Royal Flash. George Fraser MacDonald

you ready?’

      He stepped back, leaving the two facing each other. It was a strange picture: the big candelabra lit the room as clear as day, shining on the flushed faces of the spectators sitting or squatting on the furniture piled round the panelled walls; on the sporting prints and trophies hung above them; on the wide, empty polished floor; on the jumble of silver and bottles and piled plates on the table with its wine-stained cloths; on the two men toe to toe at the chalk line. There was never a stranger pair of millers in the history of the game.

      Bismarck, in his shirt and trousers and pumps, with the big padded mauleys on his fists, may have been awkward and uncertain, but he looked well. Tall, perfectly built and elegant as a rapier, with his fair cropped head glistening under the light, he reminded me again of a nasty Norse god. His lips were tight, his eyes narrow, and he was studying his man carefully before making a move.

      Gully, on the other hand – oh, Gully! In my time I’ve seen Mace and Big Jack Heenan and little Sayers, and I watched Sullivan beat Ryan¹⁴ and took $10 off Oscar Wilde over that fight, too, but I doubt if any of them could have lived with Gully at his best. Not that I ever saw that best, but I saw him face up to Bismarck, nearly sixty years old, and that is enough for me. Like most poltroons, I have a sneaking inward regard for truly fearless, strong men, fools though they may be, and I can have an academic admiration for real skill, so long as I don’t suffer by it. Gully was fearless and strong and incredibly skilful.

      He stood on the balls of his feet, head sunk between his massive shoulders, hands down, his leathery brown face smiling ever so slightly, his eyes fixed on Bismarck beneath beetling brows. He looked restful, confident, indestructible.

      ‘Time!’ cries Spottswood, and Bismarck swung his right fist. Jack swayed a little and it went past his face. Bismarck stumbled, someone laughed, and then he struck again, right and left. The right went past Jack’s head, the left he stopped with his palm. Bismarck stepped back, looking at him, and then came boring in, driving at Jack’s midriff, but he just turned his body sideways, lazily almost, and the German went blundering by, thumping the air.

      Everyone cheered and roared with laughter, and Bismarck wheeled round, white-faced, biting his lip. Jack, who didn’t seem to have moved more than a foot, regarded him with interest, and motioned him to come on again. Slowly, Bismarck recovered himself, raised his hands and then shot out his left hand as he must have seen the pugs do that afternoon. Jack rolled his head out of the way and then leaned forward a little to let Bismarck’s other hand sail past his head.

      ‘Well done, mynheer,’ he cried. ‘That was good. Left and right, that’s the way. Try again.’

      Bismarck tried, and tried again, and for three minutes Jack swayed and ducked and now and then blocked a punch with his open hand. Bismarck flailed away, and never looked like hitting him, and everyone cheered and roared with laughter. Finally Spottswood called, ‘Time’, and the German stood there, chest heaving and face crimson with his efforts, while Jack was as unruffled as when he started.

      ‘Don’t mind ’em, mynheer,’ says he. ‘There’s none of ’em would ha’ done better, and most not so well. You’re fast, and could be faster, and you move well for a novice.’

      ‘Are you convinced now, Baron?’ says Spottswood.

      Bismarck, having got his breath back, shook his head.

      ‘That there is skill, I admit,’ says he, at which everyone raised an ironical cheer. ‘But I should be obliged,’ he goes on to Jack, ‘if you would try me again, and this time try to hit me in return.’

      At this the idiots cheered, and said he was damned game and a sportsman, and Perceval said he wouldn’t have it, and demanded that the bout should stop at once. But old Jack, smiling his crooked smile, 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.’