Champ of the Forecastle - Robert E. Howard (e books free to read .txt) š
- Author: Robert E. Howard
- Performer: -
Book online Ā«Champ of the Forecastle - Robert E. Howard (e books free to read .txt) šĀ». Author Robert E. Howard
I donāt know how to tin-can and back pedal. If Jeffries hisself was to rush me, all Iād know to do wouldst be to stand up to him and trade punches until I went out cold. I met Sven with a right smash that was high, but stopped him in his tracks. Blood spattered and he swayed like a big tree about to crash, but before I could follow up, he plunged in again, hitting with both hands. He hit and he hitāandāheāhit!
He throwed both hands as fast as he could drive one after the other and every blow had all his weight behind it. Outa the depths of his fighting fit heād conjured up amazing speed. It happens some time. I never seen a man his size hit that fast before or since. It was just like being in a rain of sledge-hammers that never quit coming. All I couldst see was his glaring eyes, his big shoulders hunched and rocking as he hitāand a perfect whirlwind of big glove-covered clubs.
He wasnāt timing or aiming muchāhitting too fast for that. But even when he landed glancing-like, he shook me, with that advantage of fifty-five pounds. And he landed solid too often to suit me.
Try as I would, I couldnāt get in a solid smash under the heart, or on the jaw. He kept his head down, and my vicious uppercuts merely glanced off his face, too high to do much good. Black and blue bruises showed on his ribs and shoulders, but his awkward half crouch kept his vitals protected.
Itās mighty hard to hammer a giant like him out of positionāespecially when youāre trying to keep him from tearing off your head at the same time. I bored in close, letting Svenās blows go around my neck while I blasted away with both hands. Noāthey was little science used on either side. It was mostly a wild exchange of sledge-hammer wallops.
In one of our rare clinches, Sven lifted me off my feet and throwed me the full width of the room where I hit the wallā_wham!_ālike I was going on through. This made Bill, as referee, very mad at Sven and he cussed him and kicked him heartily in the pants, but the big cheese never paid no attention.
I WAS LANDING the most blows and they rocked Sven from stem to stern, but they wasnāt vital ones. Already his face was beef. One eye was closed, his lips were pulped and his nose was bleeding; his left side was raw, but, if anything, he seemed to be getting stronger. My training hadst toughened him a lot more than Iād realized!
Blim! A glancing slam on my jaw made me see plenty of stars. Wham! His right met the side of my head and I shot back half-way across the room to crash into the wall. Long ago weād got off the canvas; we was fighting all over the joint.
Sven was after me like a mad bull, and I braced myself and stopped him in his tracks with a left hook that ripped his ear loose and made his knees sag for a second. But the Swede had worked hisself into one of them berserk rages where you got to mighty near kill a man to stop him. His right, curving up from his hip, banged solid on my temple and I thought for a second my skull was caved in like an egg-shell.
Blood gushed down my neck when he drawed his glove back, and, desperate, I hooked my right to his body with everything I had behind it. I reckon that was when I cracked his rib, because I heard something snap and he kind of grunted.
Both of us was terrible looking by this time and kind of in a dream like, I saw Knut wringing his hands and begging Bill and Mushy and Fritz to stop itāI reckon heād never saw a real glove battle before and it was so different from lifting weights! Naturally, they, who was clean goggle-eyed and yelling theirselves deaf and dumb, paid no attention to him at all, and so in a second Knut turned and run out into the street like he was going for the cops.
But I paid no heed. For the first time in many a day I was fighting with my back to the wall against one of my own crew. Sven was inhumanāit was like fighting a bull or an elephant. He was landing solid now, and even if them blows was clumsy, with 245 pounds of crazy Swede behind them, they was like the blows of a pile-driver.
He knowed only one kind of footworkāgoing forward. And he kept plunging and hitting, plunging and hitting till the world was blind and red. I shook my head and the blood flew like spray. The sheer weight of his plunges hurtled me back in spite of myself.
Once more I tried to rock his head up for a solid shot to the jaw. My left uppercut split his lips and rattled his teeth, but his bowed neck was like iron. In desperation I banged him square on the side of the head where his skull was hardest.
Blood spurted like Iād hit him with a hand spike, and he swayed drunkenlyāthen he dropped into a deep crouch and shot his left to my midriff with all his weight behind it. Judas! It was so unexpected I couldnāt get away from it. I was standing nearly upright and that huge fist sank into my solar-plexus till I felt it banged against my spine. I dropped like a sack and writhed on the floor like a snake with a busted back, fighting for air. Bill said later I was purple in the face.
