twenty years. The boxing coach from Helpmekaar came over and protested and to our surprise Darby replied that the boys, like Old Jimbo, were school servants and welcome to stay.
My fight was first, and after I had been given the decision over Jannie Geldenhuis and the excitement had died down a bit I looked up towards the door. Except for Old Jimbo and a very tall man, the Africans were no longer there. Upon seeing me looking in his direction the tall black man raised his hand in a clenched fist. ‘Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!’ he shouted and was gone.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Sarge said, looking up from cutting the tape on my gloves. ‘Sounded like some sorta war cry. Ungrateful blighters, they’ve all gone ’ome after the first fight.’
It was the first appearance of the people.
At first my black fan club, as it was to become known, was only a dozen or so but when the venue permitted it, it would grow to several hundred and later a great deal more than that. The legend of the Tadpole Angel was spreading.
After a few weeks, it became obvious that my identity had somehow been revealed to the school servants through the same weird osmosis in Africa that makes news penetrate prison walls, travel over mountains and into the townships until it becomes a part of the very air itself. And so a subtle change began to take place. The best cuts of meat appeared on the juniors’ table and seconds were always brought first to where I sat. I found that my chores had been taken over. I would go to Fred Cooper’s locker to get his rugby gear out for washing or his cricket boots for cleaning, only to find that they’d been done. His Sam Browne and brasses always shone like a mirror and even the laces in his rugby boots were washed. Only the morning chores, such as making Cooper’s bed, were left to me, as there were no dormitory servants around first thing in the morning. My own gear was always spotless and back in my locker clean or polished by the time we got back to Wellington from the main school each day for lunch. On one occasion my football jersey had been ripped, I had made a hopeless job attempting to repair it and it concerned me greatly. I knew with certainty that my mother could not afford to replace it. I arrived back at Wellington for lunch to find that it had been neatly machine darned, washed and ironed and was as good as new.
I spoke often to the school servants in their own languages but they never for one moment admitted to anything. They had heard the legend, knew the myth and had simply reacted without needing direction from anyone. In fact, I knew there would be no interested party looking after me, no concerned group of ex-prisoners. Africans don’t work like that, each simply acted out his feelings, responding to what he or she felt. The legend of Onoshobishobi Ingelosi was sufficient in itself, it fed off my presence and not because of anything I would consciously do. In fact, despite my desire to do so, there was nothing I could do to stop it. My boxing was the needed proof of my status as a warrior and the fact that I only fought the hated Boer, yet another.
As is so often the case with a legend, every incident has two possible interpretations, the plausible and the one which is moulded to suit the making of the myth. Man is a romantic at heart and will always put aside dull, plodding reason for the excitement of an enigma. As Doc had pointed out, mystery, not logic, is what gives us hope and keeps us believing in a force greater than our own insignificance.
The boarders put my privileged position down to my near fraternal attitude to the school servants, which nicely explained their anxiety to help me. I was, I was beginning to understand, a natural leader, and leaders, I have found, need never explain. In fact the less they explain the more desirable they become as leaders. Except to Doc, I had never been given to explaining myself and this was taken as strength by those who followed me. In truth, my reluctance to share my feelings was born out of my fear as a small child when I had been the only Rooinek in the foreign land of Afrikanerdom. I had survived by passing as unnoticed as possible, by anticipating the next move against me, by being prepared when the shit hit the fan to take it in my stride, pretending not to be hurt or humiliated. I had learned early that silence is better than sycophancy, that silence breeds guilt in other people. That it is fun to persecute a pig because it squeals, no fun at all to beat an animal which does not cry out. I had long since built the walls around my ego which only the most persistent person would ever manage to climb.
EIGHTEEN
I was the youngest kid in the first form but, what with one thing and another, I was clearly seen to have a bright future at the Prince of Wales School. My boxing win had made me a hero amongst the first form boarders who, elated by the financial gain from betting on me, had become devoted fans and who now exaggerated the fight in their constant retelling of it to any of the day boys who cared to listen. The next two matches had been away from the school and these I had also won and the boarders had once again shared in the spoils. Although we didn’t have enough information on the two boxers I fought, my opponents were comparatively easy and as both had been beaten by Geldenhuis we took the chance of giving the Afrikaans punters more than attractive odds to back their own fighter, with the result that we turned both matches into nice little earners.
The retelling of these two fights, by Hymie in particular, made them out to be gladiatorial bouts which made the first fight against Jannie Geldenhuis seem like a kissing match. By the time the next home match took place there was standing room only in the school gym and the fifty or so Africans who had turned up were obliged to watch the fight through the large bay windows.
To the delight of the school crowd, I won what turned out to be an easy fight. The other kid was very aggressive, prepared to take any sort of punishment to get a punch in. He was said to have won his first three fights inside the distance. But he came at me wide open on three occasions in the first round and I sat him on his pants in the middle of the ring three times. Three knockdowns was all it took to win a fight. The school was further vindicated when our light-heavyweight, Danny Polkinhorne, won on points in a brawling but thrilling three rounder.
Hymie and I had started a register on every boxer the school fought against, in every weight division. I would sit with him during a fight and describe the opponent fighting one of our boxers. I would talk about his footwork and his style, his weaknesses or strengths in ring craft, and his personality in the ring. I would point out those boxers who dominated the space they boxed in as if they owned the ring, and those who seemed to be fighting in borrowed space. We would separate the stand-up fighters from the boxers. We would note those who cut easily around the eyes. Hymie would jot down every punch thrown in a fight, how many and what they were. Our notes would end with my summary of the entire fight and of the boxer, noting the punches he liked to throw the most and how many he threw during a fight. Boxers were obliged to weigh in before stepping into the ring and Hymie would record their fighting weight and compare it with the next time they fought. We kept all these records in a big leather-bound accounting book, on the cover of which was embossed in gold:
In a remarkably short time Hymie began to grasp the niceties of boxing. While I could remember the most minute details of almost every fighter, Hymie quickly developed the ability to anticipate with uncanny precision the way a boxer would fight the next time he appeared in the ring. He had an unerring instinct for a boxer’s weakness and so we were able to prepare our own boxers to fight an opponent to exploit these. Of course, it also allowed us to set the odds on a fight with a high degree of success. Business was booming, for while the Prince of Wales boxers were still regular losers, the odds we offered meant our losses were well contained and that after a short while we could usually depend on one or two wins to pick up the big money.
After the first year when we had boxed every school twice and I was still unbeaten, it became difficult to get a bet against me. The Afrikaans kids weren’t fools and we were forced to offer more and more attractive odds on my opponent to the point where we were taking unnecessary risks and it was beginning to put me under pressure. In a fight against Geldenhuis towards the end of the second year where the odds were twenty to one on Geldenhuis beating me, I only narrowly won on points.
The Afrikaners had wised up. Profits were down. With our juniors beginning to win they could no longer hedge their bets against me by taking shorter odds on some of the other fighters. Hymie decided it was time to quit the bookmaking business.
‘It’s time to get out, Peekay. There are two important rules of business, knowing when to get in and when to get out. Of the two, knowing when to get out is the most important. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.’
