Jubilee (Book 1 of The Poppy Chronicles)

by Claire Rayner

  And from then on it was jam all the way. Or almost all the way. Almost within an hour the whole ship knew there was a champion boxer on board, and within half a day, matches had been arranged to be fought in a hastily rigged ring in the stern so that Lizah could show his mettle against all comers, and willing bookmakers came crawling out of every corner to do brisk trade when the officers weren’t looking.

  Not that they weren’t interested. Lizah, after putting on a nice show of unwillingness, agreed to fight only if he could have a few days training time, and found a section on the boat deck when he could skip and jump and shadow box and generally get himself back into some sort of trim, and there he spent his days working hard – but not so hard that he was unaware of his audience.

  There were several young officers, very dashing in their crisp newly tailored uniforms, who watched him covertly and then went and watched the other men who had decided to put themselves up against the so-called champion and then came back to watch and whisper before laying their bets; and Lizah, grinning behind his fists as he feinted and jabbed at an imaginary foe, deliberately put on a show of incompetence to mislead them. Think they could tell what he could do just by watching him train? Let ’em think again. He was Kid Harris, and he could outsmart as well as outbox any of ’em –

  Not that he was as certain as he might be of his ability to defeat all comers, as he had assured his new-found cronies he could. The first day he spent on his boat deck training area made him realize just how out of condition he was, and just how long it had been since he had been a real top liner. There was no reason to suppose he couldn’t get back into good nick, he told himself as he panted rather more heavily than he liked, none at all. But he needed time. And the fight wasn’t going to be easy, anyway, using gloves that weren’t really his weight, but which were all that were available from the ship’s meagre store of entertainment and sports equipment, and on a sloping shifting deck rather than in a properly constructed canvas ring. But he had always been an optimist, had always had a deep conviction of his own ability; as long as he didn’t lose his confidence, he told himself sturdily, he would come to no harm. ‘Believe you can do it, that’s the thing,’ he gasped beneath his breath as he made a series of hard jabs with his left, which had always been his weakest. ‘Believe you can do it – that’s the thing of it –’

  The first match had been arranged for a late evening after the men had their evening meal and before being bunked down for the night, and as soon as he heard the four bells that announced the end of the second dog watch he went aft to the roped-off section of the deck where the men waited, smoking and laughing and passing round what was left of their illicit store of booze; they had another week at sea yet and supplies were running low, so there was no heavy drinking going on and Lizah was glad of that. If he lost, so many of them had bets on him that the effect wouldn’t bear thinking about. They could get nasty enough sober –

  The sky was a vast bowl of rich blue above them and the sea shivered on each side with the barest movement, for there was no breath of wind at all. The air felt thick and hot, for the sun had blazed on the decks pitilessly all day and the wood and metal now began to give back to the air the heat they had collected and he stood for a moment, his hands, already bandaged, dangling at his sides and his gloves looped round his neck on their strings. He was wearing just his drawers, for he had no other fighting kit with him, and the warmth on his suntanned skin made him sweat a little, and he frowned. Sweating already and he hadn’t even begun yet –

  He took a deep breath to encourage himself and stepped smartly round the bulkhead into the crowd and pushed his way through to the ring, an area marked out with chalk on the deck and enclosed with a few loops of rope, where his second – the man who had won the money for which he had been so grateful five years ago – waited for him, and a cheer went up which made his chest swell with pleasure and regret and fear, all mixed together into an uneasy lump. The pleasure was simple; to be fighting again was a delight. But the regret and fear did spoil it; regret for what he had been and was no longer, for the years which had stolen some of his speed and agility, and the fear which he had always felt when he stepped into the ring, but would never have admitted to anyone. No one seeing him would have known any of it, for he just grinned and ducked under the rope and came into the ring to hold out his hands to his second to have his gloves tied into place.

  ‘Who’s the first one?’ he asked, his voice low beneath the din made by the audience, now several men strong. ‘Got any tips on him?’

