With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last
particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and
meditative way. When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the
feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he alone had eaten. The two
children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in
sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched
nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She
was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier
prettiness were not wanting in her face. The flour for the gravy she had
borrowed from the neighbour across the hall. The last two ha'pennies had
gone to buy the bread.
He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his
weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped
into the side pocket of his coat. The absence of any tobacco made him
aware of his action, and, with a scowl for his forgetfulness, he put the
pipe away. His movements were slow, almost hulking, as though he were
burdened by the heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied,
stolid-looking man, and his appearance did not suffer from being
overprepossessing. His rough clothes were old and slouchy. The uppers of
his shoes were too weak to carry the heavy re-soling that was itself
of no recent date. And his cotton shirt, a cheap, two shilling affair,
showed a frayed collar and ineradicable paint stains.
But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he
was. It was the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in
long years of service in the squared ring and, by that means, developed
and emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast. It was distinctly a
lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might escape notice, it
was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless and constituted a mouth harsh
to excess, that was like a gash in his face. The jaw was aggressive,
brutal, heavy. The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost
expressionless under the shaggy, indrawn brows. Sheer animal that he
was, the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were
sleepy, lion-like--the eyes of a fighting animal. The forehead slanted
quickly back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a
villainous-looking head. A nose twice broken and moulded variously
by countless blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and
distorted to twice its size, completed his adornment, while the beard,
fresh-shaven as it was, sprouted in the skin and gave the face a
blue-black stain.
Altogether, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or
lonely place. And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done
anything criminal. Outside of brawls, common to his walk in life, he had
harmed no one. Nor had he ever been known to pick a quarrel. He was a
professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was reserved
for his professional appearances. Outside the ring he was slow-going,
easy-natured, and, in his younger days, when money was flush, too
open-handed for his own good. He bore no grudges and had few enemies.
Fighting was a business with him. In the ring he struck to hurt, struck
to maim, struck to destroy; but there was no animus in it. It was
a plain business proposition. Audiences assembled and paid for the
spectacle of men knocking each other out. The winner took the big end of
the purse. When Tom King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years
before, he knew that the Gouger's jaw was only four months healed after
having been broken in a Newcastle bout. And he had played for that jaw
and broken it again in the ninth round, not because he bore the Gouger
any ill-will, but because that was the surest way to put the Gouger
out and win the big end of the purse. Nor had the Gouger borne him any
ill-will for it. It was the game, and both knew the game and played it.
Tom King had never been a talker, and he sat by the window, morosely
silent, staring at his hands. The veins stood out on the backs of the
hands, large and swollen; and the knuckles, smashed and battered and
malformed, testified to the use to which they had been put. He had never
heard that a man's life was the life of his arteries, but well he knew
the meaning of those big upstanding veins. His heart had pumped too much
blood through them at top pressure. They no longer did the work. He
had stretched the elasticity out of them, and with their distension had
passed his endurance. He tired easily now. No longer could he do a fast
twenty rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong,
with fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and
in turn beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and
fastest of all in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its
feet and yelling, himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers
of blows upon showers of blows and receiving showers of blows in return,
and all the time the heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through
the adequate veins. The veins, swollen at the time, had always
shrunk down again, though each time, imperceptibly at first, not
quite--remaining just a trifle larger than before. He stared at them and
at his battered knuckles, and, for the moment, caught a vision of the
youthful excellence of those hands before the first knuckle had been
smashed on the head of Benny Jones, otherwise known as the Welsh Terror.
The impression of his hunger came back on him.
“Blimey, but couldn't I go a piece of steak!” he muttered aloud,
clenching his huge fists and spitting out a smothered oath.
“I tried both Burke's an' Sawley's,” his wife said half apologetically.
“An' they wouldn't?” he demanded.
“Not a ha'penny. Burke said--” She faltered.
“G'wan! Wot'd he say?”
“As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel ud do ye to-night, an' as how yer score
was comfortable big as it was.”
Tom King grunted, but did not reply. He was busy thinking of the bull
terrier he had kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks
without end. Burke would have given him credit for a thousand
steaks--then. But times had changed. Tom King was getting old; and old
men, fighting before second-rate clubs, couldn't expect to run bills of
any size with the tradesmen.
