Tommo and Hawk

by Bryce Courtenay

  The Bolt stirs and gets himself on all fours but can’t rise any further. His seconds rush to help him to his corner, where he stays for nearly ten minutes before the next round is called. Fat Fred’s given the Irishman as much time as he can to recover—only the crowd’s jeers to get on with it makes him announce the next bout. From the way the Bolt rubs at his throat, it’s clear he ain’t gunna risk fouling Hawk again for fear of another o’ these secret manoeuvres. Even so, I fears Hawk has left his run too late. At the end o’ round twenty-six, I’m weeping for him. He’s hurt bad and bleeding everywhere. He can barely speak through his busted mouth. His nose is broke and spurting blood, one eye’s been bashed and has closed up, his ear’s almost ripped off, and the deep gash on his forehead’s pulled open even more.

  ‘Hawk, you has to stop,’ I urges.

  He shakes his head as I sponge the blood away. ‘No. He’s slowing down, tiring. He can’t last much longer,’ he gasps.

  ‘You neither!’ I cries. ‘Let me throw in the sponge.’

  Hawk looks at me through his one good eye. ‘No, Tommo. If we throw in the towel, Mr Sparrow wins. We’ll not get a second chance at the mongrels.’ Hawk ain’t forgotten why he’s here. He tries to smile and nods his head towards the green corner. ‘Besides, he mocked my Maggie!’

  For the first time I realise that Hawk will truly die in the attempt rather than give in. If this be an example o’ good versus evil, good seems to be getting much the worse of the deal as bloody usual. Fat Fred signals the fight to continue and Hawk rises wearily, dragging his bad leg.

  Now we see the game change. Hawk begins to stalk the Bolt what’s mostly trying to stay out of harm’s way. His flab and lack o’ fitness has finally caught up with him and he’s all scarlet, puffin’ like a steam engine. Hawk’s waiting for the opportunity he knows must come to him. Still, the Irishman is cunning. Whenever Hawk comes too close he pulls him in and holds him tight, then drops to the deck to end the round.

  Hawk follows him doggedly and, in the next three rounds, finds him time and again with the one-spot, two-shot, left-right, bang-bang! Now he’s brushing off the Irish fighter’s feeble punches like they was flies. The Bolt is on the run.

  Hawk is stalking his prey like a lion. He moves forward but slips on his own blood. He grabs wildly at the ropes to keep his balance but as he does so, the Irishman kicks out viciously, landing his boot hard and deep into Hawk’s crotch. Hawk gives a gasp and collapses in agony on the deck. Fat Fred counts to nine before Hawk somehow manages to rise onto one knee, his hands cupped to his bollocks. He can’t stand up. It must end. I pick up the sponge and Hawk sees me. ‘NO!’ he screams. ‘NO, TOMMO!’

  We drag Hawk back to his corner. Fat Fred comes across and I starts shouting at him like a mad man. ‘Foul! It were a foul, ya mongrel!’

  ‘One more word from you, lad, and you’re out of the ring!’ Fat Fred hisses at me. ‘Understand? That were no foul, his foot slipped. It were an accident, no more.’

  ‘An accident! Listen to the crowd, they bloody seen it. Everybody seen it ‘cept you, ya fat, useless bastard!’

  Fred looks at me hard and points a sausage finger in me face. ‘You’ll keep, son. You’ll keep.’ He turns to Hawk, what’s retching with the pain. ‘Now, does you fight on or does you quit?’

  Hawk spits out more blood and gasps through his broken mouth, ‘I shall never surrender.’ It’s the words from Mary’s medal! ’We fight!’ he says.

  I hold back a big sob. ‘Aye, we fight on,’ I says to Fat Fred.

  ‘You sure?’ he asks. I can see he’s hoping the fight will end now and suddenly me temper gets up. ‘Tell the Bolt me brother ain’t begun to fight yet! Tell him we’re coming for him! Coming for all o’ you mongrels!’

  Fat Fred moves closer. ‘We’ll give you a thousand pounds if you throw in the sponge,’ he whispers. ‘You get five hundred, Tommo, and your brother gets another five hundred. You’ll get a thousand between you. I swear it upon my mother’s grave,’ he whispers.

  ‘Fuck you!’ I snarls.

  ‘Righto!’ he shouts, straightening up. ‘Yer man’s rested enough, it’s back in the fight!’

