Брайс Куртенэ - The Power of One

‘Promise me you didn’t set this all up?’

‘Are you crazy? What about that anti-semitic bastard?’

‘You got your revenge, that was the quickest fifty quid anybody ever had.’ We had reached the privacy of the showers and Hymie started to giggle. Soon we were thumping each other on the back and howling with laughter.

On the way back in the bus I turned to Hymie. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘What question?’

‘Was today a set-up?’

Hymie looked down at his hands, ‘Technically no. But when you bring the right elements together you’re entitled to expect a predictable outcome.’

‘I ought to bust your teeth, Hymie Solomon Levy! I ought to do it right now!’

We repeated the attractive odds at the Prince of Wales and as we had expected the gentlemen Christians bet heavily on Helpmekaar to win. School spirit was one thing but money was quite another. Only the Wellington House boarders, Darby and Sarge and the under fifteen team itself bet on the Prince of Wales School. Setting the odds up as he had done had the result of inspiring the under fifteens enormously. The David and Goliath syndrome was operating, Hymie’s psychology was perfect, by the day of the game we really thought we could win. At Helpmekaar it was hoped it would have a different effect, for while the Afrikaans punters bet heavily on their team to win, the team itself should have felt a little uneasy. Why would we make the Prince of Wales School the favourite, when virtually the same team we were fielding had been beaten on four previous occasions? Like ours, their team contained a number of boxers in its ranks and they’d seen how we had improved out of sight in the ring, to the point where we had drawn the last boxing tournament with them. If we could do it in boxing …? Hymie and I were known not to be fools.

Hymie’s poison, we hoped, was working.

Despite being only an under fifteens match, the game drew the biggest crowd of the season. The punters from both schools were out in full and Hymie was still taking bets when the two teams were lined up on the field. He had even got the school pipe major to play ‘Scotland the Brave’ out in the middle before we ran on. It was grand stuff.

The ref blew his whistle and Atherton kicked off, a short kick which landed in the middle of their forwards. Pissy Johnson, by some miracle, got there first and bowled over the Helpmekaar forward who caught the ball. A loose scrum formed but the ball wouldn’t come out and the ref blew his whistle for a set scrum.

It was our loose head and, despite a big push from Helpmekaar, the ball came to me quite cleanly. We were halfway between the halfway mark and their twenty-five and Atherton was standing almost on the halfway line directly behind me. I knew he was going to go for the drop kick which, even for him, seemed a bit ambitious. I flipped the ball back at him as their flankers broke away and seemingly with time to spare he put the ball straight through the posts for four points. It was the best drop kick I had ever seen from him and it set the tone of the match.

Shortly afterwards we scored a converted try and just before half-time they landed a free kick. At half-time it was nine three, but their heavier pack was taking its toll and we were exhausted.

In the second half they closed down the game and eventually scored by pushing our lighter pack over the line. It was nine to eight with ten minutes to go and I could see our forwards were dead on their feet. It was just a matter of time before they scored. Somehow we hung on, tackling everything in sight.

Hymie had the pipe major on the sideline and he was blasting away, but we were too tired to care or even hear him. Geldenhuis had given me a torrid time and was over anxious to get at me. On two occasions during these last minutes of the game when they were camped on our line I’d dummied a pass from the scrum and his over-eagerness to get to me put him off-side and gave us a free kick. These two relieving kicks alone may well have saved us.

With two minutes to go we packed down for a scrum on our five yard line. It was our loose head but they were pushing us hard towards the line. Somehow we managed to ruck the ball. I dummied a pass to our fullback and Geldenhuis hesitated for a fraction of a second, enough time for me to move down the blind side. I drew their wing and passed to Atherton who’d come round with me. He cut inside, drew their fly-half and kicked the ball across field towards the far corner posts. Lyell, our right winger, beat the full-back to the ball and scored in the corner. The Prince of Wales School went berserk, despite the fact that they’d all lost their money. Atherton failed to convert the try but we’d won twelve to eight.

When all the bets were counted and we’d paid the faithful handful who’d bet against Helpmekaar we were left with four hundred and eighty-seven pounds, fifteen shillings and sixpence. Of the eighteen hundred kids in the two schools almost every one of them had a bet on the outcome. It was the mightiest scam of all time and my share paid Solly Goldman for the next three and a half years.

Hymie broke out a fiver for a party in the team dressing room and sent Geldenhuis and the Helpmekaar team a case of Pepsi and four dozen cream buns. He opened a cream bun and placed a tenner in it and put it on top of the pile of buns going to Helpmekaar dressing room. ‘That will teach the hairy back to do business with a Jewboy,’ he laughed.

The Solly Goldman Gym in Sauer Street was just like any gym you’ve read about. It smelt of sweat, chalk, liniment and hope. Solly ran his gym colour blind, the way gyms are run the world over. His only concession to apartheid was a locker room for non-Europeans. The rest depended on your skill as a boxer. The Johannesburg police turned a blind eye to Solly’s personal race integration programme. The police commissioner, Kruger, was a boxing man, and to boxing men black isn’t black in the ring. Too many great black boxers existed in the world and a man jabbing a pair of twelve ounce gloves into your face wasn’t a dirty Kaffir, he was a boxer, if only for the duration of the fight.

While a number of amateurs worked out in the gym, none of them was instructed by Solly, who had his work cut out handling the pros. Boxing was becoming a big time sport in the African townships surrounding Johannesburg and Solly had a regular stable of black fighters he trained in return for a percentage of the purse. Black and white boxers were not allowed to fight in public for the same title but they’d spar together and sometimes the sparring would get out of hand when a white or a black guy, but it was mostly the white boxers, decided to have a go. Solly would let it go for a couple of rounds, particularly when it looked as though the white man was getting a bit of a drubbing.

The first time Hymie and I appeared, Solly put me in with a young pro bantamweight who hadn’t been out of the amateur ranks very long. After two rounds he stopped the sparring session.

‘Who taught you to box, Peekay?’

I told him about Geel Piet without giving him the exact details.

‘Next time you see him, my boy, you give him my compliments.’

‘He’s dead, Solly.’

Solly cocked his bald head to one side. ‘Well he didn’t die in vain, my son, he’s given you an almost perfect grounding, you use the ring like a wizard.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, not quite knowing what else to say. Solly Goldman was the best and I found his over-generous compliments unnerving.

‘Thank me later, my boy, there’s a lot of work to get through. You need a little more starch in your left hand and your right is no great shakes niver. Like all amateurs you’re looking for points, you hold your hands too bleedin’ high. You’re fast enough to drop ’em a little and give yourself more punching power. We’ll get you onto weights and build up your upper body. It would also be very comforting indeed to know you also packed a good left right combination. Before I’m through with you, my son, you’re going to be the only amateur boxer in South Africa who can put a thirteen-punch combo together. That’s the show stopper, that’s the one man band that starts with a bleedin’ mouf organ and ends with a big bass drum.’