06 The Head of Kay's Read online

  “Don’t bang the door like that,” said Kennedy. “Why didn’t you turn out today?”

  “I was kept in.”

  “Couldn’t you get out in time to play?”

  “No.”

  “When did you get out?”

  “Six.”

  “Not before?”

  “I said six.”

  “Then how did you manage to go down town—without leave, by the way, but that’s a detail—at half-past five?”

  “All right,” said Walton; “better call me a liar.”

  “Good suggestion,” said Kennedy, cheerfully; “I will.”

  “It’s all very well,” said Walton. “You know jolly well you can say anything you like. I can’t do anything to you. You’d have me up before the prefects.”

  “Not a bit of it. This is a private affair between ourselves. I’m not going to drag the prefects into it. You seem to want to make this house worse than it is. I want to make it more or less decent. We can’t both have what we want.”

  There was a pause.

  “When would it be convenient for you to be touched up before the whole house?” inquired Kennedy, pleasantly.

  “What?”

  “Well, you see, it seems the only thing. I must take it out of some one for this house-match business, and you started it. Will tonight suit you, after supper?”

  “You’ll get it hot if you try to touch me.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You’d funk taking me on in a scrap,” said Walton.

  “Would I? As a matter of fact, a scrap would suit me just as well. Better. Are you ready now?”

  “Quite, thanks,” sneered Walton. “I’ve knocked you out before, and I’ll do it again.”

  “Oh, then it was you that night at camp? I thought so. I spotted your style. Hitting a chap when he wasn’t ready, you know, and so on. Now, if you’ll wait a minute, I’ll send across to Blackburn’s for Silver. I told him I should probably want him as a time-keeper tonight.”

  “What do you want with Silver. Why won’t Perry do?”

  “Thanks, I’m afraid Perry’s time-keeping wouldn’t be impartial enough. Silver, I think, if you don’t mind.”

  Spencer was summoned once more, and despatched to Blackburn’s. He returned with Jimmy.

  “Come in, Jimmy,” said Kennedy. “Run away, Spencer. Walton and I are just going to settle a point of order which has arisen, Jimmy. Will you hold the watch? We ought just to have time before tea.”

  “Where?” asked Silver.

  “My dormitory would be the best place. We can move the beds. I’ll go and get the keys.”

  Kennedy’s dormitory was the largest in the house. After the beds had been moved back, there was a space in the middle of fifteen feet one way, and twelve the other—not a large ring, but large enough for two fighters who meant business.

  Walton took off his coat, waistcoat, and shirt. Kennedy, who was still in football clothes, removed his blazer.

  “Half a second,” said Jimmy Silver—”what length rounds?”

  “Two minutes?” said Kennedy to Walton.

  “All right,” growled Walton.

  “Two minutes, then, and half a minute in between.”

  “Are you both ready?” asked Jimmy, from his seat on the chest of drawers.

  Kennedy and Walton advanced into the middle of the impromptu ring.

  There was dead silence for a moment.

  “Time!” said Jimmy Silver.

  XIII

  THE FIGHT IN THE DORMITORY

  Stating it broadly, fighters may be said to be divided into two classes—those who are content to take two blows if they can give three in return, and those who prefer to receive as little punishment as possible, even at the expense of scoring fewer points themselves. Kennedy’s position, when Jimmy Silver called time, was peculiar. On all the other occasions on which he had fought—with the gloves on in the annual competition, and at the assault-at-arms—he had gone in for the policy of taking all that the other man liked to give him, and giving rather more in exchange. Now, however, he was obliged to alter his whole style. For a variety of reasons it was necessary that he should come out of this fight with as few marks as possible. To begin with, he represented, in a sense, the Majesty of the Law. He was tackling Walton more by way of an object-lesson to the Kayite mutineers than for his own personal satisfaction. The object-lesson would lose in impressiveness if he were compelled to go about for a week or so with a pair of black eyes, or other adornments of a similar kind. Again—and this was even more important—if he was badly marked the affair must come to the knowledge of the headmaster. Being a prefect, and in the sixth form, he came into contact with the Head every day, and the disclosure of the fact that he had been engaged in a pitched battle with a member of his house, who was, in addition to other disadvantages, very low down in the school, would be likely to lead to unpleasantness. A school prefect of Eckleton was supposed to be hedged about with so much dignity that he could quell turbulent inferiors with a glance. The idea of one of the august body lowering himself to the extent of emphasising his authority with the bare knuckle would scandalise the powers.