He had got up in the morning with a longing for a piece of steak, and
the longing had not abated. He had not had a fair training for this
fight. It was a drought year in Australia, times were hard, and even
the most irregular work was difficult to find. He had had no sparring
partner, and his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient.
He had done a few days' navvy work when he could get it, and he had run
around the Domain in the early mornings to get his legs in shape. But
it was hard, training without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies
that must be fed. Credit with the tradesmen had undergone very slight
expansion when he was matched with Sandel. The secretary of the Gayety
Club had advanced him three pounds--the loser's end of the purse--and
beyond that had refused to go. Now and again he had managed to borrow a
few shillings from old pals, who would have lent more only that it was a
drought year and they were hard put themselves. No--and there was no
use in disguising the fact--his training had not been satisfactory.
He should have had better food and no worries. Besides, when a man is
forty, it is harder to get into condition than when he is twenty.
“What time is it, Lizzie?” he asked.
His wife went across the hall to inquire, and came back.
“Quarter before eight.”
“They'll be startin' the first bout in a few minutes,” he said. “Only a
try-out. Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley,
an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke. I don't come
on for over an hour.”
At the end of another silent ten minutes, he rose to his feet.
“Truth is, Lizzie, I ain't had proper trainin'.”
He reached for his hat and started for the door. He did not offer to
kiss her--he never did on going out--but on this night she dared to kiss
him, throwing her arms around him and compelling him to bend down to her
face. She looked quite small against the massive bulk of the man.
“Good luck, Tom,” she said. “You gotter do 'im.”
“Ay, I gotter do 'im,” he repeated. “That's all there is to it. I jus'
gotter do 'im.”
He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely
against him. Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room. It was
all he had in the world, with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies.
And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate
and cubs--not like a modern working-man going to his machine grind, but
in the old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it.
“I gotter do 'im,” he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his
voice. “If it's a win, it's thirty quid--an' I can pay all that's owin',
with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught--not even
a penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all that's
comin' from a loser's end. Good-bye, old woman. I'll come straight home
if it's a win.”
“An' I'll be waitin' up,” she called to him along the hall.
It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he
remembered how in his palmy days--he had once been the heavyweight
champion of New South Wales--he would have ridden in a cab to the fight,
and how, most likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and
ridden with him. There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee nigger, Jack
Johnson--they rode about in motor-cars. And he walked! And, as any man
knew, a hard two miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was
an old un, and the world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for
nothing now except navvy work, and his broken nose and swollen ear were
against him even in that. He found himself wishing that he had learned
a trade. It would have been better in the long run. But no one had
told him, and he knew, deep down in his heart, that he would not have
listened if they had. It had been so easy. Big money--sharp, glorious
fights--periods of rest and loafing in between--a following of eager
flatterers, the slaps on the back, the shakes of the hand, the toffs
glad to buy him a drink for the privilege of five minutes' talk--and
the glory of it, the yelling houses, the whirlwind finish, the referee's
“King wins!” and his name in the sporting columns next day.
Those had been times! But he realized now, in his slow, ruminating way,
that it was the old uns he had been putting away. He was Youth, rising;
and they were Age, sinking. No wonder it had been easy--they with their
swollen veins and battered knuckles and weary in the bones of them from
the long battles they had already fought. He remembered the time he put
out old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the eighteenth round,
and how old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room like a baby.
Perhaps old Bill's rent had been overdue. Perhaps he'd had at home a
missus an' a couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the
fight, had had a hungering for a piece of steak. Bill had fought game
and taken incredible punishment. He could see now, after he had gone
through the mill himself, that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger
stake, that night twenty years ago, than had young Tom King, who had
fought for glory and easy money. No wonder Stowsher Bill had cried
afterward in the dressing-room.
Well, a man had only so many fights in him, to begin with. It was the
iron law of the game. One man might have a hundred hard fights in him,
another man only twenty; each, according to the make of him and the
quality of his fibre, had a definite number, and, when he had fought
them, he was done. Yes, he had had more fights in him than most of
them, and he had had far more than his share of the hard, gruelling
fights--the kind that worked the heart and lungs to bursting, that took
the elastic out of the arteries and made hard knots of muscle out of
Youth's sleek suppleness, that wore out nerve and stamina and made brain
and bones weary from excess of effort and endurance overwrought. Yes,
he had done better than all of them. There were none of his old fighting
partners left. He was the last of the old guard. He had seen them all
finished, and he had had a hand in finishing some of them.
