Tommo & Hawk (70 page)

Instead, Hawk must learn to avoid having these things done to him. So his trainers show him how to rest his head on his opponent's shoulder when he's pulled close to prevent a head butt. Hawk must keep his head above his opponent's shoulder at all times, 'cause if the canny Irishman can lower it to his chest, he'll surely poke his fingers into Hawk's eyes or get two fingers up his nostrils, tearing his nose so bad the fight must be stopped for the blood what's pouring out. Everything, Hawk's coaches explain, happens in the clinch, in the hugabug. So Hawk must use his reach and strength to avoid the clinch.

Both blokes teach Hawk how to defend himself from body blows and, in particular, from blows below the belt. They reckons Hawk can only learn one good combination punch in the time they've got, so they teaches him how to lead with a left and follow through with a right. Bungarrabbee Jack calls this the 'one-spot, two-shot, left-right, bang-bang!' He makes Hawk practise this combination over and over again 'til he can do it without thinking. Hawk's left can drive a man back several paces and the right hook what follows up and under the heart will lift his opponent's feet off the ground. The Aborigine slaps his palms together as though he is dusting them, 'Ten times, boss! One-spot, two-shot, left-right, bang-bang! Ten times one fight, all over - sleepy time!' Bungarrabbee Jack reckons if Hawk can land a good left and a right under the heart ten times during the fight he'll stop any man on the planet.

They also school him to keep hitting under his opponent's heart, what's much better than trying to hit him in his head, where Hawk could easily break his hand and leave himself defenceless.

'Same spot, boss!' Bungarrabbee Jack keeps repeating, as he drives his fist under Hawk's heart. 'Keep hittin' him same spot! Time come he can't stand no more. Same spot, eh!'

Then, just a few days ago, things really began to look up. Hawk were hauling barrels up to the wine loft as part of his training, when a boy apprentice comes to say there be a Chinaman at the gate. He hands Hawk a scrap o' paper what the man has given him. Hawk sees that the note is in his own handwriting and has his name and the Tucker 8c Co. address. It's the note he gave Wong Ka Leung - or Ah Wong as he calls him - when he left him in Yass after they'd fled from Lambing Flat.

Hawk goes immediately to the gate to greet the Chinaman. Me big brother is most anxious that Ah Wong should get one o' the bags o' gold I won from Callaghan. Yours truly argues against it. After all, I won it fair and square - it ain't the celestials' no more - and Hawk's done enough by rescuing Ah Wong and his family.

But Hawk as usual sees it quite the opposite. 'We've profited, but he's lost everything! He can't go back to Lambing Flat. He's skint, poor bastard, with a wife and child to support, and we're rich. It isn't fair he should suffer more while we benefit from his misfortune.'

'So what about the other five bags o' gold? They must've been took from the Mongolians too?' I says, just to make trouble.

Hawk sighs. 'There's an old Chinese proverb, Tommo. "Every journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." We don't know the others who lost their gold, but we do know Ah Wong. He is our first step to making things right.' Where Hawk's learnt a Chinese proverb I'm buggered if I know. Them books he reads go straight into his head and he don't seem to forget nothin'. Stuff comes out when you least expects it.

So Hawk goes to the gate to welcome Ah Wong, and gives him money for food and arranges to meet him later that night in Chinatown, at the scrag end o' the Rocks.

When Hawk gets there he finds Ah Wong and his family sharing a filthy cellar room with eleven other men. The property belongs to an importing merchant what has a godown on the wharf. All these men works eighteen hours a day just for food and a corner of the room.

Ever the bloomin' mother, Hawk takes one look and immediately buys food, clothes and blankets as well as all sorts of oriental paraphernalia, like chopsticks, cooking woks and bamboo baskets. He buys a bolt o' black cotton for clothes, boots for their feet and everything what's needed to set up Ah Wong and his family. Then he rents them a room what's only for them. After all this, when they's safely moved into their new home, he gives Ah Wong the bag o' gold to get him started out in life again.

Two days later an uncle of Ah Wong's family turns up at Tucker & Co. to see Hawk. He can't speak no English, so it's all busy hands and sign language between the two of 'em. Hawk can't make head nor tail of what the old man's on about. Suddenly the Chinaman takes a step forward and brings the fingers of his right hand up into the top of Hawk's throat and presses. Hawk feels the strength leak out of him and he sinks to his knees.

