Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur. Страница 150

Each breath was fresh agony as it stretched the torn muscles and ligaments of his chest and burned the soft tissue of his lungs. The pain in his right hand flowed up his arm and mingled with the pain of each new blow, and darkness lapped the vision of his single remaining eye so that he could not see the punches coming. The agony roared like a rushing wind in his eardrums, but still he stayed on his feet. Lomax pounded him, smashing his face to raw meat, and still he stayed on his feet.

The crowd was outraged, their blood lust turned to pity and then to horror. They were shouting for the referee to stop this atrocity, but still Manfred stayed on his feet, making pathetic fumbling efforts to punch back with his left hand, and the blows kept crashing into his blind face and broken body.

At last, too late, much too late, the gong rang to end it and Manfred De La Rey was still on his feet. He stood in the centre of the ring, swaying from side to side, unable to see, unable to feel, unable to find his way back to his own corner, and Uncle Tromp ran out to him and embraced him tenderly. Uncle Tromp was weeping, tears running shamelessly into his beard as he led Manfred back.

My poor Manie, he whispered. I should never have let you. I should have stopped it!

On the opposite side of the ring Cyrus Lomax was surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers. They laughed and slapped his back, and Lomax did a weary little dance of triumph, waiting for the judges to confirm his victory, but shooting troubled glances across the ring at the man he had destroyed.

As soon as the announcement was made he would go to him, to express his admiration for such a show of raw courage.

Achtung! Achtung! The referee had the judges cards in one hand and the microphone in the other. His voice boomed over the loudspeakers. Ladies and gentlemen. The winner of the Olympic Gold Medal on points is, Manfred De La Rey of South Africa. There was a tense incredulous silence in the vast hall that lasted for three beats of Manfred's racing heart, and then a storm of protest, a roar of outrage and anger, of booing and foot-stamping. Cyrus Lomax was rushing around the ring like a madman, shaking the ropes, shouting at the judges, dancing with dismay, and hundreds of spectators were trying to climb into the ring to stage an impromptu demonstration against the decision.

Colonel Boldt nodded at somebody near the back of the hall and the squads of brown-shirted storm troopers moved quic backkly down the aisles and surrounded the ring, driving the angry mob and clearing a corridor to the dressingrooms down which Manfred was hustled.

Over the loudspeaker the referee was attempting to justify the decision. Judge Krauser scored five rounds to De La Rey, one round drawn and four rounds to Lomax, but nobody was listening to him, and the uproar almost drowned out the full volume of the loudspeakers.

The woman must be five or six years older than you are,, Uncle Tromp said carefully, choosing his words. They were walking in the Tegel Gardens and autumn's first chill was in the air.

She is three years older than I am, Manfred replied. But that makes no difference, Uncle Tromp. All that matters is that I love her and she loves me. His right hand was still in plaster and he carried it in a sling.

Manie, you are not yet twenty-one years of age, you cannot marry without the permission of Your guardian. You are my guardian, Manfred pointed out, turning his head to watch him steadily with that disconcerting topazyellow gaze and Uncle Tromp dropped his eyes.

How will you support your wife? he asked.

The Reich's Department of culture has granted me a scholarship to finish my law degree here in Berlin. Heidi has a good job in the Ministry of Information and an apartment, and I will box professionally to earn enough to live on until I can begin my career as a lawyer. Then we will return to South Africa. You have planned it all, Uncle Tromp sighed, and Manfred nodded; his eyebrow was still knotted with crusty black scab, and he would be scarred for life. He touched the injury now as he asked, You will not deny me your permission, will you, Uncle Tromp? we will marry before you leave to go home, and we both want you to be the one to marry us. I am flattered. Uncle Tromp looked distraught. He knew this lad, how stubborn he was once he had set on a course.

To argue further would merely confirm his decision.

You are a father to me, Manfred said simply. And yet more than a father. Your blessing would be a gift without price. Manie! Manie! said Uncle Tromp. You are the son I never had, I want only what is best for you. What can I say to persuade you to wait a little - not to rush into this thing. There is nothing which will dissuade me. Manie, think of your Aunt Trudi, I know she would want me to be happy, Manfred cut in.

Yes, I know she would. But, Manie, think also of little Sarah, 'What of her? Manfred's eyes went fierce and cold and he thrust out his jaw, defiant with his own guilt.

Sarah loves you, Manie. She has always loved you, even I have been able to see that. Sarah is my sister, and I love her. I love her with a brother's love. I love Heidi with the love of a man, and she loves me as a woman loves. I think you are wrong, Manie. I have always thought that you and Sarah, Enough, Uncle Tromp. I don't want to hear any more. I will marry Heidi, I hope with your permission and blessing.

Will you make those your wedding gifts to us, please, Uncle Tromp? And the old man nodded heavily, sadly. I give you both my permission and my blessing, my son, and I will marry you with a joyous heart.

Heidi and Manfred were married on the bank of the Havel

Lake in the garden of Colonel Sigmund Boldt's home in the Granewald. It was a golden afternoon in early September with the leaves turning yellow and red at the first touch of autumn. To be there both Uncle Tromp and Roelf Stander had stayed over when the Olympic teams scattered for home, and Roelf stood up with Manfred as his best man while Uncle Tromp conducted the simple ceremony.

Heidi was an orphan so Sigmund Boldt gave her away, and there were a dozen or so of Heidi's friends, most of them her superiors and colleagues in the Ministry of Propaganda and Information, but there were others, her cousins and more distant relatives in the black dress uniforms of the elite SS divisions, or the blue of the Luftwaffe or the field grey of the Wehrmacht, and pretty girls, some of them in the traditional peasant-style dirndls of which the Nazi Party so strongly approved.

After the short and simple Calvinistic ceremony that Uncle Tromp conducted, there was an al fresco wedding banquet provided by Colonel Boldt, under the trees, with a four-piece band wearing Tyrolean hats and lederhosen. They played the popular Party-approved music of the day, alternating with traditional country airs, and the guests danced on the temporary wooden floor which had been laid over the lawn.

Manfred was so absorbed with the lovely new wife in his arms that he did not notice the sudden excitement amongst the other guests, or the way that Colonel Boldt hurried to greet the small party that was coming down from the house, until suddenly the band broke into the stirring marching song of the Nazi Party, the Horst Wessel song, All the wedding guests were on their feet, standing rigidly to attention, and though he was puzzled, Manfred stopped dancing and stood to attention with Heidi at his side. As the small party of new arrivals stepped onto the temporary wooden dance floor, all the guests raised their arms in the Nazi salute and cried together, Heil Hitler! Only then did Manfred realize what was happening, the incredible honour that he and Heidi were being accorded.

The man coming towards him wore a white jacket buttoned high at the throat with the simple Iron Cross for valour its only decoration. His face was pale, square and strong; his dark hair was brushed forward over his high forehead, and there was a small clipped moustche under the large well-shaped nose. it was not an extraordinary face, but the eyes were like no others Manfred had ever seen, they seared his soul with their penetrating intensity, they reached to his heart and made him a slave for ever.