They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had
put them away--laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in
the dressing-room. And now he was an old un, and they tried out the
youngsters on him. There was that bloke, Sandel. He had come over from
New Zealand with a record behind him. But nobody in Australia knew
anything about him, so they put him up against old Tom King. If Sandel
made a showing, he would be given better men to fight, with bigger
purses to win; so it was to be depended upon that he would put up a
fierce battle. He had everything to win by it--money and glory and
career; and Tom King was the grizzled old chopping-block that guarded
the highway to fame and fortune. And he had nothing to win except thirty
quid, to pay to the landlord and the tradesmen. And, as Tom King thus
ruminated, there came to his stolid vision the form of Youth, glorious
Youth, rising exultant and invincible, supple of muscle and silken of
skin, with heart and lungs that had never been tired and torn and
that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, Youth was the Nemesis. It
destroyed the old uns and recked not that, in so doing, it destroyed
itself. It enlarged its arteries and smashed its knuckles, and was in
turn destroyed by Youth. For Youth was ever youthful. It was only Age
that grew old.
At Castlereagh Street he turned to the left, and three blocks along came
to the Gayety. A crowd of young larrikins hanging outside the door made
respectful way for him, and he heard one say to another: “That's 'im!
That's Tom King!”
Inside, on the way to his dressing-room, he encountered the secretary, a
keen-eyed, shrewd-faced young man, who shook his hand.
“How are you feelin', Tom?” he asked.
“Fit as a fiddle,” King answered, though he knew that he lied, and
that if he had a quid, he would give it right there for a good piece of
steak.
When he emerged from the dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and came
down the aisle to the squared ring in the centre of the hall, a burst
of greeting and applause went up from the waiting crowd. He acknowledged
salutations right and left, though few of the faces did he know. Most
of them were the faces of kiddies unborn when he was winning his first
laurels in the squared ring. He leaped lightly to the raised platform
and ducked through the ropes to his corner, where he sat down on a
folding stool. Jack Ball, the referee, came over and shook his hand.
Ball was a broken-down pugilist who for over ten years had not entered
the ring as a principal. King was glad that he had him for referee. They
were both old uns. If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the
rules, he knew Ball could be depended upon to pass it by.
Aspiring young heavyweights, one after another, were climbing into the
ring and being presented to the audience by the referee. Also, he issued
their challenges for them.
“Young Pronto,” Bill announced, “from North Sydney, challenges the
winner for fifty pounds side bet.”
The audience applauded, and applauded again as Sandel himself sprang
through the ropes and sat down in his corner. Tom King looked across
the ring at him curiously, for in a few minutes they would be locked
together in merciless combat, each trying with all the force of him
to knock the other into unconsciousness. But little could he see, for
Sandel, like himself, had trousers and sweater on over his ring costume.
His face was strongly handsome, crowned with a curly mop of yellow hair,
while his thick, muscular neck hinted at bodily magnificence.
Young Pronto went to one corner and then the other, shaking hands with
the principals and dropping down out of the ring. The challenges
went on. Ever Youth climbed through the ropes--Youth unknown, but
insatiable--crying out to mankind that with strength and skill it would
match issues with the winner. A few years before, in his own heyday
of invincibleness, Tom King would have been amused and bored by these
preliminaries. But now he sat fascinated, unable to shake the vision
of Youth from his eyes. Always were these youngsters rising up in the
boxing game, springing through the ropes and shouting their defiance;
and always were the old uns going down before them. They climbed to
success over the bodies of the old uns. And ever they came, more and
more youngsters--Youth unquenchable and irresistible--and ever they put
the old uns away, themselves becoming old uns and travelling the same
downward path, while behind them, ever pressing on them, was Youth
eternal--the new babies, grown lusty and dragging their elders down,
with behind them more babies to the end of time--Youth that must have
its will and that will never die.
