The Boys in the Boat (Young Readers Adaptation), page 9
Then, as the bridge loomed ahead, he leaned forward and called out, “Gimme ten big ones!” The Washington boys dug hard. The boat leapt forward. At the end of the ten strokes, the bows of the boats were dead even again. With the bridge and the finish line closing on them, Morry screamed again, “Gimme ten more!” Joe and Shorty and Roger and everyone with an oar in his hands threw everything they had into the last few pulls. The boats shot under the bridge side by side.
On the bridge pandemonium broke out. Someone called out that Washington won by two feet. The Washington fans roared. The loudspeaker boomed out, “Looks like California won by two feet.” The Cal fans roared. Radio announcers hesitated and then beamed the news out to the nation: “California wins.” The Washington fans on the bridge were furious, shouting and pointing angrily down at the water. Their boys had surged ahead at the end. Anyone could see that. The pandemonium increased. Then, suddenly, the loudspeaker crackled back to life: “The judges announce officially that Washington won by six feet.”
A few days later, on April 18, the city of Seattle held a parade for the victorious Washington crews. Eighty members of the Washington Husky marching band led the procession up Second Avenue and Pike Street as confetti and scraps of paper mixed with a steady, cold rain drifting down from clouds high above. Al Ulbrickson and Tom Bolles rode with the mayor in a flower-bedecked car. Then came the main attraction—a long logging truck draped in flowers and green foliage carrying the varsity crew and their shell. The boys wore white sweaters with big purple Ws emblazoned on them. Each held a twelve-foot-long oar upright. Joe knew Joyce was at work, so he scanned the faces in the crowd, looking for his father or his half siblings. They were nowhere to be seen.
At the Washington Athletic Club, the boys were ushered into a smoky room packed with hundreds of Seattle’s leading citizens. The boys from all three boats were called up onto a stage and introduced, one at a time, each to long, sustained applause.
When it was Joe’s turn, he stood for a moment looking out over the scene before him. White light poured into the room from tall windows flanked by heavy velvet curtains. Enormous crystal chandeliers hung shimmering from high, ornately plastered ceilings. Wealthy men and women sat at tables spread with gleaming silverware and platters heaped with hot food. Waiters in white coats and black bow ties scurried among the tables, carrying trays with still more food.
As Joe raised a hand to acknowledge the wave of applause, he found himself struggling desperately to keep back tears. He had never let himself dream of standing in a place like this, surrounded by people like these. He felt a sudden surge of something unfamiliar—a sense of pride that was deeper and more heartfelt than any he had ever felt before. Now it was on to the national championships again, and then, the next year, maybe even Berlin. Everything finally seemed to be turning golden.
Poughkeepsie at night.
16
Rage, Fear, and Uncertainty
On the first day of training for the Poughkeepsie Regatta, Ulbrickson surprised everyone by announcing that the sophomores weren’t necessarily going to remain the first varsity boat. The boys in the junior varsity boat, he said, deserved a shot at a national varsity championship. Joe and the other sophomores couldn’t believe it. They hadn’t just beaten another crew on the estuary. They’d beaten the defending national champions. Furious, they decided to put the JV boys in their place as soon as they got out on the water.
Instead they did the opposite. Ulbrickson raced the two boats against each other again and again all through May. Occasionally the sophomores won, but usually they lost. They rowed well when left on their own, but months of taunting had gotten under their skin. Too often, the moment they got a glimpse of the older boys they fell apart completely. Ulbrickson was furious. In April he had crowed to the press that his all-sophomore crew was great—“possibly the greatest crew I have coached,” he had said. Now they seemed bent on making a fool of him. At the end of May, after another impressive JV victory, Ulbrickson made another difficult decision. Washington had not won the varsity race at Poughkeepsie since 1926, when Ulbrickson himself was rowing stroke. He needed the victory and the JV boat now seemed to offer the best chance. So Ulbrickson announced that barring some kind of miracle, the older boys would race as the varsity crew for the national championship.
