Black Ajax (29 page)

You've heard about the great African Civil War – Richmond v. Molineaux? No? Well, you know they fell out after Thistleton, exchanging dog's abuse and going their separate ways, but that was only the beginning. A few months later, what did Richmond do but have Tom
arrested
on a ca. sa. –
capias ad satisfaciendum
, which means, my chums of the wig and gown inform me, a writ whereby a plaintiff has a defendant jugged until he coughs up. It's gone out now, I believe, but in those days it meant that poor Tom found himself admiring the inside of a
spunging-house
with the prospect of debtor's prison to follow. Heaven knows what the debt was – money owed to Tom Belcher, or some such thing, which Richmond had paid and was dunning Tom for his share – or who settled on the Moor's behalf. Some said Sefton or Alvanley, and others Old Cripplegate (which I can't credit, for that 'un wouldn't have bailed his own mother), but one way or t'other Tom breathed the free air of England again – and wasn't he full of charity, just, towards his old pal Richmond? He soon found that he had other cause for grievance.

Before the ca. sa. business, Tom had spent some months on his rural exhibitions, but fighting no regular mills, as I said, until a challenge came from one Jack Carter, a promising chicken who, being a Lancastrian, was a protege of Big Bob Gregson's. My guess is that Bob, being fly as they make 'em, and knowing that months of boozing and frolic had played the dooce with Molineaux's condition (such as it ever was), believed that his young giant might make a name for himself by trouncing him –'twas the Rimmer business over again, if you like. However, the match had been put off when Tom went to clink; now that he was out, it could go forward – and who d'you think emerged as the match-maker, eh, and Carter's principal second? Why,
none other than Tom's erstwhile guide, philosopher, and friend, and now sworn enemy: Bill Richmond! And when the battle is joined, who seconds Molineaux? Who but the cove who cheated him out of victory against Cribb at Copthorn – honest Joe Ward!

Do you begin to have an inkling, my dear sir, that the allegiances and alliances of the prize ring are somewhat more confused than the intricacies of the Spanish Succession, and that its rivalries and vendettas cast the petty intrigues of the Borgias quite into the shade? Observe how A sponsors B against C, to whom A was lately grappled by hoops of steel, while C is supported by D, who previously engineered C's downfall. Incredible, you say? By no means, say I, nothing out o' the way, as the old lady said when she stepped unexpected into the ditch.

Well, the mill took place near Banbury, at a spot convenient to four counties in case the beaks intruded. A distinguished company of noblemen, amateurs, and pugs assembled, in expectation of a famous set-to, for 'twas Molineaux's first combat since his defeat by Cribb, and the Fancy was a-buzz with the news that Richmond was backing Carter out of spite against his old pupil, and that Tom had vowed to pay him out by licking Carter to nothing.

Alas, for our hopes! That mill, my friend, became a byword as the worst in living memory, a ludicrous pantomime unworthy of the word “fight”, and beneath anything since Falstaff took the field at Shrewsbury. Why, 'twas so disgraceful that some were sure it must be a cross, but Captain Barclay swore it couldn't be, because Gregson would never be party to anything smoky, and besides, if Carter had wanted to sell the fight he'd have found a less foolish and obvious way to do it, and his behaviour was not a whit worse than Molineaux's anyway. Thus Barclay, and I
incline
to agree with him, but I ain't sure. However, you must judge for yourself. I'll tell you what happened, and if you think I'm pitching a
Banbury
story – well, ask Barclay or Ward and they'll vouch for it.

It was a rum go from the first, for when the umpire announced that the winner should have a hundred guineas, Carter demanded to know what the
loser
was to have! Richmond gnashed his teeth and rolled up his eyes in despair at such folly, but Gregson was fairly stunned, and cried out: “Nay, Jack, never talk o' losing, boy! Tha moost win,
the chance is a' in thy favour!” Molineaux, sitting on Ward's knee fat as Beelzebub, left off scowling at Richmond to shout with laughter.

Then they set to, if that's the word, for I'll swear there have been bloodier quadrilles at Almack's than that first round. For two minutes they pranced round each other without touching, and then Carter, nervous as a kitten, gently stroked Molineaux on the chin, and the Moor tapped him back with the utmost gentility. This exchange rendered both men cautious, not wishing to undergo such punishment, but presently they closed, and Molineaux fell down, showing signs of distress and alarm.

