Black Ajax

by George MacDonald Fraser

  I couldn't ha' told him, any better than I can tell you now. God knows 'twasn't skill, for he had none, hardly. The broken panel testified that he could fib uncommon hard, supposing an opponent ever let him, his left had been fast enough to catch Richmond once (which had mortified Bill, I knew, though he never let on), and I believed him when he claimed not to be hurt – I doubted if much could damage that black nob, which might ha' been solid bone for all the sense it contained. All that didn't amount to snuff in his favour, yet I felt there was something in him, if only that the great ignorant booby, a freed slave, mark you, had made his way, the Lord alone knew how, across the ocean to a foreign land to try his hand at the impossible. It was an infant reaching for the moon – no, a Yahoo in search of the Holy Grail, if you like. To see him there in Richmond's kitchen, glowering mumchance with his ragged shirt in his hand, mumbling about “whup-ping Cribb”, when a retired pug of fifty-odd, who'd never been more than middling useful, had just made him look like a looby … why, it was laughable. Whatever could have inspired his ridiculous dream? The pathetic thing was that he believed it. Most folk would have said he was dicked in the nob … or that I was.

  “He's got beef, Bill,” says I, “and bottom, I dare say. Enough to earn him a few bob against the make-weight bruisers, if he was trained a little.”

  “An' where's the good in that, I should like to know?” scoffs Bill. “Anyways, who says he's got bottom? He's a nigger, ain't he? Cap'n, there's butchers an' draymen an' 'prentice boys, an' tailors even, that'd fib him to death! Damme, Ikey Bittoon's faster on his pins, an' he couldn't catch up wi' the mutes at a funeral! 'Sides, I got the ken to mind; I can't waste time on black hobbledehoys.”

  “Then get Paddington Jones. He'll train him if anyone can. I'll see him right, and pay this chap's board, too.”

  He looked at me quizzy-like. “You mean it, cap'n, don't ye? Well, ne'er mind the board. A few quid'll do for Pad, though why you should blow away your blunt beats me.” He looked at Tom, and sniffed. “He might win ye a guinea in side-bets against some drunk farmer, naught better. What d'ye think the likes o' Randall or Tom Belcher, aye, or Baldwin or Dogherty would do to him, eh?”

  “I can't say, Bill,” I told him. “But I doubt if they can catch a fly on the wing. And I'm certain sure they don't think they can beat Tom Cribb.”

  PADDINGTON JONES,

  resumed

  Now, as I told you, sir, Tom was a bad 'un to manage, but my oath! he was a prime pippen to train. I've said it afore, and I say it still, of all the scores I handled and coached and held the bottle for, there never was one that was a quicker study – as a fighter. Not that he was sharp in the mind; as I've said, he was a right jobbernowl when it came to using his noddle, but if ever a man carried his brains in his fists and feet, Tom did. I knew it, too, soon as I felt him out at half-arm. Course I did.

  I'll never forget that day; it was the strangest thing. I was taking my wet in the Coach and Horses, which was Jem Belcher's ken in Frith Street, that he went to after he gave up the Jolly Brewer, and what d'ye think we were cracking the whid about? Why, the want of good heavyweights, and not a star in the sky to compare with Cribb – and 'twas in that very moment I had the summons that was to put me in the way of Tom Molineaux! What d'ye think o' that, sir? I remember Jem's very words:

  “I'll be hanged if there's one fit to spar with Cribb, even, since I gave over my belt! Why the pick of 'em, Gregson and all, would turn tail if my Trusty so much as barked at 'em!” Trusty was his dog, you understand, that he had of Lord Camelford. “By God, if I'd my two eyes, I'd back myself against any fourteen-stone man in the kingdom!”

  No one denied it, but said “Aye, aye, Jem, you're right there!” for all knew how bitter Jem was over his dead ogle. Mind you, I'll not say he was wrong; if he'd had both eyes when he met Cribb, well, I'd not ha' cared to live on the difference between 'em. He could never find his distance, you see, with one peeper gone, as he found when he challenged Hen Pearce and was done in eighteen rounds. That was when Gully, you know, said Belcher couldn't ha' beat Pearce if he'd had four eyes, and I reckon 'twas that jibe that resolved Jem to challenge Cribb – aye, twice he tried, and twice he lost. Well, sir, a man should know when his day's past, ain't that so? Course he should.