  ‘I bin watchin’ ’em train –’ the second said, and grinned. He was a carroty-headed man with only one tooth in his upper jaw, which gave him an oddly leering look when he smiled, which was often. ‘It’s an orficer – a right weed ’n all – but he’s got the science, like. Shifts ’imself around a bit and fast on ’is feet. But ’e don’t look to ’ave no real class at all – you should get ’im easy.’

  ‘Right, gentlemen!’ the shout went up behind them and Lizah moved forwards to turn and stand with his back to the rope, staring down at his gloves. Let the referee get his chat out of the way, and then he’d be able to get a good dekko at the opposition, size him up, see where his weaker spots were most likely to be –

  ‘This will be a clean fight, a straight fight, an honest fight as befits the British Army, and it will be a fight which General Buller himself approves of. I have it direct from him that he is glad to see his men occupied in such a manly occupation that will fit you all for the coming confrontations with Kruger and his boring Boers! It is understood, of course, that there is to be no gaming involved – just a good clean fight as befits British soldiers!’

  A low groan went up and there was some catcalling but the referee, a fresh-faced boy of little more than twenty-five, yet wearing a captain’s insignia, ignored it.

  ‘Right then, in this corner the welterweight champion of White-chapel, boxing at ten stone seven pounds, as far as he knows, seeing we have no scales available –’

  ‘– I’ll bet ’e’s a good deal lighter on the tack you bin givin’ us!’ someone roared from the back of the crowd and there was a loud cheer, but still the young captain paid no attention and went on unperturbed.

  ‘Here he is, Ki – i – id – Harris!’

  This time the cheer was much less ragged and even louder and someone shouted, ‘You show ’em, Jewboy! I got arf a week’s pay on you!’ at which the referee frowned sharply and shouted, ‘There is to be no betting, I said! Just a clean honest fight, no betting, by order of General Buller!’ But no one paid any attention at all, and the captain after a moment decided to make no further fuss. With so many men there, it seemed the wiser course of action.

  ‘In this corner,’ he bawled instead. ‘In this corner, the challenger, ex-City of London School Sixth Form Champion, fighting at ten stone six pounds, though with the advantage in height –’

  Lizah lifted his head at last and looked. Now was the time to get his opponent’s appearance clear in his eye and he looked and swallowed and stood there, his face as stiff as though it had been frozen.

  ‘– the one and only, your challenger and mine, Lieutenant Ba – a – asil Amberly!’

  He was grinning, that was the thing. He was standing there in the corner as the referee fussed with checking his gloves and was grinning over the shorter man’s head with such smug complacency that Lizah wanted to go over there and not wait for the bell, to hit him and hit him until his face was a pudding, just as he’d done to him once before –

  The bell seemed to come from a long way away. He had hardly been aware of the referee dealing with his gloves or muttering the usual stuff at him about fighting clean; all he knew was that Basil Amberly was there in the middle of the ring with his gloves up and standing in the recommended posture and looking unbearably smug and pleased with himself, and Lizah went in with both hands up and sweat pouring into his eyes and anger boiling up in him as though he were a kettle.

  It had been
a long time since he had fought like that, with real hate in him. In the early days at Father Jay’s gymnasium he had always fought so, for he had known no other way. Hadn’t he spent his childhood fighting the jeering boys who shouted after him in the streets because he was a Jew? Hadn’t there always been hatred in him for the boys – and later, men – he had fought with? Had there been any other fuel with which to make his muscles do as he bade them?

  Father Jay had taught him that there was; that being angry and hate-filled made a man a worse fighter, not a better one. That a cool head that thought about strategy and made plans and carried them out was what won fights, not just fury. And under his tutelage the angry child had become the cool fighting man and been very successful – until recently, at any rate.