King glanced over to the press box and nodded to Morgan, of the
Sportsman, and Corbett, of the Referee. Then he held out his hands,
while Sid Sullivan and Charley Bates, his seconds, slipped on his gloves
and laced them tight, closely watched by one of Sandel's seconds, who
first examined critically the tapes on King's knuckles. A second of his
own was in Sandel's corner, performing a like office. Sandel's trousers
were pulled off, and, as he stood up, his sweater was skinned off over
his head. And Tom King, looking, saw Youth incarnate, deep-chested,
heavy-thewed, with muscles that slipped and slid like live things under
the white satin skin. The whole body was a-crawl with life, and Tom King
knew that it was a life that had never oozed its freshness out through
the aching pores during the long fights wherein Youth paid its toll and
departed not quite so young as when it entered.
The two men advanced to meet each other, and, as the gong sounded and
the seconds clattered out of the ring with the folding stools, they
shook hands and instantly took their fighting attitudes. And instantly,
like a mechanism of steel and springs balanced on a hair trigger, Sandel
was in and out and in again, landing a left to the eyes, a right to the
ribs, ducking a counter, dancing lightly away and dancing menacingly
back again. He was swift and clever. It was a dazzling exhibition. The
house yelled its approbation. But King was not dazzled. He had fought
too many fights and too many youngsters. He knew the blows for what they
were--too quick and too deft to be dangerous. Evidently Sandel was going
to rush things from the start. It was to be expected. It was the way
of Youth, expending its splendour and excellence in wild insurgence and
furious onslaught, overwhelming opposition with its own unlimited glory
of strength and desire.
Sandel was in and out, here, there, and everywhere, light-footed and
eager-hearted, a living wonder of white flesh and stinging muscle that
wove itself into a dazzling fabric of attack, slipping and leaping like
a flying shuttle from action to action through a thousand actions, all
of them centred upon the destruction of Tom King, who stood between him
and fortune. And Tom King patiently endured. He knew his business, and
he knew Youth now that Youth was no longer his. There was nothing to do
till the other lost some of his steam, was his thought, and he grinned
to himself as he deliberately ducked so as to receive a heavy blow on
the top of his head. It was a wicked thing to do, yet eminently fair
according to the rules of the boxing game. A man was supposed to take
care of his own knuckles, and, if he insisted on hitting an opponent on
the top of the head, he did so at his own peril. King could have ducked
lower and let the blow whiz harmlessly past, but he remembered his own
early fights and how he smashed his first knuckle on the head of the
Welsh Terror. He was but playing the game. That duck had accounted for
one of Sandel's knuckles. Not that Sandel would mind it now. He would go
on, superbly regardless, hitting as hard as ever throughout the fight.
But later on, when the long ring battles had begun to tell, he would
regret that knuckle and look back and remember how he smashed it on Tom
King's head.
The first round was all Sandel's, and he had the house yelling with the
rapidity of his whirlwind rushes. He overwhelmed King with avalanches of
punches, and King did nothing. He never struck once, contenting
himself with covering up, blocking and ducking and clinching to avoid
punishment. He occasionally feinted, shook his head when the weight of
a punch landed, and moved stolidly about, never leaping or springing or
wasting an ounce of strength. Sandel must foam the froth of Youth away
before discreet Age could dare to retaliate. All King's movements were
slow and methodical, and his heavy-lidded, slow-moving eyes gave him the
appearance of being half asleep or dazed. Yet they were eyes that saw
everything, that had been trained to see everything through all his
twenty years and odd in the ring. They were eyes that did not blink
or waver before an impending blow, but that coolly saw and measured
distance.
Seated in his corner for the minute's rest at the end of the round, he
lay back with outstretched legs, his arms resting on the right angle of
the ropes, his chest and abdomen heaving frankly and deeply as he gulped
down the air driven by the towels of his seconds. He listened with
closed eyes to the voices of the house, “Why don't yeh fight, Tom?” many
were crying. “Yeh ain't afraid of 'im, are yeh?”
“Muscle-bound,” he heard a man on a front seat comment. “He can't move
quicker. Two to one on Sandel, in quids.”
