Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World (10 page)

Johnson's failure seemed to answer the question of whether it was possible to swim the Channel—if Johnson could not, it was likely no one else could. Still, among other swimmers his effort made the notion of swimming the Channel the Holy Grail of swimming. Like the running of a marathon, it captured the imagination of athletes and dreamers alike—a one-way ticket to notoriety, a way to stand out from the crowd.

Three years later Paul Boyton, an American, became the next man to test the Channel, and his effort underscored just how difficult a task it was and how eager the pubic was to embrace a hero. Boyton became the first person to cross the Channel without either a balloon or a boat—sort of.

Boyton, an Irish-American who served in the U.S. Navy in the Civil War before first becoming a mercenary and then operating a lifesaving service in Atlantic City, was hired by the inventor C. S. Merriman to demonstrate his latest creation, a "patent waterproof life-saving apparatus," essentially a primitive dry suit. Weighing nearly thirty-five pounds, Merriman's suit was made of vulcanized rubber and, save for the face, covered the body completely. The suit contained a series of inflatable air chambers and was capable of supporting three hundred pounds, a man, and up to nine days of provisions stored in a special pouch. The wearer of the suit carried a paddle to propel himself through the water, and it was even possible to attach a small sail to an iron hook that protruded from the sole of one of the suit's rubberized feet.

Boyton made demonstrating the suit something of a cottage industry, wearing the suit, which he referred to as the "lifesaving dress," to accomplish all sorts of stunts, ranging from having himself thrown overboard from a boat during a storm to taking extended trips down rivers, sometimes paddling, sometimes sailing, and sometimes kicking with his feet and flailing his arms to propel himself along, but usually depending upon the current as much as anything else to send him downstream. In April 1875 he decided to try to cross the Channel.

His first attempt ended in failure due to a combination of bad weather and unfavorable tides that nearly swept him and his escort boat into the North Sea. Nevertheless, he had spent an extraordinary fifteen hours in the water and upon his return to shore was greeted like a hero, receiving dozens of congratulatory telegrams, including one from Queen Victoria herself. Over the next month he cashed in, making public appearances in the suit, earning about $250 for only a half hour's work. Then Boyton decided to make a second attempt. This time he traveled to France, choosing to leave from Cape Gris-Nez and swim to England, to take advantage of what he hoped were favorable tides, currents, and, just as importantly, wind.

Press reports noted that Boyton looked "like a giant porpoise" when he waded into the water at 3:00
A.M.
and began to paddle his way through choppy seas toward England, floating on his back in a horizontal position, a human boat. He looked completely absurd in the suit, an odd marriage of a sailboat, a kayak, and a diving suit, but it was nonetheless effective. Twenty-four hours later Boyton landed at Fan Bay, just west of the South Foreland Lights. Boyton was hailed as a bona fide national hero, and he basked in the attention.

Matthew Webb, however, was aghast. He had spent the last several years in training and had even secured a wealthy patron to back his plan to swim the Channel. To Webb, Boyton's achievement was an embarrassment, a stunt that was offensive both because of its crass commercialism and because of the use of the suit. He now became more determined than ever.

Four months later, at 12:55
P.M
on August 24, 1875, after a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and claret, Webb, his body glistening under a coating of porpoise fat to hold his body heat that caused everyone downwind to give him a wide berth, entered the water at Dover, diving from the Admiralty Pier. He was accompanied by two boats, a dory and a sailboat, bearing a total of fifteen witnesses, including members of the press.

Under relatively calm conditions and in waters of about sixty degrees, near the upper limit for the Channel, for the next twenty hours Webb, his head held high, relentlessly pushed his arms out ahead and kicked with his feet, gulping air and occasionally swigging brandy, beef tea, coffee, and ale and eating stale bread. The tide and currents of the Channel first pushed him to the southwest, then almost due east, then south and east again, like so much human flotsam. Yet even as the weather deteriorated, with each stroke Webb inched ever closer to his goal.

