“We might be able to accommodate you and the young gentleman,” the publican said with oily enthusiasm.
“Yes, we were just at the Athletic Club the other day, watching the most pathetic match between Strothers and Carson. Twelve rounds. They weren’t even hurting each other! It was as if they had taped cushions to their hands. I started talking about the old days and some of the great fights, such as Cribb versus Molineaux, Randall versus Martin, and Sayers versus Heenan. My poor friend here has never seen a bare-knuckle match, a true gladiatorial contest, and I promised him I would take him to see one if we had to leave England to do it.”
The publican ran a thumb across his lower lip with a canny look. “I don’t think a man would have to go as far as that to see a good matchup.”
“That is what my sources have told me.”
“Oh, really now?” he said. “And who might these sources of yours be?”
“I am not at liberty to say,” Barker said, looking offended, though I knew it was an act.
“You’ll have to tell me if you want to see some blood sport,” the man pressed.
“I do not put the finger on my friends,” Barker continued to insist.
“Suit yourself, then. I never said nothing about nothing.” And with that, the man began wiping the counter with a towel. He’d brought us some Watney ale, which was better than the house deserved. We each took a pull from our tankards and let the matter cool for a moment.
“Oh, very well,” the Guv said to me. “If you’re going to give me that look. It was McLain that told me about the…meeting.”
“Handy Andy?” the man spoke up. “He’s out of it!”
“Aye, he is out of it, but he is not dead, yet. He still hears things. Word says this Campbell-Ffinch fellow can fight. A real up-and-comer.”
“They don’t call him the Hammersmith Hammer for nothing. Time!” The latter was bawled over our shoulders to the crowd.
“So,” Barker said, putting down his half-empty pint glass and wiping the foam from his mustache, “were one interested in what you so rightly call blood sport, where might one go?”
“Watch and learn, gentlemen,” was all the response we got. “Watch and learn.”
The clock struck eleven and the lot of us were ejected at closing time. This was not your average closing, however. There were over fifty of us standing in one or twos along the old road, stamping our feet in the cold. The pub owner locked his door with a flourish and led us down the road for a quarter mile. It must have been an odd sight for someone in one of the cottages along the way, half a hundred marching along silently in the dark. Well, almost silently. Everyone had been drinking, after all, and looking forward to a fight.
I had heard somewhere about clandestine fights that sometimes they took place in the middle of the roadways, the better to vanish if constables should appear. Surely that would be in warm weather, however. Were I a professional fighter, there wasn’t enough money in the Bank of England to make me take my shirt off outside that night. Things improved considerably when the publican led us up to an ancient-looking tithe barn and opened the time-sprung doors. The fighters were already in their places, warming up. There were several lanterns lit, but they dared not risk any sort of fire in the dried-out structure, so it was very cold inside the building.
Campbell-Ffinch looked a worthwhile opponent, I’ll say that for him. Were I a betting man, I’d put my shilling on him. Stripped to the waist, in his silk drawers, long hose, and boots, he looked formidable. He was brown all over, and where there was brown, there was muscle, too. He seemed to glow with health, and as he shadowboxed, a fine layer of steam rose from him like from a Thoroughbred after a run.
As for his opponent, I’ve seen one like him in every village: big-chested, bigger bellied, spindle-shanked, and past his prime. He was the sort that had shown promise once, but it had all been brawn, and he’d never developed the brain to go with it.
The publican showed a flair for sportsmanship and an ability to ape his betters in the boxing fancy. He announced the fight as if it were a national title event, and to his way of thinking, it was. The sport of bare-knuckle or old rule boxing had been declared illegal and could not now bring together champions from all over England as it once had. Campbell-Ffinch, the Hammersmith Hammer, was called the champion. The contender’s name was not worth remembering, but his moniker was the Titan of Tunbridge Wells.
Our host was kind enough to point out the bookies whose takings would provide him his fee, no matter who won that evening. We were one of the few in the crowd who did not partake, but we were not conspicuous about it. The attention went back to the center of the ring, where the boxers were given the rules. A man at the side of the room rang a bell and the fight commenced.
I had boxed a little when I was in school, and I had seen a few matches as well. This wasn’t like those fights at all. It was more like fighting against a bully when I was a lad. The fists slamming into jaws and stomachs were mostly bone with a thin layer of tissue over it. It hurt to see it. The skin of both men began to turn an angry red. Surely it wouldn’t last long. The old boxer was game, I’ll give him that, but he was no match for Campbell-Ffinch. It was give-and-take for a while, and then there was a bell.
In the second round, the Foreign Office man’s opponent came out, determined to even the odds, but Campbell-Ffinch got him up under the jaw with a juicy one that made him stumble and shake his head. He would have been downed if the bell had not rung again.
The Titan was slow off his stool for the third round, and it became obvious that the Hammer was toying with him. The Titan tried a final desperate ploy and shot out a jab. Campbell-Ffinch’s left arm came up, hooked ’round the fellow’s wrist, and pushed it down. He stepped in so close, their chests almost touched, and as his left countered any move the Titan might try, his right delivered a vicious hook punch to the Titan’s temple and down he went, like a bullock at Leadenhall market. There was no shaking of the head or straining to get up. The man would be lucky if he awoke before mid-morning.
A number of audience members voiced their displeasure, but there was nothing they could do about so short a match. One couldn’t exactly complain to the village constable, and if sometimes a match was short, the next might be overlong. So are the vagaries of boxing between two human engines without gloves.
Campbell-Ffinch was pronounced the winner, someone threw a towel over his shoulders, and the Titan’s trainer attempted to revive him. Campbell-Ffinch finally saw us and his eyes narrowed.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Watching a bit of sport,” Barker stated. “Good match.”
“I do this merely to keep in shape, you know,” he said. “Strictly amateur.”
Amateur, my eye, I told myself. If I knew my man, he’d wagered heavily on himself and had somebody there to pick up his winnings. He was trying to convince us, because he didn’t want us to tell the Foreign Office what illegal activity he was up to. If I knew Barker, he’d keep it to himself. Campbell-Ffinch would be in his debt, and that kind of debt is always harder to work off than money.
“I thought your doctor forbade your getting out of bed,” Campbell-Ffinch said.
“I could not resist the opportunity to see you fight. By the way, I apologize for wasting the time of all those good constables this morning, hunting for the text. I assume they never found it.”
“I’ll find it, Barker, make no mistake about it. I hope you realize you are blackening your name irreparably with the Foreign Office.”
“We shall see whose name shall be blackened, sir.”
“Wait!” Campbell-Ffinch called, daring to put a hand on Barker’s shoulder. “How are you coming along on the case?”
“I should be able to lay my hands upon the man,” the Guv said, looking pointedly at the hand on his shoulder, “within a week, if matters unfold as I plan.”
“You are certain?”
“Ask for no certainties on earth, sir. I shall do my best and am optimistic.” He turned to go.
“What did you think of the fight?” he called out as we left.
“It was unevenly matched. I would like to see you against a better opponent.”
“What about yourself, sir? I’ve heard you are rather good. Perhaps we can set up a match!”
“Ah,” Barker rumbled, “but there again, it would be too unevenly matched.”
We made our way back to the train station and into a compartment on a train.
“What o’clock is it?” he asked.
I consulted my repeater. “Half past one, sir. That move, sir, that last move Campbell-Ffinch made, that