The trip to Poughkeepsie was not the boisterous and carefree jaunt of the year before. The weather was hot all the way across the country, the train stuffy and uncomfortable. The sophomores and the older boys tried to stay out of each other’s way. Joe and Shorty Hunt and Roger Morris kept largely to themselves in one corner of a coach. There was no singing this time; Joe had left his guitar at home.
After arriving in Poughkeepsie, the Washington Husky crews visited each of their rivals’ shell houses. None of the others could believe the sophomores had been demoted. At each stop Ulbrickson had to explain it all over again, to his fellow coaches. Yes, indeed—despite what had happened in California—he planned to send the older boys off in the varsity race and enter the sophomores in the junior varsity race. The coaches were shocked. So was the press. Several Seattle sportswriters had openly questioned whether he’d made the right decision. One writer pointed out that the sophomores always seemed to get stronger as their races went on, and the Poughkeepsie course would be a mile longer than the one in Oakland.
By the time they got to rowing on the Hudson River, conditions were tough out on the water. It was rainy, and a cold, stiff wind was whipping downstream. The river was a heaving mass of rollers, the water dark and oily. The conditions were so bad that the Washington boats were the only ones out on the water. All the other crews were content to remain in the warmth of their shell houses.
The Bears from California had the warmest and coziest spot of all, a brand-spanking-new boathouse complete with clean water, hot showers, a dining room, cooking facilities, electric lights, and spacious sleeping quarters. The Washington boys were stuck in the same rickety old building as the year before, with its leaky roof and cold river-water showers. This year they’d brought their own drinking water all the way from Washington, but the sleeping arrangements were even worse than last time. They had to bunk nine to a room, instead of six.
As many as a hundred thousand people had been expected for the regatta, but by midafternoon only perhaps a third of that number had showed up. It was a miserably wet, blustery day, with rain slanting down out of dark skies in torrents. Fewer than a hundred sailboats, houseboats, and yachts had made their way to the finish line, where they lay swaying and bobbing at anchor. As race time approached, dark masses of people huddled under umbrellas made their way down the steep descent from Main Street to the water. The observation train began to fill up, though this year the open-sided cars were not as popular as the enclosed coaches.
A little before 4:00 p.m., in a driving rain, Tom Bolles’s freshmen paddled upriver and took their starting position, with Columbia on one side and California on the other. The starting gun fired, and the regatta was under way before anyone realized it. Fans along the shoreline peered through a curtain of rain, struggling to distinguish one boat from another.
For thirty strokes, it was a race. Then, with Don Hume at stroke, big Gordy Adam in the middle of the boat, and the tenacious Johnny White up in seat number two all settling into their rhythms, the Washington freshmen began to pull ahead. They eased out in front of the others as if it took no effort at all. Coach Bolles became agitated, then excited, and then, finally, by all accounts, “hysterical,” waving his soggy old good-luck fedora hat in the air. He believed his freshmen were an even better crew than the previous year’s bunch, and they were proving him right. They slid across the line, defeating California by four lengths.
The rain had slowed a bit by 5:00 p.m., when the junior varsity race was set to go off. But it was still windy and the water was still rough. As Joe paddled upriver toward the starting line, he, like his crewmates, had a lot to think about. Cal had not sent a JV boat to Poughkeepsie, but Navy had a strong crew. The greatest danger, though, lay in his own shell. The recent defeats had shaken his self-confidence. The other boys were doubting themselves too. Everyone from Seattle to New York seemed to want to know what had happened to them since their victory in California. But neither Joe nor anybody else in the boat could begin to answer the question. As they sat at the starting line, in the City of Seattle, rolling with the choppy waves, waiting for the crack of the starting gun, with rainwater running down their necks and backs and dripping from their noses, the question wasn’t whether they were strong or skilled enough. The real question was whether they had the maturity and discipline to keep their minds in the boat. Could they focus? Or would their anger and fear and uncertainty unhinge them?
