by John Wilcox
The second began. ‘Myself and the English second will mark with our swords,’ he handed Jenkins a German dress sword, ‘the standing positions for the combatants in the middle of the duelling area. This will leave a distance of approximately half a metre between the points of your weapons, arms extended.’ His voice was high-pitched and unmodulated, as though he was issuing parade-ground instructions but in conversational tones. ‘You will not step outside the area which has been marked with the tape. Duellists will not ward off their opponent’s blade with their unarmed hand. Sabre rules will be followed, which means that the target area is above the waist only. The legs are not targets. Seconds will intervene the moment the rules are contravened.’
Simon looked around. The duelling area was, in effect, a long strip along which virtually the only movement possible was forwards or back. There could be little chance of sideways evasive action. He licked his lips and, for the first time, felt real fear.
The officer was droning on. ‘You are allowed to stoop, rise, vault to the right or left or turn around each other, as long as you stay within the prescribed area. When one of the parties concedes he is hurt or a wound is noticed by his second, the second will raise his sword, while the opposing second cries out, “Strike up the blades.” Then both combatants take a step back, although remaining en garde. Understood, ja?’
Simon and Jenkins nodded.
The second’s voice dropped for a moment and seemed to Simon to take on a more sinister note. ‘You will fence on, without interruption - there will be no separate rounds - until a conclusive wound is delivered, or until one or the other withdraws. Remember, you may cut and slash as well as lunge with the point. Now, please choose your weapons.’
The second of the uniformed officers stepped forward, clicked his heels and presented two sabres, hilts first, across his forearm. The German second announced, with a touch of annoyance, as though it was something he had omitted to say: ‘They have been measured and weighed and are of equal length and weight.’
With hardly a glance at it, Simon took a sabre. It truly was a brutish instrument. The blade was slightly curved and was a little under a metre in length, and the tip and the edge had been freshly ground so that the serrations glittered in the morning sun. He weighed it for a moment and then, dimly remembering instructions in technique, whirled it from the elbow, keeping the wrist locked. It was heavy all right, but he felt he could handle it. Now that the moment of truth had approached, he felt strangely calm. In fact, it was Jenkins who now appeared to be on edge, looking around him at the trees as though expecting divine intervention at the last minute.
‘Please hand your sabres to the doctor for disinfecting with carbolic acid.’
God, thought Simon, how long do these opening rituals take? Let’s just get on with it! But the preparations were still not quite complete. He and the baron were asked to open their shirts to the waist to ensure that they were not wearing protective padding, and then a silk handkerchief was tied around their sword-arm wrists.
‘What’s this for?’ Simon demanded of the doctor.
‘To protect the arteries,’ he replied. ‘They are particularly vulnerable here.’ And he tapped Simon’s wrist.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ the second was back in command again, ‘I will toss a coin - ah, thank you.’ Jenkins had handed him a sovereign. ‘And Captain Fonthill will call heads or tails for the opening position. I do it now.’ Up went the coin.
‘Tails,’ called Simon.
‘Ja. It is tails.’
‘Thank you very much, bach,’ said Jenkins, rather anxiously it seemed, seizing the coin and putting it into his trouser pocket. Simon looked up. True enough, the fencing strip seemed to stretch east to west. As instructed, he chose to face east, although the sun had not appeared through the tracery of leaves and branches and there seemed no advantage at all in having choice of opening position.
‘Now, gentlemen.’ The uniformed second took up his position in the centre of the strip and slightly to one side - would he be able to keep his monocle in position all through the duel? - with his sword pointing due south. With an irritated gesture, he indicated that Jenkins should do the same on the other side, so that their swords were touching. ‘En garde.’
With practised ease, von Bethman slipped into place, his feet angled at ninety degrees to each other, his legs agonisingly bent, his left hand held high behind him, with the wrist dangling foppishly, and his sword held out towards Simon, horizontal to the ground and about a foot from those of the seconds. Simon attempted to adopt the same posture and immediately felt ridiculous, so he relaxed into an easier if less formal position, standing side on to his opponent, his knees slightly bent, his own sword extended a foot short of the seconds’ swords.
