When he opened the course at noon, accompanied by the President of the Club and a minor Royalty, he felt in excellent humour once more. A record crowd of spectators thronged the banks and enclosures on the hill and the fields below were black with cars.
In the interval between the first and second runs Mr Nelson felt justified in laughing at his forebodings, for the unfortunate incidents of practice day had not re-occurred, and the programme had been run off like clockwork. It was obvious that the honour of fastest time of the day lay between Von Eberstraum and Volanti with the Maturati. Von Eberstraum, it appeared, had a slightly faster car, but he held an advantage of a mere fifth of a second over Volanti, who was handling his car with that almost fabulous skill for which he was justly famous.
A brilliantly judged climb by Butt in No. 1 B.R.C. won him first place in the 1½-litre class, and third in the general classification, while the Bligh Special had made an ear-splitting run to record the fastest time by a sprint ‘special’. The performance of the new Lefevre was a little disappointing, and Camille could only manage fifth place. Mr Nelson could see him in the paddock now, explaining volubly and with a wealth of gesture typically Gallic, to a group of equally vociferous mechanics, why the car was quite useless and unfit for him, the great Camille, to drive.
It was just as the first car was being brought to the line for its second run that an unfortunate and most unusual mishap occurred to delay the proceedings. Without any warning a section of the bank above the new corner gave way and slid down into the road, carrying several spectators with it. Fortunately no one was injured, and amidst much laughter and jesting a gang of amateur navvies was hastily recruited, and set to work with a will to clear the earth on to the inside of the corner. Even so, the delay caused was such that Mr Nelson realised that unless the rest of the programme was run off extremely promptly, the light would fail the last cars.
However, once the obstruction had been cleared and the spectators moved back as a precautionary measure, the second runs were made amidst much excitement, but again without untoward incident. Von Eberstraum and Volanti both made faster, but this time identical times, and sent a message to the timing-box requesting that they be allowed an additional run each to decide the tie. This was granted, though the two drivers were urged to come to the line as soon as possible on account of failing light. The announcement that the tie was about to be run off provoked a murmur of excited anticipation and speculation from the dense crowds on the hill.
Volanti appeared first, as the Rheinwagen mechanics were changing rear wheels. As he was pushed to the line and the engine of the Maturati was started the sun was just sinking beyond the horizon of the vale, and already the outlines of the woods and of the farther hills were becoming indistinct in a blue evening haze.
The ‘Maestro’ went off like a bullet, his hatchet face set in the determined way that meant business. His time came through surprisingly quickly, Arthur Day’s usually quiet voice raised with excitement. It was two-fifths of a second better than his previous run.
Now Von Eberstraum! The silver Rheinwagen was pushed up to the line by the impassive German mechanics. The driver climbed into the cockpit. One mechanic fixed the detachable steering-wheel in place, while another inserted the starting-handle in the tail. At a signal from the driver he gave one sharp flick of the wrist and the engine broke into its characteristic deep-throated roar, little puffs of black smoke spurting vertically upward from sixteen short pipes as the throttle was ‘blipped’. Von Eberstraum looked grimly determined as he drew on his gloves and adjusted his goggles. A marshal bent towards Mr Nelson in the timing-box.
‘He’s out for blood,’ he shouted above the roar.
Mr Nelson’s heart sank within him, for in a moment he realised that his nightmare of the previous night was being re-enacted before his eyes. Every detail was horribly familiar; the particular quality of the light which seemed to have suddenly become dim; a little unimportant gesture which the starter made as he acknowledged the nod from the timing-box and placed the contact shoe before the wheel.
Once more a sense of inevitably impending tragedy made him feel powerless, but mastering it, he got to his feet and hammered on the glass of the window to the consternation of his colleagues.
‘Stop!’ he called despairingly. ‘Stop him!’
Too late; the words were scarcely out of his mouth when the Rheinwagen left the line with smoking tyres and rocketed away in one terrific, sustained burst of acceleration.
Mr Nelson knew then that what he was about to hear through the head-phones would not be the familiar voice of Arthur Day. He was right.
