by Unknown
“I didn’t have a very pleasant time, sir,” was his correction.
“Well?” said Mr Spence.
“So I was a bit sick,” continued Sheen, relapsing once more into the vernacular, “and I wanted to do something to put things right again, and I met—anyhow, I took up boxing. I wanted to box for the house, if I was good enough. I practised every day, and stuck to it, and after a bit I did become pretty good.”
“Well?”
“Then Drummond got mumps, and I wrote to him asking if I might represent the house instead of him, and I suppose he didn’t believe I was any good. At any rate, he wouldn’t let me go in. Then Joe—a man who knows something about boxing—suggested I should go down to Aldershot.”
“Joe?” said Mr Spence inquiringly.
Sheen had let the name slip out unintentionally, but it was too late now to recall it.
“Joe Bevan, sir,” he said. “He used to be champion of England, light-weight.”
“Joe Bevan!” cried Mr Spence. “Really? Why, he trained me when I boxed for Cambridge. He’s one of the best of fellows. I’ve never seen any one who took such trouble with his man. I wish we could get him here. So it was Joe who suggested that you should go down to Aldershot? Well, he ought to know. Did he say you would have a good chance?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My position is this, you see, Sheen. There is nothing I should like more than to see the school represented at Aldershot. But I cannot let anyone go down, irrespective of his abilities. Aldershot is not child’s play. And in the Light-Weights you get the hardest fighting of all. It wouldn’t do for me to let you go down if you are not up to the proper form. You would be half killed.”
“I should like to have a shot, sir,” said Sheen.
“Then this year, as you probably know, Ripton are sending down Peteiro for the Light-Weights. He was the fellow whom Drummond only just beat last year. And you saw the state in which Drummond came back. If Drummond could hardly hold him, what would you do?”
“I believe I could beat Drummond, sir,” said Sheen.
Mr Spence’s eyes opened wider. Here were brave words. This youth evidently meant business. The thing puzzled him. On the one hand, Sheen had been cut by his house for cowardice. On the other, Joe Bevan, who of all men was best able to judge, had told him that he was good enough to box at Aldershot.
“Let me think it over, Sheen,” he said. “This is a matter which I cannot decide in a moment. I will tell you tomorrow what I think about it.”
“I hope you will let me go down, sir,” said Sheen. “It’s my one chance.”
“Yes, yes, I see that, I see that,” said Mr Spence, “but all the same—well, I will think it over.”
All the rest of that evening he pondered over the matter, deeply perplexed. It would be nothing less than cruel to let Sheen enter the ring at Aldershot if he were incompetent. Boxing in the Public Schools Boxing Competition is not a pastime for the incompetent. But he wished very much that Wrykyn should be represented, and also he sympathised with Sheen’s eagerness to wipe out the stain on his honour, and the honour of the house. But, like Drummond, he could not help harbouring a suspicion that this was a pose. He felt that Sheen was intoxicated by his imagination. Every one likes to picture himself doing dashing things in the limelight, with an appreciative multitude to applaud. Would this mood stand the test of action?
Against this there was the evidence of Joe Bevan. Joe had said that Sheen was worthy to fight for his school, and Joe knew.
Mr Spence went to bed still in a state of doubt.
Next morning he hit upon a solution of the difficulty. Wandering in the grounds before school, he came upon O’Hara, who, as has been stated before, had won the Light-Weights at Aldershot in the previous year. He had come to Wrykyn for the Sports. Here was the man to help him. O’Hara should put on the gloves with Sheen and report.
“I’m in rather a difficulty, O’Hara,” he said, “and you can help me.”
“What’s that?” inquired O’Hara.
“You know both our light-weights are on the sick list? I had just resigned myself to going down to Aldershot without any one to box, when a boy in Seymour’s volunteered for the vacant place. I don’t know if you knew him at school? Sheen. Do you remember him?”
“Sheen?” cried O’Hara in amazement. “Not Sheen!”…
His recollections of Sheen were not conducive to a picture of him as a public-school boxer.
