Free Ocean Prize (1972) by James Pattinson

killed her.
    “Damn you!” he shouted. “Damn your rotten eyes!” He felt his groping right hand make contact with an enamel pie-dish, still containing the congealed residue of an Irish stew. Without a second thought he picked it up and smashed it into Trubshaw’s face.
    Trubshaw gave a yell and released his hold on Wilson’s jersey. Wilson pulled himself away from the table and stepped back against the bulkhead behind him, watching Trubshaw, a little apprehensive now that the heat of the moment had passed.
    There was silence in the messroom. No one was saying a word. Everyone was looking at Trubshaw and waiting to see what he would do to Wilson.
    Trubshaw wiped the stew from his face and stared across the table at Wilson with his little, piggy eyes. He said nothing either; he just began to walk round the table. The others made way for him.
    Wilson watched Trubshaw coming and did not move. He knew that he was no match for this broad, squat tank of a man; nobody in the ship was. Trubshaw could kill him with his bare hands if he had a mind to do so. And that, judging by the expression on his face, might well be just what he did have a mind to do.
    And might it not be the best way out? It would solve everything. No more wondering whether the body had been found and whether the police were on to him; no more nightmares in which he strangled the woman again and again, and from which he woke sweating and shuddering; all that would be finished if Trubshaw killed him.
    But he knew, just the same, that he did not want to die, that he would fight Trubshaw if he had to fight him withevery ounce of strength in his body, every last gasp of breath in his lungs. And he knew also that, whatever he did, Trubshaw would win, because that was the way it had to be.
    Trubshaw had reached the end of the table and was edging between it and the sink with the water heater above it and the plate racks and the lockers. He was not moving fast but with a solid deliberation that was somehow far more menacing than any bull-like rush would have been.
    Wilson said, breaking the silence: “You asked for it.”
    Trubshaw did not answer.
    “You started it,” Wilson said. “You grabbed me.” He looked at the others for confirmation. “You all saw him, didn’t you?”
    Nobody said anything. They were not taking sides against Trubshaw.
    Trubshaw walked towards Wilson, down between the backs of the chairs and the side of the messroom. The ship rolled a little and a glimpse of sea was visible through the portholes with their screwed-down covers, a plateau of broken water heaving up into view and then sinking away again. The roll did not affect Trubshaw’s stability; he had spent half his life in ships and he knew their ways.
    “Keep away from me, Trub,” Wilson said. “I’m warning you.”
    “An’ I’m warning you, sonny boy,” Trubshaw said; and he drove his clenched fist into Wilson’s stomach.
    Wilson was slammed against the bulkhead as if a battering-ram had struck him. He could not breathe; he wanted to be sick; he knew that he ought to be fighting back, ought to be hitting Trubshaw, but his arms refused to do anything about it. He could see a fragment of meat clinging to Trubshaw’s hair and gravy on the side of his face and on hisshoulder. And Trubshaw was grinning, a sadistic kind of grin, as if he were beginning to enjoy himself and meant to go on doing so.
    He hit Wilson again, on the side of the jaw, and Wilson’s legs began to fold. Trubshaw hit him a third time before he reached the deck and then started kicking him.
    Wilson rolled over, pain stabbing at him. He struck upward blindly and felt his fist bury itself in the softness of Trubshaw’s groin, felt it go in deep, all his desperation driving it.
    It stopped Trubshaw. It stopped the kicking. Wilson managed to get himself up into a sitting posture, his back against one of the chairs, his head singing. Trubshaw was doubled up, not grinning now, but with his mouth twisted into