Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

Darky sat on the roadside wiping the blood from his eye with the back of his hand. His nose bleeding had ceased but he looked a sorry sight, his eyes puffed, his face bruised and swollen, his chest heaving, his clothes red with blood.

“Barley, a minute,” he gasped to the referee. “I want to take me shoes off. I keep slippin’!”

He began to untie his shoe laces. Younger weaved above him impatiently.

Ernie Lyle stepped between them. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Darky,” he pleaded.

“Don’t be bloody silly. I’m just gettin’ warmed up,” Darky replied.

Get me wind back and I’ll get the old one two in yet, he was thinking; anyway, he’s got to knock me cold to win it.

In his stockinged feet, Darky arose slowly.

One of Younger’s cronies said: “Take him, Jimmy. He’s had it.”

Younger rushed in for the kill but Darky closed with him, pinioning his arms.

Darky felt some of his strength coming back. If I can coast for a while, I might win it yet.

He kept pushing Younger off, trying to relax and rest in the midst of the bloody fray. No one in the crowd gave Darky any chance now; Younger’s supporters hoped for a quick end to the slaughter; the rest watched Darky’s desperate courage with a mixture of admiration, pity and horror.

Younger was giving Darky no respite. Victory was within his grasp. He bored in punching wildly. Darky kept parrying and clinching. He pushed Younger away and staggered back, his arms at his sides, a picture of abject exhaustion.

It was an old trick and Younger fell for it. He rushed in for the kill. Darky came suddenly to life and raised his fists, halting Younger in his tracks with a left to the face, then a savage right cross and another left as Younger went down. This time Younger was dazed and his right eye began to swell.

The crowd gasped in unbelief.

Younger raised himself on an elbow, shaking his head. Darky stood above him panting like a grampus. He’d hardly the strength left to punch if his opponent regained his feet. Hurt and dazed, Younger climbed to his feet slowly, edging away from Darky as he did so. He seemed to realize that Darky was near the end of his tether.

Now Younger sought respite to regain his youthful strength. As Darky moved in punching without much power, Younger clinched. The referee made no attempt to part them. Younger leant on Darky while the older man wasted his waning strength trying to free his fists to punch.

“Break, yer bastard!” Darky grunted but Younger clung onto him, his strength returning, his head clearing with every second.

“Break ’em!” Ernie Lyle yelled, but the referee paid no heed.

When at last Younger released his grip, his vigor had obviously returned and he began picking Darky off with well placed punches. He was more calm and purposeful than before faced, as he was, by a tired man.

Each man’s knuckles were skinned. Younger’s right eye was closed, his face skinned in places, his body bruised. Darky’s right eyebrow still bled profusely, adding to a puffy black bag under his left eye to impair his vision. His right nostril was split, his face bruised and swelled up, his shirt and trousers red-fronted. He was desperately tired out, to add to his discomfort, his feet were bleeding.

Darky managed to keep his guard up and ward off some blows but he was being ruthlessly punished.

It has been said that youth will triumph over age in physical combat and now the crowd was witnessing a dreadful example of this truism.

Sensing his waning strength Darky seemed to become demented.

He rushed at Younger punching wildly to the head. He set Younger’s nose bleeding again, but the main result of his effort was to so enrage his opponent as to invite the most ruthless reprisals. Younger went over to the offensive again thumping blow after blow to Darky’s undefended face. He backed Darky towards the tree.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Bone on flesh! And Darky against the tree now, his hands by his side. His heart seemed to have swelled up fit to burst and his legs would not hold his body erect. Only the support of the tree kept him on his feet.

Still Younger punched mercilessly.

A woman with a baby in her arms screamed from the edge of the crowd. “Stop him, someone! In the name of the Mother of God, stop him!”

“Stop it, for crissake,” Ernie Lyle said.

Darky could no longer sec his tormentor.

Darky’s face was swollen beyond recognition, a mass of battered, bleeding flesh like a raw steak.

Younger kept punching Darky’s face, sandwiching his head between the pounding fists and the trunk of the tree.

Slowly Darky slid down the tree trunk. Younger rained punches on him until he lay inert against the base of the tree. A dreadful gasp ran through the crowd, like a sigh of relief after torture.

With his fists still upraised Younger stood above Darky and half turned to the crowd.

“Look at him!” he shouted with exultant savagery. “There’s yer famous Darky! He’s stood over the town for twenty years — and look at him now.”

People moved closer, craning with horror to see the sight of a man battered to pulp.