  He took it very ill, did Jem, him not being above twenty-eight when he fought his last battle, and on the day I speak of he was sour as a crab, running over all his old victories, even his brawl with Joe Berks at Wimbledon Common the day I fought Ikey Bittoon – d'ye know, sir, we set to in the shadow o' the gallows where Jerry Abershaw, the great bridle cull, was a-hanging in chains! You don't see that sort o' decorations at sporting matches these days! “Aye,” cries Jem, “and Abershaw's corp could show more game than half of today's millers, damned if it couldn't! There's not a good heavy man left in England, depend upon it!”

  That was the very second, sir, that I had word that Bill Richmond was looking for me. “Whose dog's dead?” thinks I, and toddled down to the Prad and Swimmer, and there was this great black cove in the yard, stripped to the buff, lifting the four-stone weights one-handed, sir, as if they was straws. Damme if I ever see a finer specimen.

  “Cap'n Buck thinks we can make a miller out o' him,” says Bill Richmond. “What d'ye say, Pad?”

  “I shouldn't wonder,” says I. “If he fibs as well as he peels he'll do some mischief.”

  “Ha!” says Bill. “Well, he fibs like a casualty, and above par at that. I think the Cap'n's apartment's to let myself, but ‘Get Pad Jones’, says he, ‘and I'll pay the shot’, so there ye are.”

  Well, Tom and I put on the mauleys, and in two minutes' sparring I knew three things. He couldn't box, he couldn't move – and he had hands as fast as Dan Mendoza at his best.

  “Well, now, blackee,” says I. “Put off the gloves and let's see ye dance.” I had to say it four times afore I could get it into his head what I wanted, and then blow me if he didn't dance a hornpipe! I asked him where he'd learned it, and he says, off an English sailor in America.

  “A rare teacher he must ha' been,” says Bill. “I seen heifers could dance better. What are ye about, Pad? He won't do, am I right?”

  “Oh, he'll do,” says I. “But what he'll do, or how far, we'll have to see.” Truth was, sir, I could feel my innards singing as they hadn't done in ten years and more, when I first saw Jem Belcher at work in old Bill Warr's dining-room at Covent Garden. He was seventeen then, was Jem, and just come to Town, and damned if he didn't floor old Bill, who was one of the nimblest shifters in the game, half a dozen times. ‘This 'un can go with any man in the kingdom!’ says Warr – well, I couldn't say that of Tom, not by a mile, but just the speed o' that left hand, sir, was enough for me. If the rest didn't follow, then I was a Dutchman. I told Bill then and there I would take the lad in hand.

  “The Cap'n ain't the only one with a ‘For sale’ sign on his shap,” mutters Bill. “Very good – we'll give him the regular diet. Out on the road, under the mattresses, hefting the hammers, but if you think you can teach him to guard and counter, God help you, 'cos I can't.”

  “You keep your hammers and mattresses both,” says I. “He's strong as a bull already, and he don't need no purges nor draughts neither. Any fat on him'll sweat off with a bit o' breathing. Now, Bill,” I told him, “you mind the tap, I'll mind the boy. Send us out those two big glim-sticks from the kitchen, will ye?”

  He gave me a rum look, but presently the little scrub-girl, Betty, brought out the candlesticks, fine heavy articles nigh on three feet long, and I strapped 'em on Tom, one to each leg. While I was about it, Betty stood admiring Tom as though he were the Lord Mayor come to visit, and I thought, aye, you won't be the only one, my gel, and sent her packing. She was a little wisp of a thing, with a face as dirty as her apron, but she fair glowed at Tom, and when he smiled at her with that great ugly grin of teeth, she laughed right out and scampered inside.

  “Now then, Tom, let's see ye dance the hornpipe,” says I. He ha
dn't said a word, but now he glowered at the glim-sticks.

  “Cain't dance wi' sech things,” says he, growling sullen.

  “Yes ye can,” says I. “Ye want to be a miller, don't ye? Then you'll mind what I say, and do as I bid you, no matter what. So stir your hopper-dockers! Come, now – caper!”

  You see what I was after, sir? If a man's slow on his pins, you make him walk and run and dance encumbered, no matter how clumsy at first, until he can move as quick with the weights as he did without 'em. Then, when you take them off, you'll find he's twice as fast as he was before. Tom wore them glim-sticks hour in, hour out, but never so long as might injure him. He did not like it, though. Why, he set up such a roar, but I kept him at it until he was like to drop. Then I took 'em off him, and give him a good rub down with the oil, and set him to the hornpipe again; he was stiff for a moment, and then did he not dance! He saw the virtue of it, and laughed as he danced, clapping his hands and larking the way they do.

