Little Arrows

By Jack Cartwright

The story is about the career, from a very early age, of a mild-mannered young man who likes, and excels at, all kinds of sporting combat. The thought of using his great talents anywhere outside a sporting arena is anathema to him, but various circumstances along the way combine to reveal a darker side to his nature, which is harnessed by the forces of law and order to h help them to achieve their objects, and he is not too fussy about how he goes about it.

It is interesting to see how two separate romances affect the course of hie life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728386188

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© 2019 Jack Cartwright. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/19/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8616-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8618-8 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

About The Author

Jack Cartwright,, like his main character in the early days, is a mild mannered man and likes to think of himself as a fairly tolerant man, but he loses that attribute as he sees the level and variety of crime in this modern age. He shows his frustration through the activities of his main character, who has no tolerance at all when it comes to dealing with all manner of crooks, dealers and abductors - and gets results. In his books, there is no lack of mild swearing and bawdy humour to reflect the area in which he writes, but he does not see the need for obscenities or explicit sexual activities.

CHAPTER 1

John Davis was born in late 1927 in a fairly industrialised Midlands area, and grew up amongst kids from working class families, like his own. He was a fairly normal kid, a kid who always liked to please, especially his parents, whom he loved and respected. He was never happier than when he could do something to please them, and in response to that they always showed him how much they appreciated what he had done. This same attitude coloured his approach to teachers, indeed anyone in authority, and also his contemporaries.

There was a culture in those parts which decreed that working men knew their place, the boss had to be respected and given a good day’s work for a good day’s pay. Most of the workers were employed by small to medium firms, often started up originally by men who had graduated from the status of employee to employer by virtue of perhaps having a bit more business sense and willingness to take a risk than the average working man. With this background most of them treated their workers with respect for their skills and their loyalty, and consequently there was little or no Trade Union activity, apart from that in one or two large National companies which seemed to breed all kinds of shop stewards, some who acted, as they saw it, in the interests of their members, others who were politically motivated. They did their best to spread the word into the old traditional workplaces, but they met with little success, and usually retired to go and operate in the more fertile areas of the non-skilled.

From an early age John enjoyed the company of other kids of the same age as himself, and they used to roam around their area, which boasted a small wood, a small river, pit banks and the occasional derelict factory left over from the earlier depression.

The wood was of probably no more than about 80 or 90 acres, but it had all kinds of trees, most of which he could climb. A river ran through the wood, and they would climb up and attach a rope to an overhanging branch, which they would then use to swing across the river, which was in most places no more than about 25 feet across. Being quite athletic he was one of the few who never fell into the water. He also found that he had much more strength in his arms and legs than the others, which gave him all sorts of advantages over them in their adventurous activities.

The river was light brown in colour because of the industrial waste which was dumped in it from various factories on its banks, as a result of which no fish could survive in it. For the same reason it was totally unfit for swimming, and mostly it was too shallow for that anyway, but there was one particular place deep enough to swim in, and in fact John taught himself to swim there, and like the others he never bothered with the formalities of bringing anything to wear in the water - they all swam in their birthday suits, after which they ran vigorously around the field which bordered the river, and dried themselves in that way.

This practice fortunately came to an end when one of the younger kids trod on a broken bottle on the riverbed and suffered a large gash which bled profusely. When his mother discovered how it had happened she went mad and told all the other mothers what the kids had been up to. They were threatened with dire consequences if they ever swam in the river again, and they all had enough sense to take notice.

All this climbing, and going hand over hand along the branches of trees or horizontal ropes, which was another practice he enjoyed, had the effect of strengthening the biceps and other muscles of the limbs, and he could wrestle to the ground any kid of his size, and later the bigger ones too. He enjoyed any kind of fighting, as long as it was in fun, and although he knew he could beat any of them in a real fight if it came down to it, he just didn’t like the idea of settling arguments in that way, and never fought anyone in earnest. Sure there were times when tempers flared, but if somebody had a problem with him, he was always ready to see the other guy’s point of view and make allowances, probably because of his in-built desire to please. His attitude would be that if some other kid got belligerent with him he must have a good reason, and he always looked inside himself for the blame. If the problem was between others he was always quick to intercede and try to get it fixed without recourse to fisticuffs. He could be said to be a bit of a pacifist!