Like I was looking through a thick fog, I seen Bill, dazed and white-faced, counting over me. I dunno how I got up again. I was sickāI thought I was dying. But Sven was standing right over me, and looking up at him, a lot of thoughts surged through my numbed and battered brain in a kind of flash.
The new champion of the Sea Girl, I thought, after all these years Iāve held my title against all comers. After all the men Iāve fought and licked to hold the only title I got. All the cruel punishment Iāve took, all the blood Iāve spilt, now I lose my only title to this square-head that Iāve licked half a dozen times. Like a dream it all come backāthe dim-lighted, smelly, dingy forecastle, the yelling, cursing seamenāand me in the middle of it allāthe bully of the forecastle. And nowānever no more to defend my titleānever to hear folks along the docks say: āThatās Steve Costigan, champ of the toughest ship afloat!ā
WITH A KIND of gasping sob, I grabbed Svenās legs and climbed up, up, till I was on my feet, leaning against him chest to chest, till he shook me off and smashed me down like he was driving a nail into the floor. I reeled up just as Bill began to count, and this time I ducked Svenās swing and clinched him with a grip even he couldnāt break.
And as I held on and drew in air in great racking gasps, I looked over his straining shoulder and seen Knut come rushing in through the door with a white-faced girl behind himāSegrida. But I was too near out to even realize that Svenās ex-girl was there.
Sven pushed me away finally and dropped me once more with a punch that was more a push than anything else. This time I took the count of nine, resting, as my incredible vitality, the wonder of manys the sporting scribe, began to assert itself.
I rose suddenly and beat Sven to the punch with a wild right that smashed his nose. Like most sluggers, I never lose my punch, no matter how badly beaten I am. Iām dangerous right to the last second, as better men than Sven Larson has found out.
Sven wasnāt going so strong hisself as he had been. He moved stiff and mechanical and swung his arms awkwardly, like they was dead. He walked in stolidly and smashed a club-like right to my face. Blood spattered and I went back on my heels, but surged in and ripped my right under the heart, landing square there for the first time.
Another right smashed full on Svenās already battered mouth, and, spitting out the fragments of a tooth, he crashed a flailing left to my body, which I distinctly felt bend my ribs to the breaking point.
I ripped a left to his temple, and he flattened my ear with a swinging right, rocking drunkenly like a tall ship in the Trades with all sails set. Another right glanced offa the top of my head as I ducked and for the first time I seen his unguarded jaw as he loomed above me where I crouched.
I straightened, crashing my right from the hip, with every ounce of my weight behind it, and all the drive they was in leg, waist, shoulder and arm. I landed solid on the button with a jolt that burst my glove and numbed my whole armāI heard a screamāI seen Svenās eyes go blankāI seen him sway like a falling mastāI seen him pitching forwardā_bang!_ The lights went out.
I WAS PROPPED up in a chair and Bill was sloshing me with water. I looked around at the dingy gym; then I remember. A queer, sad, cold feeling come over me. I felt old and worn out. After all, I wasnāt a boy no more. All the hard, bitter years of fighting the sea and fighting men come over me and settled like a cold cloud on my shoulders. All the life kind of went out of me.
āBelieve me, Steve,ā said Bill, slapping at me with his towel, āthat fight sure set Sven solid with Segrida. Right now sheās weepinā over his busted nose and black eye and the like, and hugginā him and kissinā him and vowinā everlastinā love. I knowed I was right all the time. Knut run after her to get her to stop the bout. Gosh, the Marines couldnāt a stopped it! Mushy clean chawed Mikeās collar in two, he was that excited! Say, would you uh thought a slob like Sven coulda made the fightinā man he has in six months?ā
āYeah,ā I said listlessly, scratching Mikeās ear as he licked my hand. āWell, he had it cominā. He worked hard enough. And he was lucky havinā somebody to teach him. All I know, I learned for myself in cruel hard battles. But, Bill, I canāt stay on the Sea Girl now; I just canāt get used to beinā just a contender on a ship where I was champion.ā
Bill dropped his towel and glared at me: āWhat you talkinā about?ā
āWhy, Svenās the new champ of the Sea Girl, lickinā me this way. Strange, what a come-back he made just as I thought he was goinā down.ā
āYouāre clean crazy!ā snorted Bill. āBy golly, a rap on the dome has a funny effect on some skates. Svenās just now cominā to. Mushy and Fritz and Knut has been sloshinā him with water for ten minutes. You knocked him stiff as a wedge with that last right hook.ā
I come erect with a bound! āWhat? Then I licked Sven? Iām still champion? But if he didnāt knock me out, who did?ā
Bill grinned. āDonāt you know no man can hit you hard enough with his fist to knock you out? Swedish girls is impulsive. Segrida done thatāwith a iron dumb-bell!ā
Comments (0)