When the gun sounded, they got away slowly and fell behind almost immediately. For half a mile, it looked as if they might, in fact, disintegrate as a crew. Then something that had been missing for a long while slowly kicked in. Realizing that they were losing, their determination took over and began to conquer their despair. They began to pull in long, sweet strokes, rowing at a composed beat of thirty-three strokes per minute. By the end of the first mile, they had found their swing and surged into the lead, quickly passing Cornell, Navy, and Syracuse. For the rest of the race, the sophomores rowed gorgeously—a long sleek line of perfection—finishing a comfortable two lengths ahead of Navy. A Seattle radio announcer was struck by how easy they had made it look. At the end of the race, he declared, the boys looked as if they could have kept on rowing right down the river all the way to New York City without breaking a sweat.
In the press section of the observation train, Al Ulbrickson watched silently. His freshmen had won. The junior varsity too. He now had a chance of doing what no coach had ever done, winning all three Poughkeepsie races in the eight-oared shells, and coming home to Seattle with a clean shot at going to Berlin. Yet he knew that Cal’s varsity crew was very strong. After the loss in Oakland, Ky Ebright had switched up his varsity, moving four boys from the previous year’s national championship crew back into his top boat. Ulbrickson had to wonder if Cal’s losing crew in Oakland had been a trick. Maybe Ebright had been saving his best boat for Poughkeepsie.
As six o’clock and the start of the climactic race approached, the weather improved, and the crowds grew. Nobody in town that day wanted to miss out on seeing what sort of crew Ulbrickson had come up with. Everyone wanted to see the boat that was good enough to displace his talented sophomores.
Seven crews paddled to the starting line in a ghostly light mist. California had drawn lane number one, nearest the western bank of the river, where the current was least likely to affect a boat. Washington was right next door, in lane number two. Navy, Syracuse, Cornell, Columbia, and Pennsylvania stretched out across the river in lanes three through seven.
The referee called, “Ready all!” One by one, the coxswains lowered their hands. The starting gun fired. All seven boats lurched off the line together. Rowing stroke for stroke, they remained tightly bunched up for a hundred yards. Then Washington slowly edged out to a slight lead of about four feet. In the stern, Bobby Moch told his crew to settle in. At a half mile, Washington still had the lead, with Syracuse just behind them, then Navy. Cornell and California were trailing badly.
Over the next half mile, Washington expanded its lead over Syracuse, but Cornell slowly moved up on the outside. Cal still trailed the field. At a mile and a half, Washington was out in front by open water and stretching its lead. On the observation train, Cal’s coach, Ky Ebright, was worried. He leaned forward, peering through a pair of binoculars, studying his boys. Washington fans on the train began hooting and hollering. Fans on the docks and yachts in Poughkeepsie began to cheer. Many of them wanted this crew to accomplish the historic feat and sweep the races, even if it was a western crew that did it.
As they crossed the two-and-a-half-mile mark, Washington’s lead began to shrink. Navy and Syracuse were fading, but California and Cornell were finally starting to move up, inch by inch. Like Ebright, Al Ulbrickson was studying his boys intently through binoculars. He was still half a mile from doing what he desperately wanted to do, and he knew it. Bobby Moch was riding the stern of the Washington boat like a jockey, leaning forward into the rain, urging the boat on, screaming for them to take the stroke rate higher, then higher still. In the middle of the boat, big Stub McMillin was taking huge, powerful, smooth strokes. Up front, Chuck Day was trying to keep the boat in perfect balance stroke after stroke even as Moch kept calling for more. But they were running out of steam, and California and Cornell just kept coming.
At mile three Cornell nosed out in front. Then Cal came up to match them. Slowly, agonizingly, Washington fell into third. Over the final mile, Cal and Cornell battled for the lead, but Washington fell two lengths behind. As the leaders crossed the line, both crews thought they’d won. Minutes later the official results were announced: Ky Ebright and California had won their third straight national varsity title, by one-third of a second. And they’d done it in near record time, despite a stiff crosswind and heavy chop. The only boat ever to have turned in a faster time was Ebright’s own Olympic gold medal crew of 1928. It looked more than ever as if California would be going to Berlin the following year.
The town of Grand Coulee, with B Street off to the right.