“Yes. I had never heard of him as a boxer. Still, he seems very anxious to go down, and he certainly has one remarkable testimonial, and as there’s no one else—”
“And what shall I do?” asked O’Hara.
“I want you, if you will, to give him a trial in the dinner-hour. Just see if he’s any good at all. If he isn’t, of course, don’t hit him about a great deal. But if he shows signs of being a useful man, extend him. See what he can do.”
“Very well, sir,” said O’Hara.
“And you might look in at my house at tea-time, if you have nothing better to do, and tell me what you think of him.”
At five o’clock, when he entered Mr Spence’s study, O’Hara’s face wore the awe-struck look of one who had seen visions.
“Well?” said Mr Spence. “Did you find him any good?”
“Good?” said O’Hara. “He’ll beat them all. He’s a champion. There’s no stopping him.”
“What an extraordinary thing!” said Mr Spence.
XX
SHEEN GOES TO ALDERSHOT
At Sheen’s request Mr Spence made no announcement of the fact that Wrykyn would be represented in the Light-Weights. It would be time enough, Sheen felt, for the School to know that he was a boxer when he had been down and shown what he could do. His appearance in his new role would be the most surprising thing that had happened in the place for years, and it would be a painful anti-climax if, after all the excitement which would be caused by the discovery that he could use his hands, he were to be defeated in his first bout. Whereas, if he happened to win, the announcement of his victory would be all the more impressive, coming unexpectedly. To himself he did not admit the possibility of defeat. He had braced himself up for the ordeal, and he refused to acknowledge to himself that he might not come out of it well. Besides, Joe Bevan continued to express hopeful opinions.
“Just you keep your head, sir.” he said, “and you’ll win. Lots of these gentlemen, they’re champions when they’re practising, and you’d think nothing wouldn’t stop them when they get into the ring. But they get wild directly they begin, and forget everything they’ve been taught, and where are they then? Why, on the floor, waiting for the referee to count them out.”
This picture might have encouraged Sheen more if he had not reflected that he was just as likely to fall into this error as were his opponents.
“What you want to remember is to keep that guard up. Nothing can beat that. And push out your left straight. The straight left rules the boxing world. And be earnest about it. Be as friendly as you like afterwards, but while you’re in the ring say to yourself, ‘Well, it’s you or me’, and don’t be too kind.”
“I wish you could come down to second me, Joe,” said Sheen.
“I’ll have a jolly good try, sir,” said Joe Bevan. “Let me see. You’ll be going down the night before—I can’t come down then, but I’ll try and manage it by an early train on the day.”
“How about Francis?”
“Oh, Francis can look after himself for one day. He’s not the sort of boy to run wild if he’s left alone for a few hours.”
“Then you think you can manage it?”
“Yes, sir. If I’m not there for your first fight, I shall come in time to second you in the final.”
“If I get there,” said Sheen.
“Good seconding’s half the battle. These soldiers they give you at Aldershot—well, they don’t know the business, as the saying is. They don’t look after their man, not like I could. I saw young what’s-his-name, o
f Rugby—Stevens: he was beaten in the final by a gentleman from Harrow—I saw him fight there a couple of years ago. After the first round he was leading—not by much, but still, he was a point or two ahead. Well! He went to his corner and his seconds sent him up for the next round in the same state he’d got there in. They hadn’t done a thing to him. Why, if I’d been in his corner I’d have taken him and sponged him and sent him up again as fresh as he could be. You must have a good second if you’re to win. When you’re all on top of your man, I don’t say. But you get a young gentleman of your own class, just about as quick and strong as you are, and then you’ll know where the seconding comes in.”
“Then, for goodness’ sake, don’t make any mistake about coming down,” said Sheen.
“I’ll be there, sir,” said Joe Bevan.
