“Yah. He probably thinks that they’ll help him hit harder, the dummkopf.” Gus spit in the dirt. “That will not help him.”
“Why not?” Simon looked over at the other fighter.
“Hans wears what Herr Pierpoint calls the MMA gloves. His hands will be faster. You’ll see.”
The first round ended. Hans came over to his corner and leaned back against the ropes, waving a hand to Simon. He didn’t even seem to be breathing hard.
The bell clanged, and Round 2 began.
“Ah,” Gus said.
“What?” Simon asked, alarmed.
“No, it’s good. Look at how the Scot is moving.”
Simon watched. At the end of the second round, he still hadn’t seen what Gus was seeing. It wasn’t until most of the way through the third round that he finally got it. “The red-haired guy is flat-footed. He does not move on his toes like Hans does.”
Gus nodded.
“Yah. That’s one thing that Herr Pierpoint keeps hammering into us, that we need to be on our toes. It’s all about speed, and you can do everything faster when you’re moving on your toes. You watch, pretty soon now Hans is going to hand this guy his head.”
Gus seemed to be lacking as a prophet, however, throughout the first four rounds. Hans seemed to be content to let the big Scotsman try his whole arsenal. Straight jabs, uppercuts, haymakers, cross punches; he wasn’t able to tag Hans with many of them, and those that did land didn’t seem to faze the German.
In the rest period after the fourth round, Simon turned to Gus and asked the question that had been on his mind most of the evening.
“Why are you helping and supporting Hans? Didn’t he beat you?”
“Like a drum,” Gus said with a big grin. “But he was not mean about it, and he helped me up off the ground after it was over. And he’s Our Hans,” he said, waving his hand round the arena. “Everyone watches Hans. And when he goes up against someone from outside Magdeburg,” pointing at the redhead across the ring, “then we all are for him. The Scotsman may think he’s a hard man, but compared to Hans…” He shook his head.
“Stark Hans,” Simon said, looking back to the ring as the bell rang for Round 5.
“Yah.”
The two fighters approached each other from their opposite corners. They started their circling again, until all of a sudden MacDonald lunged forward with a straight punch. Hans must have let his focus drift for a moment, because the punch crashed through hands he raised just a fraction of a second too late and connected solidly with his jaw. Simon leapt to his feet as the crowd roared.
“What happened? What happened?” he shouted, shaking Gus’ shoulder.
“I don’t know, Simon,” Gus shouted back through the crowd noise. “But whatever that big oaf did, Hans has really had his bell rung.”
Indeed, the German was back-pedaling around the ring, head ducked, hands in from of his face, elbows tight to his sides, weathering a storm of punches from the big Scot, who was obviously trying to finish Hans off. But before too long, the storm began diminishing as the Scot was unable to sustain the frenzied pace. By the end of the round, he was almost plodding, and Hans was back to ducking and flicking off anything that came close to connecting.
The end of the round bell rang. Hans came back to his corner and leaned back against the ropes. He didn’t turn around, but Simon could tell from the tension in his shoulders that he was angry.
He tugged on Gus’ arm. “Come help me up.”
For a moment the other man didn’t move, a confused expression on his face. But as Simon gestured to the ring with his hand, understanding dawned, and he took Simon around the waist and lifted him up to the apron of the ring.
Hans’ head swiveled to look at Simon, who gulped at the set expression on his friend’s face. For the first time, he began to really understand just how hard Stark Hans could be.
Simon still shuffled sideways until he was close to the fighter. He raised his fist up between them. “Luck,” he said.
Hans stared at him for a few seconds, then a slight smile appeared and he reached out and tapped Simon’s fist with his own. “Luck,” was the reply.
Simon turned and hopped down off the ring apron, supported by Gus’ strong arms. He went back to the bench, but instead of sitting he stood up on it so he could get his best view of the ring. He had a feeling something was about to happen.
As it turned out, he was right. Hans glided out of his corner, met MacDonald in the center of the ring, and proceeded to give the Scot intensive instruction in the art of pugilism as practiced in Magdeburg. Punch followed punch, measured and administered with a precision and a force that was almost like watching an up-time repeating firearm in use.