The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan (9 page)

Still, while Figg retained that arrogant sneer, Plummer’s face was suffused with hatred, his hands bunched into fists at his side. Clearly, whatever self-control he’d been exercising these past few months (whatever had previously prevented him from launching himself at Figg, due to this mysterious grievance there undoubtedly was between them) had exhausted itself.

Captain Spillard now appeared, accompanied by Holmes and his doctor friend. Captain Spillard sized up the situation with a glance and then calmly walked over to the two men.

‘If you wish to fight, then you will do so in a gentlemanly fashion,’ he declared. ‘I’ll stand for no foul play.’

I saw that some of the other men watching were surprised by the captain’s words; but not I. The Captain was a remarkably intelligent man, capable of ‘reading’ both an individual and a situation at a glance. He knew that this affair between Plummer and Figg needed to be resolved immediately, and in a manner which many an Englishman finds the simplest, and most effective.

‘There’ll be no scratching, biting, gouging or anything of that kind,’ continued Captain Spillard, whose broken nose spoke of the fact that he’d often boxed as a younger man. ‘No hitting a man when he’s down, and no showing the toe.’

This last utterance caused both Plummer and Figg to look at him in some confusion, and I to give a slight smile. Like Captain Spillard a Lancastrian man, born and bred, I knew that ‘showing the toe’ meant kicking; something strictly anathema in the world of bare-knuckle, of course.

Once they’d realized the meaning of this last phrase, Plummer and Figg nodded, and faced off. They were both wearing the usual attire of white shirts, trousers and black shoes. The white shirts they removed, so that they fought bare-chested, as is the custom. They raised their fists, and the Captain stepped between them. He had no need to announce that he would referee this fight; it was obvious.

‘The fight ends when a man can’t get up off the floor and come up to scratch, having been knocked down, upon the count of ten,’ declared Captain Spillard, while scratching a line into the dusty ground with the toe of his shoe. ‘Or when I judge that a man is too badly injured to continue – and go against my ruling, and you’ll find some real punishment awaiting you.’

Such was the grey-haired Captain’s general air of authority, that even the formidable Figg nodded his understanding of this threat. As it is upon a ship, strict discipline is essential upon this small island. Anyone found stealing from the warehouses full of merchandise from silks to spices is liable to find themselves whipped, heavily fined and possibly just placed on the next ship sailing away from Leaving Island, while it was common knowledge that a set of gallows – which had as yet not been used – was stored in a basement area beneath the Captain’s private residence, which is located near the bridge which connects the island to land.

‘Let’s get this done and finished, then,’ said the Captain; and, at his nod, Plummer and Figg momentarily ‘touched’ knuckles before beginning to circle around each other.

Plummer was the first to throw a punch, which Figg easily evaded by moving his head sharply backwards. His own fist lashed out, a right as heavy as a mallet yet fast as a colt, and there was a sickening sound as it connected with Plummer’s right ear. Plummer staggered backwards, his face registering shock as he put his hand to the struck part. It was already bleeding, and no doubt exceedingly painful.

The sneer was back on the Brawler’s face; and though he could certainly have pressed home his advantage that moment, while Plummer was stunned by the blow to his ear, he instead waited for his opponent to recover himself. It was clear that Figg was enjoying this fight, and had no desire for it to end too quickly.

In any case, Plummer quickly recovered and moved in with a series of hard body shots – often greatly more effective than punches to the head and face, for ribs can cave in with far less force than is required to cause similar damage to a man’s skull (thus sparing a fighter’s hands), and the pain is something to make even a hardened fighter whimper for mercy.

It will not surprise the reader to learn that there was no such whimpering from Figg, however. He took the blows almost entirely on his muscled arms, which he kept close by his sides, and then dealt Plummer a cracking left blow to the jaw, followed by a straight right shot to the heart.

Plummer staggered backwards, shaking his head in a desperate attempt to remain conscious. Again, Figg could easily have finished this fight with just one more good blow; and, again, he instead waited for his opponent to recover himself.     

