Rebellion

They practised the sequence a dozen times, without pause, by which time the handle of Hawkwood’s tipstaff was slick with moisture from his palm. Chen, on the other hand, looked as if he’d just awakened from a refreshing afternoon nap.

Hawkwood had often wondered about Chen’s age. The man’s features were, like his skull, smooth and hairless. He could have been any age between thirty and sixty. It wasn’t as if the city was knee-deep in Chinamen that Hawkwood could make a well-informed judgement. Lascars there were a-plenty; many of them ensconced within the East India Company barracks along the Ratcliffe Highway. But Chinamen were still something of a rarity and could probably be numbered if not on the fingers of one hand then certainly in the low rather than the high hundreds.

Hawkwood and Chen’s paths had crossed three months before at, of all places, a horse fair on Bow Common.

Hawkwood had gone there with Nathaniel Jago who, to Hawkwood’s astonishment, had expressed interest in buying a horse. He had a hankering, he’d told Hawkwood, to invest in a carriage so that he and Connie Fletcher could take five o’clock drives around Hyde Park with the rest of the swells.

Connie Fletcher was a former working girl turned madam who ran a high-class bagnio off Cavendish Square. Jago and Connie had been keeping company for nearly a year which, by Hawkwood’s reckoning, had to be some kind of record. Hawkwood had tried to envisage Jago and Connie surrounded by the cream of London society all trying to cut a dash along the tree-lined avenues, and had failed miserably.

He suspected that the idea of riding in a carriage had been more Connie’s dream than Jago’s, in an attempt to garner some degree of respectability, for when they had served together in the Peninsula, his former sergeant’s aversion to anything even remotely connected with equestrian pursuits had been legendary, and that included, in some instances, cheering on the cavalry. Horses were good for just one thing, Jago had told him, and that was as a supplement to rations, and only then if chickens were in short supply and the beef had turned maggoty.

Hawkwood wondered if this new-found hankering was a precursor to an attempt by Connie to persuade Jago to make an honest woman of her. Now, there was a thought to keep a man awake at night.

In the event, neither of them need have worried, for the quality of horse flesh on offer had been nothing to write home about: scrub horses and sway-backed mules for the most part. So, with Jago grumbling that he’d have to wait until the Barnet Horse Fair to continue his search, they’d turned their attentions to the peripheral entertainments, one of which had been a boxing booth. Other than its size – it was considerably larger than either of its immediate neighbours – there hadn’t been much to distinguish the tent from the rest of the tawdry marquees with their fortune tellers, palm readers and freak shows, had it not been for the placard above the sagging entrance which, in florid and faded lettering, proclaimed: Billy Boyd – The Bethnal Green Bruiser – Challenges All Comers!

Against his better judgement Hawkwood had allowed Jago to drag him into the tent, where they’d been confronted by the reek of stale beer and even staler bodies and a roped-off square of canvas around which a couple of dozen rowdy onlookers had, over the course of the afternoon, watched a succession of rough-hewn labourers and jack-the-lads try their hand at pummelling another man senseless; their incentive being the three guineas on offer if they managed to remain upright for the duration of the three two-minute rounds, and a five-guinea purse if they succeeded in, as the booth owner put it in his sales pitch, knocking the champion on to his arse.

Not that any of them had stood a cat in hell’s chance. Boyd, a stocky, broad-bellied mauler with a balding scalp, broken nose and knuckles lined with calluses, had stood there knowingly, hands on his hips, watching as, one by one, his deflated opponents were carried from the ring in varying degrees of pain and disability, very few of them having managed to land so much as one decent punch. Looking on, it had been hard to fathom why any man in his right mind would have wanted to climb over the ropes and take him on in the first place.

It had been the late end of the afternoon. The number of prospective challengers had gradually dwindled away and the tout had been on the verge of calling it a day, when the slight built, strangely dressed figure stepped out of the audience and made his way to the ringside.

Someone close by had let go a snort of laughter. Hawkwood heard Jago say quietly and with some awe. “Well, now, this should be interestin’.”

Without doubt, it was the orange coat with its high collar buttoned up to the chin that had drawn the eye; as bright as a sunburst compared to the clothing worn by the majority of men in the tent. The coat wearer’s looks were just as arresting as his attire.

In the booth’s dim-lit interior, his skin had seemed to be infused with an almost ethereal saffron tint. Hawkwood had also been struck by the man’s uncannily symmetrical features, in particular his oval face, shaven head and deep brown, almond-shaped eyes. His demeanour had been odd, too. There had been a curious serenity in his gaze and a stillness in the way he’d held himself. He’d seemed oblivious to the reaction his arrival had caused, though he must have been aware of it.