People started to run and the ambulance dashed up the course. Mercifully, perhaps, Mr Nelson did not see them; he had fainted.
The tragic duel between Volanti and Von Eberstraum was almost the sole topic of discussion in motor-racing circles for months afterwards. As usual, theories as to the cause of the disaster were legion. On only one point were the theorists unanimous. The new corner was in some obscure way highly dangerous.
First Volanti had approached the corner at a fantastic speed, crammed on his brakes, and got into a terrifying and inexplicable slide as though the road had suddenly become a sheet of ice. To the horrified spectators it looked as though a crash was inevitable, and only Volanti’s uncanny skill and presence of mind can have saved him. The little man’s elbows worked like flails as he fought for control. Instead of the head-on impact which seemed so inevitable, the Maturati caught the bank a glancing blow as the tail swung wide, then rocketed across to the inside as though it must surely plunge over the bank to disaster, but was corrected and held on the very brink, all in a moment of time. Finally, and before the astounded spectators had time to draw breath, the car was on the road again, the howl of the blower burst forth once more like a triumphant cry, and Volanti was gone in a flurry of turf, dust and smoke to set up his incredible record.
A marshal walked up and examined the road surface, suspecting oil, but there was none visible. Many spectators were then driven away from the corner by an appalling stench which suddenly arose. Others, oddly enough, failed to notice it.
Then came Von Eberstraum. The Rheinwagen appeared to be travelling equally rapidly, but seemed quite steady under the terrific braking, and was taking the corner very fast, but apparently under perfect control, when once more the inexplicable happened. In the middle of the corner Von Eberstraum braked suddenly and appeared to alter course, with the result that the car went completely out of control, spun round, and disappeared backwards over the bank on the inside. There was a sickening crashing and splintering as the car bounded over and over through the undergrowth until it eventually came to rest, a mangled wreck, against a great upright block of stone.
The most popular theory of the accident was that the brakes seized, the arm-chair theorists talking glibly of the fluid boiling in the brake pipes as a result of the heavy braking immediately before the corner. They ignored the fact that the braking system fitted to the car had undergone many far more gruelling tests in Grand Prix races.
There were other witnesses of the disaster who had their own shadowy inkling of the possible cause, but preferred to keep it to themselves, because they doubted the evidence of their eyes, having seen what many had apparently failed to see. As Von Eberstraum came into the corner they had fancied that something darted out from the shadow of the bank below them into the path of the car. It was only a fleeting glimpse seen out of the corners of eyes intently focused on the car alone. After the car had gone the road was deserted.
Peter Bligh was amongst those who had vague but disturbing ideas about the accident, which he decided to keep to himself.
Mr Nelson was the only person who was not in the slightest doubt as to the cause, although he, too, preferred to keep his own counsel. His first action after his recovery from a severe nervous breakdown was to order a high and unclimbable fence to be erected all round the new corner.
Some of you may have wondered, lik
e I did, why such a promising and costly improvement of Longbury Hill should be allowed to fall into disuse so soon. I have at last managed to get the real facts from Mr Nelson and Peter Bligh. So now you know, and may draw your own conclusions. Personally, I agree with Mr Nelson. I think there is something on the inside of that fence that is best left alone.
Cwm Garon
AFTER A LONG WINTER spent in the fog and grime of London, this Welsh Borderland was balm to the eye. Spring had only just touched the soot-blackened trees in the squares with the lightest film of green, but here she had already run riot, dressing the whole countryside in fresh splendour. So thought John Carfax as the labouring branch-line train bore him slowly over the last stage of his long journey to Wales. The map lay disregarded on his knees as he watched the moving panorama of hills stippled with April cloud shadows, of neat farms buried in the white mist of fruit orchards, and of rich meadows dotted with sheep or the red cattle of Herefordshire. He was in that mood of exhilaration and heightened perception which only a well-earned and long-awaited holiday in new surroundings can awaken, and he sniffed delightedly at the limpid air, crystalline as spring water yet somehow filled with unidentifiable sweetness, which blew in through the open window. He was alone in the compartment now, but it had evidently been market day in the town where he had left the London express, for the little train standing at the bay platform had been filled with country folk. Black-gaitered farmers and their plump, basket-laden wives, all had gone, but still he seemed to smell sheep-dip and carbolic, to hear the lilt of their Border speech, and to see the lithe Welsh sheep-dog which had sat between his master’s legs, regarding him with wall-eyed suspicion.