‘Good luck, boyo,’ breathed Jenkins. ‘I’ll kill the bastard if you don’t.’
‘Allez!’ shrieked the monocled German - and they were off.
As Jenkins had predicted, the baron immediately attacked. After the briefest of preparatory touches to Simon’s blade, he feinted to the body and then lunged to the face, his right leg stretched to its limit, his left bent at right angles. Somehow, Simon fended off the attack - it was too clumsy a movement to be called a parry - and then caught the tip of von Bethman’s blade on his hand-guard as the German elegantly switched his attack to the body again. The baron, completely in control of his movements, stepped back for a moment and then, in a flurry of lunges, attacked once more, his blade seeming to Simon to move like the tongue of a snake as it thrust forward at him in fluid movements of flickering silver. This time Simon gave way, stamping back in his riding boots and flailing - there was no other word for it - with his sabre to protect himself.
The baron’s strategy undoubtedly was one of all-out attack, and yet it was clear that he was attempting to fence as though he had a lightweight épée in his hand, instead of the heavy, sharp-edged sabre. He was eschewing - perhaps arrogantly? - the use of slash or swing in favour of the thrust with the point. Yet the curved, cutlass-like sabre was not suited to these quick-silver tactics. The weight of the weapon was pulling at his wrist and forecasting his moves, so that Simon was able to parry, albeit at the last minute. Nevertheless, it was already clear that the German was by far the better swordsman and that it would not be long before he drew blood.
They broke for a second or two as von Bethman walked back contemptuously to his mark, and Simon recalled Jenkins’s advice to ‘let ’im blow ’imself out a bit’. God, he thought. If only I get the chance!
Then, this time without warning, the baron was back. Simon was aware of a sharp pain in his forearm, and suddenly his sabre had been twisted from his grasp and sailed high into the air before falling, point down, to quiver in the grass.
‘Oi, or whatever it is,’ he heard Jenkins cry. ‘ ’Ang on,’e’s ’urt.’
A murmur of admiration for the skill of the move rose from the group of watching Germans, then, from the German second: ‘Strike up the blades. Herr Doctor . . .’
The medico came running forward, his rubber apron slapping against his thighs, but Simon thrust him aside. ‘It is nothing,’ he said.
‘Do you concede?’ asked von Bethman’s second. Simon looked for a brief moment at the sneer on the baron’s face. He was obviously congratulating himself on the thrust that had disarmed his opponent. But there was also perspiration beading his forehead.
‘Good God, no,’ said Simon. ‘We said we would fight until a conclusive wound. This is only a scratch. My sword, please.’
The point of his sabre was carefully cleaned with a cloth, disinfected again and then handed back to him.
‘En garde encore, gentlemen,’ cried the second, and once more they touched swords in the centre.
The baron spoke for the first time. ‘Don’t worry, I have decided not to kill you, pretty boy,’ he growled. ‘But I am going to cut your face to pieces so that no woman will ever look at you again.’
‘Really?’ gasped Simon. The slash to his
forearm was now beginning to burn. ‘What? Make me as ugly as you?’
‘No speaking during the combat, gentlemen,’ warned the German second in his parade-ground monotone. And then his high-pitched ‘Allez!’
Immediately the baron came forward once more, lunging and feinting, the deliberate thrusts always now directed at Simon’s face. The attacks were skilful and lightning quick, but Simon’s height gave him a slight advantage in reach and the German’s targeting of the face seemed to be proving counterproductive, in that Simon was able to tilt his head back and parry, albeit clumsily.
Nevertheless, von Bethman’s lunges were getting nearer and Simon’s defensive moves ever more maladroit. One thrust, to the right eye, ended in an upward flick of the blade’s sharp tip which cut through Simon’s eyebrow, sending blood trickling down into his eye and on to his cheek. Closing the eye, Simon had a momentary, squinted close-up glimpse of the German’s look of savage exhilaration at the pain he had caused. The bastard was trying to blind him!