The gong struck and the two men advanced from their corners. Sandel came
forward fully three-quarters of the distance, eager to begin again; but
King was content to advance the shorter distance. It was in line with
his policy of economy. He had not been well trained, and he had not had
enough to eat, and every step counted. Besides, he had already walked
two miles to the ringside. It was a repetition of the first round, with
Sandel attacking like a whirlwind and with the audience indignantly
demanding why King did not fight. Beyond feinting and several slowly
delivered and ineffectual blows he did nothing save block and stall
and clinch. Sandel wanted to make the pace fast, while King, out of his
wisdom, refused to accommodate him. He grinned with a certain wistful
pathos in his ring-battered countenance, and went on cherishing his
strength with the jealousy of which only Age is capable. Sandel was
Youth, and he threw his strength away with the munificent abandon of
Youth. To King belonged the ring generalship, the wisdom bred of long,
aching fights. He watched with cool eyes and head, moving slowly
and waiting for Sandel's froth to foam away. To the majority of the
onlookers it seemed as though King was hopelessly outclassed, and they
voiced their opinion in offers of three to one on Sandel. But there were
wise ones, a few, who knew King of old time, and who covered what they
considered easy money.
The third round began as usual, one-sided, with Sandel doing all the
leading, and delivering all the punishment. A half-minute had passed
when Sandel, over-confident, left an opening. King's eyes and right arm
flashed in the same instant. It was his first real blow--a hook, with
the twisted arch of the arm to make it rigid, and with all the weight
of the half-pivoted body behind it. It was like a sleepy-seeming lion
suddenly thrusting out a lightning paw. Sandel, caught on the side of
the jaw, was felled like a bullock. The audience gasped and murmured
awe-stricken applause. The man was not muscle-bound, after all, and he
could drive a blow like a trip-hammer.
Sandel was shaken. He rolled over and attempted to rise, but the sharp
yells from his seconds to take the count restrained him. He knelt on
one knee, ready to rise, and waited, while the referee stood over him,
counting the seconds loudly in his ear. At the ninth he rose in fighting
attitude, and Tom King, facing him, knew regret that the blow had
not been an inch nearer the point of the jaw. That would have been a
knock-out, and he could have carried the thirty quid home to the missus
and the kiddies.
The round continued to the end of its three minutes, Sandel for the
first time respectful of his opponent and King slow of movement and
sleepy-eyed as ever. As the round neared its close, King, warned of the
fact by sight of the seconds crouching outside ready for the spring in
through the ropes, worked the fight around to his own corner. And when
the gong struck, he sat down immediately on the waiting stool, while
Sandel had to walk all the way across the diagonal of the square to his
own corner. It was a little thing, but it was the sum of little things
that counted. Sandel was compelled to walk that many more steps, to give
up that much energy, and to lose a part of the precious minute of rest.
At the beginning of every round King loafed slowly out from his corner,
forcing his opponent to advance the greater distance. The end of every
round found the fight manoeuvred by King into his own corner so that he
could immediately sit down.
Two more rounds went by, in which King was parsimonious of effort and
Sandel prodigal. The latter's attempt to force a fast pace made King
uncomfortable, for a fair percentage of the multitudinous blows showered
upon him went home. Yet King persisted in his dogged slowness, despite
the crying of the young hot-heads for him to go in and fight. Again,
in the sixth round, Sandel was careless, again Tom King's fearful right
flashed out to the jaw, and again Sandel took the nine seconds count.
By the seventh round Sandel's pink of condition was gone, and he settled
down to what he knew was to be the hardest fight in his experience. Tom
King was an old un, but a better old un than he had ever encountered--an
old un who never lost his head, who was remarkably able at defence,
whose blows had the impact of a knotted club, and who had a knockout in
either hand. Nevertheless, Tom King dared not hit often. He never
forgot his battered knuckles, and knew that every hit must count if the
knuckles were to last out the fight. As he sat in his corner, glancing
across at his opponent, the thought came to him that the sum of
his wisdom and Sandel's youth would constitute a world's champion
heavyweight. But that was the trouble. Sandel would never become a world
champion. He lacked the wisdom, and the only way for him to get it was
to buy it with Youth; and when wisdom was his, Youth would have been
spent in buying it.
