He had not really intended going ashore with Moir and Lawson and Trubshaw; they were not exactly pals of his, just messmates; but it so happened that they were going down the gang-plank together and Moir said: “You on your ownsome, laddie?”
Wilson admitted that he was and Lawson said: “Come and have a beer with us, chum. You could get into trouble with no one to look after you.”
There was not much chance of refusing because Trubshaw had taken a grip on his arm that felt like a steel clamp and was urging him along so that he had to fall into step with the others.
“You stick with us,” Trubshaw said in a voice like an old crow. “Then you can’t go wrong. A young sprog like you needs to be kept on the straight an’ narrer. Ain’t that so, mates?”
“Too true,” Lawson said, and he gave a slow wink. “If his mother was with us now she’d be begging us to keep an eye on her darling boy. There’s a great big wicked city just waiting to get its claws into infants like him and it’s up to us older blokes to stand between him and temptation.”
“Knock it off,” Wilson said. It was the kind of ribbing that touched him on the raw. “I don’t need anyone to look after me. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Moir shook his head in mock sadness. “Will ye listen to that. Mon, it gi’es ye no encouragement to hold out the hand o’ friendship.”
“The hand of friendship is mangling my arm,” Wilson said. “Lay off it, Trub. What you think you’re doing—arresting me?”
Trubshaw released Wilson’s arm, grinning like a more than ordinarily repulsive gargoyle. “So you’ll join us?”
Wilson resigned himself to a drinking bout. “Okay. I’ll join you.”
“That’s the boy.”
It started in a sleazy bar not far from the docks, the first they came to. The place was full of men with the brand of ships and the sea, mingling with longshoremen in leather caps and lumber jackets; hard men with big thirsts. Wilson knew that this was only the beginning, that they would drink a few pints and move on; the night stretched ahead of them and tomorrow the ship was due to sail.
By the time they got to the third bar they had taken the keen edge off their thirsts; they were no longer drinking to satisfy a need but to comply with a ritual.
Charlie Wilson had never acquired a real taste for this kind of thing; he got no pleasure from this systematic progress to intoxication; to him it seemed a pointless throwing away of hard-earned money. But he went along with the others because he could see no way of avoiding it. He tried to limit his own intake, but even that was difficult; Trubshaw kept an eye on him and seemed to resent any falling behind.
“Drink up, boy. You can take it.”
When they reached the fifth bar Wilson was feeling sick and Trubshaw had a dangerous glint in his small, piggy eyes. He was spoiling for a fight. The others knew it, they recognised the look, but they were too drunk to care what sort of nastiness Trubshaw might stir up. They were not altogether averse to something of the kind themselves.
Wilson was the exception. He wanted no trouble; all he wanted just then was some nice quiet place to lie down and sleep.
He became conscious of another frothing glass of beer on the table in front of him. He tried to push it away. “No, thanks. Had enough.”
Trubshaw’s face seemed to swim across his line of vision. “Nobody’s ’ad enough. Drink it, boy. Do you good.”
Wilson took a pull at the beer. It tasted foul. He set the glass down, spilling beer on the table, and the room appeared to revolve, a cascade of glittering lights sailing past. He waited for the revolutions to stop, then got rather unsteadily to his feet.
“Gotta use the drain.”
He set a course for the men’s, made it to the door without mishap and went inside. It smelt of urine and disinfectant, the kind of smell you got in that kind of place in all the bars the world over; the only difference with this one was that it smelt worse than most, a little above the average in pungency.
He was sick and after that he felt slightly better. He wiped his mouth on his handkerchief and went back to the others with a filthy taste on his tongue.
Lawson was trying to roll a cigarette and the tobacco was falling into his beer. When it was finished it was about as thick as an under-nourished tapeworm. It flared up when he lit it and burnt his nose. He dropped it on the floor and ground it angrily under his heel.
Moir examined Wilson with bloodshot eyes. “Ye dinna look so guid, laddie.”
“I don’t feel so good,” Wilson said.