So now, with Ah Wong's uncle teaching Hawk the ancient celestial arts, we has our replacement for Ho Kwong Choi. And this time Tang Wing Hung and Mr Sparrow don't know nothin' about it. I begins to feel that perhaps Hawk can win the fight against the Bolt. It ain't much of a chance, but it's better than a kick in the arse.

Meanwhile Maggie's been going all out in the pubs and sporting houses. Anywhere people might listen she's letting drop her rumours, where they spreads and spreads. Her latest story is that Hawk's been running a hundred yards with a grown bullock across his shoulders, not even puffing at the end. Some o' the likely lads even swears they's seen it with their own eyes.

Most of the stories we come up with are so wild and ridiculous, you'd reckon people'd die laughing. But the punters lap 'em up and clamour for more! There's even tales what we didn't invent spinning about, each one stranger than the next. Mr Sparrow is delighted. He offers most attractive odds on Hawk while keeping them short on the Bolt.

The smart punters ain't took in by the brouhaha, of course. Bell's Life in Sydney still rates Hawk as no chance against the Irishman. They ain't seen Hawk spar and so they concludes 'he is hiding the defects he plainly suffers as a fighter'. They reckons that he ain't game to be named for the mismatch they feel sure this prize fight will be and, given all o' this, rates me brother at forty to one.

The views of Bell's Life in Sydney don't seem to matter, to the little punters anyways. The average bloke is all for Hawk and Mr Sparrow's booking shop is taking a king's ransom in bets what favour him. Fat Fred is now claiming to be Irish and has opened another booking shop in Parramatta Town, where the Irish bets their weekly wages on their own champion, the Bolt. Meantime Mr Sparrow has his betting agents in all the goldfields surrounding the district o' Yass and forty miles beyond the Victorian border, where they's doing a roaring trade.

The Irishman is still taking on the local fighters to the tune of one a week. And each time he wins against the champions of the various colonies there's trouble. Extra police is called out to control the Irish mob what comes from all about to celebrate. When the story come out about the Bolt drinking whiskey between rounds, Tucker and Co. trebled their regular sales of the liquor. That were on top o' sales what were already doubled since the Irishman arrived in the colonies, and still the pubs has been drunk dry by midnight. The Bolt is the darlin' of the publicans, what has named a new drink for him: 'Irish Sunrise'. It's Irish whiskey and creme de menthe in equal measure took straight. 'The gold of the whiskey and the green of the creme de menthe be heaven's golden light upon the green and pleasant land of Erin', so I hears. I don't know how much golden light a bloke'd enjoy in the gutter after a dozen of 'em.

Maggie's been reporting back on all her doings to Mr Sparrow. She tells him most convincing that Hawk is at the point o' complete despair. 'He ain't got the nature to be a fighter,' she confides to me master. If our Maggie's to be believed, Hawk hates to go into the ring for sparring and the two broken-down pugs what's training him can hit him almost at will, for he's too slow to parry their blows.

Twice she has gone to Mr Sparrow seeming at the end of her tether. 'Hawk wants t' give it away,' she wails the first time. 'He don't lack the courage, mind, it's just he can't learn the craft of it. He's strong as a bull but just as clumsy. The Abo, what's 'arf his size, can put him down any time he likes and the Maori sits him on his arse a dozen times each sparring. He's took to speaking to no one and he seems most down in spirits.' Maggie brings tears to her eyes. 'He don't even want to take me to bed no more!' she howls. 'Mr Sparrow, honest, I don't think he's gunna hold up. What shall I do?'

Maggie reckons that's when Mr Sparrow started to tremble. 'You keep him in the fight, Maggie, you hear!' he shouts. He fumbles in his purse. 'Ere!' He hands her another pound. 'I don't care what it takes! You keep him matched up!'

The second time Maggie goes to him with the same story 'bout how Hawk wants to quit, Mr Sparrow don't even waste time trying to bribe her. 'You keep him in!' he screams.

'Don't know that I can, Mr Sparrow, he's that forlorn,' Maggie says, her blue eyes wide and misty. 'He don't listen t' me no more!'

Mr Sparrow speaks very low and calm now. 'Maggie, you keep the nigger in the fight. Don't let me down now. You know I hold yer responsible!'

'I'll try, Mr Sparrow, but I can't work no miracles, now can I?'

'Maggie, let me tell yer something.'

'Yes, Mr Sparrow?'

'If the schwartzer goes, you go. Know what I means?'

'No, Mr Sparrow.'

'Then I'll leave you to think about it, girlie.' Mr Sparrow points his bony finger with its big diamond ring at her, before bringing it back and drawing it across his throat. 'It ain't no idle threat, neither,' he warns.

