I was right, this would be the last big trek with Doc, who was at the point of collapse by the time we finally reached his cottage. I laid him on top of his bed and removed his boots. He had two large blisters, one under each big toe, so I threaded a needle and cotton and ran a loop of cotton through each blister which I then tied, leaving them overnight to drain the fluid. It was a technique Doc had shown me years before and I knew that by morning the blisters would have flattened and there would be no pain. I washed his face and put Vaseline over a cut under his eye and threw an army blanket over him. He was a tough old blighter and in the morning I was pretty sure he’d be okay.
‘Ours. The crystal cave, Africa. You, me, Peekay,’ he mumbled and then seemed to drift off into sleep. I waited until his breathing was deep and even before leaving for home. On the way the moon was so bright that one could see the purple blossom of the jacaranda trees. I was saddened at the thought of never again being with him in the high mountains. Each time I came back from school Doc seemed a little more frail. We had found the crystal cave of Africa but would I see it only once? Perhaps I would return, perhaps not. When you share things, as Doc and I had done, somehow it seemed wrong to halve the secret by returning alone. I thought of the rope rotting and perhaps in a hundred years they’d find the holes where the spikes had long since rusted out and observe the rust stains in the dolomite. They’d search and find minute metal fragments which they’d analyse, and then propound all sorts of theories that would have nothing to do with a six foot seven inch German professor of music and the future welterweight boxing champion of the world.
TWENTY
The second term of form three began with a new aspect of school life. Singe ’n Burn’s tutorials three times a week were quite unlike school. We talked for an hour and from it would come at least three hours of reading and preparation for the next tutorial. The headmaster had a wide grasp of subject and he was quick to discover where a boy’s special aptitudes lay. These he would cultivate carefully while at the same time balancing the mental menu with the discipline of tackling subjects which, though less interesting, he thought essential to a well-rounded education. Sinjun’s People seldom met as a group and once chosen they were never mentioned again in the activity of the Prince of Wales School. No attempt was ever made to make any one of us seem special or especially important, although a powerful struggle between the six took place in the normal course of school, with each one of Sinjun’s People competing fiercely in the classroom for honours. All this, combined with boxing and rugby football, left me very little time to myself.
Hymie had also revealed his big plan. By now he was so intimately involved with me as a boxer as well as a friend that he acted quite unselfconsciously as my manager. In two and a bit years Hymie had acquired a remarkable expertise on boxing and he too was aware that we’d reached the limitations of both Darby White and Sarge and needed to take the next step in my training.
‘Who’s the best professional boxing trainer in South Africa?’ he’d asked one afternoon shortly after our return to school.
‘You already know the answer to that; Solly Goldman.’
‘Well, I went to see him during the holidays. We’re working out for him when he gets back from a trip to England in six weeks. If he likes what he sees, he’ll take you on.’
‘Jesus, Hymie, that’s wonderful! How’d you get him to agree? Solly Goldman only handles professionals.’
For once Hymie wasn’t ready with a flip answer. He looked down at the back of his hands as he answered. ‘We’re going to pay him. We’ve got enough money in the bank to pay him for a year then we’ll think of something else.’ Hymie looked up at me. ‘Now I know what you’re going to say; but as far as I’m concerned my money is yours, you’d do the same for me.’
‘It’s not on, Hymie. Thank you, but it’s simply not on. There are two reasons. The first you already know about, no hand-outs, not under any circumstances, friendship notwithstanding. The second is more practical, that’s our business capital, the first rule of business is never to eat into your capital, you above all people know that!’
‘Look, we’d still keep the Bank, I can borrow money from my old man to keep the float going. You don’t have to take a hand-out. You can buy back your share of the float capital from the profits and you can take a salary as pocket money, you’ll see, it will work out.’
‘Hymie, there’s nothing in the world I want more than Solly Goldman’s expertise, but I can’t do it. It’s got something to do with an incident in my life when I was five years old and I’ve promised myself I would never again forfeit my independence, never again find myself in a position where I wasn’t in control of my life.’
Hymie looked hurt and I couldn’t blame him, in a sense I was rejecting his friendship and his trust. But the wounds entrenched by the Judge and Nazi stormtroopers had left adhesions on my psyche as a constant reminder to me that I was on my own.
‘Okay, Peekay, have it your way, man.’ Then Hymie grinned. ‘If I think up a scam and your share makes enough money to pay Goldman, will you be in it?’
I grinned, relieved that he had accepted my objection. ‘That’s business, that’s different! But only if I play my part and the whole thing’s kosher.’
‘Shake a paw, partner,’ Hymie grinned. ‘This one is going to be an intellectual masterpiece!’
Atherton, Cunning-Spider and I had been a combination on the rugby field from form one. I was a natural scrum-half with Atherton, following in the footsteps of his famous cousin, developing into a brilliant fly-half while Cunning-Spider was a centre with a lot of style. Hugh Lyell and Jean Minnaar, both Sinjun’s People, were also on the team. While I was still technically under fourteen I elected to play in the under fifteen team to keep the combination together. Pissy Johnson, who seemed to grow bigger every term, was a front row forward and, of course, Hymie only became interested because most of the Wooden Spoon Goons were in the team. The under fifteen team in any school is the nursery for the first fifteen and so the players in it are always carefully watched by the rugby masters who regarded this particular team as one with great promise.
Hymie, as usual, analysed the teams against whom we played and, like his boxing notes, we had a pretty good idea of their game plan and capability before taking the field against them.
As he had done in his swot spot in boxing, Hymie made us think and behave like winners. ‘Winners make their own luck but winners are also lucky,’ he said.
In the under thirteens and fourteens, when we had played Helpmekaar, the Afrikaans school where I had boxed my first bout to beat Jannie Geldenhuis, the much bigger Helpmekaar forwards had made mincemeat of us and the stronger, bigger backs had run us off our feet. Geldenhuis, playing scrum-half opposite me, had thoroughly enjoyed his revenge on each of these four occasions. In the last under fourteen match there they’d beaten us narrowly, as we left the field he’d given me an unnecessarily patronising pat on the back. ‘In the ring is one thing, on the rugby field is another. Rugby is more important than boxing, man.’ We’d met five times in the ring and while he was always a tough opponent, on each occasion I’d beaten him; he had a right to try and get even. We would play each school twice during a season and so in our personal score it was me with five boxing wins, Helpmekaar four rugby wins. Hymie, in particular, was anxious to change these rugby statistics when we met in the under fifteens. While the Helpmekaar team were still bigger than we were, things had evened out a bit in size. Hymie was convinced we could beat them. ‘Look at the statistics, Peekay, in the under thirteens they beat us twenty to nil and again fifteen nil, last year it was nine nil and ten three and we scored a try to two free kicks and a drop goal. Statistically we have to take them this year.’