The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
says:
“No, no, Tom. This fellow’s more of a boxing man than any of you know. I’d not care to mill with anyone who didn’t hit back. I’ll spar, gentle-like, and when he goes home he can say he’s been in a fight.”
So they went to it again, and Jack moved about now, smooth as a dancer for all his years, and tapped his glove on Bismarck’s head and chin and body, while the other smashed away at him and hit nothing. I encouraged him by haw-hawing every time he missed, for I wanted him to realise what an ass he looked, and he bore in all the harder, flailing at Jack’s head and shoulders while the old champion turned, feinted and slipped away, leaving him floundering.
“That’s enough!” shouts someone. “Time out, you fellows, and let’s drink to it!” and there were several voices which cried aye, aye, at which Jack dropped his hands and looked to Spottswood. But Bismarck rushed in, and Jack, in fending him off with a left, tapped him a little harder than he meant to, and bloodied his nose.
That stopped the German in his tracks, and Jack, all crestfallen, was stepping in to apologise, when to everyone’s amazement Bismarck ran at him, seized him round the waist, swung him off his feet, and hurled him to the floor. He landed with a tremendous crash, his head striking the boards, and in a moment everyone was on his feet, shouting and cheering. Some cried “Foul!” while others applauded the German—they were the drunker ones—and then there was a sudden hush as Jack shook his head and slowly got to his feet.
He looked shaken, and furious, too, but he had himself in hand.
“All right, mynheer,” says he. “I didn’t know we was holding and throwing.” I don’t suppose anything like it had happened to him in his life before, and his pride was wounded far worse than his body. “My own fault, for not looking out,” says he. “Well, well, let it go. You can say you’ve downed John Gully,” and he looked round the room, slowly, as though trying to read what everyone was thinking.
“Best stop now, I think,” says he at last.
“You do not wish to continue?” cries Bismarck. He looked fairly blown, but the arrogant note in his voice was there, as ever.
Gully stared at him a moment. “Best not,” says he.
The room was uncomfortably quiet, until Bismarck laughed his short laugh and shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, very well,” says, he, “since you do not wish it.”
Two red spots came into Jack’s pale cheeks. “I think it’s best to stop now,” says he, in a hard voice. “If you’re wise, mynheer, you’ll make the most of that.”
“As you please,” says Bismarck, and to my delight he added: “It is you who are ending the bout, you know.”
Jack’s face was a study. Spottswood had a hand on his shoulder, and Perceval was at his side, while the rest were crowding round, chattering excitedly, and Bismarck was looking about him with all his old bounce and side. It was too much for Jack.
“Right,” says he, shaking Spottswood off. “Put your hands up.”
“No, no,” cries Perceval, “this has gone far enough.”
“I quit to nobody,” says Jack, grim as a hangman. “‘End the bout’, is it? I’ll end it for him, sure enough.”
“For God’s sake, man,” says Perceval. “Remember who you are, and who he is. He’s a guest, a stranger—”
“A stranger who threw me foul,” says old Jack.
“He don’t know the rules.”
“It was a mistake.”
“It was a fair throw.”
“No t’wasn’t.”
Old Jack stood breathing heavily. “Now, look’ee,” says he. “I give it him he threw me not knowing it was an unfair advantage, when I was off guard on account of having tapped his claret. I give it him he was angry and didn’t think, ’cos I’d been making a pudding of him. I’ll shake hands wi’ him on all of that—but I won’t have him strutting off and saying I asked to end the fight. Nobody says that to me—no, not Tom Cribb himself, by God.”
Everyone began to yammer at once, Perceval trying to push them away and calm Jack down, but most of us well content to see the mischief increase—it wasn’t every day one could see Gully box in earnest, which he seemed ready to do. Tom appealed to Bismarck, but the German, smiling his superior smile, just says:
“I am prepared to continue.”
After that, try as Tom might, he was over-ruled, and presently they were facing up to each other again. I was delighted, of course; this was more than I had hoped for, although I feared that Gully’s good nature would make him let Bismarck off lightly. His pride was hurt, but he was a fair-minded fool, and I guessed he would just rap the German once or twice, smartly, to show him who was master and let it go at that. Perceval was hoping so, at all events. “Go easy, Jack, for God’s sake,” he cried, and then they set to.
I don’t know what Bismarck hoped for. He wasn’t a fool, and Gully had demonstrated already that the German was a child in his hands. I can only suppose that he thought he had a chance of throwing Gully again, and was too damned conceited to escape gratefully. At any rate, he went in swinging both arms, and Jack rapped him over the heart and then cracked him a neat left on the head when he was off balance, which knocked him down.
“Time!” cries Spottswood, but Bismarck didn’t understand, and bounding up he rushed at Gully, and with a lucky swing, caught him on the ear. Jack staggered, righted himself, and as if by instinct smacked two blows into Bismarck’s belly. He went down, gasping and wheezing, and Perceval ran forward, saying that this was the end, he would have no more of it.
But the German, when he had straightened up, got his breath back and wiped the trickle of blood from his nose, was determined to go on. Gully said no, and Bismarck sneered at him, and the upshot was that they squared away again, and Gully knocked him off his feet.
But still he got up, and now Gully was sickened, and refused to go on, and when he held out his hand Bismarck struck at him, at which Gully hammered him one in the face, which sent him headlong, and on the instant Gully was cursing himself for a bad-tempered fool, and calling for Spottswood to take off his gloves, and Tom was raising Bismarck off the floor, and a splendidly gory face he presented, too. And there was a tremendous hubbub, with drunk chaps crying “Shame!” and “Stop the fight!” and “Hit him again!” and Perceval almost crying with mortification, and Gully stamping off in a corner, swearing he hadn’t meant to hurt the fellow, but what could he do? and Bismarck white-faced, being helped into one of the chairs, where they sponged his face and gave him brandy. There were apologies, and protestations, and Gully and Bismarck finally shook hands, and Jack said he was ashamed of himself, as an Englishman, and would Bismarck forgive him? Bismarck, with his mouth puffed and split where Jack’s last blow had caught him, and his fine aristocratic nose crusted with his own blood—I’d have given twenty guineas to see it properly smashed—said it was nothing, and he was obliged to Mr Gully for the instruction. He then added that he was capable of continuing, and that the fight had not been stopped at his request, at which old Jack took a big breath but said nothing, and the others cheered and Conyngham cried:
“Good for the Prussian! A dam’ game bird he is! Hurrah!”
This was the signal for the drinking to start again, in earnest, while two of the company, flown with pugilistic ardour, put on the mauleys and began to spar away drunkenly, and losing their tempers, finished up savaging each other on the floor. Perceval stayed by Bismarck, muttering apologies while the German waved them away and sipped brandy through his battered mouth. Gully simply went over to the sideboard and poured drink into himself until he was completely foxed; no one had ever seen him so shaken and unhappy before, or known him drink more than the most modest amount. But I knew why he was doing it; he was ashamed. It is a terrible thing to have ideals and a conscience, to say nothing of professional pride. He told