Authors: Robert Muchamore
‘Your mums are all slags,’ Luc shouted.
That sort of language wasn’t used in front of ladies, and Henderson flirted with the idea giving Luc a slap. But he wanted to see the fight as much as anyone, so he put the bell in Terence’s little hand and told him to give it a good shake.
The crowd might have been cheering Marc, but if they’d been forced to bet most would have had their money on Luc. Within a second of the fight starting, Luc’s glove had smashed Marc backwards. Follow-up jabs pounded his gut and kidneys as Marc buckled and went down on his bum.
‘Come on, Marc!’ Paul shouted. ‘Put some oomph into it.’
Marc had the metallic taste of blood in the back of his mouth as he looked up at his opponent. Luc had thighs like logs, and his defiant stare told everyone that their booing was just spurring him on.
Kindhe was giving a ten-count. ‘Four ... Five… Six …’
Part of Marc wanted to stay down and save further punishment, but pride won out and there was a roar as he got up.
‘You OK?’ Kindhe asked, as he looked into Marc’s eyes, before giving the signal to resume fighting.
Marc had learned a brutal lesson: Luc was too strong to stand up to over four three-minute rounds. For the next minute and a half Luc became a charging bull throwing punch after punch; Marc was the bullfighter ducking and backing off.
In a proper boxing ring Luc could have cornered Marc against the ropes, so when Marc backed off the rubber mats for a third time Kindhe gave him a warning. Two more and he’d be disqualified.
Close friends like Paul stayed loyal to Marc, but those hoping for action had tired of Marc’s tactics by the time Henderson rang the bell to end the first round. Marc retreated to a stool at the edge of the mat, and PT moved in with a bucket and sponge to wipe the blood dribbling out of his nose.
‘He’s too strong,’ Marc gasped, as he watched Luc flexing his biceps at a taunting crowd at the opposite side of the ring.
PT didn’t respond.
‘Well?’ Marc asked. ‘What’s your advice?’
PT twisted his lower lip awkwardly. ‘I’ve never boxed in my life. But if I were you, I’d probably try to avoid getting knocked out.’
‘Thanks, brains,’ Marc said, shaking his head as Kindhe called the fighters back to the centre.
‘You’re dead meat,’ Luc growled as he jumped high and pounded his gloves together.
As Terence rang the bell, Luc swung a punch. Marc ducked and slammed Luc with an uppercut to the kidneys. The crowd broke into a huge cheer, but within moments Marc was back to bullfighter mode, skipping in a backwards circle.
‘Get moving!’ someone shouted.
Marc was more interested in staying conscious than in entertaining the crowd, but Kindhe was losing patience with his tactic of stepping off the mats. Halfway through the round, Kindhe gave Marc a shove back into the ring.
‘You’ve got to stop that,’ he bellowed.
Marc tripped over his own foot as he lurched forward and Luc caught him with a left-right combo to the head, followed by a low blow.
Marc felt a horrendous ache between his legs as he sprawled out over the mats, groaning. Kindhe pushed Luc back and gave him a warning, then allowed a few seconds for Marc to recover.
‘How’s your balls?’ Luc taunted.
Luc had grown so used to Marc backing off that he threw a wild punch as the fight resumed. Marc ducked, bobbed up and smashed Luc hard in the jaw. The crowd went bananas as Luc stumbled backwards, catching a glancing blow to the head and a perfect shot in the solar plexus.
Somehow Luc stayed upright and surged back with a couple of glancing blows as the bell rang for the end of the second round.
‘Much better,’ PT said, as Marc sat down.
‘Must be your brilliant advice,’ Marc replied, as his balls touched the wooden stool, giving him a painful reminder of the low blow.
As PT wiped his chest with the sponge, Marc noted that Luc wasn’t posturing any more. He’d gone straight to his stool and breathed hard while instructor Takada shoved a wodge of iodine-soaked cotton wool up his nose to staunch the blood flow.
The crowd anticipated a proper fight as the two sweating teenagers squared up for the third round. But Marc still feared Luc’s strength, and after feeling his first proper punches, Luc was no longer as confident about going forwards.
For two and a half minutes the fight was cagey, with neither boy landing a blow worth speaking of. With seconds of the round to go, Marc saw an opening and landed a beautiful shot under Luc’s chin.