This ability in fighting would have been hereditary, you could say, because his father had been a professional boxer, nothing special, but he had been Area Middleweight Champion for a number of years, and had made enough money out of it to be able to set himself up with a gym, in which he taught local kids to box, and also managed a few up and coming professionals.

Billy the Kid Davis, that was the name he had fought under, had been known for his boxing skill, but he had lacked the ability to punch hard enough to knock opponents out, so he won his fights the hard way, that is to say that with very few exceptions he always needed to go the full distance to a points decision. John could not recall why he was called Billy the Kid. He knew his dad was a very fast puncher, and Billy the Kid was a very fast shooter, so maybe that’s why he got the name. It is fair to say, he never got hurt, until one occasion when he met a young up and coming fighter well endowed with skill, and a knockout punch, and Billy ended up on the canvas. He knew that he would not have been beaten by the youngster if he had not lost some of his speed, so being the sensible guy he was, he decided not to prolong his career any further, and went into the kind of business that would enable him to stay in touch with the sport he loved, and maybe even train a champion.

Billy’s wife Molly was very pleased and relieved when Billy gave up the boxing game and invested in the gym. She had never said much, but every time he had fought she wouldn’t go near the fight venue - she didn’t like to see him hit, and truth be told she didn’t really like to see him hit anybody else. After he had announced his decision to quit, she told him that before every fight he was involved in, she had been unable to sleep properly for a week or two, and she had lived in dread that he would come home disfigured or with a much worse injury.

She had kept these feelings so well to herself that Billy had no idea how she felt about it all, and confessed that had he known how much of a worry it was to her, he would have given up the game well before he did. In fact he let it be known that he had lost a lot of his interest in it during the last few years of his career, when he finally realised he wasn’t going to hit the big time, but he had continued with it because really he didn’t have any other skills which might have helped him to make a decent living.

During his time in the fight game, Billy had made a lot of good friends in the business fraternity and amongst other sporting figures, and when the time came for him to set up his gym he did not lack for help from all sorts of directions. The most important was when one of his fans who was a factory owner decided to move to a more modern premises and split his old factory into industrial units for rent, one of which he offered to Billy rent free for a couple of years while he got on his feet. It was a great start. Having worked in a Bank before John came along, and taken other clerical jobs since, Molly Davis was pretty handy with figures, and Billy was sensible enough to listen to her advice when deciding what he needed to buy for setting up, and how much he could afford to spend on it.

The unit was oblong in shape, measuring about 20 metres by 15, which afforded enough room for a boxing ring at one end, with a small punch ball suspended from the ceiling of a small framework at one side, and a heavy punch bag suspended on a chain from a reinforced ceiling at the other.

There was room at the other end of the unit for a small office and a room housing a shower and a wash basin and toilet facilities, and another room with two private toilets for ladies, which usually got used by all and sundry anyway. Just outside these doors there was a table with a kettle, teapot, mugs, bottle of instant ‘Camp’ coffee, tea, and sugar and sweeteners. There were a number of chairs and tables in some of the spare spaces, where the fighters could rest after a workout, sometimes making themselves a mug of tea or coffee, for which Billy charged 2d a time.

Billy had a rudimentary knowledge of physiotherapy after all his years in the ring, and he would later acquire a massage bed on which to give early treatment for sprains, pulled muscles and so on.

