The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,44

with ’im,” Elsie’s cousin said.

Michael’s heart contracted with contempt for Walker, who had blabbed to his people. “Numbers are needed if tha’s in the army an’ facin’ the same way as arl the others,” he said. The scorn was unreasonable, even childish; in some part of his mind he knew it. But it came by necessity; it gave strength to his purpose. For the first time he felt that he had a fair chance of beating Walker.

Greetings were of the briefest. The respective seconds took up position with their buckets roughly ten yards apart. Michael took off his jacket and Walker did the same. The two men advanced toward each other, and they came in a fighting crouch, fists raised—there were no preliminary words, no handshake.

Because the other had adopted a boxing stance, Michael was braced for an exchange of blows, but at the last moment, when they were scarcely a yard apart, Walker dropped his hands, lowered his head and put all his weight into a shoulder charge. There was no time to step aside or give ground, no time to draw back an arm and deliver a punch. Michael took some of the impact on his forearms, which were still extended before him, but the main force of Walker’s head and right shoulder took him in the chest, in the region of the heart, winding him so that he fell on one knee, fighting for breath.

It was fortunate for him that he did not try to remain standing, or the fight would have ended there. His seconds came forward to bring him to his corner—this was technically a fall, and he had a right to two minutes of breathing space. But he waved them away and struggled to his feet again. Walker came forward in a rush, as if to repeat the maneuver, but in the midst of the pain that breathing still caused him, some instinctive cunning told Michael that this was a feint, designed to make him lower his guard, that the other would stop short and strike at his face, reversing the trick that had served so well at the beginning. In a pretense of being deceived, he took two steps back and lowered his fists as if bracing himself for another charge, at the same time drawing back his right shoulder and keeping his right arm low. As Walker stopped short and swung with his right hand, Michael raised his left arm to block the blow, stepped in close and put all his strength into a hooking punch to the upper part of his opponent’s midriff. He saw Walker’s face twist with pain, saw the droop of the body as the breath left him. He struck again, first with the left, then more heavily with the right. Despite his hurt, Walker had tucked in his jaw and lowered his head, so these blows were too high to clinch the fight, but the second, landing on the left cheekbone, was enough to send him staggering sideways. Underestimating his opponent’s toughness and power of recovery, Michael made the mistake now of advancing too eagerly, and received a blow that split his lip and sent him back on his heels. Again he was lucky. Walker, in haste to make the most of his advantage, slipped on the grass as he advanced. He did not fall, but he lost some moments, and Michael was able to slow him down further with a desperate blow, somewhere between a swing and a lunge, landing on the left temple.

It was a wild blow, but it turned out to be the one that decided the issue. Walker had made no move to block it, though it had been clumsy enough and clearly signaled. It came to Michael now, as he tasted the blood running into his mouth, that his opponent had not seen it coming, that perhaps he did not see well on that side.

The impetus of the fighting, always fiercest in the opening minutes, had lessened now. The two men circled each other for some moments, then Michael repeated the blow, this time giving a wider angle to the swing. Again the blow landed on the temple, but now more heavily. Walker shook his head slightly as if dazed. Michael jabbed at the other’s left eye in an effort to close off his vision on that side altogether. He received a flailing blow across the bridge of the nose. Through the tears that this occasioned he saw that Walker’s head was