Black Ajax

by George MacDonald Fraser

  I asked, were they scorched altogether, and Gibbons said, all but fifty pounds that Gentleman Jackson had taken up as a subscription for Tom. “But vot vith the sawbones, an' vot Richmond's drinkin', an' the score for their room, an' settlin' of their side-bets, they von't 'ave as much change as'd buy a workus supper in Lent,” says Bill, shaking his wattles. “They owes me vages, four pound ten, but I reckon I shall 'ave to look elsewhere for my inwestment in the Funds.” He was a cheery cove, Gibbons, and a good 'un to stand by Tom and guard his door from the press-gang, who'd have pestered him to death with their questions.

  Another he turned away was a foreign chap, a French refugee, I think, who told us he was a painter, and wished to take a study of Tom's head for a picture he was making of the fight. Jericho, his name was, very polite and graceful, but Gibbons put him off quite humorous.

  “Mister Molineaux ain't in 'is best looks today,” says he. Jericho showed us a sketch he'd made of the mill, with Tom and Cribb squaring up, nothing like the thing, course it wasn't, and to crown all, he'd put trousers on 'em. He had to, he said, 'cos when the painting was shown it would never do for ladies to see 'em in tights. We told him 'twas a bang-up piece of work, and that he'd hit the likenesses to admiration, and he went off well pleased.*

  Hearing how he'd fallen out with Richmond, I wondered if I might not do some good by looking in to see Tom. Gibbons was doubtful, but took me up, and as we came to the door we heard a mighty cheer from the street, and shouting and confusion in the tap below. We thought nothing of it, but went in, and there was Tom, lying in an armchair with his ribs strapped and his jaw in a sling and his clock that swole it looked like a dumpling in a clout. The curtains were drawn, and only a solitary glim on the board. “Who dat?” he croaks, and 'twas as if he spoke through a blanket.

  “Vot cheer, Tommy!” cries Gibbons. “'Ere's a old pal come to wisit on you, Pad Jones as ever vos!” He lit another brace of glims, rubbing his fat paws. “All's bowmon, eh, boys?”

  Tom blinked, and glowered at me. “Wha's he want? Din' ask for no vis'tors. Ah's sick! Lemme be!”

  I said I'd come to see how he did, and he gave me his surliest scowl. “How Ah does? How you think Ah does? Ah got a bust jaw an' busted ribs – that's how Ah does! That whut you come to see?” He gagged with the pain of his jaw, and groaned. “Come to see me now Ah's beat – that why you come?”

  “Vhy, Tommy, that ain't civil!” says Gibbons. “Vot, vhen Pad's come to inkvire arter you, friendly-like!”

  “Oh, sho', Pad come now! Din't come befo', when Ah need him! Lef ' me to that scut Richm'nd, as blames me 'cos Ah gits beat!” All in a moment, sir, he began to snuffle and sob like a kid. “Ah cudn't help it, damn him! Done best Ah cud – best Ah knowed how! An' wha' did hedo, bastud Richm'nd wi' his trade'n his eddication, dam' white nigguh! Wha' did Pad do? They was goin' make me champeen – me, the iggerant black nigguh! Why'nt they do it right, they so smart!”

  Sir, what could I say? How could I reproach him with all the times I'd pled and warned him, or tell him 'twas only his self to blame, and him a-laying there broke and crying? I stood mum, while Gibbons tried to soothe him.

  “Now, don't take on so, Tommy boy! Ye'll on'y pain y'rself an' do your peck-box a mischief! Vot's the use o' that, eh? You rest easy, an' if you ain't inclined for conwersation, vhy, Pad von't mind, vill ye, Pad?”

  Tom sniffed, wiping the blubbers from his cheeks, and let out a wail. “Oh, Ah's po'ly sick! Oh, Pad, why'd ye leave me? Nevah did befo'! Why'd ye be-tray me thataway?” He was a hellish sight, sir, ever so miserable, mumbling at me. “Ah cud ha' beat Cribb! You know dat, Pad! Beat him fu'st time, at Copthorn, cud ha' beat him yes'day, if on'y …” From whimpering he fell a-raging again. “An' Ah will! Ah fight him when Ah's rested an' better! Lick him good, an' Ah do it ma own self, 'thout Richm'nd or nobody!”

  It would ha' sickened you to hear him, sir, blaming all but himself, bragging what he knew was a lie, mortified to bits at the truth he could not stomach – that he might ha' been Champion but for his own folly. He lay back in the chair with his eyes closed, breathing heavy but quiet now, and I was uncertain whether to go or bide when I heard a heavy step on the stairs and then on the threshold, and when I turned I saw what all the shouts and cheers had been for belowstairs a moment since, for the man in the doorway was Tom Cribb.