The first and most important item of equipment needed was of course a boxing ring, and in acquiring that he enjoyed a rare slice of luck. Joey Bailey, an ex-fighter who had a gym on the other side of the city, had decided that at the age of 75 he had had enough, he was losing money anyway, and with what he had put by, and his state pension, he could just about afford to retire and sell all his equipment for what he could get. Billy managed to get his ring, and the two punch balls, for a fraction of what they would have cost him elsewhere, and he also picked up one or two young prospects and a couple of journeymen boxers who just wanted to do enough to keep in shape and get fights that nobody expected them to win.

Billy and Molly made a good team, and although it was touch and go for a while, his reputation stood him in good stead, and he had no difficulty in attracting talented young fighters to train and manage, and as they progressed, his management cut of their fight fees increased, which ultimately provided the family with a pretty good living.

There was one other member of the family; John had a big sister named Mary. She was four and a half years older than John, so as they were growing up she tended to have pals of her own age, and they did not see too much of each other outside the family. Nevertheless John worshipped his big sister. He remembered a time when he must have been about five years old and being bullied by two older kids. Mary had seen this and come rushing in to the rescue, punching and pushing them until they took to their heels and never bothered him again.

Mary was a very pretty young girl, a loving sister, and she was always hugging and kissing her little brother. John usually made a show of telling her to stop it, but secretly he liked it and he would delay the protests as long as he reasonably could for appearances sake.

By the time he was sixteen she was a beautiful young lady of twenty. She was very much in demand by the local lads, had been for a year or two, but apart from a few dates she had never become involved with anyone in particular. The hugging and kissing had mostly died out, but occasionally if he did something nice for her she would give him a big hug, and he still enjoyed it. In fact he thought that if he ever had a girl friend she would have to be just like his sister.

CHAPTER 2

John must have been twelve or thirteen before he ever set foot in dad’s gym. He knew that with his dad, boxing was a serious business, and he was always happy enough playing about with his pals in the gang, rather than going in for a more formal kind of training. It was when he got a punch ball as one of his Christmas presents that he realised that there was a kind of science involved in boxing, and fighting generally.

The punch ball, situated just below head high, was held by a length of strong elastic either end, and stretched vertically from floor to ceiling in their garden shed, and when punched it came back very quickly so that if you did not manage to hit it again it would likely as not come and hit you from all kinds of angles. Billy showed him how to hold his head in the best starting position to be able to move and avoid the ball when it came towards him, and he made him understand how he had to be ready for all contingencies, like when it was better to meet the ball with a punch or better to make a head movement or step back to avoid contact. He also taught him how to hold up his gloves in a defensive position when it was more sensible to take it on the gloves rather than attempt to get out of the way.

He practiced assiduously for hours on end, and when his father asked him to show him what he could do, he declared himself to be most impressed.

I think you must be a natural John, a chip off the old block eh. Tell you what, have another week’s practice on the ball, and then come down to the gym, that is if you want to, and I’ll take you a bit further along with some training.

I think I might be getting to like this Dad, he said, mind you I don’t think I want to be a boxer, but I love the action of it.

Yeah, I’m glad about that - you’d better not be a boxer, your Mom will skin me alive, but you never know who you’re going to meet, and it’s not a bad idea to know how to take care of yourself.

True to his word, when he told his dad he’d like to go to the gym, he took him there one Saturday morning and training began. He explained that there were five elements in the training programme, which had to be well started before he got to the stage of fighting somebody. First and foremost came the roadwork, starting at two miles, which would increase to three, then four, and then five.

Have I put you off yet John? he asked when he saw John’s face fall.

No Dad, not yet. I’ll let you know when I’ve been at it for a week or two. What are these other things you’re talking about?

Well, I can see you’ve got plenty of muscle strength in your arms, but you can always use more, and there are a few exercises you can do for that - one with the weights, and that’ll help your back and legs as well, and one with the high punch ball, which will not only help your endurance, but also improve your timing. Then there’s the heavy ball; we lie you on the floor, drop it on your solar plexus, and then you throw it back up. Finally, and one that I’m guessing you’ll like, is the heavy bag. Strength in the arms doesn’t guarantee you a good punch; again it’s a matter of timing, and how you set yourself. Properly used, you can learn a lot with the heavy bag.

