Ocean Prize (1972) by James Pattinson

propeller shaft in its tunnel under the decks, but Madden was not happy; he had a premonition of trouble ahead; he felt it in his bones. The other engineers laughed at him behind his back, referring to him disrespectfully as Old Worryguts. The imperfections of the ship’s machinery did not bother them. But they were younger men and the responsibility was not theirs. To Jonah Madden responsibility was a cross that he had to bear.
    So, with the screw pushing them and the current helping,they went floating down the St. Lawrence, slipping past the hazards that the pilot knew like his own face, past the small towns and the little wooden churches, past river steamers and motor launches and rowing-boats and all the wide variety of scum and flotsam that is borne on the broad back of a mighty river. And Wilson could think of nothing but the nude body of a blonde woman lying under a blanket in a room in Montreal. Or perhaps no longer lying there; perhaps discovered, removed to a mortuary, the hunt for the killer already on. Perhaps the message had been flashed down to Quebec to intercept the Hopeful Enterprise and arrest Able Seaman Charles Wilson on a charge of murder. Wilson felt sick at the thought; he went about his work with his mind on other things and earned the bosun’s rebukes for his clumsiness.
    “What in hell are you dreaming about?” Rankin demanded. “You’re in a bloody trance. It’s about time you got that bird out of your mind.”
    Wilson glanced at Rankin in sudden alarm. “What bird? What are you talking about?”
    “I’m talking about the one that’s taking your mind off your work, that’s the one.”
    Wilson gripped the bosun’s arm. “What do you know about her?”
    Rankin brushed Wilson’s hand away. “So that is the trouble with you. I thought as much. Well, take my advice, son, and forget about her. There’s none of ’em worth bothering your head over, none of ’em. I’m telling you.”
    Wilson saw with relief that Rankin knew nothing. How could he possibly have known? That remark about the bird had just been a random shot that had happened to strike home.
    “Yes, bose,” Wilson said. “I expect you’re right.” Hewas becoming altogether too sensitive and jumpy; if he went on like this he would give himself away; already he had become conscious of some questioning looks being turned on him in the mess. He had better watch it; the last thing he wanted was to arouse curiosity. Yet it was difficult to behave naturally when there was that monstrous cloud hanging over him.
    He looked forward with gloomy foreboding to the time when the ship would arrive at Quebec, for that was where he feared the police would come on board and take him. And there was no way of escaping them; in the Hopeful Enterprise he was as much a prisoner as he would have been in gaol. He was helpless, unable to do anything but wait for them to come and get him.
     
    It was morning when they reached Quebec. The carpenter, a heavy-limbed, black-bearded man named Orwell, stood by the steam windlass on the forecastle and let the anchor go with a great rattling of chain through the hawsepipe. The ship swung with the current and finished with her stern pointing downstream. Wilson, under the bosun’s direction, lowered a Jacob’s-ladder over the side and saw the pilot-boat heading out from the shore. There was nothing in that to cause him any disquiet; it was normal procedure to change pilots at Quebec. But a moment later he saw the police launch and his heart began to hammer.
    The launch was coming straight for the Hopeful Enterprise and there was no doubt at all in Wilson’s mind that it was coming for him. He could see the police uniforms and he had an impulse to rush to the other side of the ship, jump overboard and swim for the opposite shore. But what good would that do? They would catch him before he could get half-way. There was nothing he could do, nothing.
    “Oh, God!” he muttered. “Oh, God help me!”
    He