The Queen’s Avenue Gymnasium at Aldershot is a roomy place, but it is always crowded on the Public Schools’ Day. Sisters and cousins and aunts of competitors flock there to see Tommy or Bobby perform, under the impression, it is to be supposed, that he is about to take part in a pleasant frolic, a sort of merry parlour game. What their opinion is after he emerges from a warm three rounds is not known. Then there are soldiers in scores. Their views on boxing as a sport are crisp and easily defined. What they want is Gore. Others of the spectators are Old Boys, come to see how the school can behave in an emergency, and to find out whether there are still experts like Jones, who won the Middles in ‘96 or Robinson, who was runner-up in the Feathers in the same year; or whether, as they have darkly suspected for some time, the school has Gone To The Dogs Since They Left.
The usual crowd was gathered in the seats round the ring when Sheen came out of the dressing-room and sat down in an obscure corner at the end of the barrier which divides the gymnasium into two parts on these occasions. He felt very lonely. Mr Spence and the school instructor were watching the gymnastics, which had just started upon their lengthy course. The Wrykyn pair were not expected to figure high on the list this year. He could have joined Mr Spence, but, at the moment, he felt disinclined for conversation. If he had been a more enthusiastic cricketer, he would have recognised the feeling as that which attacks a batsman before he goes to the wicket. It is not precisely funk. It is rather a desire to accelerate the flight of Time, and get to business quickly. All things come to him who waits, and among them is that unpleasant sensation of a cold hand upon the portion of the body which lies behind the third waistcoat button.
The boxing had begun with a bout between two feather-weights, both obviously suffering from stage-fright. They were fighting in a scrambling and unscientific manner, which bore out Mr Bevan’s statements on the subject of losing one’s head. Sheen felt that both were capable of better things. In the second and third rounds this proved to be the case and the contest came to an end amidst applause.
The next pair were light-weights, and Sheen settled himself to watch more attentively. From these he would gather some indication of what he might expect to find when he entered the ring. He would not have to fight for some time yet. In the drawing for numbers, which had taken place in the dressing-room, he had picked a three. There would be another light-weight battle before he was called upon. His opponent was a Tonbridgian, who, from the glimpse Sheen caught of him, seemed muscular. But he (Sheen) had the advantage in reach, and built on that.
After opening tamely, the light-weight bout had become vigorous in the second round, and both men had apparently forgotten that their right arms had been given them by Nature for the purpose of guarding. They were going at it in hurricane fashion all over the ring. Sheen was horrified to feel symptoms of a return of that old sensation of panic which had caused him, on that dark day early in the term, to flee Albert and his wicked works. He set his teeth, and fought it down. And after a bad minute he was able to argue himself into a proper frame of mind again. After all, that sort of thing looked much worse than it really was. Half those blows, which seemed as if they must do tremendous damage, were probably hardly felt by their recipient. He told himself that Francis, and even the knife-and-boot boy, hit fully as hard, or harder, and he had never minded them. At the end of the contest he was once more looking forward to his entrance to the ring with proper fortitude.
The fighting was going briskly forward now, sometimes good, sometimes moderate, but always earnest, and he found himself contemplating, without undue excitement, the fact that at the end of the bout which had just begun, between middle-weights from St Paul’s and Wellington, it would be his turn to perform. As luck would have it, he had not so long to wait as he had expected, for the Pauline, taking the lead after the first few exchanges, out-fought his man so completely that the referee stopped the contest in the second round. Sheen got up from his corner and went to the dressing-room. The Tonbridgian was already there. He took off his coat. Somebody crammed his hands into the gloves and from that moment the last trace of nervousness left him. He trembled with the excitement of the thing, and hoped sincerely that no one would notice it, and think that he was afraid.
Then, amidst a clapping of hands which sounded faint and far-off, he followed his opponent to the ring, and ducked under the ropes.
The referee consulted a paper which he held, and announced the names.
“R. D. Sheen, Wrykyn College.”
Sheen wriggled his fingers right into the gloves, and thought of Joe Bevan. What had Joe said? Keep that guard up. The straight left. Keep that guard—the straight left. Keep that—
“A. W. Bird, Tonbridge School.”