King took every advantage he knew. He never missed an opportunity to
clinch, and in effecting most of the clinches his shoulder drove stiffly
into the other's ribs. In the philosophy of the ring a shoulder was as
good as a punch so far as damage was concerned, and a great deal better
so far as concerned expenditure of effort. Also, in the clinches
King rested his weight on his opponent, and was loath to let go. This
compelled the interference of the referee, who tore them apart, always
assisted by Sandel, who had not yet learned to rest. He could not
refrain from using those glorious flying arms and writhing muscles of
his, and when the other rushed into a clinch, striking shoulder against
ribs, and with head resting under Sandel's left arm, Sandel almost
invariably swung his right behind his own back and into the projecting
face. It was a clever stroke, much admired by the audience, but it was
not dangerous, and was, therefore, just that much wasted strength. But
Sandel was tireless and unaware of limitations, and King grinned and
doggedly endured.
Sandel developed a fierce right to the body, which made it appear that
King was taking an enormous amount of punishment, and it was only the
old ringsters who appreciated the deft touch of King's left glove to the
other's biceps just before the impact of the blow. It was true, the blow
landed each time; but each time it was robbed of its power by that touch
on the biceps. In the ninth round, three times inside a minute, King's
right hooked its twisted arch to the jaw; and three times Sandel's body,
heavy as it was, was levelled to the mat. Each time he took the nine
seconds allowed him and rose to his feet, shaken and jarred, but still
strong. He had lost much of his speed, and he wasted less effort. He was
fighting grimly; but he continued to draw upon his chief asset, which
was Youth. King's chief asset was experience. As his vitality had dimmed
and his vigour abated, he had replaced them with cunning, with wisdom
born of the long fights and with a careful shepherding of strength. Not
alone had he learned never to make a superfluous movement, but he had
learned how to seduce an opponent into throwing his strength away. Again
and again, by feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle
Sandel into leaping back, ducking, or countering. King rested, but he
never permitted Sandel to rest. It was the strategy of Age.
Early in the tenth round King began stopping the other's rushes with
straight lefts to the face, and Sandel, grown wary, responded by drawing
the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook
to the side of the head. It was too high up to be vitally effective; but
when first it landed, King knew the old, familiar descent of the black
veil of unconsciousness across his mind. For the instant, or for the
slighest fraction of an instant, rather, he ceased. In the one moment he
saw his opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background
of white, watching faces; in the next moment he again saw his opponent
and the background of faces. It was as if he had slept for a time and
just opened his eyes again, and yet the interval of unconsciousness was
so microscopically short that there had been no time for him to fall.
The audience saw him totter and his knees give, and then saw him recover
and tuck his chin deeper into the shelter of his left shoulder.
Several times Sandel repeated the blow, keeping King partially dazed,
and then the latter worked out his defence, which was also a counter.
Feinting with his left he took a half-step backward, at the same time
upper cutting with the whole strength of his right. So accurately was
it timed that it landed squarely on Sandel's face in the full, downward
sweep of the duck, and Sandel lifted in the air and curled backward,
striking the mat on his head and shoulders. Twice King achieved this,
then turned loose and hammered his opponent to the ropes. He gave Sandel
no chance to rest or to set himself, but smashed blow in upon blow till
the house rose to its feet and the air was filled with an unbroken roar
of applause. But Sandel's strength and endurance were superb, and he
continued to stay on his feet. A knock-out seemed certain, and a captain
of police, appalled at the dreadful punishment, arose by the ringside
to stop the fight. The gong struck for the end of the round and Sandel
staggered to his corner, protesting to the captain that he was sound
and strong. To prove it, he threw two back-air-springs, and the police
captain gave in.
Tom King, leaning back in his corner and breathing hard, was
disappointed. If the fight had been stopped, the referee, perforce,
would have rendered him the decision and the purse would have been his.
Unlike Sandel, he was not fighting for glory or career, but for thirty
quid. And now Sandel would recuperate in the minute of rest.
Youth will be served--this saying flashed into King's mind, and he
remembered the first time he had heard it, the night when he had put
away Stowsher Bill. The toff who had bought him a drink after the fight
and patted him on the shoulder had used those words. Youth will be
served! The toff was right. And on that night in the long ago he had
been Youth. To-night Youth sat in the opposite corner. As for himself,
he had been fighting for half an hour now, and he was an old man. Had
he fought like Sandel, he would not have lasted fifteen minutes. But the
point was that he did not recuperate. Those upstanding arteries and
that sorely tried heart would not enable him to gather strength in the
intervals between the rounds. And he had not had sufficient strength in
him to begin with. His legs were heavy under him and beginning to cramp.