  Well, sir, I'll not weary you by telling all the tricks I was at to improve his speed. After a day or two, when I had him moving more like the thing, I marked the ground and had him skipping from mark to mark, back and forth, on his toes, till he could find the marks blindfold – that's the beginning of footwork, you see, sir. We did it with the glim-sticks and without, and he came more nimble by the day.

  You might think, being slow of mind, that he'd be patient, but not he. By and by he tired of skipping and dancing, and taxed me to fight with him, so I gave him a little breathing with the gloves, to show him what a clunch he was. He couldn't touch me, and I hit him where I pleased, not hard enough to sting – not his body, leastways, but his mind, for I called out where I would plant my hits before I made 'em. By George, he did not care for that, sir! If you had seen that glaring black mug and them yellow eyes, you'd ha' wished a wall between you, and I took care, expecting him to break into rage and come tearing at me. But did he? He did not. Aha, thinks I, here's a step for'ard. I sat down with him, and put my arm round his shoulders – as far as I could reach, that is, and didn't he stink, though?

  “Tom,” says I, “you ain't a miller at all. You can't fib me, and you couldn't fib little Betty, hardly. You don't stand proper, you don't move proper, you don't hit proper, and you don't know what guarding or countering is, neither. Well, Tom, that won't do.”

  He shook my arm off, sudden-like. “You jes' full o' tricks, like Mass' Richmond!” cries he. “You don' fight, no more'n he do!”

  “It's a fact, Tom,” says I. “But it should not be, ye see. You're bigger and stronger than me and Massa Richmond – why, you should mill me down in a minute. Well, now, Tom, I'm going to show you how. 'Twill be hard work, Tom, but by the time I'm done wi' you, why, you'll knock me off my legs in a moment – and Massa Richmond, too. I promise you that, my boy. What d'ye say now, eh?”

  He sat there, sweating and stinking, looking like a black fiend o' the Pit. “An' Tom Cribb,” says he.

  That was the first I'd heard of Cribb, for Richmond had kept mum, and it fair took the wind out of me. And d'ye know, sir, that was the first I studied him, like, to see what he was about. It was enough to make you laugh, and I nearly did, but by the grace o' God I didn't. You asked me, you remember, what was in his mind, and I said I couldn't tell, which is the truth. But I knew then, sir, there was something beyond my ken, so I didn't laugh, nor pull a face, nor say him nay.

  “Why, yes, Tom,” says I. “And Tom Cribb.”

  D'ye know, sir, that was the best thing I ever did for him? That was when we took the road to Copthorn. I see that, now, tho' I didn't at the time.

  'Twas when the work began, and all, I tell you. How long does it take to make a milling cove? Forever, some would say, but I say it depends what's in him. It was in Tom, in the heart and soul of him – and in that body, believe me. Wi' that kind o' stuff, sir, it don't take long, as you shall see.

  I taught him the guards – Harmer's, and the sloper, and Broughton's, and when he'd some notion of those, I showed him the Bristol, and Mendoza's. All of 'em – with wooden billets strapped to his forearm, the glim-sticks being over heavy. And so to off-fighting and in-fighting, and countering and milling on the retreat, with down-cuts and upper-cuts and quick returns and hitting past, and the long left hand that he favoured over all.

  Sir, it was a joy. He had the aptitude, and learned more in a week than most in a month. Fact is, he was a natural. Course he was, and once he'd twigged the secret of moving feet and body and hands together – well, sir, it's a fine thing, to see a fighter taking shape before your eyes. And such a fighter as I knew him to be. Jem, thinks I, you talk of the lack of heavyweights, but I've got one growing under my hands, I have, and so help me he will astonish you!

  You may judge of my feeling when I tell you that after the first week I brought my traps down to the Dolphin and lived in, to be near him. It was up at five each day, to exercise and dance and practise footwork; beefsteaks, tea and toast at eight; then the guards until noon – he had a great fancy to Mendoza's guard, which is a stiff chop at your opponent's straight left, see, with your right hand which you then turn into a blow at his neck; two or three o' those and your enemy's left arm's nigh broke; mine was so black and blue I had to muffle it. Toast and bacon at noon, a sleep, boxing and beating the bag, steaks and beer for supper, and into bed by nine; he throve on it.

