Down Whitechapel way is a place famous for dealing out sleep by the
fistful twice a week.
None of your six thousand pounds Albert Hall fox-trots here. This is
Knockout Land. It is, I imagine, the nearest thing to a bull-fight
you will see in this country. Good, hard, slamming fifteen-round
contests follow each other, with the ropes trembling and the fight
fans howling like a pack of hungry wolves, and two half naked men
with strawberry-coloured noses, hitting, gasping, reeling....
A great high hall blue with smoke, steel-girdered at the roof like a
railway station. It is packed by a cloth-capped crowd, predominantly
Oriental--a crowd of swift murmurs and sudden silences and sharp,
instantaneous uproars. Good tempered now, but--O my!--suppose
somebody started a row! There is not one woman present. The elegant
girls in evening gowns who sit out Albert Hall prize fights have no
place here. It is a gathering of fight fans. In the centre under
bright, white lights rises the ring. The men in it are like men on a
raft floating on a sea of restless, white faces.
Suddenly five or six men near the ring leap to their feet and shout
"Five to one on Cohen!"
The hall becomes thick with wagers. Arms shoot out, men shout, no
record is made (except that in a keen Hebrew mind), and every one is
quite happy about it. Even if the Jew were not so commercially
reliable, who would dare to be crooked here!
Look! The seconds in their white sweaters are busy. Two fighters
enter the ring. Their bodies glisten in the light. One is white,
the other olive-coloured, Eastern. They square up, crouch, dance
round each other, then pat, pat-pat, pat-pat-pat--crack! A howl goes
up from the crowd! That was a hit! Smash! Another one! Right! to
the ropes! Back he comes, a little wild, and his opponent is driven
away under the speed of his assault. Blows rain on each body, pink
patches appear on chests and chins, both men dodge this way and that,
a bell rings. Time!
"Chocolates!" cries a man with a tray.
I want to laugh. A less chocolate-like crowd I have never seen.
Jellied eels, perhaps, beer undoubtedly, beefsteaks certainly; but
milk chocolate--how astonishing!
Round fifteen! Both men are all in. They have pounded each other to
pulp. I wonder if they can hear the yells and roars of the audience.
Their legs drag. They are weak with hitting. You can see what they
meant to do as a blow falls short, you can reach out and enter their
exhausted minds, sympathize with them in their hazy world as they dog
each other to plant the knock-out for which every one is waiting.
Smash! Right on the chin! The smashed one reels to the ropes, but
comes back for more trouble, with his mouth sagging and something in
his expression which suggests to me that he is not really here at
all, but possibly wandering through some field rich with buttercups,
with a little old public-house round the bend in the road.... Smash!
He's taken another one! The scene in his dazed mind changes! He
awakens from some stellar night, and comes alive again out of
careering constellations to rush with the desperation of last
strength on his opponent. Crack-crack--bang! Surely the knockout;
surely he cannot stand any more? His head must be like iron, his
jaws like steel.
He reels, his arms drop, his nightmare mind tries to grapple with the
padded realities waiting for him, he makes an effort to hit. The
other man is now ready to land him one that will lift him off his
feet. He is the gladiator standing over him with lifted sword
and--no appeal to the amphitheatre. It is only a question of a
second now. Something brutal and masculine inside me desires to see
him knocked out; something weak and feminine inside me wishes it was
not necessary.
The victor draws back his head, the muscles ripple along his wet
back, he shoots out an arm, and the other man crumples like a
marionette at the end of a cut string. He lies in a corner of the
ring, moves a leg once, and is still. I feel sure he is dead. In
two minutes, with water trickling over his reddened face, he staggers
to his feet, smiles a painful, swollen smile, shakes hands with the
man who put him to sleep, and gropes out into the obscurity of the
yelling crowd.
* * *
"And how much do they get for fighting here?"
"Oh, thirty-five bob," replies an official. "Sometimes as much as
fifty."
I wonder what our elegant bruisers would think about it as I make my
way out into the darkness of the wet streets.