‘Looks like I win – again,’ said the Brawler. I wondered what he meant by this – had the two men fought each other already, at some point in the past? Yet they had never claimed to have known each other, before Plummer’s arrival upon this island...

These words caused Plummer to give a shrill cry of rage, and he moved forwards, his fists lashing out. Figg brought his forearms up to shield his face, thus easily absorbing the wild blows. Then he ducked down, bringing his right fist down even lower… And at once exploding upwards he put all his weight into a brutal uppercut which impacted on the point of Plummer’s jaw, lifting that man off his feet and depositing him upon the dusty ground, where he twitched a couple of times before lying quite still.

As physician of this island, I moved quickly towards the stricken man, fearing that he was badly hurt or even worse. As I knelt down beside him, I was vaguely aware of Captain Spillard saying to the victorious fighter –

‘That’s enough now, Figg – that’s enough…’

But, really, my attentions were fully upon the man lying on the ground. He was tougher than I thought. His eyelids fluttered open, and after a moment he attempted to rise, mumbling something about wanting to resume the fight.

‘You’ve been beaten, man,’ I told him sternly, so that he understood there was no point in trying to continue. ‘Now be still.’

He obeyed me – I think he realized his legs wouldn’t even support him, if he attempted to stand – and I performed a brief examination of him. He was fortunate: he’d not even a broken jaw, which I was certain he’d sustained from the Brawler’s final blow. Otherwise there was some superficial bruising already beginning to show itself on the face, but nothing of any real importance.

‘Such a shame, seeing two fellow Englishmen brawling like this,’ I told Plummer, as I helped him to sit upright. He was breathing heavily, his eyes narrowed with pain.

‘I’ll see that bastard in hell yet,’ he murmured.

‘Look,’ I said in a fierce whisper, so that only he could hear. ‘What is the matter here? Heaven knows there’s been bad blood between you and Figg ever since you arrived on this island – and for what reason, eh? You two knew each other somewhere before, I’m guessing? In Devonshire, would seem to be the smart guess, since you both have the accent of that region!’

But Plummer only stubbornly shook his head, refusing to say anything more. Before I could persist in my questioning (for I can be quite tenacious, when the mood takes me), I became aware of a commotion coming from behind me.

I turned my head, and there was Figg pointing at Holmes, who’d had no choice but to observe the altercation which had just taken place.

‘So that’s him, is it? The one there’re those stories about? Well, I’ve not read ‘em, but still I’ve heard he’s quite a boxer. So if this here Mister Sherlock Holmes is half the man they say he is, let him meet me now – bare-knuckle!’

‘That’s enough, Figg!’ said the Captain harshly; but the effect upon Holmes was instant. In a couple of moments, he removed his shirt, exposing a lean, sinewy body that was obviously exceptionally strong.

‘Good, good; let’s fight, man!’ called out the Brawler, his blood doubtless still ‘up’ from his previous fight.   

I glanced at the Captain, and as he moved to stop these proceedings, his expression suddenly changed. I realized that he – a fighting man when he’d been in his youth, after all – indeed
wished
to see this fight. And as his guest had just accepted the challenge…

Without saying a word, Holmes advanced, coming up to scratch, and the two men who were about to fight touched knuckles before again stepping back, briefly sizing each other up. Holmes was – slightly – the taller man, while Figg certainly had the advantage in weight and general size. The mocking sneer was quite gone from Figg’s face, while Holmes’s hawlike face was impassive.

In Holmes’s eyes, however, there seemed to lie a dislike for the Brawler, based upon what he had just seen – the quick, brutal and indeed almost
callous
defeat of James Plummer. I thought that Holmes (by all accounts an honorable man) considered Figg to be little more than a bully – although it is possible that I am merely indulging in supposition here.

And then the fight began…

This time, Figg took the offensive, marching forwards while throwing a series of fast, hard blows. Holmes took these on his arms – in the manner favored by the Brawler himself – and then shot a hard left straight through Figg’s guard and onto that square chin.