There was a fresh outburst of applause. The Tonbridgian had shown up well in the competition of the previous year, and the crowd welcomed him as an old friend.
Keep that guard up—straight left. Straight left—guard up.
“Seconds out of the ring.”
Guard up. Not too high. Straight left. It beats the world. What an age that man was calling Time. Guard up. Straight—
“Time,” said the referee.
Sheen, filled with a great calm, walked out of his corner and shook hands with his opponent.
XXI
A GOOD START
It was all over in half a minute.
The Tonbridgian was a two-handed fighter of the rushing type almost immediately after he had shaken hands. Sheen found himself against the ropes, blinking from a heavy hit between the eyes. Through the mist he saw his opponent sparring up to him, and as he hit he side-stepped. The next moment he was out in the middle again, with his man pressing him hard. There was a quick rally, and then Sheen swung his right at a venture. The blow had no conscious aim. It was purely speculative. But it succeeded. The Tonbridgian fell with a thud.
Sheen drew back. The thing seemed pathetic. He had braced himself up for a long fight, and it had ended in half a minute. His sensations were mixed. The fighting half of him was praying that his man would get up and start again. The prudent half realised that it was best that he should stay down. He had other fights before him before he could call that silver medal his own, and this would give him an invaluable start in the race. His rivals had all had to battle hard in their opening bouts.
The Tonbridgian’s rigidity had given place to spasmodic efforts to rise. He got on one knee, and his gloved hand roamed feebly about in search of a hold. It was plain that he had shot his bolt. The referee signed to his seconds, who ducked into the ring and carried him to his corner. Sheen walked back to his own corner, and sat down. Presently the referee called out his name as the winner, and he went across the ring and shook hands with his opponent, who was now himself again.
He overheard snatches of conversation as he made his way through the crowd to the dressing-room.
“Useful boxer, that Wrykyn boy.”
“Shortest fight I’ve seen here since Hopley won the Heavy-Weights.”
“Fluke, do you think?”
“Don’t know. Came to the same thing in the end, anyhow. Caught him fair.”
“Hard luck on that Tonbridge man. He’s a good boxer, really.
Did well here last year.”
Then an outburst of hand-claps drowned the speakers’ voices. A swarthy youth with the Ripton pink and green on his vest had pushed past him and was entering the ring. As he entered the dressing-room he heard the referee announcing the names. So that was the famous Peteiro! Sheen admitted to himself that he looked tough, and hurried into his coat and out of the dressing-room again so as to be in time to see how the Ripton terror shaped.
It was plainly not a one-sided encounter. Peteiro’s opponent hailed from St Paul’s, a school that has a habit of turning out boxers. At the end of the first round it seemed that honours were even. The great Peteiro had taken as much as he had given, and once had been uncompromisingly floored by the Pauline’s left. But in the second round he began to gain points. For a boy of his weight he had a terrific hit with the right, and three applications of this to the ribs early in the round took much of the sting out of the Pauline’s blows. He fought on with undiminished pluck, but the Riptonian was too strong for him, and the third round was a rout. To quote the Sportsman of the following day, “Peteiro crowded in a lot of work with both hands, and scored a popular victory”.
Sheen looked thoughtful at the conclusion of the fight. There was no doubt that Drummond’s antagonist of the previous year was formidable. Yet Sheen believed himself to be the cleverer of the two. At any rate, Peteiro had given no signs of possessing much cunning. To all appearances he was a tough, go-ahead fighter, with a right which would drill a hole in a steel plate. Had he sufficient skill to baffle his (Sheen’s) strong tactics? If only Joe Bevan would come! With Joe in his corner to direct him, he would feel safe.
But of Joe up to the present there were no signs.
Mr Spence came and sat down beside him.
“Well, Sheen,” he said, “so you won your first fight. Keep it up.”
“I’ll try, sir,” said Sheen.
“What do you think of Peteiro?”
“I was just wondering, sir. He hits very hard.”