  But now all that was forgotten. All he knew now, on the SS Dunottar Castle in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the most unlikely place in which he had ever had to box, was that he had an opponent he hated. He hated him because he loved his sister, and if that was crazy and illogical, Lizah did not care. Right from the start it had been Basil Amberly who had spoiled things for him and his Millie, he told himself as he jabbed and punched and dodged and feinted and jabbed again; the fact that it had been Basil who had brought them together in the first place didn’t matter. They would have met anyway, because it was meant that they should. But it had also been meant that they should stay together. Of that Lizah was certain; but they had been kept apart. He conveniently forgot that pressure from his own mother had come into the equation, and that his own doubts about being able to cope with a baby had played their part too; all he knew now, as he bobbed about in the makeshift boxing ring on the deck of the SS Dunottar Castle, was that ever since his first meeting with Millie it had been trouble with Basil that had kept them apart. Basil and his hateful stinking family of jumped-up snobs just like himself – and Lizah had to be pulled away by the referee as the bell went to end the round.

  ‘’Ere, go easy,’ the second said reprovingly as he mopped his face with a rag and offered him water to wash his mouth. ‘You’re layin’ in to ’im like there ain’t no tomorrow! You got to go fifteen rounds with this ’un, and there’s three more fights set up for you. The books are big ’n all, so go easy, mate –’

  ‘I’ll kill the mumser,’ Lizah grunted as the bell went for the next round and was up and away so fast that Basil didn’t see him coming and for the first time, Lizah managed to knock him down. He was up on the count of five, though, but that was enough to give Lizah a chance to catch his breath and begin to think. The carroty man was right; he had to be less furious and more scientific. Amberly was taller and had a longer reach, but that could be an asset for Lizah, properly used. Get under his guard, that was the thing of it –

  And Lizah did. He thumped and punched steadily and more than once his glove made a juddering impact with Amberly’s thin frame that sent shock waves up Lizah’s arms to his shoulders, but he gloried in the pain and went on glorying in it as round succeeded round and Amberly began very obviously to tire.

  In the middle of the sixth round, as the watching men shouted themselves hoarse, Lizah knocked him down again, and as the referee began to count him out, turned away, jubilantly. He’d done it; he knew he had. Amberly had been getting steadily more sweaty, more breathless, and more wild in his blows, and Lizah had been fighting better this past two rounds than he had in all his fighting life and he lifted his chin to acknowledge the cheers and bawls that were coming from all sides.

  It was that which defeated him. Somehow Amberly got to his feet before he was counted out, and somehow, moving drunkenly though he was, managed to get round to stand in front of Lizah. And as the officer looking after the bell lifted his hand to strike it, his eyes glued to his watch, Amberly swung out, a great unco-ordinated movement of his right arm that seemed to have little power in it, and yet which had collected enough momentum by the time it ended its arc to be lethal.

  Lizah, his chin up and both fists resting dangerously low at chest level just happened to be in the way rather than anything else, for no one else could imagine that Amberly knew what he was doing by this time, but it made no difference to the final effect. He hit the deck with a shuddering blow that made the ship seem to swing directly from daylight into darkness and leave him lying there gasping, and by the time he had come back to the glowing deep blue of the sky it was too late. The referee was shouting ‘Ten’ at the top of his voice and the crowd of men were shouting and booing, and a few cheering. Lizah had lost and taken a good deal of his fellow soldiers’ money into oblivion with him.

  ‘Lousy Jew!’ someone bawled and the referee looked up and shouted reprovingly at him but in the hubbub no one noticed, except perhaps Basil and Lizah. Lizah had struggled to his feet, his head spinning, and now stood staring blankly at Basil who was grinning hugely, in spite of the cut lip that was trickling a thin line of blood down his chin, and a bruise that was rapidly appearing on his bony forehead.

  ‘That’s one for my sister, you stinking bastard,’ Basil said, and laughed at him. ‘You hear me? One for my sister! I knew I’d get my own back one day, but I didn’t know it’d be here – and now I have, I hope you rot – you hear me? I hope you rot.’ And he turned and went back to his corner to be patted and petted by a crowd of officers as the men, disgruntled and still shouting their anger at Lizah, began to drift away to their quarters.