Figg staggered slightly; as square as his chin was, seemingly capable of taking most blows, I had no doubt that Holmes’s fist had struck with the force of a small mallet. But still the Brawler did not go down. With a roar, he again stepped forwards, his massive fists flying in their desire to punch, pound and pulverize.

This time, Holmes merely circled out of range, showing some pretty fancy footwork. The men watching stayed several prudent feet away from the two fighters, so there was space enough. This was not one of those altercations where the audience presses forwards in their shared desire to see blood.

Again Holmes’s left shot forwards, but the Brawler was wise to this by now, and neatly slipped his well-muscled body sideways, dodging the blow. At the same moment, his right fist smacked into Holmes’s side, just below where there is the so-called ‘floating rib’. With a grunt, Holmes stepped back, again moving out of range. His face remained a mask, yet I knew that the last blow had caused him considerable pain.

And then it happened. The Brawler’s massive hands at once grabbed hold of the detective, and Figg twisted his body so to throw his opponent ‘cross-buttock’. This is the only throw allowed in bare-knuckle, although usually this has to be agreed upon by both fighters before a match commences. It is an extremely dangerous move, which has left any number of fighters crippled, and so many men simply agree not to try and perform it. 

Figg was a true master of the cross-buttock. It is no exaggeration to say that I had never seen the move performed faster – or harder. As expert a boxer as Holmes undoubtedly is, still I think he even knew what was happening before he found himself being hurled up in the air – and then brought down hard towards the ground.

I gave a gasp as I instantly realized Figg’s ultimate intention; he intended to bring his full body weight crashing down upon the detective – with his right elbow also impacting straight into Holmes’s face. But using his left forearm, Holmes’s seemed somehow to ‘break’ his fall upon landing, thus avoiding significant damage from this initial impact, and twisted out of the way as the Brawler fell hard upon the spot he’d occupied just a split-second before.   

Then Holmes was upon Figg’s back, both his arms wrapping around the Brawler’s neck in a complicated choke-hold, Figg’s face fast turning purple as he attempted to croak –

‘Foul!
Foul…!
’

It took a number of us watching – including Captain Spillard and Holmes’s doctor friend – to separate the two men. Figg continued to protest that Holmes had cheated (while also coughing a great deal and rubbing his injured neck), and we conceded that, technically speaking, he was correct. But then his use of the cross-buttock had been unexpected and wholly undeclared; as such, he’d somewhat ‘blurred’ the rules governing bare-knuckle boxing himself.

‘There’s a little lesson in the Anglo-Japanese martial arts for you, my friend,’ said Holmes, panting slightly as he and Figg glared at one another. ‘Specifically, in the style they called ‘Bartitsu’. Believe me, this particular martial art has already proved extremely useful to me…

The fight was hurriedly judged a ‘draw’ by Captain Spillard, thus permitting both fighters (and Figg in particular) to save face. With evident ill-grace, Figg briefly shook hands with the detective before stomping off, pausing only to look contemptuously at James Plummer, who was sat against the stone wall of one warehouse, still recovering from his recent thrashing.

I then learnt that Holmes and his doctor friend were staying at an inn near to the bridge which connects Leaving Island to the city harbor. I knew the area, having been there once or twice, although the foreigners on this island are seldom permitted to venture onto the mainland. (A few years earlier, an English sailor had been killed, and two badly injured, in a drunken brawl with some
samurai
. Ever since that time, contact with the ‘natives’, as it were, was greatly restricted.)

Where Holmes and his friend were staying, I knew, were those houses where the
yujo
, or ‘women of the night’, plied their trade. It was all very tightly controlled, with the women of each building wearing matching
kimono
, almost as a sort of ‘in-house’ uniform.

Still, these women knew that they could make excellent money – better than they could get from their usual, Japanese customers – from some of the men on Leaving Island. As such, and as I have already mentioned, they frequently stole across the bridge at night, knowing that they might ‘encounter’ an amorous foreigner waiting inside one of the cavernous dark warehouses.