in his box above the starting line that he was handing over control. He then brought his arms down and walked through the line of bikes. A green light came on, the riders wound their engines to full throttle; then the light went out, the tapes flew up, and in a shower of shale the bikes took off with a roar with two of them having their front wheel paw the air as they thundered towards the tight first turn. The riders threw their bikes left, sliding on the loose shale surface, elbows clashing with the other riders as they jostled for position. As they came out of the second turn of the bend the two Rye House riders were marginally ahead. Going into the second bend, the Eastbourne rider in blue tried to come up the inside of them, but the Rye House boys team-rode, side by side, leaving him no room. Second lap and back into the first turn and again the rider in blue was denied a way through, but on the third lap coming up to the first bend he managed to split the pair, riding between them and then clamping down the inside rider who had a yellow helmet-cover. The rider in red took advantage of the move and rode around the rider in yellow. The rider in blue went wide into the second bend and rode past the Rye House rider but, as the Flag Marshal by the start/finish line waved his yellow flag with the black St Andrew’s cross, indicating the start of the final lap, the home rider in blue lost first place when he was forced wide by the Rye House man with the white helmet. On the last bend of the last lap, blue went wide again, white moved out to cover the move, and the rider in blue cut back, drove under his opponent and, with the chequered flag waving, won the race by half a wheel. The home crowd erupted and the visiting supporters clapped to see such exciting racing but shook their heads at losing the race and in fact the match by just one point.
‘No brakes, no gears, no fears, eh Dad?’ Jamie asked his father.
The riders all rode round the track shaking hands with each other, patting each other on the back and waving to the crowd. ‘I like to see that Jamie – it is good sportsmanship.’
‘It is indeed Dad. I miss speedway since they stopped racing at Wimbledon.’
‘Well I did think to give you a treat on the way home from the holiday in Hastings.’
Jamie smiled to himself, knowing his father missed Wimbledon Speedway more than he did. ‘Thanks Dad; I appreciate it.’
‘Well I did enjoy the meeting, the last race especially. That young Kiwi rider, he shewed them didn’t he – his first season racing here too I think.’ Mr White carefully put the programme into his inside pocket next to the cigarette he intended to smoke shortly. ‘I think I will go down to the pits and see if I can have a word with him, seeing as I knew his father and uncle when they raced in the UK during the eighties. You can stay here if you like,’ he added, hopefully.
‘That will be fine Dad. I will wait here.’ Jamie watched his father amble off, rummaging in his inside pocket as he went. ‘You deserve your smoke,’ the youth whispered to himself with a gentle smile.
‘Smoke? Pits?’ asked a questioning voice. ‘When he goes to the pit he smokes? Sounds like he has a real problem with his digestive system to me.’
‘Smoke a cigarette whilst he goes and sees the riders in the pits, which is the area where they fettle their speedway bikes, Grimm.’
‘I knew that!’
Jamie turned round to look at his old and tatty friend. ‘Did you Grimm?’
‘Sort of, I think.’ The old man with his staff tucked into the fold of his left arm was holding a half empty beer bottle in one hand and a hamburger that bore a foot print on its top in the other. ‘But, then again, maybe not. I am an old man now, not the young man I once was – I forget things.’
‘You are always saying that. You used to keep telling me that we, the English, are your folk. So, Grimm, seeing as you used to tell me how you have the interest of your folk as your main motive, how come, if you were in fact actually there, at Hastings that is, how come you let the Normans beat us English?’
‘We won last weekend didn’t we? I felt quite the young man watching the No-men and their French hangers-on flee down Senlac Ridge.’
‘But we did not win in 1066 when it really counted.’
‘No and, I regret to tell you, it was entirely my fault. I set up the defeat of King Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge well enough, even though he was one of my descendants. The problem was mead.’
‘Mead?’ Jamie asked.
‘Mead: too much of it. I was still getting over the celebrations after putting that Norwegian king into the six foot of English soil King Harold had promised him. I knew Willie the Bastard and his No-men were on their way, but I thought Harold would wait a few days for his men to recover before hying off to take on Willie No-Claim. By the time I had sobered up he was gone and he and England were lost.’
‘You like a good fight with lots of dead.’
‘True, but not to the extent of letting the No-men win and destroy England. It took a long, long time before I managed to get those foreigners to become English and learn to fight like real men, on foot. That is why I look so old these days – I burnt myself out during what you call The Hundred Years’ War. So much energy, so much energy – I have never been the same since.’
‘I won’t pester you to tell me how you managed to get Edward III, Edward the Black Prince ...’
‘Not that he was known by that name at the time.’
‘Agreed; I knew that. No I won’t pester you to tell me how you managed to get Edward III, Edward the Black Prince and Henry V to win their battles. Just finish off the story of Arthur: I have waited over almost three years for that story.’
‘Two years wasn’t it?’ Grimm wiped a piece of stray lettuce, edged with salad cream, from his straggly moustache into his equally straggly beard. ‘I have no concept of time these days, one day seems to merge into the next and I lose track.’
‘Over two years, nearly three.’
Grimm took another bite into his spoilt hamburger and slowly chewed on the cold meat and salad. ‘What is two years, or even three, I ask myself?’
‘A long time when you are young. Now, finish the story before Dad gets back, Grimm, or is that “Uncle Albert”?’
‘“Uncle Albert”, is it, now?’
‘Is that your name?’
‘I have many names: Grimm, All Father, Land Waster, One Eye, Eagle Head – which is why I am here suppor
ting the Eastbourne Eagles – Spear Shaker, Bale Worker, Gallows Friend, Wise One, oh and many more.’
‘Not Woðin?’
‘Woðin. Oðin, Votan, Wotan, Photan, Uncle Albert – what’s in a name? The only one I despise is Horse Hair Moustache.’
‘Horse Hair Moustache?’
‘An insult, as my moustache is rather resplendent.’
Jamie raised a single eyebrow, a trick he had been practicing in the bathroom mirror for some time.
‘Well, it was when I was a young man.’
Jamie let his right eyebrow down and raised his left one instead.
‘Alright, it is rather the worse for wear now, but then, I am an old man.’
‘Right, “Old Man”: the story of Arthur.’
‘Where was I?’ Grimm took the chance to empty his beer bottle down his throat and drop the empty to the ground where he kicked it behind him. A couple passed by and Grimm helped himself to a six pack of canned beer that had sat on the top of the woman’s carry-bag. ‘Oh yes: Arthur’s retaking of the Gewise lands and the family business. Originally, Art spent his time getting the shipping business back on its feet. Once that was done he used his hard men to remind the franchisees in the security branch about the percentage they owed him from their turnover.’
Grimm removed a can from the plastic binding that held all the cans together, pulled the tag back and took a swig of the beer. ‘Oh dear, not only is it