The rhythm of wheels over rail joints slowed, and Carfax could tell from the labouring exhaust beats of the engine that they were climbing steeply. A chasm-like cutting hewn through the old red sandstone cut off the view and plunged the compartment into sudden twilight. As suddenly, the train emerged and, with a hollow reverberation, crossed a swift mountain torrent, before swinging round a curve so sharp that the wheel flanges grunted and squealed in protest. As it did so, the carriage window framed a picture which made Carfax start and catch his breath in wonder, so startling was it in its wild grandeur after looking so long on the smooth fields and hills of England. A towering mountain wall had suddenly arisen to enclose the whole western horizon, and to dominate and dwarf the familiar landscape of the foreground. Seen thus against the westering light of late afternoon, the shadowed face of this great massif presented so marked a contrast to the sunlit levels below as to seem unreal and as menacing as a thunder-cloud. So impenetrable was the shadow on the mountain that its contours were invisible, and the long, level line of the ridge, sharply etched across the sky’s brightness, appeared to mark the lip of a precipice the height of which seemed monstrously magnified.
Reluctantly, John Carfax turned his attention from the window to the map. Then, as he felt the brakes applied, he got up and lifted his rucksack down from the luggage rack. This must be Pont Newydd; he would have to step out if he was to cross the mountain and reach the inn at Llangaron Abbey by nightfall. A good map-reader, he had no doubt of his ability to find his way through strange country by daylight, but to be overtaken by darkness on an open mountain was a very different matter. He welcomed the prospect of the long, hard walk after the inactivity of the train journey, and set off at a smart pace up the narrow road from the station. Behind him, he heard the train pant heavily out of earshot. It seemed to symbolise the last link between him and the civilisation he had so lately left, and as he turned to glance at the thin plume of steam fast vanishing into the distance he felt something of the sensation a voyager feels when, landed on some remote, far distant island, he sees the ship that has brought him fade over the horizon. He experienced momentarily a strange feeling of loneliness, realising that the train was an intruder from that world of elaborate artifice by means of which man had shut himself away from the eternal world of earth and sky as though fearful of their elemental mystery. It had ruffled a still pool of silence, but now the last ripples died away into stillness, until there remained no sounds but his own footfall, a distant rumour of birdsong and the sibilant voice of the little brook which ran beside the road.
He had been walking for the best part of an hour before he came in sight of the first of the landmarks he had previously noted on his map, a grey, ruined tower set upon a conical mound and surrounded by a ditch. He conjectured correctly that it was one of the border keeps erected by the Norman Lords Marcher in their efforts to subdue the Silurians of the mountains. Here, turning off the metalled road into a rutted, high-banked lane, he set his face towards the mountain wall which had hitherto marched on his left hand. Pressing on, he passed by two small white-washed farms where sheep-dogs ran out to bark and sniff at his heels, but though the lane climbed continuously, the skyline of the ridge seemed to retreat elusively before him. At length, however, he emerged on to a level plateau, treeless except for a few stunted thorn bushes, and patterned by crumbling, dry stone walls which had proved powerless to resist the downward march of the bracken. Here he came within the mountain’s shadow, so that his eyes could, for the first time, penetrate its darkness to discern the steep diagonal path which scaled the ridge. Following its upward course he could see, too, the shallow notch cut in the skyline of the ridge which marked the pass, if ‘pass’ it could be called, for his map told him that the path climbed almost to the 2000 feet contour. The premature dusk of the shadow spurred him on, and he had soon passed through a rickety gate on to the open mountain and was tackling the steep ascent. Pausing on the break-neck path to regain his breath, he turned and saw that already the plateau, which had seemed so high and windswept, now looked insignificant, merging imperceptibly into a vast chequer-work of field and copse whose folds this height had now smoothed out. He plodded on, and had nearly reached the summit before he stopped and turned again to find that the familiar landscape had shrunk to a remote perspective, while the evening sunlight on the farther fields looked pallid and unreal as though seen through a veil. Glancing about him he saw the reason. A white wall of cloud was rolling along the ridge out of the north-west, and in the next instant the scene below was lost in swirling mist. No rain fell, but his rough tweed jacket was soon pearled with beads of moisture, while a chill wind blew about him.
