Fear is the Key

His head and shoulders crashed against the far wall with a crash that shook the radio shack to its metal foundations. That should have been that, but it wasn't, I would have sworn that boy didn't even blink. He brought up one knee in a vicious jab that would have been a sad farewell for me had it landed where it had been intended to land. It didn't, it caught me on the chest and upper arm, but even so it had sufficient power behind it to knock me over on one side and the next moment we were rolling across the floor together, punching, kicking, clawing and gouging. The Marquess of Queensberry wouldn't have liked it at all.

I was under two big disadvantages. The heavy oilskins hampered my movements, and although they helped absorb some of the impact of his jolting short-arm jabs they also, because of their constricting effect, robbed my own blows of much of their power: and while he was obviously more than willing to turn the entire radio shack into a shambles of broken furniture and fittings, that was the last thing I wanted: everything, literally everything, depended on rny keeping that radio intact. And we had both rolled against the radio table now, myself underneath, where I could have a good view of one of the legs splintering and caving in under the combined weight of our bodies against it.

I wasn't feeling any too good by this time. I had just the evidence of my own eyes to show me that this lad was only equipped with arms and fists just like anyone else and not a couple of flexible sledge-hammers which was what it felt like, but the sight of that tottering radio-table made me desperate. A particularly vicious clubbing blow to the lower ribs didn't make it at all hard for me to gasp out in pain and fall back limply to the floor, and while he was taking advantage of my co-operation and time off to wind up his right sledge-hammer to drive me through the floor I brought up my knee and simultaneously chopped him across the exposed neck with the edge of my right hand and all the power those hampering oilskins would permit.

By all the rules he should have gone out like a light, only he had never read any of the rules. But I had hurt him, though: the grunt of agony was as genuine as mine had been faked, and he was momentarily dazed — just long enough to let me squirm out from under and roll over and over until I brought up against the half-open doorway through which I had entered. I might have nailed him then, back where we had been, but I wasn't going to take even the chance of touching the few splintered pieces of table leg which were all that kept the transmitter from crashing on to the steel deck.

He was tough, all right. By the time I was on my feet he was on his, shaken, but still on Ms feet, For a moment I thought he had lost all taste for the hand to hand stuff, the heavy wooden chair he had picked up and was bringing whistling over his shoulder certainly made it seem so, but when I ducked and heard the chair smash to pieces on the door jamb behind, it turned out that this was only his long-range artillery bombardment and that the assault troops were moving in later. Later, in this case, was almost right away, but I managed to avoid his wild flailing bull-rush and whirled round to meet his next charge.

It never came. He was crouching there, facing me, teeth showing and his eyes a couple of wicked slits in his dark Latin face, hands pressed against the wall behind him ready to help him in his take-off, when I saw a slender wrist appearing in the doorway behind him, high up. At the end of the wrist was a white-gloved hand and gripped in the hand was a broken chair-leg.

Mary Ruthven hit him as I would have taken long odds that she would hit Mm — a hesitant experimental tap on the head that wouldn't have dazed a cockroach — but for all that it had the galvanic effect of an electric shock. He whipped his head round to locate the source of this fresh threat and as he did I moved in with two long steps and hit him with everything I had on the neck, just below the ear, my knuckles socketing solidly into the hollow behind the back of his left jawbone.

One of the most deadly blows in boxing, it could easily have dislocated his jaw or broken his neck, and with any normal man might well have done just that. But he was phenomenally tough. He crashed back against the steel bulkhead and started to slide down towards the floor, eyes unfocused in his head, but even as he slid he made a last despairing effort to fling himself at me and wrap his arms around my legs to bring me down. But his co-ordination, his timing were gone. I had time to step back as his face came down near my right foot. I saw no reason why I shouldn't bring the two into contact and every reason why I should; so I did.