Lynda La Plante - The Legacy

Sir Charles had known immediately that Beshaley was lying and that he no more had a contract with the boxer than Sir Charles himself had. However, Sir Charles intended to rectify that.

While Beshaley was on his way to the railway station Sir Charles’ automobile had cruised past. Through the open window he had smiled at him. ‘No doubt we’ll catch you at the fight?’

Beshaley wanted to run after the motor and demand a lift. He swore blue murder as he paced the platform, waiting for the train. He had to get to Freedom first and sign him before Sir Charles could approach him. The damned train was so slow he feared Sir Charles and his party would get there first, before he got the chance to make Freedom sign on the dotted line. They could be difficult these gypsy boys. Even though Beshaley was part Romany himself, he belonged to no clan; in his own terms he was an entrepreneur. Far from helping Freedom further his career, if anything he had stayed clear of him since the fight with Hammer. But he had overheard Sir Charles describing to one of his men how Freedom had brought a man down with a single body punch. ‘Man punches like the Devil, and he’s light on his feet, best I’ve seen for years’, and Beshaley knew it was true and could kick himself for not having signed Freedom.

The train ground to a halt and he pushed open the window.

‘There’ll be a blockage on the line now, sir, mark me words. Some bastard’ll have laid a log on the track. It’s the strikers.’

Two guards walked through the compartment and when Mr Beshaley approached them, they told him curtly that there was engine trouble and they would be on their way as soon as possible. Beshaley gave one of the men a shilling to see if they could hurry things along, he had an important appointment. The guard could hardly believe his luck, and assured Mr Beshaley he’d get the train moving within minutes.

Sir Charles adjusted his driving goggles and tried to make sense of the road map. His two companions were hunched against the wind, wearing heavy coats and goggles, their hats pulled down low. Ed Meadows was a huge man with an ex-boxer’s face, his nose broken so many times it had remained flat after his last bout, the bridge pulverized. He looked up at the signpost and shook his head. They’d passed it three times to his knowledge.

‘You sure you know this place, guv? Only, we been past this post three times now, an’ wiv the night comin’ on — I don’t fancy us drivin’ round all night.’

Sir Charles turned and put big Ed in his place with his upper-crust English voice.

‘You’ll find this lad’s worth it when you see him, Ed. Now come along, chaps, let’s have a good gander at the road map again.’

Ed shivered and hunched further into his greatcoat. In his twanging, cockney voice he told Sir Charles to stop at the next village and ask — it was the only way round these parts. There was more than one Devil’s Pit, and they could get the wrong one.

Dewhurst, Sir Charles’s valet and butler, sat stiffly next to his master in the front seat. He turned his pink face to stare up at the signpost.

‘There’s a village two and a half miles further on according to this, sir, perhaps it would be better to ask there.’

Ed threw up his hands in despair, ‘That’s wot I just suggested, but nobody listens to me. I said stop at a village, these ruddy Welsh signs don’t mean nuffink.’

Sir Charles pulled his goggles down, started the motor, and they headed for the village. They were actually close, within ten miles, but the winding paths around the mountains were misleading. There was only fifteen minutes before the match was due to start.

The afternoon over, many of the villagers made their way home, clutching their small token prizes. The children began to whine, they didn’t want to leave the fair and yet they were so tired they could hardly keep their eyes open. The men hung around the camp, still playing on the coconut shy and throwing ‘six darts for a ha’penny’. The see-saw had done a great trade and the teenage boys were now, as the dusk fell, shoving and pushing each other to have a go for a farthing a time.

The atmosphere was becoming tense, the groups of lads hanging around and knots of older men hunched in corners, smoking. The gypsies’ eyes were everywhere, and some of the men nodded to their women to pack up and get ready to put the tables away. A fortune-teller’s booth swathed in canvas like a Turkish tent had been doing a roaring trade, but now only a few boys hung around outside, their hands stuffed into their pockets.

Freedom’s opponent, Taffy Brown, had arrived at the campsite two hours earlier. With his two aides he had wandered around and had a few goes on the coconut shy, but he was so strong that one of the balls had not only knocked the coconut off its stand but split the stand in two. This had raised cheers from the spectators and disgruntled moans from the gypsies. The balls, bright reds and yellows, had been ‘lifted’ from snooker tables, and quite a few pubs would be missing them.

The younger lads drifted over to the shy, cheering Taffy on, nudging each other as, enjoying the attention, he rolled up his sleeves. His muscular arms bulged, and he moved further and further away, then went for the stall at a loping run, throwing the ball overarm as if playing cricket. The ball ripped through the canvas amid even more cheers.

Two gypsies, knowing there could be trouble, yelled that the fight was due to start at any time in Devil’s Pit, which made Taffy turn and roar, arms up in the air, for his opponent to show himself.

‘He’s waitin’ for you, Taffy, he’s waitin’ at Devil’s Pit, mun.’

The gypsies were relieved when the miners began to drift off towards the fight.

Devil’s Pit, which lay a couple of miles from the campsite, was so called because the mountain curved out in a huge arm, enclosing the dark, flat earth in jagged rocks. Not even grass would grow there. Below the pit tumbled a waterfall, the water making strange moaning sounds which all added to the eeriness of the place, as if a soul bound in the earth was trying to get out.

Some of the men from the camp had gone ahead with a wagon to prepare the site. The ring was simply marked out in the dirt with ropes hanging from crude posts at the corners. They were raking the ground flat and pulling benches from the wagon to place around the ring.

The men formed a line outside the rocky entrance. An entry fee of threepence was charged, and for this the men got a single sheet of paper which announced forthcoming events in London at the famous Premierland. It also gave details of Taffy Brown’s previous bouts. Taffy had a good record, and had so far never been knocked off his feet. His manager was sure he was world champion material, but he knew Taffy had to have more experience before going to London. This match against the man who had almost killed the famous Hammer was perfect for him.

Taffy’s men looked around for Freedom, but he was nowhere to be seen. They presumed he was in the covered wagon parked at one side of the dirt ring, more than likely shaking with nerves. They took Taffy back to the car and he sat with his trainer, talking tactics. Taffy wanted to know more about this gyppo, and his trainer gave him details of the three bouts he had seen Freedom fight. Two he had lost, but then it looked like a fix. The third was Hammer and the rest was history. Taffy wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Not quite, mun. Gimme the rounds one by one. I seen Hammer fight, he was a big bastard, this lad must have a lot of weight behind his punch. Was it a body or a head punch that floored him?’

‘The lad’s good, Taff, but that’s not the reason we’re a bit on the edgy side. We’ve heard Sir Charles Wheeler is goin’ ter show, and we want you to be part of his stable. You know how we feel, we know you can go to the top, but we need backing, we need money. It took all we had to get these leaflets printed. We even need the few bob from this bout, but if Sir Charles sees your potential then we’ll all of us be in clover.’