“What ye need’s a dram.”
“I don’t need a dram.”
“Are ye bloody contradicting me, laddie?” Moir thrust his granite face towards Wilson, jaw jutting belligerently. Like Trubshaw he had taken enough to make his temper uncertain.
“I’m telling you I don’t need a dram,” Wilson said. For two pins he would have pushed Moir’s face in. He was not feeling very friendly. He had not wanted to go drinking with the three of them in the first place. They had dragged him in and now he felt like death. To hell with them.
Moir seemed inclined to carry the argument further but finally decided not to. He gave a grunt and withdrew his face to a more reasonable distance.
There were four big, fair-haired men standing by the bar, drinking beer and talking loudly in some language that was certainly not English and did not sound like French either. They were laughing a great deal and the sound of their laughter drew Lawson’s attention. He turned his head and stared at the fair-haired men. Then he said very distinctly: “Poles.”
The men heard him. They stopped laughing and turned away from the bar to face the table where Lawson and his companions were sitting. One of them walked over to the table and said: “No, not Poles. Swedish. From Swedish ship. You English, huh?” He sounded friendly.
“I’m Australian,” Lawson said. “These here yobs are English.”
“That’s a bloody lie,” Moir said. “Ah’m Scottish.”
Lawson acknowledged the correction with a flip of the hand. “Sorry, chum. I forgot.”
“What you drink?” the Swede asked.
Trubshaw looked at him in surprise. “Are you payin’ mate?”
“I pay,” the Swede said. “We join you, no? All seamen, all from ships. Stick together.”
“Suits me,” Trubshaw said. The offer of a drink seemed to have put him in a better humour. “Plenty room at this table.”
The Swede called his countrymen over, and they all sat down and eight more glasses of beer appeared on the table. Only two of the Swedes could speak English; the other two communicated by signs and grins. The one who had bought the beer introduced himself as Olaf Brondsted; the others were Johannes Vigfusson, Carl Jonsson and Eric Andersen. Lawson did the introduction for himself and his party. They all shook hands.
“We arrive today,” Brondsted said. “From Hamburg. You been here long?”
“Long enough,” Lawson said. “We sail tomorrow. Hopeful Enterprise. Wheat.”
“Hopeful Enterprise? You from that ship?”
“That’s right. You know her?”
“We see her,” Brondsted said. He relayed this information to the two who did not speak English. One of them said something in his own language and they all laughed.
“What’s so bleedin’ funny?” Trubshaw demanded. “What’d ’e say?”
“He say Hopeful Enterprise very old ship.”
“What if she is? I seen older.”
“Is nothing. Is just that our ship very new.”
“You think that’s funny?” Trubshaw was speaking slowly and deliberately, and Wilson could sense the tension beginning to build up. Moir was looking angry too. The Swedes had stopped laughing. “You think you’re flamin’ superior or sumfin, jus’ ’cause you got a newer flamin’ ship?”
“I do not say that.” Brondsted was keeping his voice under control but his face had hardened. “I think you take offence too easy, my friend.”
“Friend!” Trubshaw said. “What
makes you think I’m your friend? Jus’ ’cause you buy the drinks don’t make me no friend o’ yours, an’ don’t you forget it.”
Brondsted was still keeping his voice low, but there was an edge to it. “Are you wishing to pick a quarrel?”
It was Lawson who broke the tension. “Ah, forget it, chum. Drink up, can’t yer? What’re we arguing about? Sure, the Hopeful Enterprise is old. She’s a bloody old worn-out crate. What in hell’s it matter? Forget it, Trub. Drink your beer. Next round’s on me.”
Trubshaw muttered something under his breath, but he drained his glass and everybody relaxed. Wilson breathed more easily with the crisis passed, but he knew that it might well be no more than a temporary respite with Trubshaw in his present mood. Nevertheless, for two more rounds things seemed to go smoothly enough, even though Trubshaw said little, sitting with his elbows on the table, drinking his beer and staring at the Swedes with unconcealed resentment.