The sudden coming of the mist brought with it a feeling of utter isolation, intensifying the loneliness he had felt when he left the station. It seemed to mark a further stage in some inexorable progress designed deliberately to cut him off from the familiar world of his fellow-men. Sole occupant of a minute island of mountain turf, heather and whinberry, that familiar world already seemed incredibly remote. Fortunately for him, the path was clearly defined, so that he was able to press on without pause or doubt. And as he did so, some curious trick of the silver light threw his shadow upon the white curtain before him so that it seemed that a figure, monstrous, yet tenuous as the mist itself, was leading him onward towards the summit of the pass. Watching it, he thought he could understand the stories he had heard of the creatures which were believed to haunt the mountain mists, and he felt he knew the terror that might come with this loneliness as terror comes with darkness to the child. His heart seemed to beat in his ears like a muffled drum, for the stillness was intense, even his footfall was muffled now by the resilient turf of the path. When, faint and far off, his ear caught the cry of a curlew, the sound brought no comforting sense of companionship, but by its plaintive wildness, seemed only to accentuate the silence and the loneliness. Suddenly, the path swung right-handed, levelled out, and he found himself passing through a narrow defile which he knew must mark the spine of the ridge. Immediately beyond the pass, the track skirted a mawne pit, a hole from which peats had once been dug, but which had now become a quagmire ringed by livid green moss and tufted cotton-grass. A luckless mountain pony had evidently floundered into it at some time and, unable to extricate itself, had perished miserably. Now tha
t ravens, crows and mountain foxes had done their work, all that remained was a skeleton of whitened bones wrapped in the hide as in a winding-sheet. Carfax paused for a moment at this desolate sight, and as he did so the curlew cried again, nearer at hand this time, and the mist seemed to eddy more densely about him. He shivered involuntarily and went on, happy to find that the path was now leading him downwards as steeply as it had climbed. As he stumbled along, his feet pressing uncomfortably into the toes of his shoes, he noticed that the mist was now thinning, and that its whiteness was becoming suffused with golden light although the invisible depths into which he was descending still seemed dark. Not only was he walking out of the mists, but the cloud itself appeared to be lifting, sweeping up the steep flank of the mountain like steam out of a cauldron until, with breathtaking and dramatic suddenness, the veil which had imprisoned and blinded him lifted like a curtain to reveal the whole wild prospect clearly before him. ‘You’ll find the valley enchanting’—he suddenly recalled the words of the friend who had first suggested his holiday, not in their original sense as a conventional overstatement, but with a new, and strangely literal significance.
He stood in the last stormy light of a sun that was just about to set behind the rim of yet another mountain ridge which marched parallel with that upon which he stood, and which appeared to be of equal, if not greater height. It could not be much more than a mile by crow-flight, he judged, from ridge to ridge, yet between them yawned Cwm Garon, a stupendous furrow which, in the course of unnumbered centuries, the Afon Garon had carved into the heart of the mountains. Already this valley was wrapped in the blue shades of a premature twilight, yet Carfax could sense rather than see the intense green of the meadows along the floor of the Cwm. Here and there, lights gleamed from farmhouse windows. Faintly there rose into the thin mountain air the resinous incense of pine-wood smoke, and the murmur of the swiftly flowing river. At one point the valley widened into a natural amphitheatre in the centre of which stood the grey shape of a building larger than a mountain farm. This Carfax took to be his destination, the ruined Abbey of Llangaron and its adjoining inn. After the cloud-blinded solitude of the mountain-top, the sight of his goal raised his spirits to high good humour, and he strode on down the steep path at a great pace, his mind occupied with the prospect of a blazing fire, a well-earned dinner and a foaming tankard.
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