  So Kennedy, rising at the call of time from the bed on which he sat, came up to the scratch warily.

  Walton, on the other hand, having everything to gain and nothing to lose, and happy in the knowledge that no amount of bruises could do him any harm, except physically, came on with the evident intention of making a hurricane fight of it. He had very little science as a boxer. Heavy two-handed slogging was his forte, and, as the majority of his opponents up to the present had not had sufficient skill to discount his strength, he had found this a very successful line of action. Kennedy and he had never had the gloves on together. In the competition of the previous year both had entered in their respective classes, Kennedy as a lightweight, Walton in the middles, and both, after reaching the semi-final, had been defeated by the narrowest of margins by men who had since left the school. That had been in the previous Easter term, and, while Walton had remained much the same as regards weight and strength, Kennedy, owing to a term of hard bowling and a summer holiday spent in the open, had filled out. They were now practically on an equality, as far as weight was concerned. As for condition, that was all in favour of Kennedy. He played football in his spare time. Walton, on the days when football was not compulsory, smoked cigarettes.

  Neither of the pair showed any desire to open the fight by shaking hands. This was not a friendly spar. It was business. The first move was made by Walton, who feinted with his right and dashed in to fight at close quarters. It was not a convincing feint. At any rate, it did not deceive Kennedy. He countered with his left, and swung his right at the body with all the force he could put into the hit. Walton went back a pace, sparred for a moment, then came in again, hitting heavily. Kennedy’s counter missed its mark this time. He just stopped a round sweep of Walton’s right, ducked to avoid a similar effort of his left, and they came together in a clinch.

  In a properly regulated glove-fight, the referee, on observing the principals clinch, says, “Break away there, break away,” in a sad, reproachful voice, and the fighters separate without demur, being very much alive to the fact that, as far as that contest is concerned, their destinies are in his hands, and that any bad behaviour in the ring will lose them the victory. But in an impromptu turn-up like this one, the combatants show a tendency to ignore the rules so carefully mapped out by the present Marquess of Queensberry’s grandfather, and revert to the conditions of warfare under which Cribb and Spring won their battles. Kennedy and Walton, having clinched, proceeded to wrestle up and down the room, while Jimmy Silver looked on from his eminence in pained surprise at the sight of two men, who knew the rules of the ring, so far forgetting themselves.

  To do Kennedy justice, it was not his fault. He was only acting in self-defence. Walton had started the hugging. Also, he had got the under-grip, which, when neither man knows a great deal of the science of wr
estling, generally means victory. Kennedy was quite sure that he could not throw his antagonist, but he hung on in the knowledge that the round must be over shortly, when Walton would have to loose him.

  “Time,” said Jimmy Silver.

  Kennedy instantly relaxed his grip, and in that instant Walton swung him off his feet, and they came down together with a crash that shook the room. Kennedy was underneath, and, as he fell, his head came into violent contact with the iron support of a bed.

  Jimmy Silver sprang down from his seat.

  “What are you playing at, Walton? Didn’t you hear me call time? It was a beastly foul—the worst I ever saw. You ought to be sacked for a thing like that. Look here, Kennedy, you needn’t go on. I disqualify Walton for fouling.”

  The usually genial James stammered with righteous indignation.

  Kennedy sat down on a bed, dizzily.

  “No,” he said; “I’m going on.”

  “But he fouled you.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll look after myself. Is it time yet?”

  “Ten seconds more, if you really are going on.”

  He climbed back on to the chest of drawers.