  I kept them all out o' the yard by day, except Richmond, who would come to watch us now and then, but said not a word except: “He'll need picklin”' – his knuckles, you see, had never been toughened, so we had him sleeping in gloves soaked in brine, and painted the knuckles wi' spirits and turpentine to harden 'em. Very small his hands were, which is a rare boon in a fighter, for when he fibs all the power bears on a small point, and the hands don't damage so easy as they would if they was large. Good hands, sir, small but strong in the fingers is best; if a man's hands break, he's done, be he never so fine a miller. Look at Tom Spring, as prime a heavyweight as ever was, but broke his hands on Langan and never fought again. Course he didn't.

  I told you Bill Richmond said not a word when he watched us breathing, nor interfered with my methods. But I could see his feelings change by the day, as Tom improved, tho' he never let on. Fact is, sir, he couldn't believe his eyes, and I reckon he felt his innards stirring, too, like mine. I seen he was itching to take a hand, so one day, after about three weeks it would be, I said he should try Tom out himself, and he did – but with bare knuckles, sir, no mauleys.

  “What's this, Bill?” says I. “You don't want to harm him, surely?” Fact was, I didn't care to think what Tom's fast hands might do to Bill, if he planted a wisty one. Yes, sir, he had come on that much.

  “I'm going to see what he's made of,” says Bill.

  Now, sir, I must tell you that Richmond was as clever a mechanic as any, old and all as he was, and he went at Tom as though there was a thousand guineas in it. Tom was taken fair aback, and milled on the retreat, but Richmond was fast enough to fib him three or four good 'uns, and tapped his claret; Tom just shook his head and Richmond fibbed him again, and cut him over the eye. I was astonished, and ready to step in, when Bill shouts:

  “Did it hurt, then? Here's another for you!” and lands a flush hit on his nob. “You think that's hurtin', don't ye! You don't know the meanin' o' hurt!” And fibs him again, left and right. “Ye think I'm fibbin' you? Depend upon it, boy, when Tom Cribb fibs you, 'twill be as though you was hit by a hammer! That man can strike the bark off a tree with his bare hands, d'ye know that?”

  “Ah b'lieve it when Ah sees it,” says Tom, guarding away, but not countering or trying to hit past.

  “Oh, my, you'll believe it!” cries Bill. “I won't give odds you'll see it!”

  He bore in again with the same resolution, and they rallied, but Tom had his measure now and stopped and guarded with fair science, still not countering or hitting inside or over, but always on the retreat. D'ye know, sir, Bill could not hit him! Yet half a dozen time
s, I'll swear, Tom could have planted him a good one, but held his hand. Bill must see he's fighting shy, thinks I, and I reckon he did, for after a rally he stepped back and looked at Tom ever so hard, and then bade me look to Tom's eye, which was sporting the ruby. It was little enough, so I plastered it, and sent Tom away to lie down.

  “Well, Bill,' says I. “What cheer?”

  “So help me God,” says Bill. “I thought my arm was clean broke.” He showed me his left wrist, all bruised and swollen. “That was the Jew's stop he was givin' me! You taught him that? He learned that? Pad,” says he, “I swear to God I never saw his right hand move – but didn't I feel it, just! An' I came out to roast him, to test his game!”

  “Well, you fibbed him a few,” says I. “He took 'em well. He's game enough.”

  “I don't know that,” says Bill, shaking his nob. “Nor do you. You've brought him on, I don't deny, an' he defends better'n I ever thought to see. But I'm played out, I ain't strong enough to hurt him, nor are you. Can he take his gruel, Pad, tell me that!”

  “Make him a match,” says I. “Cropley the coal-whipper, maybe, or Uncle Ben Burn. They'll feel him out.” But he wouldn't have it, saying Tom was not ready for Cropley, and Burn would be no proper test. “He ain't but a Fives Court messenger,” says Bill. “I want a nuller that can fib the head off a stone statue, but private-like, not in a regular mill. I want to see what Tom can take, 'fore we let the Fancy see him.”

  Then I knew, sir, that Richmond had high hopes of Tom.

  “Tell ye what,” says he. “We'll give him a breather wi' Dutch Sam.”

  If he'd said “wi' Tom Cribb” I'd ha' been no more astonished, for Dutch Sam, though past his prime, was reckoned still the hardest hitter in the game. He wasn't more than a lightweight, either, but that right hand of his was a grave-digger, as I knew to my cost. I'd been beat a few times, but Dutch Sam was the only fibster who ever put me to sleep.

  “Walk-er!”* cries I. “If Tom ain't ready for Cropley, how the dooce d'ye reckon he can face Sam, that nigh killed Cropley? And ye saw what Sam did to Medley last month only!”