Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 133

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The bell rang and in the blood roar of the crowd the two fighters came together in the middle of the ring. Centaine gasped involuntarily at the thud of gloved fist on flesh and bone. Compared to the flickering blows of the lighter smaller men in the preceding bouts, this was like the meeting of gladiators.

She could not see any advantage between the two men as they wheeled and came together and their fists struck those terrible blows that bounced off solid guards of arms and gloves. Then they weaved and ducked and joined again while the crowd around her bellowed in a mindless frenzy.

As abruptly as it had begun, it ended, and the fighters separated and went back to the little groups of white-clad seconds who hovered over them, tending them lovingly, sponging and kneading their flesh, fanning and massaging and whispering to them.

Manfred took a mouthful from the bottle that his big black bearded coach held to his mouth. He sluiced it around his teeth and then turned and looked at Centaine again, sinmou gling her out of the crowd with those pale eyes, and deliberately spat the mouthful of water into the bucket at his feet without breaking his gaze. She knew that it was for her, he was spitting his anger at her. She quailed before his rage and she barely heard Blaine murmur beside her.

I scored that round as a draw. De La Rey gave nothing away, and Rushmore is wary of him., Then the boxers were on their feet again, circling and jabbing and pumping leather-clad fists, grunting like labouring bulls at punches thrown and received, their bodies shining with the running sweat of their exertions and bright red patches glowing on their bodies where blows landed. It went on and on, and Centaine felt a sickness rising in her at the primeval savagery of it, at the sounds and smell and spectacle of violence and pain.

Rushmore took that one, Blaine said quietly, as the round ended, and she actually hated him for his calmness. She felt a clammy sweat break out on her face and her nausea threatened to overwhelm her as Blaine went on, De La Rey will have to end it in the next two rounds. If he doesn't, Rushmore is going to grind him down. He's getting more confident all the time. She wanted to jump to her feet and hurry out of the hall, but her legs would not function. Then the bell rang and the two men were out there again in the glare of floodlights, and she tried to look away but could not, so she stared in sick fascination and saw it happen, saw every vivid detail of it, and knew she would never forget it.

She saw the red leather glove blur as it tore through a tiny gap in the defending circle of arms, and she saw the other man's head snap as though it had reached the limit of the hangman's noose as his body fell through the trap. She saw each individual droplet of sweat burst from his sodden locks, as though a heavy stone had been flung into a deep pool, and the features below twisted grotesquely out of shape by the impact into a carnival mask of agony.

She heard the blow, and the snap of something breaking, teeth or bone or sinew, and she screamed, but her scream was lost and swallowed up in the high surf of sound that burst from a thousand throats around her, and she thrust

her fingers into her own mouth as the blows kept coming, so fast that they dissolved before her eyes, so fast that the shocking thuds of impact blended like the sound of an egg-baeter in thick cream, and flesh turned to red ruin beneath them. She went on screaming as she watched the terrible killing yellow rage in the eyes of the son she had borne, watched him become a ravening murderous beast, and the man before him wilted and broke, and reeled away on boneless legs, and went down twisting as he fell and rolled onto his back staring up at the overhead lights with blind eyes, snoring in the thick bright flood that throbbed from his crushed nose into his open mouth. Manfred De La Rey danced over him, still possessed by the killing rage, so that Centaine expected him to throw back his head and howl like a wolf, or throw himself upon the broken thing at his feet and rip the bleeding scalp from its head and brandish it high in obscene triumph.

Take me away, Blaine, she sobbed. Get me out of this place, and his arms lifted her to her feet and carried her out into the night.

Behind her the blood roar faded, and she gulped down the cold sweet highveld air as though she had been rescued at the very point of drowning.

The Lion of the Kalahari writes his own ticket to Berlin, the headlines crowed, and Centaine shuddered with the memory, and dropped the newspaper over the edge of the bed and reached for the telephone.

Shasa, how soon can we leave for home? she demanded, as soon as his voice, blurred with sleep, sounded in her earpiece, and Blaine came through from the bathroom of the hotel suite with shaving lather on his cheeks.

You have decided? he asked as soon as she hung up.

There is no point in even trying to speak to him, she replied. 'You saw how he looked at me. Perhaps there will be another time, he tried to comfort her. But he saw the despair in her eyes and he went to hold her.

David Abrahams improved his best time for the 200-metre sprint by almost a second on the first day of the Olympic trials. However, in reaction he did not do as well as expected on the second day when he could only just win his final heat in the 400 by half a metre. Still, his name was high on the list that was read out at the banquet and ball that closed the five days of the track and field trials, and Shasa, who was sitting beside him, was the first to shake his hand and pound him between the shoulder blades. David was going to Berlin.

Two weeks later the polo trials were held at the Inanda Club in Johannesburg and Shasa was selected for the T team of possibles against Blaine's W team of probables for the last match of the final day.

Sitting high in the grandstand, Centaine watched Shasa play one of the most inspired games of his career, but with despair in her heart knew that it was still not good enough.

Shasa never missed an interception, nor mis-hit a stroke during the first five chukkas, and once even took the ball out from under the nose of Blaine's pony with a display of audacious riding that brought every person in the grandstand to their feet. Still it was not good enough, she knew.

Clive Ramsay, Shasa's rival for the position of number two in the team that would go to Berlin, had played well all week. He was a man of forty-two years, with a record of solid achievement behind him, and he had seconded Blaine Malcomess in almost thirty international matches. His polo career was just reaching its peak, and Centaine knew that the selectors could not afford to drop him in favour of the younger, more dashing, probably more gifted, but certainly less experienced and therefore less reliable rider.

She could almost see them nodding their heads sagely,

puffing their cigars and agreeing. Young Courtney will get his chance next time, and she was hating them for it in advance,, Blaine Malcomess included, when suddenly there was a howl from the crowd around her and she jumped to her feet with them.

Shasa, thank God, was out of it, galloping wide down the sideline ready to take the cross as his own number one, another thrusting young player, challenged Clive Ramsay in centre field.

It was probably not deliberate, more likely the consequence of a reckless urge to shine, but Shasa's team-mate fouled Clive Ramsay murderously on the interception, knocking his pony onto its knees and sending Clive somersaulting from the saddle onto the iron-hard ground. Later that afternoon X-ray examination confirmed a multiple fracture of Ramsay's femur which the orthopaedic surgeon was subsequently forced to open up and wire.

No polo for at least a year, he ordered, when Clive Ramsay came out of the anaesthetic.

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