He should not have walked those two miles to the fight. And there was
the steak which he had got up longing for that morning. A great and
terrible hatred rose up in him for the butchers who had refused him
credit. It was hard for an old man to go into a fight without enough
to eat. And a piece of steak was such a little thing, a few pennies at
best; yet it meant thirty quid to him.
With the gong that opened the eleventh round, Sandel rushed, making a
show of freshness which he did not really possess. King knew it for what
it was--a bluff as old as the game itself. He clinched to save himself,
then, going free, allowed Sandel to get set. This was what King desired.
He feinted with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward
hook, then made the half-step backward, delivered the upper cut full to
the face and crumpled Sandel over to the mat. After that he never
let him rest, receiving punishment himself, but inflicting far more,
smashing Sandel to the ropes, hooking and driving all manner of
blows into him, tearing away from his clinches or punching him out of
attempted clinches, and ever when Sandel would have fallen, catching him
with one uplifting hand and with the other immediately smashing him into
the ropes where he could not fall.
The house by this time had gone mad, and it was his house, nearly every
voice yelling: “Go it, Tom!” “Get 'im! Get 'im!” “You've got 'im, Tom!
You've got 'im!” It was to be a whirlwind finish, and that was what a
ringside audience paid to see.
And Tom King, who for half an hour had conserved his strength, now
expended it prodigally in the one great effort he knew he had in him. It
was his one chance--now or not at all. His strength was waning fast, and
his hope was that before the last of it ebbed out of him he would have
beaten his opponent down for the count. And as he continued to strike
and force, coolly estimating the weight of his blows and the quality of
the damage wrought, he realized how hard a man Sandel was to knock out.
Stamina and endurance were his to an extreme degree, and they were the
virgin stamina and endurance of Youth. Sandel was certainly a coming
man. He had it in him. Only out of such rugged fibre were successful
fighters fashioned.
Sandel was reeling and staggering, but Tom King's legs were cramping
and his knuckles going back on him. Yet he steeled himself to strike the
fierce blows, every one of which brought anguish to his tortured hands.
Though now he was receiving practically no punishment, he was weakening
as rapidly as the other. His blows went home, but there was no longer
the weight behind them, and each blow was the result of a severe effort
of will. His legs were like lead, and they dragged visibly under
him; while Sandel's backers, cheered by this symptom, began calling
encouragement to their man.
King was spurred to a burst of effort. He delivered two blows in
succession--a left, a trifle too high, to the solar plexus, and a right
cross to the jaw. They were not heavy blows, yet so weak and dazed was
Sandel that he went down and lay quivering. The referee stood over him,
shouting the count of the fatal seconds in his ear. If before the tenth
second was called, he did not rise, the fight was lost. The house stood
in hushed silence. King rested on trembling legs. A mortal dizziness was
upon him, and before his eyes the sea of faces sagged and swayed, while
to his ears, as from a remote distance, came the count of the referee.
Yet he looked upon the fight as his. It was impossible that a man so
punished could rise.
Only Youth could rise, and Sandel rose. At the fourth second he rolled
over on his face and groped blindly for the ropes. By the seventh second
he had dragged himself to his knee, where he rested, his head rolling
groggily on his shoulders. As the referee cried “Nine!” Sandel stood
upright, in proper stalling position, his left arm wrapped about his
face, his right wrapped about his stomach. Thus were his vital points
guarded, while he lurched forward toward King in the hope of effecting a
clinch and gaining more time.
At the instant Sandel arose, King was at him, but the two blows he
delivered were muffled on the stalled arms. The next moment Sandel was
in the clinch and holding on desperately while the referee strove to
drag the two men apart. King helped to force himself free. He knew the
rapidity with which Youth recovered, and he knew that Sandel was his if
he could prevent that recovery. One stiff punch would do it. Sandel
was his, indubitably his. He had out-generalled him, out-fought him,
out-pointed him. Sandel reeled out of the clinch, balanced on the hair
line between defeat or survival. One good blow would topple him over
and down and out. And Tom King, in a flash of bitterness, remembered
the piece of steak and wished that he had it then behind that necessary
punch he must deliver. He nerved himself for the blow, but it was
not heavy enough nor swift enough. Sandel swayed, but did not fall,
staggering back to the ropes and holding on. King staggered after him,
and, with a pang like that of dissolution, delivered another blow.
