Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/224

 ing the green curve of Grassy, the nose of an eight. Young men were shouting. The leading boat cleared the corner, but Sorrell was not interested in this particular boat. Emmanuel 2 came next, and it seemed to him that their oars were moving with a scuffling haste. By George, yes! Kit's boat was right on top of them.

Sorrell ran. He ran down to meet the boats, got himself hustled by an eager crowd of young men in cerise-coloured blazers, in fact he was nearly pushed into the river. He was shouting, and waving his hat. "First,—First, well rowed, First." He ran again in the opposite direction, seeing for a while nothing but Kit with a very stern face swinging and plugging at No. 5. The boats were overlapping. At Ditton Corner the 1st Trinity cox made his bump, and the arm of the Emmanuel cox went up. Both eights drifted close in to the line of boats, and Sorrell stood on the towing path bank, waving to Kit bent over his oar and drawing deep breaths.

Kit saw his father, straightened up, and waved a hand. His face ceased to be stern, and began to smile.

Sorrell put on his hat.

"I'm a bit excited. Damn it,—why not?"

Sorrell walked back with his son from the First Trinity boat-house. He was just a little anxious. A gruelling game—this rowing, bad—so he had heard—for young men's hearts.

"Feeling all right, Kit?"

Christopher's smile was reassuring.

"Quite. We ought to catch the leading boat to-morrow. Emmanuel were up on them. Then we shall be sandwich boat."

"What does that mean?"

"We have to row twice, at the head of the second division and at the bottom of the first."

Sorrell's sympathies were divided. An exhausting business, two races in one day! But perhaps he was growing old, and youth was youth.

Kit's boat made their second bump on the second day, but failed to catch the last boat of the first division. And there they stuck, having to row for their lives on the last day in order to keep away from a fast boat that had made three bumps behind them. Sorrell ran all the way up the