THE BRINK OF DEATH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20384, 12 October 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BRINK OF DEATH.

MEN WHO TAKE RISKS.

ANALYSIS OF THE REASONS.

VIEWS OF A SPEED KING.

■"■ WHAT IT PEELS LIKE."

An artii.-lo on " Speed—and the Fear if Death" was contributed to the Sun.lay/ Express recently by Captain Mai(nli.i Campbell, who broke the worlds motor speed records in South Africa for five miles and five kilometres at 212 and 211 miles an hour. He says:— " When I was asked to write on what it feels liko to senso tho imminence of doath I thought suddenly of a certain sumjuer afternoon nt Brooklands, when my car, travelling at a hundred miles an hour, suddenly lost one wheel, smashed another, and skidded at right-angles on the remaining two.

"It was blue and sunny, a day of light and warmth. I saw the white trncjk, the fringe of bordering pine trees, board tho grind of the tearing wheels, felt, tho sudden, sharp swerve of the car—and I knew that death was two seconds off. I said to myself: Its all up. Well, I've asked for it long enough.' •• It was not all up. 1 steadied the car, or, "rather, the damaged, hub of ono of the wheels engaged in the side of tho track, and steadied it for me. I was iaved. I got out of tho car, realising that I was alive when 1 ought really to havo bcon dead, and I lit a cignictte and felt that providence had treated me rather .well-" ■ "Now, do not ask mo to analyse my feelings further than that because I cannot. It is a commonplace way of stating a set of circumstances which arc commonplace to most racing motorists. Thero arc few of us who have not been near death fow of us who do not seriously ask for it every month in every year. I havo dono so many times. I shall do so again.

Helping to "Find Out Things."

"'Am I over frightened ? Of courso I am. Everyone is. Why, then, do I go on 1 Why do I continue to do a tiling which frightens me, which is of no personal gain to me, and which may well kill me, if not mutilate me for life! I will answer that question by asking others. Why does a sailor choose the sea as a profession when ho knows he cannot swim, and, even if he can, it will not savo liim in mid-Atlantic ! VMhy does an airman lly ? Why does a soldier join the army ? Why do young men ohooso to faco malaria and mosquitoes, fever and sunstroke, in Africa or Malaya, when they might sit snugly at home on a stool in safety! " Then men who faced the possibility of death at Belfast, to serve a definite end, achieved a really useful purpose. lhe> helped to " find out things —to advance tho'science of motor-car construction, to add to tho usefulness of industry, to leave something for others to build on and benefit by. . " If a man were to announce in tlio ,Press to morrow that he intended to fly tlio Atlantic in a Moth light airplane and wished to take a passenger .' 10 u ' ou \ d bo announcing that ho was going to his death and wanted to take another fool with him. And ho would bo inundated with offers to die. People would flock <o him, all auxious to take a ticket for a mansion iu the sky.

Calm Bravery Versus Bravado

Nino out of ten, one imagines, would have sufficient sen.so to be able to realise dimly and coldly that they wcro going to almost certain death—yet they would go 'I hey would eujov a Ifi'icf. hectic moment of publicity, a sudden, intoxicating aura of limelight—and then the curtain would shut down.

"'One docs not quite know what to say of such bravery—or foolhardiness. _ It loads nowhere, pioves nothing useful, achieves' nothing lasting, and yet you cannot say 111■ t 'lie men who do such things arc altogether to be condemned. They, at least, arc not cowards. Is theirs bravery or bravado—and where does the one end and the other begin? '"Calm, considered bifcvciy is ' more often found than bravado, and more risks nro taken by virtue of it. Few of us take a risk out of bravado. None of us chooses a chance of death because wo wish to die. Xono of us has lost our fear of death. Most of us realise the lisks and deliberately choose thorn. Why! ' We do it because so long as there is an essentially masculine streak in men, so long will men continue to take risks. It is one of the divine provisions of biology, which ensure that the race shall endure with some spaik of vitality and virilit-v in it.

