This, taken in conjunction with the fact that if the worst came to the worst he had, at any rate, won a medal by having got into the final, cheered Sheen. If only Joe Bevan had appeared he would have been perfectly contented.
But there were no signs of Joe.
XXII
A Good Finish
“Final, Lightweights,” shouted the referee.
A murmur of interest from the ringside chairs.
“R. D. Sheen, Wrykyn College.”
Sheen got his full measure of applause this time. His victories in the preliminary bouts had won him favour with the spectators.
“J. Peteiro, Ripton School.”
“Go it, Ripton!” cried a voice from near the door. The referee frowned in the direction of this audacious partisan, and expressed a hope that the audience would kindly refrain from comment during the rounds.
Then he turned to the ring again, and announced the names a second time.
“Sheen–Peteiro.”
The Ripton man was sitting with a hand on each knee, listening to the advice of his school instructor, who had thrust head and shoulders through the ropes, and was busy impressing some point upon him. Sheen found himself noticing the most trivial things with extraordinary clearness. In the front row of the spectators sat a man with a parti-coloured tie. He wondered idly what tie it was. It was rather like one worn by members of Templar’s house at Wrykyn. Why were the ropes of the ring red? He rather liked the colour. There was a man lighting a pipe. Would he blow out the match or extinguish it with a wave of the hand? What a beast Peteiro looked. He really was a nigger. He must look out for that right of his. The straight left. Push it out. Straight left ruled the boxing world. Where was Joe? He must have missed the train. Or perhaps he hadn’t been able to get away. Why did he want to yawn, he wondered.
“Time!”
The Ripton man became suddenly active. He almost ran across the ring. A brief handshake, and he had penned Sheen up in his corner before he had time to leave it. It was evident what advice his instructor had been giving him. He meant to force the pace from the start.
The suddenness of it threw Sheen momentarily off his balance. He seemed to be in a whirl of blows. A sharp shock from behind. He had run up against the post. Despite everything, he remembered to keep his guard up, and stopped a lashing hit from his antagonist’s left. But he was too late to keep out his right. In it came, full on the weakest spot on his left side. The pain of it caused him to double up for an instant, and as he did so his opponent uppercut him. There was no rest for him. Nothing that he had ever experienced with the gloves on approached this. If only he could get out of this corner.
Then, almost unconsciously, he recalled Joe Bevan’s advice.
“If a man’s got you in a corner,” Joe had said, “fall on him.”
Peteiro made another savage swing. Sheen dodged it and hurled himself forward.
“Break away,” said a dispassionate official voice.
Sheen broke away, but now he was out of the corner with the whole good, open ring to manoeuvre in.
He could just see the Ripton instructor signalling violently to his opponent, and, in reply to the signals, Peteiro came on again with another fierce rush.
But Sheen in the open was a different person from Sheen cooped up in a corner. Francis Hunt had taught him to use his feet. He sidestepped, and, turning quickly, found his man staggering past him, overbalanced by the force of his wasted blow. And now it was Sheen who attacked, and Peteiro who tried to escape. Two swift hits he got in before his opponent could face round, and another as he turned and rushed. Then for a while the battle raged without science all over the ring. Gradually, with a cold feeling of dismay, Sheen realised that his strength was going. The pace was too hot. He could not keep it up. His left counters were losing their force. Now he was merely pushing his glove into the Ripton man’s face. It was not enough. The other was getting to close quarters, and that right of his seemed stronger than ever.
He was against the ropes now, gasping for breath, and Peteiro’s right was thudding against his ribs. It could not last. He gathered all his strength and put it into a straight left. It took the Ripton man in the throat, and drove him back a step. He came on again. Again Sheen stopped him.
It was his last effort. He could do no more. Everything seemed black to him. He leaned against the ropes and drank in the air in great gulps.
“Time!” said the referee.
The word was lost in the shouts that rose from the packed seats.
Sheen tottered to his corner and sat down.
“Keep it up, sir, keep it up,” said a voice. “Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee. Don’t forget the guard. And the straight left beats the world.”
It was Joe—at the eleventh hour.
With a delicious feeling of content Sheen leaned back in his chair. It would be all right now. He felt that the matter had been taken out of his hands. A more experienced brain than his would look after the generalship of the fight.
As the moments of the half-minute’s rest slid away he discovered the truth of Joe’s remarks on the value of a good second. In his other fights the napping of the towel had hardly stirred the hair on his forehead. Joe’s energetic arms set a perfect gale blowing. The cool air revived him. He opened his mouth and drank it in. A spongeful of cold water completed the cure. Long before the call of Time he was ready for the next round.
“Keep away from him, sir,” said Joe, “and score with that left of yours. Don’t try the right yet. Keep it