  ‘I knew we shouldn’t let an enlisted man fight an officer!’ The captain who had been referee was peering into Lizah’s face and shaking his head, as the medical officer came into the ring to look at him and prod his eye, which had become spongy and swollen. ‘I told the Brigadier I thought it bad for discipline, but he said the General liked the idea, thought it was democratic, good for morale, and so forth, and now look!’

  ‘For God’s sake man, don’t be so stupid!’ The MO started to apply arnica to Lizah’s eye, paying no more attention to him than if he had been a side of meat. ‘The General is right. It would have been different if the man had beaten Amberly of course – but as it is, it’s all turned out excellently as I knew it would. Excellently. Now they know their betters can fight as well as they can, these chaps, and that should give them some sinew when they’re in the field. Excellent outcome – excellent – now, you, my man –’ For the first time he looked Lizah in the eye. ‘Keep on applying this stuff, and come to my parade in the morning. And next time don’t go boasting about how you can beat an officer in this army. They’re the salt of the earth, and the sooner you chaps learn to knuckle under the better. You won’t be so big for your boots another time, hey?’ And he chuckled and went away, followed by the captain-referee, now looking a good deal happier than he had.

  ‘Well, you did go and bloody cock it up, didn’t you?’ The carroty man said disgustedly. ‘After all that bloody talk an’ all, and what d’you go and do? Give it away, and all my bleedin’ money with it. Don’t come to me for help no more, matey! All talk and no do, that’s you –’

  ‘Shut up –’ Lizah managed to gasp. ‘An’ get these gloves off me –’ Sulkily the man obeyed. ‘An’ don’t give me chat about how I let you down. It weren’t my idea – it was you lot shouting the odds that made me fight. I told you – I was out o’ training –’ He waited as the gloves came off his bruised hands, and then stood there and looked down at his knuckles and his mouth tightened.

  ‘By God, let me get that man alone some time, and I’ll show him – I’ll show you all what Lizah Harris can do – he won’t ever do that to me again. And he won’t get away with it ever again, neither, interferin’ in my life – I hate the bastard. You hear me? I hate him for all he’s done to me and to mine and I’ll kill him –’

  The carroty man peered at him, puzzled. ‘You know ’im, then? I mean, outside the army like?’

  ‘Know him? I know him,’ Lizah said grimly. ‘An’ one of these days I’ll show ’im. He’ll wish he’d never been born, after what I’ll do to him – just you wait and see –’

>   30

  Once the rash appeared, Poppy seemed to recover fast. Her fever fell and with it Mildred’s fear, and for a couple of days, as the spots spread and coalesced to create the familiar reddish blue patches that announced that the diagnosis was undoubtedly measles, she was in the highest of spirits in spite of her fatigue. She just had to nurse Poppy back to her old sturdiness with lots of good food and loving care and she could forget the dreadful days of uncertainty when she had been so sure that the child would die.

  And she began to be ashamed of herself for the bad thoughts she had entertained about Lizah and think that perhaps it wouldn’t be so dreadful to see him again once he came back from the war. And thinking of him at war she had been filled with a sense of such concern and tenderness that she had amazed herself, and vowed to write to him. She would find out his address from Jessie as soon as she was able to obtain it (for in his goodbye note to her he had promised his sister that he would write to her as soon as he reached South Africa) and tell him all about his little girl and perhaps, a little about herself and her own life now –

  But, as she was to remind herself grimly afterwards on many occasions, be sure your own wickedness will find you out. She had made a solemn promise to herself and to whoever else was listening – and for all her doubts about established religion, Mildred was not absolutely certain that there was not a divine and vengeful Providence that sat above and watched and recorded all she did – that she would hate Lizah for always, that Poppy’s illness and suffering were his fault and she would never forgive him for them. And what had she done? In just a few days from making that promise she had broken it; just because Poppy had seemed better, she had made stupid plans to write him affectionate letters. And she was punished for it, oh, how she was punished!