Coming to scratch again, they began to whale into each other delicately, but Tom accidentally stinging the other, Carter became excited and thrashed away in earnest. Tom, grunting like a Berkshire hog, and debilitated no doubt by his months of guzzling and amorous exertions, retreated ponderously, but what dumfounded the Fancy was that he seemed to be in an extremity of terror, shying off whenever Carter bore in, capering wildly, hitting without regard to distance, and bellowing whenever Carter got home. Every round, almost, ended with his going down, often for no apparent reason, and once he fairly bolted from Ward's knee and scrambled out of the ring, crying “Help! Help!” Barclay it was who persuaded him back, and the farce continued. We couldn't credit the evidence of our eyes.

You think I'm
bamming
? As God's my witness, it got worse, for as Carter, seeing his man so abject, grew in confidence, so Tom descended to the depths of poltroonery. Once he dropped to one knee, seized the ropes in both hands, and bawled: “Foul! Oh, he done hit me when Ah's down!” when Carter fibbed him. They explained (what he knew perfectly well) that you can't be down until both knees and one hand are on the ground; he stood rolling his eyes and whimpering, and two minutes later he was racing round the ring howling that Carter had bit him in the neck! Ward looked, and swore there were no teeth-marks, and in the next round Tom began howling that Carter had bit him again! He fairly ran from the man, crying “Murder! Murder!” and cowered in a corner of the ring, wailing “Oh dear, oh dear, 'tis cruel, cruel!”

There was amazement and disgust all round. “This is the man who stood an hour against Cribb?” says Barclay to me. “I'll not believe it!”
No more could I; Joe Ward had to hold him in the ring by main force between rounds, coaxing and pleading and threatening and even pouring rum into him, but all to no avail. Courage aside, Tom was dead beat by now, labouring like a whale and not an ounce of wind left in him; for twenty-five rounds of milling (if you can call it milling when a man flops down and lies there cringing) he'd been a pitiful parody of a fighter, and when Ward pushed him to scratch for the twenty-sixth it was odds on he'd collapse whether Carter hit him or not.

And at that moment, so help me, Carter
fainted
! He did, sir, 'tis no word of a lie, swooning on Richmond's knee like a bride with the vapours! It seemed impossible, for he was a big, tough, active heavyweight, and such punishment as he'd taken from Trembling Tom wouldn't have hurt an infant. Richmond was in a fine frenzy, working at him while Gibbons plied the bottle, and Gregson, seeing victory snatched from his grasp, was near to tears, crying: “Jack, Jack, what's thee aboot, man? Git oop, git oop, lad! By God, if tha willna git oop for me, git oop for Lancashire!” He might as well have sung psalms to a dead horse. Carter lay like Ophelia through the call of “Time!”, and Tom, altogether played out and wheezing “Oh dear, oh dear!” was declared the winner.

What an uproar there was! “Universal dissatisfaction”, my colleague of
The Times
called it, and you may say he was right. They were waving hats and canes, shouting “Cross!” and “Sold!” and pelting the recumbent gladiator with coppers, while Gregson pleaded for the mill to continue, for Carter had opened his eyes and whispered “Stop a bit, stop a bit!” which gave hopes of revival. These were dashed when a little chap with a doctor's case scuttled through the ropes, whipped out a lancet and cup, and in a twinkling of an eye had bled Carter as neat as you please. That settled it, there was no continuing with the man's vein opened, the shouts of execration and disappointment redoubled, and the sporting peer who'd let Carter change in his chariot, flung out his clobber in disgust, crying: “Carter, you louse, take your miserable weeds and be damned to you!” They never discovered who the medicine-monger was; Gregson swore he was none of his.

Tom was paid his prize to an accompaniment of hissing and shouts of “Shame!” Ward bustled him away to a chaise, and that was the
last view I ever had of the Milling Moor who had shone so briefly like a comet in the sporting sky, slumped with his ugly black face bowed and the fat heavy on his arms and body. Barclay nudged me and says: “Barely a mark on him, for all Carter's heroics, do you see?” It was so; even in his poor condition, terrified and shirking, he had gone twenty-five rounds with a mighty handy heavy man and still contrived to slip and stop most of the blows rained on him – and hardly struck back at all.