“It’s a Chink!” a gravelled voice had offered helpfully.

“Well, ’e ain’t from bleedin’ Chelsea!” another wit had shouted.

“Either way,” Jago murmured in Hawkwood’s ear, “he’s a long way from home.”

The tout had looked back at his man, unable to keep the grin off his face. The response had been a dismissive shrug of the shoulders, as if to say, “He’s paid the entrance money, it’s his funeral.”

When Chen climbed into the ring, he’d done so in a hushed silence born out of the crowd’s curiosity and collective assumption that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Another challenger, who hadn’t even had the sense to remove his coat, was about to receive a sharp and painful lesson in the noble science.

“Not sure I want to see this.” Jago had been on the point of turning away. Hawkwood, though, stayed where he was. He wasn’t sure what prompted him to remain, other than the look in the Chinaman’s eyes, which had intrigued him.

At the sound of the bell, the champion had exited his corner with all the confidence of a seasoned fighter; a man prepared to give short shrift to any upstart – young or old – who had delusions of unseating him. The crowd was about to be treated not only to a contest between champion and the challenger but a pugilistic exhibition as well.

It hadn’t turned out that way.

Billy Boyd liked to toy with his opponents by allowing them a few opening punches to bolster their confidence, before returning a sequence of light, irritating taps to let them know they’d probably made the wrong decision. That was usually enough to incite the challenger into firing off a salvo of haymakers that had no hope of landing but which gave the champion legitimate rein to retaliate with increasing force. Boyd was more than happy to let the challenger think he was going to last the three rounds before finally moving in and disabusing him of such a foolish notion.

Faced with the Chinaman, Boyd, for the first time in his career, had found himself flummoxed, not least because his opponent made no attempt to attack or put up a protective guard. Instead, all he did was assume a peculiar stance not unlike some kind of strange, one-legged bird. Then, holding his right hand close to his waist in an inverted fist, he raised his left arm to shoulder height, palm open towards the champion, fingers hooked as if it were some kind of claw. Settled, features immobile, as if he had all the time in the world, he waited.

By the time Boyd realized he’d been duped, it was too late. Even as he stepped forward, drawn by this most unlikely of opponents to initiate contact instead of the other way round, some sixth sense must have triggered a warning. But by then he was already committed. Even as he aimed an exploratory jab towards the challenger’s torso, the Chinaman was moving.

Chen’s counter-attack, a set of lightning moves that enabled him to block the punch with ease, turn the champion’s arm away and drive the edge of his palm into Billy Boyd’s throat, was almost sinuous in execution and so fast the crowd had barely had time to follow it from start to finish.

It occurred to Hawkwood that he might have seen scorpions strike with less speed and ferocity; estimating later that it had probably taken Chen longer to climb over the ropes than it had for him to put the champion on his back.

To a stunned silence that could have been cut with a knife.

It had been hard to tell who was the most shocked: the crowd, the booth owner, or Billy Boyd.

“Jesus!” Jago’s whisper had echoed the reaction of every witness in the tent.

With Boyd still flat on the canvas, Chen had left the ring to claim his purse, only to discover that the tout was not prepared to relinquish the prize in the wake of a bout that had lasted barely ten seconds, even more so when the challenger had not even had the decency to engage in a fair contest. Especially, the tout had added, when he was a “bleedin’ Chinaman” to boot. Emboldened by the belief that he had the bulk of the spectators on his side, he’d told Chen to sling his hook.

But Chen had stood his ground.

By then, factions within the crowd had begun to argue, divided between those who agreed with the tout that the Chinaman had employed unfair tactics, typical of a bloody slant-eyed little heathen, and those who thought that landing Billy Boyd on his arse had been no bad thing and worth the entrance fee on its own.

Things had been on the verge of turning ugly when, with reluctance, Hawkwood had stepped in. Having Jago at his shoulder had helped, but mostly it had been his brass-crowned Runner’s baton and the magistrate’s warrant contained within it that had persuaded the tout that it might be in his best interest if he reconsidered his decision. It was either that, or notice would be issued to close down the booth and both the tout and the champion could spend the night reflecting upon their decision in the nearest police cell. It’d save a lot of bother, Hawkwood promised them, if they paid the Chinaman what they owed him. Then everybody could go home.