Luc’s head snapped back and his legs wobbled, as the crowd yelled for Marc to finish him off. But the brilliance of the shot surprised Marc as much as anyone and he gave Luc a crucial half-second to steady his legs. He came back furiously, forcing Marc to back away from a barrage of fast punches. But the shots were fuelled by anger rather than skill.
Right on the bell, Marc landed a blow on the nose. Luc was exhaling at the time of impact and blood spattered Marc’s vest, like oil spewing from an overheated engine. As Marc dropped his guard and turned for his stool, Luc hit him full force in the gut.
Kindhe charged in to break the boys apart, but the damage was done. Marc was on his knees, coughing and gasping for air while Luc staggered back to his corner with clogged nostrils and a mist of blood clogging one eye.
Henderson sent his son flying as he shot to his feet. ‘That’s ridiculously late,’ he shouted. ‘Give him a second warning.’
Kindhe had already let Luc go back to his corner, but he stepped up and gave the second warning like Henderson said.
‘One more and you’re out,’ Kindhe shouted.
Luc was shattered, but still found the energy to shoot up and point his glove at Henderson.
‘Who’s the ref, you or the captain?’ Luc shouted furiously.
‘Second warning,’ Kindhe repeated. ‘One more and you’re out of the fight.’
‘Dirty black bastard,’ Luc shouted.
For a second Kindhe looked like was about to whack Luc with the back of his hand, but he thought better of it and instead helped PT walk Marc back to his stool.
For the second time, the fight was held up as Marc was given time to recover from an illegal blow.
‘Final round,’ Kindhe shouted.
The crowd was only twenty-five strong, but they’d all squeezed right up to the mats to get a good view and their noise sounded more like a hundred. After the low blow and the late punch everyone was firmly back on Marc’s side.
Luc’s nose was bleeding heavily and for the first time since he’d been knocked down in the opening barrage Marc felt like he had a real chance of winning. The caution that marked the third round was out of the window as Marc and Luc charged forwards like rutting stags.
Luc locked an arm around Marc’s back, held him close and pounded his body with right jabs. Marc’s arms and legs were getting heavy. The constant jabs made breathing impossible and he broke loose with a fierce head butt to the bridge of Luc’s already bloody nose.
‘Beautiful!’ Sam’s big brother Joel shouted. ‘Now kill the bugger!’
But Kindhe had seen and immediately threw himself between the two fighters. He’d already given Marc a warning for backing out of the ring in round one, now he got a second for the head butt.
‘Whoever gets the next warning is disqualified,’ Kindhe shouted. ‘You’ve got to behave.’
Both lads had sweat pelting the rubber around their feet as Kindhe gave them the signal to start fighting again. Marc could barely raise his fists, but Luc was livid about the head butt to his already injured nose and staggered forwards, swinging clumsily.
Marc dodged, making Luc stumble comically across the rubber mats, to the amusement of the crowd. Luc didn’t give a damn about people hating him, but laughing was different and he glowered at Paul as he stood up.
‘What are you laughing at, stick-boy? You want
your
head beaten in?’
With little more than a minute remaining, Kindhe gave the signal to resume fighting. But Luc had his eye on Paul and knew nothing about Marc’s first decent punch of the round until it connected with the side of his head.
The crowd whooped as Luc stumbled, but he found a reserve of strength from somewhere and came at Marc with half a dozen strong punches. More through tiredness than anything else, the last of them was another low blow, but Kindhe missed it.
Marc went down on one knee as the crowd screamed about the low blow, but Kindhe had begun a ten-count.
‘How could you not see that, you blind dick?’ Paul shouted. ‘Christ!’
As Kindhe reached eight, Marc was getting back to his feet, but his legs were swaying and Kindhe raised his hands to signal the end of the fight. The crowd hissed as Luc jumped in the air and started cheering.
‘I don’t give a monkey’s what any of you think,’ Luc shouted.
Marc found his way back to his corner, but instead of sitting on his stool he picked it up and raised it high over his head. PT tried pulling Marc back, but his sweaty torso slipped through PT’s fingers and there was a collective gasp as the stool smashed over Luc’s back.
Luc stumbled towards Henderson and McAfferty’s chairs in a daze. They both dodged, but Joyce didn’t have time to take the brake off her wheelchair and Luc wound up with his bloody face buried in her lap.
Joyce screamed in horror at the blood smeared all over her uniform.
‘That was another low blow,’ Marc shouted as he charged in for a second shot with the stool, but Kindhe got one of his gigantic arms around Marc’s neck as PT lifted his feet off the ground. ‘Let me go. I’m gonna kill him.’