  But Hawk ain’t in no condition to go back just yet and needs another few minutes. The Bolt’s been given ten minutes for much lesser wounds. ‘Fair go!’ I cries, hating the fact I has to ask him for mercy.

  ‘Fuck you, son,’ says Fat Fred and goes to the centre o’ the ring.

  Meanwhile the crowd’s getting ugly—they can see what’s going on. Fat Fred signals the fighters to come out o’ their corners and Hawk, plainly half-dead, rises slowly. ‘I need two more!’ he says, as though to himself. ‘Two!’ he mumbles, holding up two fingers and looking at Bungarrabbee Jack.

  ‘Two, boss! You get ‘em!’ the Aborigine shouts gleefully.

  It is round thirty, over five hours since the fight began. I wants to blub at the sight o’ me brother as he drags himself towards his opponent, barely able to stand upright. I’m sure Mary and Maggie would both be crying, though I ain’t been able to look at ‘em.

  The Bolt hits Hawk with every punch he has at his command. Even so Hawk only goes down three times and each time to a foul what the crowd insists Fat Fred call. The stewards are looking worried—they knows they could have a riot on their hands. While Hawk can’t last much longer, the real power is gone from the Irishman’s blows and he’s struggling. He’d hoped to finish Hawk off long before now and it ain’t worked! When Hawk comes at him now he’s dead scared and ready to run, if only his weary legs would carry him. Hawk manages to get in a one-spot, two-shot, left-right, bang-bang.

  In his weakened state, the Bolt can’t stay more than two minutes at a time for the next two rounds. He drops willingly to the ground after Hawk taps him, so as to rest a moment and regain his breath. Then I sees why. The patch under his heart is become a horrible purple bruise. At the same moment, Bungarrabbee Jack starts dancing beside me.

  ‘One more, boss! One!’ he is shouting at Hawk. ‘One-spot, two-shot, left-right, bang-bang—sleeeepy time!’ Bungarrabbee Jack is boxing the air, most excited. He’s seating his left and then his right into an imaginary opponent like he wants Hawk to do.

  ‘Open him!’ I’m not sure if Hawk can even hear Johnny Heki. ‘Now’s the time! Hit him to the head to open him up!’ Johnny Heki shouts at Hawk in Maori. Never before has I heard Johnny tell Hawk to hit to the head, so I knows something’s up.

  Then I sees it happen. Hawk’s great fist slams into the Irishman’s face, right into the flattened nose, crashing into his mouth and jaw. The Bolt’s face appears to collapse under the impact. Bits o’ gold teeth go flying and I hears the crack o’ bone as the Irishman’s jaw breaks—or perhaps it’s Hawk’s hand?

  The Bolt begins to reel backwards and Hawk comes in again. Wham! Wham! Left! Right! Bang! Bang! The Bolt is lifted clear off the ground and bounces hard against the rope. Hawk grimaces in pain and I know his hand be broke.

  Somehow the Bolt is still on his feet. But his knees begin to buckle as Hawk hits him again with a left, followed by a right, plumb on the deep purple spot under his heart. I can hear Hawk’s howl o’ sheer pain as his broken fist smashes into the Bolt with all the force he has left. The Lightning Bolt sails over the ropes and, after knocking several toffs over on the way, lands at Maggie’s dainty feet. There he lies still. They be the two hardest blows I’ve ever seen struck.

  ‘Ho! That bugger never fight again in this life, Tommo,’ Johnny Heki says with deep satisfaction.

  ‘Bloody beauty, eh!’ Bungarrabbee Jack says, dancing about in delight. ‘It work! It work!’

  Maggie leaps over the unconscious loser and climbs into the ring, her petticoats flying. She is sobbing and laughing at once as she clasps her arms ‘round Hawk’s waist and buries her face in his bloody torso. ‘Oh, oh, I loves you, Hawk Solomon! More than me own life!’ she howls, her birdy bonnet falling to the deck as she hugs and kisses him all over. With the last of his strength, Hawk picks her
up and holds her in his arms and the crowd erupts. They has a champion they will never forget as long as they lives. Even the Irishmen are crying, though it may well be for the money they’s lost on their fallen hero.

  Mary’s standing with her gloved hands pressed to her face, looking down at the Bolt, what lies out to it. Then she looks up and gives me a watery smile as her eyes turn to Hawk and Maggie. She turns her face towards me and blows me a kiss.

