This was fun for me to write, since I teach fencing and the martial arts. It’s just how a fight always works out in your imagination, but never in real life; which, of course, is why they call it fiction.

The set-up is that Darcy has gone to London in search of Wickham and Lydia, and acquired some assistance in the form of one Sergeant Cooper, through the good offices of Colonel Fitzwilliam. Cooper is a seasoned fighting man, given to whistling when things are going his way. Having found out from Mrs. Younge that the couple was in St. Mary’s parish, Whitechapel, the two men go there to search for them.

*****

They were to spend some hours in this manner, searching the close and weary dens south of the high street; it was getting on in the afternoon when they crossed Whitechapel and proceeded up Osborn. It was there they encountered their first incident of note: as the gloom from the setting sun became darker, Darcy suddenly found himself set upon by two men; the first, wielding a knife that missed being a sword by inches only, stepped out directly in front of him; he was wiry and quick of movement, holding his weapon with practiced ease. The second, a hulking beast of a man, got between Darcy and Cooper, obviously intent on delaying Cooper from coming to Darcy’s aid.

When Darcy had been up at Oxford, he had, along with most young men of his class, taken lessons in the sword at a salle d’armes in town. Darcy had enjoyed the exercise a good deal, but there had been one individual whom Darcy could never abide, who was most devoted student of the rapier; rather than undergo the aggravation of practising daily with this disobliging individual, Darcy had turned to the single-stick. His pleasure in the art had given him application, and, by the time he left, he was more than proficient. At the time it had all been rather for his enjoyment and convenience, but now it turned to a material advantage, as a walking-stick differed from a single-stick only by the lack of a guard. He had the reach on his assailant by at least a foot, and addressed his blade en garde in third almost with amusement.

The footpad, seeing that Darcy had no intention of yielding easily, lost a good deal of his initial enthusiasm and swagger; he began circling Darcy, looking for an opening. Darcy took a quick scan of the footing around him, and noticed as well that the crowded street had become suddenly empty. From behind him, he could hear Sergeant Cooper was giving out as good as he got; his cheery whistle told Darcy there was little to worry about from that quarter. The man before Darcy, waving his blade sinuously in front of him, made a tentative lunge to test Darcy, but his distance was faulty, and he came within reach of Darcy’s arm; Darcy took his blade in fourth with a riposte volante to the left, which he carried down to low line, cutting back hard across the kneecap with the brass tip of his walking stick. As the man cried out, Darcy administered a soporific that quieted his cries: a solid coup de taille montante that caught the man on the left angle of the jaw, bringing his adversary an instant, relieving sedation, temporarily putting him beyond the pain his knee, and now his jaw, would know for weeks to come.

Darcy spun now to his rear, executing a passe avant to reach the other two, and finished with a heavy blow to the sinews on the larger man’s heel just as he set his weight on that foot to leap at Cooper; while the timing of this manœuvre was entirely fortuitous, the results were both impressive and satisfying: instead of vaulting forward at Cooper, the man’s leg gave way under him directly; as he fell, his skull came down on the curbing with a resounding crack, and suddenly all was still. Cooper looked from the man on the ground in front of him, to Darcy, then to the other man where he lay motionless, his knife still in his grip, and finally back to Darcy; he gave a low-pitched whistle and rubbed his cheek in wonder. While astounded at his good luck and the ease of his victory, Darcy met the sergeant’s gaze impassively—though he held his features in check with difficulty; his elation at having the whole engagement go so perfectly, as thoroughly in his favour as any he had ever imagined as “Dirks Darcy” in the woods at Rosings, made him want to dance about and wave his fists in the air. Such a very un-piratical display would, naturally, rob his performance of much of its effect, so he contented himself with a little twirling flourish as he brought his stick back to its proper place under his hand. Cooper went to the smaller man and, kicking the blade from his hand, reached down and retrieved it; he offered it to Darcy, who declined with a gesture. The sergeant tucked the blade into his belt at the back under his coat, and, with a new degree of respect, gestured for Darcy to precede him.