  “Time.”

  Kennedy came up feeling weak and sick. The force with which he had hit his head on the iron had left him dazed.

  Walton rushed in as before. He had no chivalrous desire to spare his man by way of compensation for fouling him. What monopolised his attention was the evident fact that Kennedy was in a bad way, and that a little strenuous infighting might end the affair in the desired manner.

  It was at this point that Kennedy had reason to congratulate himself on donning gymnasium shoes. They gave him that extra touch of lightness which enabled him to dodge blows which he was too weak to parry. Everything was vague and unreal to him. He seemed to be looking on at a fight between Walton and some stranger.

  Then the effect of his fall began to wear off. He could feel himself growing stronger. Little by little his head cleared, and he began once more to take a personal interest in the battle. It is astonishing what a power a boxer, who has learnt the art carefully, has of automatic fighting. The expert gentleman who fights under the pseudonym of “Kid M’Coy” once informed the present writer that in one of his fights he was knocked down by such a severe hit that he remembered nothing further, and it was only on reading the paper next morning that he found, to his surprise, that he had fought four more rounds after the blow, and won the battle handsomely on points. Much the same thing happened to Kennedy. For the greater part of the second round he fought without knowing it. When Jimmy Silver called time he was in as good case as ever, and the only effects of the blow on his head were a vast lump underneath the hair, and a settled determination to win or perish. In a few minutes the bell would ring for tea, and all his efforts would end in nothing. It was no good fighting a draw with Walton if he meant to impress the house. He knew exactly what Rumour, assisted by Walton, would make of the affair in that case. “Have you heard the latest?” A would ask of B. “Why, Kennedy tried to touch Walton up for not playing footer, and Walton went for him and would have given him frightful beans, only they had to go down to tea.” There must be none of that sort of thing.

  “Time,” said Jimmy Silver, breaking in on his meditations.

  It was probably the suddenness and unexpectedness of it that took Walton aback. Up till now his antagonist had been fighting strictly on the defensive, and was obviously desirous of escaping punishment as far as might be possible. And then the fall at the end of round one had shaken him up, so that he could hardly fight at all at their second meeting. Walton naturally expected that it would be left to him to do the leading in round three. Instead of this, however, Kennedy opened the round with such a lightning attack that Walton was all abroad in a moment. In his most scientific mood he had never had the remotest notion of how to guard. He was aggressive and nothing else. Attacked by a quick hitter, he was useless. Three times Kennedy got through his guard with his left. The third hit staggered him. Before he could recover, Kennedy had got his right in, and down went Walton in a heap.

  He was up again as soon as he touched the boards, and down again almost as soon as he was up. Kennedy was always a straight hitter, and now a combination of good cause and bad temper—for the thought of the foul in the first round had stirred what was normally a more or less placid nature into extreme viciousness—lent a vigour to his left arm to which he had hitherto been a stranger. He did not use his right again. It was not needed.

  Twice more Walton went down. He was still down when Jimmy Silver called time. When the half-minute interval between the rounds was over, he stated that he was not going on.

  Kennedy looked across at him as he sat on a bed dabbing tenderly at his face with a handkerchief, and was satisfied with the success of his object-lesson. From his own face the most observant of headmasters could have detected no evidence that he had been engaged in a vulgar fight. Walton, on the other hand, looked as if he had been engaged in several—all violent. Kennedy went off to his study to change, feeling that he had advanced a long step on the thorny path that led to the Perfect House.

  XIV

  FENN RECEIVES A LETTER

  But the step was not such a very long one after all. What it amounted to was simply this, that open rebellion ceased in Kay’s. When Kennedy put up the list on the notice-board for the third time, which he did on the morning following his encounter with Walton, and wrote on it that the match with Blackburn’s would take place that afternoon, his team turned out like lambs, and were duly defeated by thirty-one points. He had to play a substitute for Walton, who was rather too battered to be of any real use in the scrum; but, with that exception, the team that entered the field was the same that should have entered it the day before.

