Redemption - Leon Uris [171]
“Let’s see. I borrowed a hundred from Wally Ferguson,” Rory said, pulling his money out and counting it. “About thirty left. We’ve got thirty-eight quid between us and it won’t be much better after we get paid. The issue I am addressing is comfort. You served in the Royal Marines, Tarbox. What comforts did you enjoy?”
“You’ve got to be joking. They gave us steel wool to wipe our arses with.”
“What comforts have we had since we’ve been aboard ship?” Rory went on. “Slave ships had better ventilation and food. Slaves had a market value. We are expendable.”
“That’s enough,” Tarbox barked. “You’re trying to weave a spell on us.”
“I’m speaking of comfort. We’re going to land somewhere sometime. They’ve got to issue us our horses. We’ve got to train somewhere. The minute I leave the camp gate I want the kind of comfort a thousand quid or two can buy because the army isn’t going to give us comfort—however, Butcher Baker can supply it.”
“You’ll get your bloody comfort, fair enough. I’ve never seen a dead man who wasn’t comfortable.”
“We fan out, the three of us, and borrow as much as we can. Say, we put together a hundred quid and Baker’s mates cover us with fifteen hundred quid. All we can lose is our hundred…but we stand to make FIFTEEN HUNDRED QUID.”
It was enough to cause a little transition in Johnny’s thinking. He recollected Rory in a few fights at the A&P’s in and out of the ring, often with blokes half again his size. Once, he had been foolish enough to get into the ring with Rory and didn’t last a round. Rory was a terror, all right, but this Butcher Baker ate terrors and monsters and alligators for breakfast. He had maybe three stone weight on Rory…at least over fifty pounds.
“A noble idea,” Johnny lamented, “but I’ll not let you do it.”
“Johnny, you and I have studied this fucker. He moves like an ox. He lifts his left heel and slides his left leg and pushes his jab only to keep you at bay until he can grab you. When he pushes that left jab out he is so off balance that, for an instant, his right hand is useless. Follow me, Chester?”
“Sure.”
“But somehow this awkward manure pile takes his opponents out with either hand,” Johnny reminded them.
“Chester, put your hands up,” Rory said, “let me show you the moves. Aye, that’s it. Now throw your left hand out and lean forward as you do it. That opens the whole left side of your body…right, Chester?”
“I suppose so, if you say so.”
“So what if you park a few left hooks to his body,” Johnny said.
“No, no,” Rory said earnestly. “He doesn’t like getting hit in the ribs. He goes berserk, like a mad rhino. He’s got to get rid of his man because he doesn’t like getting hit in the ribs.”
“In theory that’s magnificent,” Tarbox mocked.
“Know what I remember about being in the ring with you, Johnny?”
Tarbox began to pale.
“I remember that left hook you put in my belly. I can still feel it. That’s why I was so desperate to stop you as fast as I could.”
“Oh no, I’m not getting in the ring with that sonofabitch,” Johnny said. “End of discussion.”
“I’m not asking you to get busted up, am I? I’m asking you to get about four or five of your dynamite left hooks to his side. Then I come in.”
“It is totally inappropriate for a warrant officer such as myself to be indulging in fisticuffs with enlisted personnel. I shouldn’t even be drinking beer with you.”
“You’re right,” Rory said, “I’ll speak no more except, well, maybe it just might have been a beautiful apartment in Paris overlooking the Champs de…you know, and the Arch of Triumph and all those big-titted French birds just sashaying up and down the old boulevard looking for their very own Johnny Tarbox, the big-spending handsome Kiwi Serjeant Major.”
The three of them managed to scratch up a hundred and seventeen pounds and Chester Goodwood was dispatched from the Wagga Wagga to the HMAS Thunderhead where Serjeant Baker held court. It was frightening to look at the Butcher Boy up close. Knowing the convoy would be off soon, this greedy lot agreed to the bouts, particularly when Chester assured them