So what d’you want me to do today?

Well, first of all you can have fifteen minutes on the weights. It’s fairly simple at this stage, and Bill here will show you what you can do for a quarter of an hour - and yes, I forgot to tell you about the skipping rope - ten minutes of that and you’ll be feeling like a rest. Then you can tell me if you want any more today.

He left him then and John went with Bill over to the weights area, where he was shown a few exercises to get on with.

I’m starting you off with small weights at first, and you might think they’re a bit light for a tough guy like you, but believe me it won’t take long for you to realise that in this game you don’t overdo anything, because that’s the way you get yourself injured. There’ll be plenty of time to move up the weights later on as you get more used to it. Keep your eye on that clock, and find me out again after fifteen minutes.

True to his expectations he found the weights very light at first, but after just over ten minutes they were getting heavier all the time, and at that time he decided that the pros might just know a little more than he

did, and he resolved to stay in line and do as he was told. It was a relief after that to go skipping and rest the arms a bit. This time he took it easy to start with, thinking that after the first five minutes he would be able to speed it up and finish in a sprint. No way - with two or three minutes to go he was slowing down by choice so as not to look shattered when he had finished.

Billy came over and took the rope. Not bad John; I half expected to see you on your knees after that, you must be in better shape than I thought.

John looked at him gratefully. Yeah, not bad - now what can I do next?

"Time for a rest. Take about half an hour, talk to some of the others who are resting out for the moment. Ask them how they’re getting on with their training and stuff, and try to look as if you want to learn from them. They know who you are, so you’ve got a head start, but they don’t like Smart Alecs, (not that you are one), so you treat them the right way and they can be very helpful to you in all sorts of ways. Some of them have come to me after a successful amateur career, hoping I can make good pros out of them. One or two have been with me since they were nine and ten, and they’re all pretty good prospects. I don’t mess about if I find anybody who shouldn’t be in the fight game, I’m always straight with them and tell them so. What I do stress to them is that that they shouldn’t give up sport, it’s the best recreation there is. I also make a point of telling them all the time that getting into drugs is dangerous, not only to their career prospects but to their lives generally, and I think we’ve got a decent anti-drugs culture in this place.

Now one more thing before I end the lecture; one or two of them might ask you if you want to go a few rounds, no doubt because they think you might like it. I don’t want you in the ring until I think you’re ready for it, so if they do, tell ‘em thanks, but I’ve told you you’ve got to wait until I think you’re ready.

He did as his dad suggested, and set about getting to know some of his fellow trainees. One or two of them were a pretty rough looking bunch, but they were friendly enough and easy enough to talk to especially when the subject was boxing. One of them, Elvis Johnson, a welterweight, was the son of a Jamaican mother and a Scottish father from Glasgow who had skipped back there not long after Elvis was born.

He discovered from Billy that Elvis had been raised as the only son of his still single mother, and with her working all the hours she could to keep body and soul together, he had not had much in the way of parental example and had grown up just a little bit on the wild side, with a tendency to fight anybody without too much provocation. It was after his latest brush with the Magistrates that he was introduced to Billy by one of his friends in the Police, Sergeant Phil Jameson

This guy will fight anybody, big or small, and he’s bloody good at it, said Phil, if only some of that talent could be channelled in the right direction, he’d probably make a good boxer. How would you feel about taking him on?

Well, I’ll have a look at him, and if he’s as good as you say, and if he’ll learn how to behave himself, I’ll take him on and see what I can make out of him.