  But his labours in the Augean stables of Kay’s were by no means over. Practically they had only begun. The state of the house now was exactly what it had been under Fenn. When Kennedy had taken over the reins, Kay’s had become on the instant twice as bad as it had been before. By his summary treatment of the revolution, he had, so to speak, wiped off this deficit. What he had to do now was to begin to improve things. Kay’s was now in its normal state—slack, rowdy in an underhand way, and utterly useless to the school. It was “up to” Kennedy, as they say in America, to start in and make something presentable and useful out of these unpromising materials.

  What annoyed him more than anything else was the knowledge that if only Fenn chose to do the square thing and help him in his work, the combination would be irresistible. It was impossible to make any leeway to speak of by himself. If Fenn would only forget his grievances and join forces with him, they could electrify the house.

  Fenn, however, showed no inclination to do anything of the kind. He and Kennedy never spoke to one another now except when it was absolutely unavoidable, and then they behaved with that painful politeness in which the public schoolman always wraps himself as in a garment when dealing with a friend with whom he has quarrelled.

  On the Walton episode Fenn had made no comment, though it is probable that he thought a good deal.

  It was while matters were in this strained condition that Fenn received a letter from his elder brother. This brother had been at Eckleton in his time—School House—and had left five years before to go to Cambridge. Cambridge had not taught him a great deal, possibly because he did not meet the well-meant efforts of his tutor half-way. The net result of his three years at King’s was—_imprimis_, a cricket blue, including a rather lucky eighty-three at Lord’s; secondly, a very poor degree; thirdly and lastly, a taste for literature and the drama—he had been a prominent member of the Footlights Club. When he came down he looked about him for some occupation which should combine in happy proportions a small amount of work and a large amount of salary, and, finding none, drifted into journalism, at which calling he had been doing very fairly ever since.

  “Dear Bob,” the letter began. Fenn’s names were Robert Mowbray, the seco
nd of which he had spent much of his time in concealing. “Just a line.”

  The elder Fenn always began his letters with these words, whether they ran to one sheet or eight. In the present case the screed was not particularly long.

  “Do you remember my reading you a bit of an opera I was writing? Well, I finished it, and, after going the round of most of the managers, who chucked it with wonderful unanimity, it found an admirer in Higgs, the man who took the part of the duke in The Outsider. Luckily, he happened to be thinking of starting on his own in opera instead of farce, and there’s a part in mine which fits him like a glove. So he’s going to bring it out at the Imperial in the spring, and by way of testing the piece—trying it on the dog, as it were—he means to tour with it. Now, here’s the point of this letter. We start at Eckleton next Wednesday. We shall only be there one night, for we go on to Southampton on Thursday. I suppose you couldn’t come and see it? I remember Peter Brown, who got the last place in the team the year I got my cricket colours, cutting out of his house (Kay’s, by the way) and going down town to see a piece at the theatre. I’m bound to admit he got sacked for it, but still, it shows that it can be done. All the same, I shouldn’t try it on if I were you. You’ll be able to read all about the ‘striking success’ and ‘unrestrained enthusiasm’ in the Eckleton Mirror on Thursday. Mind you buy a copy.”

  The rest of the letter was on other subjects. It took Fenn less than a minute to decide to patronise that opening performance. He was never in the habit of paying very much attention to risks when he wished to do anything, and now he felt as if he cared even less than usual what might be the outcome of the adventure. Since he had ceased to be on speaking terms with Kennedy, he had found life decidedly dull. Kennedy had been his only intimate friend. He had plenty of acquaintances, as a first eleven and first fifteen man usually has, but none of them were very entertaining. Consequently he welcomed the idea of a break in the monotony of affairs. The only thing that had broken it up to the present had been a burglary at the school house. Some enterprising marauder had broken in a week before and gone off with a few articles of value from the headmaster’s drawing-room. But the members of the school house had talked about this episode to such an extent that the rest of the school had dropped off the subject, exhausted, and declined to discuss it further. And things had become monotonous once more.