  He gave a nod to Gibbons and me and stepped into the light, and lord! he was a prize study! His phiz was like a ploughed field, all swole and rainbow colours about his eyes, stitches in the great gashes where Gully had lanced his cheeks, his nether lip split in two places, the whole right side of his head flayed red, and the ear twice its size. He was a proper handsome cove as a rule, but that day he was fit to scare crows.

  He came into the room, and Tom gave a croak, staring as at a ghost, and neither said a word. Tom was that startled he made as though to rise, but Cribb stayed him and held out his hand.

  “How are ye?” says he, short as ever, and Tom blinked open-mouthed, and took his hand. He was taken flat aback, but after a moment he braced up in his chair, wincing, but his own man again.

  “Tol'able well, thank'ee,” says he, mighty proper. “Kin'ly to set down?”

  Cribb drew up a chair and sat by him, and they took stock of each other in silence. Their figureheads were so put out o' shape 'twas hard to guess what they thought, but Tom had thrown off his vapours altogether, putting on his best airs for the Champion, while Cribb looked damned grim, but unsettled, as though doubtful how to go on, now that he was here. At last he spoke, still short:

  “Well, ye could look wuss, I rackon!”

  Tom sat a spell, considering how to reply. “Them's turr'ble welts 'neath yo' ogles,” says he.

  “Slept wi' four pun' o' prime rump on 'em,” says Cribb. “Us cuts up easier'n you black chaps do, seemin'ly. How's the jaw, then?”

  “Oh, doctor say it be fine … thank'ee.”

  “Do 'e, now? Ha! Half they country sawbones should be mendin' roads! Best let Doctor Craig o' Mount Street see to it, when ye're back in Town. He'll set ye to rights.”

  “'Bliged to ye,” says Tom, and there was silence until Cribb spoke again, sharp as a sojer at drill:

  “Ye won't be relishin' your vittles for a while, I'll lay. Bread an' milk, mostly?”

  “Ah ain't hungry.”

  “Likely not. A bellyful o' my own blood han't given me much appetite, neither. Damme if I ever felt less gut-foundered!”

  They fell silent again, and Gibbons and I looked at each other thinking that this was uncommon talkative for Cribb, when he was sober, leastways, but he was making heavy work of it. Having come to ask after Tom, paying his respects like, he was at a loss what to say for the best, and Tom being on his dignity again, blowed if they didn't 'mind me of two old dowagers gabbing genteel across the tea-cups. Cribb frowned and shifted his stampers, and at last Tom asked if he'd take a dram, but Cribb said, no, he was kindly obliged but his mouth was too raw for spirits. He asked where Richmond was, and at this Tom grunted and glared like a 'vangelist.

  “Don' ask me 'bout Richmond! He ain't mindin' me no mo'! Sunna-bitch done lef ' me, on 'count o' … o' yes'day!”

  “Jimminy!” cries Cribb. “Ye don't say! Well, damme if that ain't like a nigger! Turn your back an' he's off, an' granfer's watch wi' him …” He stopped short, confused, and made haste to ask Tom what he would do now.

  “Don't know, yet. See when Ah's mended.”

  “That won't be tomorrow!” snaps Cribb. “No, nor next month, wi' they ribs an' jaw.” He was looking vexed. “An' Richmond's hopped the wag.” I could read his thoughts, sir, plain as print, and twice he made to speak, and twice thought better on't. He glanced at Gibbons and me, and then asked Tom, mighty offhand, if he had lost much on the fight. Tom said pretty cool that there was no trouble thataway. “Gen'man Jackson took up a 'scription fo' me.”

  “Fifty guineas won't go far!” says Cribb, not thinking – and I wondered, sir, how many o' those guineas
had been Cribb's. Tom shot him a look, and then asked, with great composure, I thought, if Cribb had backed himself, and how much had he won?

  “Four hundred quid. Cap'n Barclay cleared ten thou'.”

  Tom smiled for the first time. “Guess we in the wrong business. Ought to git ou'sel's a couple o' prime chickens.”

  “Aye, p'raps,” says Cribb, and I saw he had something on the tip of his tongue, and was studying how to put it, but after a moment he rose with it unsaid.

  “Best be away, I rackon,” says he. “Glad to see ye ain't took too much harm.”

  “You likewise.” Tom held out his hand. “Mighty 'bliged to ye fo' stoppin' by.”

