Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/19

Rh In the saloon the captain was entertaining the head of the Marine Police and the big bugs of the Seamen’s Unions.

“Blast them, they’re just guzzling it down,” said the steward sulkily.

The fishermen’s “den” was lit by a tiny electric light about as big as a berry. The air was foul and stinking with tobacco smoke and crowded humanity. Sprawling in their bunks the men looked like wriggling maggots.

The boss, followed by the captain, the company’s factory representative and the foreman came down the hatch into the men’s quarters. In the passageway apple peel, banana skins, sodden cardboard, a straw sandal and wrapping paper with bits of rice sticking to it were all piled up in a heap. A drain had been blocked. The boss glanced down at it, and then without ceremony spat. All of them had been drinking and their faces were red.

“I want to say a few words.” The boss, whose body was strong as iron, put one foot on the partition between the bunks and, picking at his teeth and spitting, spoke to the men.

“This crab cannery is not a mere profit-making concern for the company,” he said, “it is, above all, a concern of great international significance. Are we, citizens of the Japanese Empire, greater—or are the Russians? It’s a kind of man-to-man fight. So if—but of course there’s no possibility of it happening—but if it ever came to us being beaten, you Japanese men, if you’ve got any guts, would commit hara-kiri and drop into the Sea of Kamchatka. Just because you’re small, would you