He was near the point of collapse when he stumbled onshore at Calais at 10:35
A.M.
the next morning. Indeed, he needed assistance to stay on his feet as he waded out of the surf, an indiscretion that today, under official Channel-crossing guidelines that prohibit any physical contact with the swimmer in the water, would disqualify his accomplishment. His success was more a demonstration of stamina, good fortune, and stubborn determination than true aquatic skill. Nevertheless he had made the twenty-one-mile crossing without material assistance, swimming for twenty-one hours and forty-five minutes, covering more than thirty miles as he plodded along at a pace of a bit less than a mile and a half an hour.

Webb's accomplishment made Boyton insignificant. At a time when few people walked twenty miles, swimming that distance seemed superhuman. Webb's success earned him worldwide fame. Swimming the English Channel was instantly recognized as the world's supreme athletic achievement, the standard against which all else was measured and compared. Ever since that day every swimmer of any ability has had to answer the question, "Do you think you could swim the Channel?"

Unfortunately for Webb, swimming the Channel would prove to be his undoing, creating unrealistic expectations over the remainder of his life. After swimming the Channel he was forced to try to attempt swims that were even more daring and dangerous, but none had the resonance of the English Channel. In 1883, while attempting to swim across the rapids of the Niagara River beneath Niagara Falls, Webb was swept up in the current and carried downstream. When he reached a famous whirlpool he went under and didn't reappear until his body was discovered four days later several miles downstream.

For a young reader like Trudy, however, it was easy to overlook Webb's tragic death and focus on the heroic figure of the man himself, someone who against all odds had done something that everyone had previously thought to be impossible. Trudy was not alone. Soon other men and women would follow in Webb's wake and take on mankind's most challenging individual endeavor.

W
HEN TRUDY EDERLE
walked into a WSA pool for her first formal lesson in the fall of 1918, in the basement of a Brooklyn Heights apartment building, sharing space with the building's boiler room, she had no idea that she was walking in on the start of a revolution. Not only was the WSA virtually the first athletic organization for women, but it was one of the few organizations anywhere that young girls and teenagers like Trudy and her sisters could belong to—even the Girls Scouts had been in existence only since 1916.

With peace in Europe a few short weeks away, it was becoming clear that the world was changing, and changing rapidly. The women's suffragist movement was on the precipice of success, as most states had given women the right to vote. The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which would extend the right to vote to all women, had the support of President Woodrow Wilson, had passed the House of Representatives, and needed only Senate approval before being ratified by the states.

While that process would take two long years, what the Nineteenth Amendment did for women's voting rights, the WSA would do for women's athletics. Sports would no longer be for men only.

When Trudy, Meg, and Helen arrived at the pool, nothing was familiar. Indoor pools were rare, and none of the girls had ever seen one before, much less swum in one. Although in time the organization would eventually have its own pool in a building on West Fifty-fifth Street in Manhattan, as the group approached its first anniversary the organization rented a pool every Wednesday and Friday evening.

After changing into their swimming attire in a small dressing room, when Trudy and her sisters first pushed through the heavy doors that opened to the pool, they were hit with a blast of air as hot and heavy as that of a sauna, acrid with the smell of chlorine, which rapidly caused any untiled surface not covered in a heavy coat of paint to rust and corrode. The pool, only thirty feet long and so shallow that except for one end all but the youngest girls could stand upright with their head and chest out of the water, was surrounded by a narrow tiled walkway and a few wooden benches. It hardly seemed sufficient for more than the most basic instruction. Compared to the open ocean, it was absolutely claustrophobic.

