The Long Glasgow Kiss

On the other panels, specific Free French vessels were mentioned: the submarine SURCOUF, the corvettes ALYSSE and MIMOSA. But, as everyone knew, while the monument may have been officially dedicated to all of the Free French sailors who had been based in Scotland during the war, it had a very special significance for a particular group of Frenchmen. And related to a particular event. Something that had happened before the Free French forces were officially formed. Something that happened right here, within sight of the spot where the monument now stood.

And Alain Barnier seemed to be connected to it.

I didn’t see the road as I drove back to Glasgow. And I didn’t think much about what had brought me to Greenock. Someone was poking away again at that curled-up sleeping thing and had switched on the light in the room at the back of my brain. I saw a name. Maillé-Brézé.

But the ghosts of dead French seamen weren’t the only things that were nagging at me. I should have been happy that I had stopped beating on the three thugs as soon as they no longer represented a threat to me. That I had displayed an element of restraint. Even a few months earlier, once I had the advantage, I would have given them a serious hiding. A hospital hiding. I should have been happy. But I wasn’t.

The truth was that I had still enjoyed it.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was a good seat. It wasn’t ringside. It wasn’t two, three or even four rows from ringside. But as I sat there in my black tie and tux, I had a pretty good view of the fight even if I had an even better view of the back of Willie Sneddon’s head as he sat ringside with his guest, a Glasgow Corporation councillor and head honcho of the Planning Department. The only thing that impeded my view was the curtain of tobacco smoke that hung in the air. It hung more heavily over the front two rows. The cigar class rows.

I sat next to my dates. Sneddon had been able to swing an extra couple of tickets for me and I had done my own little bit of suborning hospitality. Jock Ferguson was the kind of copper usually immune to inducement, but he had leapt at the chance to see the title fight. And it would do me no harm to patch up the bridge between us a little. Everyone knew, because the movies told us so, that the FBI was incorruptible, and anyway Dex Devereaux was not, officially, a peace officer while on this side of the Atlantic. So he had nothing to lose by accepting my invitation.

It had been remarkably easy to get the tickets from Sneddon. As soon as I told him I wanted to sweeten a couple of coppers, he handed over the tickets without a word of complaint.

I sat there and watched as the fighters – Schmidtke first, then challenger Kirkcaldy – made their way into the ring. Schmidtke was a German and there remained a huge anti-German sentiment throughout Britain. But despite all of the problems of poverty, sectarianism, violence and drink that afflicted them, Glaswegians were a warm bunch. I had been brought up in Atlantic Canada amongst open, friendly people. Maybe that’s why I liked it here. In any case, there was no booing or jeering when Schmidtke entered the ring, just a polite, restrained applause. There was an explosion of cheering and whistling as soon as Kirkcaldy entered the ring. There is no greater passion in Glasgow than pride, and Kirkcaldy was their boy.

As the bout began, I felt strange sitting there with the knowledge that only I, Sneddon and Bert Soutar had: that Kirkcaldy was stepping into the ring with a time bomb ticking away in his chest. I watched him move fluidly and without effort, just as he had the last twice I had seen him fight – without a hint of any deficit of stamina. It was not the most exhilarating of fights. Schmidtke seemed to be pacing himself, and both boxers were out-fighting, each keeping his opponent at a distance and weighing up any potential strategic weakness. It was not Schmidtke’s usual style and the second round was as uninspiring as the first. Both fighters seemed over-cautious and unwilling to open up.

When the third round went the same way, I could sense my fellow spectators becoming restless. I could understand why Kirkcaldy was circumspect about launching any kind of energy-sapping onslaught, but I couldn’t see why Schmidtke was holding back. Unless Schmidtke’s thinking was that if it ended up going the distance, there was always the tendency for a split decision to go the title-holder’s way.

But, there again, there was always the chance that Kirkcaldy had come to an arrangement that would allow him to end his career with a championship belt.

It was in the eighth round that I guessed I had been wrong. The German came out of his corner with the same tentativeness as in the previous rounds. His head low and defence tight.