"It's a massed start.
I'll see there how it is.
Besides Jupp knows his job."
Jupp nodded eagerly.
He was trembling with excitement and eating chocolate steadily.
But that was only now.
With the starting shot he would be as cool again as a tortoise.
"Well, off we go, neck or nothing!"
We pushed Karl out.
"Now don't jib at the start, you rascal," said Lenz, fondling the radiator. "Don't disappoint your old father, Karl."
Karl steamed off.
We watched him go.
"Just get an eyeful of that contraption," suddenly said someone beside us. "Man, it's got a behind like an ostrich!"
Lenz straightened.
"Do you mean the white car?" he asked, red in the face, but still calm.
"I do," replied the gigantic mechanic from the next pit casually over his shoulder, passing the beer bottle to his neighbour.
Lenz began to stutter with wrath and prepared to climb over the low partition.
Thank God he had not launched any of his insults. I pulled him back. "Leave that rot," I cursed, "we need you here.
Do you want to go into hospital before it starts?"
Intractable as a mule, he tried to pull away.
He could abide nothing against Karl. "Look," said I to Patricia Hollmann, "this is the balmy goat that gives himself out as the last of the romantics.
Would you believe it, he once wrote a poem to the moon!"
The effect was immediate.
It was Gottfried's sore spot. "Long before the war, it was," he excused himself. "Besides, baby, it's not a crime to go crazy at a race.
Is it, Pat?" "It's not a crime to go crazy at any time."
Gottfried saluted. "A noble saying."
The thunder of the engines drowned all else.
The air shuddered.
Earth and sky shuddered.
The field tore by.
"Last but one," growled Lenz. "The swine has jibbed again at the start." "No matter," said I; "the start's Karl's weak point.
He may get away slowly, but he never stops again."
As the uproar died away the loud speakers began their chant.
We could hardly believe our eats. Burger, a dangerous rival, had been left standing on the starting line.
The cars came growling back.
They chirrupped in the distance like grasshoppers on the track, grew bigger and raced along the opposite side, past the grandstands into the big curve.
They were six still, and Koster still second last.
We held ourselves in readiness.
Echo and re-echo beat louder and fainter from the curve.
Then the pack shot out.
Number One well ahead, second and third close together behind him, and then Koster. He had gone ahead in the curve and was now riding fourth.
The sun came out from under the clouds.
Broad strips of light and grey poured across the track, suddenly flecked with bright and shadow like a tiger.
Shadows of clouds drifted across the human sea in the stands.
The storm of the engines had entered the blood like some monstrous music.
Lenz walked fidgeting around, I chewed a cigarette to pulp, and Patricia Hollmann was sniffing the air like a foal in the early morning.
Only Valentin and Grau sat quietly there, and let the sun shine on them.
Again the immense heartbeat of the machines roared back, on past grandstands.
We stared across at Koster.
He shook his head. He did not mean to change any tyres.