17
Difficult and Dangerous Work
Joe’s old car labored and coughed and wheezed, crawling up the long, steep ascent to Blewett Pass, high in the Cascade Mountains. That morning, in June of 1935, he had thrown his banjo and his clothes in the backseat, said good-bye to Joyce for the summer, and driven out of Seattle, heading east, looking for work. Jobs were still scarce, but there was hope for Joe. The previous summer, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had traveled out to Washington, to a town near the Columbia River and a fifty-mile-long dry canyon called the Grand Coulee. Twenty thousand people gathered to hear him speak, among them George Pocock and his family. When President Roosevelt appeared on the platform before them, the crowd roared its welcome, and when he spoke of plans to build a massive new dam in that rough, empty country, they cheered again. The Grand Coulee Dam, he said, would bring water to arid farmland, generate electrical power, and create thousands of jobs.
Now, less than a year after Roosevelt’s speech, Joe drove down from the mountains, through gently rolling jade-green wheat fields, into the rugged Washington scablands, then on to the ramshackle boomtown of Grand Coulee, perched just above the Columbia River. Thirty minutes after he stepped out of his car, he had a job. To build the foundation of the dam, hundreds of workers first had to knock away layers of loose rock from the canyon walls to get to the older granite bedrock. Then the granite itself had to be shaped. The men who performed this work had to strap themselves into harnesses, dangle from the cliff face hundreds of feet above the river, and pound away at the rock with jackhammers. The work was difficult and dangerous, but it paid better than the other jobs at the dam. Joe signed himself up, for seventy-five cents an hour.
That evening, before his first day of work, he sat on the hood of his car, in front of the office. Down in the coulee, steam shovels and electric shovels clawed at piles of loose rock. Bulldozers pushed earth and rocks from one place to another. Tractors crawled back and forth, gouging out terraces. On the cliffs, men suspended from ropes crawled and swung from one spot to another like so many black spiders. Studying them, Joe saw that they were drilling holes in the rock faces with jackhammers. As he watched, a long, shrill whistle blew, and the jackhammer men scrambled quickly to the tops of their lines. At the base of the cliffs, hundreds of men who’d been loosening the fallen rock with picks and crowbars suddenly scurried away. The deep, hollow, concussive sound of an explosion boomed and blossomed across the canyon. A shower of rocks and boulders tumbled down onto the piles below.
Joe was not at all sure what he was getting into here. But he was flat broke again and more than a little discouraged. Not just about money but about the whole crew business. Demoted and promoted and demoted again, he’d started to think of himself as a kind of yo-yo in the hands of the coaches. And yet the notion of Olympic gold had begun to work its way into his brain. A medal would be real and solid. It would be forever. Something nobody could deny or take away. He wanted that gold medal now, and it surprised him how much it had begun to mean to him. He figured it had something to do with Thula. Or with his father. Certainly it had something to do with Joyce. He felt more and more that he had to get to Berlin to prove something to himself and to his family. To do that, he had to make the first varsity boat. And to do that, he had to pay for another year of school. That meant strapping on a harness, grabbing a jackhammer, and lowering himself over the edge of a cliff in the morning.
The jackhammer work was brutal. For eight hours a day, he dangled on a rope in the furnace-like heat of the canyon, pounding at the wall of rock in front of him. The jackhammer was heavy and seemed to have a life of its own, constantly trying to rip itself out of his grip. Rock dust, gritty and irritating, swirled around him. It got in his eyes, his mouth, and his nose. Sharp chips and shards of rock flew up and stung his face. Sweat dripped from his back and fell away into the void below. He learned to cooperate closely with the men dangling on either side of him. They worked together, keeping an eye out for rocks falling from above, dodging them when they did, calling out warnings to those below, searching for better places to find seams in the rock.
By the end of each day, he was exhausted, parched with thirst, and ravenously hungry. Three times a day, he ate in the mess hall, sitting shoulder to shoulder with men at long tables. He ate as he had back in his boyhood at the Gold and Ruby mine, tucking into mountains of food. Eggs, pancakes, bacon, and sausage at breakfast. Then sandwiches and ice cream for lunch. Finally a huge meal of red meat or chicken at dinner, topped off with slabs of pie. Joe never left a scrap on his plate or anyone else’s within reach.