Luc rolled to the floor as Joyce shoved his head out of her lap, while little Terence was scared by all the shouting and began sobbing, holding his arms out for someone to pick him up.
‘This isn’t over, Marc,’ Luc shouted, as Takada helped him up. ‘I’m gonna cut your throat.’
Paul and Sam had backed away from the mats while bigger people dealt with the furious and exhausted fighters.
‘Put ’em in the ring,’ Paul said, half smiling. ‘Watch them trade a few punches and step away with their arms around each other’s backs.’
‘Pledging to stay best friends for ever,’ Sam added, as Kindhe and PT pinned Marc against the wall and ordered him to calm down. ‘The plan doesn’t
quite
seem to have worked out, does it?’
A few metres away, Henderson was trying to comfort his hysterical two-year-old son while simultaneously having an argument with McAfferty.
‘Why you two stand idle?’ Takada asked, as the squat Japanese instructor approached Paul and Sam with his hands on his hips.
‘We thought it best to stay out of the way,’ Paul replied.
Takada narrowed his eyes. ‘You two to clean up all blood, pull up rubber mats, stack them neatly and wipe my hall floor ready for morning training. Do it well, or I punish.’
Paul and Sam both looked ticked off, but Takada belonged to the
do as I say without question or I’ll make you do star jumps until you vomit
school of discipline, so they didn’t start a debate.
*
Forty minutes later the hall was quiet, except for Paul dragging a mop across the floor, and Sam down on his knees using a claw hammer to pull up the last of the nails that had fixed the rubber mats in place. Both looked around as the door creaked, and stood to attention when they saw that it was Henderson.
‘Don’t stop working on my account,’ Henderson said, as he strode in casually with hands in pockets. ‘So, tonight wasn’t exactly a triumph, was it?
‘No, sir,’ Paul said weakly.
‘How are the fighters, sir?’ Sam asked.
‘The USAF doc from the airbase took a look at them. He suggested that we use much thicker training gloves and a proper ring if we decide to repeat this sort of thing. Marc is exhausted, but basically fine. Luc has had three stitches in the bridge of his nose and McAfferty is driving him to the county hospital for a precautionary X-ray.’
Henderson paused, but neither boy said anything.
‘I do my best,’ Henderson said ruefully. ‘But tonight turned into a total farce. I’m not an educator, nor is McAfferty. I’m starting to think we should have a proper teacher to enforce discipline and run the academic side of things here. Maybe I can dig an old headmaster out of retirement, or something.’
There were already enough bossy adults on campus for Paul or Sam’s taste, but Henderson looked stressed and neither felt brave enough to disagree.
‘You both seem unusually quiet,’ Henderson said.
‘It’s not really our decision sir,’ Paul said diplomatically, as his mop slurped about in its metal bucket. ‘But I don’t think you do a bad job. Every school I’ve ever been to has gone crazy once in a while.’
‘What about the mission, sir?’ Sam asked. ‘Have you decided who’s going? Or will you re-run the final exercise?’
‘That’s why I came looking for you two,’ Henderson said. ‘I’ve got a briefing set for tomorrow afternoon, I’ll need you both there. The day after you’ll be heading off to receive a little parachute jump refresher course.’
Paul and Sam smiled warily at each other.
‘Not quite overjoyed then?’ Henderson said.
‘No such thing as an easy mission, sir,’ Sam said. ‘But I’ll certainly try my best.’
Paul seemed less sure. ‘Sir, I know you’re angry with Marc because of what he did to Luc’s rifle, but he’s a much better shot than I am and he’s never put a foot wrong while working undercover.’
Henderson nodded. ‘Marc will be coming along too, and Luc, provided his nose isn’t broken.’
Sam was confused. ‘You’ve changed it to four snipers, sir?’
Paul looked at Sam and shook his head. ‘Saying there were only two places made us all work a heck of a lot harder in training. Isn’t that right, sir?’
‘No flies on you, are there, Paul?’ Henderson said brightly. ‘The plan I’ve been working on requires snipers to cover the underground bunker from all directions. And I’m hoping that you two fresh-faced young chaps will be able to perform a special task, luring some Germans above ground.’
‘So when do we set off?’ Sam asked.
‘I’m still waiting for information on aircraft availability, but if all goes to plan we’ll be on French soil by this time next week.’