As Trudy and her sisters stood alongside the pool waiting for their first lesson, among the dozens of swimmers and instructors from the previous session crowded in and around the pool, she couldn't help but notice that one person stood out—a man. Unlike all the young women, this man—tall, fit, and with a shock of graying hair—was not wearing swimming attire. Despite the near tropical heat in the basement, he was dressed formally, in business attire, wearing a starched white shirt with a high collar, a tie knotted in a taut Windsor knot, a vest, a jacket, and a bowler. His only concession to the oppressive conditions in the basement was, on rare occasions, to remove his jacket.

The other girls called him "Mr. Handley," and as Trudy watched, Handley was clearly in charge, keeping dozens of swimmers, swimmers to be, and instructors busy at once. One group of girls at the far, deep end of the pool practiced diving from a small platform. Another group alongside the pool lay down with their stomachs supported by chairs and practiced kicking and stroking with their arms, turning their heads and pretending to take in and release their breath. Others simply held onto the side of the pool and kicked, and more accomplished swimmers swam back and forth. As they did the man in the business suit strode between groups, leaning down to give advice. Sometimes he pantomimed the movement he expected. At other times he stood before everyone, even the other instructors, and with a swimmer at his side pointed out proper arm and hand positions, making small adjustments as he spoke. He moved back and forth between all swimmers and spent the same amount of time with each one, speaking formally in a firm yet gentle voice that still contained more than a hint of fine breeding and exposure to the Continent.

To Trudy and her sisters it seemed as if the water was full of Cath erine Browns, because every swimmer in the water sped back and forth with a speed they found astonishing and had not seen since that day of the exhibition at the Highlands. Absolutely no one was using the dog paddle, and even the few swimmers using the breaststroke were obviously already far more accomplished swimmers than anyone Trudy had ever seen at the Highlands.

It was all due to Louis de Breda Handley. A generation before he had revolutionized the sport of swimming for men by helping to develop an improvement on the trudgen, known as the crawl, an advance in swimming that was as dramatic and profound as learning to run after a lifetime of walking. And now he was teaching the exact same stroke to women swimmers. In fact, at the time he was probably not only the only person in the world teaching the stroke to women, but the only person who thought women could even have the ability to learn it. Despite the fact that the WSA was a women's organization, few people would have more to do with the cause of women's athletics or with the career of Trudy Ederle than the man standing at the side of the pool that fall evening.

At last the pool cleared and the Ederle girls, as well as a few dozen other swimmers, were allowed into the pool to begin the new session. Handley and the other WSA instructors had to assess the skills of the girls, as new members of the group, before they were assigned to classes.

After learning her name, Handley systematically asked each girl to get into the water and swim. Helen and Meg both went before Trudy and, compared to the other girls, seemed to do well. When he came to Trudy, he said simply, "Well, Gertrude, get in and swim as fast as you can."

Trudy lowered herself in the water. Ever since the demonstration at the pier, she and Meg and Helen had been trying to swim like Catherine Brown, and although Trudy knew she wasn't nearly as fast as the young swimmer, she was quite proud of her progress. She took a deep breath, stretched out in the water and began to swim for the opposite side of the pool, only thirty feet away.

There were cruise ships plying the North Atlantic that didn't create so much havoc on the water. Legs and arms thrashing wildly, Trudy laboriously plowed through the pool. Every so often she lifted her head, and like a whale, took a great deep breath before she went back under the surface. The end result was a great deal of splashing but little progress.

After what seemed like an eternity, Trudy reached the far end of the pool, turned around, and after another period of extended flogging of the water, finally made it back to where she started, panting and out of breath. Then she looked up expectantly to Handley, who had stood by calmly, watching, with the WSA diving instructor.

The other instructor turned to Handley and said, "Oh, she'll
never
make a swimmer. She's too wild," and suggested instead that perhaps Trudy might make a better diver than a swimmer.

Handley, however, disagreed. He wasn't interested in how much Trudy knew about swimming and how well she did. In fact, he actually preferred working with swimmers like Trudy who were so raw they hadn't developed any bad habits, and he was impressed by the way all the Ederle girls had tried to swim the crawl, even though they really didn't know how.