It was a complete success. Billy, knowing how tough the guy was, decided to put him in the ring right away to see what he could do. First and foremost he had the Queensbury Rules explained to him, and was told that if there was any hitting behind the head, below the belt or in the kidney area he would be taken out of the ring immediately. He was made to watch a sparring session between two of the other trainees, and after every move one or the other made, Billy explained the reason behind it, like keeping the hands moving to make it less easy for the opponent to see when a punch was coming, like throwing a feint to see if the reaction would leave an opening for a proper attack, like keeping the head moving to leave a more difficult target, and like moving to his right against a right handed puncher to keep away from that punch, or if he got caught, to take some of the sting out of the blow.

All this was not wasted on John as he listened avidly, and when the time came for Elvis to put on his head guard and go in against Johnny Parkes, a promising trainee who was not far from having his first pro fight, he watched every move as if he was in there himself, and tried to calculate what he should do in each of the circumstances as he saw them arise.

Elvis was a revelation. Johnny had a decent left jab, and he was getting through with it on a regular basis until Elvis remembered the bit about moving the head, and throwing the odd feint to disturb his rhythm. He got caught with a good right cross, and immediately began to move to his right, and instinctively to hold his left glove higher to take anything he did not manage to avoid. He’s a quick learner, said Bill, and Billy slowly nodded his head, you’re not wrong there mate, but when’s he going to throw something of his own?

It seemed that Elvis was concentrating so hard on what he had been told about defence, that he had completely forgotten about the attack side of it, until Bill shouted up, come on Elvis, you’re allowed to hit him you know.

Elvis turned his head and smiled at Bill, and was immediately caught with a stinging left hook. Defend yourself at all times, shouted Billy, but he had hardly finished the sentence when Elvis launched himself on to the attack.

His speed of punch was amazing, and Johnny was pushed back against the ropes with punches raining on him from all angles. He was completely disorientated, and surprisingly Elvis didn’t know what to do from there. He knew that he had his opponent on the rack, and could have piled it on and on, but knowing that this wasn’t one of his street fights, and he certainly had nothing against Johnny, he pulled back and looked across at Billy, as if for guidance.

OK Elvis, that’ll do for now - you two both take a break.

Billy called Johnny over. He’s a bit hot mate eh?

Yeah, said Johnny. He took me by surprise a bit, but I’ve got to admit, he got me right off balance with the speed of his hands and the way he piled in there. You reckon he’s never fought before?

Not in a ring, but he’s done plenty in the street. That’s the reason Phil Jameson brought him in, he reckons he can do with having some of that aggression channelled in the right direction.

Well, he didn’t hit me low, and nothing at the back of the head, so he must have taken notice of what you were telling him before we started. His defence was improving as we went along, and with an attack like that I think maybe he’s got a chance.

Thanks Johnny - you’ll be ready next time though eh?

With a rueful grin Johnny said, Readier than I was this time anyway.

Billy then called Elvis over. Pretty good son for first time. He was hitting you with his jab for a bit, but you remembered what I told you about moving your head, and I like the way you developed your style when he hit you with a decent right cross.

Yeah, I was enjoying working things out, this is really good. Mind you, I shan’t be turning my head away again in the ring - that guy was a lot faster than some of the blokes I’ve tangled with on the street.

Well I like the way you’ve started, said Billy, and if you want it I’ll take you on and see if we can’t make something of you. I’ve heard from Phil how hard your mom has to work to give you a decent place to live, so maybe you might even be able to earn some good money in time, and give her a break eh?

Yeah I’d like that.

That’s a deal then, but no more fighting outside the ring OK?

OK.

After his first experience in the gym, John got really interested and spent every spare minute that he could, either on the road, the weights, on the punch balls and bag, and finally in the ring. He was close to six feet in height, but quite lean in build. For his size and weight he was already very strong, and all that roadwork and weights had made him considerably stronger, so it was no surprise when he turned out to be a pretty good middleweight. Those early days in the shed with the elastic ball proved beneficial; his reflexes were very sharp, and he was surprised at how easy it was to avoid most of the punches. The only way he would get caught was in close-up situations when his opponent would be throwing punches from all angles, some of which would get through, but nothing that was thrown from any way back, so nothing that would hurt, but there was always the danger of a cut eye.