Simon realised that with one eye closed by the blood from the cut brow, he was virtually finished. His only hope was to counterattack. But how could he get round that flashing blade, always darting towards his face? Then, as their blades clashed and stayed crossed above the hand-guards for a second, he sensed the first moment of weakness in the German. Von Bethman’s blade moved down and to the right as Simon pressed hard on it. Was he becoming tired? Into Simon’s head for a second flashed a picture from six years ago - the image of his sabre instructor at Sandhurst, twirling his weapon from the elbow in quick, circular motions and saying, ‘Of course, if you are the stronger, the Hungarian technique can be effective . . .’
Suddenly, fired by rage, frustration and the pain from his cut forearm and eyebrow, Simon whirled into the attack. For a moment, the baron was nonplussed by the strange, circular movement of his opponent’s blade and Simon saw, for the first time, a look of apprehension come into his eyes. Then the German was defending himself desperately as Simon dropped all pretence at swordsmanship and began slashing and cutting at him with the edge, rather than the point, of the sabre. The attack was almost barbaric in its pace and power, and its very primitiveness suddenly gave Simon the advantage, for von Bethman had learned no formal moves at Heidelberg to counter this kind of onslaught. He fell back defensively for the first time, desperately parrying the mighty blows which drove his blade back on to him, at one time causing it to kiss his face, so strong was the slash.
‘Yes, yes,’ cried Jenkins. ‘Go for ’im, bach!’
‘Silence,’ shouted the opposing second.
Neither the attack nor the defence could be maintained at this level of ferocity for long, but it was the German who gave way. His elegant rubber pump slipped slightly on the grass as he stepped back in retreat and his blade swung away weakly for a second. It gave Simon a brief opening and his sabre came down in a brutal arc, cutting deeply into the German’s sword arm, above the wrist, and sending a fountain of blood curling up and then down on to the grass.
This was no scratch, and a cry of agony came from the baron as he dropped his sword to clutch at the deep gash, blood oozing through his fingers.
‘What you’d call a conclusive wound, I think,’ gasped Simon.
‘Strike up the whatsits,’ shouted Jenkins belatedly, his face beaming with joy.
The doctor rushed forward and bent to the side of the baron, who was now kneeling on the grass, his face contorted in pain. They spoke in German and the doctor gestured to the monocled second, who also knelt at von Bethman’s side. Eventually, the latter looked up and addressed Simon. ‘The duel is yours, sir,’ he said. ‘The baron’s sword arm is now useless and he is unable to continue.’
‘Thank you,’ gasped Simon, still trying to regain his breath. ‘Then if you gentlemen will excuse me, I will say good morning. I have an appointment to keep.’
‘Fonthill.’ The cry came from von Bethman. His voice had descended into little more than a whisper. ‘You fought like a peasant.’
‘No. I fought like a soldier. You fought like a prancing courtesan.’
The baron’s features were screwed into an expression of pure hatred. ‘I shall kill you the next time we meet,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Be sure of that.’
‘I shall look forward to it,’ said Simon. He threw down his sabre and walked away. At the entrance to the garden he stopped and looked back. The baron, still lying on the ground, was regarding him with a look of pure malevolence. For a second, a shudder of apprehension flashed through Simon’s body. It was clear that he had made a lifelong enemy of this cruel, bitter man. This was an untamed, violent country. Would the German find an opportunity of taking his revenge? A phrase from Sandhurst days came back to him: ‘Watch your back, soldier . . .’ He sighed, shook his head and walked through the gate.
‘Good day, all,’ said Jenkins cheerily and followed suit. They left behind a silent group of Germans huddled around the kneeling figure of Baron Wilhelm von Bethman.
Once outside the embassy, Simon leaned against the fence, his whole body trembling and his face white beneath the blood now pouring down his cheek.
‘ ’Ere,’ said Jenkins. He produced a grubby handkerchief and began dabbing gently at the wound. ‘Ah, it’s not too bad. Bit of cold water on it and a bandage or somethin’ an’ you’ll be fine. I’ll see to that gash in your arm as well.’
Simon sucked in breath. ‘God, 352,’ he said, ‘I thought I was done for. He was all over me at the beginning. But you were right. He did run out of puff first and it was lucky I was able to hang on. But for goodness’ sake don’t let me go duelling again. I’m no bloody good at it.’