  ‘I love you, Tommo,’ she calls out.

  ‘I loves you too, Mama,’ I calls back, me voice catching.

  And now I realise it all be over. We has won. We’s beaten the mongrels. And I am very, very tired.

  Suddenly the hair on the back of me neck prickles. I glance up to see that Mr Sparrow has disappeared from his perch in the fading sun. My heart’s hammering as I searches the crowd, hoping to see him. I turn towards the billabong, now dark against the surrounding bush. A currawong calls from the clump o’ coolibah trees. And then I sees him. He hops into a carriage what moves away into the night at a fast pace.

  ‘Wherever ya runs, I’ll find ya,’ I vows. ‘This time Tommo ain’t gunna let ya win, ya mongrel.’

  BOOK FOUR

  Chapter Twenty-five

  HAWK

  The Rocks

  September 1861

  Since returning to Sydney after the fight with Ben Bolt nearly three weeks ago, I find myself a hero beyond any possible reckoning. Bell’s Life in Sydney has proclaimed the event to be one of the great fights in history. It must also have been one of the greatest hidings in history for I am somewhat of a mess. The surgeon has straightened my nose and stitched my lip, ear and the wound above my eyebrow—but I still look like a golliwog that’s been run over by a cart.

  Despite my appearance, people carry on as though I am an object of exquisite beauty. Maggie, Mary, Tommo and I have even been invited to a garden party held by His Excellency the Governor. The whore, the gambler and the nigger are now the toast of the town! Suddenly Maggie is called Miss Pye by shopkeepers and merchants who would have spurned her not so long ago. Their womenfolk still refuse to have anything to do with her, for she is well known as a whore, and we learn later that numerous members of Sydney society have refused the governor’s invitation.

  But Maggie is puffed up with pride for me, and takes no notice of such snubs. She parades down the street with her head held at a jaunty angle, her magpie perched high atop her pretty hair, and men doff their hats as she passes by. The Sydney lads think her almost as much a hero as they do me. I shall be most glad to return to Hobart Town where Mary thinks we should have the wedding—well away from all this fuss and bother.

  Maggie and I are officially betrothed, our forthcoming marriage announced in the Sydney Morning Herald, and Maggie has given up working since Mary’s come to town. She tells me of her decision to stop work the night after the fight, when we make the most tender and considerate love, and she uses her mouth gently so as not to hurt my many wounds and bruises. She kisses my face everywhere except the places that the surgeon has stitched.

  ‘Hawk, yours be the only body I shall ever again give me love to. No other man will lay a finger on me again, even if you should die before me,’ she says, looking solemnly at me with her big blue eyes. ‘I swears this on me life, may Gawd strike me dead this moment if I don’t tell the truth.’

  Now she no longer sleeps all day and by mid-morning is out and about with Mary, shopping and fussing about the wedding details, or having afternoon tiffin in all the best tea rooms in town. The only thing she hasn’t forsaken is the magpie in her bonnet. And when she doesn’t wear a bonnet, the bird still nests in her hair.

  David Jones’ and Farmer’s, the two great emporiums, are now well accustomed to Mary and Maggie’s visits, and our mama has been on a shopping spree the likes of which she’s never indulged in before. The Belgian lace and the ribbon and satin cloth for the wedding gown have all been purchased here and the various department managers fawn over the two of them as though they are the grandest of gentlefolk.

  On one occasion, Mr David Jones himself came down from his office to serve them and sent his compliments to the champion. He even donated five yards of the best French grosgrain ribbon with his good wishes. ‘A small nuptial contribution, with my compliments,’ he said fussing, ‘to remember a great occasion.’ He smiled when Mary shook his hand before leaving. ‘Delighted I’m sure,’ he beamed. ‘Such a nice lady,’ Mr Jones now tells all around him.

  Barney Isaacs, who made my first set of clothes at Maggie’s behest, now begs to make the wedding gown for the cost of the workmanship alone—provided, of course, that he can display the grand creation in his George Street window.

