“Blast,” Barker rumbled. “The Crook and Harp has emptied out, and everyone is trying to protect the bombers. This won’t do.I shall have to go down.”
From somewhere below we heard a door slam and the sound of feet running swiftly up the stairs. We were across the room from our sticks. Who could be coming, and what would they want?
O’Casey and McKeller burst into the room. They were both missing their caps, and the state of their clothing showed they’d fought their way back. They still had their two satchels, both handles in one hand, while they held their bata sticks in the other.
“The street is full of peelers!” O’Casey informed us. “Someone must have peached.”
“Blow it up, then,” McKeller growled. “Blow it all up. If you set one of these off, the rest are bound to go off as one. Blow us all to kingdom come. Leave a crater in London so big the English will never forget!”
“I am afraid I cannot allow that to happen, gentlemen,” my employer said in his normal Lowland Scots. “You see, we are agents of the English government. It was I who summoned the police here.”
McKeller broke into a string of curses, but O’Casey, whether he’d suspected or was merely fatalistic, set down his bombs and raised his stick. We were simply the next obstacle in his path, and he would concentrate on that alone.
“Fergus!” O’Casey barked. “They are unarmed. Take these two down and we still have a room full of bombs to blow up or bargain with as we choose.”
I realized we were twenty feet from our sticks, but Barker was ahead of me. He dug into his pockets and threw their contents at the two Irishmen. Not merely his razor coins, but regular ones, keys, a pocketknife, and who knows what else flew at the faces of O’Casey and McKeller. They flinched and stepped back just enough for Barker to get to our sticks. He spun around and tossed one to me.
Sporting a fresh cut on his cheek from one of Barker’s sharpened coins, McKeller came toward me, his stick raised. “What’s your real name, you blasted Welsh trash? I want to know who it is I’m thrashing.”
“Thomas Llewelyn, at your service.” I stood up to him. “Are you going to fight or merely talk me to death?”
McKeller came at me with an overhead smash, but I’d fought him enough to know he would begin that way. Instead of my head, he met my stick with the sharp smack of wood upon wood.Behind me, I heard the first clash of my employer and O’Casey.McKeller began a series of blows, swinging the stick about his head-left, right, left, right; high, low-but I blocked each one.Then he feinted, I blocked too cleanly, and his stick got under it, raking across my ribs like a willow wand along a fence. I grunted in pain. He’d scored the first point.
“You can do better than that, Welshman,” McKeller taunted me. “Or can you? Best set down your stick and run away.”
I came in with my own overhead strike, but it, too, was a feint. While my stick cracked against his, my foot was already up, and I caught him in that ale-heavy paunch of his. It was necessary to show him that I was a better fighter than I had been the last time I faced him. If I lost or was incapacitated, it would be the two of them against Barker, and should the unimaginable happen and the two of them get by him, heaven help London.
McKeller shook it off and lashed out, catching me on the knuckles of my stick hand. I dropped my stick but managed to pick it up with my other hand and roll out of the way with only a thump across my spine for my troubles. I came up and blocked again, and again, and again.
Strategy. Though Barker was in a pitched battle with O’Casey behind me, I could hear his voice in my memory, and the dozens of instructions and axioms he and Vigny had said to me in the garden of our home and in the sparring ring.
Split your thoughts while fighting, lad. Forget your past mistakes. Be in the present, blocking the attack or launching your own, while planning your next.
I blocked a move, ducked away from a second, and lashed out a strike of my own.
Look for weaknesses. Is he left- or right-handed? Does he favor the same moves too often? Does he leave any area exposed?
I ducked as McKeller’s stick whistled over my head. I held my left hand out to balance myself and my stick in front of my face.
Keep a rhythm to your movement, Thomas, like a drumbeat in your head. Communicate that movement to your opponent. Get him moving to your cadence. Then, when he’s set into it, break the rhythm, and while he’s recovering, attack!
Barker’s words had kept me alive so far, but I was getting bruised. McKeller clipped my eyebrow, spilling the first claret, and caught me a whack across the right knee which hurt like the deuce. I’d done little beyond the kick, which he’d recovered quickly from, and a blow to his elbow, but he showed no signs of flagging. In fact, he was taunting me.
“You’ll have to improve if you’re going to beat Fergus McKeller, Welshman!” he said, his face red with bloodlust. “I was born with one of these sticks in my hand. I think we’ll tie you up and circle you in your own bombs. Won’t that be a nice present for the Queen?”
“I’m not done, yet,” I warned him, and launched a flurry of attacks, most of which he parried easily. Secretly, however, I knew he was right. My arms were tired and my energy flagging. If I didn’t think quickly, I was going to lose.
I gathered my thoughts and drew back into myself mentally.What would work against this man? He was taller than I, and stronger. He was more experienced and had a longer reach. He seemed to have no weaknesses beyond a slightly injured arm, and, so far, breaking rhythm hadn’t worked. For a moment, I wondered if I could just hold my own long enough, perhaps Barker could overcome O’Casey and come to my rescue. No, I told myself. I wouldn’t allow myself to be rescued. I had to win this match for myself.
Then at last, it came to me, some advice Barker had given me weeks before, but I had almost forgotten.
When all else fails, sacrifice. Offer a target, like a wounded bird.When he commits to it, throw all you have into an attack from a different direction. Shoot your bolt, lad. It’s your final option.
McKeller caught me a heavy clout across the head, which set my ears ringing. I’d been too caught up in thinking for a moment.He smacked a second across my shoulder and a third on my left forearm. I blocked the fourth and fifth. It was time to do something or I was going to lose.
I brought my stick up in front of my face horizontally, with most of it to my right, but half a foot or so of ferrule protecting me in front. I tried to pretend I was mostly through, that one final attack would bring me down. Confident that I was near done, McKeller smiled and brought his stick up high. He’d finish the fight as he’d begun it, with an overhead smash through my feeble guard. I saw him commit fully, not realizing that his attack would spin my own stick back in his direction. My stick gave way with the force of his attack and the heavy knob of his bata struck my nose, smashing cartilage and letting loose a torrent of blood, but as he did so the knob of my stick, from the force of his blow, caught McKeller full on the temple with a dull thump, felling him like an ox. I believe the two of us struck the floor together.
“Lad?”
I was sitting. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been there. My head was ringing, and my vision blurred. My hands were wet, and my entire shirtfront was thick with my own blood.
“I think he broke my nose.”
“It appears so,” Barker said, handing me a handkerchief to stanch the blood. “And you’ll have a couple of black eyes by tomorrow, but you brought him down, Thomas. We have stopped the faction. That’s the important thing.”
I looked over to where McKeller lay motionless on the floor.