Strangely, it was Wilson himself who was the cause of the unpleasantness flaring up again. He had not been drinking and there were now three full glasses of beer in front of him. Jonsson, the other English-speaking Swede, who had just bought a round, leaned across the table and said: “Why you not drink?”
“I’ve had enough,” Wilson said. “I don’t want any more.”
“But I buy you beer.”
“Give it to somebody else. Drink it yourself.”
“No,” Jonsson said. “I buy you beer, you drink.”
Wilson had the feeling that he had had this kind of argument before—with Trubshaw and Moir. Why in hell couldn’t people leave him alone? Why in hell should he drink if he didn’t want to?
“Nobody tells me what to do.”
Jonsson was the biggest of the Swedes and looked the oldest. He had a scar like a starfish on his left cheek. “So you insult me, no?”
“I don’t insult you.”
“You don’t drink beer I buy, you insult me.”
“Okay then,” Wilson said wearily. “So I insult you. Now what are you going to make of it?”
Jonsson brought his fist down on the table, making the glasses jump. “Nobody insult me like that. Nobody.”
“Ah, fer Chrissake,” Trubshaw broke in, “whyn’t you leave the kid alone? If ’e don’t wanter drink, why should ’e flamin’ well drink? It’s a free flamin’ country, innit?”
Which was pretty rich coming from Trubshaw, Wilson thought.
“He insult me,” Jonsson said again. He had a slow, stolid way of speaking and he looked the kind of man who would get an idea into his head and keep it there against all argument. “He don’t drink the beer I buy.”
“So what you goin’ to do abaht it?”
“What I do about it?” Jonsson thought that one over and seemed stumped for a suitable answer.
“If you’re so flamin’ bothered abaht it,” Trubshaw said, “why don’t yer do what the kid said? Drink the pissin’ stuff yerself.” He stretched out a hand and slid the glass of beer across the table to Jonsson.
Jonsson looked at the glass and then at Trubshaw. He had ice-blue eyes and high cheek-bones, and like all of them he had drunk enough to make his temper uncertain. He pushed the glass slowly back towards Wilson.
“I say he drink it.”
It could have gone on a long time like that, but Trubshaw did not let it. “No,” he said. “You flamin’ drink it.” And he picked up the glass in one massive hand and flung the beer in Jonsson’s face.
The barman was there so fast he must have jumped over the counter. He was a chunky, bald-headed man wearing a striped shirt and a bow tie.
“Cut it out,” he said. “You wanna fight, you go outside. You try anything in here and I’ll have the cops on you so quick you’ll wonder what hit you.”
Mention of the police had a sobering effect. Jonsson took out a handkerchief and wiped the beer from his face. He looked at Trubshaw and he said in a hard, slow voice: “We go outside. We find a place. Okay?”
“Suits me,” Trubshaw said.
Brondsted stood up. “Maybe we all go outside.”
“Are you looking for a fight too?” Lawson asked.
“We have all been insulted.”
Lawson grinned. “Well, if that’s the way you feel, chum. You go first. We’ll follow.”
Charlie Wilson sighed. He could see himself being dragged into a fight now, a fight in which he had no desire to be involved. Damn Trubshaw; damn Jonsson; damn the lot of them. If he could have seen a way of getting out of it he would have done so. Theoretically he could have stayed where he was, could have refused to go with the others; they could not have forced him to go. But that was not really a practical proposition for the simple reason that he shared a mess with Trubshaw and Lawson and Moir. He could imagine only too well what life on board the Hopeful Enterprise would be like for him if he chickened out of the fight, if he refused to help his shipmates in this senseless quarrel with the Swedish seamen.
The Swedes all got up, drained their glasses and went out of the bar in a compact group.
Trubshaw finished his beer and stood up. “Come on then. Wotcher waitin’ for?”
“Crazy bastard,” Wilson said. But he stood up too.
The Swedes were waiting for them. When they got outside the Swedes turned and walked away up the street. They followed.