But his body had deserted him. All that was left of him was a fighting
intelligence that was dimmed and clouded from exhaustion. The blow that
was aimed for the jaw struck no higher than the shoulder. He had willed
the blow higher, but the tired muscles had not been able to obey. And,
from the impact of the blow, Tom King himself reeled back and nearly
fell. Once again he strove. This time his punch missed altogether, and,
from absolute weakness, he fell against Sandel and clinched, holding on
to him to save himself from sinking to the floor.
King did not attempt to free himself. He had shot his bolt. He was
gone. And Youth had been served. Even in the clinch he could feel Sandel
growing stronger against him. When the referee thrust them apart, there,
before his eyes, he saw Youth recuperate. From instant to instant Sandel
grew stronger. His punches, weak and futile at first, became stiff and
accurate. Tom King's bleared eyes saw the gloved fist driving at his
jaw, and he willed to guard it by interposing his arm. He saw the
danger, willed the act; but the arm was too heavy. It seemed burdened
with a hundredweight of lead. It would not lift itself, and he strove to
lift it with his soul. Then the gloved fist landed home. He experienced
a sharp snap that was like an electric spark, and, simultaneously, the
veil of blackness enveloped him.
When he opened his eyes again he was in his corner, and he heard the
yelling of the audience like the roar of the surf at Bondi Beach. A wet
sponge was being pressed against the base of his brain, and Sid Sullivan
was blowing cold water in a refreshing spray over his face and chest.
His gloves had already been removed, and Sandel, bending over him, was
shaking his hand. He bore no ill-will toward the man who had put him
out and he returned the grip with a heartiness that made his battered
knuckles protest. Then Sandel stepped to the centre of the ring and
the audience hushed its pandemonium to hear him accept young Pronto's
challenge and offer to increase the side bet to one hundred pounds. King
looked on apathetically while his seconds mopped the streaming water
from him, dried his face, and prepared him to leave the ring. He felt
hungry. It was not the ordinary, gnawing kind, but a great faintness,
a palpitation at the pit of the stomach that communicated itself to all
his body. He remembered back into the fight to the moment when he had
Sandel swaying and tottering on the hair-line balance of defeat. Ah,
that piece of steak would have done it! He had lacked just that for
the decisive blow, and he had lost. It was all because of the piece of
steak.
His seconds were half-supporting him as they helped him through the
ropes. He tore free from them, ducked through the ropes unaided, and
leaped heavily to the floor, following on their heels as they forced a
passage for him down the crowded centre aisle. Leaving the dressing-room
for the street, in the entrance to the hall, some young fellow spoke to
him.
“W'y didn't yuh go in an' get 'im when yuh 'ad 'im?” the young fellow
asked.
“Aw, go to hell!” said Tom King, and passed down the steps to the
sidewalk.
The doors of the public-house at the corner were swinging wide, and
he saw the lights and the smiling barmaids, heard the many voices
discussing the fight and the prosperous chink of money on the bar.
Somebody called to him to have a drink. He hesitated perceptibly, then
refused and went on his way.
He had not a copper in his pocket, and the two-mile walk home seemed
very long. He was certainly getting old. Crossing the Domain, he sat
down suddenly on a bench, unnerved by the thought of the missus sitting
up for him, waiting to learn the outcome of the fight. That was harder
than any knockout, and it seemed almost impossible to face.
He felt weak and sore, and the pain of his smashed knuckles warned him
that, even if he could find a job at navvy work, it would be a week
before he could grip a pick handle or a shovel. The hunger palpitation
at the pit of the stomach was sickening. His wretchedness overwhelmed
him, and into his eyes came an unwonted moisture. He covered his face
with his hands, and, as he cried, he remembered Stowsher Bill and how
he had served him that night in the long ago. Poor old Stowsher Bill!
He could understand now why Bill had cried in the dressing-room.