Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

I opened the door, but he wouldn’t let go of the ax and he wouldn’t let me out of the room. So I am just sitting here writing because there isn’t anything else to do. I can hear Jack now, coming up behind me. I bet he’s going to apologize for...

Grudge Fight by Frank Hardy

The fight took place some time ago in a small mining town in Australia. It was a grudge fight and a blood bath, A toe to toe, bare knuckled slug jest. Or, as the towns folk might refer to it, “a fair dinkum bit of stoush.”

* * *

“I’m as good as ever I was!” Darky said, tapping his chest.

He laughed, throwing his head back and thumping his empty beer pot on the counter — but there was something forced about that laugh; it didn’t come from the belly or the heart.

“Here, fill ’em up again!” he ordered the barman.

Darky and Ernie Lyle always dropped into the Royal Hotel on their way home. Lately, they’d been working at the open-cut coal mine on the outskirts of the town. They’d washed before leaving the mine but coal dust still persisted around their ears, eyes and finger nails and was caked on their eye lashes.

These two were mates now — at least Ernie would have claimed they were. Darky would express no view on that subject; he’d had a lot of mates in his time and acknowledged none of them. It wasn’t in Darky to call a man his mate; his feelings were buried deep somewhere so you just had to guess at them,

Their pots replenished, Ernie ventured to comment: “I’m not say-in’ you’re not as good as ever you were, Darky — but Younger’s as big as you are and, well, he’s younger. He’s only twenty two and you’re, well, you’re over forty, Darky.”

The expression, that clouded Darky’s face intimidated Ernie, who added with a hollow laugh: “He’s younger by name and younger by nature...”

“Listen, Ernie! Younger’s a bludger and a scab,” Darky said. “Yes, he’s a scab all right. The Trade Union fella from the city went out to the timber mill and Younger wouldn’t join. Anyhow, I got to fight him now. It’s been coming a long time and now it’s here.”

Darky drank his beer without taking the pot from his lips. Beer trickled down his chin into the hair on his chest. “Here, drink up, Ernie, we’ll have one for the road.”

“Not for me, Darky. Three’s enough for me. You’ve had six pots already — you generally only have three yerself.”

“Ah, that coal dust needs washin’ down... Have a pony to keep me company.”

“All right, I’ll have a pony.”

“Here, Dan, fill my pot, and a pony for Ernie.”

The drinks served, Ernie poured the beer from the small glass into his half-empty pot and gazed reflectively at the linoleum on the bar counter: “I still think you shouldn’t fight him, Darky. It’s what he wants. He’s beat every one in the town...”

“Every one in the town,” Darky interrupted, “except this Darky here!” He tapped his chest with his right forefinger, making a deep sound like a distant drum.

“Yeh,” Ernie persisted. “But that’s his ambition. He’s been itch-in’ to have a go at you for years — and he can fight, Darky. He beat the pro’ pug in Sharman’s troupe last year, you know that...”

At that moment Younger plunged through the old-fashioned swinging doors, scattering a group of drinkers, beer splashing their clothes. He stood arms stretched sideways holding the doors open, his feet placed wide apart.

The talk in the long bar ceased as if it had been coming through a radio speaker and been switched off. A hundred men in various stages of intoxication turned towards the door, beer glasses neglected in their hands and on the soggy counter top. The publican, Danny O’Connell, stood suspended, four empty glasses balanced in his left hand. His blonde wife sat on a high stool grasping the cash register in front of her, eyes wide with fear. The two employed barmen also ceased work and watched. A group of men playing hookey in a far corner of the bar ceased their sport. One of them stood, right arm outstretched with a rubber hook held between his thumb and forefinger as if posing for a camera.

Jimmy Younger went up to the bar and ordered his beer then turned to face Darky and stood with his right heel resting on the bar rail, his right elbow on the bar itself. His left fist clenched instinctively. The nostrils of his wide nose dilated. The small glass of beer stood on the bar at his elbow, golden bubbles rising in it. Younger blinked his eyes and shook his head once, as though he was a little the worse for alcohol.