  While Maggie and Mary spend their days together, we all meet as night falls. Tommo, naturally enough, is not working, for all Mr Sparrow’s card games have come to a halt. But he remains a creature of the night and persists in his habit of sleeping all day, seeming to find games enough on his own. Because I have lost so much time with the fight, I have a great deal of bookkeeping to catch up at Tucker & Co. At six o’clock every afternoon when I finish work, we meet at the Hero of Waterloo to have supper together and to hear all the gossip from the two women. It comes mostly from Maggie, as Mary seems to enjoy the retelling as much as Tommo and I. Maggie is like a small child in her excitement, chirping, like the magpie she is, at every new experience and making an event or grand joke out of everything that’s happened in the course of the day. It seems my great affection for her only increases every day, and I have come to love her with my very life.

  How very much things have changed since Tommo and I arrived from New Zealand on the Black Dog. On that same day I met Maggie in Mr Smith’s eating-house after I’d had my fill of his best corned beef. I recall with a smile to myself how I came here in my whaleman’s rags and split boots with Maggie leaving a florin on the table to pay for my breakfast. I have much to thank her for besides the special love she has brought into my life.

  While Maggie and I are not exactly the cream of society, the Sydney Morning Herald is all a-twitter about the bride and groom to be. It has suggested a wedding in the Botanical Gardens so that the general population may turn out to support the champion of the world among the spring blooms. The Herald has even reported that the military band from the New South Wales Regiment would be pleased to attend, with Sydney’s mayor, Councillor John Sutherland, handing us the key to the city at a reception in the Town Hall.

  Meanwhile this same newspaper has been raging on about Mr Sparrow and Fat Fred. The editor has put on a ‘special’ who has lost no time digging out unsavoury facts about boxing’s two worst scoundrels, as he terms them! Not a single penny has been paid out to the punters who backed me. Everyone is holding onto their betting tickets which entitle them to their winnings, but to no joy. Mr Sparrow is holed up with Fat Fred in his rooms above The World Turned Upside Down and will say nothing to the newspapers except that he is ‘consolidating his assets so he can pay’.

  ‘Assets!’ snorts Mary. ‘I’ll bet me own gravestone he declares himself skint! I know his sort. Ikey were of the same mould. What he’s got, and it be plenty you may be sure, he’s got stashed. There’ll be no bank account with money lying about in it. He lives in rented rooms above the pub and if he owns property it will not be in his name. The Sparrows of this world travel light. They keep their fortunes portable—of the kind that can be carried away in a saddlebag on a dark night or slipped aboard ship in a suitcase.’ Mary pauses. ‘Blimey, I should know one when I sees one! I lived with Ikey for Lord knows how many Gawd-forsaken years. We’ll have to be on our guard or our Mr Sparrow will vanish.’

  There’s little chance of that. Mr Sparrow and Fat Fred owe the townfolk here a fortune. There’s not a single street corner, a single laneway, where eyes are not searching for them and tongues telling tales. Every kitchen maid and barman, matelot and mechanic, hackney driver and barrowman is on the lookout should they make any move to leave the pub.


  Bell’s Life in Sydney and the Sydney Morning Herald have both leapt to the defence of the thousands of small punters who put their money on me. It is estimated that two thousand or so punters in the gold diggings alone have placed bets, and in Sydney nearly twice as many again. These are all small gamblers who placed their money on a local hero, much against the advice of the so-called experts, and won. That they should now bear the brunt of Mr Sparrow’s outrageous efforts to defraud the public is terribly unfair.

  The press also declare Mr Sparrow and Fat Fred ruined for life and vow they will keep a watch on these scoundrels. If Mr Sparrow doesn’t meet his obligations, declares the Herald, then he must not be allowed to operate in any part of the sporting business again. A front page headline shouts:

  F. ARTIE SPARROW BANNED FOR LIFE!

  The Herald is particularly keen on this idea but points out that, because prize-fighting is illegal and gambling equally so, Mr Sparrow may get away with his monstrous confidence trick. They ask that, at the very least, he should give the money he has taken to the Orphanage Fund.

  At Mary’s white tablecloth dinner on Sunday I propose a toast. ‘We have ruined Mr Sparrow and so defeated one of the world’s worst mongrels. He will never again live off the profits of greed and corruption.’ I lift my glass.

  ‘Oi, I ain’t drinkin’ to that!’ Maggie exclaims. ‘It’s the poor folk what’s suffered again, not Mr bleedin’ Sparrow. That bastard’s still rollin’ in it. What about all the money he took in the betting shops? Yiz told me yerself. The newspapers reckon it were nigh on twenty thousand pounds.’