So he let his style evolve on the premise that it was best not to get involved in close quarter work, unless he was the one who started it. and concentrated on his footwork so as to be able to forestall that kind of attack, and get out of the way. He found that by studying the opponent’s style, sometimes from videos of his earlier work or in the actual fight, he could identify where a feint could be thrown to attract a built-in response, in the light of which he would calculate the best action for himself. He had a complete range of all the punches, so sometimes it would be a left jab followed by a straight or overhead right, or maybe a right lead followed by a left hook to the body behind the elbow, which he found to be a most damaging punch which seemed to suck every last bit of air from the body, and leave his opponent vulnerable to any kind of follow-up or a sustained two-fisted attack. Most important however, was the discovery that he was naturally a very heavy puncher with either hand, a fact that his dad was delighted about, remembering as he did how hard he had had to work in almost every fight because of the lack of a good knock-out punch.

CHAPTER 3

From then on he became a regular every Saturday, and he took to it like a duck to water. He soon became one of Billy’s best prospects, except that he wasn’t interested in being a pro boxer. At the age of fifteen he could outbox and outlast any of them up to the age of eighteen, and Billy had to tell him not to punch too hard because he was hurting some of them through the head guard, and he didn’t want any of them to be discouraged before they had shown the potential he knew they were capable of.

By the time he was sixteen he had managed a very decent result in his School Certificate exam, and his form master wanted him to stay on for another two years in the sixth form for the Higher School Certificate. John had never considered staying on after School Cert, as it was colloquially known, he was interested in starting a career and earning some money, but not only that, he had outstripped all the other youngsters in the gym and was going in with the professionals as a sparring partner, which gave him a pretty good rate of pocket money, so he declined the offer and left school. He had no wish to be doing homework when he could be learning everything about his beloved sport, and apart from improving his own capabilities, Billy said it was good for the pros because of his speed of punch and footwork.. He wasn’t so pleased though when John knocked one of them out cold with a right hook through his head guard.

You’d better watch it with the big punches John, he said afterwards. It’ll make him more careful in the future, but it won’t do his confidence much good to be knocked out by a sixteen year old amateur. Mind you I’ve been watching you closely lately, and you’re easily the best prospect of the whole lot. Have you had any thoughts about turning pro?

"No Dad, I know for a fact that Mom doesn’t want me to, and really and truly I don’t think I want it either. Mom wants me to get a job in a bank or something with good prospects, or how would you like an accountant in the family? I could look after all the money you’re going to make when you get some decent pros.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love boxing, but I’ve been thinking about broadening out a bit and taking up Judo or something like that. There’s all sorts of fighting to learn about, there’s wrestling as well, and something called Karate. I think that kind of stuff is what they call unarmed combat. You know me, I like all kinds of fighting and I want to learn more about it.

You’ll still come to the gym though won’t you?

‘Oh yeah, but if I find I like some of the other stuff I’m going to get stuck in, which will mean I shan’t spend as much time here, but I don’t want to lose what I’ve learned about boxing, I love it too much"

John discovered that Judo was completely different from boxing in virtually every way. For a start there was an extremely polite attitude between the contestants, and even after pulling and pushing each other all over the place, there would still be a polite bow at the end of each stage. If he had been asked to give an opinion on the sport he would have been inclined to say that it was more concerned with defence than attack, although if there was an imbalance in strength between two opponents of similar skill, the weaker one would usually find it difficult to resist the attacks of the other.

Following all the fitness training he had been through at the gym, and with his natural strength, he had an advantage from the start, and made rapid progress, so that by the time he was seventeen he was a black belt 2nd Dan. He was pretty sure he could progress much more, and the instructor was keen that he should, but somehow he needed a sport with more aggression in it, and was