26.2 - The Incredible True Story of the Three Men Who Shaped The London Marathon. John Bryant
Photographs were rare enough at this time, but one captured the young Wyndham caught between school and the military academy, showing his youthful spirits, vaulting with a grin over his sister-in-law Ethel. Another caught him long jumping over a wheelbarrow on those well-trimmed lawns in Richmond.
Halswelle was determined to demonstrate to his father that he could achieve things in the world on his own account, that he too could be a winner. And to do so he did not have to prove himself, either in the artistic studio of his father or in the regiment of his mother. Sport was his canvas: he would win his races and he would remember with a smile the admiring knots of schoolboys cheering his victories and saluting his triumphs.
That summer, as the war in South Africa warmed up, he gave his father a glimpse of the different kind of artist that he himself could be – an artist on the track. At Sandhurst, the admiring schoolboys were now replaced by senior officers who recognised, however fleetingly, that they were being seduced by the magic of a man in motion. For Wyndham Halswelle really could run. Even among fine sprinters, men who fancied themselves as quick movers and who were so fancied by others, this was an exceptional man.
A boy like that, the officers would say, needs a trainer, someone to show him how to be a great champion. Such men existed, but mainly across the Atlantic, where the New World’s first athletic coaches were already issuing orders to their well-drilled squads and where they reckoned that men like Halswelle lacked the killer instinct. In England, they would say, they churn out good losers but there’s no such thing as a good loser – it’s kill or be killed. In sport it is always the winning that matters. But for Halswelle running was about far more than just winning, it was an expression of the human body, of rhythm and grace, strength and belief. He loved to win, of course, but for him the satisfaction was to do it on a level playing field in an even contest.
Sometimes he would share his philosophy of winning with his friends at Sandhurst. They would smile over a drink and a cigar, and the soldiers would joke that all this talk of fair play would someday be the death of young Halswelle.
In spring 1902, Wyndham Halswelle’s affair with the running track came to an abrupt end. He and his regiment were packed off to South Africa, where Lord Kitchener was mopping up the war. Here, he was to get his first taste of action.
Once again, Wyndham was a six-year-old drilling his tin soldiers on the lawn, taking on the enemy face to face in single combat as he had done in his playground fantasies. Life at the front, though, turned out to be very different. There were huge periods of inactivity while he would kick his heels waiting for the chance to be a hero, but there were other opportunities to play the hero on the playing field or on the running track.
When Halswelle landed in South Africa in 1902, he just caught the end of that strange business, the Boer War. The Boers, who were the off-cuts of Dutch colonialists, were keen to fight for their independence from Britain but they were not so keen to bring the benefits of democracy to those who had descended on this part of the world in search of gold and diamonds – the get-rich-quick merchants. Certainly, they were completely against any idea of extending the franchise to the black population, the indigenous people they found in the land in which they made their home.
As soon as Halswelle moved with his regiment, the Highland Light Infantry, towards the front, he found that the fighting had descended into a messy guerrilla conflict. He was keen to fulfil his dream of getting a taste of the action but his vision of himself was as a soldier, someone who would take on an opponent in a fair fight man to man, face to face. This war was baffling to the young soldier; it was a dirty war.
Wyndham Halswelle had been brought up with a code of chivalry that was remarkable for its lack of realism. Fellow troopers would talk of snipers and the guns that could deliver death without the giveaway trail of smoke emitting from their own British rifles. Given half a chance, they would say, these Dutchmen will shoot you in the back.
Life outside the city of Bloemfontein was a mixture of infrequent fighting and unbearable boredom. The troops would arrange spontaneous cricket and football matches, picnics, fêtes and parties. They weren’t always peaceful either, for there was plenty of drink around. Fights would break out, and gambling, which could land you on a charge, was rife. There was no shortage of women or civilians around the block houses and tented camps. Plenty of men had wives and children back in Britain, but that never stopped them from picking up the women around the camp.
Halswelle shone at cricket and football, though rugby, his chosen game, was not popular among the men. Almost every morning, he would be found running around the camp to keep in shape and a lot of his off-duty hours were spent complaining about the nature of the war and the conduct of the Boers.
His daydreams at Sandhurst invariably had him facing hordes of fanatical natives or the disciplined ranks of crack European troops. There was glory in that daydream. But Halswelle and his fellow officers shared their doubts and sometimes contempt for the Boers, who, though God-fearing, did not shape up as an acceptable enemy. They were scruffy and had no professional army as such; often they wore no uniform either.
Plenty of men in the regiment knew of Halswelle’s reputation as a runner.
‘Why don’t you take a race here?’ they would ask, but Wyndham seemed wary of racing far from the organised meetings he had known back in Britain. He would watch and shake his head at the sight of a few men toeing a line scratched in the dirt, then barging their way to the finish.
This was never quite the way it was at Sandhurst, where the track was marked out with painted white lines on firm grass, measurements were accurate and the starter controlled everything. You ran to orders there, but here the course was a roughly paced-out distance over hard, dusty, uneven ground. Close to the battlefront there was no finishing tape, no fancy running, and nowhere to dig decent holes for your spiked shoes on the starting line. But when the requests to run turned to taunts, Wyndham thought again. Perhaps he might race there, after all.
His appearance on the track was enough to stir groups of soldiers to watch him in action. They knew this tall, muscled, slightly tanned man, whose white vest contrasted with the reddening of his skin, had been a champion; his very appearance could cause a ripple of excitement. It was not that often you got the chance to see a runner of his calibre in action. You could only guess what was likely to happen when a man like this toed the line.
If there is one thing that excites spectators, it is the chance to witness a champion performing, asserting his dominance with power and authority. But they can be excited, perhaps even more so, by the prospect of seeing a champion, a certainty, toppled and humbled by a dark horse. The bookmakers love to see that too, and some of the officers remembered the time back at Sandhurst when even the mighty Halswelle tripped and fell hard on the track.
Gambling always seemed to be in evidence whenever such impromptu race meetings were organised by the regiment in South Africa. ‘Evens on the field,’ the bookies would murmur, and the murmur would breeze around the camp. Of course, they shouldn’t have been there, for betting was strictly prohibited. But when it came to gambling or taking prisoners, you could always find an officer who seemed blind or deaf. It was difficult to stop a trooper from putting a handful of shillings on a runner they fancied, or a race where they seemed certain of the outcome.
Win or lose, this was the chance to see a gifted runner in action. Where, they wondered, did he get that extra ingredient that makes one athlete dominant? Sometimes technical differences make a champion – some wear spiked shoes, others dig starting holes, while cork grips may be strapped to the hands with elastic bands, for there was a theory that sprinters ran faster if they had something to grip onto.
But none of these techniques accounted for Halswelle’s superiority. Whenever he lined up for races, he looked preoccupied, aloof almost; slowly and silently he moved to the start. But