The Two Kinds of Courage

' ' "It means that so long as a man has tho courage to conquer his own fears of being afraid, so long as he has that spark of adventure which will take a chance, . to long as be has that flicker of initiative which will take him out of the humdrum rut, so long as he has the germ of curiosity which makes hint want to ' find out,' r just" so long will he continue to inspire i others to do likewise, to bequeath n like spirit, 4o keep the level of masculinity ■ .up to the standard of physical and moral cotirngo at which God intended it to remain. Do not think that I am trying to point a mora! or preach a text from my own experiences. I am not. i hat would be inexcusable egoism, Every man who t.iljcs a reasonable risk—l cscept the fool mid the madman, who is a pest, and a nuisance—is merely justifying his roan- ' hood. The poor little clerk who marries and faces the world on 30s a week, with the fixed determination to fight the - world and better himself, ir. showing just ns much courage pt (he man who hustles through the air at six miles a minute, or shoots round tho track at the speed of • a fair-sized gale. " Tho only difference is that one is a Xjtiict, unseen courage, long tried and long prolonged; the other is a spectacular sort of courage, requiring .superhuman nervous tension and self-control for a short space of time, tried in a few seconds, over in a few minutes. Unfortunately tho lalter sort gets all the honour and glory. It is not quito fair. " Why do we do these things—risk ; 'our lives on land and sea and in the, arv? We do it, I feci convinced, because V.-o "want to find out. We want to discover.' Wo want' to conquer. V» c want to mrpuss.

, Fears That Were Unfounded. " Columbus set out for America in a liOi.t-' which would lit into t!ie dining s-idoou of a modern liner because he wanted to iiml out. llu was liiiten by trie eternal bug of curiosity which bus ; .attacked all luiiiianity front Eve to Einstein, from Shackleton to Marco Polo. When n man breaks a speed record • in a motor-car or an aeroplane, he finds out nil sorts of things—things concerning dynamics, wind resistance, gravity, tho reactions of the human system to tjie' momentarily altered conditions of his, life, the reactions of his machine to the enormous strain put upon it. ; ' " When tho first railway was built and . Tnen talked of travelling nt 60 rn.p.li. tho scientists and doctors of the dav ' »aid it could not l,e done. The hum-in < heart would netei stand it. 'lhn cifeiila.Hon would stop. M en Ufm !d die. Jt, was •pposcd to nil the natural laws. It was

impossible. It was done. No hearts stopped. No circulations froze. No ono dropped dead. It was proved possible. Something had been found, something new.

" Then we went farther—a hundred miles an hour. Another outcry: ' You cannot travel faster than flesh and blood (birds to wit) already travels. Si sty miles an hour was all right, because birds do it; but they do not do a hundred. It will kill you!' That was the cry. It was wrong. No 0110 died—of speed. Speed, qua speed, has not killed any healthy person yet —and wo have outstripped not only the birds, but the wind. " Now, it must be obvious tliafc to achieve Iheso terrific speeds one must have absolute control not only of ono'a «nlf. !>iit of one's machine. To havo that absolute control means that all other emotions must bo subordinated to tho •mo paramount determination to keep cool " 'J'iiai is why one is not frightened nt the actual moment of achieving a great speed. Fear is sublimated by icy selfcontrol. Nerves arc frozen by will-power, most of all by the extraordinary circumsuiriees of that tremendous moment when every nerve in your body is called ori to perform the essential function of human nature—to conquer and to prcservo itself. " That is why 1 believe I can say with perfect truth that no man is actually frightened of death at tho moment of achieving any great and dangerous font, no matter how near death he may be. He just has not timo to think of it. If he did he would be dead. " Hut what of tho moments before, the reactions afterwards? That is a very

different tale. Many a man has feared, actively and acutely, tho approaching moment of "a deed which he knows may end his life. - Yet ho goes' on with it. Wliv ? Because ho is too doggedly sot on it to back out ? Because lie is too proud to retire, although he repents and regrefs? Because he is too scared of showing that he is scared ? Because lie steels his nerves by sheer force of will or drugs his fears by a sudden, unnatural bravado ?

" All those causes act according to tho type of man. But I prefer to think that riiost men who tnko risks do so with open eyes, and refuso to let their realisation of them weaken their resolve. That is so, at any rate, on the motor-racing track and in the air. " Then you must remember that a man who sets out to break a record is lured on to do so by a great prize, tho oldest and most powerful magnet- in the world—the knowledge that ho is going to do something which no one else has done, lie is 'going behind the ranges.' " Tho reaction is very different. Each ma.i reacts according to his temperament or his physical make-up. I havo .seen a famous racing driver, a man with nerves of steel, get out of his car just after ho had broker, a record and bo physically sick by the roadside. Many men have done so. That is not fear. It is just n physical reaction, inducod, perhaps, by

tho sudden relaxation of tremendous mental and nervous tension. ' Some men shako like aspens or go deadly white when they have faced death and efcapcrl, taken a risk and won. Again that is not always fear. It is physical—mere matter of circulation and relaxation. " All the same, one can be horribly frightened after certain experiences. I have been scared out of my life, so to speak, beforo a race, and sull scared al'te- it was over. But I was not scared while it was on. That saved nie. And because T came cut alive I still went 011 racing. That is human nature. " And so long as human nature endures so long will men continuo to fear death, but to face it. to wish to live, yet to Hfuo dying. When they cense to ilo so they will cease to be men."