Frank Harris - My Life and Loves, Book 1

It was arranged that the fight should take place on the next afternoon, which happened to be a Wednesday and half-holiday. From three to six would give us time enough. That evening Stackpole asked me to his room and told me he would get the Doctor to stop the fight if I wished; I assured him it had to be and I preferred to have it settled. «I'm afraid he's too old and strong for you,» said Stackpole: I only smiled. Next day the ring was made at the top of the playing field behind the haystack so that we could not be seen from the school. All the sixth and nearly all the school stood behind Jones; but Stackpole, while ostensibly strolling about, was always close to me. I felt very grateful to him: I don't know why, but his presence took away from my loneliness. At first the fight was almost a boxing-match. Jones shot out his left hand, my head slipped it and I countered with my right in his face: a moment later he rushed me but I ducked and side-stepped and hit him hard on the chin. I could feel the astonishment of the school in the dead silence. «Good, good!» cried Stackpole behind me. «That's the way.» And indeed it was the «way» of the fight in every round except one. We had been hard at it for some eight or ten minutes when I felt Jones getting weaker or losing his breath: at once I went in attacking with all my might, when suddenly, as luck would have it, I caught a right swing just under the left ear and was knocked clean off my feet: he could hit hard enough, that was clear. As I went into the middle of the ring for the next round, Jones peered at me. «You got that, didn't ye, Pat?»

«Yes,» I replied, «but I'll beat you black and blue for it,» and the fight went on. I had made up my mind, lying on the ground, to strike only at his face. He was short and strong and my body blows didn't seem to make any impression on him; but if I could blacken all his face, the masters and especially the Doctor would understand what had happened. Again and again Jones swung, first with right hand and then with his left, hoping to knock me down again; but my training had been too varied and complete and the knock-down blow had taught me the necessary caution. I ducked his swings, or side-stepped them and hit him right and left in the face till suddenly his nose began to bleed, and Stackpole cried out behind me in huge excitement: «That's the way, that's the way; keep on peppering him.» As I turned to smile at him, I found that a lot of the fags, former chums of mine, had come round to my corner and now were all smiling encouragement at me and bold exhortations to «give it him hard.» I then realized for the first time that I had only to keep on and be careful and the victory would be mine. A cold, hard exultation took the place of nervous excitement in me, and when I struck, I tried to cut with my knuckles, as Raleigh had once shown me. The bleeding of Jones' nose took some time to stop and as soon as he came into the middle of the ring, I started it again with another righthander. After this round his seconds and backers kept him so long in his corner that at length, on Stackpole's whispered advice, I went over and said to him:

«Either fight or give in: I'm catching cold.» He came out at once and rushed at me full of fight, but his face was all one bruise and his left eye nearly closed. Every chance I got, I struck at the right eye till it was in an even worse condition. It is strange to me since that I never once felt pity for him and offered to stop: the truth is, he had bullied me so relentlessly and continually, had wounded my pride so often in public that even at the end I was filled with cold rage against him. I noticed everything: I saw that a couple of the sixth went away towards the school-house and afterwards returned with Shaddy, the second master. As they came round the haystack, Jones came out into the ring; he struck savagely right and left as I came within striking distance, but I slipped in outside his weaker left and hit him as hard as I could, first right, then left on the chin and down he went on his back. At once there was a squeal of applause from the little fellows in my corner and I saw that Stackpole had joined Shaddy near Jones' corner. Suddenly Shaddy came right up to the ringside and spoke, to my astonishment, with a certain dignity. «This fight must stop now,» he said loudly. «If another blow is struck or word said, I'll report the disobedience to the Doctor.» Without a word I went and put on my coat and waistcoat and collar, while his friends of the sixth escorted Jones to the schoolhouse. I had never had so many friends and admirers in my life as came up to me then to congratulate me and testify to their admiration and good will. The whole lower school was on my side, it appeared, and had been from the outset, and one or two of the sixth, Herbert in especial, came over and praised me warmly. «A great fight,» said Herbert, «and now perhaps we'll have less bullying; at any rate,» he added humorously, «no one will want to bully you: you're a pocket professional; where did you learn to box?» I had sense enough to smile and keep my own counsel. Jones didn't appear in school that night: indeed, for days after he was kept in sick bay upstairs. The fags and lower school boys brought me all sorts of stories how the doctor had come and said «he feared erysipelas; the bruises were so large and Jones must stay in bed and in the dark!» and a host of other details. One thing was quite clear; my position in the school was radically changed.

Stackpole spoke to the Doctor and I got a seat by myself in his classroom and only went to the form-master for special lessons;

Stackpole became more than ever my teacher and friend. When Jones first appeared in the school, we met in the sixth room while waiting for the Doctor to come in. I was talking with Herbert; Jones came in and nodded to me: I went over and held out my hands but said nothing.

Herbert's nod and smile showed me I had done right. «Bygones should be bygones,» he said in English fashion. I wrote the whole story to Vernon that night, thanking him, you may be sure, and Raleigh for the training and encouragement they had given me. My whole outlook on life was permanently altered: I was cock-a-hoop and happy. One night I got thinking of E… and for the first time in months practiced onanism. But next day I felt heavy and resolved that belief or no belief, self-restraint was a good thing for the health. All the next Christmas holidays spent in Rhyl I tried to get intimate with some girl, but failed. As soon as I tried to touch even their breasts, they drew away. I liked girls fully formed and they all thought, I suppose, that I was too young and too small: if they had only known! One more incident belongs in this thirteenth year and is worthy perhaps of record. Freed of the bullying and senseless cruelty of the older boys who for the most part, still siding with Jones, left me severely alone, the restraints of school life began to irk me. «If I were free,» I said to myself, «I'd go after E… or some other girl and have a great time; as it is, I can do nothing, hope for nothing.» Life was stale, flat and unprofitable to me. Besides, I had read nearly all the books I thought worth reading in the school library, and time hung heavy on my hands; I began to long for liberty as a caged bird.

What was the quickest way out? I knew that my father as a captain in the navy could give me or get me a nomination so that I might become a midshipman. Of course I'd have to be examined before I was fourteen; but I knew I could win a high place in any test. The summer vacation, after I was thirteen on the fourteenth of February, I spent at home in Ireland, as I have told, and from time to time bothered my father to get me the nomination. He promised he would, and I took his promise seriously. All the autumn I studied carefully the subjects I was to be examined in, and from time to time wrote to my father, reminding him of his promise. But he seemed unwilling to touch on the matter in his letters, which were mostly filled with Biblical exhortations that sickened me with contempt for his brainless credulity. My unbelief made me feel immeasurably superior to him.