Well, as a fight it had been a disgrace, but it was also a mystery, and the Fancy couldn't fathom it. What the devil had been the matter with Molineaux? That was the great question – not whether Carter had sold the fight or not. It was past belief, and no accounting for it. How, it was asked, could the once brave and splendid competitor of the Champion have so degenerated? How, I was asked, “did the Hero become a
cur
”? What could have wrought the change in the Black Ajax, the all-but-conqueror of Cribb whose “dauntless courage had matched his wondrous skill”?

The popular view was that dissipation had so destroyed his powers that he knew he was no match for Carter, and was terrified in consequence. “Niggers have no bottom”, “Scratch a black and you'll find a coward”, that sort of talk. Joe Ward had the answer to that, though: “Tom were no coward. Cowards don't take what he took from Cribb. 'Sides, rum an' rogerin' may ruin a man's constitootion, but they never hurt his game that I heard on. No match for Carter? Bli'me, baked and boozed and breathless as he was, he could ha' done Carter wi' one hand, if so minded!” Then why, Joe, was he not so minded? Joe don't know; it beat him.

Barclay, who knew more of fighters and their condition than anyone, wouldn't credit that any amount of debauch could have turned a brave man into a poltroon, but there were those who wondered if Tom hadn't been
mad
all along, and been suffering from a fit. Others wagged their fat heads over the Unpredictability of Savage Natures, the Primitive Emotions of the Negro Race, and so forth. One chap said you never knew with niggers, look at cannibals, what?, but another reminded him, solemn as you like, that 'twas Carter who was supposed to have bit Molineaux, not t'other way round.

What do I think? Only this, that if he
was
queer in the attic, or a
coward at bottom, it was uncommon odd that a year after the Carter mill Tom Molineaux should have fought one of the bravest battles of his life. His junketing had taken him by then to Scotland, you see, and there he met and beat Fuller, the Norfolk printer (another pupil of Richmond's,
nota bene
!). No, I wasn't there, but Joe Ward, who was, told me he'd never seen the like, for Tom, untrained, overblown, and in the poorest trim, had shown masterly science and style, and was game as a terrier, the very image of what he'd been against Cribb.

How, then, do I explain his shocking display against Carter? An “off day”? No, that won't do. Oh, we know that every fighter has 'em, but they don't run blubbing round the ring squealing “Help, murder!”, do they? Well, I can't account for it – but I'll tell you Pad Jones's opinion, when I put the matter to him. He didn't see the fight, but he knew Tom better, perhaps, than any man in England, and it was his belief that Tom was
playing the fool
!

“And letting folk think he was the poorest kind of craven?” says I. “Come, Pad, what man in his right mind would do such a thing?”

“Tom would,” says Pad.

“Never! What, for twenty-six rounds, while the whole Fancy shouted its disgust and contempt of him? Why in God's name should he do such a thing?”

“Mebbe to show
his
disgust and contempt o'
them
,” says Pad.

“Oh, come, that's doing it too rich altogether! What cause had he to harbour any such feelings? No, no, Pad, that won't do!”

You've met Jones – well, you know his trick of talking sideways, with that little smile, and all of a sudden he'll level those grey eyes at you, straight and steady? So he did now.

“He did not like us, Mr Egan. He did not believe we treated him fair. Nor did we, sir. We robbed him o' the Championship of England, and we abused and insulted and made mock of him when he was doing his best and showing us milling as good as any. Oh, I know – none better! – what an ugly customer he could be, with his bragging and bounce and nigger airs, and the offence he gave with his insolence and carrying on and all o' that. He was a great ignorant babby, and a brute, if you like, and the Lord knows I had my bellyful of him and don't excuse his faults – but he was a stranger in a strange land, and
the Fancy at his fights was never what you'd call even-handed, were they? Natural enough … but we could ha' been kinder.”

Well, some of this I'd thought myself, as you'll know from my
Boxiana
, where I opine that Tom had to contend with a prejudiced multitude, whose hostility was as great a hazard to him as his opponent's prowess, that he knew his unpopularity, and that it could not help but depress him. “Still,” I told Pad, “if he felt himself badly used, I can't for the life of me see what good it did him to play the frightened lunatic in the mill against Carter! You say he was showing his contempt of the onlookers? Well, then, he failed, for they didn't know it!”

“Tom did, though,” says Pad.

“And much good it can have done him! Why, all he did was make a fool of himself – aye, and of the fight game!”