Muttering under his breath, the booth owner had handed over the five guineas. In the interest of public order, Hawkwood and Jago had escorted Chen from the tent and, in case any of Boyd’s supporters harboured thoughts of revenge, from the Common as well.

When they’d reached a safe distance, Chen had thanked them in halting English. Then he’d asked Hawkwood why he’d helped him.

There had been two reasons, Hawkwood told him. The first was because Chen had won the bout and the purse was therefore his.

The second was that Hawkwood wanted Chen to teach him to fight.

They had been using the cellar beneath the Rope and Anchor twice a week for three months. The owner, a former lighterman called Tully Robinson, owed Jago a favour. Jago had called in the debt and Tully had bequeathed one of the pub’s cellars, no questions asked. It even had its own entrance, approached via a dank, shoulder-wide passage with the appropriate name of Gin Alley.

The cellar became their training room. Hawkwood had been mystified by some of the additions, the sparring tree in particular. Only when Chen had given him a demonstration, using his hands, forearms and feet to attack the bare wooden figure had it begun to make sense, as had the ridges of hardened skin along the outside edges of Chen’s soles and palms. It was only after their second session together that Hawkwood noticed how compact Chen’s hands were; his fingers were uniformly short and almost of the same length. As a result, his fingertips, when held rigid, were as formidable as an axe blade and just as effective as the edge of his hand.

Chen had begun by teaching Hawkwood simple sequences of blocks and strikes. Hour after hour, he would take Hawkwood through the drills until the mantra became all consuming.

“Too slow. Again.”

Block, strike; block, strike.

“Too slow. Again.”

The techniques that Chen employed were not entirely new to Hawkwood. He’d served with a man during his time in Spain, a Portuguese soldier turned guerrillero, who’d plied his trade in the East and who’d picked up some interesting fighting skills along the way. He’d shared some of them with Hawkwood, telling him they’d originated among an order of Chinese holy men. Forbidden to carry weapons, they had devised their own form of combat using their hands and feet and whatever implements were available.

Hawkwood had remembered some of the elementary moves and indeed had used them on occasion. Watching Chen display the unexpected yet instantly familiar tactics against Billy Boyd had ignited the thought that maybe fate had presented him with an opportunity to widen his knowledge and improve upon those few basic skills he’d acquired from his Portuguese comrade-in-arms. Anything that would give him an edge over the sort of men he hunted had to be an advantage.

As the lessons progressed so did Chen’s command of English. From what Hawkwood had been able to glean, Chen had no family. He came from the south of China; a province with a strange name that was almost impossible to pronounce. More intriguing was Chen’s disclosure that he had indeed been a monk, a member of a religious order that had fallen foul of the authorities. A number of sacred sites had been desecrated, including Chen’s own monastery. The monks had retaliated and a price had been placed on their heads. Many of them had fled the country. Chen had arrived in England on board a British merchant ship, one of hundreds of anonymous seamen recruited abroad as cheap labour by the East India Company. As a result he’d found himself marooned, an orphan in a storm, unable to return home, for fear of imprisonment or death.

He’d managed to find a bed in one of the Lascar-run Shadwell boarding houses, using the last of his pitiful wages. When they ran out he’d resorted to begging; a legacy from his time as a monk, when the only way to obtain food had been to wander the streets with a bowl and cup. But he’d soon learned there was little sympathy shown to foreign beggars – there were enough home-grown ones – and his orange robe, which would have elicited charity in his own country, counted for nothing on the streets of London. Starvation looked a likely prospect, but he’d persevered. He’d known that the best pickings were to be found wherever crowds gathered, so he had followed the fair-goers to Bow Common. There he’d seen the illustrations on the outside of the boxing booth. He had sufficient English to understand what was required in order for him to walk away with enough money to cover three months’ lodgings. He’d watched Boyd through a gap in the back of the tent and even though he’d not used his fighting skills in many months, he knew he would beat him and that it would not take long.

And so it had proved.

In their training they would alternate roles and Hawkwood would take on the role of the aggressor, wielding his tipstaff or the knife in his boot or on occasion one of the tools hanging on the wall; the threshing flail, the hammer, the hand scythe or the axe. Invariably, Chen would disarm him with ease, no matter how quickly Hawkwood attacked or what weapon he favoured. Gradually, however, Hawkwood came to understand the principles Chen employed, how it was possible to defuse an attack using gravity, speed and leverage to unbalance his opponent and effect a counter strike and every now and then he found himself piercing Chen’s formidable defences. But not very often.