The Adventures of Hiram Holliday (34 page)

'Gentlemen! Your attention, if you please,' said General di Brabazon.' I am given to understand that it is desired by both parties from their dispositions and their choice of weapons that this be a combat to a finish. You are to use your weapons as you choose.
At
the signal which will be a blast from my whistle you are to fight and continue fighting until one or the other is disabled or yields, at which time I will again blow my whistle when no further blows are to be struck. During this time there is to be no interference whatsoever. The entire terrain upon which we stand is
at
your disposal. But whosoever retreats beyond the limit of the surrounding trees shall be deemed to have yielded himself and acknowledged defeat. Seconds retire. Gentlemen, may I beg that as brave men you salute one another.'

They stood facing one another, ten feet apart. Hiram had removed his spectacles. His mouth was closed, the lips hard-set, and his light eyes were shining with excitement. The two men rendered one another the traditional fencer's salute. Hiram was standing braced, knees bent, his left foot slightly forward, the shield raised and held slanting to cover throat and chest. He saw Del Tevere fall into a pose, and with an angry mutter quickly change it. He had stood at first with his right arm and side turned to Hiram, before he turned left side forward. But Hiram had noted it, and in noting it, very probably saved his life. For he said to himself: 'Be careful, Hiram! The man is a fencer. He'll fight the weapon as much like a fencer as he can.'

In the thin, early sunlit morning air, the whistle piped, and before it had ceased, Del Tevere flashed forward over the intervening ground in a crashing
balestra,
the dark blade of the short sword hissing overhead in a direct attack
at
Hiram's head. It was that first warning glimpse that Hiram had had that dictated
his
own reply. He jumped backwards and held his shield steady, and the hard leather took the shock of the Colonel's lunge. It had been a sabre attack, beginning with a feint for the head. Had Hiram raised his shield to protect against the cut, he would have taken the blade driven full power through his chest.

For a fraction of a second, Del Tevere's point was stuck in the leather. Hiram jabbed straight for the eyes. Del Tevere got his shield up in time, and with a grunt, freed his point and jerked backwards crying: 'Hah!'

Hiram followed him, edging forward like a boxer, right foot behind left foot, and blessed the time he had put into boxing lessons. He could follow his left foot forward. Del Tevere, the champion fencer, knew only one way to advance comfortably, his right leg ahead, knee bent. In distance, he made a sharp, short lunge for the Colonel's exposed right side. Del Tevere parried well in time in
sixte,
carrying Hiram's blade outward. But the riposte never came, because Hiram's weapon slid along the top of his, there was no hilt or guard to stop it, and the razor edge cut the back of Del Tevere's hand from the knuckle to the wrist. It was only a surface cut, but the Colonel jumped back out of range, and Hiram heard d'Aquila cry:
'Per Dio’
First blood!'

Hiram was thinking furiously: 'Hah! fencer
...
fencer
...
you can't help being a fencer, Del Tevere, and if you
fight that
sword like a fencer you'll be kil
led. Forget everything you ever
knew about fencing, Hiram.
Don't make a single move like a
fencer. You've got to put two thousands years between you.
Go back
...
back to the man w
ho used this weapon once. Fight
the way he fought. This was
made for close quarters, man to
man. Get in. Get in '

He pressed forward. He was beginning to feel that he understood his shield and sword. Del Tevere thrust at his shoulder. Hiram was a fraction slow protecting and felt the point rip the flesh on the outside of his shoulder. But the lunge brought Del Tevere close, and Hiram ripped up his shield and the bronze-bound edge caught the Colonel under the chin, gashing it, and staggering him so that he tottered backwards and fell. Hiram stepped back and waited for him to get up. General di Brabazon called out sharply: 'It is not necessary to wait. If one or the other falls the other may close in and force him to
yield....'

Hiram moved forward, again coaching himself: 'Use your shield,
Hiram,...
feed him iron
...
fight him
...
fight him.' With a crashing shock, they locked. Del Tevere had learned something and struck with his shield, but Hiram whipped his head out of the way and clinched, and twisted away in time as the Colonel brought his knee up. Del Tevere's chin was dripping blood and his eyes were glaring wildly. Hiram felt a sharp pain in his right leg and knew that he had been cut. With a fierce effort he threw his opponent off. But he was tiring, his chest was beginning to burn and he thought he felt a numbness in his leg. He paused for a moment to get his breath, and in that pause Del Tevere charged like a wounded bull, a hundred and eighty pounds of man-driven bone and muscle behind steel and bronze.

Hiram was never able to tell why or how he knew the Roman trick of the old Legionaries, whether somewhere he had read it, or whether it came to him from the ancient weapon that he grasped, but it was in him like a clear light. He met the head-on, devastating charge by dropping to one knee, his shield raised over his head, and as he felt the body shock ripped upwards viciously with his short sword and felt it go home. The force of the charge spun Del Tevere half-way around, and when he recovered his balance his left arm bearing the shield hung useless, the blood pouring from the wound that had severed the shoulder ligament.

