Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 80

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A natural two-handed puncher! He doesn't favour his right, and he gets his shoulders behind every punch without being taught how! he exulted.

Then he looked again at the eyes and felt a chill of awe at what he had loosed upon the world.

He's a killer. He recognized it. He has the instinct of the leopard who kills for the taste of blood and the simple joy of it. He no longer sees me. He sees only the prey before him. That knowledge had distracted him. He caught a right-hander on his upper arm and it jarred the teeth in his jaws and the bones of his ankles. He knew it would bruise him from the shoulder to the elbow, and his breath burned in his throat. His legs were turning to lead. He could feel his heart drumming against his ribs. Twenty-two years since he had been in the ring; twenty-two years of Trudi's cooking and his most vigorous exercise undertaken either at his desk or in the pulpit, while the youth before him was like a machine, boring in remorselessly, both fists swinging, those yellow eyes fixed upon him in a murderous myopic stare.

Uncle Tromp gathered himself, waited for the opening as Manfred swung right-handed, and then he counter-punched with his left, always his best, the same blow that had dropped black Jephta in the third, and it went in with that beautiful little click of bone against bone.

Manfred dropped to his knees, stunned, the killing yellow light fading from his eyes to be replaced by a dull bemused look, as though awakening from a trance.

That's it, Jong. The Trumpet of God's fine note was reduced to a breathy gasp. Down on your knees and give thanks to your Maker. Uncle Tromp lowered his bulk beside Manfred and placed a thick arm around his shoulders. He raised his face and his unsteady voice to heaven. Almighty God, we give You thanks for the strong body with which You have endowed Your young servant. We give You thanks also for his natural left, while realizing that it will need a lot of hard work - and we humbly beseech You to look favourably upon our efforts to instil in him even the rudiments of footwork. His right hand is a blessing directly from You, for which we will always be eternally grateful, though he will have to learn not to telegraph it five days in advance of the punch. Manfred was still shaking his head and rubbing his jaw, but he responded to the probing thumb in his ribs with a fervent Amen. We will begin roadwork immediately, O Lord, while we set up a ring in the tool-shed in which to learn the ropes, and we humbly beseech Your blessing on our enterprise and Your cooperation in keeping it from coming to the notice of Your servant's partner in holy matrimony, Trudi Bierman. Most afternoons, under the pretext of visiting one of his parishioners, Uncle Bierman would put the pony in the trap and drive out of the front gate with a flourish, waving to his wife on the front stoep. Manfred would be waiting at the clump of camel-thorn trees beside the main Windhoek road, already barefoot and stripped to khaki shorts, and he would trot out and fall in beside the trap as Uncle Tromp shook the fat pony into a canter.

five miles today, Jong, down to the river bridge and back, and we'll do it a bit faster than yesterday. The gloves that Uncle Tromp had smuggled down from the trunk in the loft were cracked with age, but they patched them with wood-glue and the first time he laced them onto Manfred's hands he watched while the lad lifted them to his nose and sniffed them.

The smell of leather and sweat and blood, long. Fill your nostrils with it. You'll live with it from now on. Manfred punched the tattered old gloves together, and for a moment that flat yellow light glowed in his eyes again, then he grinned.

They feel good, he said.

Nothing feels better, Uncle Tromp agreed, and led him to the heavy canvas kitbag filled with river sand that hung from the rafters in the corner of the tool-shed.

To begin with I want to see that left hand do some work.

it's like a wild horse; we have to break it and train it, teach it not to waste strength and effort. it has to learn to do our bidding, not flap around in the air. They built the ring together, quarter-full size for the tool-shed would take no more, and they sank the corner poles deep in the earthern floor and cemented them in. Then they stretched a sheet of canvas over the floor. The canvas and the cement had been commandeered from one of Uncle Tromp's wealthy parishioners, For the glory of God and the VoLk, an appeal that could not be lightly dismissed.

Sarah, sworn to secrecy by the most solemn and dreadful oath that Manfred and Uncle Tromp could concoct between them, was allowed to watch the ring-work, even though she was a thoroughly partisan audience and she cheered shrilly and shamelessly for the younger participant.

After two of these sessions, which left Uncle Tromp unmarked but blowing like a steam engine, he shook his head ruefully. It's no use, Jong, either we have to find you another sparring partner, or I'll have to start training again myself., Thereafter the pony was left tethered in the camel-thorn clump and Uncle Tromp grunted and gasped beside Manfred on the long runs, while the sweat fell from his beard like the first rains of summer.

However, his protuberant gut shrivelled miraculously, and soon from under the layers of soft fat that covered his shoulders and chest the outline of hard muscle reappeared.

Gradually they stepped up the rounds from two to four minutes with Sarah, elected official timekeeper, measuring each round with Uncle Tromp's cheap silver pocket watch which made up for its dubious accuracy by its size.

It was almost a month before Uncle Tromp could say to himself, though he would never have dreamed of saying it to Manfred, He is starting to look like a boxer now., Instead he said: Now I want speed.

I want you to be fast as a mamba brave as a ratel. The mamba was the most dreaded of all Africa's serpents.

It could grow as thick as a man's wrist and reach twenty feet in length. Its venom could inflict death on a fully grown man in four minutes, an excruciating death. The mamba was so swift that it could overhaul a galloping horse, and the strike was so swift as to cheat the eye.

Fast as a mamba, brave as a ratel,Uncle Tromp repeated, as he would a hundred, a thousand times in the years ahead.

The ratel was the African honey badger, a small animal with a loose but thick tough skin that could defy the bite of a mastiff or the fangs of a leopard, a massive flattened skull from which the heaviest club bounced harmlessly, and the heart of a lion, the courage of a giant. Normally mild and forbearing, it would fearlessly attack the largest adversary the instant that it was provoked. Legend had it that the ratel possessed an instinct for the groin and that it would rush in and rip the testicles out of any male animal, man or bull buffalo or lion, who threatened it.

I've got something to show you, Jong. Uncle Tromp led Manfred to the big wooden chest against the back wall of the tool-shed and opened the lid. It's for you. I ordered it by mail order from Cape Town. It arrived on the train yesterday. He placed the tangle of leather and rubber in Manfred's arms.

What is it, Uncle Tromp? Come, I'll show you. Within minutes Uncle Tromp had rigged the complicated contraption.

Well, what do you think, Jong? He stood back, beaming hugely through his beard.

It's the best present anyone has ever given me, Uncle Tromp. But what is it? You call yourself a boxer and you don't know a speed bag when you see one! A speed bag! It must have cost a lot of money. it did, Jong, but don't tell your Aunt Trudi. What do we do with it? 'This is what we do! cried Uncle Tromp, and he started the bag rattling against the frame in a rapid staccato rhythm, using both fists, taking the ball on the bounce, keeping it going unerringly until at last he stepped back panting.

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