Death Has Deep Roots by Michael Gilbert

McCann seized firmly hold of the trouser leg with both hands, turned his back, and heaved sharply. Then he lifted and slung his opponent, as a coal heaver heaves a sack of coal.
    The thin man flailed through the air, landed on the table, where he considerably deranged the card game, slid across the table top, carrying off four full pints of beer, and came to rest with a satisfying thud against the bar-room wall.
    McCann did not waste any time in self-congratulation. The more dangerous opponent, he knew, was the big man at the street door.
    Had this second man started a fraction sooner he would have caught McCann off balance and the fight, as a fight, would have ended then and there. He came across the floor in a powerful but controlled rush, but his delay gave McCann time to sweep a table into his way.
    This added up to a bare two seconds’ respite; and moving with surprising speed he propelled himself under the bar flap, and was round again facing his opponent with the width of the bar between them.
    There, for a moment, they stood watching each other. The next move was far from plain. Clearly the big man could not himself come under the bar, since this would put his head at McCann’s mercy; equally clearly he could not execute the plans he had in mind for McCann with a two-foot mahogany counter between them.
    McCann cast a sideways glance at the thin man. He thought it possible, from the angle of his head, that the thin man’s neck was broken.
    Taking his eyes off his opponent was a mistake which nearly cost the game. He only just ducked in time, as the big man swung at him, left-handed.
    The loaded stick glanced off his shoulder, but missed his head. There was a sharp detonation, and something warm started to run down the back of McCann’s neck. For a wild moment he thought it was his own blood and wondered why he had felt nothing, when the true explanation occurred to him. It was gin. The stick had fractured the bottle which hung, reversed, from a bracket on the shelf.
    At the moment the big man jumped.
    It was quite an effort. He came clean over the bar, like an athlete diving over a vaulting horse, and he landed in McCann’s arms.
    A second later they were both on the ground rolling round in the gin and broken glass in the narrow space behind the counter.
    It was only the narrowness of this space that saved McCann. The big man, as he speedily found, was every bit as strong as he was, and a much more experienced fighter.
    McCann had caught the man’s left wrist in his own right hand, but the man’s other arm was free. He was unable to swing it. He confined himself, therefore, to an attempt to get his fingers into McCann’s eyes. Unfortunately for him he misjudged the distance and succeeded only in wedging three of his fingers into McCann’s mouth. McCann bit hard. The fingers were dragged out. They brought a couple of teeth with them.
    At this point providence placed a weapon into the big man’s hand. In his groping he found the bottom of the gin bottle. This had come off more or less in one piece and was adorned with half a dozen needle-sharp spikes of splintered glass.
    McCann saw the red light; almost literally, in the glare of mingled rage and beastly satisfaction which came into the eyes so close above his own. He moved his left hand instinctively and encountered the big man’s right wrist, as it slid up. He caught it and held it, though awkwardly, and was thus able to inspect at a range of six inches the horrible weapon which it held.
    The big man pressed downward, twice, with all his force. McCann exerted himself in an upward direction. The big man reversed suddenly, tore his hand free, and jabbed.
    McCann jerked his head aside and the glass cut the lobe off his left ear.
    McCann rolled back and grabbed again.
    This time he was holding his opponent’s wrist downward and was able to get some of his weight on to it.
    The only disadvantage of this change was that it brought their faces even closer