  They shook hands, and Cribb hesitated a second, frowning, before he went to the door. He stopped there, chin on chest, and then turned again.

  “When ye're well again, an' so be ye're inclined, give us a look in at my parlour, the Union Arms in Panton Street.” He clapped on his hat, head high, and touched the brim to Tom. “There'll always be a pint an' a chair by the fire for the best bloody miller I ever did see!”

  He gave a quick nod to Gibbons and me and went off downstairs, and we heard them huzzaing him into the street.

  Why was there never a third mill? Bless you, because neither of 'em had the stomach for it, that's why! Cribb, remember, had been retired in all but name for two years, taking his ease in comfort until fellows like me and the sporting public bullyragged him back to the ring to thwart the Black Peril; he reckoned he'd done his duty, and saw no sense to being knocked about to prove again what he'd proved twice already. Besides, oxen and wainropes wouldn't have got him back 'neath Barclay's wing a second time; why, he told me he'd sooner fight Molineaux any day than go through another training from our energetic captain. No, London had turned out by tens of thousands to cheer him home from Leicester, given him a dinner to live in song and story, presented him with a silver cup and oceans of eulogy, and honest Tom Cribb was well content to call it a day.

  As for Molineaux, it's my belief he met his fate at Thistleton Gap. Having swaggered into two mills puffed up with conceit, he'd come face to face with the awful truth that he never could beat Cribb. He knew he was as good, as clever and quick and strong and brave, but that Cribb was still too much for him – if only because Cribb would train and he would not. Oh, he put out challenges enough, and pretended the Champion never answered; Cribb, for his part, swore that he had, but had heard no more from the Moor – you've read all about it in the Leicester Mercury, I dare say, and felt none the wiser. The truth was that Molineaux was glad to strut and pose and bask in his glory, but for all his big talk and challenges he was no more eager than Cribb to endure another such hiding as they'd given each other at Copthorn and Thistleton.

  Nor was anyone else. Not a soul, out of all the good millers of the day, was willing to challenge either of 'em! Those two titanic battles had set 'em aloft and apart; it was a case of Cribb first, Molineaux second, and the rest nowhere. That suited White Tom, with his championship laurels safe upon him, and it suited Black Tom, too, for even in defeat his name and fame were a passport to easy pickings, and he could jaunt about the provinces again, raking in the rhino from rustics who were all agog to see the fabled nigger who'd fought the Champion twice. That was nuts in paradise to Molineaux; he could preen and brag to heart's content, indulge his taste in high living and coats of many colours, spar a little here, wrestle a little there, and riot to excess among the fleshpots, vinous and Venus, ha-ha! with no Paddington Jones to hound him – and, better still, no Richmond to share the booty.

  You've heard about the great African Civil War – Richmond v. Molineaux? No? Well, you know they fell out after Thistleton, exchanging dog's abuse and going their separate ways, but that was only the beginning. A few months later, what did Richmond do but have Tom arrested on a ca. sa. – capias ad satisfaciendum, which means, my chums of the wig and gown inform me, a writ whereby a plaintiff has a defendant jugged until he coughs up. It's gone out now, I believe, but in those days it meant that poor Tom found himself admiring the inside of a spunging-house with the prospect of debtor's prison to follow. Heaven knows what the debt was – money owed to Tom Belcher, or some such thing, which Richmond had paid and was dunning Tom for his share – or who settled on the Moor's behalf. Some said Sefton or Alvanley, and others Old Cripplegate (which I can't credit, for that 'un wouldn't have bailed his own mother), but one way or t'other Tom breathed the free air of England again – and wasn't he full of charity, just, towards his old pal Richmond? He soon found that he had other cause for grievance.

  Before the ca. sa. business, Tom had spent some months on his rural exhibitions, but fighting no regular mills, as I said, until a challenge came from one Jack Carter, a promising chicken who, being a Lancastrian, was a protege of Big Bob Gregson's. My guess is that Bob, being fly as they make 'em, and knowing that months of boozing and frolic had played the dooce with Molineaux's condition (such as it ever was), believed that his young giant might make a name for himself by trouncing him –'twas the Rimmer business over again, if you like. However, the match had been put off when Tom went to clink; now that he was out, it could go forward – and who d'you think emerged as the match-maker, eh, and Carter's principal second? Why, none other than Tom's erstwhile guide, philosopher, and friend, and now sworn enemy: Bill Richmond! And when the battle is joined, who seconds Molineaux? Who but the cove who cheated him out of victory against Cribb at Copthorn – honest Joe Ward!