Jenkins stopped his ministrations and grabbed Simon’s hand. ‘Oh sorry, bach sir,’ he said as Simon winced. ‘No bloody good, my arse. By golly, you did well. I thought you was a goner, at first, as well, I really did. ’E was prancin’ about all over the place, look you. But it was all right when you lost your temper, see. Bloody ’ell, man, you nearly killed ’im. We didn’t need old . . .’ He paused.
‘Didn’t need old who?’
‘Oh, nothin’. It was just a little plan I ’ad, but it didn’t seem to work anyway. Never mind. We won.’
Simon lifted his good eyebrow and glared at Jenkins, his head on one side. ‘That reminds me, show me that sovereign.’
‘Ooh, that’s Ally’s. I wouldn’t want to ’and it over, see.’
‘Yes you would. Come on.’
Reluctantly, Jenkins dug into his pocket and gave Simon the sovereign.
‘I thought so,’ said Simon, examining it. ‘Just as well I called tails, wasn’t it, because there’s no side with heads on it.’
‘Well,’ said Jenkins scratching his chin. ‘’E’s a bit of a lad, is old Ally. You know, bach sir, I think ’e cheats at cards, too.’
The American chose just that moment to join them. His normally immaculate buckskins were stained green and his beautifully worked leather boots were scuffed. He looked at the pair of them ruefully. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Jenkins. ‘Ah couldn’t climb the dang blasted tree. So ah couldn’t work this.’ He handed a small hand mirror to the Welshman and beamed at Simon. ‘But ah just managed to get up on to a lower branch in time to see you give that German feller a real roastin’. Sonny, this chile was real proud of you.’
Simon shook his head, half in amusement and half in anger. ‘It was going to be shining the reflected light of the sun into his eyes, was it?’
‘Well,’ Jenkins wiped his moustache and gave a shamefaced grin, ‘it was all I could think of, look you. If this bloody American ’ad moved ’is arse a bit faster up that tree, it could ’ave worked and saved you gettin’ those cuts, see.’
Simon extended his hand to both of them. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I am grateful for your loyalty. But thank God I didn’t need your help in the end. Now, come on and let’s get out of here. I’ve got to get patched up and then see the president.’
In the hotel there was little
time to do other than bathe Simon’s wounds, bandage his forearm and apply a little cooking oil from the kitchen to his eyebrow to seal the cut. Then, in riding clothes but with his shirtsleeve buttoned down to cover the bandage, he strode off to the House of Assembly to keep his appointment.
As he walked, Simon rationalised his situation. It was unlikely that news of the duel would have leaked out. Other than he and Jenkins, all those attending the clash were Germans, even the doctor. These stiffly buttoned Prussians were unlikely, he reasoned, to leak the story of the defeat of their champion - and the baron would certainly never tell anyone how he had been beaten by a novice English swordsman. But Anna would know. Anna - ah, Anna! He realised with a start that he had hardly thought of her since rising to meet his destiny at the embassy. What was that strange power that von Bethman seemed to exercise over her? What did he call her? His cousin. Hmm. It was with a sense of shame that Simon became aware that his ardour for the beautiful countess had diminished overnight. And yet . . . He recalled the softness of her skin and the delicate arch of her eyebrows; the way she looked up at him through her eyelashes. Oh, Lord! At that point, walking under the blue African sky, having fought his first duel and narrowly escaped with his life, Simon just didn’t know what to think.
Brand was in a jovial mood as he received Simon. The ball had obviously been a great success and he thanked his visitor for attending. ‘You did your duty on the dance floor very well, Fonthill,’ he smiled. ‘Damned sight better than I did.’
‘Sorry, sir, but I had to opt out of the polka. Bit like dancing to Morse code, I thought.’
‘Quite right. Good gracious. That’s a nasty cut. How did that happen?’
‘Just a slight argument with a door post. It’s nothing really, sir.’
‘Right. Now. Glad to see that you are dressed for the journey and are ready to go. But let me detain you just for a moment. Sit down.’ The president took up a stout buff-coloured envelope from his desk and handed it to Simon. ‘There’s the reply to General Colley. No news has yet come through to me from Natal about troop movements, so as far as I know, the general has made no advance yet. But I flatter myself that he will be interested in what I have to say, so you should make haste to take it to him as fast as you can.