They were in the old part of the city and there were buildings with fire-escapes climbing up them like a kind of iron creeper. There were some signs by the kerb reading, “Ne stationnez pas”, and others which read “No parking”; and Wilson’s eye was caught by an advertisement for a brand of whisky that was new to him. The night was fine and cars went sweeping past, but there were few pedestrians. It was easy to keep the Swedish party in sight.
After about two hundred yards the Swedes stopped, glanced back to see that the others were still following, then turned off to the right. They seemed to know where they were going, so perhaps they had been in Montreal before. When the Hopeful Enterprise party reached the turning they saw that the Swedes were some thirty yards ahead in a narrow street lighted here and there by lamps on tall iron standards. A moment later the men had disappeared as though suddenly swallowed up by the night.
“Now where’e they gone?” Trubshaw said. “They tryin’ t’give us the slip?”
But he had no cause for worry on that score. The Swedes were waiting for them in a kind of courtyard or small square on the other side of a brick archway between two tall buildings. The square was poorly lighted and was enclosed by four- and five-storey houses, probably used as apartments or offices. It was a good place for a fight; it was secluded and apparently deserted; they were not likely to be interrupted.
The Swedes had halted and were waiting for them. Wilson felt more impressed than ever by the sheer stupidity of the whole affair. What were they preparing to fight about? An argument over whether or not a man should drink a beer he did not want. Could anything have been more foolish? They were grown men, not children. Yet with drink in them they became like children; except that they were far more dangerous.
“Come on then,” Trubshaw said. “Let’s be gettin’ stuck into the bastards.”
He rushed at Jonsson, whom he had obviously picked out as his particular assignment, and aimed a vicious blow at the Swede’s stomach. Lawson and Moir closed in also, taking on Brondsted and Vigfusson respectively. That left Andersen for Wilson to deal with.
Wilson did not rush forward with the other three; he stayed where he was, about ten yards from the Swedes, and looked at Andersen. Andersen was a handsome man; he grinned at Wilson and said something unintelligible which might have been an invitation to come in and mix it. He seemed to be quite good-humoured about the whole business, unlike Jonsson and Trubshaw, who were both needled and in deadly earnest. Wilson had a feeling that, in different circumstances, he could have got along very well with Andersen, and he wondered what Andersen would do if he offered to shake hands. Why shouldn’t the two of them stand aside and watch the oth
ers fighting it out? He had little desire to hit Andersen and even less to be hit by him.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Jonsson and Trubshaw were on the ground and that Trubshaw seemed to be trying to grind his opponent’s face into the rough paving of the square. The other two pairs were slugging away at one another with the obvious intention of inflicting as much bodily damage as possible and with little regard for the arts or rules of boxing. It looked exactly what it was: a nasty, vicious, unscientific affray.
Wilson looked at Andersen as much as to say: “What are you and I doing in this set-up?”
Andersen said something else that Wilson did not understand, then walked towards Wilson, grinning and holding out his right hand. So he had the same idea; he also wanted to shake hands and let the others get on with the argument if they wished. With a feeling of relief Wilson held out his own hand and took a couple of paces towards Andersen.
Their hands met and clasped. Andersen had a powerful grip and, too late, Wilson discovered that he had fallen into a trap. He felt himself being jerked suddenly forward, and then Andersen’s clenched left fist struck him on the side of the jaw with crushing force. Something seemed to explode inside his head and for a moment he was blinded by stars. He staggered, but Andersen was still gripping his right hand and would not let him go. Instead, Andersen kicked him on the left shin.
The pain was agonising. He wrenched his hand away from Andersen and heard the other man laugh. Wilson burned with anger so hot that it almost drove out the pain. It was a dirty way to fight, a dirty trick to play. And there was no reason for it. What had he ever done to Andersen?
He could hear the sounds of the fight that was taking place—cries, curses, thuds, gasps for breath; but he no longer had time to stand aside and observe; he was involved now, whether he wished to be or not. Now he had to fight.
Ocean Prize (1972) Page 2