Posted by Peter Ceresole on January 13, 2009 at 16:30:17 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: SA and SW posted by Mountaineer on January 13, 2009 at 14:58:53:
Yes, but this is a kind of "redemption" for John's blunder that lead to the wreck at the beginning of the book. He has to win it for a higher dramatical purpose, so fairness to the Amazons is less important.
Yes, but it serves another purpose too; Ransome clearly knew a story about the 'old soldier' trick of going across shoals on beam ends, and it was a perfect opportunity to get it in. Too good to waste.
'Old soldier' tricks exist in so many fields; in a 12 hours salon car race in Germany, we were a lap and a few seconds behind the class leader. This was at the Nurburgring, with 12 minute laps, so around the nine hour mark we bet the farm on the leader having lost track of laps and when we all came in for tire changes (which we all badly needed) we piled the spares very visibly on the pit counter, and then just after he pitted and had his Alfa up on the jack for his change, our car whoofled by without stopping. He went berserk, dropped his car off the jack and chased off after us. It was our luck that he could just see us ahead of him on the straights. It was the longest 12 minutes I can remember, but when our Cortina came round again I had a watch on the gap, and it was clear that something had gone badly wrong for the Alfa. As he pulled in to the pit lane and lifted the oil filler cap, there was a whoosh of blue smoke. He'd taken his eye off the rev counter and blown up the Alfa. The next three hours were a gentle cruise to the class win. And we didn't feel the tiniest bit bad about it. The chap, a German, came running up to shake hands and congratulate us- just like Nancy. A nice guy.