Брайс Кортни - The Power of One

For my part I would always ‘just sit on the pot’, as Geel Piet called sitting quietly on the tiny three-legged corner stool waiting for the fight to begin. ‘Tell them nothing, jong,’ he had said, ‘just sit and watch, watch very carefully. I’m telling you, man, you can tell a lot about a boxer even before he throws a punch, if you watch him carefully.’

The bell for the first round went and after we’d touched gloves the Helpmekaar kid came at me fast. He was hard eyed and I could sense he planned to make short work of the fight. I saw the first straight left coming from a mile off and allowed it to miss the side of my head by a fraction. A near miss with the leading hand often gives a boxer the confidence to try again immediately with a similar punch, thrown even harder than the first it invariably throws the boxer slightly off balance. The second straight left came right on time and as it whistled past my ear his right dropped to the level of his chest leaving his head wide open. I stepped in and with my body slightly turned to maximise the power, the right hook I threw landed flush on the point of his chin. He was already off balance, moving into my punch, and he hit the canvas hard, sprawling on his back. While the blow carried all my strength behind it, it was also a perfectly timed punch and a gasp went up from the Helpmekaar crowd while a wild cheer rose from our first form boarders.

The kid on the canvas sat up as the ref began to count. There was no way I could have knocked him out but he was clearly shaken. Young guys are too proud to stay down for the compulsory eight count and he jumped to his feet glowering at me. The surprise had been on the other foot and I now expected him to move around me for a while, waiting for a chance to use his superior strength to nail me with a few solid blows to the head. First you’re going to have to catch me, you Boer bastard, I thought. The referee went through the compulsory eight count, then wiped his gloves and told us to box on.

I was so obviously lighter than the other kid and now, looking into his eyes, I suddenly realised that he had regarded the blow as a fluke and had no intention of boxing smart. He moved straight at me again with his right still held too low. He was telegraphing the punch to come by watching the point of my chin. Christ, he’s going to try the left lead again. As Geel Piet would say, ‘Some fighters you can read better than a book but, ag man, the story has no blêrrie imagination.’

The straight left came hard and missed, merely flicking my ear. I brought my right across his left and hit him on the side of the jaw, only just missing the point. I followed with a left hook into his solar plexus and he sat down hard, the seat of his pants seeming to bounce as he hit the canvas. I cursed myself, you don’t get too many chances for a really good right cross in a fight and I hadn’t set myself correctly. Nevertheless it was a good punch and the left had dug in just below the ribs where it really hurts.

Geldenhuis was strong and game and was back onto his feet in a second. He waited for the compulsory eight, and as the ref wiped his gloves he warned him that one more knock down meant the fight was over. I knew I’d have to be lucky to get a third crack at him and decided it was time to box, to wear him down jab, jab, jab, waiting for the chance to come under his left lead to land a series of solid punches under his heart. That way, if he wasn’t enormously fit, I’d sap his stamina to give me another crack at him in the third and final round. The bell rang for the end of the round and I returned to my corner to find Darby and Sarge grinning from ear to ear.

In the second round I simply boxed him. His style was exuberant and I waited for him to grow impatient as I kept him at his distance with constant jabs to the face. Towards the end of the round he must have realised that the fight was slipping away and he seemed determined to knock me down, even if it meant taking a couple of punches on the way. He came at me with both hands swinging. I think he expected me to move away so that he could nail me in a corner. But I stood my ground and hit him with a straight left which pushed him back against the ropes. I followed in with Geel Piet’s eight-punch combination, two good scoring shots to the head one of which opened a cut above his eye, the next bang on the nose, one more into the cut and the rest neatly placed under his heart. To my surprise, when the bell went for the end of round two, the Helpmekaar guys gave me a round of applause.

Geldenhuis didn’t come out for the third round. The referee had examined the cut above his eye and stopped the fight. I’d won a TKO, the first win for the Prince of Wales School in two years.

It didn’t seem to matter that we lost the other seven fights, though all had lasted the distance. The boxing squad, generally outclassed, hadn’t fought with such spirit and determination for years. Sarge was walking around flashing his mouth full of gold teeth and saying in a whisper that carried for yards, ‘Bloody marvellous, that ought to show those bloody Boers who’s boss.’ You’d have thought we had won the match.

The boxing coach from Helpmekaar came over and patted me on the back. ‘Who taught you to box, son?’ he said in English.

‘I learned in Barberton, Meneer,’ I replied in Afrikaans.

He looked suddenly smug. ‘Magtig. I knew you were too good for an Englishman! I’ve never seen a kid your age throw an eight-punch combination. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen any kid throw an eight-punch combination. Who taught you to box, man?’

‘Meneer Geel Piet,’ I replied.

‘Well I wish we had him at Helpmekaar, that’s all I can say, man.’

‘I don’t really think you would have wanted him,’ I replied, but he seemed not to hear me.

‘You’re an Afrikaner, what are you doing in a school like this?’ Without waiting for an answer he continued, ‘Listen, we could arrange for you to come to Helpmekaar, you’d be with your own people, we can organise a boarding scholarship.’

‘I’m English. A Rooinek,’ I said quietly. For the first time in my life I felt enormously proud about something. Perhaps it was wrong to be proud, but I’d waited a long time to come to terms with being a Rooinek.

The coach from Helpmekaar looked at me for what seemed like a long time. ‘Well you don’t box like an Englishman. Don’t desert your own kind, son. Englishmen don’t talk Afrikaans the way you do, I know, I’m a language teacher as well as a boxing coach.’

‘I am English,’ I replied in English, ‘honestly, sir.’

‘Well, Englishman, I doubt that there’s a kid in your weight division anywhere in South Africa who could beat you, that is, if this Rooinek school doesn’t bugger you up.’

He turned away abruptly, walked over to where Darby White was standing juggling his balls and looking pleased with himself. I could see they were both looking at me and Darby White had a proprietorial grin on his face.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned to see the big kid I’d fought. He wore a large pink elastoplast patch over his left eyebrow. ‘Howzit?’ He stuck his hand out. ‘Jannie Geldenhuis. No hard feelings, okay? You won fair and square, man,’ he said in English with a thick Afrikaans accent.

‘Thanks for the fight,’ I replied in Afrikaans as I shook his hand.

He grinned and seemed pleased that I’d replied in Afrikaans. ‘Ag man, I don’t think I even hit you once, I’ve never done that before. It’ll teach me a blêrrie good lesson, you looked such a little bugger, I thought I had a easy fight on my hands.’

I smiled at him. ‘You’re such a big bastard I thought I was going to get a hiding.’ Gert had always said that a man should be magnanimous in victory and Jannie Geldenhuis seemed like a nice bloke.