  Do you begin to have an inkling, my dear sir, that the allegiances and alliances of the prize ring are somewhat more confused than the intricacies of the Spanish Succession, and that its rivalries and vendettas cast the petty intrigues of the Borgias quite into the shade? Observe how A sponsors B against C, to whom A was lately grappled by hoops of steel, while C is supported by D, who previously engineered C's downfall. Incredible, you say? By no means, say I, nothing out o' the way, as the old lady said when she stepped unexpected into the ditch.

  Well, the mill took place near Banbury, at a spot convenient to four counties in case the beaks intruded. A distinguished company of noblemen, amateurs, and pugs assembled, in expectation of a famous set-to, for 'twas Molineaux's first combat since his defeat by Cribb, and the Fancy was a-buzz with the news that Richmond was backing Carter out of spite against his old pupil, and that Tom had vowed to pay him out by licking Carter to nothing.

  Alas, for our hopes! That mill, my friend, became a byword as the worst in living memory, a ludicrous pantomime unworthy of the word “fight”, and beneath anything since Falstaff took the field at Shrewsbury. Why, 'twas so disgraceful that some were sure it must be a cross, but Captain Barclay swore it couldn't be, because Gregson would never be party to anything smoky, and besides, if Carter had wanted to sell the fight he'd have found a less foolish and obvious way to do it, and his behaviour was not a whit worse than Molineaux's anyway. Thus Barclay, and I incline to agree with him, but I ain't sure. However, you must judge for yourself. I'll tell you what happened, and if you think I'm pitching a Banbury story – well, ask Barclay or Ward and they'll vouch for it.

  It was a rum go from the first, for when the umpire announced that the winner should have a hundred guineas, Carter demanded to know what the loser was to have! Richmond gnashed his teeth and rolled up his eyes in despair at such folly, but Gregson was fairly stunned, and cried out: “Nay, Jack, never talk o' losing, boy! Tha moost win, the chance is a' in thy favour!” Molineaux, sitting on Ward's knee fat as Beelzebub, left off scowling at Richmond to shout with laughter.

  Then they set to, if that's the word, for I'll swear there have been bloodier quadrilles at Almack's than that first round. For two minutes they pranced round each other without touching, and then Carter, nervous as a kitten, gently stroked Molineaux on the chin, and the Moor tapped him back with the utmost gentility. This exchange rendered both men cautious, not wishing to undergo such punishment, but presently they closed, and Molineaux fell down, showing signs of distress and
alarm.

  Coming to scratch again, they began to whale into each other delicately, but Tom accidentally stinging the other, Carter became excited and thrashed away in earnest. Tom, grunting like a Berkshire hog, and debilitated no doubt by his months of guzzling and amorous exertions, retreated ponderously, but what dumfounded the Fancy was that he seemed to be in an extremity of terror, shying off whenever Carter bore in, capering wildly, hitting without regard to distance, and bellowing whenever Carter got home. Every round, almost, ended with his going down, often for no apparent reason, and once he fairly bolted from Ward's knee and scrambled out of the ring, crying “Help! Help!” Barclay it was who persuaded him back, and the farce continued. We couldn't credit the evidence of our eyes.

  You think I'm bamming? As God's my witness, it got worse, for as Carter, seeing his man so abject, grew in confidence, so Tom descended to the depths of poltroonery. Once he dropped to one knee, seized the ropes in both hands, and bawled: “Foul! Oh, he done hit me when Ah's down!” when Carter fibbed him. They explained (what he knew perfectly well) that you can't be down until both knees and one hand are on the ground; he stood rolling his eyes and whimpering, and two minutes later he was racing round the ring howling that Carter had bit him in the neck! Ward looked, and swore there were no teeth-marks, and in the next round Tom began howling that Carter had bit him again! He fairly ran from the man, crying “Murder! Murder!” and cowered in a corner of the ring, wailing “Oh dear, oh dear, 'tis cruel, cruel!”

  There was amazement and disgust all round. “This is the man who stood an hour against Cribb?” says Barclay to me. “I'll not believe it!” No more could I; Joe Ward had to hold him in the ring by main force between rounds, coaxing and pleading and threatening and even pouring rum into him, but all to no avail. Courage aside, Tom was dead beat by now, labouring like a whale and not an ounce of wind left in him; for twenty-five rounds of milling (if you can call it milling when a man flops down and lies there cringing) he'd been a pitiful parody of a fighter, and when Ward pushed him to scratch for the twenty-sixth it was odds on he'd collapse whether Carter hit him or not.