Maggie gets a real fright at this. 'I ain't done nuffink! I only done what you asked, Mr Sparrow! It ain't fair!'

'Life ain't fair, Maggie. That's my last word. Keep him in, or you're done like a dinner!'

Poor old Maggie, she ain't having a great time of it. She don't say much but I'd guess Hawk ain't doing his duty by her in the bed chamber. He's plain exhausted by the time he's finished with his sparring and lugging o' barrels. He's still trying to do some clerking, even though Captain Tucker says it ain't necessary 'til after the fight. But Hawk's dead proud of his books and he don't want someone else messing up his ledgers, all marked up in his own beautiful hand.

On Sunday, when he and Maggie are together, Hawk can hardly get himself out o' bed to buy the roasts and take them to the bakery for the orphan brats at the Quay. He keeps falling asleep while he's waiting in the line, much to the amusement o' the housewives. Maggie's took to carving the roast herself, in case Hawk cuts himself.

Sunday be Maggie's only day off and she treasures it, for it's the only time she gets t' see Hawk properly. When they're through feeding the brats, they usually goes to The Cut Below. There they has themselves a late dinner before popping upstairs. But these days I reckon Hawk'd be asleep before he gets to the bedroom.

And now, to add to Hawk's load, our mama's decided me and him should have our Sunday roast dinner with her every week. Mary has arranged with the publican, Mr Harris, for a special room to be made into a dining room for her on Sundays at the Hero o' Waterloo. She's even bought a snowy white tablecloth like the one from home, so's we can have our white tablecloth Sunday dinners again, or so she hopes.

This Sunday'll be the first of the new set-up but Mary ain't invited Maggie and Hawk says he ain't coming if she don't. The two of them, Mary and Hawk, are standing toe-to-toe and I can see Mary ain't gunna give in despite the fact her boy's towering over her.

'She's a slut!' Mary snaps at him.

'Mama, don't speak like that. I love Maggie.'

'Humph!' Mary snorts. 'Love! My son loves a whore!'

Quick as a flash Hawk replies, 'You were a whore, Mama, and I love you!'

I ain't never seen Mary so taken aback. Her jaw drops and she sits down with a bang, then begins to weep. But deep down she ain't upset - she's pleased at what he said in a funny kind o' way, pleased he loves her. Mary is still Mary, though, and underneath she's made of steel. Soon as she stops crying, she says, 'Hawk, don't throw your life away. Come home, lovey, you and Tommo. There's many a fine young lass in Tasmania what would be proud to call herself Mrs Hawk Solomon. Mrs Tommo Solomon too, I've no doubt! The both of you be most eligible young men.'

Hawk says firmly, 'Mama, I don't want any of those fine young lasses. I want Maggie!'

'And she wants your money!' Mary retorts. 'Mark my words, I know her sort. She'll bleed you dry then leave you for some pimp with a celluloid collar and a set o' gold teeth! That one ain't done a day's honest graft in her life.'

'Mama, she ain't like that,' I says in Maggie's defence.

'Oh, what would you know!' she snaps at me.

'That's not fair!' Hawk says. 'Tommo had his doubts about Maggie too, Mama.'

'It's true, Mama, but I've changed me mind. She's a wonderful girl!' I blush at meself when I says this, but it's true, I reckon.

As soon as she sees she can't win this one, Mary changes tack and smiles up at Hawk. 'Please, Hawk, just this one Sunday, just the three of us, Tommo and you and Mama, like old times? Look, I've even brought me big gravy boat from 'ome.'

'Is God coming too?' I asks, trying to lighten the mood.

But neither takes any notice of me quip. Hawk shakes his head slowly. 'No, Mama, Maggie's my betrothed. If you won't have her at your table, then you won't have me. Maggie comes on Sunday or I won't!'

Hawk is laying down the law and Mary can see he ain't messing about. Still, she tries again. 'Oh Hawk, I've missed me boys something terrible. It ain't been easy on my own, with David and Hannah bloody Solomon on me back all the time. My arthritis is playing up something terrible. I don't suppose I've too long left, and I ain't seen much of you these last couple o' weeks.'

She looks at both of us with pleading eyes. 'All I want is for me two boys to be home again. I don't ask nothing more. I've got the brewery built to give you something in your life what's your own. I done it for the both of you. I've had a hard life, and you two boys has been the only joy in it. Come home, I beg you! I'm beggin' you on me knees.'