'Ave!'
cried Hiram wildly:
'Ave
Marcus Severix.
...
For liberty and decency
!'

He edged forward again. Del Tevere backed away from the blaze of the oncoming figure with its craggy head and fighting eyes, and the naked steel
point....

'Back
...
back
...
back
...'
cried Hiram, 'or I'll kill
you....'

From the woods towards which they were edging something cracked spitefully, and a small bit of turf flew up close to Hiram's feet, but he neither heard nor saw.

'Back!' he cried again. He was dragging his right leg behind him now as Del Tevere gave way step by step: 'Quit or take it.

He was suddenly conscious of running feet and yelling, and thought he heard d'Aquila's voice. Again came the vicious crack from the woods.

'Back you
...'
The last word was trapped in Hiram's throat by the terrible searing blow that took him in the chest and he fell to his knees, wide-eyed and puzzled. Del Tevere had not hit him. Of course not. Why, there was Del Tevere lying on the ground, collapsed from loss of blood. And then he knew, and swaying on his knees, began to laugh aloud, an awful, rising, choking laugh: 'Hah! The edge! I knew it. You won't fight without the edge. You can't whip a fighting man. It took a bullet to do it. Hah-ahg. Go on and finish it, but I'm right
...
I'm right
...
you haven't got
it
...
you'll never have it
again....'

He was still on his knees, facing into the woods from which his death was spitting at him when d'Aquila reached him crying:
'Corpo di Dio !
No! No! Assassins! Murderers! God of Gods, you are no Italians.' He flung himself in front of Hiram as the rifle cracked
again. The Count said: 'Ahhhhhh!’
very quietly, and slipped to the ground in front of Hiram, who stared at him and saw him die.

But now there were rippling shots from behind him.
The General, Di Cavazzo and Ara
Pesca were running forward, and they all had pistols in their hands, and Hiram saw the little burst of sparks fly from their muzzles and the sharp cracking seemed to split his ear drums. They went on by him, screaming with rage, their pistols flaming. They crashed into the woods.

Hiram began to sway a little now. He reached over and patted d'Aquila on the shoulder a little. 'You weren't one of them, friend,' he said. 'Again we don't think far enough. Who will tell when my ashes are delivered whether I died of sword or bullet?'

They were coming back out
of the woods dragging something
behind them. Hiram watched,
a consuming curiosity fighting
off his slipping consciousness. It was the white-haired General
di Brabazon who fell to his knees
at
Hiram's side and cried
with tears in his eyes: 'Look!
Look! Oh, God give you life to
know and understand. Look! He is not an Italian. He is a Nazi.
See, we have killed him.
His gun is German. The cowardly
assassin sent to murder a brave man. He is not of us. I swear it.
Look, there
at
your feet is an I
talian who has died for you and
for Italian honour. Rather I wer
e dead myself than that you did
not
believe....
Di Cavazzo
- show him the papers found on
that dog we killed Sir! Brave man! Do you
see....'

'I
...
I...
am - very - glad
-'
said Hiram Holliday slowly because he was beginning to drift out of
all
pain - 'to - know -that
...
that - there - are - still - honourable men.'

Then quietly he fell forward over the body of the friend who had died for him and honour, as the two surgeons rushed to his side.

It was two months before Hiram Holliday was far enough along in his convalescence to undertake the trip home in response to the summons from New York. The doctors had given him up on those first days
, and marvelled that he refused
to die. Sometimes the spark was so faint that they turned from him to report that it was extinct. And then some tremendous force within him would bring it back to glow again and they would come out to report - 'He still lives
...'
He was unconscious for nine days and never knew who watched ceaselessly at his bedside.

And then on a bright warm day in June he sailed from Naples on the huge
Rex.
He was drawn fine, and very pale and he still used his cane to walk.

He came up on deck and sat in a chair to say farewell to Europe. The white-plumed cone of Vesuvius slipped by on the left. The bow of the ship turned towards the north and began to glide past the blue, villa-dotted coast-line.

Hiram sighed and murmured:
'Finis.
But at least home
ward bound
'He
took out
his cigarette-case and lit one,
and stared for a moment
at
the inscription inside the smooth, white-gold surface. It read: 'To Hiram Holliday, the bravest of the brave
- di Brabazon, Del Tevere, Ara
Pesca, Di Cavazzo, Rome, April, 1939.'

He shut the case with a snap. Two figures came walking up the deck. Hiram stared, unbelieving,
at
the girl in the white dress and smart close-fitting white hat over hair that was again the colour of clear, strained honey, and the young boy at her side.

They paused
at
the side of his chair.

'Heidi
...'
cried
Hiram....
'Heidi and Peter
..

She looked down
at
the pale, drawn man and smiled a little. 'Yes,' she said, 'we, too, are going home, a new home, to rest where there is freedom and honour and peace, where people are
...
are like you.'

She reached for his outstretched hand and held it tightly. 'And thank God that you lived, Hiram - for so many, many reasons, and thank Him now again that you can and will go on
...
on to those high places where you must go.'