Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/17

Rh after he didn’t know, but he awoke to hear his own groans. In order to stop the explosion spreading the management and the workers were building a wall in the gallery. From behind the wall he heard the voice of a miner, who, if anyone had tried, could have been saved, calling for help. Those cries once heard could never be forgotten. He jumped up and flung himself like a madman into the midst of the men building the wall and cried: “You can’t do that, you can’t!”

But couldn’t they understand that the voice was getting fainter and fainter? He rushed wildly along the passage waving his arms and shouting. He fell forward several times and banged his forehead on the props. His whole body was soaked with mud and blood. Then he tripped over one of the sleepers and, turning a somersault, struck the rail and again lost consciousness.

The young fisherman who had been listening to the story said, “Cripes, it’s not so much different here.”

The other, without answering, rested his eyes—the typical dazzled yellowish lustreless eyes of the miner—on the fisherman.

Several of the “farmer-fishermen” were sitting glumly with their legs crossed flat, while others, leaning against the posts and hugging their knees, listened to the rest who were drinking and telling yarns. All had left home because they could not make a living there, where they started work in the fields before sunrise. They had left their eldest sons in charge and the womenfolk had to work in factories while the other sons had also to seek work elsewhere.